Cultural Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Today is Monday, July 13th, 2026. This is the regular meeting of the Parks and Recreation Commission. This is a hybrid meeting and the meeting will be recorded. The Zoom application will notify you that this meeting is being recorded upon your entry. Please press continue on the Zoom application to stay in the meeting. Use the raise your hand feature in Zoom when you would like to speak on an item and to also lower your hand when you're finished speaking. Please unmute yourself when called upon to speak and mute yourself when you are done speaking. If you're calling in by phone, identify yourself by name before speaking on an item. You may press star nine on your phone to raise and lower your hand and press star six if you are participating by phone to unmute yourself. My name is Derek DeMarco and I'm the vice chair for the Parks and Recreation Commission. I'm serving as the facilitator of this meeting in our chair's remote participation from India as noted on the agenda. Welcome to the Parks and Recreation Commission meeting. I now call to order a meeting of July 13, 2026, and it is 7.02. As I just mentioned, Chair Gupta has provided advance notice of remote participation, and he is attending the meeting remotely from India, as noted on the agenda. Let's take roll. Commissioner Caldwell? Here. Commissioner Chiu? Here. Commissioner DeMarco is here. Commissioner Forte?

Here.

Commissioner Ganesh? Here. Welcome to your first meeting of the Parks and Recreation Commission. Chair Gupta? Here. Yeah, you are. And Commissioner Souza? Here. So we've taken roll. Thanks everybody for your attendance tonight. I wanted to take just a brief moment to do some introductions. So our newest commissioner feels at home. I will start and then we'll go around the room and allow everyone to give an introduction of themselves before we get into our newest commissioner. As I mentioned, my name is Derek. I use he, him pronouns. I currently work at UC Berkeley. I've been on the commission for, this is my third year. So I finished two years. I've got two kids that use the parks all the time and it seemed like a good way to get involved and kind of help their interests.

I'm Commissioner Chu. I also have two kids who use the parks all the time. I'm an environmental engineer in my day job. And I've been on the commission for, this is beginning my second term. So I just finished one term.

I was lead forte. This is my seventh year on Parks and Recreation. Before that, I was on the Cultural Commission for a bunch of years. My other life, previously software engineer, hardware engineer. I part-time acting stunts. I teach fitness classes. I'm known for kickboxing. All the things in life, I'm known as the kickboxing guy.

I would say that I know Eversley is the first, the top of whatever new park we cut the ribbon for.

Okay. We got to go train. We got to go jump. We'll race you. Parkour. Parkour.

I'm up.

I'm really challenging. Okay. All right, then. Next week, the 26th Sunday, Parkour Day.

All right.

I'm Ed Souza. Call me Ed. And I've been on the commission one year. And I really enjoy this group of people. Welcome.

I'm Dana Caldwell. This is my fifth year on the commission in my first full term. I live over across the street from Maywood Park off Prune Ridge. And I'm the service and parts director at Stevens Creek Hyundai. Also varsity basketball coach at Cupertino High School. And I have three daughters that are all grown and no longer use our parks because they don't live in Santa Clara.

But they do.

No, they go, they take their grandkids to the park across the street. So, yeah.

Vikas, you want to give yourself an introduction before we turn the floor over to our newest friend?

Yes. My name is Vikas Gupta. I live pretty close to where Dana lives, close to Maywood Park and the, whatever that other park is called, I forgot, which is now a cricket field. My day job is tending to my family, spend a lot of time with them. And I also involve myself with the community. As the rest of the commission members know, I have a deep connection to aquatics in the city. My son swims comparatively and at the national level. My daughter is, so my son is a freshman, well, rising sophomore, and my daughter graduated a couple of years back. Previously, I have spent decades in self-engineering, most recently I was a software engineering manager with a startup using AI for warehouse inventory management, something I knew nothing about, probably still don't know anything about anyway. Yes, like others have said, I thoroughly enjoy working with this group of people. They are amazing. and probably you've already gathered as much, a lot of fun. So welcome and over to you.

Hey, so my name is Sukrit Ganesh. I'm a lifelong Santa Clara resident, been living in this great city for all 24 years of my life. I am a software engineer by trade, but urbanism, city planning, local government is one of my hobbies. And I first got involved with Santa Clara through the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee. I joined the Station Area Task Force for a year as well. Now I've pivoted over to Parks and Rec. And yeah, I love to make my mark in the city, make the city the most fun in the South Bay.

Cool.

You're in good company. That's an excellent mission statement. When we're ready to adopt mission statements, we've got some ideas. Okay.

I thought it was taking names.

Yeah, absolutely. It's in the running. Put it in the hotline.

Okay.

All right. Thank you, everybody, for indulging us in that exercise. I think it's helpful. We have one item for the consent calendar today. That is item 1A26-743, the approval of the Parks and Recreation Commission meeting minutes from June 8th. Do we have any comments, suggestions, credits?

Comments. Did you have something? No, he said none. I'd like to make a motion to accept.

A second motion.

See, you're so quick on the draw when I'm not fighting you for it.

I know.

I had time. Okay. Let's take a vote since the motion has been made and seconded. Commissioner Caldwell? Yes. Commissioner Chu? Yes. Commissioner DeMarco is yes. Commissioner Forte? Yes. Commissioner Ganesh? Yes. Commissioner Gupta?

Yes.

Oh, yeah, sure. And Commissioner Souza? Yes. Okay, the motion passes.

That's why I'm going to kick you under the table so you can't respond.

I have a shield.

I haven't been fighting for it in a long time. I've got to get back into it.

We will now move to the public presentation section of our meeting. This portion of the meeting is reserved for members of the public to address the Parks and Recreation Commission on any matter not on the agenda that is within the commission's subject matter jurisdiction. 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 during 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 at SantaClaraCA.gov. If any member of the public would like to make comments, please fill out a speaker's card or raise your hand on Zoom. To accommodate all speakers, we request that you complete your comments within two minutes.

It don't look like we have any public.

I do not believe that there are any members on the Zoom call and there are no other members in the room. But if you're watching at home, come out and join us. It's a lot of fun. Okay, we'll move on to our general business section of the agenda. Item 226-755, discuss and develop Parks and Recreation Commission work plan goals and activities for fiscal year 26-27. So... Just to catch up, Commissioner Ganesh, in the past, this has been sorted into kind of like a table, and we've kind of moved through all of them on items like A through F, and they are pertinent to the work of the Commission. And we spend a little bit of time every meeting going over the progress that we've made, either as a whole group or in subcommittees pertinent thereto. And at the end of the last year, so our last couple of sessions, we've spent some time brainstorming how we might change those. And so this is a newish layout for us. It is not yet in a great kind of chart format. I'm not sure it will be. It doesn't really matter. But that's what we're going to be spending some time looking at. At the last meeting, staff was furiously taking notes as we were brainstorming different ideas. And... Those notes are in photos, summarized and with an attempt to try and capture everything. So our goal now is to kind of review them. And if we see anything that's missing or if we feel like we need to make any adjustments, this is the opportunity to do so before we kind of try and make it a finalized draft. Any thoughts? Yeah, please.

OK, so at the end of the commission's discussion, once you feel the commission feels that they are embody your goals and activities and work that you want to perform over the year, you'll formally adopt them. You may then also choose subcommittees will change it by after pond adoption into the other format of a chart where you can then identify any subcommittee work and activities. So right now we attempted to, as Vice Chair DeMarco stated, we attempted to put everything that the commission talked about in some sort of word format and concisely, and we may or may not have hit it. appropriately. And so this is the commission's opportunity really to have a robust discussion goal by goal about how you want these things to be laid out and how you want them to reflect the work that you are going to do.

It boils down to four goals.

That is what it seems we have captured here is four goals with some sub bullets. And

Because we had gone up to E? F?

E or F, I don't remember.

So we were at five or six. Yeah. Okay. And then we tried to consolidate them and bucket them. And so that's the attempt that you see here.

Well, let's just jump in goal by goal. So goal one currently reads, attend and visit citywide special events, activities, parks, and facilities to inform Parks and Recreation Commission recommendations to city council. Okay. We would do this by creating a draft park visitor and event survey tool, traditional and electronic, to be administered by staff. Commission will review park visitor and event survey responses annually to inform potential recommendations for city council. Let's have thoughts about any or all of that goal.

The main bullets don't really talk about our commissioners interacting with going to parks. Is that...

I was thinking the same thing.

Because in the notes it says, while attending citywide events and parks, commissioners may interact. Is there a separate goal for...

doing stuff it doesn't look like it i don't think so okay so we need that to be a bullet yeah to add the requirement for commissioners in the past i don't remember the exact exact language but it was something like visit three parks per 12 months is that right was that only it three per 12 you thought it was three per month i didn't we didn't correct you yeah a little bit of hazing um And so that was, I think, the old standard. And there was a requirement that parks and recs commissioners participate in the annual wine festival. So those were the bare bones minimums. And then, of course, anything else on top of that is welcome, but not necessary. Do folks feel like that was a good standard? Is this the time to change it?

I think that's a good amount. We set our goals, and it's just to get us out there and interacting with different parks.

Yeah, so just, I guess, go visit parks, go to events, see what they're like, come back with constructive criticism, bring it up here, I'm guessing.

Yeah, and it's also good to visit parks because we will get schematics for new parks. And you'll be able to see what you like and what you don't like at parks.

I don't have the number off the top of my head. What is the number of parks that's on our roster? I think it's 44.

I think it's 44 if you don't count the cemeteries. Yeah.

I believe it's up to 51 parks and facilities.

Yeah.

Facilities, sure.

Facilities. Yeah. Somewhere. 45 to 50.

I don't know how folks feel about this. I know it's a lot. I would make the suggestion that it seems like a good thing for in the course of a four-year term for a commissioner to hit most everything. Check. That would boil down to roughly one facility a month for the entire term. Okay.

It's not that hard to visit a park. Right.

And so that for me.

And so what's what's the rate then at one per month? One one ish a month.

And so that drives us towards a smart goal. We can put down an expectation that folks are visiting one facility a month. And if we say, I don't know, two events a year.

One different?

Yeah.

Well, yeah. Yeah, you can't just walk your dog in the same car every day?

I mean, you can and report in on it. But we want everyone to kind of experience the whole palette.

Yeah. I think that's, can we make that a goal rather than a requirement? Sure. I mean, it would fall under goal one.

Yeah. Fall under goal one. So that's one facility per month. And then again, I had mentioned two events per year. That's art and wine plus one.

Tree lighting, 4th of July.

Try to keep the second event unique every year, right?

And everybody should do art and wine.

Everyone has to do art and wine. All art and wine, and then an extra one. Aversley's going to blow that out of the water because he goes to everything.

Are you suggesting to add that as a bullet point to attend art and wine?

Yeah, to goal one. So that's two.

So we want a bullet point for attending one park per month with the goal of visiting all parks and facilities? Okay. And or facilities. Then a separate bullet, attend Art and Wine, and one event. And that is park openings.

groundbreaking stuff and maybe that's low right because when we consider that we like we half of us went to the groundbreaking at the the swim center and we all go to you know lots of us go to the tree lighting we all go to art wine we mean yeah we should try to try to go to all but bare minimum and people have not made that minimum in the past works last week

I've been to them all. I can say that now.

Yeah, we know.

Come on. My last one. I visited my last one today.

Oh, nice. You got all 50 of them then?

Yeah. Except I haven't gone to both cemeteries. All three cemeteries?

There's lots of notes. Okay.

Lots of notes. All the cemeteries are privately owned. I didn't realize there was a city. No, the city has two.

I would also say so that we have four bullets under the first goal. I think that that sounds right.

Okay.

The first bullet currently reads, create a draft park visitor and event survey tool to be administered by staff. We had talked at one point about encouraging commissioners to encourage participation in surveys. So I would just say staff and or commissioners. commissioners at events that were events at parks yeah because we want to be engaging visitors when we're at the things that we're at argue administered is different than the facility yeah share um but yeah i won't i won't argue Any other thoughts about goal one and the two printed bullets and the two that we just added? Is the second bullet, the cadence, annually appropriate? Yeah, I was struck by the annual cadence. I wonder if in this document you want to make it at least annually so that it can... But that we look at it at least once.

Yeah, this is the generic park and visitor event survey that we're supposed to hand out. I don't know if we'll generate that much data. Maybe it's just a how many entries do we have report? Because are we going to really have that much quarterly?

But I think if you add at least annually, that gives us room to increase the cadence and still be in compliance with what the writing says.

And it might be annually, oh, we didn't actually hand it out this year.

Right. Any other thoughts? This is goal one.

There was a key. There's a QR code at Home Ridge Park for a survey on the.

I just saw that. It's the it's so that whatever company installed. Yeah, it was a survey that you can go to and fill out on park usage or how this equipment should be used or how you found it to be.

Yeah, I thought that was interesting. I wonder how many people have scanned that QR code. Not 50 yet.

Home Ridge? Yeah, that's. Yep.

That's all not 50? Well, in 50, we get a special report. And we have not got the special report.

Maybe I should have been the 50th. I didn't even know.

No, I didn't do it. I should have done it.

If two or three of us need to go, we'll give you the 50.

Let us know. Okay. I am not hearing any of the thoughts on goal one.

Do we want to say something about using the form? The new form?

Oh, yeah. In the... Bullet where we say visit...

park visits do we want to talk about the form now report report park visits via the online form provided by staff yeah exactly and then review that information on a well we should do that almost that's going to come up during clear commissioner report okay okay but yeah we should be done it would be good to get some feedback from staff about how many people actually how many of us actually used it more than that so

So report park visit tool data at each meeting.

It's a quick recap. We don't need to dive deep into it. Just how many times, you know, how many responses you got within the month.

If we got seven, we're good. If we get less than seven, we have a problem. Yeah.

Yeah. It's not 50.

Okay. I think I'm happy with goal one. Goal one.

Going. Gone. Goal number two, conduct an annual review of the Parks and Recreation Master Plan implementation. Identify and participate in collaboration efforts to strengthen partnerships with school districts, community groups, institutions of higher education, and local businesses to advance Master Plan goals and objectives.

I like it.

It is very wordy.

But I think that's important.

But it's not particularly specific, measurable, or...

Well, a number of meetings with these people. Because I know Kathy on the school board said that she's now meeting with Damon quarterly or monthly to have a better relationship, which is great, until she's no longer on the school board because she'll be mayor. So it does seem like that's made it to their priority list. But I think we should keep community groups, higher education, because that's Mission College, right?

Santa Clara, UC Santa Cruz extension is in Santa Clara, as is Santa Clara University. Sure, sure.

How would we make it more quantitative?

Sorry to interrupt. Yeah, I do think this needs to be measurable in some way. I'm not quite sure how we would say that. Maybe, well, yeah, I don't know how to say what is the measurable thing here, because I think part of it is to identify what those partnerships are. And until we have a definite partnership, there's no way to say what the goal should be in terms of a measurable outcome.

Yeah. I don't know what all the city would like us to be empowered to do, right? Because I'm not legal.

I'm not... How about a goal that says that we come up with A measurable partnership outcome.

What I was imagining is that you could imagine this goal bullet, including a parenthetical that says, a subcommittee shall be established by the commission, and the subcommittee will reach out to one of these agencies every quarter or something in the interest of building new relationships. I don't know if the city wants us to do that. Yeah. But I would be super interested in reaching out to NVIDIA and being like, hey, Pony up, man.

Yeah, well, the first bullet feels exploratory.

How about we have maybe three subcommittees, one focused on institutions of learning, one on community groups, and another on business? Or is that too much?

I'm just cognizant of if we put three subcommittees there, then everyone's going to have a subcommittee. And I don't know how many subcommittees everybody wants to take a part of.

And what is the subcommittee going to do other than talk about how we should talk to people?

Right.

I don't think so. If we aren't empowered by the city council to talk to people on behalf of the city, then this will go nowhere. Right.

That's a good question.

um kim do you know if like from your past experience so i think it's helpful when commissioners have connections in the community because then they can open up doors for the city to then you know build relationships so um the goals of the master plan include additional acreage, right? And one of the thoughts behind our strategy suggested the master plan was that the only way you're going to get access to more acreage is to build partnerships, right? And you have other institutions in town that have acreage. And so how do you build capacity through relationships to allow public to you know, be on that land when it's not being used by the owner, right? So Mountain View, Google has this little sports complex off their campus and although they use it during the designated work day and designated times. But after certain times, they turn it over to the city and make it public, right? So similar fashion, the school district will do that with their playgrounds, right? That will be available to the public after 6 p.m. and on weekends and during the summer months, right? So I think that's the... Intent behind the goal, although I wasn't here at the last meeting, but that's what I'm reading into it. And there are. models by which you know a commissioner could that's how the summer concert collaboration with mission college in the city began as a commissioner reached out to mission college president office and said you know are you interested in collaborating on the summer concert series so that we don't have the same days we don't have the same genre of music we can collaborate on one of the concerts and then now you have concerts on wednesdays and on fridays You know, pretty much over the span of 11 weeks or something like that. And so a commissioner, you're right, like isn't there to seal the deal, quote unquote, but to make the intro. Yeah. So then what I would base on that response and think about the strategy, right?

I would say that it makes sense for us to stipulate that a subcommittee would exist out of this first bullet. And like off the top of my head, I'm thinking like they would coordinate on invitations to notables for things like the tree lighting or reach out to like, hey, we're doing this event, we'd love to see you. Like just the beginnings of those relationships and that that subcommittee can take that point and even build maybe more of a strategic mission past that, but that's what they would do. And it would be for any of these organizations that's listed, community events, business, institutions of higher ed. Does that seem- Sounds good. Good to folks? This does not need to be the Derrick show, but that's kind of what I'm imagining.

Yeah, and I think that would be good, like you said, for tree lighting to... Start small. We have opportunities to invite people to events so they see what it's like.

Start small, build on success.

Yeah.

Okay, so then I would add that.

And we can change the goal to be more quantitative later once we have those relationships.

And when I was on the Cultural Commission, we did that exact same thing with multiple organizations throughout... It's not a clever and beyond.

Yeah. So, how, how do you see this changing?

Instead of either at the beginning of this bullet, or at the end of the bullet. Create a subcommittee whose purpose will be to. That just instantiates that there's something that we should do.

So I guess an outreach subcommittee, we'll just see how we can meet in all these groups, try to get more input on how we can shape parks and rec, right?

And if we're not on the subcommittee, we could provide context that we have.

Absolutely. And why don't you mention something that we need city council authorization before we embark on these endeavors, right?

We just bring the connections and then give them to you.

So I think that piece of city council approval, right? Eventually these goals will, once the commission adopts them, then they'll go to the council for adoption. And so then the council will know what the commission is up to. And then when you have your dinner, Just scheduled for October 7th. There you go, Ed. Thank you. Then you will be able to share with them kind of what your plan is for the year.

Great.

October 6th.

October 6th.

Mark your calendar, right? We're having dinner with the city council October 6th. I have a concert October 7th. Busy week.

Okay. Then the second bullet says, as required, see community input, read park rehabilitation designs and park development project designs for compliance with master plan goals and objectives, as well as city park and place standards. This is something that we're already engaged in, Commissioner Ganesh, as we pick new parks to be the next in line for a big facelift or remodel. We have presentations from the contractors that are involved. We see the pitches. We recommend choices to the council. Yes.

And that's not just rehab parks, but also new parks.

Yeah. I know stationary task force, they're building at least two or three new pocket parks around the train station. So yeah, maybe the next few years we'll be working on that.

So that was goal two. And this is mostly centered on the Park and Recreation Master Plan.

Um, well, going to go three. Okay, if we move on.

Oh, I wasn't sure if anybody had any other thoughts for goal two before we left.

Good.

You're muted. Commissioner because he's still a commission.

I'm sorry. There's a call that I needed to attend to.

Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Though I did have a question. I guess maybe it's for Kim. It says city park and play standards. I don't know if I'm familiar with this or I've seen this before.

So we have city park play standards and it says things like We have seven elements of play, and these are what they are. Park design should allow for 60 minutes of play. You should use these fixtures and receptacles. And we want these standards in our restrooms. So it's things that... Both from a maintenance perspective and from a play value perspective, we've codified in a document so that when we begin working either with a developer or an architect on the design, we can then give them and say, this is the baseline, like start here and don't give us anything below this standard. So if you are familiar with San Tomas and Monroe at Isuzu Park, at Isuzu Park was developed before we had standards. There are no swinging apparatuses at Isuzu Park. So that was before we adopted the seven elements of play model. It's still a fine part. It's still a fine part, but there's not as much play value there as Home Ridge, right? And so where you have all the elements of play there. So that's just an example.

Is this document publicly available?

Well, it used to live on our website, and then we went through an ADA refresh and had to take it down because it's about 140 pages, and it was not ADA accessible anymore. So we can email it to you if you want to see it. Did it come before the commission? It did come before the commission like a really long time ago. Like probably your first year. Dale brought it.

Yeah. Dale brought it. Bert was still on the commission. Yeah. Cause it was, we had a long conversation about soccer fields.

Yes. That's all I remember.

Yes.

So, and it says things like soccer fields will be these dimensions and baseball will be this and you know, volleyball is the best of all. And we need a gym.

We need a gym.

We need a gym. Okay.

Yeah. All right. Any other thoughts for goal two? Excellent. Moving on to goal three. Review the annual Parks and Recreation budget, programs, and services outcomes, and where applicable, provide recommendations to the City Council.

This is a pretty hefty goal.

Yeah. Where does your thought come in? Do we want to take this bullet by bullet? Okay, so receive biannual budget updates from staff, including the operating budget, which includes staffing and revenue and expenses, the capital budget, which is active project updates, and the three to five-year CIP project plan. And Excuse me. Measure I, general obligation bond expenditure updates.

So the bi-annual, the operating budget's bi-annual and the capital budget's bi-annual, but they're shifted. So we should get an annual update.

You should get an annual update, but each one you'll see a bi-annual. Right.

Right. But there's also like the, we get the mini recap in the off years. So I think we should just say receive annual budget updates.

could do something like this where you do annual budget updates and then operating budget by annual year one and then capital budget by annual year two so that it shows the cycle of rotation, but it doesn't matter to me. Any other thoughts on that first bullet about receiving budget updates from the operating capital and measure I budget expenditures?

Seems pretty straightforward. I think the heft of this goal is the second bullet.

Yeah.

So second bullet.

Quick question on measure bond projects. Is there a different cadence at which we should be reviewing that? I'm not quite sure at what cadence projects are reviewed, budgets are reviewed, and then funds are committed.

The bond committee's just getting started on this. And so as they dive into it more, it will be a regular cadence, but that's unknown so far.

Okay. Do we need to go here at a cadence yet to be determined or we just let it be?

I think let it be.

Okay.

I think as soon as the bond count commission commission, develops that plan, the intent is to bring it to this commission as well, because we will be spending that money as well.

Right.

Sounds good.

All right. Okay, moving on to the second bullet. Review annual program and service delivery outcomes. This would include customer satisfaction reports, total annual program event participant and membership reports. I expect there was meant to be a carriage return after that reports so that the capitalized total and annual facility use differential reports was a separate bullet. You know what I'm saying? Maybe it was fixed already before this was printed. Fixed. Perfect.

This is not a separate bullet, so it's fixed.

Total annual facility usage and rental reports. Total annual My Santa Clara service requests. Total annual park maintenance and capital improvements performed, including trees planted and maintained, as well as pathway sports courts. fixtures, irrigation facilities, and playgrounds.

Pretty intensive. So Damon promised all this to us and he said he was going to.

I know this is already happening. It's already happening. We're just not bringing it before you. And so that is all stuff that...

But a lot of it even comes up when you guys are doing staff reports to us. Yeah. We're just formalizing.

We're just formalizing it. Exactly. Because I am interested in like the facilities. We have so many great rental facilities that I don't ever see used. Yeah.

Any thoughts on that larger bullet?

Are we using AI to do a lot of these reviews right now? Question for staff.

No, no, because some of our systems, we can't get the search engines into our data spaces. And so once we pull the data out, we can then manipulate it with AI. Right. But we can't, AI can't get into our.

The system is like closed, right? You can't connect. Okay.

And I imagine some of it's in different forms. It's all in different forms, yeah.

This is a style thing. It would be super helpful if when this is presented, instead of using just the symbol bullets, that it was either the outline bullets with letters or numerals or something, just so we can refer to them more precisely. Numbers.

Good suggestion.

In conversation.

So like 3A? Something like that. 3A sub I. Yeah.

Yeah. That's the bylaw nerd in me coming out.

I like the specificity of this because, like, I don't think we even talked about trees planted, but that's cool.

This is really good information. Yeah, this is really good. I'm just worried that it's going to be really difficult for staff to provide all of it.

As possible.

And if it needs to be pared back, I trust you all to tell us that. Yeah.

Well, when Damon and I talked about this, we won't do all of these things every year, right? We might bring customer satisfaction reports in June and facility usage in July. It's not going to be an annual report. It's going to be like a three-hour November meeting.

It's something that you can match.

It's something we can manage. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Yeah.

But thank you for looking at what I don't see here. What we kind of talked about was the money aspect, which is kind of why it's under goal three. I don't think it's that important, but there was a discussion on are we making the money on the recreation programs or are there some that cost more to operate?

Some of that is going to come out in your operating budget. Okay. Expenses.

Yeah, it's just not specific to, like, recreation program. Like, I don't know.

As I recall a conversation from the last meeting, Damon said that he has done this at other cities that he's worked at, and he'd like to do it, implement it here. Yeah, that sounds familiar to me.

It's also a good way to collect that data to share our story, You know, in terms of budgetary impacts and impact in the community, these are all impact data points, right? And so it's important to be able to share that story.

Good. Then the last bullet in goal three that we haven't mentioned yet is the review of the annual Wade Brummel grant scholarship requests in accordance with established policy. I assume no one has any concerns about that. We've been doing it forever.

That's pretty straightened out.

We get one in August. Is it going to be all of them or are we going to be off cycle?

They are coming in as they get submitted.

Okay. I'm guessing for the budget review, like we don't actually set the budget, but we can make recommendations on how to tweak it, right?

Okay. Any thoughts on goal three before we move on? Great, thank you. Goal four, collaborate on park and recreation commission bylaws with a goal of adoption by June, 2027.

I read the three ring binder that we all got when we came and it doesn't explain what excused absence is. Perfect. And it just says park commissioners should try to make, should make all of the meetings.

Perfect. I have to miss two this coming year.

As long as it's not three. And it says missing three meetings. In one place. Or three within a... Three within a year, but then in another place it says three unexcused, but doesn't define excused, unexcused.

We have lots of opportunity.

Yeah, so I went through it trying to find it, but no one knows what excused means.

Our big issue is what's excused? Because we all, you know, we take that vote and it's basically our personal opinion of what can be excused and what shouldn't be. We need to have a... That's one thing we all asked for was a defined standard.

But I think the... to make all meetings. If you have a commitment that means you miss meetings, you shouldn't be on the commission.

Right, exactly. I mean, you know the commitment going in. So if stuff comes up, I get it.

Yeah, yeah. And I think we still have an opportunity to excuse, but if you're more than three, even excused,

and then i think there's an issue but we can work that out in the goal yeah so it's not yet done is what my point is the bullet points here review relevant uh provisions of the adopted city charter review city clerk issued commissioner roles and responsibilities materials which would be the three-year reminder and develop operational bylaws and here i would include um we need to flesh out what excused or excused absences look like

What our threshold for the actual commissioner roles and responsibilities is about two, three pages in that entire binder because some of its ethics, some of its. So there's really not that much. And the roles and responsibilities are show up.

So may I suggest not to add the part about defining what an excused and unexcused absence here is because this is going to be a more longer lived document. Maybe hopefully this even becomes the template for future annual goals. And so I think just because we do need to review all of the operational bylaws and The particular aspect of excuse versus an excuse absence harmony, etc, would anyway be covered by that. Makes sense.

And in theory, this would be something a subcommittee would work on and they would bring it back. They presented to the rest of the Commission for input feedback. Yep. And potential adoption when they're agreed. Yeah.

Yeah, and I know the city charter is still in progress.

Yeah. Yeah.

Contentious versus uncontentious is in the eye of the poll.

It's interesting.

Yeah.

All right. So those were all four of the goals that were summarized from our last meeting. Before we move on to the broader discussion, goal four, anything folks want to add? Great. Is there anything of significance, a larger scale that we're missing that would be a natural goal five that folks want to raise?

And if I may, I would love for us to, since we have a newest member and brings in certain outside eyes to all of this, it'll be great if you can share your thoughts, Ganesh. And, you know, of course, like Vice Chair said, if you want to add anything.

Don't have anything for those four goals, but maybe it would be nice if we kind of create what we call this innovation or think tank subcommittee where we as commissioners ourselves try to come up with like new programs, initiatives, recreation opportunities that we can try lobbying to the city council just amongst us generally, right? I think a lot of us are invested in the city and I think just spending some time together in each meeting, maybe like up to five to 10 minutes, we brainstorm ideas at home, bring them to every meeting that just basically improve the city, right? I don't know, expanding community gardens, or it could be bringing in like new classes or recreation center, or even some more unique opportunities, maybe more pickleball courts or whatever. And just every time each of us should bring maybe one or two new ideas that we can present to the rest of the commission. And I guess after every meeting, we can try discussing those and lobbying to the city council, depending on the consensus reforms?

Yeah, this is This is a tricky place to be in as the responder to this prompt, because I want to encourage the ideas and I want to encourage the engagement. And I also want to honor the folks that have been here for a while. And we've had similar conversations where we circle back to, well, we wanted to do something new. We wanted to branch out to another commission and then something happened and or staff is already up to their eyeballs and someone just left. And so, yes, aim. Yes, come with your ideas. I think that that's an open prompt for everyone. And good ideas should rise to the top. And we have room to encourage our colleagues on staff to pursue good ideas when they come.

And we have a part of the meeting, the commissioner's report, where we go one by one and we say what we've done, parks and rec. And that's a good opportunity to bring up questions or concerns you have. And staff usually responds in real time. Because I know a lot of times it's like somebody came up and asked about cricket fields. So we'll ask those questions in the commissioner's report. So I don't know if it needs to be a formal addition to the meeting. I think a lot of stuff comes up in the commission.

That and I think goal one is intended to be able to allow for that to happen organically as well.

You'll find that we all have our pet things. This one likes to talk about cutting grass and this one likes to talk about swimming and this one likes to talk about volleyball.

And ballet.

And so you will naturally fit in with the things that you are excited about pursuing. And we'll make sure that we all get our chance to make sure that ends up in our long range vision.

All right. Yeah, I think the general, like you've probably already said, right, there are various several reasons why many of these ideas find it hard to find legs. But I think that's where the deal is that how, you know, all of us have certain ideas and how do you operationalize them? How do you make them actionable? How do you make them move forward? given limited bandwidth, resources, et cetera, et cetera. But maybe that's a place to brainstorm how, and you know, There have been other kinds of initiatives. I used to be involved a lot more with a housing nonprofit and housing project advocacy group. And something I learned there was this concept of placemaking. And I'm forgetting the name of the organization. that has pioneered that and what they came up with is you can you can try out experiment with a certain idea at a very low cost by doing a few little things and they've shown that in new york city and elsewhere and so maybe that's another place if we want to brainstorm would be how can we try something out at a low cost, see if it's a good idea before we go through all the whole budget cycles and all of that, right? Getting approvals, law, legal language around all that and et cetera, et cetera. So maybe that's one way to approach it. I think it's pps.org. Sorry, I can share that offline.

Well, I think the staff does a really good job of listening to our concerns and things. And it might not be actionable today, but they might keep that in mind as things move forward.

Any other thoughts? hopes and dreams, things to include in our work plan goals for fiscal year 26, 27.

It just occurred to me that this has never been a work plan goal, but one of the things we do as commissioners is identify the tree lighting person of honor.

Yep.

And that's not enshrined in any of our goals. Good idea. Should be.

Should be.

Because that is like the one thing that we have an outcome that is counting on.

Yep. Yeah, I would say that wherever we put our visit.

Art and Wine Festival, put another bullet, identify tree honor, tree lighter, tree.

Honorary.

Honorary tree lighter, thank you. I had those words.

I don't even know that I added those.

Goal one, we suggested adding a couple of sub-bullets of that, another sub-bullet below Art and Wine. Yep.

Yeah, so just very quickly, it is pps.org, Project for Public Spaces. If you have the opportunity and interest, you know, take a look at it and take a look at their work and how they've gone about it. I think there's lessons to learn from there on how to try something at a low cost and very little investment of time.

Great.

Thank you for the catch on the true item.

What do we actually do? That's what we do. I'd like to propose that we put this in the proper format for next meeting. And then. the commission can do one more review before consideration of adoption.

Should we assign subcommittees next time too?

You can do that next time. If somebody's like sure now since we have full attendance that they want to work in an action. We don't have them named right now so it's a little funky to be able to.

I think we can wait until you have it and then we'll put it in the box. We'll put it in the box.

That's all right. Okay. Okay.

All right. So then there's no need for a formal motion or adoption because we will delay that until next time when they've had a chance to update the formatting.

So we will take no action in this meeting at all.

We approve the consent calendar.

Okay. Yes.

Approve the minutes.

Approve the minutes.

Good.

We'll also adjourn the meeting. That's fantastic.

We're also going to do that. So be ready. Okay. Okay. Okay. All right, we'll move on to the staff report. The next agenda item is city staff report. Do staff have any items they would like to report on?

I do have a few things. So July 7th, city council took action on the consent item to have the Bowers Park parking lot rehabilitated. And there will be some EV stations and solar charging there. Okay. so that went through and then tomorrow night on the council consent calendar is three new park service agreements that will be involved in helping to design an array of new parks and not new parks but rehabilitation of existing parks so the next lot the parks that are on the list um that would include like earl carmichael maywood mary gomez Bowers restroom building is on there. Anything we do with aquatics, anything we do with pickleball. So these three new buildings, Three new design agreement contracts would help us do the community outreach schematic. They would go all the way through construction detail design.

Are they all contracting with the same design firms? Or are they going to different?

There's three design. It's going to three different design firms. Okay. So that we can work in tandem with them on a variety of projects. Have you picked a subject?

TIPTI. T-Y-P-T-I. It is an alternative to pickleball because it's a soft foam ball as opposed to a hard noise ball.

So it's not loud.

And so as you field complaints from community members next to pickleball courts, you can consider TIPTI as an alternative. It was designed specifically to address the noise concern.

And Pickler, the indoor pickleball place, just opened in Milpitas.

Mm-hmm.

That's fabulous. So I will tell you that the city is out right now, which I think we sent all of this to you on a pickleball survey. It closes July 31st. We're almost creeping up on a thousand entries. Wow. And asking for feedback on what parks they play pickleball at, what parks they play tennis at, are they a tennis player or a pickleball player. We're also hosting two community meetings at the end of July. We'll send you those meeting invitations. And those will be an opportunity for in-person and a Zoom option. With that information, we hope to inform what we do with facilities going forward. And they will hopefully tell us, you know, like, yes, put it here, don't put it here. And part of the reason why we don't get noise complaints is because we've been smart. We're studying it. And we're going to enter into this waterfall. without having to remove them once we build them, right? So we will build them in a smart way. And thank you, staff, for all the work you've done thinking about pickleball. It's been a lot, and it's been really, really a successful option. As I mentioned, Schmidt is under construction. The lights are ready for Schmidt. So we will have dual track lights on in the morning and the evening. We will be redoing this quartz there as part of the project. It's actually a parallel project within a project and probably sometime next month. But that project is going along. It's on time and on track now. Thank you for those of you who came out to Fourth of July. Big party at Mission College. Wash party and night market this weekend down at 900-1000 Lafayette. July 21st fall registration opens at 7 a.m. July 21st? Yes. July 21st for residents. And then Moana Jr. opens this week and Rent opens next week. So hopefully you'll come and join us for one of those shows. And then if you don't have the summer concert series in your calendar, you can take a picture of this and pass it around. And then out here is the Senior Center newsletter. So if you want to know what's happening at the Senior Center newsletter, The newsletter is happening at the Senior Center.

I think.

There's a barbecue this week.

Yeah, the barbecue at the Senior Center on Thursday. But August 7th, street dance.

Street dance, August 7th.

My kid turns six, August 8th.

So my kid turns 15, August 8th. Birthday buddies. Birthday buddies. That concludes staff report. I'm curious for any questions.

She did.

Do any commissioners? It's going to be at Lafayette, by the way.

Yes, 900 Lafayette.

Do any commissioners have questions for Kim on staff report?

I don't know if this is on your radar yet, but I received a notice of a public meeting.

Is it tomorrow?

Tomorrow, about 400 Saratoga Avenue.

It's the 15th, I think.

Oh, is it next week?

No, the 15th. It's this week, the 15th, I believe. You're talking about the one at Printer Ridge Golf Course?

Yeah.

Yeah, it's the 15th from 6.30 to 8, I think.

Yeah. There's a proposed 1.7-acre... A public park, have we received any schematics of that or anything?

No, no schematics yet. And they will. I talked to Gina, who is in our office. He's been working with that. Developer, she hopes to have something to the commission in August or September to talk about concept and initiate public input on that. But there, it would be good to listen in on that meeting if you're able to make it so that you can. hear what they have planned. We've been advocating for pickleball there.

It's that whole project in the curriculum. What it's going to create is not great, I don't think.

I live across the street from the courts at Bookster Middle School, and I got notification that part of the The grant from the 49ers, they're going to light those courts.

Yes. Yeah. So we'll light those courts, which will. And, you know, the lights now on tennis courts don't are very focused down. So they do not bleed. There's not a lot of light pollution on them. So and they'll be open lit till 10.

Have they considered using sound barriers around the pickleball courts?

They have just been starting to develop them. I would say their technology isn't great yet. It's a windscreen that goes on the fence around it that does have some sound barrier involved in it, but it's just in the initial development stage. Technology isn't very good on it yet.

And sound isn't the only thing. There's also a competition between the tennis courts.

Chair Gupta?

I'm sure staff. I'd like to be excused. I need to get my dad admitted to a hospital, which is what I'm here in India for. So I'd like to leave now to be able to make it in time. Thank you. Sorry for the early departure. Be well. Thank you.

Thank you for the staff report. We move on to the final agenda item, which is the commissioner's reports. Commissioners, this is your opportunity to share any city related activities you have participated in that have not yet been discussed. Commissioner Caldwell.

My wife and I attended the July 4th celebration admissions. First time I've ever been in town for one. So it was nice. A lot of people there early and thought it was really nicely set up and a great event. I visited Parkway Park over the weekend. I also was going over to Eric's Deli on Kiley and had to go down the street and make a U-turn and come back and saw that at Wilson Park someone had set up a a residence at the sign, so to speak. So I did put that on the My Santa Clara app last Thursday.

That was my last park today and it wasn't there.

Yeah, it was gone Saturday. So it was there Thursday when I put it on the My Santa Clara app with a picture and it was gone Saturday morning when I went over to the post office. So it's nice to see that reaction. Also, there was a sprinkler issue in Maywood Park that was shooting straight up in the air. And put that on my side, got taken care of. So always nice to see water not shooting into the street.

Thank you.

That was it.

Mission achieved.

I visited all of the parks. I got to my last one today, Bill Olson. It is very interesting to see the differences between the parks, and especially the older parks and the newer parks. So I'm excited that we're going to get three more rehabilitation ballet intensive starts started this week super important and I and I had one more thing to say but I can't remember right now so feel free to remind us when you when it gets there right um ah on facebook silicon valley family used to be called silicon valley toddler mentioned that they were at a park in santa clara and they found a wasp nest and they called the city and they came out immediately and got rid of the wasp nest so it's my friend who lives in san jose called me and said i heard city santa clara parks is amazing so good press nice i saw that he's very good hey um

Did not make it to the fourth. I'm often out of town. I was this year as well. But my kid is in Ms. Linnea's acro class at the community rec center, and so we're enjoying it a great deal. We went to Home Ridge Park this past Friday. and enjoyed it a great deal there. I noted in my submission on the new form, thank you, staff, was super easy to navigate, that there used to be an interactive sound of animals thing that's still missing, slash busted, and the rolly slide is useless. It's all jammed. So I know that we can't control how visitors use the parks, but the roller slide is not a slide really anymore. That's it from me. Commissioner Borta.

On the 4th of July event at Mission College, there's probably about 7,000 to 10,000 people there in the evening. And I kept wondering, with that many people there, how did they get 40,000 people into San Pedro Square? Also attended the special Olympics event at South Carolina University and also a couple of World Cup watch parties at the convention center.

Okay. Commissioner Ganesh, you're very new. You do not necessarily have to have a report, but if you have one, we would gladly listen.

Well, I guess I can just tell you how much I use Santa Claus Recreation in general. I guess when I was younger, I used to attend a bunch of summer camps. I went to coding classes. Yeah. Summer camps early, I played Little League. When I was younger, I swam as well. So I guess I'm familiar with a lot of parks. Right now, I use parks for many things. I guess running, playing football with friends, flying my RC helicopter. Yeah. just recreation in general right i like i like getting out i like staying active or jobs are sedentary so i guess that's why i'm involved and i'd obviously like to get more involved with events once again i used to attend festivals like art in mind i used to go for the winter ice skating and all that and i guess over the next few months i definitely like to get back into attending these events thanks we welcome your involvement

Priscilla sent us a list of all of the events coming up. So that would be good. Mark your calendar so you know which one they're showing.

Did you get that email? You might have. I think I just got it right before this meeting. And yeah, I have a cousin who lives just right near my house with a young kid. And they actually have begun taking their kid to a lot of these events. So I guess I'll accompany them.

That's great. Chair Gupta had to log off, as he mentioned. And so we'll go to Commissioner Souza.

As Kim mentioned, there was a barbecue at the Senior Center last month, and I was happy to see Kim and Damon there. Thank you so much. That means a lot to the staff that you're there supporting them. There's another barbecue this coming Thursday at the Senior Center at noon. And I did how many... I visited City Plaza Park, Tamien, War Memorial, and first time ever I've been to Fremont Park.

You're at the Senior Center a lot, but you haven't been to Fremont Park?

I've never gone over to Fremont Park. Oh, it's a short commute then. I did a full walkthrough of the Senior Center, and it's... It's looking pretty nice. A lot of new equipment in the gym. And it was nice to see. Actually, in the middle of the day, there was probably, I don't know, 10 or 12 people working out in the gym. It was nice. I've been having some really good conversations with Anna Vargas-Smith. who is the chair of the Santa Clara Parade of Champions. She's also vice president of the Santa Clara Sister Cities group, and she just recently got appointed to the Cultural Commission. And I was contacting her about the idea that I floated last year about possibility of doing like a Sunday concert at City Plaza Park with the Santa Clara Portuguese Band. And she's really interested in it. So... We've been in contact with the Santa Clara Portuguese Band, and so the next step is I think she may present it to the Cultural Commission. Nice.

And that's such a nice place for something.

Yeah, it is. You know, there's plenty of lawn area. People can throw blankets out and lawn chairs or something like that. I've been doing research on City Plaza Park. It was the city's First and only park in the late 1800s. I found in the city archives a picture of the original bandstand that dates to 1908. And I found out that when they built the Mission Branch library there, they tore down the old bandstand to build the library. But they built a replica of that same bandstand in History Park, San Jose, in Kelly Park in downtown San Jose, which I thought was really interesting. And looking at the pictures of the original bandstand, and I took some pictures of the new facility that's there, they did a really good job of... of matching what the old bandstand looked like. So just a little bit of Santa Clara Park history.

Very nice. That's fun. No, excuse me. Right. Well, thank you, commissioners, for sharing your reports. Our meeting is now coming to an end. We want to thank everyone for coming to tonight's meeting. Our next Parks and Recreation Commission meeting will be on Monday, August 10th, 2026, at 7 p.m. here in the Sparacino Conference Room. Commissioners, do I have a motion?

Motion to adjourn.

I second that. For his first admission, Commissioner Finesh seconds the motion. Nice. All right. We are going to have a vote on adjourning the meeting. Commissioner Cardwell.

I should say no, just to spite everybody. Yes. Commissioner Chu.

Yes.

Commissioner DeMarco. Yes. Commissioner Forte. Yes. Commissioner Ganesh. Yes. And Commissioner Souza. Yes. Perfect. The motion passes. It will now adjourn this meeting at 8.09 p.m. Thank you so much. That's pretty long for one item.

That would be awesome, yeah. I haven't played parkour yet. I have.