Cultural Commission - Regular Meeting

We're ready?

Turn it over to chair two.

Okay. Good evening. Today is Monday, 01/12/2026. This is a regular meeting of the parks and creation committee. This is a hybrid meeting. This meeting will be recorded. The Zoom application will notify you that this is meeting is being recorded. Please press continue on the Zoom application to stay in the meeting. Use the raise hand feature in Zoom when you'd like speak on an item and also to lower your hand when you're finished speaking. Please unmute when called to speak and mute yourself when you are done.

If you're calling by phone, which I don't think we have any, identify yourself by name before speaking on an item, press 9 to raise or lower your hand, and 6 to mute or unmute. K. This is the call to order. Welcome to the Parks and Recreation Commission meeting. I now call to order the commission meeting of 01/12/2026 at 07:00. Exactly. Roll call. Commissioner Caldwell?

Here.

Chair Chu? Here. Commissioner DeMarco? Here. Commissioner Forte?

Here.

Vice chair Gupta?

Here.

Yay. And commissioner Souza?

Here.

We're all here. Great. Vice chair Gupta's marked as there. Good. We have no absent. K. So I think we move straight to the consent calendar. We have one item on the consent calendar, and that's the minutes from our November 10 meeting. Do we have any discussion on the minutes? Looking for vice chair Gupta. Any comments?

None. Make a motion to approve the minutes. That's in front of her.

Oh, excuse me.

She was quicker on the draw.

Okay. Who's seconding?

Commissioner Sousa.

Oops. Let's vote. Commissioner Caldwell. Yes. Chair Chu, yes. Commissioner DeMarco? Aye. Commissioner Forte?

Yes.

Vice chair Gupta?

Yes.

And commissioner Sousa?

Yes.

K. That passes. Moving on to public presentations. We will now move move on to public presentations. This is the part of the meeting reserved for persons to address the Parks and Recreation Commission on any manner not on the agenda that is within the subject matter jurisdiction of the commission.

The law does not permit action on or just extended discussion of any item not on the agenda except under special circumstances. The commission or staff may briefly respond to statements made or questions posed, and the commission may request staff to report back at a subsequent meeting. As a reminder, comments can be emailed to prcustomerserve@santaclarac8.gov. Any member of the public would like to make comments, please fill fill out a speaker's card or raise your hand on Zoom. To accommodate all speakers, we request you complete your comments within two minutes.

We chain voted to change that. Staff, do we have any members of the public? Oh, good. Okay. This is quick. Moving on to general business, and we only have one item. It's item 26 dash 34. Status update on the progress made for our fiscal year twenty five twenty six parks and rec commission work plan goals.

We thought we would put the goals up for everybody to see, and we'll go through them one on one. Happy New Year, everybody. It's good to see everyone. It's been a minute since we didn't meet in December, but it was great to see so many of you out at the tree lighting event. And, Commissioner DeMarco, it's good to see you healthy and back at it. Right?

Oh, like we were sick for two months. Right?

Yeah. A lot of people. A little holiday. It's been pretty gnarly. Chiratu, if you wanna walk us through the goals, we're happy to take any notes the commissioners or subcommittees have on any progress made in that area.

Okay. Because if you need support from us, please let us know. Okay. Since this is our only item, we can dig into it. I think we've goal one is to review park site and facility condition assessments and recommend priorities given existing and anticipated service levels and available resources. This is the this is the goal that we are looking at finding a new way to track the commissioner's visitation of parks and facilities? I see.

It's part of the discussion a couple of months ago. I

We're working on a Google forms. We're working on to make sure it's it's working, so to speak. We've built it. Team? Yeah. And we should be able to bring that back in February to at least show the commission and maybe even send it between now and next meeting to see get some feedback from you all. Like, is it is it

Yeah. I'm very good at breaking things, so if you want me to test it.

Yeah. Or just say, hey. What about this? Or can we add this field, or can we do this or that? But, yeah, we've been that's that's like, in fact, our regular staff aid who's is on vacation, Priscilla, but she's she's done with it. We do have Fairbanks helping sit in tonight and run the meeting with us. But when she's back, we'll send we'll either send it out for a test drive or bring it to the February meeting and and kinda see get some feedback there.

Yeah. I think that'll be good to be more transparent about what we're doing and also encourage us to get in more different parks, not just our own neighborhood parks. Do you have any more discussion on goal one?

Yeah. If we're gonna talk about trying to diversify the, attendance of our parks Mhmm. Then we should tie it to something specific. Right? We shouldn't just have it be a platitude of, like, go visit parks that you don't live next to. It should be like, go visit one from each district or something. Something specific, measurable? If we're talking over the time course of the whole year, it seems like we could do that. Yeah. Now that would obviously mean making sure that we all know what parks are Right.

Just means.

But I'm all about smart goals. Yeah. And if that's if we don't wanna get one from each district, one from three districts, like, that would be a natural way to diversify the geography that we're visiting, boundaries that already exist.

Yeah. I'm okay.

I like that. But we would need staff to break down the parks by district then too instead of just the list of parks.

I have that information. Awesome.

Yeah. That would be good. We can also have theme months. Today's this month is District 1. Everyone Yeah. Hit a District 1 park.

Yeah. Alright.

District 5 only.

Yeah. You guy

so just to be clear, you guys want to divide up districts because it won't the commissioners aren't District. District based.

Yeah. We would be trying

to get word that it's not just me going to Bowers every time because I walk through Bowers every morning to take my kid to school.

And that doesn't that shows, like Right?

I should have to

go to Maywood. Should have to go to

So for each commissioner would be tasked to do at least one per and Robin just said there's only Central Park in District 5, so we're all going to Central Park, which is the one that also

has map

at 6.

This gets mapped out in all the parks.

You can pinpoint in that district.

Don't know. So we can all those

Yeah. District 3 looks like it has one park.

But it doesn't have to be by district. So I think it's ready made. We can decide something else. But if we want if we aspire to more variation in our visits, we need to we need to be accountable to that aspiration, and we need to make it measurable.

I don't don't think it's too much of a stretch for at the by the end of your term to visit all parks. You shouldn't have.

Terms of that are at least two.

So four years, you can visit well, how

many parks are there total? Any if you count all. 51.

And count facilities? Or counting pools and Mhmm. Eight or something like that.

That is exactly 12 a year.

So every month, you're hitting a different park. That'd be interesting. Because when when we're looking at, like, Henry Schmidt, it's good to have been there to see where the layout is.

We had one commissioner once that used to run to every park.

Yeah. I remember that.

She's very in it.

So over the course of his term

Not doing that.

He had certain routes. And so, like, each month, he would run from one to another, maybe get three in on each run. And then over the course of his year, he ran two or through every sometimes he drove to a park

And ran from a couple of them. Yeah.

Yeah. But I'm gonna drive to test out the parking. Yeah. In the in the activity guide is the list of all of the parks and facilities and what amenities are there. And so you could use that as your personal checklist. Just throwing that out there and stick that on your fridge and check them off as you go. Could be

Like, I go to playground. Wherever the playground, that that's where I go.

Jump off it.

Jump on jump on on the dome. Right? He he climbs to the top of the dome and goes pull up.

And then and then jumps off

of it.

Jump off it. Yes.

We all know. We all know.

So those are our our goals, not necessarily I guess, we're not we can't mandate them, but trying to get to all the parks within your near term and then try to do one per district every year. I think those are worth doing. We're gonna be very well educated park commissioners by the time we term off.

Should be. You might meet your a future commissioner. What do you talk about she's gonna say, you know, I'm visiting the park. Tell me about your experience. Would you

ever be interested in being a commissioner? Yeah.

Other advocacy roles. I know it I've it is important for the health of the organization to have a huge applicant pool. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And so if everybody brought at least one quality person to the process, how great for the commission. Yeah.

I often find that most people don't even know about the commission, let alone they can apply to be commissioners or what that role entails. So, yeah, that's a great idea.

Won't have to charge you an end goal.

Okay.

Okay. So that's goal one. Moving on to goal two. Review and solicit community input on the existing city park rehab projects based on current CIP, budget, schedule. And b, review residential developer proposed schematic designs for new neighborhood parks that serve new residential development. I think we do that when they come before the commissions. I don't think we need to do anything. Oh, we're we still have flagged the use data to improve metrics. It's still a work in progress. And act as ambassadors for new parks and engaged community to give feedback or advocacy role. Anybody have any comments on two?

I'll say that staff undertook the website update for all the parks. And so in the park project page, you could, when you get a chance, check that out so that's any feedback that you might have.

K. Goal three, we have it's three parts. A is host and develop recommendations for the annual Santa Clara Art and Wine Festival, b, participate in citywide special events, and c, plan additional citywide events. Do we need to do anything for our online now?

That question was not heard by people who can answer.

And we've also the financial.

We're great too.

Yeah. We our analyst was working on that. We've had some staffing transitions. We could check-in to see where they were before they moved. Luckily, the one the one analyst that was working on this project is still within the city, so they moved from Parks and Recreation to fire.

And so we can just see where they're at. And our our new analyst to replace that particular analyst will start, yeah, next Tuesday. Monday is a holiday. So if nothing else, we'll get her to pick up the project Mhmm. Or see if the previous analyst they they're also supposed to be able to help some of the transition. It wasn't supposed to be a, like, a hard time out kind of a transition, so we'll see where they are and if they can help get that one. What was the other one where She must ask if

we needed to be doing anything for art one right now.

This at this point.

I think if there's any overarching ideas that that commissioners have to to enhance festival or to I yeah. You know?

I will tell you. The one thing, though, is this year is gonna have a little bit of a wrinkle. Oh. Maybe in the next year. Maybe maybe the next two years. Depends. Depends. Yeah. We're having the Central Park entrance Yeah. Project, and then we tacked on the city has a has an ADA issue with certain slopes and paths of travel relative to the Pavilion Parking lot.

Parking lot. So that got tacked onto it. So they'll be we'll be doing mostly, like, pathway improvements and parking lot improvements on the side of the park near the pavilion. And then near the Magical Bridge and the Veterans Memorial, They'll be between those two, basically, there's gonna be an entrance right off of Kaiser, and it's been a long while since we've all seen it.

It was the first thing I

Yeah. Yeah.

Tell my

So there'll be a nice circle. Four years ago? Yeah. There'll be a light at there. Well, there is a there is a light there, but there'll be a actual traffic into the park. And the the ability to do a drop off zone for either the magical bridge or if you also wanna drop off some stuff for for your picnic or you're gonna have, and then there'll be additional parking. Yeah. It'd be really nice.

When is construction gonna start?

That is scheduled to start in the March, April.

Yeah. And

they're hoping based on phasing to be done with one of the phases prior to July 4, and then then they would start phase two right after. But it there there's no there's no clause in the contract that mandates that. We're just hoping that there's, like, a week or two where we're like, hey. If you wouldn't mind waiting because there's nothing that's set in

the contract. Is Art and happening. So can you pause and then start up again?

Art and Wine and fourth of July is more than likely fourth of July is gonna happen at Central Park this year.

So

Not back at Mission?

What's that?

Not back at Mission College.

We'll see. Council's gonna put it to a vote. It's been requested that we bring it back as an opportunity for council to opine or to, you know

So it's yes from our side, not Mission's side.

Mission's our side. Yeah. To kinda go back a little bit to the nostalgia of Central Park.

But would there be fireworks Central Park?

That's the plan. I I don't want to make yeah. I I I don't wanna make promises, but the plan is to have it at Central Park with fireworks. But we'll you know, all of those things come at both a traffic and

Serious price.

What do you call it? Cost as well as yeah. Price.

Yep.

And with construction happening in Central Park.

With construction happening.

It was over at Mission when there was construction on the roadways, and now it's over at Yeah.

Construction on Mission is done. Yeah.

Yeah.

Then we're gonna move in was a good Central.

So a survey went live today that I would will send out to everybody so you can prophesize it with your friends and neighbors.

Yeah. Push it out, please.

Asking this would be really helpful for the commission to try and get some engagement from our residents that don't always participate in surveys, but asking, you know, have you been to a specials fourth of July special event? Did you attend admission? What did you think? Have you attended at Central Park? What did you think?

What would you like to see as part of a fourth of July celebration for the city? There's definitely you know, staff's identified some issues with having fireworks at Central Park K. Security, but there's there's a will to An interest. An interest, you know, to have it and to survey the community. So we'll be going to council probably, I think, it's on the February 10, is that the aim, to we have council weigh in on their desires.

So the survey will be alive for eight days. It's a quick turnaround on it. And so we'll you'll start to see social media popping up today, and it just actually got posted at, like, 05:30 tonight.

When do you expect the survey to come out? South. Oh, yeah. Can we get it all emailed to him so we can Yeah. Put it down on?

Yep. Yep. Good. It was supposed to be posted to Facebook. So I don't know. That's what I'm looking at. I

didn't see it. You didn't

see it?

But if if it was just when we were on on I just got it.

Up five because late. I literally just got it, like, while we were sitting.

Oh, while we were sitting here? Or What did you get

it on?

It was the last thing in my yeah. It was the last thing in

Delivery? My

I subscribed. I'm a sub I'm in a website.

Does everybody I got it. You got it? Oh, time? Activity guide? No.

702.

Yeah. Oh, bulk of it. There. 702.

70

She she's looking at me. I'm like

702.

Yeah. Guess it might be that email to your whole world in Santa Clara

Yes, please.

And definitely your kids' world as well.

Now listen. Is it gonna actually matter?

It will. Yeah. Really? Well, we're gonna Report this to report this the findings of the survey to counsel.

And counsel asked a survey that Yeah. Asked for a survey.

I mean Send it to my

At least they'll have information

to help inform their decision, whatever it is. But yep. I have a suggestion for goal two c. I think I might have made this in the past as well. You it would be really nice if we could host one of our commission meetings in a park and publicize it and and, you know, and one of our meetings as in one every year at least, and then rotate through some parks because they'll take a long time to rotate through all.

But that could be one opportunity to get the public engaged. You know, you you've seen very little participation from the public in our commission meetings. And like I was saying earlier, very few people even know about the commission or its role. And so that could be one way for us to get ourselves out there, maybe even fulfill that other goal that we have to visit a different park every month. And so maybe if we can kill many birds with one stone.

And I understand the logistics around it can be complicated, but maybe we

can Yeah. So that part whatever meeting we do, if we were able to do that, which I think we can, we won't be able to go, obviously Oh. Remote On the Internet. On the Internet. Mhmm. But, yeah, we can we can do that. I've done that at other jurisdictions pre predating COVID and all that fun stuff. So, yeah, we could we could do something like that.

I think it would be appropriate if we had something going on, like, maybe Henry Schmidt after the construction when we have a new playground. Might be a

good trying to think of some of the next I mean, a good example would be we're going to try to solicit input for international swim center phase two. So maybe the first maybe the first option for something like this, Vikas, would be to do it either at Central Park or at Central Park Library.

Mhmm.

So that that would be a good way to try to host something where you're you're colocating it with a project, which is also another good idea. I'm trying to think of after that, you know, when we go to do any other scoping for other projects, we can we can actually make that a point. Michael. Yeah. When we do outreach for Carmichael or Gomez or

I guess, they're talking about wanting to plant trees in the system too. So Yeah. Yeah. I love that idea. Tack on a couple of other goals around with it, and it makes it to be a really successful meeting.

Yeah. I mean, one way to enhance that goal is to say that when whenever we have park projects that we endeavor to either meet in the park or within the community or within an opportune like, most of our parks either have park buildings or their schools or things. So that's one consideration we could do is whether it's out in a park or at least we're to doing a little bit of a roadshow meeting. So a lot of times a lot of times, you would do a run on meeting. So you would do we'll have to talk with the clerk's office and the logistics around it, but you could do a public a community outreach.

Then all of you could also participate because it's a publicly noticed, and you can be at the at the public outreach and providing feedback. And then right after, we can have the meeting. So it serves two purposes. One is you guys would be at the charrette, so to speak, for the concepts and be able to give real feedback without any Brown Act violations, and then we can meet right after at that location. So there's a couple of benefits to that. So we can we can think we can noodle on that suggestion in either one or both.

Yeah. That sounds like it would give transparency to the process because

Yes.

Then you could watch

Mhmm.

Watch the magic that happens with the commission.

Imagine.

Yeah. Anybody who wants to stay, but then you'll also be able to speak freely with guests at the neighborhood concept as it's Ben Brown Act notice that you're there. So yeah. Okay. Couple of good things to get out of that.

Was there any commentary feedback from the last Art and Wine Festival that you've decided to definitely act on?

We would like to enhance the Maker Meadow a little bit better and perhaps bring a musical element to that space. So that was an artist pop up artist venue where you like, you can make art and have an experience art experience. And so we were able it was our first year doing it, and it's an area that we feel like we could grow a little bit. So we're kind of excited about that.

That's great.

Yeah. We have to figure out parking. We always have to figure out parking. We have to figure out this the something that as a committee could think about is we had some nonprofits working special the special events and use our garden wine using it as a fundraiser. Mhmm. And so remember in the springtime, you reviewed their applications. Parking overwhelmingly makes A lot of money. A lot of money.

Yeah. And we had five where we traditionally had four. So the fifth one, don't I think made a lot of

money on their the bike. They're the bikes. They were the bike ones and nor did the ones doing the carnival games. And so we need to spend a little bit of energy thinking about what fundraising opportunities we could have in the

What's the difference in scale? It's a huge Big.

Like, 5,000. Yeah. 6,300.

Would there be any appetite from our volunteers to just pool the pot and then split it four ways? Somebody would need to,

like, fiscally manage that so the city wasn't taking that money off road.

Parking needs a lot less volunteers. So, like, the high school usually runs the kids kingdom because they got tons of kids. I don't know if, like, Pal could do the kids kingdom. So I think each group brings a different number of volunteers. So I don't know if the equitable split is not just divide by five.

Mhmm. Yeah. It'd be the a better way to do that would be you would identify how many people. So there's a way to do it, and we can help facilitate it. But in the end, the groups would need to to manage it, which is to say you need, like arbitrarily, you need 30 people for every four hours.

And then you can if you want to sign up for this, you need to, you know, put in x amount of people, and it doesn't matter who's doing it as long as all the shifts are covered. So all five groups need to cover 30 people for every four hours of so just a way to map it. So you could do something along those lines and say that they're gonna pull the money, and no matter how many people do it, it's gonna be divided up evenly. So there's there's different ways of everybody's gotta put cover x amount of shifts. So there's, like, a 120 shifts, say, total, and then everybody's gotta cover equal shifts or use parts divided by five.

And then and then you divide the money accordingly. So at any rate, that's it's it can happen. It's a little bit. But once you build it, once you design it, it it'll be a little easier to

And I think we have to be clear with that before we solicit applications because Yes. It's done this we've done this way for so many years that I think people are Yeah.

And it's gonna get potentially to some of those groups that have, you know, gotten gotten great

dollars.

Yeah. Gotten great pump ups because of it. And then it'll also equally, it'll offset them, but it'll pump up some other people who had it. So, yeah, it cuts. That's cool. But yeah. K. Alright. Yeah.

So does anybody have any initial thoughts about fourth of July, their experience either at Mission or their experience at Central Park or their experience in other jurisdictions.

I've always enjoyed it at Central Park. It was a it was a great event.

But I know there's a lot of concern with, entries. At Mission, there was controlled entrances with metal detectors.

Yeah.

So we're there's pros and cons for sure.

I wouldn't I I shouldn't have a horse in this race. I'm never at fourth of July for Santa Clara. I'm always at, you know, near Yosemite with my in laws. So it comes down to a fiscal thing. It seems silly to incur extra cost if there's an alternative that we get to partner with that is cheaper. And if it it's it's, great America, right, that does the final show?

As long as there is a great America. But That

is not something that I plan for today. But Yeah. But is gray America.

There's other there's other correct. There's other expenses that are that are assisted or shared with, like, mission college themselves.

So it seems to me that if we went out on our own and did our own thing at Central Park, something would still happen at Mission, and so everyone's just spending more money, and this is all public money. As a taxpayer, I would prefer my public money to be spent most efficiently. And in this particular circumstance, that would be one big party at the big spot that can handle it more safely for probably a better show because we're probably right? We're a bigger venue, or we're gonna get a better fireworks display, I would think.

We have a high expert. We a higher

And higher than we could get at Central Park.

I think we're relatively safe for Great America this year, but beyond this year, we Sure.

Sure. But this idea, everyone's talking about a separate and fiftieth anniversary, and we wanna make a big big splash. Yeah. The bigger splash is over there, I would think.

Yeah.

For for for let for more bang for your buck.

And I might be biased. I live on the North Side, so great America is very close to my

But but you're not biased. That is a thing.

Yeah. There are there are people who live by this.

People who live by Central Park

Mhmm.

And there's people who live in the North.

Yeah. Because coming over to Central Park

people who live in the South or who who gotta drive past Central Park to get to the North. But I'm

actually not gonna be in Hawaii on the July 4, I'm gonna come wherever it is. But I would be happy going to either place.

Don't

Parking. There's a lot more parking at Mission, and I think we ironed out some of the the exit.

Just like everything. If anybody has a membership at Toyota America like, know we just bought our first membership. It includes parking. Like, I could park at the park. Yeah. Right? And so, like, there's just so much more infrastructure there for a huge bash than what we know is not a huge infrastructure center. But there is the tradition piece.

And that's the past few years.

Yeah. Traditions change. That's the whole point of fibrin on the roof. Tradition. I love her, but she's an idiot. But I love her. Change. Like, that's the whole point of the show. Traditions change.

So we've covered socialism That made me musicals.

That's right.

Maybe the first actual singing we've had in the parks in Redfield.

It's good. It's good too.

I've never actually seen Central Park fireworks from the stage side. As an attendee, I always go to the back street. It's it's fun. It's fun. Central Park. Going to in the back streets around it.

Yeah.

There are it's alternative laws are are now in place during those times. Okay.

That's All

laws are

All laws have been put on hold for that time and in those back streets. It's kinda fun.

Back streets of Santa Clara. Not familiar with those.

Would you like to ask the person Oh. In our waiting room if they have a comment to share on this goal? Sure.

Jeanette, do you have a comment

On the work, ma'am. Alright. I just got a little pop up that I needed to unmute. Can you hear me?

Yes. We can hear you.

Oh, very good. Okay. I had stopped by. I went down to City Hall, and I didn't see a sign that referenced the park direct conference or committee meetings. So, I decided to log on, come back, and log on from home. But, I think I did see your meeting outside. But, anyway, I had been to both, the the Central Park and the, one that was held at Mission, not last year, but the year before. And I really appreciated the parking and, the facility. It was easy to get to at Mission College, and just the setup was very nice just from a personal perspective. Great.

And she said she'd been to the other Yeah.

So she'd been I

have been in years past to the other one. And, you know, had to walk a long ways with gear, with chairs, and such. And it was okay. But oh, but right. The Mission College, actually, I wasn't able to really you know, the music and just the events and the activities. The actual fireworks, I couldn't actually see them from the Mission College. You know, the you're relying on the fireworks from Great America. Right? Yeah. So I

There was places where you can't see it in places that you can.

Yeah. So I wasn't I wasn't in the right place to see the fireworks. But but the but the festivities and just the people and, you know, the setup, the vanguard performance, and just other performances were was lovely. Yeah. It was really nicely coordinated.

Yeah. Thank you for those comments. Is there a reason that you wanted to attend the commission meeting?

Yeah. I wanted to compliment the parks and recs. I participated in the Nutcracker, and I was really impressed with all the support that Kimberly had behind the scenes. And I I wanted to extend a compliment. And then I'll I've also been in communication with a woman at the senior center periodically, and I was just talking with her.

She's a big swimmer and very interested in the international swim center. And I've I've talked with her about, the diving equipment or, you know, the high diving. That's there there was a thought that they weren't going to be redoing that particular structure, and that made me sad because that's, like, one of the best things in the Olympics and nice to give the the young, young people the opportunity to learn that skill. And then then and for international swim meets to bring that talent and that and inspiration to our young people to learn how to to do that diving capability. So I I just wanted to put in a plug to to, make sure that that gets Weekly.

Supported or restructured. I guess the rebarb is is not in good condition. So, hopefully, you know, that they will actually replace that when they do the international swim center.

I think we're gonna get an update on the international swim center during the staff updates. And I wanna your compliment about Nutcracker is well deserved, and Robin is here who has been amazing support for miss Kimberly. So thank you for your comments.

Yeah. Yeah. And you're so we're so lucky to have her. She is such a great instructor, and I was just so impressed. I mean, we had rehearsals at, right, the Henry Schmidt Park at in the facility there.

And, actually, we really she really needed two rooms to take because they have three different casts, and it would be that had been great to have another room where you could work with the kids on their their technique while she was working with one of the other casts because she was working with three different casts. I I was just it was really it was a lot of fun, but I was just like, this is so chaotic. I and I was really impressed how it all came together in the final performances. They it was really quite beautiful.

It is a lot of

chaos that comes together in the end. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. He kinda was, but I I really enjoyed participating. So thank you for that opportunity for sponsoring that.

Thank you for your comments.

Yeah.

Oh, and, I can also share that the street dance out is one of my favorite activities. I like to go every year. It's right around my birthday, so my friends and I, we we go in and and dance the night away. So thank you for that.

Think she hit on all our favorites, the Dive Center, the Nutcracker, and Street Dance.

So if I may just reiterate what Chetu mentioned. Janet, if you didn't catch that, there will be an update on the ISC, later in the meeting if you wanna stay on.

We have one more goal before we get to the the staff. Goal five is to consider the oh, actually, goal we have two more. Goal four is the master plan process. Receive updates from staff and develop subcommittees as needed. There any update on the master plan?

Yeah. There's I don't know that there's any subcommittee needs at this time. The master plan, scheduling, council briefings at the end of this month.

Oh, wow.

And we plan on bringing it to our commission either for February or March depending on what from the council briefings. And then so, yeah, we're really close. We have final draft. We have a PowerPoint presentation, Recreation manager. Castro is working on the report for both commission and council, so we're right on the doorstep of of bringing that to you.

Great. I think February is gonna be a busy meeting.

Yeah. February and and March is hopefully, we have some fun stuff coming. And

the final goal is goal number five. Consider the annual budget of

the parks rec department during budget preparation process and make recommendations with respect there to the city manager and city council in our charter. You should see that Wade Brummel is part of this as well. And so the new application has been out on the street to our user groups. We do have two viable, grant requests that we're preparing to bring to you. So, ideally, those make it in February also. So, yes, we believe February will be a busy month.

Mark your calendar. Master plan, Wade Brummel. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. And we don't have no vote on the goals. Right? That's just information. And so now we're on the next agenda item is the city staff report. Does the staff have any items that they would like to report?

So just so we're here, we've been talking a lot about things that will come to you in February. So Wade Brummel grants, There'll also be a presentation by the city attorney for the charter review. Mhmm. In our work plan, in the front of your work plan are the things from the charter that the commission is charged with doing. And so the city attorney is coming to gain your feedback on are those things what's actually happening.

Are there things that you do that are not in the charter, that we, at this time, would like to get put into the charter. And he'll also answer any questions about the charter process. I think in regards to the Parks and Recreation Commission, but certainly, could ask him any questions you wanted about the charter. So that's also happening in February. So laid Bramhall charter review, folded the park and rec master plan, park and projects in February.

So that's a lot in February, three or four things. Thank you for those of you who were able to attend the tree lighting event. It seems successful. A new tree seems people, like, enjoyed that. So that was super fun.

And we mentioned the July 4 survey that launched. And then in terms of the international swim center, they're finalizing the contract right now. It does include a dive tower, miss Jeanette, and the three bodies of water, and they're still on track to begin construction in February for that project. So and then we're also, in February, should get back the the results from the RFP that is out request for proposal that is out for phase two. Once phase two begins, then we'll also really design it for the building, then we'll really start to engage the commission and the public on what they'd like to see in that building.

So remember phase one will include the pump room with some outside showers and include trailers for more showers and restrooms, include the three bodies of water. They'll have a limited capacity of 600. 600? So it's it's something like About 600. About 600 will not be able to host competitions because it will not have the proper restroom facilities needed to be able to do that, but it will be able to host training, and all those kinds of things that will include the dive tower.

So good news there for miss Jeanette. Let your friend know to check out the web page, the swim center page. There is an ISC update page, and you can see the renderings there in the last presentation that went to council last month, December 9.

On what was

I don't know if this will be possible. And, of course, there's insurance issues and all that around it, but I would love to be able to, have the commission go to ISC and take a sledgehammer to that building.

That's exciting.

That's exciting.

I mean, not I don't mean the pools. I just mean because those those office buildings need to come down, and and I would love for us to go ahead and take a sledgehammer at it.

And then

on that note too, commissioner Gupta, we will be starting the fences will go up at Henry Schmidt February 2. If you have not been Henry Schmidt in a while, I encourage you to go to look at what it's like now before the fences go up so that you can even if you wanna take a historical photo, it's not gonna look anything like that. The tennis courts will remain active as much as they can. Some of the greenways will remain, accessible during the construction, but probably three quarters of the park will be fenced off, and inaccessible. Henry Schmidt will be accessible during during the construction and so will the restrooms.

So that will be a really exciting project. It's about fourteen months total.

And thank you for making sure that the building stays open. Mhmm.

Yep. We need it. We need more space. We don't have enough.

I don't remember where we are with Warburton. I know that there was some things kicking off there.

Yeah. Warburton is coming up soon for 9595%. Construction. Yeah. The and then construction drawings are at 95, and then we have to go out. So we're looking yeah. No. I'm trying to think. Oh, design's complete. Now they're doing we think we're gonna award a contract in early twenty seven to to work on it.

Right? Mhmm.

Yeah. That's what they said.

They said they said today. Yeah. It's it's mostly it's mostly based on, like, total project bandwidth for the organization with somebody with ISC and Schmidt and for and the other one that's starting at Central Park. So we got a lot of projects all going at once. So this will come right on the heels of of that of those projects.

So it's, like, next in line, fully designed, and we'll be bringing back, like, timeline updates. It'll be about eighteen months. So probably June or '28 is when it'll open. We'll start construction at the beginning of twenty seventh for that for Warbird. Between now and then, we might even entertain whether or not we start on the pool at Warburton for a project.

There's just such a long list of projects, not just with parks and recreation, but throughout the entire city Yeah. To cover the Measure I. And, you know, they're every three years, they're gonna do a tranche, and it'll be, like, about a nine to twelve year cycle to get through the 400 and somewhat $404,150 or some total million dollars.

That's a good problem to have.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's in the it's in the works. Yeah.

I think we're gonna save public comment for the end of the commissioner's report, and we're gonna go into the print commissioner's report. It's our turn to share any activities we've been involved with that haven't already been discussed. Commissioner Caldwell.

Attended the tree lighting ceremony. I I thought it was great. I like the amount of vendors that were there. It was a well attended event. I I thought it was really an an upgrade over previous years, so that was a side of three limbs in Maywood Park. That's all I that's all I did. So pretty busy holiday season and basketball.

Commissioner DeMarco?

Yeah. I'll stop it. If not, maybe it's tree lighting. We are feeling better now. Thank you. We're excited to start up miss Linea's I think it's ballet and acrobatics. I think it goes on Wednesday, it's our first class. So we'll be doing that. Think we'll be visiting Central Park every week. We walk through Bowers every week. Bowers looked great the other day today, Friday. It was noticeable how how much work has been done there. The edges were all very sharp. It's looking good.

Mister Forte.

Attended the Veterans Day event and also the holiday tree lighting. Since it was the first time they did that holiday market, was there any feedback from the vendors if it was a good event for them to to come back to?

They loved it. They loved it. The only thing that I think would I oversaw the artists for the art and wine festival, and so what I did is I pulled some local artists that are in the area that would have a fairly easy setup because it's such a short event bringing it in and out. And so my only thought was, like, changing it up every year so it's not the same whatever, eight. But we have 13 same 13 vendors every year. You know, they would all want to come back. I think there should be, like, a rotation so that That's great. Other people there's not the same thing every year. But, yeah, they all loved it.

Yeah. What did anybody who intend to think of the new tree? Yeah.

I was confused at first.

It was beautiful. Was not. We were we were, like

talking about it.

It was fun.

It was beautiful.

Yeah. It's just

the street. It was a market improve. I a market improvement. Yeah. Because you and it's It was more of a centerpiece what it is.

Yeah.

Yeah. Thank you. Vice

chair Gupta. I'm sorry. Do commissioner report for vice chair Gupta?

Yeah. So I've been out traveling almost last two and a half months. I did miss the tree lighting ceremony, but I did visit, so I'm in India right now, and I visited the city called Kota, K As In Kilo, O T A, in the state of Rajasthan. And so I visited two landmarks there. Very impressive.

One was the city park, in that city, and the other one was the riverfront. There's this river that runs through the city called Chambal. And so I visited that riverfront. And the government has invested tons of money in developing both of those, and it it's just fantastic. The row front had fountains a fountain show, laser show, live dancers, live music, a boat ride across the river, a replica of monuments, and they've they've spent tons and tons of money on it.

They they wanna get tourists into the city. And then the city park, similarly, you know, it it had a boat ride and very nicely manicured lawns, and they they had a a corner for a bunch of food stalls. They they had a plan for an aviary. Actually, they constructed an aviary, but I don't know, some permitting issue or whatever happened subsequently or maybe some environmentalist blocked it. And so the the cage the huge egg shaped cage is there.

Okay. But there's no birds inside. Maybe that's a good thing. I don't know. But, anyway, it was fantastic to see see and get inspiration from these other places that are doing wonderful things in in the public space, public sculptures, and all that kind of stuff. So, yeah, had a great time. You know, if I get an opportunity sometime, I'll show you a couple of videos of it. But, But, yeah, that's that's my report.

That's my ideas for that $450,000,000.

Commissioner Souza.

Oh, I really enjoyed the tree lighting ceremony. It's a it's a great great venue. I I'm I'm glad to see it growing each year. And so I that was just a really nice night. And on on a a sad note, a good friend, good family friend, and a former Parks and Recreation Commissioner, Ray Gama, passed away last week.

Mhmm.

And he is there will be a celebration of life on February 1 at the American Legion Hall on Homestead from two to six. But he was a lifelong

I know the name of the dog park.

Yeah. He's a lifelong resident of Santa Clara and a member of the Santa Clara fire department, and he was just just a very, very great civic minded person. Eight year commissioner.

Yeah. Korean war vet. Great vet.

I'm the last commissioner. I diddo on the tree lighting. It was fabulous, and it was great to see so many people. And, of course, the Nutcracker was well run. I volunteer every year, and I feel like I do less and less every year because it's just so all the pieces are there. There's so much staff taking care of the kids, and it was just great, a great tradition. Thank you. Next year is

the twentieth anniversary of the Nutcracker. And it's

my daughter's senior year, so it'll be it's a big one. And I've been to my neighborhood parks, that's about it for me.

Wasn't at I wasn't at the holiday tree lighting. Seems to me, if I remember correctly, last year, there was maybe some opportunity for more communicated signage or direction about where the line to get into visit Santa was versus other vendors? Was that similar this year? Was it better this year?

There's a lot more people, so it's harder to see signs. Yes. Because there's just so many people.

Yeah. One of the fee one of the feedback I received one one point of feedback was, could we swap where Santa was with where the the the market was? Yeah. Because the line was queuing a little bit, and it was plus people were coming in from across the street. It was a little congested y airing.

There there is no mistake where the line was.

Yeah. But it really Line was working. Yeah. Yeah. But other than that, I don't know that there it was way more lit up like Christmas tree this year. So I don't think it was so hard to see what was going on or where you might Yeah. Do something fun. And you can hear things going on at the Magical Bridge, and then there was tons and tons of very well run stage this year. So and a lot of interactive and or guest booth. So it it was just a lot of lot of things to keep you busy and interested if you Good.

You know, knowing that other than the tree lighting, there's just a lot going on for a short for a short event. Short short event. Yeah. Three three. So four hours? Three and

a half hours.

Yeah. It's, like, about three. Yeah. Yeah. So pack a lot in there.

We got through all the Santa visits. So everybody who wanna see Santa got to see Santa by 08:15. That's great.

Yeah. I I I was able to get a picture with Santa.

Yeah. So that's the end of the commissioner report, and we'll take public comment. Jeanette, do you wanna unmute?

Yes. I had a question when you were talking about the Henry Schmidt update, and it sounded like you're just doing the playground area. Is that correct? Or are you working on the building as well?

We are working on the playground, the pathways, the lighting to the tennis court. We'll end up resurfacing the tennis court. There'll be new exercise equipment along the backside where the pathways go and new picnic areas, barbecue areas. There'll be a pavilion. The restrooms will get upgraded in the building. The building where the classes are, though, will not be are untouched by the project. That

big open space where they do the rehearsing for the Nutcracker?

That's The classroom space? Is that is that

the classroom space? Is that Yeah. There's just that one building on the site? Okay. Yes. Gonna suggest I can remember we had to have a class there. I take Kimberly's ballet class, but she meant I mentioned she mentioned not to do any jumping because the floor is not suspended or doesn't give or maybe it's on concrete. And so if you were gonna be redoing the floor, I would gonna recommend, can you do a suspended floor? So, you know, the the kids are jumping, right, during the rehearsals, leaps, all kinds of, you know, leaping. So we don't want anybody hurting their knees or their hips or I know I got Achilles tendonitis from a Jazzercise class at the Sunnyvale Community Center.

Took me three years to recuperate from from a jazzercise class, Achilles tendonitis. And, so I'm kinda sensitive to that in terms of jumping, making sure that the floors are, you know, okay to jump on.

So I just throw

that out just as something to consider,

you know, if you ever if

you ever redo that floor and or even add a secondary building, as I mentioned before, that it would have been nice to have another space where we could take the kids that you know, since there's three different casts, just an alternative place to help them with some of the technique.

Yeah. I think we're lucky to have the Henry Schmidt Building for ballet. It used to be that the Nutcracker rehearsals were all in the CRC. And so miss Linea would have one room, and miss Kimberly would have one room with all of the kids. So it's been an improvement. So I think I think there's more room more room for improvement, but I think it's come a long way, the program.

Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thank you.

K. Our meeting is now coming to an end. I wanna thank everyone for coming to tonight's meeting, and thank you, Jeanette, for being our public representation. Can I ask one one additional question?

Sure. Germ a germ

germ So I I pulled up the Warburton Park. Actually, that's kind of in my neighborhood as to where I live. And so I was looking at all of the legend details. And the is the dog station gonna include that little water fountain where you can fill up a bowl of of water for the dog or or fill up water in a in a thermos?

I think maybe these specific questions would be better handled offline. If you wanna email the Parks and Rec customer service, I think we can get back to you with more detail Yeah. About the

You can also call us at any of our facilities, and we'd happy to walk you through that.

Okay.

Alright. Thanks.

Yeah. The email is prcustomerserve@santaclaraca.gov. Got it memorized.

You're good. Good job.

Our next parks and rec commission meeting will be Monday, February 9 at 7PM here in this Varacino Conference Room. Commissioners, do I have a motion to adjourn this meeting?

Adjourn the meeting. Sorry.

Let's take that as a vote. Commissioner Caldwell?

Yes.

Chair Chu? Yes. Commissioner DeMarco? Aye. Commissioner Forte?

Yes.

Vice chair Gupta?

Yes.

And commissioner Souza?

Yes.

The motion passes. If there there's no objection, so we'll now adjourn this meeting at 07:59.

One more minute could have been started at seven and then.

Oh, thank you, everyone, and that was a fifty nine minute meeting.

Yeah. And

thank you for supporting me from this remote location. You guys have a wonderful evening.

Alright. Same. You have great

day out there, Vesans. Yeah.

Thank thank

you, Safra.

I'm not participating.