Library Advisory Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening. The September 4 regular meeting of the Parks and Recreation meeting Commission is called to order. Would the secretary call roll for the determination of a quorum, please?

Commissioner Colopy?

Here.

Commissioner Heinemann?

Here.

Commissioner Fernandez is absent. Vice chair Gilliland? Here. Chair Parker?

Here.

Let the record reflect all commissioners are present with the exception of commissioner Fernandez.

Okay. Would you all please rise for the pledge of allegiance? And I'd ask, Chris to lead us. Commissioner commissioners, are there any changes to the agenda? If none, seeing none.

Commissioners use the touchpads. Please make a motion and a second to approve the agenda. Okay. We have a motion and a second. Commissioners, please vote.

Motion carries unanimously. Four zero.

The administrative update is the opportunity for the parks and community services manager, Leah Kulik, to provide community updates as well as department or commission announcements on current or upcoming projects. May we please have an administrative update?

Good evening, chair Parker, commissioners. We have a very full agenda this evening. Unfortunately, last July, our Parks and Recreation Commission meeting had to be canceled for unforeseen circumstances. So all of those topics from July have been rolled over onto September's agenda in addition to what we had planned for September. So first up, I would like to introduce Recreation Coordinator Joseph Baker. He's going to be providing the senior center update.

Good evening, everybody. Alright. So just here we have our PowerPoint, and we're gonna go through some of the events that we have happening at the senior center. Alright. So in August, we had our senior picture day. It's our third annual picture day. We're actually working on trying to do like a yearly yearbook with the seniors. So my plan is after hopefully a couple years we can have a book for every year. We usually, I think we have about 70 to 90 seniors that have been doing this periodically every year. That's really good.

So we're still kind of working on that. You can see we have some of our photos up there of some of them. Have a professional photographer on our staff, so it's very convenient to be able to do this event. All right. And then coming up in September, we have our Health and Resource Fair. So we have, we usually, last year, we really try to push on, with the advice of Jerry here, push on health screenings. So we wanna do blood pressure checks, vision tests, really anything else like hearing tests. So we have some of our sponsors that will come in and bring us different doctors that do those kind of services for us, which is very beneficial for the seniors. They also provide raffle prizes. When the senior visits every table, we can do a little raffle prize form at the end for his days.

And then additionally, we also just had our senior center twentieth anniversary. We had a ribbon cutting and a sock hop. So that was really fun. Seniors dressed up. We had about a 115 attendants, so it was a really, really good turnout. Our room was full. We had our ukulele club that teaches there at the senior center come out and perform 50s themed music. So, that was really fun, too. It was a really good time. All right. And then coming up in October, we're gonna have our spooktacular Halloween party. So we always like to do a costume contest. Our seniors just love to dress up. You can tell by the photos. So we usually try to do a fun craft with them, or usually like a craft or like a treat, a style craft where they make their own treat.

And then November we always try to do a little Veterans Day celebration, make sure we honor all the veterans we have in our community. We usually will have a veteran come in and speak. Last year was one of our staff's husbands. He came in and was able to speak. We did set up a prisoner, a POW table, which was very, very nice. It was a nice addition to have. He generously let us borrow the supplies for all that. So that awesome to have there for the seniors to see. And then December, we'll have our most importantly, we have a visit from Santa Claus. One of our ukulele players, really good guy, Nick, he'll always come in.

He wears glasses and he has a big white beard and looks just like Santa Claus. He's the perfect Santa Claus. He will just come in and help us pass out prizes and things like that. We usually have our elementary school that comes in and does a choir. The So seniors really love that too, to see the little kids come from the school down the street and they come and they sing to us. And that's the end of the PowerPoint. But I did bring you guys a packet, so I just want to briefly go over the packet. If guys you have any questions, feel free to interrupt me and stop me, and we'll ask those questions for you. The very first page, it's just a real it's just kind of an overview of the classes we have, what days things are going on so the seniors have an idea. So we always tell them when they come in the first of the month, grab this calendar so you're informed for the rest of the month.

Our next page will be our senior moments. We try to put highlights on there, things that are coming up. We always spotlight a senior, I want to shout out to Loya, who is turning 100 actually on September 17. So we're planning a little surprise party for her. Don't tell anybody, please.

Loya, you're watching.

Yeah. Loya, I hope you're not tuned in right now. So yeah, you can read a little bit about her there. We try to spotlight a different senior every month. It's just a good way to make them feel special and noticed.

Next page is our it's basically our free, no cost, no sign up activities. You can see we have embroidery. There's a ukulele class I was talking about. We have a painting class. We have a tech support class, different billiards tournaments, book clubs. A lot of fun stuff going on, and those are all free. So you can just pop in, join those clubs, and get started. So the next page, we have two pages of our paid instructor classes. So we do have Tai Chi. We just recently expanded our chair exercise class.

That one had about We usually have about 44 people per Monday and Friday, and that class was full. We were able to talk to the instructor and make another class right before, so we actually are able to serve twice as many seniors now. And that class has been steadily growing, we look forward to seeing that grow more. We also did, if you go to the next page, we just recently, it's been a little while now, but we just actually started a chair tai chi class. So we're really big on trying to make sure we're including everybody.

Anybody that might be in a wheelchair or might not be as ambulatory, we have those classes for them, those options. Then next, I'll just briefly touch on some of the groups that we have. At our senior center, have the Gem of the Valley Art Association. This is an art group, they just showcase different artwork. They'll have different people in there to present different artistic things. Our Parkinson's support group, which is always really good, we have that. So anybody that Parkinson's patients and caregivers can come to that and get support and resources to share with each other. Lastly, have our XYZ club, which is like a senior social club. They do it once a month. They do a luncheon.

Usually have entertainment, things like that. The members do pay yearly due to them, or they can pay for the day to come in. But yeah, that's another fun group we have. And the next two pages are going to be our lunch program. We do serve a hot lunch program. We usually have, I'd say, between 70 to 80 people that eat a day at the lunch program right now. So that's really good. I know a lot of people depend on that, so we're glad to have that. The next is our lunch menu. It just kinda lets them know if, you know, maybe they have a specific diet, something they can't eat, they don't come that day, or maybe bring their own lunch.

And then we do have our fitness

room that's well, it's been here for a

while now, but still fairly new to the center. So there's a yearly feed of that. They can come in. It's open from eight to three, and they can come in really anytime Monday through Friday. And once they sign up and do the orientation, they can get their exercise in. And then we lastly, we do do have our Feeding America mobile pantry. So Feeding America comes out to our center once a month. They come out always the fourth Tuesday of the month from nine to eleven They provide free food boxes for any of the it's not just for seniors, actually. This is for anybody. They'll give one one box of food per household. So anybody that would be in need can go and get that as well. And that is it. Did you guys have any questions for us?

When I look at the cost, like, for instance, yoga, is that $29 a month for every Tuesday?

Yeah. So that is prorated to be $7 a class. So when we have when we have, like, holidays, the price would come down. If there's five classes, the price

would adjust a little bit. Got it. Got it. That's really a value. Oh, yeah. How many do you have a feel for how many people you touch every month?

You know, we we just did a report, and I do I wanna say it's about I'm trying to think. I do send Lia the numbers. I wanna say it's about 17 to nineteen twenty two. About 22 is our average. I'm try I'm trying to I

know I talked

about the whole month, for the whole center.

For to people like check-in, like check ins?

Yeah. How many people do you touch every month? Are you saying 2,200?

Yeah. I would say about probably between two thousand and two thousand two hundred. Yeah. That's like our check ins. They have membership badges that they come in. When they come in, they scan in. So those will be our scans that we get. Yes.

Wow. That's just super. Any other questions?

I just want to say I attended the ribbon cutting yesterday. It was a little warm, but it was so much cooler inside the building. Just a nice job, and the staff over there is terrific and they do a great job over there.

Awesome, thank you.

Thank you very much, Joe.

Thank you guys.

Do we need to do anything to check Whitney in?

I was just going to, request that, senior recreation coordinator Nadine Khattab and Laura Recreation Supervisor Laura Frosso come on up. They will be providing an update on the balance of the special events for the remaining part of the year. But first we have introduction for Nadine because she's new to our team.

We went a little bit out of order,

so let's see if we can go to Oh, we can do it however you want to Yeah, that's okay. All right.

We'll just

go to the last slide and skip backwards. So this is Nadine. She's gonna introduce herself.

Yes, well hello everyone. I'm excited to be here. So I started working here, yeah, April now. So it's been a few months, getting pretty well acclimated with everything. I come from the Marietta Woldemort Chamber of Commerce. I was there for about three years, and just I'm excited to be part of our events and create bigger impact to the entire community. I graduated from the University of Redlands back in 2018 with a degree in psychology and just a lot of experience with social media, event planning, just a lot of different things. And I was born and raised in Santa Cruz, like, going off of these slides. But

yeah. We're we're very excited to have her in to expand our team slightly because our team has been very small for a long time. So, yeah, we've doubled in size. Look at us. Alright. So we are gonna go backwards to city special events. Some and we'll do events from now till the end of the year. So coming up here September 11, we have our September 11 ceremony over at Town Square Park next to the memorial. Then we have our Halloween home decorating contest in October. And a little later in October, we are doing the joint dark in the park trunk or treat with the police department at Town Square Park.

We put on a concert and a laser light show for that event, and then the police department has the city departments that give out candy and things like that. So we collaborate together to put that on, and usually that event gets thousands and thousands of people, like probably maybe 5,000 or 6,000 people. It's very busy. And then November 11, we have John's favorite event, which is the Veterans Day Parade, which is another very busy event. A lot of people both in the parade and watching the parade.

And December and then eighth through eleventh, we have Santa stops. And then December 6, we have Donuts with Santa, Festival of Trees, and that's also the tree lighting ceremony. And then we have a holiday home decorating contest in December as well. I'm not sure. It's funny that my slides look like that because they didn't initially.

So my apologies that they ran into stuff. It might be like the formatting got funky on this size screen. We also have some signature events that are coming up, and signature events are events that the city sponsors. Basically, we give in kind money towards these events, and they happen three of the four of them happen to take place within about a month of each other. So we have the Marietta Rod Run October Susan G. Komen on the twelfth, so very busy weekend. And then November 8 through the sixteenth, have the Field of Honor here in Town Square Park as well. And that is all. Do any of you have any questions we can answer for you?

No? Anything? John?

A couple of things. The free concerts over the summer appeared to be very well attended. I do something up on the Santa Rosa Plateau that very same night every year, so I wasn't able to get there. But it looked like it was very, very well attended.

Very well attended. I would say last year we probably averaged 800 to 1,000 people each night. And this year I would say we were between twenty five and three thousand five hundred each of the Saturdays. So they grew a lot. I think some of it had to do with median social media, and we were really pushing the free concerts because everyone loves, first of all, anything free, but then what a great spot to have it at the amphitheater there. So they were very popular.

Okay. Speaking of things not free, the Newman Hospitality Group. I went to the one concert, the Blood, Sweat, and Tears thing. Was very good. But even I think I talked to you last night, you thought attendance was a little

soft. The last concert that they had, the attendance was low, so they chose to cancel their next concert.

Right. Noticed the one that was coming up Yes. In two weeks has been canceled. Where are they at? That's I mean, that's that's it's gotta cost them a chunk of money to put up the fence and Yeah. Do that whole thing. I'm sure

it I'm

sure it's maybe a money issue.

Yeah. We had a two year agreement with them, and that ends here, I believe, next month. So we're talking to them and seeing if they would like to come back in the future. Or if not, there's actually Townsquare Park ad hoc subcommittee with a couple council members and we've been talking about how to activate this space more and to see if there's maybe other promoters that may wanna come in or what else we'd like to do there.

Okay. Yeah. Was just curious because you said I thought the concert was great, but

then Yeah.

Win some and you lose some.

Yep. Yep. You do. You do. Okay. Okay. Thanks for the update. Yeah.

So generally, have they been disappointed with what they've been able to achieve, or do we have a sounds like they have.

Who? The group The Newman hospitality

group. Yeah.

I think they thought that the community here would attend more events that they were putting on. Sometimes you put on event, you think it's gonna be great, you put all this time and effort into it, and then not very many people show up. We have a lot of people that like free events here. That's why our concerts in the park are so popular. Does everyone wanna spend $40 to $60 on a concert?

No, not everybody does. Some people do and it's really not that expensive in the grand scheme of things, but for some people it is. So I would say I think they were hoping their numbers would have been a little better. But I don't think they're they didn't tell us we're never coming back, we're done. Like we left not really left on good terms because we're they haven't officially left yet, but there's still discussions, which is great.

Right. Right. Any changes with Santa Claus moving to the neighborhoods this year compared to last year about the same setup?

About the same setup. We're getting ready to go out to RFP for the trolleys again or trolley like vehicle, something similar. But, yeah, very similar to previous previous years. I

did attend the same concert. It was freezing that night. Oh, yeah. It was incredibly cold. In July. Yeah, it was so cold. But yeah, personally, we bought one of the tables, and I don't know that I would do that again.

Oh, I'm sorry, you're talking about Newman. Thought you meant Sorry, that

contract not in in the bar. I went to one of yours too. Went to one of which is fabulous. Thank you. But yeah, the Newman one, it was incredibly cold that night. I felt bad for them because I know how much work obviously goes into those things. But I don't know that the value was there personally because to buy a table of four was not cheap. Then I just wonder, I mean John and I are old enough to appreciate blood, sweat, and tears, but I don't know if that's the of I don't feel like that's the right demographic for our community. That's just my opinion. I think it's a lot of families and a lot of I know they were trying to tap into a different demographic, but it just unfortunately didn't work for them.

I think free free is the right demographic for the community.

True. But but and I don't think the weather helped them because it was incredibly cold. So that happens sometimes.

Even to our events, that happens. We think we're gonna get a lot of people, and it could be a 100 degrees like yesterday or, you know, 55 during our Christmas events, and everyone leaves immediately, and we're sad about it.

That's tough because there's a lot of competition for those type of you know, whether you're at a winery or the free ones or up on the plateau. But the cost to bring in a group that might appeal to people younger than Robin. Might be prohibited. But I I hope they take another run at it or somebody else does because I I found what they did to be yeah. We we had a good time.

Good.

It was cold.

Glad to hear you had

a good time.

John, was there competition that was entertainment up on the plateau or something else? Those nights that completed

Not for those nights. No. The free concerts in the city match up exactly with the concerts that the Nature Education Foundation does up on the plateau for about three or four weeks. But that that's a that's a more of La Creston Duluth crowd where free isn't the big obstacle there. So I'm not sure they compete. But there are between the wineries and everything else going on, there's a lot going on down here.

Thank you very much, Leah. Good. Mr. Chairman? Sorry. Chris,

Just a couple of questions. I too enjoyed the several of the free concerts. My family did and my extended family did as well. Two questions related to that. One is an observation.

There was a medical emergency sinus is going crazy in our area. And fire deployed from Station 1 and pulled up over on the, I guess it'd be the south side of the, complex and had trouble finding where this was. So if there's some way that whomever is speaking to them to call in that emergency can let them know to better access from the North Side, for example, Just an observation there. And secondly, sometimes or I'm sorry, in some places, the sound can be spotty. I don't know if that's correctable.

But again, that's a nitpicky issue. Overall, our group together spanned all generations and we had a blast. So including my seven year old granddaughter who, was teaching her papa how to dance. Yeah.

I appreciate the comment, and I I agree. I think we did not intend to get so many people. And so last year, we had the tiered seating full, and then we had a little bit behind that, like, those cement blocks are. It went a little beyond that, but this year, it went all the way to the back. And because we do our agreement so far out, everything had already been in place as far as our sound company. So we've already talked to them about next year we need to increase the sound because we agree. Great. We did walk the whole I walked the whole horseshoe to make sure that you could hear all the way. It just wasn't great and super loud in the back, but we'll fix that for next year.

Terrific. Thank you.

But thank you for the comment.

Chris, thank you.

Okay. Anything else? Okay.

Next up, I'm going to invite Recreation Supervisor Victor Patino and new to our team as well, Recreation Coordinator Emily Orr. They're going to be providing what to expect for fiscal year 'twenty or school year, actually, 'twenty five, 'twenty six at the youth center.

All right. We're going to do it the same style. I'll introduce Emily first and then we'll through the presentation. Okay. I'm happy to introduce our newly hired recreation coordinator, Emily Orr, She will introduce herself.

Hi. I'm Emily. So I've been working for the city for almost four years. Think in September this month, I will be in four years. Three years, I work part time with the city. I mostly work at the youth center, but I've done from little ones, special events, senior center, community center. I've worked them all. I actually graduated recently with my bachelor's degree in child and adolescent development. So, I feel like that also gives me a good hand working with children. For part time, I have helped do the schedule for all the crafts and activities that you'll be kinda seeing a little sneak peek of for September.

But I'm really excited. I love working here. Someone that listens to my crazy ideas when I say I wanna turn one of the youth center rooms into an escape room, he lets me do it. So I'm really excited. So thank you guys.

Alright.

We're very excited to have her. So she under sold herself. She's excellent. She's an asset to our team and that's the reason why the Youth Center is what it is. I'm happy to have her on the table. Hello? Yeah. We did. They make me look good. Alright.

So this is gonna be a little bit first of all, good evening, members of the Parks and Rec Commission. There's gonna be an overview kind of what the Mary Center does in programming, but also kinda more well rounded what used services are currently are right now. So wanna start with the purpose. Kind of the purpose of youth services is serve as a positive alternative space for youth the youth of Marietta to socialize, educate, and develop positive members of the community. This objective is met through peer peer mentoring, responsible empowerment, and educational programming, and strong and positive supervision.

And then our daily goal is to try to make every participant feel welcome because we feel like that's very important. And with that said, we'll start with summer camps. So summer camps, we had a different version of this a couple years ago, but with our new senior coordinator, Ashley Voulartes, we kind of revamped program. We offer this for third to fifth grader students. We offer outside door games, crafts, excursions, all at the youth center, four different age groups, and we offer excursions too.

Maybe that's fine. I did the same thing. My slides are kind of weird. We started in June 9. We had seven weeks of camps. We like I said, we we went from August sorry. From June to August, we started at 8AM to 4PM. The cost was a $160 per week, and then we had an additional extended hours for late pickup for $20 extra per week. We were at the brim. We pretty much at capacity every session.

We registered five eighty registrants across all sessions. We met expectations and capacity. We even if we didn't fill up an age group, we made it so that other age groups had more capacity with our staff. So as you can see there from every session till the last one at 92 where 80 was the cap, we made it the most with our staff. And it was a village. But we definitely kicked some butt. So and it was a mix of on-site activities and excursions. Our excursions were walking excursions. You know, we're trying to get kids to come out and see the sun. So we would walk to Boleros.

We would walk walk to Mulligans. We walked to Redding Cinema. And and it was it was was tough, but it was enlightening. Yeah. I think I think overall, the experience between the mixture of having on-site activities and excursions really really made the the the summer camps well rounded. And here's some pictures. My favorite one is here on the left with Emily's connections. We were able to get the fire truck out there with the kids, and it was a fun excursion. But like I said, we had a variety of everything from jumpers to mulligan to to boleros. Alright.

Are you gonna explain Emily's

Oh, I'll I'll Oh, okay.

Yeah. I'll I'll say that thing. Okay. Her mom works at fire. Spoiler alert. Spoiler alert. Yeah. Her mom works at fire. So after school program. So this is our bread and butter. This is our at the youth center Monday through Friday. We serve sixth or ninth graders. It's a drop in model. Currently right now for the 2526 school year, we have two twenty nine youth registered for the center. We're seeing a daily check-in of 114 on a daily basis. For kind of context of last year, we had three twelve total registrations for for the whole school year. And we checked in for the whole school year. We checked checked in 18,228 kids for the school year.

Could could you back up just a second? Yep. You'd move quick on me. And Sorry. So you made it I thought you said on the summer program Yes. Mhmm. That you had made some changes from a couple of years ago.

Yeah. I could I could provide context for that. We expanded our hours. So we went for earlier in the morning to later in the afternoon. We used to navigate between 1PM and 4PM, and that was our summer camp. That was a very small four hour camp, and we held it at, I believe, it was, like, 50 capacity or or 40 capacity. And then we just, you know, we said, let's let's just make it happen and see what happened. And we opened it up to 80, and we extended the hours, and then it worked out very well. We had a very good feedback. Any

the pricing is seems very fair, but any do you do scholarships for need? Or

We do have, like, add on discounts for siblings. So you do get a percentage off if you sign up multiple siblings. Okay. And, obviously, if there is, you know, further further problems with the systems, obviously, we we we could figure something out, but we we don't try to turn anybody away, when it comes to that.

So how is that handled?

Well, so I know that we did have, there was a program that we signed up through the Riverside County where they would have to apply through an application, and then the Riverside County would pay the fees for them. Okay. That was something that that

we So there is an avenue? Correct.

Yeah. And so we would we would provide them the resource they would apply for them to you know, on on third party, and then we will receive the information.

Okay. Thank you. No. You're good.

Okay. So just a little bit of, like, the composition of the center. So we have a recreation coordinator who is Emily, and then we also have a senior coordinator who's Ashley, and then myself. We run the operations out there, whether it's from programming to contracts to whatever it's needed. And then we do have an average between five to six recreation leaders that help assist with the operations of the program.

We do have an annual fee of 32.2 and that's for the whole school year. And we also started before school programming, which is we extended our hours from 7AM to 08:45PM, and that's included with the membership and the aims of trying to get them away from Kellogg's to come to the center. So that's been working very well. And then I'll touch on this on a different discussion, but we are also promoting daily rental opportunities for local charter schools between 7AM and 2PM for anything from testing and meeting so they could have a facility for them to be able to operate out of the center. Yes.

We have a discussion item on that, so I'll go deeper on that. Sorry to talk about that. Sorry. I'm going super slow. My slides are here. Sorry. And then just some of the programs that we have for this year, we have karaoke, scrapbooking, hip hop and pain and trip. Why is it? Treat. Treat. Sports recap, board game club, Zen Den. That sounds like my favorite one. Zen Den. We had a Studio Ghibli films club, Mario Kart and dodgeball tournaments, and Lego Club. So all these are powered and imagined by our staff.

So without them, we couldn't have our program. It's kinda how our our events calendar looks. A little bit all over the place, but you guys get the the gist. And here's some pictures of last year. Alright.

So now the youth advisory committee. We've we've had a challenging time trying to recruit kids for the youth advisory committee, so we had to kinda restructure our approach for the youth advisory committee. So now we're encouraging encouraging youth to be more involved and have more of a leadership development in our in our in our program. We're pulling from the youth of from the youth center kids and also from our junior staff program to to fund to get kids to be part of the committee. So far, we have we have had some good input.

We have a couple applications, and we have some some kids from the youth center that wanna be part of of this new revamped YAC. So we're working on that. We already have app out on the website, and we're ready to start getting kids and doing interviews and then starting the committee. Okay? And then, again, the junior staff program is still going strong.

This is a program where we welcome back any u center member that has termed out out of memberships. They're they're able to come back and do their forty hours for for their high school graduation. And in turn, this turns into work experience where they could also come back and be hired as a part time recreation leader. We've had a lot of turnaround with that, which is We also have our new youth ARP similar to our adult youth ARP. This program, it's an inclusive program that serves children from five to 12 with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

And we do focus on inclusion, socialization, and peer engagement through themes, activities, and crafts and games. This is still a brand new brand new program. We're still working on it, but we are getting traction. We're getting anything between eight to 10 parents on a constant constantly registering for this program. And it's every second Friday of every month from six to 8PM at the Merida Youth Center. It's only $3 to to sign up. And then one of my favorite ones, Little Learners. This is a dual language program. It's also an inclusive program for three to five year olds. It's a replacement for what used to be little ones.

And it's an English and Spanish program run out of Copper Canyon. It's a monthly class. It's Tuesday through Thursdays, 9AM to 12PM. The cost for participants, dollars $2.00 8 with $0.06 0. And we've been getting anything between eight to nine current registration. So that's pretty good. I think cap's at 20, so we're certainly moving up. And it's a great program. And it's led by Isabelle and Cassandra. They're our bilingual staff, and they're doing a great job out there.

And here's some of our pictures. And always, we wanna have a goal and a future to reach. So we wanna continue to expand the youth summer programs, whether it's with field trip excursions, with bussing, more diverse programming, looking for more grants for funding to do more fun stuff. And then, like, we're still working on restructuring the youth advisory committee in any way because I feel that's an ever living, program. Yeah. And then at some point, we want to innovate and win awards. So that was everything. Thank you. Any questions?

Chris? Sure. Just a comment. You're doing great work.

Thank you, sir.

Congratulations. Appreciate it.

Yeah. I want to echo what Chris said. We've been lucky enough to get you here a few times. And it's amazing what you guys are able to cover over there and get done. And we appreciate it.

Thank you. I appreciate it.

We have in the past have had a member of the youth advisory committee or somebody as a panelist up here as a member of a nonvoting member. Is that something that anybody's shown an interest in?

Yeah. So within restructuring we're gonna have that same that same member be the rep for youth advisory committee and it would have a bigger role in giving bigger updates.

So typically be high school, junior, senior?

We're we're gonna try to find the most responsible kid. The problem is trying to get the the yeah. Attention The attention span is like a net. So we're we're gonna do our best to get the most responsible kid.

Thank you. To be up here. Yep.

The that program and trying to develop develop leadership, I think, is so important. Had Mhmm. That type of thing had such a meaningful place in my life when I was in high school and and middle school. Do you the the tweak that you've made in changing it, I mean, you're you've you've gotten some participation already. Are you still feeling good about the changes you've made?

I I I feel good. I think it's we were looking at it a little bit different. We already had I I I see it kinda like a baseball team. We already had the farm system. We have the youth center there, so why not use the kids that are already there? And then just just we we had it's gonna be up to us to make it look appealing to them. So I think that's that's the that's our challenge and that'll be our problem, but I think we're we're approaching it the correct way. There's some some ways of of looking at it, and we're discussing with the team is either offering some type of incentive at the end of the school year, whether it's, you know, more than willing to donate it, but maybe some tickets are not. Or something in that aspect where it's like there is a reward for their time at the end of the program. That's some avenues.

And also some training, like actual leadership training for them to be part of.

I would tell them about the Taco Bell.

There in the box

you go. I think it's amazing the junior staff program. As a lifetime recce myself we've got to get these kids thinking in that direction because I don't think it's often an option anymore. I mean maybe when I was doing it it was a little bit more. Mean it was actually like a degree in it. But I'm just saying like I think that's a great way to potentially find future staff and teach them the love of why we all do what we have done. Plus what a great way to get your hours, right? Because they're always like, where do I go? What do I do? And there's not a lot, at least there didn't used to be, a lot of different opportunities So for what a positive way to do it.

We already have four right now. We have four junior staff currently working at the U. And M.

I love that.

You're welcome. Thank you.

You. We're

going say goodnight to Emily and And goodbye to Victor gets to stay.

Yes. Okay. Alright. You get to hear more of me.

Okay.

Okay. So now this is gonna be my overview for adult sports and also fee allocations. So we'll start with adult sports. So we offer adult sports here in Santa Maria to promote health, wellness, social connections, and at the same time provide recreational and competitive sport options. Perfect for the opportunity for adults of all skill to stay active.

We currently have between softball, kickball, else we got, pickleball, we have some good options for adult sports. Everything is online. We do offer a spring and a fall season. We have a max of sixteens per league, and the league format is seven games, six regular games guaranteed, and one playoff game. We've seen that the shorter seasons are more appealing than the longer seasons because adults have trouble with commitment.

So we try to lessen that. So we have adult sports here. Tuesdays and Wednesdays are offered for co ed. Registration is $315 Online registration, like I mentioned, seasons are placed spring and fall. All games are at Cal Oaks, and game times are between 06:30 and 9PM. We also have adult men's soccer. It's offered Wednesday nights. It's $455 per team per season fall spring. Los Alamos Hills Sports Park Field Number 6 is where all the games are played, and same difference 06:30 to 9PM are the games offered. We also have kickball.

That's Friday night's coed. $300 for registration. All the games are played at Kellogg's. Same format, 06:30 to 9PM. We did offer adult mixed doubles for pickleball on Wednesday's mornings. Online registration, $50 per team. And it's all played out of Alderwood Park Pickleball Port Number 2. And those those games at at 07:30 to 10:30AM. And we did something different this last season. We had a cross city championship.

So what this is is I propose something I have a good relationship with the coordinator that does sports at Temecula. And we had this a couple, I want say a couple years ago, probably ten years ago. But we had a game between the Merida champion and the Temecula champion. And then we crowned the Cross City champion. Unfortunately, we lost.

So we thought we're gonna take take the the championship, but we didn't. We do have a department trophy that sits, you know, in each each office. We're gonna do our best to get it back this season. But this is this promotes not only it's like a promotional thing for both cities to show you know, showcase what's adult softball is. But but it also strengthens the the partnership between cities. The ultimate goal if other cities buy in is that we have a city tournament, and then we crown a regional manager, champion, whatever you want call it. But it overall promotes the message of parks makes life better. Right? That's the the idea. And it went well.

It it happened in June 21. I think it was a Friday, and it it was at Bergsaw. It was a good event. Emily helped helped out. It was great. We we shared the the cost. We paid for the championship shirts. They provided the field and the refs. And then in turn, the next season, we'll provide the fields and the refs, and they provide for shirts. And worked out very well.

So it's a partnership we're gonna continue flowing. Kinda, like I said, I I already said the format, but we we rotate. We have staff on-site, and then we promote this on our social medias. And then for the future of adult sports, this is a difficult topic. I know I've seen a decline in interest for adult sports, so we have to be creative.

Right? I think maybe leagues are terming out. Maybe tournaments are more appealing, less commitment, they're quicker, funner, more cross city collaboration, different cities, more competition. It sounds funny, but esports is a big thing too. We we we could we could hit those Madden's FIFA, MLB, the show. Those are very popular. We offer leagues in that capacity. Think it not I don't think anybody in the region is doing that. And if we're the first, why not? So I I think we could definitely change that up.

And then looking at maybe changing the incentives for the championship awards at something maybe at the end of the end of the league party tacos. I don't know. Food Jack and Pog tacos. I don't know if it's I think that's the move. I don't know. Maybe. So, we'll see. Factory made tacos. Yes. That's that's that's the move. And I think also we we have to be a little bit more smarter on how we navigate our social medias to to appeal. So we we understand the the trials and tribulations with adult sports, and and we'll we'll do

our cities having the same challenge?

Yep. Yep. I think it's the commitment part. I think a lot of I don't know if this commitment or generational. A lot of people don't wanna play adult sports. It's, like, not in. So but we're gonna we're gonna do our best. Yeah.

You get people working, coming home late. Yeah.

I mean, imagine you commute, you work twelve hours to go lose a softball game. I don't know. Don't don't know that's

what you were positive.

Yeah. Yeah. But yeah. I mean, we'll we'll do our best to to to figure that out. Any questions?

Quick question. Just update on the aquatics program, how that went this summer, what's going on with it now. If you know I'm going to ask about the pool, just because everybody asked me about the pool.

So if I could just interject. So that is a more expanded topic in the November agenda packet because our season hasn't quite finished yet for the pool. You're welcome to ask questions. We'll answer. But just know that we'll have a fuller report in at the November meeting.

Okay. It's going well well.

It's a 30,000 foot level. What what does it look like

this I think we hit it out of the park. I think the interests are similar to what it was when we all had catalogs open.

Okay. All right. Good. Because it's kind of been something I brought up for the last seven

I think it's like a it's a thing now. Yeah.

Yeah. Victor, any thought about approaching relative to esports, approaching Reading Cinemas to see if they would do a big screen collaboration?

I haven't thought of that, but that's a great idea. We could definitely look at that. I know we've looked at like sponsorships or we've and at one point we did have another like, contractor who wanted to take over leagues, it was just not feasible. So but we could look at we could look into that.

Because you would imagine they're trying to drive traffic. Yeah. And maybe if it's packaged in a way where it's a hot dog, soft drink or a beer and Yeah.

We're right here.

Couple hours of esports.

Dollars 15 popcorn.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I think a lot with esports, it has to do with equipment and logistics. Like if you don't have the proper equipment to to run these games, then then it's not gonna work out well.

I know they've sponsored well, let me take this back. I know that there have been birthday parties Yeah. There. So I'm not sure whether kids are bringing their own equipment Yep. Or whether, you know, the theaters got equipment.

Yeah. It's definite we could look at it. I know that we've we've rented out full cinemas for the excursion. So, I mean, it's not cheap, but but that's something that we could look at. And and and it's very easy to just hook up. It's like hooking up to a a big screen, but we would have to provide the equipment and but set up the back end for for the league or the tournament that we wanna host.

Got it.

You know, the my grandson let's see. He's in the fifth grade. So in the third and fourth grade, the school district was doing something. And one of the gaming companies was sponsoring it and actually kinda make it happen, providing the software. And, you know, my son-in-law was real involved with it, but, you know, there might be an angle there to get some participation from one of the gaming companies. Yeah.

We could definitely reach out.

Yeah. If I'll ask my son-in-law, and then if he has any information, I'll pass it on to you. Okay. Thank you.

Okay. With that, we're going to bring up, Park Rangers, Melissa Price and Michael, Melendez, and they're going to provide an update on e bikes.

Thanks, Victor.

Yes, of course. Do you want me to move down?

Good evening, commissioners. I am Ranger Melendez. Tonight, we're gonna be going over e conveyances, our safety overview, and kind of what, we've been seeing being on patrol and parks and working with kind of PD in this kind of shared operation of just, this e conveyances issue some people see it as within the parks around the city. So we'll go ahead and go over what is an e conveyance device. So e conveyance is kind of the overall term split into different vehicle types, I guess you can call it.

So e bicycles are pedal powered bikes with an electric motor under 750 watts. We'll go over why that specific number makes e bikes e bikes and not something else, a little later. Escooters are two to three wheel devices with floorboards and motors. And then e skateboards are, four wheel electric boards designed for standing riders. So kinda going over the, this, going over the different types and classifications of e bicycles, this is provided by the, Marietta Police Department on their website as well as on the city website.

So for electric bicycles, these are bicycles equipped with pedals and an electric motor of less than 750 watts. They come in three classifications. Class one is an electric bike equipped with a motor that provides assistance only when the rider is pedaling. It stops providing assistance when the bicycle reaches a speed of 20 miles an hour. Class two is an electric bicycle equipped with a motor that may, may be used exclusively to propel the bicycle.

No pedaling required, so that is a a throttle usually on the handlebars, and stops providing assistance once the bike reaches 20 miles an hour. And then and a class three is an electric bike equipped with a motor that provides assistance only when the rider is pedaling, stops providing assistance when it reaches a top speed of 28 miles an hour, and is equipped with a speedometer. And then we also have the electric scooters, two or three wheel device, generally with a handlebar, has a floorboard divided to be stood upon. Some of them we have been seeing come with seats attached to look a bit more like a Vespa, but that big thing is the floorboard, which can be stood on. And then it is also designed to be powered by human propulsion as well.

And then electric skateboards, very similar to the regular skateboards, four wheel devices, although this is powered by an electric motor. So this is a handout given to us by the Riverside County, that kind of classifies the differences in, the different classifications of ebike as well as some of the other bikes that we have seen out in the city, as well as on the market. And then on this bottom table, this is listing the electric motorcycles or off highway motorcycles. So these are electric motorcycles, not electric bicycles. So once again, e bikes are the motors a maximum of 750 watts.

Electric motorcycles go up to, I believe, it's listed up there, up to 12,000 watts. So these are these are the ones that are going 55, 60 miles an hour, generally not coming with pedals. That is the big giveaway on a lot of these. So, manufacturers like Suron, Telaria, Segway, these are being advertised as ebikes, but they are not actually ebikes.

We is what we're seeing on Lincoln on one wheel. This is them?

Generally, yes. Yeah. Yeah.

And or ripping through the park there at Callow's on one wheel. And

just to be clear, the lower half of this chart, those are illegal everywhere. Parks, streets, trails, they're not permitted in to be on pavement on roads at all. So really?

So they're all over town though? Okay. Have we had any injuries in the parks here with these devices?

As far as we know, there's only been one or two. Both of them occurred at Cal Oaks. One kid was going up the embankment on the field, and he just kept going faster and faster to see how he can get air, and he crashed. And I believe was it the fire truck? I believe the fire department and ambulance

There's a took him. The hill coming onto Lincoln, the the kids will come out and stop traffic, and they'll clear the entire street. I mean they'll come up that hill and go clear across the whole street. I don't know how they keep from killing themselves. Mean backing up and I know it's not your territory because but twice in the last week, I've had an issue that could have killed me once and I could kill the kid once. So it's happening. These are happening on our sidewalks. But

what are

it seems to I think most of the people here, I would venture to guess that we've lost control of this. I mean, we've tried to get in front of it, but we were late in doing that, I guess. Anyway

In your presentation, is there anything about police department and the so it's coming in

the Okay.

On this slide where it is the showcase provided by Merida Department on where e bikes or e devices are officially allowed to operate. So, generally, e bikes, so once again, max of twenty, twenty eight miles an hour depending on the classification, are allowed to be operated on the sidewalks and at city events as long as there is not a sign, at least with city events, long as there's not a sign saying no e devices when posted. But they as long as they yield the right of way to pedestrians.

On a sidewalk. Okay.

According to the ordinance, edevices are not allowed at parks, playgrounds, and school grounds. So that is the official ordinance that we are working with the rest of the department to get posted as well as public works to have posted within all the parks on the park signage at all the entrances to further educate these ebike riders that, unfortunately, it's not allowed within the parks. And then ebikes are allowed to operate within a bike lane and then to move out similar to a bicycle or a regular bike rider when operating near the street, as long as they're only doing so with a reasonable safety. So helmets that is one of the big things, especially you guys have probably seen. When it comes to helmets.

So when operating any type of e device, riders, especially miners, are required to wear a helmet at all times. This is for due to with traffic, the vehicle code, as well as city ordinance. And then, things that are required on e bikes are, especially after sunset, we have a requirement with the ordinance to have a front facing light, and reflectors on both wheels as well as well as on the back of the bike to help with the visibility after sunset. So similar to bike riders, they have to follow the rules of the road. So e devices, when traveling, whether on the road or in a bike lane, should be traveling with the flow of traffic.

When it comes to passengers on bikes, that's gonna be passengers are allowed as long as it's the manufacturer. The bike is designed to hold passengers. Most of these z bikes aren't like you'll see it's riding on spokes on the BMX bikes. They're not gonna be developed with that, and so that and that is also not a proper way to ride as a passenger. But so unless the bike is designed specifically for multiple passengers, it is only one at a time.

With the ordinance, headphones are and earbuds are prohibited, when operating any e device. This is to make sure that they have the full alertness of their surroundings when operating, these devices. So that's gonna include, headphones, earbuds, AirPods, Bluetooth, as well as wired. E devices, e riders, they have to obey the traffic rules of the road, the traffic stop signs and lights. Failure to abide by this can result in fines, as well as we have a sorry.

Sorry, I'm having a brain fart. Speed limit for e devices within the city is 28 miles an hour with recommended speed limit on bike paths of 20 miles an hour. So that'll be bike paths as well as sidewalks yielding to pedestrians.

So 28 is not a sidewalk thing? It's a street thing?

Yes. On the street, it's 28. Excuse me. And on the sidewalk, it's 20 miles per hour. And as well as trails as well. And

then similar to what this last one is saying, ebike riders are not exempt from, the rules of the road. Should they fail to abide by traffic laws, it can result in fines or citation. So parking restrictions, they are not allowed to park any device on a sidewalk, or upon public right of way. They are allowed to be parked appropriately within, next to bike parking, so but with bike locks or were designated by signage within parks. So parent garden responsibilities, a lot of what we're seeing is minors riding on these lot.

And so when it comes to ordinances and the, vehicle code, parents of any the parent of any child and the guardian of any ward, shall not authorize or knowingly permit any minor child award to violate any of provisions of the new e conveyance ordinance. This means parents can be held responsible for ordinance traffic code violations committed by their children as well as injuries and damages as a result of failing to abide by the ordinance. So the parents would be held liable should anything happen.

If they knew about the behavior or just in general?

I believe in general. Yes. So when it comes to fines related to edevices, riders and operators of edevices can receive citations for violation of California vehicle code as well as the Myriad of city code. Below on the Myriad of PD information bulletin, they have listed their fine amounts as well as, when it comes to park violations, we will generally follow this or within park ordinance. It'll be the $100 fine for first offenders.

So I kinda hit on this earlier, but not all ebikes are legal ebikes. So Suron, Telaria, and Segway, they are not illegal ebikes. These are off highway motorcycles, electric motorcycles. They are not allowed to operate on roads, sidewalks, parks, or trails. They must be DMV registered for off highway use, and they cannot be modified for street use.

So the tell is they don't have pedals. Is that the tell that they're illegal?

That's a pretty good tell off right off the bat. So similar like with like a dirt bike, an electric dirt bike. That's gonna have a higher motor, not 750 watts. No pedals is definitely a good giveaway. The big difference with, like, a dirt bike, it can be modified to be come street legal. If you register it, you get the the license plate, the light, what is the blinkers and brake lights and all similar with, motorcycles in general. But with off highway, vehicles, motorcycles, these cannot be made street legal.

So the bike that's going down the street going 28 miles an hour can be a nine year old? Okay.

So like the slide says, ads or retailers that are looking for sales, don't be misled. Many of these off highway vehicles are sold as ebikes, but they do not meet the California legal definition of ebikes with that 750 watt engine limit as well as generally having pedals. Pedals or lights do not make them street legal, and then they will have a VIN number, certificate of origin, and DMV eligibility for these off highway vehicles to be registered with the DMV. So our ebike, ordinance, this is, once again given to us by the mayor of the police department. So this lists our kind of enforcement points when it comes to the city in general, as well as, our parks in specific or specifically.

So once again, parents or guardians of any child shall not authorize or knowingly permit any mild child, minor child, or ward to violate any of the provisions of this chapter. All e devices shall yield the right of way to all pedestrians, equestrian riders. All riders must give verbal warning when passing a pedestrian equestrian rider. All passengers are required to have their own seat, this device must be designed to handle more than one occupant. All e bikes shall have a front facing light after sunset and reflectors on both wheels and on the rear of the bike.

No operator or rider shall wear earbuds or headphones while operating any e device. E devices that can go 20 miles an hour or faster are prohibited from bike paths. No e devices shall operate on any playground, park, or school grounds. Helmets are required for anyone under the age of 18. All riders must use hand signals when changing directions, and all edevices shall use a marked bike lane if present and must obey all traffic signals and signs.

Thank you for your time. If you have any questions.

So do we know if anybody in the city, the police department, or the schools are doing anything to tutor these kids on the rules and regulations and how not to kill 71 year old men?

I believe the school resource officers that are out at the schools, they, teach the kids. They give them safety classes, and they educate them on e bikes. I know they don't allow them on the school grounds, so they just leave them parked there. They're not allowed to ride them. As far as we know, that's what the PD

is So doing at the

in addition to that, the police department is conducting kind of sting operations as well. They're using their drones because the kids on these particular devices will not stop. They're not stopping for the rangers for sure. And they're not stopping for the PD all the time as well. So during certain times of the day, certain areas of the city, the police department deploys their drone units and they follow the kids home and contact their parents, reach out to them.

Sometimes the bikes are confiscated. So there is some proactive measures. Obviously they can't do this 20 fourseven, but they are making some inroads in preventing some of the kids from mowing down other people on sidewalks.

My problem has been it's just bizarre. Just you're not trained or you haven't gone through an experience where you're looking at somebody coming down a sidewalk at 28 miles an hour. So you're just not totally I mean, this week I stepped out right in front of one. And when I actually took the step out, the kid was 15 feet down the road.

So I'm not 100% sure, but I believe there's also some state legislation that's making its way through the assembly on safety courses that are mandated, stickers that have to be placed on the e bikes that verify that they have taken the training courses, and certain licensing that everybody has to hold. I can do some further research on that, but I believe there is some legislation trying to make its way through the California state assembly.

I don't know. Do you know if we received this presentation in our packet?

No. But I could provide all

that information.

All the ordinances

Everything, you know, everything he just laid out, I I'd love to get a PDF of that just to kinda

Yeah. I'll provide the the PDF and all the ordinances, all the all the documentation. Thank you. And thanks a lot.

I know this has gotta be a really unique new challenge.

Any questions? Do we have and I know PD is not here tonight.

Do we

have any numbers on actually how many fines have been levied, how many bikes have been confiscated. Sounds to me like the fireworks thing where we threaten all this stuff and never do it, or very rarely. But I don't know that for a fact. I like and and from a park ranger point of view, you can cite these people on these bikes if they go to the park. Correct?

Yes, we can.

And how many citations have been written?

We have not written any citations as of yet for e bikes. K. We've been instructed by PD that if we see them and we're able to stop the person on the bike or or juvenile to contact them.

Yeah.

Hold them there and contact them and then

they'll And, Lee, it was just saying they're not stopping anyhow.

Yeah. Sometimes they don't. Sometimes they do. We are able to stop some and converse with them, educate them. Sometimes we don't see them again at the park. Sometimes we do. But that was our instruction from PD. But if we do need to cite, we will write them a citation.

Does PD then is your experience that they then cite?

Yes. The issue is that a majority of these kids are minors. So technically, we cannot we, as park rangers, cannot cite to a minor. So that's where the PD

steps That's issue.

Yeah. Yeah. I was like you would do. I appreciate the ordinance and going over it like that. But my experience is probably like yours is I don't see anybody really paying attention to that. Where they're riding down the streets and doing wheelies. It's not a big problem in my neighborhood. I'm near an elementary school, but you're near in middle school. And the other question is school grounds. My next like, in my neighborhood goes out every morning on an e bike. And he's got his helmet on, and he's a responsible kid. And he goes to school on it. So if you're not allowed on school grounds

They're

allowed they doing with it when they get to school?

They're allowed to park the bike at the bike racks, which are on the outside of the school. They're they're not allowed to enter the school grounds, like to park them

inside whether the playground That would make sense. But if they weren't allowed in the parking lot, then I don't know. It's an issue. I think you're right. I think the best efforts are being made to get ahead of this. And I was at Best Buy today, and they're selling e bikes instead of CDs anymore.

So I'm going to provide an example over in Temecula. That's where we live and with my kiddo as a sophomore. So what they've introduced this year is a training program. Any child with an e bike has to go through a particular training program and to verify that they've gone through the training program. They have to do it fairly regularly. They get a sticker just like you would on the tag on your vehicle. They have to get a sticker and that gets placed on the ebike. Just like in Murrieta, they're not allowed on campus. They have to be parked outside. But that's what they've introduced this year. So we'll come

back that's to see Temecula PD or the city schools?

Well, Temecula doesn't have their own police department. They they sheriffs. Yeah. Riverside County sheriff.

The sheriff generates a sticker that goes on the the bikes? Yes. And then if they get stopped and don't have the sticker, they get talked to or whatever?

The bikes get confiscated.

Oh, even better.

I'll say in Murrieta, where we do have our own police department, is there an effort to coordinate between some kid pulls up and he's ready to go at school, but this kid's got three fines on him. Maybe he's not allowed to park at school anymore. Is there a sticker program? Or is there any We way of identifying

can reach out to the police department, follow-up on some of these questions.

You've got some habitual report back to Some habitual violators and they're riding to school every day and maybe there's some way to coordinate and say, hey, okay, Hey, Jimmy. You've got three fines. You can't park here anymore. You know? I don't know. Just an idea. I mean, the bottom line is keep keeping these kids safe. And Paul's right. Mean Mhmm. My big fear is running into one of them because you don't see them coming. You're pulling out of your driveway, and they're going 28 miles an hour down your sidewalk.

And his family has to live with that. We have to live with

that. Absolutely. And and unfortunately, in these circumstances, it takes something like that happening until and we don't want that to happen.

I think they had a fatality in Temecula, did they? Pardon me? A fatality Off

my head, I can't recall. Yeah. They

had a kid get hit on Scott Road.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. On an e bike. Yeah. It was I don't know if he died, but it

was pretty bad. Yes, it was.

Well, we appreciate the efforts. I know it's the other thing I hear is, you know, kids riding through there's a softball game going on and kids, you know, tearing across the outfield on their bikes and everything.

At Call

At Call Oaks. Yeah. I've seen I've seen that. And I know it's a I don't know if it's a no win situation, but I think we just need to be as aggressive and promote the safety of it. You know, we're not gonna do away with them unless the state makes an action to somehow regulate them, but I figure out a way to deal with it that the kids can be responsible. And then probably 80% of them, 70% of them are are responsible out there, but you're gonna get it's like driving it's like drivers around here. 80% of them are pretty responsible, and there's 20% that just don't care. But we just don't wanna get any anybody to get hurt.

Anyway, we appreciate it. Thank you for the effort you put in, and thanks for helping with our parks.

We'll make sure the commission gets a copy of the slide deck.

Yeah. I just Mhmm. It would be good to have.

Okay.

Anything else? Any questions, guys, and ladies? Okay. Leah, do we have anything else on this?

Did you anything, Victor?

Quick question.

Okay. So that concludes administrative updates. Can

I pivot with you as long as we have you here?

Yeah.

What about violence? Not violence necessarily, but excuse me, vandalism at Kellogues and Los Alamos and that

is type of

going to be explored more heavily in the November meeting. Just right quick, the agenda item that is going before council on September 16,

I want

to say, will be a request to install surveillance cameras at California Oaks Sports Park and Torrey Pines Park. So I can go into maybe a little bit more, but I will have more details and the deployment plan at the November meeting for the commission. So that will help hopefully with the vandalism, graffiti, and the other criminal activity that's taking place currently at California Sports Park.

Just from the 30,000 foot level. Have we made I mean, is the the problem at Kellogg's improved?

Not really. Last night, there was a group of kids on the roof of the restrooms, and they tore off all the tiles.

We did we catch them?

No. We did not. It's taking place during times when we don't have, patrols. It's after, you know, after the rangers go home at 10:11 o'clock at night.

Chris, you and I could go over there

and get a

cigar and sit out. Okay.

So what we're hoping with these flock cameras, there's different types. There's license plate reader cameras. There's pan tilt zoom cameras, and then there's stationary stationary fixed cameras. So we're going to utilize all three types to cover the sports park, and they have been deployed with the police department for a couple of years now, and the police department likes them very much. And they are backing this agenda item that's going to counsel on the sixteenth. I will have a fuller report for you in November on that.

So that we're not behind the curve on this, I think it would be wise if those of us that have observed this or been talking about it for months on years now to speak to that issue at the September 16? Meeting?

I will not stop you at all.

So if you could let us know when you're sure it's on

100% positive it's And going on the it's slated right now because of the dollar amount just to be placed on consent. But if I was a betting person, I would bet that it's going to be pulled and discussed further by counsel.

I had a question. With all of these e bikes and the issues that have been occurring, I've been talking about this for a long time, is the city looking into any options for these young kids because they really don't have any places to go in this city. We have tons of tot lots. We have a skate park that is way outdated. They have nowhere to go to go and hang out and be kids. Whereas, you're in Temecula, they've got three beautiful skate bike parks. Is the city looking into anything to do for these adolescents? Adolescents?

The short answer is yes, 100%. So the Parks and Recreation Master Plan was just approved by council in June, and we're currently going through the process of prioritizing all of recommendations in that document. One of them is pump track. And I know that is one of the projects that is either on a tier for council goals. I think it's on a tier two.

So it's also coming before the Parks and Recreation Commission, the prioritization of the recommendations in January. So you'll be able to look at what staff's recommendation is, put your thoughts on that, bump things up, put things down as well, and that goes to counsel in addition to the community's input as well. Okay. Thank you.

So Mr. Chair, this is off topic, but did we as a commission have an opportunity to look at the master plan?

Yeah, it went before commission. It was approved by you all.

Okay.

Got it. Thank you.

It's on the website. So in addition to sending you the slide deck for tonight on the e bikes, we can send you the direct link so you don't have to hunt for it But on the the approved Parks and Recreation Master Plan as well as the approved Trails Master Plan are both on the landing page for the Parks and Recreation site. We good?

We're good, I think.

Okay. So I'm going to excuse the rangers. Victor gets to stay up for right now, but we're gonna conduct some consent item business before we get to the discussions.

At this time, we will take public comments. Any person may address the Parks and Rec Commission on any subject pertaining to city business, which does not relate to any item on tonight's agenda. Normally, no action may be considered or taken by the Parks and Recreation Commission on any manner not listed on the agenda. Speakers are limited to three minutes. Madam secretary, do we have any non agenda public comments?

Thank you, chair. There are no non agenda public comments.

Okay.

Thank before we move on to the consent calendar, I would like to note we are having some technical difficulties with commissioner Fernandez' touch pad. So during the voting process, I will manually enter your vote.

K. All matters listed on the consent calendar are to be considered routine by the governing bodies and will be enacted by one motion in the form listed. There will be no discussion of these items unless before the governing body votes on a motion to adopt, specific items are removed from the consent calendar for separate motions. So do I read all of these items, madam secretary?

Yes. I'm sorry.

I read them all?

Yes.

Okay. Okay.

Approve the minutes of the 05/01/2025 regular parks and recreation commission meeting. May recreation activities and events report, July August recreation activities and events report, May June parks project and maintenance report, July August parks projects and maintenance report. Commission, are there any items the commission would like to pull from the consent calendar? Seeing none, commissioners use the touchpads. Please make a motion and a second to adopt the consent calendar.

We're not they're all stuck maybe.

I'm sorry, are you not able to motion?

No. Okay.

Okay we'll do it verbally.

We're back frozen at approval of agenda. Okay. That's where we were frozen at.

All

right. So can I have a motion and a second to approve the consent calendar?

I'd like to motion to approve the consent calendar. Second.

We have a motion and a second. Commissioners please vote. Do we roll call?

Yes. One moment. Okay. Yes. I will do a roll call vote. Commissioner Colompie?

Yeah. Aye.

Commissioner Fernandez? Aye. Commissioner Henneman. Aye. Vice Chair Gilliland.

Yes.

Chair Parker.

Aye.

Let the record reflect Consent calendar passes unanimously, 05/00.

Okay. Here we go. What came up? Something changed. It's working again. Okay. Alright. We're on to discussion items. And, the first item is charter school use and expanded use of the youth center. May we have a staff report, please?

I'm gonna turn it over to Victor.

Victor, long time no see.

Long time no see. I'm back at it again. Okay. So, I'm going to provide you kind of our extended use for the youth center and kind of what we came up as a team for the youth. So, a little bit of background.

Our goal was to create a well rounded youth services program for the Meredith Youth Center. Historically, the Youth Center typically only operated after school, Monday to Friday from 03:00 to 06:30, leaving mornings and days just unutilized. So, collectively as a team, figured like how can one, can we expand the hours and also two, how can we utilize the facility to its maximum potential. So, staff identified the opportunities to expand hours, partnerships to better serve families and schools. So we started a pilot program to open before school.

Kinda kinda it's funny we're talking about Kellogg's and Vandermans and all that stuff. So a little bit of that started because a lot of our kids in the mornings were just hanging out at the park with nothing to do. They were in the skate park and the restrooms, x y z, you know, with with school starting later than I mean, I used to school start at seven or sometimes 06:00. Now they're going to school at nine, 08:45. They don't have time to do.

So we figured that with the membership, we would extend the hours to four hours before school and open it up from 07:00 to 08:45. We would open the youth center in the same capacity that we would open the after school programs. We would open up the PlayStations, the computer labs, you know, the homework room in case, you know, we have those kids that don't do their homework the day before, and now they're rushing. So, we provide them the same safe space that they have after school but before school. And we figured we'd give it a two year trial and see how it would go.

The first year, 2425, we had atrocious attendance. You know, anything from eight to three to we were just rolling with the punches. We're very minimal people. We put it out there. We talked to parents. We tell them to utilize this resource, you know, for commuting parents and then things like that. Move to year two, and we're seeing thirty, forty, 45 kids showing up now. So, now it's a constant use. And I'm seeing this only going up now that they know that they could come after school, use the use use the the same way they use after school. Emily could be, you know, a test user in the morning.

It's the same kids every day. It's the same thirty, forty kids that show up to play PlayStation, to be on the computers, or I forgot to do my homework. It's the same repeat that we have going on there. So, the increased demand is there and I think we're going to continue doing that and that's going to be one of our big pushes when we advertise for membership is that we're open also in the morning and also in the afternoon.

And these are all, I'm guessing, should avail the kids?

Majority, I would say, like 90% of our kids, obviously, we don't have transportation, it should be like kids. What

did you do differently between last year and this year? Anything to draw that?

I would say we collectively as a team, we've been a little better at social media. I mean, with Nadine kind of putting the gas pedal and kind of amping us up, I think the center, Emily is great at social media too. I think collectively, we're posting better. We're not just using static posting and flyers. We're doing videos and things like that. I think it's catching up. Their traction is giving us traction. So, I think we're getting more eyes and the information is more readily available on the websites, on our social medias. And I think also putting that one at the beginning of the year when parents go to register, that's a focal point that we emphasize like, Hey, like what time do go to work? Oh, well, we're open at 07:30.

Going to drop off your kid here. So, that's one of the focal points there. And then, the other test pilot that we kind of figure out, I think the charter school sector is not really, you know, touched at all. So we figured that we partnered up with a local charter school and give them the opportunity to test it out just for us too because we've never in the history that the center has been open, we've never had renters at the center. So, wanted to see if we could have the capacity or the facility had the capability to host large events in that facility because the way it's laid out, a little funny for that.

So we partnered up with Sage Oaks Charter School, and we gave them the ability to host all their PLCs, all their teacher trainings, all their student evals, and the physical assessments, and even their career dates. All all that was a test last year, and it was very successful. I think the way they utilized that was to the tee. So in a perfect world, we'd have the the youth center open in the morning for the kids, transition to charter school use, transition into after school program, and then we utilize the facility to most to its capacity.

Found the right price?

So in that test pilot, there wasn't a charge for the PLCs. But for the career day and the physical assessments, we were looking at fees that are comparable to our community center. I'll touch base on that. So, with that being said, those expansions kind of led to, okay, now that this is working out, we have to develop a reservation form for the youth center and go through all those provisions, all those legalities, all those waivers, all the insurance requirements. So, having a standardized reservation form was created.

We have policies and procedures. And then the expanded use for charter schools is not just for Stagecoach. The way we're seeing it, it'd great if we reached out to all these charter schools and offer the facility and then have it reserved first come, first And then that way we have an itemized reservation list for all these charter schools to use the facility in that capacity for trainings, for student evals, student one on ones while staff is there and they have a facility that has Wi Fi and all the technology needed to host those because a lot the charter schools don't have that ability to do that. And then, so through that, we had to I believe it was best to coordinate our fee schedule with what we currently have. Why invent the wheel?

We kind of just what we had at the community center is similar to what we have. They have a kitchen. We have a kitchen. They have a multipurpose room. We have a multipurpose room. Why change it up? So we have the same fees that the community center have. So, deposits range anything from 300 to 700 depending on your status whether it's non profit for profit. There's a tier base there. Hourly rates, the same difference.

It fluctuates between your status. Charter schools typically navigate in a nonprofit base rate, and that's how they're charged. Additional things like technology, kitchens, those are additional add ons for flat fees, And they all have to meet our requirements for renters. So those are the basics for any reservation throughout the city, whether it's community center, you know, Town Square Park, or any of those. We just want to align those together.

And the benefit that I see here, you know, we've maximized the facility use. We haven't done that in the past ten plus years. We could generate revenue. Obviously, we're not here to make money, but cost recovery. And then, also strengthens the community between the school partnerships.

It could even be through Merida Valley School District, or it could also just be the charter school. So, there's areas where we could talk and figure things out there. And obviously, it's just the biggest thing is we have the mission is to have a well rounded youth services program overall. So, we're going to continue doing this. We're going to send out email blasts to all the charter schools to identify the nearest ones in Marietta, even outside of Marietta, just to see where we're at.

And we're going to track this year to see the demand for this. Sage Oak is already back with us. They're already reserving. They already reserved all their PLCs and their trainings and their physical assessments for the rest of the year to '26. So we already have them in the books.

And that's how we want to do it. We want to have it long term for the school year so that way we could assess, you know, because it's not going to be every use, but we'll have, you know, we'll have kind of a cushion of knowing how to reserve these schools so they don't overlap. And also, it doesn't conflict with what we're going on we got going on. And then, like I said, we continue tracking and then obviously evaluate the stability and revenue potentials for those programs. And yeah, that's kind of the gist that I have for you guys. If you guys have any questions, I'm here to answer.

How long had this idea been percolating? To be honest,

it did spark from Brian Crawford. You know, he has kids in charter schools and

Ambrose.

Ambrose, sorry. What did I say?

Crawford.

Crawford.

I'm sorry. There's so many Brians in the city that can't keep track. So, Brian Ambrose, he's an advocate for charter schools, then we thought, hey, I got a facility that could fit that description. So, we started marinating on that idea, and also just trying to do something different than other cities are not doing or utilizing. We have a unique situation where we're the only youth center kind of in the region. So we just got to be the best. And I'm very competitive. So I'm trying

to be Great. Thank you. Any other statements or questions?

Well, I just wanted to say that it's great because I used to homeschool my kids until recently. And I know a lot of the STEM programs, a lot of the vendors, we would have to go through churches to try to get space available. So I think that it's wonderful that you're starting to open up to the charter schools. Look into the charter schools that have homeschoolers, that have pods. They will use these rooms weekly. Because I know a lot of times testing is like quarterly, you know, things like that. So you might even get more use by reaching out into those homeschoolers.

Yeah. That's something that we're definitely we're not we're not gonna try to leave anybody out. Like I said, it's it's we're gonna try to reach out as many people as possible. Like I said, we're we're well around our our our youth services brand.

Yeah. That's

great. Just baby steps.

Baby steps. Good.

Good job.

We're trucking along. Okay.

Anything else? John? Okay.

Thank you. Hallelujah.

Could just

say Don't.

Go home now. We could just say, good night to Victor, and we'll bring up Nadine and Laura one more time.

Alright, so I guess we're gonna dive into our social media performance. So this is based off of between May 27 through August 28, so last week, in comparison to the previous ninety day period. So that's kind of what Facebook and Instagram pulls for us. So yeah, let's dive in. So bear with me, there's a lot of numbers and metrics and whatnot, but it's all going up.

So we're gonna start with Facebook. So we've seen a really significant momentum over the past ninety days on both platforms, but specifically Facebook we've seen, like it says on this slide, over a million views. So that's up 63.8% since the previous ninety day period. So that's a high spike in visibility just overall. Our major drivers of these views is our June and July event coverage.

So that was including the Father's Day car show, Birthday Bash, and then all the way through all the concerts in the park. So those were extremely high. The next slide will show kind of the most popular posts, so hang on for that. So our engagement and interactions jumped significantly as well, showing that our audience isn't just scrolling past our posts, but interacting with them and really engaging. So they are connecting, so that's awesome.

And then our follower count as well pretty much doubled since the previous period, so that puts us at 740 new followers on Facebook, so that was really great. And then we also had a jump in page visits, So people are seeking us out directly, so not just discovering it through the feed and whatnot. That was really great.

So so when you're you're you're comparing the last ninety days to sometime in the in the summer, what about if you jump back a year to look at that same ninety days? Yeah. Have you done that?

I have not. I'll check to see Facebook's sometimes their capabilities constantly change, so that's always fun. But I can definitely try to

pull It'd be an interesting it'd give you apples and apples rather

than kinda apples and oranges.

Yeah. No. Absolutely.

Quick question. When you when you say us, are we talking the city's website?

So this is specifically the parks and recs It's slash just community the parks and recs,

not the police department.

Yeah. So that's specifically, and then I have been inviting the main city page as a collaborator for a lot of things, so that also helps our engagement. But with us consistently posting, we've created a schedule for our specifically special events posts to be Wednesdays and Fridays, and then any additional leading up to large events. So we found that the consistency is key, really, with social media. Any other questions on that?

So what's working? So basically, any images of crowds, people like to see people. That's what I've learned. So just focusing on things like that, as you can see, these are kind of our top performing posts from the last ninety days. So Birthday Bash, over basically 170,000 views with a ton of interaction and shares through concerts in the park.

I think the lowest engagement really there is 47,000 views, which is amazing as well. But as you can see, each post is getting a lot of shares, so that's been incredible. But yeah, so people, when they see other people, they can visualize themselves being at our large events, essentially. And then what we've noticed is that the static images, so this is specifically for Facebook, as opposed to videos outperform on Facebook. I don't know if it's the algorithm, whatever, but I think people gravitate to photos on Facebook as opposed to videos.

And then kind of key takeaways for Facebook is that we're not just growing, but we're growing in the right way, which is, like, with meaningful engagement. We're not just gonna post just to post, but, like, things that people are gonna actually want to see and engage with. And then kind of focusing on the future is to continue highlighting these events and showing these community experiences and moments that residents can feel connected to. So that's Facebook specifically and then on Instagram, which is very similar. Again, this is the last ninety day period.

So Instagram, we saw about three thirty total views. 30% of those are from our followers and then 70% is from non followers, which is actually really good. That means our content is being seen and found and just discovered. Reach is up 158%, profile visits are up 126%, and link taps, so within our, on our bio or stories is up 178%. So that means our content is pulling people in.

Then overall engagement is just about balance between our followers and non followers, and we've had nearly 1,000 new followers within the last ninety day period. And working on Instagram is so discover or no, just kidding. Again, events and community focused content is continuing to be a driver. And then for Instagram, on the opposite end compared to Facebook is reels. So reels are huge.

I've been putting together just little clips from all of our different events leading up to promoting those events, and people have been engaging with those like crazy. So we'll just continue to do that. And yeah. So it's really those, like, really short reels that engage people. People's attention spans are really very low. So just kind of capture them within those first five to ten seconds is key. Yes, so

if I could just jump in and mention one thing real fast. We're trying strategic about this, so we're not just randomly posting things. We have, like, a plan. So before each concert, we had the band send us little videos that we could help promote their bands and help promote the events. We're trying to just not throw up random stuff. We're really trying to be strategic, and it's really working.

And Keyword is intentional too. Very intentional with our posts. And then our wheels have been seeing like anywhere from five to 12,000 views as well, so that's been really great. And then kinda key takeaways. So discovery is strong, and engagement is growing, and our content strategy is effective, so.

So then our goal, our ultimate goal is to continue being that consistent and to continue exploring what is resonating most with our audience. Social media is also just ever changing, so just kinda staying with those trends. What we can be posting right now won't could not be relevant, let's say, in a week from now. So just kind of staying up with those trends and seeing what people are engaging with the most is kind of our strategy and see how that's going. And then just kind of a overview of our total followers.

So on Facebook, we're just a little under 10,000 followers, and that's putting us, and then like I mentioned earlier, is 700 new followers, which is basically doubled from the previous ninety days. And then Instagram, 5,200 followers and 18.5%. So overall, both platforms are showing really strong growth and spikes driven by major events.

Yeah. And then that's it.

So you know I can go to YouTube and learn how to extract a tooth. Is there a place where you I mean take a class or fine tune what you're doing here, or is it just kind of practice and see what works and what doesn't?

For me, it really is just practice and honestly just researching. I look at other parks and rec or cities where, you know, their parks and rec social media platforms. Yeah. Just kinda seeing what's working for them, what's Yep.

That's a great idea.

Yeah. So I think that's kind of the game plan with social media. I mean, like I said, it's ever changing. And it's so different between different audiences. Yeah. I mean, we're more inland versus, let's say, Newport Beach. Like, they've got the beach going for them, and here, you know, we just gotta find our little niches. So yeah.

Yeah. We also try to collaborate with some different departments when it makes sense. So if we have, like, instance, the 09:11 event we have coming up, we have the police chief and the fire chief that will be speaking. So we've been tagging them so that because obviously you guys all know the police department has huge following. So we wanna try to get some of that as well. So we'll invite them to be collaborators on the posts that make sense. Again, not everything. We we don't expect them to accept our posts that don't make sense. But the ones where they really are, yeah, part of our event or what we're doing, then we'll invite them. So that's been working as well.

Let let me throw out AI. So I was watching something the other day, and they were saying how search engines like Google and those are will be gone in a few years. Because if I wanna know something about the city of Murrieta, I go to chat GPT and put in city of Murrieta, and it tells me a lot more concisely than going to Google and getting 23 things. So I don't know where that all fits in with the big plan. Obviously, ten years from now Right. I'm thinking, Laura, think of this stuff twenty years ago when we were doing this.

No. Definitely not. But I was gonna say the city is currently developing some AI policies and things like that. There's only certain certain platforms that we're able to utilize, and I don't know if it's, you know, I I don't quite understand AI as far as how they get the information and different things like that, but the city is they're they're forward facing, I guess, and some of them are police department social media people, and they're looking at things, I think, ahead of us. So I think some things are around the corner. I just don't know what it is yet.

Well, I can tell a difference. I mean and you're right. We all have ADHD when we're on social media, right? And if it's not in our face over and over again, we're going to forget. But I have noticed, you know, that more posting and it's catching my attention, so whatever you're doing is working. And then I know I don't know if Marietta does, but another city that I was consulting in, they had a chat bot, you know, that they had instituted, not specifically into Parks and Rec, but for the whole city. But that might be kind of fun if it's allowed, you know what I mean, as you move forward. But that's always fun because then people can ask questions specifically to their needs. Just a thought.

Yeah, no, absolutely. I did also forget to mention is for most of our events I've been creating the event on for specifically Facebook. So those have been getting a lot of reach as well. I don't have those specific numbers, but we got a ton of, people saying, like, interested or whatever it may be. So that's also kind of helping with outreach as well.

I don't have slides about it, but I was asked to mention kind of special events from start to finish, and if you wanted to have an event in the city, how you would go about doing that. So I just thought I would take a couple minutes and just briefly explain. So if someone wants to have a special event in the city, they would generally inquire about date and location. So say they want to have an event at Townsquare Park, they would call me or Nadine and find out if the date they were looking at is available. And also, the type of event, We don't accept every type of event.

So there are qualifications and things like that. So at that moment, we would look at the calendar, we would look at the type of event, and then if it's something we think would work, then we would send them to our special event permit application. So I would either email it or it can be found on our events page. They would fill it out. They would submit it, and then we would either easily approve it if it's a simple, know, we've done this ten years now, or if it's one that we're unsure about, we would bring it to our special event committee.

Our special event committee consists of people from pretty much every department, PD, fire, public works, municipal services, risk, planning, building and safety. We all meet the fourth Tuesday of every month, and we go over events that are upcoming that either we're unsure about or the ones that are approved to remind everyone what their role is with those events. After that, we basically give the event organizer the dos and don'ts, the conditions of approval. You can have your event, or if you can't, the reason why. And then they're able to execute their event.

We ask for a minimum of one hundred and twenty days in advance right now, but we're in the process of making some changes to our special events and, in particular, to Town Square Park. There is currently an ad hoc subcommittee with two council members staff that are going over ways to activate the amphitheater more often, and in doing that, we're making some changes. In addition, we're also trying to change the process for our special event applications. We're trying to use DocuSign. We're using our event software, which is called EventMe, and we're trying to kind of bring more modernization to what we were doing from before.

Because I've been doing this for eighteen years, and the first seventeen years, you know, it's a lot of pen and paper. It's a lot of manual you know, we're accepting permits. We're doing things by hand. We're trying to be more 2025. So we're making some changes, and hopefully those changes will be big improvements. And then once all of those improvements actually happen, I'd be happy to come back and tell you guys what exactly we're doing and show you kind of the finished product. So that's just in a nutshell, special events, you know, when someone comes in to them executing their event, how that works. And that, of

course, is for outside events. Laura, how many inquiries do you get? Is it a lot now? Are you seeing an uptick or

Yes, it is a lot. I would say we get a few a week. Some are like no's. Know, I want have my wedding at the amphitheater. We don't do that. So, like, that's an easy I don't have to go to anybody and say, is this good? Like, that's a no. Yeah. But some people, they have some cool events that they wanna do. A lot of people wanna do five k's. A lot but of people but there's I wanna have a five k. Okay. Well, if you wanna close the Marietta Road, you need a traffic control plan. Mhmm. And that costs money.

Yep. So there's some things that they need to work through if they're an actual event that really wants to, put on a successful event. And then we also we do our own events. We do the signature events that I mentioned earlier. So we are busy, and we do get a lot of inquiries.

But you are trying to increase amphitheater usage? That's Yeah,

the council would really like to activate the space more, and so we're looking at ways to do that. When

we're talking events, we're talking about things as small as, say, renting a a gazebo in a park for a birthday party, or is that just

Yeah, so that wouldn't go through me. Would go through more like Zebi over at the community center. She handles more of our small rentals and park reservations. I do the larger events. If it's or I do all the Townsquare Park events. So Townsquare Park or like a like a marathon or a five k or a bike ride or, you know, bigger things, I do the large. We do the larger events. We don't do the small.

Now is there a separate fee structure for nonprofits as opposed to profit groups?

So currently, for instance, at Townsquare Park, must be a nonprofit, or it would be more of a business negotiated event like with Newman. They weren't a nonprofit. Right. But there was a separate agreement. Everybody else does need to be a nonprofit right now. That could change, but right now that is the role. Yeah. Anyone else have questions? All right.

Thank you. I will take Thank you. Thank you. Good night. This is a long night for you guys.

Okay. Okay. I'm going to have Roseanne join me for the next presentation. I wasn't sure how it would work with her up there, but she fortunately had Gretchen and Katie from the library helping this evening. So we're going to invite Roseanne down.

I put together the PowerPoint, so I'll probably be the person primarily giving that. But if I get anything wrong, she's going to interject and tell me what I got wrong. So good evening, commissioners. For discussion item number three, Roseanne and I would like to share a very meaningful initiative. It's our Roots in Remembrance program, a tribute that brings lasting beauty to Murrieta's parks while honoring life's cherished moments.

So with this program, we want to celebrate our communities community members' milestones, as well as allow them to reflect on remembrances in a meaningful way. These tributes allow for a greater connection in our open spaces as well. There are two main components for our residents, our Honor Tree and Honor Bench program. Now, we behind the scenes got tired of calling it Honor Tree Honor Bench, and we wanted to come up with a more comprehensive name, and that's how we came up with Roots in Remembrance. Residents can opt for one, the other, or both.

And city staff will be guiding them through the application approval and installation process. The fiscal impact, as noted, except for staff coordination, the program costs are borne by the applicant. So for the honored tree details, these are the best types of trees for our climate and our zone. These trees have been approved by our, parks maintenance supervisor. The eligible locations have also been approved by our parks maintenance supervisor.

They are at locations where there is existing irrigation in place, which will increase the viability of the trees themselves. The costs, depending on what options they kind of pick and choose from will vary. But again, all those costs are borne by the applicant. The honor bench itself, the bench that we have opted for, it's a composite lumber type material. The composite material is easily maintained with removing graffiti and carving.

So, if somebody took a pen knife to it, it can add a little bit of heat and it would melt back into place. The locations for the bench have also been preapproved by the parks maintenance supervisor. However, he will take into consideration the wishes of the applicant. However, we want to be sure that we don't increase the maintenance burden on our staff too greatly in placing it in certain locations. So there's got to be a little bit of compromise with that respect.

And then the cost for the bench that we have quoted, you note $1,600 But if the applicant finds a similar bench somewhere else other than the locations that we have provided for the applicant, they can present that to us. And if it is a comparable material, comparable color, it would go through the parks maintenance supervisor. He would review that and, would approve it. So we contracted with a graphic design company. This was the first pass of the flyer that they provided us.

We reviewed it. We made some changes. And then in your packet on the dais, there is the final version, which is probably a little easier to see than on the display here. So with that, we are asking the board this evening to review the flyer itself. And if you find that certain things need to be changed, we would welcome that constructive feedback.

Is the flyer readable? Contain all the necessary information? If there is anybody with landscape experience, do you suggest other types of tree species? Things like that. That's the feedback we're looking for. So with that, that concludes my report. Did I cover everything?

Yeah, I would like to add just a few things. So prior to the flyer that you see in front of you, we did have a not for the bench, just for the tree, like a trifold little brochure where an applicant can fill out their information and send it in. That was available on the city website. This isn't a program that's highly advertised. We're still trying to keep it not so out there.

Low key. Low key. But a more professional, inviting program that combines the tree and the bench in one in our Roots in Remembrance program, where they can choose either one. They can choose both if they like. And so Leah and I are currently working with our public information officer to create a landing page on the Parks and Recreation site where this information can be found, and then also an online application that they can fill out and submit if they choose to participate in the program.

While this program is a wonderful offering to the community, because we do this, we want to be mindful that our maintenance department has other obligations as well, and we would think that we would see weekly requests for this. And it would be difficult to timely install all of this for the applicant. They would want this in certain situations within a few weeks, and that's just not possible. So the advertising will be on the down low, but if anybody calls or asks, we certainly are prepared in offering them and having them follow through the application process.

Do you have a question, Chris?

Please. Leah, I'm just a little confused on the cost of the Honor bench where it's $16.2 price of installation includes labor and concrete pad. Price does not include purchase of the bench or engraving?

So that's the installation fee. So the work has to be done at prevailing wage. And that's the cost to pour a concrete pad.

I get all that.

Okay.

So the applicant is responsible for purchasing the bench. So we have a local vendor that we've used before that we can recommend, or they can find on their own a vendor that's comparable to the same material or color, that may offer a better price. But it is up to the applicant to purchase the bench and to pay for the cost of the engraving and delivery. Once it's in the hands of our maintenance team, then they will take care of the installation, which is the $16.20. So why are

we I've got a follow-up, Paul, when you're finished.

Yeah, go ahead, Chris.

So I think what is the cost of the bench?

It varies.

It varies around 16 up to 3,000 just depending on how fancy and how much how much wording they want to include.

I you know, I would tell you that I think letting them kinda go outside the program is an I I get that you want to give them some flexibility on pricing, but I I think it puts kind of more of an onus on us, your department, the maintenance department to deal with what could happen there as far as what they could bring to you. Then you got to have a meeting and then you got to figure it all out. Why not just have a vendor, here are the prices.

It's actually not that time consuming. So we have a local vendor and then we have two products in magazines that they can research. I doubt they will find anything more cost savings than what we provided them.

So why open it up? I mean, it just seems complication. Then it leads to like, well, I want my own guy to dig the ditch and put in the concrete. Mean

They won't be able to do that.

No, no, I know. But I mean, why one and not the other?

Well, flexibility in where they want to go and the flexibility on the size of the bench. The size of the bench can be three feet. Can fit one person, two people, or four people. There's different sized benches. That's solely up to the applicant of what size bench they want and within the color scheme that fits in the parks and so on. I wouldn't want to dictate to them on that, so we would leave it up to them.

So these are all going in a park?

Or open space or

along a trail? There's a picture of one under a big tree. So if you had a big tree and it was in a park

That's a stock photo?

I realize it is but it's like hey I could put that under that big oak tree over in

So all the locations once again have to be approved by the park's maintenance superintendent but there are suggestions that we will be making. Certain individuals have approached the city requesting that the bench be at a particular park because that's where their loved one that's their favorite park or that's where they walked along that trail system.

I would just personally, I would strongly recommend the city market this as a package with a prescribed bench and then it's it's you our bench it's the one that you've selected either for maybe you want to do a two person or a four person. I think once you open it up it does open up some give some latitude to this that we may end up regretting. I have to tell you I'm still confused on the cost of the $16.20 includes the bench or does not?

Does not include the benches.

And the bench can be anywhere from 15 to 3,000?

That's like a price range, but it just depends on the vendor they go through and the size and the engraving.

Great.

I think Chris was picturing the Iron Throne from Game of Thrones.

Well, yeah, that was my only concern is that we're going to have benches everywhere that look totally different. Is there a theme Yes. Or a style that they have to choose from?

So in the image on the screen

That is the

on the lower part of the flyer, that's the style of bench that they need to look for. The color scheme is in that vein of medium tan to dark tan. And then there's different sizes. It's one person, two people, or four. It's not like a backless bench.

They can't choose from that. So they have a prescribed style of bench that they have to look for if they do not wish to choose the options in the magazines that we have or go to the local vendor. So there is a style. It will be consistent. There's one out. Actually there's three out in Town Square Park. Same style, different sizes, similar colors.

Is this a stock picture?

The one at lower that that's the one at Town Square Park. Okay. That's one the ones.

I would tell you that that I see the bench there and everything, but I would get another picture. It's hard to kind of almost like see that that's the bench to me. There's shadows and shade and maybe it's just these old eyes.

We have other photos of that, maybe not in the shade that we can swap out for

a different way. What do I know? But to me, I can't tell what I'm looking at there.

Or when you set it up online, when you get your interactive online surface space

Do you see that?

You have like an option of one seat, two seat, or up to four seats, and they can choose it online

themselves. We have ideas for the online platform. It obviously we can't put all of the information on the flyer. So we're hoping to showcase the benches that we have already in the city as well as the location of the trees and the plaques and so on.

On the engraving on both potentially at the tree and the bench, Is there an acceptable thing that I mean is there going to be a committee that says, oh you can't say? Out of and had a big mouth and all he did was talk at these meetings on the bench?

As much

as you'd like to.

All of the engravings, the proof must be submitted to the city for approval.

Okay. My only thing on the flyer is I found it and I finally found a way down the bottom on the honor tree And I don't know why it's in lighter print or not as I was wondering, dollars 150, what does that include for my 15 gallon tree? And I find way down the bottom that includes the purchase of the tree and the installation. So I would make that a little clearer on the 150 that that is included with that because somebody's gonna have to out and dig a hole in the right place near the irrigation and stuff. That's not and I don't know. Can they go to Home Depot and buy their own tree or do they have to

No, the tree needs to be looked at as well to make sure it's not root bound, that it doesn't have diseases and so on. So the tree will be picked by our landscape maintenance contractor and or the parks maintenance supervisor.

Okay, I just make the fact that the installation is included. I'd like the $1,600 for the other thing that doesn't include the tree and the installation.

Yes. So I love this. We used to get crazy calls about some things that people wanted to bury in our city, too. But yeah, you get all kinds of interesting requests, I'm sure. So this is my other hat. So my concern is if these benches look really comfortable. And you know where I'm going to go with this, right? How do we prevent it? Like, I see Mapleton. That's my neighborhood.

I don't want these benches to become where the local homeless sleep. And I know there's benches specifically made to make it less appealing. It just that's where my head goes, because that's what I obviously do for work. But has that been a consideration? On location, mostly, like Town Square Park, the chances of a homeless dude sleeping on your bench here is minimal because the police are right there. I'm sure it happens, but at least you know they're going to be moved along and they're not going to be living here for weeks. But if you go to some of the parks and I'm not sure where all of them are, but some of the more remote ones, you do kind of maybe open up

that possibility. So just a thought. So the locations once again are prescribed and they have to be pre approved. So they will be up front and center. They're not going to be hidden along a trail where no one reviews it. So, it'll be in areas that are maintained regularly by the park rangers and or our maintenance department.

It can be a public safety issue if it's not strategically placed, know, putting things sometimes on trails. Can just not always be point.

A good outcome. So we thought about that, and so all the installation again has to be pre approved and they will be in highly visible areas. So I have of notes that I have are picture swapping out for one that's not so much in the shade and then bolding that a little bit more and then looking at other Package. Package. Okay.

I think we have your comments. Are there any other comments on this item? Okay. Thank you very much for your feedback. Greatly appreciate it.

Okay. Adopt and sponsor trail.

Do you need help? Just one moment while we get that PowerPoint deck up. Okay. Good evening once again. For discussion item number four, I just wanted to say that Meredith's Trails connect us to nature, to one another, and to a shared sense of pride.

With the Adopt A Trail and the Sponsor A Trail programs, the city invites volunteers and sponsors to help keep these pathways beautiful and thriving. So for the purpose of the program, our goal is to create partnerships with residents, businesses, and organizations so that we can increase our civic engagement with the community. It is hoped that this program makes the community aware of the facilities the city offers and empowers residents and sponsors to take ownership of public spaces. The program itself, there are two components to it. There's the adopt a trail program, and now there is a sponsor a trail program.

And again, city staff, Roseanne, will provide guidance with the application process. The discussion to the update for the adopt a trail program took place, if you recall, last November. And we updated the forms, the protocol, and so on, got that approved by the board. That's up and running on the website. In that discussion, it was suggested that we also offer a sponsor trail program so that businesses and organizations that could not support the community trails with on-site support can do so monetarily.

So, we took that information and we came up with this program. So it's open to volunteers, service groups, and teams with applications and details available hopefully on the website. We're working with the PIO right now to add an additional landing page in addition to the adopt a trail side. We currently have six trails that are adopted with on-site support and interest from another number of groups for four more trails. The sponsored trail program is an alternative option, once again, for businesses and organizations that would like to invest in the community but are unable to commit, on-site support.

These donations would go towards clean up tools, signage, receptacles, and enhancements. The fiscal responsibility portion, there are only minor costs associated with this program, but they would be covered through the sponsor a trail donation. So we came up with a tiered structure and what that monetary support actually provides support for. So, we came up with three levels: $250 for level one, dollars 500 for level two, and $1,000 for level three. And as you go up the tier, the sponsorship includes all the previous levels from the previous tier.

Is it that's an annual fee?

Excuse me?

That's an annual fee?

It would be, it would support the trail maintenance for one year.

Okay.

Yes. So if they wanted to renew their sponsorship, they would do that annually.

So do you foresee that, you know, I could foresee that a family would maybe do a sponsor, not just that don't have the resources or maybe they live outside the city and they want to sponsor it for their grandchildren grandchildren or or something. Something. Do Do you you foresee foresee that? That?

Oh absolutely. We're not limiting it to myriad of businesses, organizations, or civic groups. We would welcome anybody even outside of the city if they want to beautify our trails. We will not just limit it to local entities. And they do also have

the option to do both if they choose. We

have

several trails that are already adopted. The sponsored trail, we haven't put that into effect yet. But once we do, if they're interested in also sponsoring the trail, that they can do that as well.

Just a thought then, unless I've missed something here, this verbiage is all directed to businesses and organizations. We might want to tweak it a little bit to encourage that side of it. Just a thought.

Yes, absolutely, 100%. Along with this, because we're adding the sponsor a trail program in addition to the adopted trail program. So it's kind of a two pronged oversight program, and we wanted to maybe brand it and provide some unique advertising opportunities, if you will. So what we did is instead of constantly saying adopt a trail, sponsored trail, we now are calling the program choose your path. So what we came up with is branding and marketing that echoes our current marketing logo for the city.

So we took the sun from the marketing logo for the city and made it look more like a compass. And because we have two options to choose from to support the trails, it's choose your path and with two sides with a path running through it. So that's our main logo for the choose your path program. And once again, it echoes the Meredith Signature Sun element. And what we wanted to do is create opportunities again for branding and marketing on t shirts, hats, compasses, any of the giveaways that you would see at the market night or State of the City or any of our events.

So it would encourage people to investigate more about the program. They get some cool hats, t shirts, or things to keep. And the marketing logo, we have different options within that same branch. So we have the main Choose Your Path logo with the compass, but we also have more of an elongated look to the logo as well as black and white. The block style logo, and to fit on whatever it is we want to market.

So this is the branding that we came up with. This is why we believe it works. It echoes the city of Murrieta's marketing logo. And it has the same color scheme that the marketing logo has as well. So the first, flyer that we got from our graphic artist, we had some changes to it.