Cultural Commission - Regular Meeting

That

was the key phrase we were waiting for. Hey.

Welcome to the Parks and Recreation Commission meeting. I will now call to order the Parks and Rec Commission meeting of 03/09/2026 at 07:02. We'll do roll call. Commissioner Caldwell?

Here.

Chair Achu, here. Commissioner DeMarco? Here. Commissioner Forte? He's not here, but he sent a email. He's coming twenty minutes late. Yeah. Commission vice chair Gupta?

Here.

Commissioner Sousa?

Here.

Do we since commissioner Forte will be late, is there a motion to excuse him from the meeting?

So moved. Move to excuse

him. K. Second.

So had to Ed made the move. And then

He's not actually gonna be absent.

We're acknowledge him when he shows up, but he's missing roll call.

Yeah. Okay.

It was motion to excuse him from roll call or excuse him from the meeting just so we capture it correctly. There's not a reason to excuse him for the meeting. So No problem. Good wait until the end

of the meeting.

And if he doesn't make it, then you could make a motion to excuse him.

Pause it for right now? Pause it.

Okay. Let's do that. Okay.

So we won't vote on that. We'll vote at the end. Okay. So we have one item for the consent calendar. That's item twenty six two six five, and it's the action on the minutes from our January 12 meeting. Is there member it. I move I

move to approve the minutes from the January meeting. Second.

Okay. So we have a motion from commissioner DeMarco and a second from commissioner Caldwell. Let's vote on that. Commissioner Caldwell? Yes. Chair Chu? Yes. Commissioner Damarco? Aye. Vice chair Gupta?

Yes.

Commissioner Sousa?

Yes.

K. The motion passes. We're doing great. Loving through. We'll now move to the public presentation section of our meeting. This part of the meeting is reserved for persons to address the Parks and Recreation Commission on any matter not on the agenda that is in within the subject matter jurisdiction of the commission. The law does not permit action on or 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 subsequent meetings. As a reminder, comments can be emailed to prcustomerserve@santaclaraca.gov. Do we have any members of the public who would like to make a comment?

On agenda item, there is nobody with their hands raised. Hey.

Nobody in the room. K. So hearing none, we'll continue to move on to general business. It's item or item two is 26 dash 93 As the approval of a grant from the Wade Brummel Youth Sports Scholarship Program in the amount of $3,550 to reimburse the Santa Clara Police Activities League for eligible scholarships for the 2025 softball season.

Okay. So we're back. So for those

of

you want a refresher, so Wade Brummel scholarship program was initiated by the commission and approved by council in 2015. They initially started to collect dollars for a non nonresident player of athletes using our athletic facility, so mainly our fields and our pools. The money was has been pulled into a scholarship program. The commission in the past has given out funding to the the youth sports nonprofits. And then back in 2025, the commission initiated a project to rehabilitate the call it rehabilitate, but that's not

just revise the scholarship. Rehabilitate is a that's a that's an okay word.

Revise the program. You'll remember that that that then was approved by council. So in your report is sort of the background of the history of that. You did build in an escalator also. So next fiscal year, that $25 will go up.

Really hasn't changed since 2015, and so that now is, gonna start changing. We have Angelique and Marlin here from our sports team, and Mike Walke representing, the police activities league for this initial item. So the staff initiated, sort of a cycle for applications. During the application the revision period, we redid the application, again, based on the commission's feedback. So you in your packet, one of the attachments is the application with where the actual scholarships are going.

It's also highlighted in your report that it's a total of nine players that received scholarships that were approved, by staff for a total of $3,550. Staffs confirm that the that the players, are residents, and that they are are therefore eligible, and meet the grant criteria. The cap the commission wanted the, funding request over 2,500 to come to them. So staffs or administrative threshold is only 2,500. Anything over that will come to the commission for approval.

We have two awards requests for you your consideration tonight, and you'll see in your report in the financial impact section that the balance of of the fund is just about 60

somebody can probably locate them.

2,000. Yep.

Around 62,000. So Santa Clara Youth soccer has a request next for 42,000, and then police activity leaves, 35,000. So if the commission were to sorry. 3,500

and 4,200? 42,000. So 45,500? Yes.

Thank you. For the request for tonight. There and some change, so don't quote me exactly. I was getting tomorrow.

Yeah. But And we'll just one at a time.

We'll do them one at a time. But just for context, should the commission re approve both of those, there is sufficient funding for both of those, and there will still be a positive balance in the account. Staff reached out to all of the groups. These are the only two applications that were completed, that are before you tonight. The other groups, decided that they were not going to submit anything this cycle. And so then it will be next cycle would be their next opportunity. We put the grant cycle per your request on an annual.

So there a statute of limitations on when you can claim the scholarships, or can they go back? No.

It's within the year.

Okay. Yeah. By when do they have to apply? Can you remind me on that?

Staff? Like, April.

April. April. Every They could still apply for this year This year. A few

2025.

And that will like, if they apply, it'll go it's gonna come out of the 62,000 that's remaining?

So the this upcoming April will be for 2025.

Oh, okay.

This is from the previous year.

I see. The calendar 2021.

Yeah. So we we are working on '24 right now.

'25. '25.

'25. Okay.

'25.

So for '25, they can still apply until April. So if somebody applies between now and April, it's gonna be coming out of the 62,000 remainder balance.

If they applied.

If they applied right now. Right? In the next

I think we had didn't we put a Okay. A minimum balance requirement too on this? Thought that if we got below 15,000

I think we had if it was above a certain level, then we could do non scholarships.

Right.

Right? The the scholarships were prioritized at at a certain if they if non scholarships.

Had a baseline amount too that we had to

stay like a reserve amount.

So it was just prior priority of the scholarship first, and then the second priority being an. There

is item four on the limit of request. If the balance of funds is greater than 50,000 at the end of the fiscal year, the commission may choose to contribute funds towards an activity that would benefit youth sports or consider a request for noncontributing Santa Clara youth sports. So we do have that, but it's yeah. And it's and that just gives us more freedom. It doesn't make us do anything.

And it doesn't make us, like, keep a balance Right.

Or, like,

a range.

I I couldn't remember it.

Balance. But yeah. Yeah. It has been a while.

And we talked about a lot of possibilities in which ones got in.

We did.

Did. And so Mike Walke is available for questions for the police activities league, so his staff. We would welcome your discussion.

I think this one's pretty clear cut. It's a reasonable amount. It's for scholarships.

Can I ask one other question?

Mine, so it's nine.

Nine scholar it's just scholarships, Yeah. Stuff.

Oh,

awesome. Yes. I was like, yeah. Can

I get Another question? So, other than the application that list the amount and the recipients, is there any other paperwork that's required from the organizations? Given that we are talking about, supporting, disadvantaged or low income, is the review or validation of that done by the organizations or by city staff?

Yep. So the review of the qualification of the athlete is done by the organizations.

Okay.

And city's and then the policy has given some guidelines. So if somebody is on free and reduced lunch or they get free loading stamps Mhmm. Services from SVP or they get

a reduced utility program, free and

reduced lunch,

your self-service. Their submission of the application is an attestation that they've done that right before.

Yes. Yes. It's a checks checkbox. We don't double check their work, but I think making more barriers to entry would

Yep.

Not be meaningful. That's okay.

I just wanted to understand Mhmm.

The process. It's not a direct. It's an indirect. Yep. Right. Yeah.

Is there any discussion on the police activities league scholarships request?

What what are we doing first?

It's the

The $3,555,100. Yeah.

I think the soccer one's gonna have more to go, but one at a time.

This is the first review that I've done. I don't know if it's customary to ask, like, what the what the cost go to. I guess the first thing on my mind is why the inconsistent amount per player?

Because some applicants say I can only pay 25%.

I see.

So we'll grant 75% for the scholarship. Some said I can only pay 50%. So they do it right by family.

And this these costs cover what?

Their registrations, their uniforms, they're part of the insurance. Any cost that any child pays, any registration pays. Great.

I'm good. So

do we have

a motion to move to approve the requested scholarship not to the police Activities, please. Second. Mall twenty twenty five season. Second.

Okay. So we have a motion from commissioner DeMarco, a second from vice chair Gupta. Let's vote. Commissioner Caldwell?

Yes.

Chair Chu, yes. Commissioner DeMarco? Aye. Vice chair Gupta?

Yes.

And commissioner Souza?

Yes.

Motion passes. So very good.

Thank you.

Thanks,

Mike. Thank you there, Mike. Yeah.

The next item is item three twenty six one thirty. This is the grant approval of grant with for the Wade Brummel youth sports scholarship in the amount of 42,000 to the Sinclair Youth Soccer League for eligible scholarships for the 2025 season.

Okay. So just so let me speak high level. I think we have the president on the line. Are you with Santa Clara Youth Soccer? RL muted themselves.

That'd more to you.

Yeah. I'll try it.

Yeah. Try it

on the

meeting. That's your plan. That's

what I was wondering.

Yeah. Yeah. We actually think she clicked ask to unmute, and he has to do it. They didn't have to do it.

Alright. So with Santa Clara U Soccer, they have, these are scholarship requests, allocated during the 2025 soccer season. The amount is $42,045 according to the program guidelines. This is under the Parks and Recreation Commission guidelines for review. Santa Clara Youth Soccer is a nonprofit organization founded in 1980 in Santa Clara with approximately approximately 1,505 50 players in three different divisions, and so it is quite a robust league.

This scholarship is for 95 players. In your packet were the players and similar to what we see with the police activities league, the grants are for different levels based on the level of play that they're playing at and whether or not they travel or not, those types of things. So you'll see Santa Clara Lions competitive and Santa Clara rec. So those are the two divisions in the packet there. And, again, staff verified that all of these players are indeed Santa Clara rec residents and recommends that or lets you know that they do meet the guidelines for approval.

And, again, the balance of the of the scholarship program is $62,949, with this allocation. And the other one, there still would be a remaining balance of a little bit over $17,000 in the fund. Our goal is to distribute these funds as much as we can. And then a question for Marlon and Angelique in the room. When was the last time Santa Clara Youth soccer received funding from the Wade Brummel Foundation?

Last

year. So in 2024.

And how much was that?

Was amount.

Just in case. Yeah.

Dispersed money even when we were doing a revamp of the criteria?

Yeah. We had a had

a pretty big surplus. I mean All

of them.

It's all of them. Yeah.

I know. I don't I was like, we haven't had soccer in a long time. Oh, last year.

Okay. So the amounts are split. So it's 2,004 forty seven hundred and eighty three fifty. What?

Get back. Sorry. It's such

Multiple multiple reimbursements. Yeah.

And

What was the last number?

Like, 8,500. 350.

So we all acknowledge commissioner Forte is here, so we don't need to excuse him.

15 to $16?

No excuse. I wanna say.

Have a question. In the packet, it's is the soccer scholarships this list without a header? Was this spring?

She's That's their roster.

Oh, that's their roster.

Their roster.

Because there's some addresses here that are San Jose, and the school is not Santa Clara Unified.

It's just the resident roster. It or it's just the roster. It's not the roster that received it. So these these this is the oh, so this one has Saint Clair's school.

Yeah. There's one that was Trace. But I'm looking I might be looking at the wrong thing.

Granada Islamic School is in Santa Clara, McDonald High School, Scotland Elementary School. Do you know what page that is?

No. I'm on a

42. Got it. So The interesting thing I mean, it's just a observation. This this address says Alwyse, but they go to Scotland.

Go to Scotland. Because it's a language immersion program. Oh.

So even the Santa Clara Unified.

Yeah. Because they would have been George, Maine, but they can open enroll into Scotland.

The other way we were districting for Scotland, and we opened enrolled in hours.

Yeah. So we're available for questions. I don't see a representative from the league on the line. I'm sorry

to see.

What I'm seeing in the, so I went to the hyperlinked item for this request, and I opened the third attachment, which was the application file. And that application file, the the roster only sums to, like, 59 folks. And you said that there were 95, awardees, I think, at one point. And I'm just wondering players.

Yeah. There's 59 on the

59 players. Sorry. If I Perfect. Did I

You said 95.

95. It's 50. Sorry. It's a little dyslexic moment. I apologize.

How many how many kids are in the soccer program?

1,500, five 50. 1,500.

I'm sure.

Which is

three, the.

Like, hard to get the scale.

You

know? Like, they're asking for a lot of money, but there's a lot of scale,

and they contribute. How much did they contribute? Oh, that's a good good question. Yeah.

The last year, Angelique. Because there's a lot of non Santa Clara

percent of their total.

Because Santa Clara soccer is the premier regional soccer. My price is know? Best.

$22,000.

They contributed how much?

$22,000. In one year. That's correct.

I heard is there. Perfect. I heard you say you were summing the values from last year's request and that you got to around 14 k? Yes. Is the, like, three x increase because of something that we know about, or is it just random fluctuation in year to year applications?

They that's around the average that they have. I think since COVID, the number just has been going up, and the number of participants in their program have been going up.

The average is 42, or the average was 14, and this is three times bigger?

Did you hear Oh, college college college Yeah.

Question for the seventh grade.

So

Yeah. We don't we don't you're not aware of the increase?

Prior to 2024, they never requested any money. It wasn't until we started really reaching out I see. That they started

So last year was the first year.

Yeah. I see. And they paid in for every year.

Yeah. Since 2015.

That is true for all organizations. They weren't really out. Like, they were paying, but There was asking.

Campaign, not everybody has has requested.

Well, yes, some have been requesting a little here and there. Soccer didn't request anything. Mhmm. Correct.

One, I I don't even know if it needs mentioning. Like, it's it's really a nitpick there. I looked up their principal address on the secretary of state website, and it shows San Jose. Their correspondence address is a PO box in Santa Clara.

Yeah. They play on Santa Clara Fields. I know. Yeah. And

It's obviously a big organization. I've been in Santa Clara for a long time. I don't know why their principal address is San Jose. I would like to see it to be Santa Clara.

I'm torn. I feel like, you know

It be be because that's a league where a league representative lives

or

something.

Box that they rent. But I'm torn because, you know, they haven't been requesting money. We have available balance. Seems reasonable. But their total exceeds what they're paying in on a year basis, so this can't be sustainable.

Right? Right. Also, I would have really liked for them to be you know, it's it's a big ask. I would have really liked them to be present. You know, Mike is here. Thank you, Mike. And I would like them or at least be online to answer questions or or just to Yeah. I mean the conversation.

The one thing to note for the commission is it is an ask or a request. However, it's at the commission's discretion to either award full, partial based on any number of decision points that you decide as a commission are valid, whether it's total paid in, whether it's, you know, other groups that haven't requested yet. And then if you were to come up with an alternative percentage, is it half? Is it 75% of their ask or what have you? All of these things are at the discretion of the commission.

We've awarded large amounts before. It's part of it was because we had such a large balance, and we were told we needed to get the balance down. Right. So we did take some stuff, some larger grants than we normally would have. I have a couple, you know, I have a couple questions, and I don't know if there's no one here to answer them. There's when I look at this list of scholarships per player, I see, like, two at $4.25 and three at 500, and and then you get down here to 17 and 1,000 apiece. I I'm curious as to why there's that variation. Is that ability to pay? And that's

You should also travel and rec. There's a big difference.

Yeah. They they

all say competitive. So that's what I don't that that's why I'm asking that question. My other question is, I'm also the president of Stand Up for Santa Clara. The Santa Clara soccer league has donated money to the to Stand Up for Santa Clara. Do I have a conflict?

I guess.

Do I need to recuse myself from the vote?

Well, are they are you soliciting, or do they who else who else donates to stand up?

There's other there's other other groups that have done it. So I just I just wanna make sure that I don't vote on something I may have a conflict on.

Then I can ask the amount of donation. The

pet as much as $10,000. Yeah. I know. Not repetitive. It's not an incentive. Yeah. It's not yeah.

It's it's up to you too. I mean, you

Can we advocate

It's not for your personal gain. It's not like

what's gonna No.

It's not. I just wanna make sure I don't have a conflict. That's why I'm asking the question.

Well, that would have been

are you on the board?

No.

And you're not, like, with any staff capacity just

because benefit from any donations in an organization. That's

And no one's talked to you?

So Nope.

And then the other thing I will say is if if for some reason the commission decides to, you can always ask or request that staff bring this item back next month with a list of questions that we can both either answer for you and or speak with the club to get some further information to help round out your decision making points. And between now and that next meeting, there may be additional requests that come in that could also paint a different light on it. But that's all these things are opportunities for you as a commission to, like, think on and or avail yourselves to more information to better inform your decision.

It's a no brainer to approve up to how much they pay in for the year because I feel like

I don't think they showed up. I'm not sure of that either. Because what I was about to say is that in a perfect world, now that I've lived through this a little bit more, it'd be really nice to have all the requests at the same time so that if we ever exceeded the total balance, we could make a an informed decision about how we allocate unlimited resource. And we're not in that situation now.

Yeah. That's the that that's the perfect world in which we design the system. That's not always how Sure.

Nonprofit sports groups work. I mean, I'm

just curious. Like, if you want money

Apply. That.

Apply, and and then we'll we'll look at it all together and then back and on a balance, allocate out.

The other thing I I take your point about being able to, on the fly and at our discretion, consider other things like paid in amount. What I'm hesitant to do is, yes, it makes sense not to exceed sometimes somewhat what pay what they paid in unless we start considering, like, what services they're offering to the community and and The photos. All these all these kids are deserving. And if we have a positive balance, yeah, maybe we would exceed the balance.

Yeah. So well, I think we could approve tonight up to the how much they paid in, and then have a list of questions and ask them to come back and talk about why they needed the additional 20,000.

I would rather they come in and answer all the questions, and then we make a determination to what amount we approve. You know, for example, I have questions now that you mentioned. They have donated to this particular organization. Have they made donations to other organizations? So if they have the money, then maybe this money can be used for some other does it you know, I don't know. If somebody's gonna come in between now and April.

But it also feels like these scholarships have already been granted, so they're out of pocket.

But that that was the other question I was I was wondering about. So do what do they do? Right? Like because they have to run their operation. So do they dip into their reserves and and that's how they fund the athletes? And they're kind of backfilling

their reserves? This and they don't count on they don't count.

They don't count on this?

So how do they That wouldn't be prudent. This is just a backfill. Okay. And that's the other thing too is they're giving out more money.

This is just what they've applied?

This is just what they're applying for here.

Okay.

They have nonresidents that they could scholarship. And remember, the other reason why it outstrips their request outstrips their input is their inputs are capped based on what the per player amount is set by the scholarship.

Oh, that's true.

So the scholarship says we only want $40.45 bucks, and it's gonna go up to $50 or so. Right? So the city doesn't say pay $500 per Yeah. Nonresident to help offset their resident scholarships. That's not how it's weighted.

I

think it's going up from 25 to 35.

Yeah. It it I think it's gonna cap out at 45 or 50.

Yeah. But then in comparison But it'll never thousand dollars for a scholarship?

We want the groups to give more than $50 out in scholarships per kid, and that's what they're doing. So what they're trying oh, another way of looking at this is they're giving out more money than they could ever expect to

get back.

Yeah. But from from the fiscal sustainability of the grant, we wanna make sure we're getting in what equal to what we're doing. So there's a balance. Right. We don't wanna give out more than we're getting in because then we're gonna be in trouble quickly.

All these are good points. Well, yeah.

My I think my driving point is that if we have concerns about the application process, the waiting that we would do to make a decision, whether it's having a representative here, whether it's having information in the application that current doesn't currently doesn't exist, we missed the boat for this application window. And I would assert we should grant this now. And if we wanna make changes to how we assess applications in the future, we make those changes. We're trying to hold them accountable to something that we have not put in right now, I would assert. And we have the money. Could be different if we didn't have the money. We have the money. I I am prepared to make a motion to just grant it because what else is the money gonna do? Right? It's just gonna keep building.

We have three options. We could grant the full amount, grant up to what they paid in, or postpone the

I would defer to next meeting.

If Cherry motion on the table.

I was prepared to motion it. Oh, okay. Savannah, to be super pedantic.

I see.

This is almost the same conversation we had a couple years ago.

Yeah. Fine.

That was a big old ask. Same thing.

Yes.

That was like a bigger ask.

And 60?

And we deferred it till the next, I think, meeting. And Right.

We wanted some clarification on something

But that was also before we had the new rules. I also wanna be we want people to submit, and we don't wanna just keep moving the goalpost because Right. There should be some certainty. They might not count on it, but they we want them to jump through hoops, and then we reward them. We've told them

the rules of the game. They've submitted per the rules of the game. We have the money. It seems like they've been vetted. I would say we grant it. And then if we want to change the rules of the game, we get to do that. Right?

We're in Right. And the other organizations have equal opportunity to submit, and they have not. Right.

But are we really changing the rules of the game?

I think we're just asking legitimate questions.

We're not changing them, but we're adding rules for sure. I mean,

if we're saying that we're not gonna grant a request over some certain dollar amount if your representative isn't in the room, that is a significant change to the process.

I mean, I would I I would have hoped that a representative would have been here for that kind of money. I mean, there's you know?

An invite for not

Invite to here for significantly less.

They were invited. Right?

Three times.

Yeah. So so one thing you can do if the if the motion comes is to you can you can always craft the motion to be approved this year with the caveat that on a go forward, we cap the approval of up to a maximum of what they put in. That could be any number, or we revisit a cap because there's no cap right now. Mhmm. Right.

We we did not most of the things we put in place were around if we had if we had overage or what are some additional things besides because not everybody was availing themselves to it. So people were like, look. I need new dugouts, or I need new pitchers' mounds, or I need equipment for swimming. So we we that was something else the commission voted on and brought forward to council for all those approvals. So if what you also think based on a couple of large requests is or and it doesn't even have to be a dollar amount.

It could be like no one group will get more than 50% of the total funds available or 25. You could do any number so it's not a dollar. Yeah. Maybe maybe one year we have a 100, maybe one year we have 50,000. And then that way then you're like, wait a second. The the we have it a hard dollar. You know? So it's

It's like you do this

for a living. I I yeah. I know. It's so it could be a sliding scale based on a percentage of total funds available. Right.

Of the things because the we're going on one year of just this whole new process, not just the way Bravo, but with how we're just doing all of the youth sports in general. So there are things that we have noticed over the year that we're like, oh, we should probably tweak that. So this conversation is part of that. So we did want to go back out to the youth groups and have another community meeting with them all to discuss some of the,

I don't wanna

say inconsistencies, but the things that we have found are little flukes.

We have a whole extra year of wisdom.

Right. And and then Use it. Those that suggestion of, you know, the qualifying amounts or having a cap or whatever it is. So it is something that is on our mind.

And I think a cap was discussed, but there was no good number.

Right.

How do you just

And I I think I think also, you know, going back to you know, we've told to spend the money to grant the money, which we have

no problem for.

And and it's what it's there for. So if they had you know, and and like and like Damon said, if we had multiple people applying and and couldn't grant everybody, we would have to narrow those down and go, well, we can do this, this, and this. Well, in this case, we can do this. We've done it before. So

so maybe I maybe I wasn't clear when I said the have all the applications. If we're taking if we take applications through a certain date in April, then my meaning was that we would review all of the applications at the same time. That even though we have the police activity leagues application, even though we have the soccer leagues application, that we would wait until and then we'd be able and then we'd be able to say, no one app up applicant will get more than the percentage of the total funds divided by the number of total applicants. Right?

And there's also a Truly small. First come birth therapy.

Deadline for submittal.

We Those were last year's.

I wanna say

it was April 15.

This was last year's 2025.

This application was 05/2325.

Yeah. So this it was last April.

At this receipt date.

Yeah. So Oh,

so this we're talking about an application that was submitted last April. Yes. Okay.

Ten months.

Yeah. So we're not running up to get we're not doing it before this

year's deadline. No. So technically speaking, we could be getting them for next year by April 15. Right. Remind All of 2025.

Send out a reminder April 1 for

There's another month.

I mean, yeah, that one sat or I can't say sat. A lot of back and forth that went on Checkings. One. And yeah.

Should I

Is this 24 numbers? Are these These are 24 players. These are 24. It's a 24 scholarship submitted in April '20

Just curious. Why did it take so long to come to us?

Because it was not

We had

to work.

Had yeah.

It was not

that we requested, and it's

this is $2,000 request is a year or So here's the thing. When when do people pay into it?

July. They start getting we they get their so April's the request that come in. Rosters are too at

that time as well. I do all the double checking, send out their invoice.

So we start receiving money anywhere between May and July, sometime all the way up to September, October, depending on when they

yeah. And that new cash will fund the twenty twenty sixth. Yeah. So there's no reason to deny this. Well,

we've gotten all the

So it's it's just getting more and more complicated. Yeah. Now you're telling me that this is a stale request, that they failed to they failed to submit the applications correctly on time.

This happened on the On time, they got

stuff wrapped.

April, dial 9. It took us time to work back.

It had to wash it. It had to get washed.

But that means it wasn't submitted correctly.

Correctly. But

Yeah. But I think we have to be

a little bit forgiving because So

we were also in process.

So Yeah. It's

the new process.

We were Yeah. We were working on the new process.

So the but it does help answer the question, which is

Will there be more requests?

There gonna be more requests?

There's gonna

be new money. There's there's not any new 24 requests. That is what we're here Is is the Powell the 24 request? Yes. So we're tonight, we're considering 24 requests.

What twenty twenty five requests are gonna come in before April 15?

25. 25

requests, but for 24 play.

Yep.

For 24. No. No. His is 25 requests.

Twenty five twenty five early.

That's because He's on time. Powell's on time.

Yeah. Powell submits everything. Gold star, and did you get all the money?

Yes. Any idea of what what other organizations pay into the Wade Brummel

account? She has a roster over there. There's only a handful.

I know Pal just paid our Wade Brummel fund. Right. It was just shy of 3 or 4,000. I forgot off the top my head because we paid our permit fees for softball, for soccer, everything at once. In total, we submitted right around $1,213,000 dollars to the city for

For everything. Our Houston cheese.

Gotcha. We brumble everything.

Okay.

So for 2025, we collected amongst all the groups about $20,000.

Okay.

That was between

Powell, the

New Soccer.

Soccer. We have Westside Little League, Santa Clara Rush, North Valley Baptist, St. Justin's, and then new this year, we'll have Saint Clair's. So they don't have significant amounts. The significant amounts come from Rush, Don Perry's soccer. And

you said how how much did they pay in? 20?

Altogether, all those groups was 20. Just over

And what was soccer's then? I thought soccer was about 20.

Do you know what and then my last question is do you have with you the records on what our 2024 balance was?

I think I could plot that now that I over there. So 2024, we collected from everybody 21,000. The year before that, 2023 was 31,000.

So there's some carryover.

That also included 2023 included swim. So

Okay.

Take out about 10, and then the last two years have been about 20,000.

Is swim not not in anymore?

There's no

place if it's the pool.

You're not using the pool? Yep.

I hear what you say about a new form. To have two separate calendar years being under consideration at the same time is a significant difference for a significant request that would have been arguably almost the entire balance at the time. And so

It it's double one.

You just wanna make sure you have as much information as possible to make it an informed decision. But makes it complicated. Yeah. Yeah. We're gonna catch up eventually. Yeah. Like, after I think after this round

Mhmm.

It should true up a little bit.

Does that mean that we're gonna get a request from this same organization in, say, two months that, oh, we had submitted a request for the 25?

And it could be for a big amount.

And you screwed it up. And And it could be for a

big amount again, and we won't have that much amount. And then the next time we go to do this so you either do it now, do it then, but there'll be a point in time when if if for the last three years, we've gotten between 20 and 25,000 paid in Yeah. And they're asking for 40 something, eventually, it's gonna it'll cap. So

But I think we should tell them that this is a big amount and isn't likely to be approved next year in case the Well,

it won't be possible to approve it next year.

We won't have the money.

We won't have the money. I think I don't I think based on the rules that have been negotiated and agreed on, we should approve it. But now we know better and can work on clarifying.

And we're still working down the balance that we had carrying forward. Right? So that's another reason that we've been able to

And we're trying to get people to submit scholarships. So denying it would be the opposite of what our objective has been. Yeah.

Right. I know that we've been the amount requested to the organization with an eye toward I mean, we don't I can't even frame this additional a dime because I don't know what to expect.

How about we instruct staff to revisit a cap of some sort to to better I feel like the

So the cap's gonna be generated by the funds available. Yeah. Right?

We could we could. Let's take it separate. So I would recommend you take it separate. And then when we get if you want to future agendaize it, we can talk about it at the end of the meeting. Yeah. Like, if you discussion date. Yeah. Discussion on Wade, but Bramil Got it.

Yeah. I like that. Because making policy changes on a single agenda item

Yeah. Can create. And we can also, in that case, invite some of the groups back

Yeah.

To Talk. To really pay in and to They're really air the discussion and to see what some more and then we can also bring back additional points, which is doing our carrying the fund like a like a fund balance or an encumbrance. Like, we had the 40,000 ask last year. We could have encumbered off of last year's and not carried over knowing that we were working with the group. So there's different ways we could do our own accounting to help with those things also. And also things like a cap, and it should have be a percentage or a dollar amount. And

So

I know

that we're gonna talk about it another time, but it's gonna really be important to me that, yes, I understand we want to give some grace to people that are nonprofits. I've advocated and been a part of nonprofits before. We need to follow the rules. There needs to be some kind of penalty to the amount that could be obtained for late or incorrect submissions because it does impact future submissions. Right? This is a for those down. 24 requests. If we grant it, which it seems I don't know. My inclination is to, and then we get a request for the twenty five year in three weeks, there will be fewer funds to award that potential group.

Mhmm. And they're gonna

be criminalized potentially because of this other group's late or incorrect.

Yeah. But I think the process was so great to revisit it, and I think they we need to go

back and work with the groups to Absolutely.

But I just wanna make

sure that we're capturing some of that idea because I I just I want

We'll add that to the end of the agenda to discuss policy changes for future items. But we're right now, there's a motion on the table to approve the grant for the 42,000 for the soccer league.

So so so you know, I'm just inclined to do it and defer it to next meeting. You know? Mike is here for a 3,500 request, and somebody who submitted 42,000 isn't here to answer all of these questions that

we have.

That is valid, but there's a motion. Second. And I hear a second.

So there'll a vote. There's a motion. Yep. So there's There's a motion.

I move to approve the request.

No.

And there's so motion by commissioner DeMarco, seconded by commissioner Caldwell that goes to vote. Commissioner Caldwell?

Yes.

Vice chair Chu, yes. Commissioner DeMarco? Commissioner Forte?

Since I missed part of the first part of the the discussion on your presentation, I will go ahead and abstain.

K. Commissioner vice chair Gupta?

Abstain. And commissioner Souza?

Yes.

That's the

the motion carries.

Do have a a typo correction, before this transmittal goes to the council in the discussion section Yeah. The grant amount is listed as 42,405 instead of the

$0.04

after tax. $2,000.45. 5. Yeah. So I just

Transpose the digits.

Yeah. It just needs

to Okay.

Perfect. Yep. Just be Last paragraph. Okay.

Corrected before it goes to the council. Yeah.

You see that. Okay.

So we'll add additional discussion of policy and changes we'd like to see at the end of our long meeting. And we're good. We're moving forward. Then

Wait. We're we could add it for the future. We can't discuss it today because it's not agenda. Right.

We'll discuss adding it to the agenda for a future meeting. Sorry. Yes. We'll discuss it specifically for agenda I.

A.

Okay. Item four, twenty six two one six. This is a review and recommendation of the parks and rec master plan for the city of Santa Clara for for the city council adoption. I'd like to thank the consultants who are online for their patience as we discuss detailed park visits. Allow them to

to talk.

Promote to panelists to panelists. Yeah. And Madison. K. Madison and Peter, hopefully, you can get into the meeting, and you should be able to share your screens at this time.

Can you control, Madison and Peter, your audio? Okay. Awesome. Thank you. Olivia, this should be able to share screen at this point too.

Wait a minute.

Let me go ahead and share.

Oh, this is Welcome.

We can hear you too.

Great.

Have a

nice day.

Thank you.

Thanks. Alright.

Jump in. Have a great time.

Yeah. That will be fine.

Guys.

Okay. Are we good?

Good. We're good.

Great. Well, thank you all for having us here today. It's good to see you all virtually again. It's been almost a year since we were here last, so it's good to be back. I'm Madison Merrill, and I'm joined by Peter Winch, and we're with WRT.

There.

And today, we are going to present the draft Santa Clara Parks And Recreation master plan. So we're gonna walk through the highlights, but please refer to the plan document for additional details. Alright. So just a little framing for how the Parks and Recs Commission fits in this process. The purpose of the presentation today is for the commission to review the proposed standards and long term goals in the master plan, consider whether the plan appropriately reflects community priorities and needs, and consider adopting a resolution recommending that the city council approves the plan.

So the plan has five chapters. The first is introduction and executive summary. This introduces the plan's purpose, the planning process, and the plan's key ideas. The second chapter, Santa Clara Today, summarizes key city characteristics and introduces the city's parks and recreation system. Chapter three, vision and priorities, details the community engagement process and findings.

Chapter four, goals, objectives, and recommendations, details the recommendations that are based on those vision and priorities of chapter three. And then chapter five is all about implementation. So chapter by chapter here, chapter one, introduction and executive summary. So first, why a parks and recreation master plan? It's really an opportunity for the city to take a step back and think about the long term vision for the parks and recreation system.

It's meant to be a tool to be able to step back and understand community need first off and then set priorities for the system based on the need and then directing funding resources to those priorities. So a little overview of the planning process. We started in 2023 in the fall and really kicked off with a lot of data collection and analysis. We looked at the system system wide, through mapping and looking at the distribution of parks and recreation facilities. We also visited individual, parks and open spaces and facilities to assess their functionality.

And then following that, we also launched a comprehensive engagement process, which I'll talk a bit more about, but we engaged over 1,800 people, which is great. And then based on all that information, we drafted draft recommendations and presented them to you all and the council and the community through a community workshop and then refined them, and then that has now transitioned to the draft plan, which is where we are today. So chapter two, Santa Clara today. Mhmm. So understanding the city's demographics is important to ensure that the parks and rec system not only serves the city's existing population, but also its future population.

Santa Clara's population is expected to grow from a 133,000 in 2023, which is when we started this process, to a 155,000 as estimated in the city's general plan. So they'll need to be proactive planning to ensure that we accommodate that growth. The population is also aging modestly and growing more diverse over time, so it's important to, you know, incorporate those characteristics as we plan for investments in the parks and recreation system, and the plan aims to do this. So Santa Clara has 308 acres of parkland, five major indoor community centers, three significant regional trail corridors, along with a host of many smaller recreation amenities spread throughout its parks and open spaces. This includes sports fields on courts, picnic areas, swimming pools, reservable park buildings, and more.

So chapter three, vision and priorities, again, all about community engagement. So we began the process with five pop up events. This included a a booth set up at Concert in the Park, Art and Wine Festival, Northside Library and Primmers Shopping Center, Parade of Champions. And then we also had a online survey that went along with the pop ups, and we got 300 responses there. Then in November 2024, we had a statistically valid survey that went out to a random sample of households, and we received 342 completed surveys.

We also had five focus groups, with representatives from sports and athletics, key community organizations, senior advocates, city planning and development representatives, and other specialized users. And then lastly, we had a community workshop and survey after recommendations were developed. We had 30 people attend the workshop, and the online survey had over 800 responses. So just a few key results from the engagement process. This is the priority investment ratings from the statistically valid survey.

So the survey asked residents to rate the level of need and importance for key recreation amenities and programs. So combining these two factors, level of a need and level of importance, gives the city a good insight as to what should probably be prioritized. So these charts here show the top five results. The full charts are in the plan, but you can see that the top five priorities for facilities and amenities are multiuse trails, swimming pool, open space and conservation areas, picnic areas and shelters, indoor walking and jogging track. And then for programs and activities, it's fitness and wellness programs, outdoor recreation, water fitness programs, lap swimming, community special events, and swim lessons.

Oh, something's bugging. Sorry. Let me go bored. Not sure how that happened. Okay. Oh, okay. Pixar going crazy. Okay. Hopefully, we're here. Okay.

So based on all the engagement inputs, the pop ups, the focus groups, and the multiple surveys, these were the key themes that emerged. So paths and trails are very important to the community, and this includes walking loops and parks and, a connected trail system throughout the community. Maintenance and aging infrastructure came up repeatedly. There's a need for funding for maintenance and life cycle improvements. Aquatics are is super important to Santa Clara, including facilities and also programs.

Other programming priorities as mentioned on the previous side, fitness and wellness, outdoor recreation, among some others. There's also a need for indoor recreation facilities, including an indoor track, a community center, and indoor gymnasium with basketball courts and indoor volleyball courts. Sports courts also came up repeatedly, particularly courts that are multi multiuse and accommodate pickleball. Open space and conservation areas are important. And, you know, it's not all about the developed parkland, but people also crave the, you know, more natural experiences as well.

Park comfort and interest in well well maintained restrooms, trees, shade, seating, and picnic areas. And finally, community events, are key to Santa Clara as well. People wanna see them improved and continue into the future. With that, I'll hand it over to Peter.

Thank you, Madison, and thank you, Commission. It's good to be back, and really nice to be at this point in the process and looking forward to getting your your feedback. So chapter four is goals, objectives, and recommendations. This is where we transition from understanding community needs through the lens of our technical analysis and our engagement with the community and into making recommendations that will be durable and sustainable for the department and the city in the years ahead. The goals, this is sort of the the main organization of this chapter.

They are very much echoing the themes that Madison just read, but they're organized a little bit differently. These are organized to address each of the subject each sort of subject matter that the parks and recreation department, needs to address. So we start with start with goals for the the sort of categories of physical, places, that that, that comprise our recreation system. So there's a goal around providing parkland that's adequate and meets the recreational needs of the community, a goal around indoor recreation facilities, recognizing the importance of those, and we'll get into that in a little bit more detail, a goal that focuses on aquatics, and a goal that focuses on paths and trails, those being the four main physical components of the park system. Then the fifth goal talks about environmental resiliency, and this recognizes the fact that these physical places have the opportunity to provide multiple co benefits clearly for recreation, but also for habitat, for urban heat reduction, for water quality, and other other other ways that that the land, functions for us.

The sixth and seventh goals relate to aspects of park department operations starting with maintenance and then finally programming and events. Gonna go into a little bit more detail about certain aspects of the policy structure in this document, starting with park access. We talked a bit about the the amount of parkland and all the amenities that Santa Clara has, but haven't yet so much talked about access and distribution of parks. And you can see in this diagram that we what we did is we mapped walking distance from the from the existing parks in Santa Clara, and that that walk shed map, ten minute walk, is represented by the blue sort of bulbous blue area on this map. And you can see that most of the residential neighborhoods in Santa Clara, which are depicted in in sort of a yellow undertone, are within a ten minute walk of a park, and that's great.

And that's really good. We see that across the country as being kind of a standard that people are looking to. You also see areas of the city that are not within a ten minute walk today. Some of those are much of that area is kind of the employment belt, along 101, and and kind of North of the Caltrain, tracks. But there are also areas of older Santa Clara neighborhoods that are right now out of a ten minute outside of a ten minute walk of a park, and that's something we wanna pay attention to.

The gold colored circles on this diagram represent walk sheds for future parks. Those are planned parks. Those are already included in master plans or specific plans. So we see those as being sort of having a higher likelihood of actually being realized during the planning period. And you can see how those gold circles start to fill access gaps, particularly on the North Side as the North Side Of Santa Clara slowly, but surely transitions, from a more low density employment oriented landscape to a more urban mixed use environment.

Even beyond those gold circles, there still remain access gaps, and that's where we've put that's where we've mapped these purple circles. And those are representing key points where you should consider, either adding a new park or focusing joint use agreement capital, on those areas to try to fill access gaps. The acreage level of service, a very traditional measure of understanding, how well residents are being served by Parkland, but by no means that only are the most important measure. This is simply about acreage. But currently, Santa Clara has 2.3 acres of Parkland per thousand residents.

That's a little bit lower than neighboring communities in general, a little bit on the low side. And the general plan sets an aspirational goal for this process to consider going to a three acres per thousand standard. And that is in fact what we are recommending aspirationally as part of this process. And if we do adopt this three acre per thousand standard, that would, taking into account the planned park land and the plan and the and the projected population growth between now and 2035, we would see an 86 acre a need for an additional 86 acres of park land to meet that standard. And we think that's achievable through a combination probably of Free.

Using existing And to a certain extent, developing new parks and some combination of those of those of those approaches. We also, in this plan, looked at level of service by amenity, not for every single amenity that might exist in a park, but for kind of the key ones here. And you can see a lot of these The top of the list, these are more recreational or sports amenities. And then as you get down toward the bottom of this list, it's more passive use or community kind of uses of parks. The table, I think, is really helpful.

I'm not gonna go into it in super detail because we don't wanna be here all night, but it shows our process of understanding the existing city of inventory, the current level of service, what's typical nationally in communities the size of Santa Clara, what we learned from the survey, from the statistically valid survey in terms of priority investment by amenity type. And from that, we derived a recommended service standard for each of these. And then from that, looking at translating that through projected population growth and existing, and planned inventory, we came up with additional amenities that would be needed by 2035. And I think suffice it to say, the combination of school sites that particularly have a a wealth of sports facilities and opportunities for either reprogramming space in existing parks or potentially bringing online new parks, we can absorb these additional amenities by 2035. The plan, takes the park typology or park classification system that Santa Clara has been using and and which which comes to us through the general plan and other other documentation.

We've made some adjustments to that to better reflect the park system and its its individuality in Santa Clara. I think, notably, we added a category for destination parks, which is a little higher level in community parks that would that would be that would be Central Park, and that would be a future North North Park on the on the North Side of the city. And for each of these types of parks, we identify typical acreage ranges, so size size in a range, not as an absolute. A typical amount of time that a community member would be expected to be, let's say, occupied at that site, and then amenities that we would expect to be at at each of those parks. And we recognize as we put together these standards that there will be exceptions that, particularly among the older parks in the city, some of them are not gonna meet all of these they're not gonna check all these boxes perfectly.