Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Like to call the regular Parks Planning and Community Events meeting, 05/19/2026, to order. We're gonna start with the pledge of allegiance. Commissioner Perez, will

you please lead us in saluting the flag? Yes.

I pledge allegiance

To the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under all, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. So we're going to get started here with roll call. But before we begin the roll call, there is a new face on the dais. Commissioners, please join me in welcoming Pearl Alazano. She has been a resident of Orange for nearly ten years and previously served on the Community Block Grant Program Committee.

She is also a regional commissioner for the Orange AYSO Soccer League and is no stranger to organizing community events. Commissioner Lozano, we are so happy to have you, and I'm proud to share the dais with you. Welcome. Thank you. Would you like to say a few words?

No. Thank you and looking forward to it.

Okay, wonderful. Miss Wang, will you please call the roll? Yes, Chair. Vice Chair Allsweed. Present. Commissioner Cushon?

Present.

Commissioner Prez?

Here.

Commissioner Fields?

Present.

Commissioner Lozano? Present. And, chair Romero? Present. And let the record show commissioner Litwin is absent. Okay. At this time, members of the public may address the commission on matters not listed on the agenda which are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the commission provided that no action may be taken on off agenda items unless otherwise authorized by law. Public comments are limited to three minutes per speaker. Ms. Wang, have we received any request to speak tonight? We did receive some written comments tonight. They were provided to the commission prior to the meeting started, and they will be uploaded to the website tomorrow, but there are no present speakers tonight to speak.

Okay,

thank you very much.

Approval of minutes. Item 3.1, approval of minutes from our March 17 meeting. Do I have a motion to approve the minutes as presented?

So moved.

And do I have second? Everyone please vote. Okay, that motion has passed. And now we're going get into some commission business, item 4.1, Gerhava Master Plan update. Miss Bustamante, do you have a staff report for us?

I do. Thank you, chair Romero. The city has initiated the process to update the 2005 Gerhava Park Master master plan. As a reminder, the planning effort is funded through the US Environmental Protection Agency Brownfields Grant Program secured by the Orange County Council of Governments or city. OC COG has retained Montrose Environmental and its subcontractor, Kimley Horn, to conduct the planning process. This item provides a review of the planning process, a summary of feedback from recently conducted community outreach, and an opportunity to provide additional comments and recommendations to help guide the development of the Grohova Park master plan update. So before I steal too much of her thunder, I will turn

it over to Cassie Brechtschker of Kimley Horn. Good evening, commissioners. Good evening, community members. Thank you all for joining us today. We're very excited to be giving an update on the Gralhaven Park master plan update.

We were here a few months ago in fall initiating our actual master plan update and informing the commission as to our process to date and what we are looking forward to in 2026. So we're very excited to be providing an update and understanding where we'll be continuing throughout the rest of the year. So our agenda really, as Emily had noted, is looking at our community engagement to date, which started last August, our site plan overview, and overall next steps of the master planning process. So many people have been involved with our vision and objectives as it pertains to Gralhaven Park and the master plan update. So this is really where we've kind of aligned is that the master plan is going to ensure that whatever future investments are concluded at the park are strategic and coordinated, aligned with city goals and objectives, and creating ultimately a legacy at the park is truly the heart and gem of the city of Orange.

As we've noted that this has been in partnership with OC COG, they've been very thoughtful in all of the updates as well in alignment with the vision of implementation being very much in that strategic investment, as well as making sure that we have this legacy destination for generations to come. As part of our visioning exercises with our working groups, as well as our community engagement, we've really asked everyone to identify what words resonate and what the next twenty or thirty years look like for the park. And that has been the overall guiding principles, is truly having it be the center of excellence for the city. So again, our objectives as part of the master planning process is really focused on community engagement and feedback as we kick off and understand what the next planning document, which will encompass twenty years of Park's future implementation. And then the planning process goes our next steps after community engagement is focused on the plan itself and the written document that will then be presented back here at commission and ultimately in council for approval down the line.

But really why we're here today is, again, giving the community engagement update. As I mentioned, we've started back in August. We started with city staff and understanding their underlying goals and objectives that will help frame the vision of Krehalvo Park in the master plan. We completed two working group sessions both in October and in February 2025 and 2026, working with key stakeholders to understand their inputs and interests in the park and ensuring that we're getting a complete picture of both staff and community input, and then ultimately have put together a community engagement event in March alongside a full questionnaire that allowed community members near and far to respond to how they're using the park currently, as well as what they'd like to see as implementation. And so our goal tonight is to share some of the high level feedback as it pertains to the community engagement event and really the results of the questionnaire that will help inform our land use plan for the master plan update.

So I'm going to turn over to some of the high level summary of what we had for communication engagement summaries. We had a total of 182 responses to our questionnaire. At our community engagement event, we had over 60 community members in attendance. The majority of respondents for the questionnaire were living within three miles of a park and a high concentration living within one mile of the park. So it was really great to see the local community come out and be very responsive to our questionnaire.

Most respondents visited the park weekly or monthly in all of the different opportunities. They used vehicles as their primary mode of access. Parking was not a major constraint, which is a great response to hear. Overall, park conditions were reviewed positively. Key strengths are looking at open space, recreational opportunities, and accessibility for nearby residences.

And as you'll see on the screen, some of these are the most requested improvements are the BMX pump track, additional walking and jogging trails, playground updates, and a senior center. Some concerns include safety, parking difficulties, and limited shade. So a little back and forth on the parking components from what we've heard as a summary. But really, it's valued for accessibility, the overall open space, family friendly environment, and that it's really a multigenerational use, sports park, community events, and nature focused activities. We'll go into some of the individual components of the questionnaire.

Questionnaire. So really, again, what we were coming to, what was the vision of Gralhaven Park? You can see the word cloud here. The larger the word, the more of the higher response. Community is overall the overarching theme, which is as anticipated for a park as a major gathering place.

But as we know, and we've delved into talking to individual stakeholders more one on one, when they're not in a questionnaire, you've got limited response opportunities. It's more of the heart and the gem of the city. I just wanted to give a little bit of background on demographics that were responding to the questionnaire. Key factors are that 88% of attendees and responders of the questionnaire did live within the city of Orange, so we were drawing from an accurate community base. And we had a diverse mix of end users.

You can see the highest end users of the questionnaire were in the age range of 35 to 45, but we had a balanced bell curve of 65, as well as young adults as well responding to the questionnaire. This slide is really showing what new amenities or site improvements that questionnaire respondents and community members would like to see added to Krijalva Park. So we said we had 182 respondents. In this question, as it pertains to the update, everyone could select more than one option. There's multiple opportunities for improvements to be added to the park, so we wanted to see the mix and array of interests so you can see that everything, as I said, playground updates, BMX pump tracks, walking and jogging trails, community arts theater, outdoor amphitheaters, senior centers and libraries were all included within the site improvements that respondents were in alignment with.

Ultimately, then asked, again, kind of from a word cloud perspective, areas that questionnaire respondents might be interested in, how they would like to be using the park, how would they like to see that addition. It's really they just want to see the soccer fields, the BMX tracks, the trails, dogs, bike paths, all of what we're already including in most of the master plan update in and of itself. We did also look at a difference from the amenities. We had the community engagement event. We wanted to look with our questionnaire.

It was open for over a month. We wanted to understand from the respondents that completed the questionnaire how many were outside just community members that possibly weren't at the community engagement event, just to see if there was any bias or if there was any potential outcome differences. So we are looking at the questionnaire being open for over a month, 182 responses, and 130 of those came outside of the seventy two hour window outside of the community engagement event. So our key takeaway there is that over the month and a half, we had multiple community members really participating in the questionnaire, and it didn't just come from our community engagement event itself. So we really are getting a good, I would say, unbiased approach.

It was very much all across the entire month of the questionnaire being open. But you can see, really, the high level components are still a walking trail, BMX track, outdoor amphitheater, playground, sports courts, senior center library, event venue, and community arts theater and skate park were all delineated throughout those 130 respondents over the course of the questionnaire outside of just community engagement events. So we're seeing the alignment between the community engagement event as well as just what the community responses are in general for the amenities that everyone is looking for, for addition to Gralhauma Park. We did want to understand just basic understanding of how end users are using the park to date. So one of the key components were the access to the bike trails, especially with the connection to the larger city of Orange And County trail system and network, relaxation, nature, and enjoyment, walking and jogging.

So those are really the highest current uses. But you can see that the basketball courts, community programs, sports fields, and playground are the second highest in response to really understanding that the programming is active and, as programmed, working in place. I did like to see how often community members are using the park, really highlighting the daily and the weekly components at over 50%. We had a few outliers that said never who were responding, but really highlighting that most folks were coming to the park daily or weekly. So of course, you're going to have a few outliers.

One of the last components we wanted to highlight are how appealing would following potential amenities be to you, and how this really kind of reads is a scale. So everyone was more in alignment of very appealing to somewhat appealing or neutral towards a library performing arts center and senior center. It scaled over to where more of the orange is that you're seeing on the screen in front of you. So it was neutral to the somewhat appealing, very appealing. I just will now transition to kind of where our site plan is to date and what our plans are for next steps to incorporate all of this data.

As we started our first initial community engagement with Just City staff, we listened to what had been previously approved in the historical master plans and understood what city staff was looking for as it pertains to potential next steps or what was already approved to be added or funded for the park. And so this is our current rendition of the reuse plan. You can see that the skate park is already included, as that was an approved plan. We've added in components of the library and senior center and Go Cat Theater, as there had been discussions with different nonprofits, as well as organizations to have access to construct on the park. And so as we moved into the next phase of community engagement, it was understanding, as I said, what additional amenities could be or would be wanted for the community.

So our next step as part of the master planning process is hearing from you all today about what we've learned from our community engagement events and hearing from the community, seeing that this is where our current reuse plan is. Do you have any additional comments of inputs on uses you'd like to see us add to our land use and reuse plan as our next steps from a planning perspective is to write the formal document that would then get approved. When we write our land use plan for our master plan, it will be much more of a bubble diagram, not this detailed, intricate plan. So from an implementation perspective, if items need to change in five, ten, fifteen year build outs, there is that flexibility from the planning perspective and implementation at the city. But we'll have in a detailed plan that's based on commission and community and staff input that can be used as part of implementation and phasing.

So as we move forward today, we'd ask again for commissioners to provide comments on what you've heard from the questionnaire itself and what we're looking for next steps, as well as we know that there's the community members here to also add input. So with that, I'll move it into next steps and look look for any commission questions you have. And add some water.

Do we have any comments from anyone, any of the commissioners, or should we open it up for public comments?

I have a quick one question. Thank you so much for your report, and it's nice seeing you again. I remember you from Guadalupe. That was a nice meeting. We had quite a bit of the community there. And I have a question about it was the one graph before amenities. There was on the bottom, this one. The bottom, the other, the blue line, what is that about? Yes.

There's 60 respondents saying other events, and we have a full breakdown of some of those components. We can provide those to you under separate cover. I don't have all what 67 stated in particular, but some of them I know did include there's a differentiation between BMX pump track, but really having those as two different ones. And so folks for other were including each one individually, as well as then describing specific events and then including items like the dog parks and then additional soccer fields and different park fields.

Were any events you mentioned like celebratory cultural events or anything like that?

Not that I'm aware of, but we can double check.

Thank you. I'd like to see that. Madam Chair, I'd be interested in hearing what the public has to say a little before we get into too much of our inquiry as well.

Great. Do we have any requests to speak on this matter? Yes, we do. Would you like to call the first speaker? Yes, please.

First speaker, Colton Ferguson, followed by Lisa Landau.

Hello. My name's hello. My name's Colton Ferguson. I was born in Orange, and I ride at Gralhaven a lot. I think we should add a bike park there because sometimes it gets boring there because I ride there a lot, and adding a bike park would contribute to socializing, health for kids, physical exercise, and there's a large biking community in the city.

There it would be a lot better than having to drive at least forty five minutes to get to any other bike park. And like you guys were stating, you want it to be a central, like, cornerstone for the city. There would be less less motorized motorized bike and motorist collision and crashes because more people would wanna be on pedal bikes riding the bike park, and it would support local businesses by having kids or adults go and buy food or bike parts nearby. On on the topic of health improvement, most children average over three hours on electronics. This would get kids off electronics, which is a main cause for depression in kids, and it would lead to physical health improvements by pedaling your bike around all day.

And it would promote social interaction and have kids have someone to talk to other than their parents, which they might want not wanna say anything to. Here are some examples of bike parks that have included the community very well. Haskell Canyon in Santa Clarita is an up and coming bike park that has included the community building the jumps and has made a big impact on that community, as well as Sheep Hills, DeLeo, and Gale Webb, which have included the community and had several events. So you guys might be asking, what bikes are allowed? Well, there's pedal bikes and e mountain bikes, but no motorized vehicles.

There would be a beginner, intermediate, and advanced line. So there would be all lines for skill levels. This would promote progress, you working at your own pace, and fine tuning your skills. This could go hand in hand with the pump track where you could get comfortable on your bike. There would be monthly volunteer maintenance, and businesses could volunteer as well. Lastly, I'm willing to volunteer and offer input for building the bike park. Thank you, counsel, for listening to me.

Thank you so much, Mr. Ferguson, for your insightful comments. Lisa Landau?

Hello. After hearing Colton speak, I feel very moved to ask, so I submitted a letter from my daughter who's a little bit older than Colton, fifteen years older, but the impact that Orange Y, BMX track had on her. So if it's possible if I speak that after or read that after I read mine, if you're okay with that or you guys can read it.

You have three minutes two minutes and forty four seconds and we will be happy to read it afterwards.

Thank you. My name is Lisa Landau. I'm the mayor of Seal Beach and I'm here to speak in support of the proposed BMX track at Grujalva Park, former Orange Y location or both. My family has been deeply involved in BMX for decades. My daughter began racing at age four. She went on to become a factory rider for Redmond. Harrow specialized in GT. She earned the title of multinational number one girl and became a multiple UCI BMX world champion. Our family traveled year round across The US for national events, culminating each season at the Grand Nationals in Oklahoma over Thanksgiving. So we didn't have Thanksgiving our family for a long time.

We went overseas most summers for world championships. We are originally from San Diego. Our typical race week included stops at tracks in San Diego, Temecula, Kearny Mesa, Lake Elsinore, Whittier, Coal Canyon, Ontario, Bellflower, and of course, the legendary and always well attended Orange Y BMX. BMX families travel extensively and spend lots of money in local communities. A dedicated BMX facility delivers clear economic benefits.

For example, USABMX National in DeSoto, Texas, with 9,000 attendees generated 1,100,000 in economic impact. The Texas State Championships produced 735,000, and the USABMX legacy nationals in Tulsa generated 889,000. Larger events, like the UCIBMX World Championships in Rock Hill, South Carolina, delivered up to $30,000,000 in direct economic impact. These are typically just two, three days events. 30,000,000 for a weekend is pretty good.

With the Olympics approaching, elite athletes need quality local tracks for training. Well run superior facility would generate revenue through national and state events, plus its steady weekly racing. It's budget time for all of us, so any additional revenue stream is appreciated. I previously campaigned for a BMX track in Seal Beach, but suitable vacant land is very limited, and what little we do have is designated in our housing element. With the rise of e bikes, now is the perfect time to bring back a high caliber track that the city of Orange is known for.

You guys are known for high caliber popular track. It would be the closest and safest option for Seal Beach kids, most of whom already ride BMX bikes. BMX is a family friendly sport for all ages, from two year olds to 77 year olds. It creates lifelong friendships worldwide. My daughter was a lead camera operator for USA BMX. Now she is the director of technical services, making sure that all the races are broadcast to everyone around the country. I will leave you with my final thought. Build it, and they will come.

Thank you so much, Mayor Landau, for your insight. Next speaker, we have Sean Cading Cading. Was that right? Followed by Jeff Corley.

Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Sean Cading. I'm the president of SoCal BMX. We're a nonprofit dedicated to bringing BMX racing back to the county of Orange and the city of Orange. First, BMX is bicycle motocross. It involves single speed pedal driven bicycles. These are not motorcycles and are not e bikes. BMX racing is now an Olympic sport. It's a sport where no one sits on the bench. Anyone can race BMX all ages.

It's a true family sport where you'll see parents and kids and grandparents all racing together. What an experience for those families. As many of you know, for decades, the number one track in the nation was the legendary Orange Y BMX located on land owned by the YMCA near Chapman The 55. Orange Y was, as they've said, legendary. It was a proving ground.

Racers came from all around the country to compete against the best of the best known as the Orange Y locals. They were the elite of the sport, champions and trendsetters. Orange Y played a monumental role in the formative years of BMX racing. A Friday night race at Orange Y was a national caliber event. Ten years ago in 2016, the YMCA chose not to renew the BMX lease, and in 2018, the land was sold to a private party.

The impact of the closure and the loss to the BMX community was devastating. If the Orange Y land could somehow be acquired from the current owners and the track rebuilt, the Orange BMX community would rejoice. Whether Orange BMX finds a new home in Gralha Park makes a triumphant return to the original YMCA location, this opportunity comes just at the right time. With the LA twenty eight Olympics and Olympic BMX racing, coming to Los Angeles, we are sure to see a surge in interest and participation at BMX tracks and local news stories about the origins of the sport would certainly shine a spotlight on the city of Orange. I in reviewing the staff report, I was struck by a couple things.

The vision for the master plan, aspires to transform Gralhaven into a model of recreational excellence, it's well on its way, with diverse amenities providing active and passive recreation and to enrich daily life. The broader city goals mentioned creating a legacy destination that strengthens community, celebrates local character, and supports health, wellness, and social connection, which Colton mentioned pretty effectively. I would submit that Orange Y and BMX racing uniquely meet these goals. With the city's help, we can restore a legacy destination and once again provide a community gathering place that builds on its history, creates passive and active recreation, and improves health and wellness. Thank you for your support.

Thank you very much. Jeff Corley?

Hello. My name is Jeff Corley. My daughter is Ava Corley. When Ava was just five years old, I watched my daughter climb on a BMX bike for the first time. And in that moment, her life and mind changed forever. Today, Ava Corley is a BMX pro, a national champion, and a rising star on the world stage. In 2023, she took the the third place in the juniors women's pro final at the world's championship. And in 2024, she won gold and silver in the youth 23 category at the World Cup. Just last year, she became the u twenty three world champ national champion. Now she's aiming for the two thousand twenty eight Olympics.

As a father, I know how much BMX has meant to Eva, and I know there are countless other sorry. Countless other parents who see the same potentials in their children. BMX gave Eva confidence, belonging, and a dream. As a part of as as a parent, that's all I could ask for. So I stand here before you tonight with all the parent with all the other parents asking for your support. Let's build a BMX track here so every child in this city can find their own path just like Eva did. Thank you.

Thank you very much, mister Corley. David Browning?

I made it through the 55 tonight. I can do anything. My name is David Browning. I'm here on behalf of Orange County Mountain Bike Association. And if you haven't picked up on a theme yet, perhaps also on behalf of bike. If you're not familiar with us, we did the San Clemente Track in '25. We're working on Buena Park and Aliso Viejo. You'll see a track come in for them. In 'twenty six, you probably read about the composite track. It's in Mission Viejo presently. It'll be going to Fullerton, and then we'll go to Laguna Beach. And in 'twenty seven, we'll be involved in the Craig Park bike facility being built in Fullerton. So I think we're beginning to understand the value of a bike facility in a city. And I want to say thank you. Thank you to this commission for considering bike in the Gurjalva plan.

This is the right thing to do. We all rode bikes when we were kids, right? This was our way of getting outside. We found our freedom. We came home when the lights went on. We also all know there are some issues presently with electric motorcycles in the street. I think it's incumbent on municipalities to consider their obligation. We can't just say no. We really need to think about giving them a place to go, and this is your opportunity here. As Colton so well said, these facilities are fantastic. It gets you outside for exercise. The mental health impacts of screens goes away. These kids are getting away from the screens, getting out, doing physical exercise. You don't use e bikes here. They don't work there.

Okay? You are the town with the history. This was where the orange y had BMX. It just makes sense to bring bike back for your town here. Not only do you get the physical and the health benefits, but you're also dealing with a great way to take an individual sport and put it into a community activity. Because Colton's going to show up. He may not show up as a parent with his parents apparently, but he's going to show up with his friends. There's going to be family. People are going to come together there. It just happens that way.

It's a great way to take an individual sport and make it communal. And not every kid's going to pick up a stick and ball sport, and so we need to give them that. You're going to have Olympic athletes that are going to come out of orange, and like Sean said, are going to end up in the Olympics because you supported a project like this. It's a safe and sanctioned place to ride and everybody needs it. It's why we're so focused on doing this in all the communities. It's why we're so proud of you for taking a leadership position and considering doing this in Orange and getting on the front end of the curve of providing a place for those kids to get off the street. By the way, high ROI. These things are multi generational. You'll see the grandparents of the parents of the kids. They're multi wheeled discipline. We can ride our bikes. We can ride our skateboards. We can ride our scooters. You can even do them adaptive. So you get a lot of return on it and great return for the parents.

Because guess what? A dirt jumper or a BMX bike costs a lot less than an electric motorcycle before you go to court. Okay? So our mission is to provide places for people to ride. We thank you for supporting that mission and considering bike at Grijalva. That's the right thing for you guys to do with this opportunity. Thank you for your support.

Thank you very much, Mr. Brown. With that said, I'd like to open it up to the Commission for discussion. James Commissioner Cushon.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I want to thank everybody in the community that came out this evening. I think this is, in my, what, three years now in the commission, this is probably the most attended meeting we've had so far. It seems that skate parks in BMX brings people out. I don't know what it is.

I want to thank everybody that brought us their impassioned thoughts about the BMX and the bike element at Grijalva. Speaking as somebody who sport changed their life absolutely elevated me beyond anything that I could have hoped, I'm somebody who believes in it doesn't have to be a stick and ball. It just happened to be a ball that changed me. But I see that all type of sports can take somebody and take them and elevate their station beyond anything they could have dreamed. So I'm a big time supporter of sports of all types and activities community activities on the whole of all types as I look at my across the street neighbor who develops musicians of all walks of life.

Developing community programs on the whole is why I think I know why I sit up here, and I know that's why most of my colleagues I can't speak for everybody but that community programs are in our hearts. So I want to thank you all for coming out here and speaking from your hearts. And I can feel the passion with which the parents speak about their children. So I want to thank you for that. Turning back to the design, the question I have when we look about parking.

We talked about parking as being a concern, but we really didn't we kind of glossed over that. Have we looked at possibly building on top of parking or in the areas that aren't affected by the landfill going subterranean, what have we looked at for something other than just putting blacktop on top of ground? Because obviously, if we're building all of these things, it's going to bring more people here. More people is going to be more congestion. What have we looked at prophylactically to address the parking?

That's definitely a major concern as you start thinking about new uses and adding to the park in and of itself. If you look at existing code as it states today, many of the uses that are proposed for the park as it is require an individual parking study that would be required to understand how multiple uses would be put together. As we start to build out the master plan document, we will likely and one of the benefits of a master plan document is it will be looking at the code that the city has and making sure that the uses that are aligned in the master plan document have a distinct code considerations, parking being a major component of that, as well as different development standards and design guidelines. And so as we build out the actual master plan document, parking will be a big consideration. We have not identified doing a proactive parking study, but that will be written into the implementation as it pertains to future developments that come to the park, needing to make sure that they plan for adequate parking.

I think that hearing from commission as being a major concern, we'll make sure and work with staff on how we want to address the implementation components, be it is there an in lieu fee that will help support the potential for a future parking structure, or are there going to be components that require each project coming in to support shared parking agreements in place? So we'll have to come up with how that implementation will work as we write the document. To follow-up on the second part of the question as it pertains to subterranean parking, that's not a potential for the landfill components. Right now, have a geotechnical specialist and engineering team actually completing geotechnical borings to confirm what can be developed beyond just black asphalt. They've been provided the community engagement and amenities to make sure that the amenities that we're proposing, they can give us a yes or no that could be developed on top of the landfill potentially.

And then my other question, you mentioned a subject that's very near and dear to my heart. You mentioned dogs. A combined effort between the city and nonprofit, we have the top rated dog park in the county. One of the concerns we have in some of our parks is Gralha being one of them. There are a lot of people that run their dogs off leash throughout the day. So when you talk about a dog element, are we talking about some type of dog element, like a dog park or some type because we already have a two and a half acre dog park right down the street that's less than a mile away from the Grijalva Park.

Correct. I think as it pertains to the dog park, that's something that was an amenity that was of interest. So when we're thinking about potential next steps for the master plan, incorporating components that have been community driven, I think it's also making sure we implement what makes sense for the park in and of itself. So it sounds like while that was just necessarily what a community is looking for or their responses to the questionnaire, not necessarily a user or a driver that would be creating an entirely new dog park.

Commissioner Fields?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for the presentation, and thank you for everyone who came out to advocate for their issue. I think aspirational world, I would love to have a senior center, a community performing arts theater, a BMX park, more sports fields, a swimming pool, and all these amenities. I think that's what our parks are for, to gather the community. Don't write that down.

Don't write any of that down. My number one question is literally, if you don't live here in the city of Orange, and if you do, you should know that we are facing a serious budget shortfall. And I love this fact that we're having a twenty year plan. And I wrote the note, what is this part going to look like in twenty years? What are we going to be able to pay for and get done in twenty years?

I looked at what the public said that they wanted the folks who came and went to the meeting and went online. And I didn't see much in terms of the biggest things combined were playground updates, sports fields, sports field upgrades. And I didn't see anything on that map that showed that in terms of what we were even going, hey, we're going to do this. We're going to upgrade the giant field space. We're going to resurface the basketball courts.

We're going to add some more basketball courts. We're going to add more shade on the playgrounds. Was it last year that they had an issue with the basketball courts that needed to be resurfaced? It took a while before the city could find the funding to do that. My question is, how are we going to pay for this?

Are we looking at outside funding sources? Are we looking at grants from the federal level, the state level to help pay for some of this stuff? I would love if USABMX came and said, you know what, we want to invest in Orange, we feel like Orange should be the hub, here's a check for $100,000 The folks who got I mean, that's a partnership and I'm not advocating for that because we have folks who work for the city, that's their job. But we can just say, hey, talk to the city and maybe we can get something done. Because unfortunately, like my daughter wants to go to Disneyland, Japan, and Hawaii over the summer.

I don't know if we're

going to

be able to do all that, but we'll see what we can do. So I would like to hear how we're going to pay for some of this. Thank you.

So far to date, I know that there's both agreements in place for potential future development that would be privately funded and fundraised through their organizations. As it pertains to any nonprofits that are city driven, that would have to be planned through city financing. So there's going to be a combination of potential different public and private partnerships that will help support development of Grijalva Park. So think that as it goes through the master plan and the document that we'll be putting together, that will be included in our implementation and working with staff to understand how and what will be allowable to be saved for what might be city nonprofit or city areas for development versus what's been agreed upon through a private development component. So hearing your comment on financing and funding, we'll make sure that, again, that goes into the implementation of the master plan and detailing how that will be functioned.

Commissioner?

Thank you very much. Taking a look at the map of the master plan, if there were to be a place where we could put either a pump track or a competition track, where would it likely go?

Right now, that's why we are going back and doing some of the additional geotechnical work is to see and make sure if anything was going to be our understanding is the pump track and BMX are all above grade and not needing much subterranean efforts, so possibly where the current existing land fill is. And so we could have some components and symmetry next to the skate park.

Okay.

So I will add, eventually, the master plan in and of itself will be, as I said, a bubble diagram. So as developments come in for implementation, they'll go where they're best suited and planned. As we go back to the drawing boards and continue to revise this reuse plan that we showed, that's where it would likely go is for that connection to keep it near where the approved skate park is.

And what about the area that's just north of the sports center? That area, that's also landfill area, correct? Or is it just that the pipeline goes through there?

That's where the pipeline easements are. So I think there's a potential that it could go there as well.

Is that a big enough area to, house either a pump track or a competition track?

From my understanding, yes.

Okay.

Any other comments from the commission? I just want to say thank you so much to everyone for all of your comments. This is the number one thing that I hear all the time is that we need a BMX track in orange. So thank you so much to everyone that came out. And is there anything that we need to make a motion on this evening in regards to this?

No motion is needed. Cassie is taking notes, think, and will incorporate your thoughts and ideas into a revised plan that will be presented to the commission at a later date.

Wonderful. Thank you so much. And thank you to everyone that came out. Okay. Community Services Director Report. Mrs. Bustamonte, do you have a report for us this evening?

We do. Yes. Tonight, our Parks and Facilities Manager, Robert Ambrise Jr, will be providing a few parks updates.

Good evening, commission, chair, commissioners. So just a couple of updates. So we recently, at our April 28 city council meeting, had a couple of our projects approved. First being our skate park at Gralhaven Park construction project. Council approved it.

Staff will now be meeting with the contractor for a preconstruction meeting in the next few weeks so that the contractor can provide a construction schedule, and we anticipate breaking gap excuse me, breaking ground in July. The other project that was approved was our Olive Park netting project. This project will replace damaged field netting throughout the park. Staff will be meeting with the contractor for this project as well for a pre construction meeting in the next few weeks. The project will then begin in late July once the youth sports field users are off the fields.

So looking forward to two new projects coming our way within the next couple of months. Next thing I wanted to bring up is at the City Council meeting on April 14, city council, it was a budget meeting and council was presented the city's proposed capital improvement projects for fiscal year twenty seven. New CIP projects from community services included those recommended by commission. For a reminder, they were the Santiago Creek Trail Lodgepole fencing replacement, the El Camino Sports Court resurfacing project, the playground equipment replacement, and Veterans Park Memorial Fountain restoration. After the projects were presented, council members and public speakers presented feedback to staff.

Regarding the El Camino Sports Court resurfacing project, council asked staff if two tennis courts could be converted to pickleball courts instead of just one, making for eight new pickleball courts instead of just four. With the recent addition of our new outdoor pickleball facility at Hart Park, staff mentioned that we would assess whether or not there was a demand for additional pickleball courts at El Camino Park as we must also consider the need for tennis courts. So we will look at that one further. Regarding the playground equipment replacement project, council asked staff if the project budget could be reduced from the proposed appropriation of $800,000 Staff explained that the proposed budget took into consideration the current market cost of public park playground equipment, the potential need for ADA accessibility upgrades and the possible installation of shade sales still needed at various parks, park locations. Excuse me.

After the first playground is installed, staff said that they would reassess the cost involved to see if any expenses could then be reduced. So once again, once we get through our first playground, we will reassess those costs before we bring it back to council for the next round. Regarding the Veterans Park Memorial Fountain Restoration Project, it was mentioned that the proposed project budget is $50,000 During public comment, AJ Rickey expressed interest in pursuing private sponsorship opportunities to fund this project. Given that the Veterans Park honors the branches of the United States military, Mr. Rickey indicated that this connection could help generate support for restoration of Memorial Fountain.

So just wanted to provide those updates. Lastly, with a couple of new commissioners on our commission, we would like to offer the opportunity for commissioners to join staff on a parks tour next month. We plan on stopping by the future new park in West Orange and the Rampart Street Park parcels as well as Hart Park, as I mentioned, now home to our pickleball and fitness circuit facility. So we will go ahead and send an email out to commissioners with with some date options within the next week or so. All commissioners interested, like I said, not just our news, but everyone on the commission, anyone interested in participating is encouraged to respond as soon as possible once you receive that email. And that's my director's report.

Thanks, Robert. Just a reminder, we still will be needing to follow Brown Act rules, so it'll be limited to three. So we have a couple of dates that we'll put out there and try to get as many of you as possible on one tour. About

About the from his report, Okay. So you said that AJ proposed sponsorship. We created an entire policy, and this is for staff in general. We created an entire policy for sponsorship for just such things like some of these large items like playground equipment and some of these other the Fountain restoration. Yet we've got individual we've got private citizens that are suggesting sponsorship.

What we the commission spent hours of our of our time both in meetings and privately working on a policy to do just such. And then it was reviewed by council. I'm not this isn't on you. I'm not putting this on you. But I'm hoping that we that staff can take this to council and say, wait a sec. We crafted this policy. We have this policy that exists for just this thing, so this isn't coming out of the general fund. So we're looking to the community and saying, hey. What educational company would love to be get their name on this playground equipment, etcetera. So that's what I really think we need to be taking a look at. And I'd hope that we could take that recommendation to counsel that we have this policy in existence. Let's start using it.

Just for clarification, the comment was made during public comment at a council meeting, And we can absolutely stay within that policy that was crafted by the commission. Can you further explain what your ask is?

We have an existing for when we do improvements or when we do a large maintenance project or when we're going to replace equipment, that we have a policy that says we can get we as the city can seek sponsorship dollars for such things. Yet we our first draw is on the budget, not going out and seeking sponsorship dollars for these things. We have people suggesting it, yet I don't see us as a as a city going out and saying, hey, we've got this fountain who's gonna sponsor it, or we've got these this playground equipment that we're replacing for the parks department who would we're not actively going out. We've created this policy. We spent the time to craft this policy, and council spent the time to approve this policy.

Then that policy is now just sitting on the shelf collecting dust when it could be out collecting money. We could be actually actively going out and getting sponsorship dollars to offset these costs rather than going against the general fund for them. That's all I'm saying.

Copy. Thank you.

Chip, are you willing to speak? Following

up on Robert's report thanks, Robert I'd also like to highlight he had mentioned we are very excited that we just opened our brand new 10 court pickleball court facility and fitness circuit at Hart Park. Thank you to those who were able to join us at the May 6 ribbon cutting. We had a huge turnout of very excited community members and pickleball enthusiasts. We're guessing probably between four hundred and five hundred people showed up for that. So it just shows you how much of a need we're filling with that amenity.

Since that day, we've been monitoring their use on a regular basis. They're very popular, particularly nights and weekends. And we've heard nothing but rave reviews for the quality job that Robert and his team put out. So we would like to thank the commission for their role in supporting the project. In front of you, you have a set of coasters that was crafted from one of the trees that was repurposed by West Coast Arborist Street Tree Revival Program as part of this project, symbolizing both sustainability and the lasting impact of your sport, as well as a commemorative sticker. So enjoy.

Thank you.

And at this time, I'd like to turn it over to Chair Romero to provide a brief update

fundraising efforts. Thank you so much. And yes, that ribbon cutting was wonderful. It's a great turnout. Okay.

I'd like to provide an update regarding USA two October 2025, a USA Two Fifty Fundraising Subcommittee comprised of Commissioner Kushan and myself was established. And since then, we have worked closely with staff to prepare and launch a fundraising campaign to raise support for the USA two fifty celebration in the park event. Thanks to the generosity of nonprofit organizations, businesses, and supporters across the Orange community, more than $15,000 was contributed toward the effort. While we ultimately did not reach our goal, the full fundraising goal needed to safely stage the event, we are deeply appreciated appreciative of the enthusiasm and support shown throughout the process. In keeping with the city council's direction to avoid the use of general fund resources for the celebration, the difficult decision has been made to cancel the event.

Even so, the strong community response demonstrated a shared excitement for commemorating USA two fifty, and we are grateful to everyone who helped support the initiative. And I would like to take this time to acknowledge commissioner Cushion because he worked tirelessly, and I watched it, and his heart was so in it. And I want to commend him for all of his efforts and say thank you, thank you, thank you so much. He made this a full time job to get this done. And so I know that it hurts, and we really wanted this event to happen.

So it hurts our heart that it can't. But hopefully in the future, moving forward, we will have more time and we will figure out a way to bring this event back to the community. Thank you so much, Commissioner Couchon. And with that, I will turn it over to Ms. Bustamonte. Yes, thank

you so much for that update. I echo your sentiments. Thank you to both of you for all your hard work and dedication. In the coming days, staff are currently preparing communications to go out to those who contributed, to the community as well, and we're working directly with the donors to coordinate the return of their contributions. Along the same lines, we will continue highlighting different opportunities for the community to come together and celebrate America here in Orange. So again, thank you so much.

You're very welcome. With no further business, this meeting is now adjourned. The next regular meeting will be held on Tuesday, 07/21/2026 at 05:30 p. M. In the Council Chambers. Thank you so much, everyone, for being here.