Welcome to the June 3, 2024 PROS Commission meeting.
Secretary Vickers, please call the roll.
Good evening, Chair Garland.
Here.
Vice Chair Moran. Here.
Commissioner Cook. Here.
Commissioner Meyer. Here.
Commissioner Oler. Here.
And Commissioner Pinkstaff. Here.
I would like to just take this moment to welcome our newest Commissioner, Sharon Pinkstaff.
we look forward to working with you over the next few years on these very important issues.
With that we'll move to item 1c which is election of chair and vice chair.
First we will elect a new chair. Is there a motion to nominate a new chair?
I nominate Brendan Moran. Are there any others? Is there a second? Second.
Okay we will move forward with a vote on Commissioner Moran becoming the new chair.
Roll call. Chair Garland. Commissioner Oler. Yes. Commissioner Pinkstaff. Yes. Commissioner
Meyer. Yes. Commissioner Cook. Yes. And vice chair soon to be chair Moran. Yes as long as that's not
conflict of interest but yes. Okay I am turning over the gavel. So my first order
is to see if anyone has a motion to elect our vice chair Jason Cook. Anyone
like to, there you go. I will nominate Jason Cook to be the vice chair. Do you
have a second? Second that. Secretary Vakers? Roll call. So commissioner
Commissioner Euler? Yes. Commissioner Moran? Yes. Sorry, Chair Moran. Commissioner Meyer? Yes.
Commissioner Pinkstaff? Yes. And I think that's it. Was that everyone? Oh, Commissioner Cook. Sorry,
Vice Chair Cook. Yes. Sorry. Thank you. All right. Thank you for everybody. I'm sure that was very
fascinating for everyone here who wants to get started at the meeting. So we're going to get
get started and do our public communications. This portion of the
meeting is reserved for comment on items not on the agenda. Under the Brown Act,
the Commission cannot act on items raised during public communications but
may respond briefly to statements made or questions posed, request clarification,
or refer the item to staff. Does any member of the public wish to speak on
on anything that is not on the agenda this evening.
Thank you over here.
Next we're going to go to the consent calendar.
Does any commissioner have questions on anything on the consent calendar?
Hearing none, we are going to move to public comments.
No.
What are we doing here?
Oh, approve the consent calendar.
I'm sorry.
I'm skipping ahead.
member of the public wish to provide public comment on the consent calendar items.
Do we know anything anyone? Secretary Vickers? Secretary Ballinger? No, still quiet. Okay.
Then I call for approval on the items of the consent calendar and ask the secretary to call
for a vote. Yep. So do you have a first and second to approve the minutes? Do we have a first to
approve the minute, we're doing the minutes of the consent calendar. The
minutes. The minutes. Consent calendar. Okay. Approval of the minutes of the last
meeting February 5th, 2024. Do I have a motion to approve those? I move to
approve the minutes of previous meeting. Second. Great. Roll call. Commissioner
Oler. Yes. Commissioner Pinkstaff. Commissioner Meyer. Yes. Vice Chair Cook.
Commissioner Garland. Yes. And Chair Moran. Yes. Thank you.
Ocean passes. Moving right along. Now we're gonna do the input on the design
of the Heather Farm Park synthetic fields. Good evening commissioners. For
the record Kevin Safin, Director of Arts and Recreation.
It's my pleasure to be here this evening
to talk about a project that's been a long time coming
and part of the projects that you've seen
in passing over the last couple of years,
which is to say the, thank you Heather,
the synthetic turf project at Heather Farm Park.
So Heather, you have to, oh, I got it.
So I'm going to, oh, you may have to do it for me.
Orlando, can you just say this works?
Thanks Matt, you just had to be here.
All right, let me start again.
So the purpose of this evening is to get input from the commissioners on the proposed concepts
for Ballfields 1 and 2 at Heather Farm Park related to the synthetic turf.
And so you can see Field 2 on the left, Field 1 on the right, this is what they look like
today.
This hopefully is not what they look like in about a year's time.
So the process for today is I'll provide a little background on the project, we'll have
a presentation from our design team, we'll take your questions, we'll receive public
comments and then we'll come back to you, see if you have any other questions, and then
we'll receive your feedback.
We're not looking for formal action from you this evening, we don't need a motion, but
we'd love to hear your comments and questions and input as we move forward with the process
which we'll talk about as we move through today.
So why are we talking about Heather Farm Ballfields 1 and 2?
I'm going to start at a high level and move down to H.F. 1 and 2.
So it's a given that organized sports in Walnut Creek are very popular.
We have activities taking place throughout the six other parks where we have baseball,
softball, any number of organized youth sports and some adult sports.
So drilling down to Heather Farm, there are six lit ball fields at Heather Farm, all natural
turf.
And Heather Farms' ball field use is more than any other park in the city.
So, from popular throughout Walnut Creek to popular in Heather Farm and then within Heather Farm Park,
the two ball fields that are closest to Ganesha Valley Road, which is one and two, are the most popular fields within Heather Farm Park.
Which means that they get a lot of use and therefore require a lot of maintenance.
Maintenance means we have to close the fields.
And so between one to two months, the fields are closed either for maintenance or for rain.
And so there are a number of opportunities that we've identified to help improve the play
and the sustainability and the durability and the lifetime of those fields, which is a synthetic
turf. And so we have lots of discussions about those over the years, but money was the problem.
And so going back to probably 10 years ago, we started a conversation. Our design team was
involved in that and then never panned out until today. And so, why are we talking about synthetic
turf? As I said, between the closures for maintenance or the closures for rain in Clement
Weather, those fields are out of commission. And so, one to two months out of the year for lit
fields is a lot, especially when you're talking about play that's looking for competition. And
so, when we take those out of commission, that's hard. So, with synthetic turf, we'll gain a higher
quality and more consistent play for both practices and for competition for
matches. In doing so it will not require our park maintenance staff who are
talented and work really hard to devote their resources and efforts to Heather
Farm one and two. They can focus on other parks within other parts of Heather Farm
which is say the fields or the park or other parks throughout the city. It
reduces our reliance on natural resources which is mostly water but also
seed, fertilizer, and other amenities. It will improve, we think, the experience for
the players because over the last 10 plus years the quality of synthetic turf
has improved. If you grow up like I did playing soccer on Astra turf, right,
Astra turf, which is just carpet over cement, it wasn't a lot of fun, but now
it's actually it's very durable and much softer than it's ever been, and we'll
hear about that a little bit and there are other communities that have done
this. They have a balance of synthetic turf and natural turf within their
parks and that's something we're looking to accomplish here. So again, we're
talking about two fields at Heather Farm would be potentially converted to synthetic turf,
the other four would remain grass. So what's our opportunity today? We talked
about money, being the challenge previously. The Wanock Creek Soccer Club
is really the catalyst to all this what we're talking about today, which is the
The club was founded in 1971, the largest youth sports organization in the city.
So back in 2020, we started conversations with them.
They came to the city saying, hey, we'd like to have the city consider converting one or
two of the fields to synthetic turf.
The city said, okay, let's have a conversation about money.
And so we started discussions with a memorandum of understanding on what you have in your
packet around fundraising.
And so the condition was if you raise money and commit to raising money for this project,
the city will commit to supporting you, which is a partnership opportunity we've done in
other areas, whether it's aquatic facility, Lesher Center Plaza and other things, Larky
Pool, a public-private partnership works in Walnut Creek.
And so that was the discussion up until 2022.
And then Measure O successfully passed, which is the half-cent sales tax measure, which
generates about $12 million per year to the city. And the opportunity was, hey, there
are many, many capital projects need to be funded. This is one of them. And so the council
in 2023 said, yes, we will endorse funding this project with measure of funds and support
from the soccer club. And so that gave staff the direction to move forward, find somebody
to design the fields and then bring it to pros. And that's what we're doing today. So
that's how we got here. Who's our design partner? It's a company called Verity Design. They
They are an integrated landscape and landscape architecture and civil engineering firm.
This is what they do.
They're based here locally in the Bay Area down in Santa Clara.
They've done this for over 100 public agencies, more than 400 synthetic turf projects, and
then 100 turf replacement projects like we're talking about today.
So if we're going to work with anybody, we had four other firms we could have chosen
from.
Verity rose to the top because this is their experience.
They're local.
They know the Bay Area.
They know Contra Costa County.
Walnut Creek and so in the fall of last year they started their work, which was a view of the site,
meetings with the staff, meetings with the soccer club and then began their work on preliminary
designs which is what they're presenting to you this evening. So I'm going to stop there, turn
over to Derek McKee who's a principal with Verde. Derek will walk through background on the project,
he'll talk about the specific design elements and then I will both come back up with questions if
if you have any, so with that I'll turn over to Derek.
Well, good evening, Chair and Commissioners.
Pleasure to be here tonight.
So, yes, as Kevin said, my name is Derek McKee.
We are landscape architect civil engineers
and we design fields and we design fields
with synthetic to natural grass from Little League
all the way to Division I or professional facilities too.
So tonight what I'd like to do is just show you
some project examples to give you some of the insights as to what we're looking at
as far as the potential improvements here to give you a little bit better understanding.
And then we'll walk through the designs and then we'll walk through some of the components
of SyntheticTurf and some of the things we look at when installing it.
So, this is a facility in San Francisco, it's beach delay, it's in Golden Gate Park right
next to the ocean there, and you can kind of tell, but on this field it has the large
soccer fields, but it also has other fields striped within it, and that's what we're proposing
here.
Obviously, this field has lights.
What you can make out is that there's a low fence going around this one, and then there's
netting at the ends.
What we do on these fields is we're able to do lines for other sports.
Most of these fields are multi-use, so it's used by soccer, lacrosse, field hockey, football.
This situation also has baseball and softball, similar to field one here at Heather Farm
Park.
With this, we can do a lot of uses on these fields.
This facility, Orange Memorial Park in San Francisco just opened.
This is the opening night, a great turnout.
Within this you can see some of the other things that we have going on.
This one had taller fencing around the perimeter and then netting above it.
We actually did 40-foot netting on this one because they had baseball here.
In fact, this field in this lower right corner is a 90-foot field which is high school to
MLB size.
But commonly, this is what we're looking at, and this is very similar to what we're proposing
for field one here.
So everything here is synthetic within the field, the infield is synthetic.
And then you can see there's a full-size soccer field, that's U-14 and above.
And then we have, I think, our U-12 fields there in red.
And that's very similar to what we're proposing here for your facilities.
But the infields are set up.
They can be set up like this one in the far corner, but everything here is synthetic.
And then for baseball, you would use a portable mound
to go out there because that is, you know,
inside a corner of a soccer field being used there.
Here's another one.
This is in Sunnyvale, three full size fields
and then baseball and softball as well.
And here's one, I actually have played on this field.
This is in my community.
And then the other thing that we're looking to do
is we're looking at some smaller fields here like this,
which is a U6, U8 type field,
and everybody uses that field.
You play two on two or three on three.
It's fantastic.
And we're looking to add some of that here
and some of the other space that we have,
especially on field one.
So I'll walk through the designs.
But when we look at these fields,
there's a lot of things that we look at considering.
We're looking at creating a high quality field
or high quality level of play.
And with the soccer group,
we talked to them about the field sizes
that they're looking for,
what their needs are for that.
And then we look at what the areas are around the field,
like safety areas or buffers between like fencing
or hard structures to the edge of the field.
And then we look at also that space
for where the spectators will be
or where the players will be located.
In addition to that on these fields,
I'll talk about it here in a second,
but we typically lower the slope of the field.
That's the grade of the field.
These fields that are synthetic,
we're generally about 0.7%, so it's less than 1%.
Very slight.
We're able to drain these fields effectively at that,
but what it does is it makes the field more fair
as far as the ball play.
Most natural turf fields are probably 1.2 to 1.4% slope,
like what you have out there.
The other thing that's nice with these fields
is that they are completely accessible.
Being within that slope,
everything on that field will be accessible,
and all we have to do is get somebody to a gate
that's an ADA gate and making that full access to the field,
which is fantastic.
And then I talked about foul ball,
but we'll talk about, show you some pictures
of what that netting will be.
The other thing that's important too is,
you know, we're not only talking games here,
but we're also talking practice.
There's more practices than there are games
and it's great for field one to do what we can there
to, you know, increase the opportunities for practice.
So here's our field one.
These fields, what's interesting is
they are sand-based fields.
So for those of you who are new
to what a sand-based field is,
the professional fields,
whatever the giant stadium is now,
the 49ers, the A stadium,
those are all sand-based fields.
The earthquakes is one, two.
So all of those are sand-based fields.
It's a fantastic system.
It's meant for high-end natural turf,
but these fields have been in for over 20 years
And that system is probably deteriorating, you know,
it's not operating as it once was.
Anyway, so these have that system, which is great,
but even with that system in that high end field,
it's hard for these fields to keep up
and sustain the use, you know, that they have on them.
So that's one of the reasons
the city is looking at using synthetic turf here.
So we met with the soccer club, they provided input,
they wanted to provide smaller fields
in the outside areas, they wanted to limit the lines
and use the lines to be shared basically
as much as possible.
They wanted space for a sponsors entryway
and maybe some other elements that be included in the park
for raising more funding.
And then they also liked to have the infield on field one
change from brown to green, synthetic turf.
And then from the Kreekers, the Senior Softball Group,
they wanted the bases not to be permanent bases with pegs
and sleeves, but basically a base that has
essentially cleats on the bottom, like molded cleats.
And the bases can sit on the turf.
That way there's no hazard when they're removed.
They work very well.
And then they had some other things here with the dots.
The baseline, we kept the baselines shorter
than extending into the soccer fields,
and then they wanted shade on the dugouts,
and they would like the home plate to be permanently mounted,
which means we generally do that on those fields,
but basically we put the home plate in concrete
and have it be able to be set up to be able to be replaced
if it gets worn out, which they do.
So here's concept one, or field one's concept,
And on this field, the bright green
is what we're proposing to be synthetic turf.
And then we have kind of an olive green
on the west side that would remain natural grass.
But this is the main area that you're using right now
for the field for games.
And so you can see here, we set up this softball field
with a lighter green infill color.
Here are our foul lines.
And then you can see that we have three different sets
the bases for different base distances or widths.
And then for the soccer field,
we have a large soccer field that is 65 by 115 yards.
And then we have a U10, two U10 fields
going the width of the full size field.
And they are 45 by 65.
It says 65.5 if we wanna be exact.
So there's your field.
It is running in a orientation that is not the best.
Fields should be oriented north-south,
but that's gonna be impossible for us here
to fit a full-size field because north-south
is going this direction toward the creek,
which it cannot fit.
So we're able to fit a full-size field in here,
and then we added a U8 field and two U6 fields.
And again, this is natural turf,
so this could be, they could set it up or stripe it
however they wanted to on the west end.
The other thing that the city wanted to do
be able to shut this down or control access. So we're looking at an eight-foot fence running
around the field and then adding netting here and here that aligns with the with the penalty boxes
for these fields that run along the creek that's there to the north. This pathway would remain
and we would put all that those elements on the inside or field edge of that pathway.
The backstop would remain.
It's over here.
We are planning to improve the dugouts.
I don't have a mouse.
Let me try this.
Did you see it?
Somebody doesn't like the graphics.
That one's working.
Yeah.
I do.
Thanks.
All right.
And then the other item that we talked about is sponsorship entry gate.
And that's the location is planned to be here.
It would have ADA gates and probably a double gate
for more access coming into that area.
The thing I left out on was the dugouts.
The dugouts are, all the dugouts at this facility
are not ADA compliant and need to be upgraded.
They're small, there are steps in them.
And so they need to be expanded.
So I'll talk about that in a minute.
And then on field two, when they put field two in,
unfortunately they made this field short or small.
We're not able to fit a full-size field in here,
which is, I think, problematic.
So we fit the biggest field in there we could,
that could fit, and then we, again,
we added fencing around the outside.
The existing pathways are here,
and we're doing the fencing and the netting inside.
So again here these red segments here and here align with the penalty box for these
smaller fields that are here.
And then we didn't do any on the potentially the larger field that could be running on
this one maybe in a more north-south direction.
But those are here again is the residences and the creek runs this way between field
one and two.
And so we don't have the creek here, but we do have the entry drive that we're trying
to keep balls from getting out to.
And so on this one we have a soccer field that's 65 by 100 yards.
Technically that is a legitimate field for full size, but nobody would want to play a
game there.
100 yards is just too short.
But it's there.
It's going to be striped in gray.
It's going to be more subtle in case it's needed.
And then we have a U10 field, 40 by 65, two of those here and here.
And then the other field we had is a U12, which is 50 by 80, which is this and a brighter
one here in the center of it.
So technically we're able to fit three fields, but realistically you're going to be able
to do U12 and U10 out here, and that will include two U10s.
This is the parking lot here on this end.
It says the solar or voltaic, and then we're going to do the fence kind of up to the edge
of the solar cell area.
So on both of these, we have a lot of space that's left outside of the field that would
be great for warmup.
This is going to be good for putting the soccer goals and those types of things.
So I think that's nice on both of these designs that we have a little bit more room for other
activities around the outside.
So some of the elements for turf that we're using, we're using a dual fiber turf now.
It's got monofilament and slit film fibers.
It's two inches tall.
We put a shock pad in there.
So in this picture here, you can see a field going in.
This is the subgrade in the background.
This is a geofabric.
This is the shock pad that's white.
And then the turf's here.
This white shock pad makes the camera aperture react, so it makes everything kind of very
contrasting when you take pictures of it but the shock pad is there's a couple
companies that have it it's a shock pad it's also a drainage pad and it will
meet all the GMACS requirements so GMACS is the same thing that you have in
playgrounds shock attenuation somebody were fall and hit their head this would
prevent concussions happening so it's a pad by itself it'll meet all those
requirements that are required and we've had issues in the past with fields not
having pads and then the infill level kind of varying as the field gets older
and so this will help with any of the GMX issues and we put these products on
on all these fields now. For the infill we're not using or recommending SBR
which is the ground tires. The EPA recently came out with their final
reports saying that there's no harmful effects from SBR in these fields. There's
been some controversy about SBR. SBR, you know, again comes from tires. There are
some pretty bad chemicals in this, so it's fantastic for us not to be using
this. They also help to increase the heat gain on these fields, so going to what we
We recommend the natural products, the olive or the cork is what we're using on projects
and both of those are great, they're sustainable and what's even better is they can be repurposed
afterwards for uses from top dressing to other things and they're not going to be, they're
not going to cause any issues on the environment either.
For the field itself, generally with the synthetic, we're not doing a lot of elements that go
into the field, you know, like anchors or we're not putting the soccer goals in
the sleeves. Everything basically sits on top of the turf. We can do fun logos and
things like that, but most of the fields are pretty ordinary and we're focusing
on the the striping, so all the corner flags, player benches, all those will just
be sitting on top of the turf. For the soccer goals you can use sandbags to
weight down the goals, but this is what the system looks like. You have a
compact. You have a compacted subgrade, you have a geofabric, then you have a drain
rock layer that's six inches thick approximately, another geofabric layer,
shock pad and drain pad, and then your turf sits on top of that. And that's
what your system looks like. So this basically is about seven and a half
inches in thickness, and that's equal to what we would need to remove on a field
for the organics. So when we do these fields, we provide the maintenance equipment. There
is maintenance still for these fields. It is less, but there is maintenance. There's
grooming. There's sweeping. A lot of it really is litter pickup. We will provide maintenance
recommendations that will also include things like gum or Gatorade spills, things like that
out there. The other thing that we recommend too is many of the manufacturers now have
long-term maintenance plan where they come out initially a couple times and
they increase it every year until it gets to the end of the warranty. But they
come out and they help they suck up the infill, take out any material that
doesn't belong there. They make sure the infill is consistent across the whole
field. They bring the fibers back up and we've seen this help extend the life of
these fields, which I think is very beneficial. But then the warranty on
these fields is generally eight to ten years. But we've seen with that
manufacturer maintenance plan some of these fields going to 14 years right now.
So the benefits for synthetic turf obviously number one is water savings. A
full-size soccer field uses about 1.5 million gallons of water a year. You're
also as Kevin said you know you're not doing the fertilizers, you're not using
some of those other chemicals that you would have in natural grass. But the
biggest item benefit is just the increased demand. We can put a lot of
use out here. We're not going to need to worry about, you know, going eight to ten
on a weekend with players in different sports playing. And then also, you know,
some of our clients are also having a reduction in maintenance resources, maybe
not cities or municipalities, but some of the school districts we work with
definitely are. So some of the concerns with turf is, there's several out there,
But we try to use the best product we can that's available.
The products we use are not the ones that are going to go buy at Home Depot.
Some of those are questionable, and I would have them tested.
The ones we use have been tested thoroughly, and one of the other things that's been a
problem for us is we haven't been able to recycle the turf.
So now one of the companies, and several of the companies, are planning to offer recycling,
but one of them does have that now, and they do have a facility up in Lincoln, California,
where they are taking fields, and we have been doing that on some of our field replacements.
So the alternate end fields I talked about, PFAS is a big buzzword right now.
The main turf companies we are working with
are stating that there's no PFAS in their products.
Some of them have manufacturers used to use PFAS.
And PFAS was used for the extrusion process
because basically the plastic material comes out of,
it's melted and it comes out and they use it
to help get it through the extrusion process
and make it a better product.
So they've taken away that those PFAS,
But those PFAS that they were using are not,
there are 31, 30 or 31 PFAS that are regulated.
And those that they were using are not the ones
that were being regulated.
So there's over 10,000 PFAS chemicals.
Pretty much everything in this room has PFAS.
The air has PFAS, the soil has PFAS.
So the moment something is manufactured
without having PFAS be part of the products,
you can still have it be tested and have it come out.
We're talking parts per trillion here,
but you could still have it be there.
So there's a lot of maybe misunderstanding on PFAS.
And especially this year, the state had a bill out
that was canceled or vetoed by the governor,
but this is gonna come back.
But all the turf products that we recommend
comply with any of the current regulations
for chemical content within the state of California.
So, there's two things that synthetic turf does have issues with.
One is heat gain.
And the way to do that is to mitigate by planting trees in other places and try to offset that.
Again, we're using the organic infill, which reduces the temperature 25 to 30 percent.
And then the other one is microplastics.
So, microplastics are small pieces of plastic.
It could be the infill if it was rubber,
but basically when the turf degrades and gets older,
it starts to break up.
Some of you have been on these fields kind of walk off
and you got stuff in your socks,
you got stuff in your shoes.
That's what I'm talking about.
Some of that is, you know, the fiber here,
which be in our situation, what we were looking for.
So we're trying to come up with some management plans
to help deal with that for the conditions
on the surface around these fields
so that these microplastics do not end up
in our stormwater system, like the creek,
that's adjacent to it.
So the idea is to come up with steps
to help minimize that and not have microplastics
leaving our site, is the plan.
So in the dugouts, these are what your dugouts look like.
You can see the stairs, you can see how narrow they are.
Maybe five feet, maybe six feet wide, very narrow.
Not compliant.
But these are what we generally do for dugouts.
So a lot of times we're doing chain link dugouts.
You can see here, here's another one.
You set slats on them.
The slats, they work for a long time.
Very durable.
Typically, if we're doing it in this kind of setup,
we're also gonna have lights in here
because it actually can get dark at night
when you have spore-filled lighting going on.
But the higher end of things are doing concrete
or CMU dugouts, and that's what these are.
And then this one is actually a shade structure
as the ceiling and the roof,
and then it has chain link going around the sides.
Very similar to this,
just the roof is a different style.
And then the netting pictures here,
these are some nice shots with the netting.
Generally we're doing chain link fabric
along the ground plane,
and then we do netting above it.
Generally this is about an eight foot tall fence here,
and this is probably a 30 foot tall netting.
The netting is just more fragile
in trying not to get it to the ground
and trying not to have kids try to climb it as well.
But this help keeps the balls within the field.
And then soccer goal storage.
We have plenty of room, but we do on some projects
have to set space aside for that.
And then the Musco lighting,
the lights that have been out here
as long as the fields have been here.
And it's an older system.
We did approach Musco to see what we could do
to upgrade the lights, and that's a potential here.
Typically now we're doing these lights
that are LED, which is the pole on the right.
This is what your existing condition is.
And these are what the LEDs look like.
And then typically we're doing up lights on them as well
to light the ball from underneath.
And what's nice with the LED lights
is they are very specific with the light.
So the light wash that would go to the neighbors
to the north would be reduced or eliminated.
The California green building code requires that no property have light washing onto another
property, and that would be help with that situation.
We would not have any light leaving our site to go to the other site.
We may need to re-aim some of the lights, but essentially the top portion of this would
be replaced.
So we would keep the existing pole, and then we would replace the top part, which we call
the mast, with the new lamps.
So our next steps would be to move forward with a schematic design and then move forward
with construction documents and try to get the package set up for bidding at the end
of this year would be our target.
So I'll conclude there and if there's questions from the commission, Kevin and I are available.
Fellow commissioners, does anyone have any questions?
Thank you, Derek and Kevin.
That was great.
does the all the drainage drain to the storm drain it we will utilize what the
system is in place for the most part that's out there so I believe it would
drain to the creek that's right there wherever it goes we would tie into that
so one of the good things is when they did this field we plan to reuse that
infrastructure that's there the storm drainage we still have to do a storm
water management plan. So we may have to do some things in dealing with treating
the water or filtering the water. We may have to also deal with flow and limiting
the flow to be equal to or less than how it exists out there now. So wherever the
water is going now it would continue to do that unless unless we're told
otherwise. Good afternoon commissioners. My name is Mike Hawthorne. I'm civil
engineer associate the engineer with the CIP program and it'll be the project manager for the city side so
We will have to do clean water treatment for this project. So the water will go through a process before
being going to the creek so
The field I believe will drain
And be filtered and then we'll also have clean water facilities as well
Thank you
So, when the material deteriorates to the point it has to be replaced 10 to 14 years,
is it just that top layer that is replaced, or multiple layers?
Yeah, that's one of the benefits, is half the cost initially is the cost of material
that's below the turf, and it's the infrastructure, and some of that you have with the storm pipes
that were set up for the system that exists.
The sand-based field that exists, that whole system is going to be removed, unfortunately.
We did a geotech report out here.
They are requesting that we lime-treat these fields.
So a sand-based field is approximately 12 inches thick of sand, and then it has a pea
gravel layer that's, you know, four to six inches.
So all of that would need to be removed so we get back down to the original subgrade
earth and then it would be graded and treated but it's unfortunate that system
needs to go away that was set up for that so what's left of the hard pipes
or solid pipes as we call them the storm drain pipe so hopefully we can keep
those and they'll be out of that area that we're lime treating but yes half
the cost originally in the field is what you don't see it's the infrastructure
below it the drain rock it's the pad so when we come back and replace these
fields you would just be replacing the turf the pad has a warranty for 25 years
We've actually replaced them fields that have this pad and occasionally we do break them
but they are
You know available to replace them we haven't had any issues and
So that's good Stoler on
So I'm curious
Did the baseball
Interest groups actually want a synthetic infield
Right. So when when we showed you the slide about the creakers that's actually adult soft. That's senior softball
Um, so we don't play
Little league baseball hardball on those fields because the right field line is pretty close to Ignatia Valley Road
And if you left hand I hit her and you pull the ball it goes on to the road
We've learned that pretty quickly. So but your question about which groups yes
So there are different levels of the Kriekers.
Some are younger seniors, if I can put it that way.
Some are older seniors.
And so the ones who are younger do appreciate this field, which
is a little bit faster and plays consistently.
Some don't like playing on the skin dirt infield,
as well as the grass.
So yes, there are some players who
do favor this and others who would be just
just comfortable staying where they are.
And there's no difference between it, the infield,
and the grass, like if you're playing soccer
and you're on the edge of that field, it's seamless.
The difference would be the color.
Just the color, so it's just seamless.
Okay.
A few questions.
The soccer goals currently are stored
on the edges of fields,
but those edges are outside the fenced area
as the new plan shows.
What is the thinking about where those portable goals will be?
So on either of these fields,
there's a lot of room outside of the main field.
The other consideration is the,
on this one we have the Krieger's playing,
and traditionally on an adult softball year,
about 300 feet, which is a quarter circle about here.
So we have a lot of space out here.
So generally we're trying to keep the goals in the turf
and not moved outside of the fence.
We've set up a design with a company that makes goals
where we created a product that has these little sled pieces
that go on the bottom of the front post
and allows even kids just to push these around.
And it's not a safety concern.
It's very easy and it's meant for these surfaces.
So we recommend just keeping them on the field.
We have plenty of room where they'll be outside of the use.
for any of these prescribed uses that we're setting up
to be striper field use.
Okay, thank you.
The dimensions of the fields, apart from the field two,
which cannot get to the full size, so to speak,
I know some of the dimensions are a little bit different
between the fields other than that.
Is there a standard that by age group
that we're doing here?
US soccer, I'm not sure if I have the sheet,
but that's another book.
So soccer is one of the few sports that does not
have a prescribed size.
So it has ranges.
So actually, U6 and UA can be the same size.
And they play, I believe, with the same amount
of kids on a field.
But for any of the fields, they do arrange.
So the max for a large shield is generally 120, 120 yards.
So it's 360 feet.
And then typically, you like to go 75.
And that's pretty close to what World Cup is,
or English Premier League in those fields.
They definitely are good-sized fields.
But some of those fields could be smaller.
So soccer is one of the few sports that it's a range
and we have some flexibility in it.
So if we're doing a high school field,
we've done quite a few of the high schools around here,
generally those fields inside of a track in a stadium
are about 64 yards wide and this one is 65 yards.
And most of those fields are about 118 yards.
We don't go the full distance
so that we're not sharing lines with football.
And this one's 115, so it's gonna be very similar
to what a lot of those kids, the older kids,
are playing with at a high school level too.
And that would be comparable to what's up Arpilato?
Yeah, Arpilato, which is a grass field,
is about the same as that, correct.
Okay, all right.
So, I mean, it's all within the,
more or less the range that people are growing up with.
Right, which is similar to Northgate
and Los Lomans High Schools, yeah.
Okay, all right.
A question about the replacement.
How long does a turf replacement take?
10 years down the line, 15, 14 years down the line,
whatever, how many months would we be out of commission?
We work on quite a few fields.
I'm doing one for a high school district in Cupertino
in Sunnyvale that has 14 fields we're replacing right now.
And so generally, you have a period I call procurement,
where we're setting up or reviewing the shop drawings
for the field size and all of that.
And then once that gets approved,
they basically can start manufacturing it.
So that's one part.
So that obviously has nothing to do with any activity
or construction on the field.
But generally it's gonna be about six weeks to two months
if you, the hard construction on the field
and removing the turf and replacing it.
When we come back to these facilities to replace them,
sometimes the client wants to do other things.
So if it's just a straight replacement
and you're just swapping it out,
that should be pretty straightforward.
But about half that time is that procurement time
and getting the order in.
But it's two months of construction, so to speak.
I would say that's a good target.
Because, I mean, that should be part of the equation
of how much we're taking our current fields
out of commission each year for general maintenance
on a natural field over a 10-year period,
let's say the turf only lasts 10 years,
then we're getting two months of total out of commission
versus two months a year.
So we would save a lot of times net-net.
One of the nice things too is
we're not going down and touching soil.
We're dealing with the rock.
We do not have to get a SWIP for construction, you know,
and we still would probably do some erosion control
and best practices management items,
but we do not need to do a SWIP on these projects.
So there's no real, you know, agency permitting
and things like that outside of whatever we need
to do with the city.
Okay.
And can you confirm that for all the turf, new turf,
all that area is totally, totally fenced or gated.
That is the plan here to use an eight foot fence.
And then some locations have netting
and then we were planning to do that with both fields.
So there would be what we call ADA gates or man gates.
They're pedestrian gates.
And then we also have double gates on here
that'll be used.
We may need to look at those double gates,
but we are starting to show those on this plan.
And those are needed for the future access
to do the replacements or do any maintenance
or do any work on the lights
and that type of thing for bigger vehicles.
But at the same time, it would keep people
that wanted to violate the field
and pull wheelies on the field
and dig it up from doing that.
So yes, and I'm not sure how many people
actually like to wheelies on synthetic turf
cause you can't see the donuts,
But the real reason to fence it is to control access.
Not because people are going to beat up the turf,
like happens today.
It's because this will be in high demand.
So to be able to recoup our investment
is we want to charge those fields.
And so we don't want people to just rogue users.
And so that's really the intent.
OK, good.
Hey, great, thanks for being here today.
I have used Depo Park in Santa Cruz a few times.
So a nice field you guys got out there.
In regard to the one we're talking about,
having come from the aquatics conversation recently,
I'll bring it back to the Walnut Creek Soccer Club.
How involved have they been in this process and the design
and the lines?
So well, they've been involved from the start in terms
of that MOU.
We have had a pretty involved and detailed meeting
with their club board to talk about what you see in front
review is a design that they have reviewed, I think, on two occasions now, and they're
supportive of this concept for field one and field two.
There's a rep from the soccer club here this evening who may want to speak to that as well.
Okay.
So no known objections at this time to any of the proposed plans?
That's correct.
From the used groups.
I can't speak for the club, but that's my understanding.
Yeah.
Okay.
Just had to ask.
Put that, get that on the record.
Thank you.
In regards to drainage issues, you know, if you're looking at how porous the current field
versus the proposed field.
Is there a percentage, you can say this new field
will be 70% as porous as the existing one,
because hardscape landscaping due to drainage issues
is something in landscaping that comes up quite a bit.
Yeah, I don't know what the existing permeability
or porosity level is for the field.
It's probably, as I said before, decreased over time
because organic matter has gotten in there
and other things.
We used to set these fields up to be 20 inches an hour, and we've reduced that now down to 10 inches an hour.
And the moment we see a storm here that's throwing 10 inches of rain an hour, we're all in trouble.
So it is plenty.
We have specifications that set up to test the rock before it comes to the site for those items, percolation.
We tested for other things like durability sulfate soundness
LA abrasion and other tests to make sure that the rock is going to be hard enough to withstand
you know shipping here they moved around by you know, those are a greater and
You know set in place and lightly compacted
And then we test it when it's in place. Sometimes we even do a test we do a sample plot beforehand
So we want to make sure that that's dialed in but we've been having trouble with the rock the rock is
Not as permeable as you used to be
so
We've gone down to 10 inches as our standard and we have not seen any issues on any of our fields
Okay
It sounds like there'll be a some type of water report as to the drainage at a later date set
issues, okay
In regards to replacement time, how much of that is due to use of the field versus weather conditions or
What is the most determining factor in the degradation of a field?
Use is definitely a key factor
Being out there in the Sun it also, you know degrades the fibers in time and
Having the maintenance as I talked about not only with city staff and hopefully from a manufacturer
Keep the infill up helps protect the grass blades and that can prolong the life and that's why I keeping the infill
Levels consistent across the field and checked is critical
We have had one field wear out before a warranty period and it was basically used open to anyone
Used 24-7. It was all soccer and
So it's the first time I've seen it the warranty that these companies give us has a annual limit on ours
Nobody's out there with a stopwatch counting the hours. So we really don't know where we get to
Potentially you could figure it out if you're going through permitting and doing that
But there is there is a limit in the warranty, but that's very hard to prove one way or another
Okay
So as a financial guy
The maintenance that's required for these fields versus the current maintenance that's going on to maintain the fields
As we've had them is are those comparable costs?
Is anybody done in a?
analysis on that
So we haven't completed the analysis. I but I can tell you as as the Commission knows that we also
going to be installing lights at Tice Valley Park,
which is going to increase the wear and tear at Tice.
So some of the dollars that are going to be saved here
at Heather Farm are going to be moved over to Tice.
We haven't done a complete analysis.
We know that there's a savings to what degree
we're not positive at this point.
Okay, great, thanks.
I just have a very quick question, follow-on question.
On the on-site clean water facility
before you discharge into the creek,
Any details, is it gonna be like a catch basin
kind of design or?
So it will be an IMP, so we are still in the early phases
of determining where that will be located.
And one of the things that we were thinking about
is having it be like a reference site
for everyone to come by and see
what a clean water facility can look like.
Okay, all right, so more details to come on that.
Yes, more details to come.
All right, I look forward to that.
Yeah.
I had a few questions.
So first, going back to the maintenance
and cleaning of the field,
I know you mentioned that some of the tactics
include like grooming and magnet drags and deep cleaning.
So I was just wondering how often is that going to occur?
The grooming can occur,
you know, anywhere from every two weeks to every month.
It's typically related to the amount of hours
using the facility. So there's something in the manual about what your use is, and that'll
be figured out. Manufacturers, installers, will provide staff with an orientation day,
so they'll show them how to use all the equipment. We really like this equipment. We've been
spec'ing this equipment for a long time. So the sweeper is one that goes around and
It generally picks up trash and litter.
A lot of it is actually leaves.
And you have a lot of trees around this park,
especially along the creek on this field.
So that's a big element.
It's important to pick that up so that stuff doesn't get down
into the turf and fill.
But if you go out there after a soccer game or a sporting
event, all these fields have all kinds of litter left over.
So hopefully the clubs can pick some of that up,
you know, the bigger pieces.
And the magnet drag is important.
And, you know, there's things,
paper clips to, you know,
things that hold up people's hair to,
there's all kinds of things that get into the field
that are metal, that are really probably not safe
to be in the field too.
And then those magnet drags do a good job to pick that up.
So the groomer comes and the sweeper comes.
and then the magnet drag attaches to the sweeper.
And then the other maintenance practices
by the other company are typically a little different,
a little bit more in depth than what city staff
would be doing on a regular basis out here.
And all of that maintenance will be done
by the insurer of the field, not city staff?
No, city staff would be doing the grooming and sweeping.
The maintenance plan would be by the manufacturer's rep,
one of their companies.
A lot of the contractors around here
that do these fields are offering those services now.
A lot of those contractors are landscape contractors
that already do that maintenance
for a lot of the corporate campuses around here too.
So it's very synonymous to them.
And then also on the topic of maintenance and care,
I was wondering how are you gonna enforce
like the usage of, for example, like plastic
or turf cleats specifically,
because I know using metal spikes very much wears down
the turf much more quickly.
So we need to do that.
Kevin talked about it before.
We don't have baseball out here.
So basically anybody that's 13 or 14 years of age
in baseball and up can wear spikes.
But if you're not having baseball,
and baseball's really the only sport that wears spikes.
So we do quite a few fields for high schools
then they all wear spikes, we can't stop them.
It's just something that they have to do.
And so they really destroy the pitching mounds,
especially if they're synthetic.
I mean, they destroy the hardscape outside of the dugout,
you know, in places.
So we don't have that problem here, so that's a good thing.
The question sometimes comes up about cleats
and a lot of soccer players already wear
what we call molded cleats.
And there's a good variety of those, you know,
in different heights.
There's ones that we've always called turf,
turf ones that are little knobby ones.
You can even wear flats out here,
which are basically sneakers.
So there's a lot of different shoes you can wear out here.
What's nice with soccer is a lot of that is the same
if you're playing on natural grass.
Football would be the one sport where it's a little different
that we run into some issues with for high school level
and college level because not everybody has
synthetic turf and some have natural turf.
Natural turf needs to have bigger, longer cleats.
So the cleats should not be an issue out here.
Okay, thank you.
And then with regards to the gate,
I think it was mentioned earlier
that the main purpose of the gate
is to limit usage and access to the field
so that the city can charge for them.
So will the gates lock?
Yeah, the gates will lock.
Okay.
And then my last question was about the geese,
I know they're very popular in Heather Farm
and so I was wondering will that be an issue
on the turf field at all,
especially since it's right next to a natural turf field?
I'll let Mr. Vickers answer all questions about geese.
So we're gonna install a bunch of signs.
No, we know that there are going to be some challenges
from here to there and as Derek pointed out,
the staff is gonna have the grooming tools
in order to maintain that.
We don't think, I say long-term,
the geese pretty much live there.
They don't move in and out.
I think eventually they'll be spending more time
on the natural turf
and we don't foresee this being a big issue.
And we have seen geese not prefer these fields.
Caveat to that is we do see seagulls lacking in this field,
but I'd much rather have a seagull out here
than a goose or a geese.
But they like to just sit on here in the evenings
because it is a little warm.
And so you see them just kind of roosting out here.
And then, unfortunately, seagulls are everywhere.
And then, could you just quickly go over the decision
on why to keep the two smaller,
I believe those are the U6 fields as natural turf
rather than making that synthetic turf as well?
Yeah, good question.
Financial.
Oh, okay.
So the question I asked earlier
about the soccer club's interest in the cities.
In fact, the idea was to make all of that synthetic,
and then we started spec'ing it out with Derek's input.
We determined that while we haven't identified
the complete project budget yet,
to include that was going to be probably too much.
And so this does give us an option of having,
for people who like that softer natural surface,
and as Derek said, we can line those
in lots of different ways because it's just basically chalk.
So we determined that that would be a benefit
to keep that natural and just give
those smaller playing options, so, yes.
I just have two quick aesthetically related questions.
I thought I saw in one of the slides
that the Wong Creek Soccer Club wanted the green infield.
There were the proponents of that.
I'm just, I don't know who's here in the audience
it's not that big of a question,
but I'm just wondering why,
especially if it's not on the actual soccer playing field.
Potentially, we may, at some point in the future,
add another one of those U6 or U8 fields on that side.
And so green on green is a little bit easier
than brown on green.
And so it was more just, I think,
more aesthetic to begin with,
but also potentially to do something more.
So as we replace the field and consider other uses,
That's one idea, but that was the request,
and it's not a huge deal to the Krieger's
to have it be a little bit different, so.
That was my next question.
Yeah.
Just seems so un-American, not to have the brown.
And then secondly, do we know what the fence
is gonna look like?
You know, I know it's an eight-foot fence
and the netting and so forth, but is it wrought iron?
Is it, what's the netting look like?
Can you just describe it?
I think the existing fencing out there,
the existing, go back one maybe,
you wanna just show where the dugout is.
That, one more, right there.
So everything out there now is galvanized
and I know that galvanized may not be aesthetically
pleasing to everyone, but to be honest with you,
It's probably the best long-term.
We do a lot of facilities with what we call vinyl coated.
And traditionally the posts on those are painted,
not vinyl, the fabric is vinyl.
But anything that's painted begins to flake in time.
And it's very hard to come back and paint that again.
And so I think where the soccer club is looking
to do the entry, the donor or sponsorship entry,
I think we can do some better elements,
maybe some better fencing in that area,
but I think the rest of it will be a chain link material.
So we were looking at galvanized
and just because the existing backstop
and what we call foul line fencing going down is there,
a lot of that is gonna remain.
We're not planning to change out any of this,
except for the dugout.
So the, it's a chain link finance, but that's not,
the netting is something else.
The netting is netting, yeah.
So the company that does all the MLB stadiums,
the foul netting that's there down now,
the entire link, first and third,
that's the same product we use here.
So it's a nice product that's,
you can see through it very easily.
So it doesn't want to be a visual issue, I think,
for the neighbors and people around.
So it's a woven nylon material with some UV degradation
materials in it for prevention.
But the poles that we use for that are much bigger.
So these poles here and some of these
are anywhere from 2 to 4 inches.
But those poles are more like 10 inches.
So they're substantially different
because of the structural wind forces we
need to align it to. So then if it's a chain link fence, why do you need the netting?
The netting is above. The name is for the foul balls, for soccer balls. Okay. So the
eight foot chain link goes around. And then where we have the penalty, you know, basically
where the penalty box with this, we would do the netting above that. So that's just
to keep any of the errant balls. There's a lot of soccer balls that go over the top of
goal in soccer and those would be over a eight-foot fence easily. I got you okay
so I'm seeing now we're the netting yeah so it's basically we just align it
where the penalty boxes is that's the most part where those balls occur you
know we don't want kids coming down in the creek and all that or yeah where it
gets a parking lot or a street we do that too. Yeah Jason and then you're up.
They're on field one there's some exercise equipment out there is that
going to continue to be there once the project is complete? Yeah there's several
I think there's three items of our park course that will be impacted and we're
going to look to relocate those just on the outside of the 10-foot concrete path
that'll remain. Okay I do use those by the way Mike. Super. And I'm curious kind
kind of like the goose question, but what about dogs?
Is there need to be restrictions on dogs?
Or does the turf stand up to dogs?
As far as the turf goes, dogs are fine.
We want people to pick up.
I think you have a dog park here.
So you should go to the dog park, personally.
I have a dog.
I love to run my dog on fields and stuff.
But yeah, most synthetic fields, it's probably not a good idea.
And generally, the soccer club, and so do we,
discourage dogs from being on play fields because they tend to chase
after kids and after balls and it's not safe. So while yes dogs can be a problem
we do a pretty good job and the soccer club reminds their coaches every year
don't bring dogs tell the family not to bring dogs. So I'm hopeful that'll
continue. Any other questions commissioners? Do we have any public
comment? Okay come on up. You can come around this way and your yellow
Carden. Just a reminder everybody's gonna get two minutes.
Thanks. Because he's a member of the soccer club he has ten minutes. Very good
then. I hope to not take that long. But I'm happy to give public comments. So my
name is Derek Curti. You get two Derricks in a row, which is unusual in any
situation. I am the treasurer for the Walnut Creek soccer club. I've been here
in Walnut Creek for a number of years. My son is a member of the club. As all of
of the folks who are leadership for the club
are members as well.
Our membership is made up of players, coaches,
staff or referees.
So Walnut Creek Soccer Club
is a member driven organization.
We've been part of the Walnut Creek community since 1971
and we are here to create an engagement
and love of soccer.
So thank you very much for the time to speak to the council
and we're excited to get to endorse this project
with our full voice.
We are excited about this opportunity.
And as Kevin has referenced,
we've been interested in this for quite a long time.
I think he referenced it back to 2020,
but there have been long conversations in the club
long before I lived in Walnut Creek
about this as a possible opportunity.
And we're very excited to help to endorse.
Our membership is about 3,000 players and families
across the community.
1600 recreation players, 30 paid coaches,
750 competitive players, 250 select players,
250 volunteer coaches, and dozens of referees,
the vast, vast majority of which are from our community.
So we're very excited to support this.
Our mission is to enrich the community,
develop athletes, and really focus on life lessons
that come from competitive sport.
We are a big part of the community,
and we think that the growth in this community
happens to coincide with the significant growth
in the interest in soccer.
So as anyone who can think back to their youth,
remember soccer was kind of the sport of the future,
and it has been for 30 years.
Well, I think the future has maybe finally come,
and we are excited to be part of that growth.
But as the community grows as well,
so does the demand on our club,
and the opportunity for us to continue to grow.
Right now, we lose in and around 1,000 hours of playing time,
mostly practice, but games as well, a year
because of the weather and because
of the fields and maintenance.
We heard a lot of conversation about maintenance
and when would we have to take that out, and great questions.
I think the great advantage from the club's perspective
is we could plan and schedule that.
And so we can plan around it.
Unfortunately, when we lose field time
is when we have the least available field time.
We usually lose field time in the winter
and the early spring when daylight hours are the least
and Heather Farms wanted to are pretty much
our only option around the city.
And so getting the opportunity to put perpetual play
on those fields is a big advantage for us
and for our members and the youth in the community.
The year round capacity really helps to drive that opportunity.
Our players in our club are excited about the opportunity,
and we are excited to be participating in this.
A couple other things that I'd like to cover.
We think that for us as a club and a community,
having these kind of fields will improve our competitiveness.
That's definitely true.
We'll get more time to play, more chance to host games
and to host tournaments, but more important than that,
it gives better, greater access to all of our communities.
The competitive side is just one part of the club.
Right now, because of limited time,
our recreation and our select teams
get less time on Heather Farms 1 and 2,
which are, in addition to Arbalado,
some of our best fields.
And so giving greater access year round all the time
gives them more access as well.
We reserve a couple of weekends every year
just for a recreation tournament.
And we tried to reserve Heather Farms One and Two
and we've actually run into issues with that in the past too
and that's something we're looking to resolve
to expand the influence.
Speaking of tournaments, the idea of TERF
and the opportunity at Heather Farms One and Two,
it gives us more opportunity to host tournaments
and bring more folks from surrounding communities
in greater Northern California into the city
and continue to drive revenue for our community
and tourism for our community.
So it is an opportunity to drive.
And some of our surrounding communities
do a very nice job of pulling people in
because they have that opportunity with year round turf.
Generally speaking, the benefits of team sports
are well documented, right?
It builds resilience, it builds community,
it builds opportunities for people to have friendships
and the kids in our community to grow and develop.
The point of our club is to do that around soccer.
Of course, there's lots of opportunities
around other sports.
But that is what we are here to do.
We are here to drive enrichment for our youth in soccer.
We are a member-driven community,
as I mentioned before.
And we are a nonprofit trying to do this.
We have been saving.
We have been fundraising.
And we have been actively finding ways
to help to grow our revenues and our reserves
to fund this project, as well as all the surrounding activities
that will be necessary.
So we've talked a lot about all the fields and all
of the effort that would have to go into that.
But in addition, we'll need new goals, new benches,
new canopies, new flags, and new knack boxes,
and a number of other things that will likely continue
for years and years and years.
And as a flagship opportunity for our club and our city,
Our intention is that we would actually
try to make those as nice as possible,
as well as replace them as frequently as necessary,
because the fact of the matter is,
this will be our destination location,
and so some of our disrepair goals
will no longer be possible
that we've had at some of our other fields.
We've managed to maintain Heather Farms pretty well,
but it takes effort and cost,
and so we're fundraising for that separately as well,
so that we can maintain the best face for the city
and for the community as possible.
I think that I'd like to leave you short on time so they don't have to take all of my time as I promised
with with the idea that we as a club and as a community are in
Full-throated support of this opportunity and will continue to support the city and have appreciated the engagement
From from multiple offices within the city to help us pursue this as a reality and we will continue to support it actively
Thank you
Does anyone else have any comments?
Okay, seeing none we would throw it back to the commissioners and see if they have any follow-up questions for our city staff
I believe if is is Derek. Are you able to answer a question or two with me? Okay
anybody I
have one
Sorry
Yeah, they well it had not walked over there I wouldn't have asked it's my own fault
Can you tell us a little bit about how the fundraising is going?
I mean, I know you said it's in full swing, but can you talk about numbers at all?
I'm not gonna put you in the spot, but I'm just kind of just curious.
I can't talk about numbers because we haven't released our
2024 financials yet. Give me the broad brush then. We're doing well.
We've had one or two significant donations, which is fantastic, one of which earmarked specifically for the field project itself.
So if it were to not proceed, we'd have to return that.
The vast majority of our fundraising
is general fundraising, because our intent is,
if we ear market specifically for one or more parts of Heather
Farms or Tice Valley, that it would be limiting in our ability
to do things like buy goals or buy additional manual field
rakes if that's necessary.
We feel like there's a lot of support
that will need to come with this.
So we've been generally fundraising
and telling the vast majority of our fundraising participants
that it's general speaking.
We're also pursuing a number of other opportunities.
We're looking at some title sponsorships as part of the MOU
and that is progressing well as well.
Those would be tied specifically to the fields, as we'd expect,
but we have every belief that we'll be able
to complete our commitment as part of the MOU as well
as raise additional funds to update the field and facilities
that are broader than the actual installations.
It's great to hear.
Thank you.
I'll stay over here.
Well, no, don't.
Yeah, all right, cool.
So you do hold an annual fundraiser at Boundary Oak, though.
Well, this year it's not at Boundary Oak, it has been in the past.
This year the timing did not work out, so this year the, what we've traditionally
called the goal gala, will be held at the garden in
downtown Walnut Creek, and it will happen in October.
Great, thanks. Last question, where can people go if they want to learn more
about helping out? We have a dedicated landscape,
landing page landscape landing page on walnut creek uh on our our walnut creek soccer club
wcsc.org and we'd love to have any participation uh to help us fundraise to participate in it or
to learn more about the club at any time thanks thank you all very much we appreciate it last
call for public comment nope okay uh then we're gonna move on to feedback from the commissioners
Yes? Okay. Fire away.
I think we're just wrapping it up, right?
So, you know, in conclusion, looks like a great opportunity
and extremely fortunate to have passed Measure O
to have this opportunity and looking forward
to hearing more information as the project moves along.
Just from a staff's interest, if there's anything,
I appreciate that, if there's anything that you see specifically
that you like or that you say, hmm, think about, you know,
you had a question about the fencing or other things,
if you want us to look into as we continue
to consult with the soccer club,
we'd be happy to take that feedback.
Or if you think everything's great, also totally fine.
But this is your chance to give us anything specific
that you want us to focus on.
So thank you.
First of all, we really appreciate having this plan
shared with us at this point.
And I think it shows a lot of work has gone into this,
of feedback from the key stakeholders, if you will, and I think there are so many
excellent details included that were shared tonight that seem to touch on so many things that,
you know, over the years that this has been in planning, it has accumulated a lot of good
features that will really make this a fantastic couple of sports fields in our crown jewel
Heather Farm.
So thank you all for sharing this with us tonight.
Yeah, just to echo what some of the other commissioners have said, I'm very excited
about this opportunity.
For my high school, we have a turf field complex and I enjoy it very much.
I think it's very convenient and it's really nice to just have a very even playing field
and have that as a resource all year round to practice on.
In terms of specific items of feedback, I'd just really like to see more follow-up in
terms of the water treatment and drainage for environmental purposes.
And also, there was one thing I noticed aesthetically about the foul lines.
They don't go all the way into the field and I think it was mentioned that they could be
be spray painted on?
How exactly will that process work?
How often do you think they'll need to be spray painted?
And also, who will be the one doing that?
Will that be city staff or the actual teams
utilizing the field?
For that last part, I think the city and the user groups
couldn't figure that out as to who would do it.
I'm involved with Little League, and we stripe our own fields.
So I've done a lot of chalk and paint myself.
So for synthetic turf, we like to put in the lines
that everybody wants initially.
Those are all in there.
Striping takes a lot of hours every week
to do it on a natural grass field.
So that helps alleviate a lot of time from someone.
But there is paint that is prescribed for synthetic turf.
So there's a couple of fields that you may know.
Safeco Field, where the Seahawks play,
Boo is completely blank.
Gillette Stadium, where the Patriots play,
is completely blank.
So they paint all of those fields for every game,
no matter what the sport.
So you'll still see some ghosting out there from those.
But what we're talking about here, this is pretty minimal.
And they make paint that's set up
to work for a weekend, like a tournament.
They set up paint that's there to work for, like, a season,
which is two to three months, we'll say, you know?
So there's different ones available.
But they do make paint for synthetic turf,
so that's definitely out there.
You want to talk about the dots?
Oh, yeah.
So one of the things we do on the fields
is we put little dots on the field
so that the person going out there to stripe
can basically just do it by hand and without a guideline.
So on some of these fields, sometimes we actually
put in other fields so that they can be easily painted.
For example, like if you wanted another sport here or something,
you could do that.
Sometimes it's just basically connect the dots.
And so that's another way that'll
help you know getting that installed faster. Thank you. All right I have one
I have one quick thing to say. The fencing it just seems like that's a lot
of galvanized steel and I know that a lot of thought and costs equations have
gone into it but the I would urge anybody involved to just maybe as much
as possible get a mental map of what that's gonna look like especially on
field two where it fronts San Carlos you know it's just a lot it's a it's a
eight-foot high chain link fence essentially which I know we're all used
to it to some degree but at the same time I just I'd hate to have that go up
and then if people say oh my god there's an eight-foot fence here right and that's
So, that's part of the drill, and I know we need to keep the fields, you know, private, but-
So, Chairman, I'll offer that as we look at the budget for this and balance the ability
to control access to that field versus cost, that might be something that we have to look
at.
And if that's the case, we as staff will have to just do a better job of monitoring the
fields and making sure that people aren't just hopping on and playing.
So that's the tradeoff, but we hear you, and that's something we have discussed, is how
do we still maintain control of the fields
without making it look like it's just a whole wall of steel?
Yes. So, thank you.
Thanks, everybody.
Thank you, Derek.
Guys, appreciate it.
Okay. Should we move on?
Okay. Secretary Vickers.
Yes. So, we're going to thank you, Derek.
And I did want to iterate that we do have the best
in the state working on this project or hands down,
Derek's firm is quality.
So, thank you for being here.
The next item on the docket for tonight is the Fossil Hill update,
which is why most of the audience is here tonight to talk
about some challenges regarding a project
that the Open Space Foundation has been involved
in called Fossil Hill and how that's impacting their
neighborhood.
So there's a few moving parts to this project,
or sorry, to this presentation.
I'm going to start it off with a very short PowerPoint,
two or three slides and then I'm going to turn the mic over to Mr. Baer who is
here to represent a portion of the neighborhood that is going to share some
of the challenges they've experienced from last year and then moving more so
into this year and then Mr. Smith is also here from the Open Space Foundation
who will have an opportunity to share more about the the project itself and
some of the communication between the Foundation recent communication between
the foundation and the neighbors. Yeah, you can just go ahead. You have to click
again, please. Don't click again. Yeah, so I have to be fancy with my presentations
here. So just to give you an idea, this is Walnut Heights Elementary School, which
is off of Walnut Boulevard. If you go about two blocks past Walnut Heights, go
ahead Heather, please. You can click through if you want. Walnut
Boulevard you'll be able to keep going about two blocks past the school as I
mentioned you can take a left on Sutherland. Sutherland dead ends into the
open space and right on the outside right on the backside of the trailhead
there is is the project which I'll explain in just a minute but as you move
up Sutherland kind of in a northerly or yeah northerly direction there's
another street please which is Virginia Court and these are really the two
streets that are highly impacted by people that are coming out to see the
Fosse Hill project, what we refer to as blooming season. So at the top of
Sutherland, as it goes into the open space, you see that yellow square there,
that rectangle. Heather, can you click please? There's a about a nine car parking
lot at the end of Sutherland that is generally okay. I know that during the
weekday. I know depending on the season and the neighbors will be able to give
more feedback from their perspective. The parking lot is okay during kind of an
off-season. However, during the blooming season, you'll get to see a video here in
a minute when Mr. Bear gets up the neighborhood is pretty well impacted. The
black star there is the trailhead. There's a vehicle access gate and a
pedestrian gate and the trail moving once you move into the open
space, the trail moving to the left there is the Jeep Trail and the trail moving to
the right is Fossil Hill Trail and they circle around and then tie into Indian
Creek Trail for those of you who are familiar with the area. Obviously the
dotted, well not obviously, but the the dotted red line is generally the project.
This is a hand-drawn. I didn't, I don't have an official map of it and this, this,
the face of this mountain here is about covers about nine acres of what you see.
So I'm not going to jump in too much further, I'll probably have some comments after but I don't want to I want to let the neighborhood speak from their perspective first and then the foundation and I can potentially add some comments once they're finished so mr. mr. bear is going to come up and speak and while he's while he's presenting during his 10 minutes we're going to play an 8 minute video that the neighborhood put the neighborhood is put together to show you the visualize the impacts here thank you very much.
Because we appreciate having the opportunity to speak to you this evening about the situation
that's going on in our neighborhoods during this period.
It's been a real challenge for us as neighbors to understand how we together can affect this.
We've got a major challenge in that the street you're looking at right now is the county.
The open space is the city.
And frankly, we've been a little bit dealing with, well, you got to talk to the city, you
got to talk to the county.
So again, appreciate being here, and I want to present a little bit of history.
In 1974, there was a bond measure to set aside the open space.
And the idea of that bond measure, which resulted in a self-imposed tax that we've all paid
into those of us that have lived here for a number of years, pardon me, was that the
space should be in a natural state, imperpetuity, that's a tough one.
But the bottom line is that was the purpose of the bond to begin with, which was to remain
a natural space.
Now we go forward a few years and about the same time, excuse me, the Open Space Foundation
also was established and the establishment of the open space was that the group was to
help maintain that space and be a steward for that space.
When that occurred in 1979, the Open Creek Space Group was founded.
Then in about 1991, unbeknownst to anyone in the neighborhood, without communication
from either the city, the county, or from the Open Space Foundation, the Black Mustard
Eradication Project started.
And that was the project that precipitated the whole fossil hill planting.
So weren't aware that that was going on, certainly as, you know, residents of that neighborhood,
we were, you know, we utilize that space, it's a very special neighborhood, we bought
into that neighborhood, paid a premium to live in that neighborhood because of the proximity
to both the open space and the fact that it provided safe, low traffic area for our families
to grow up in.
in the 90s, early 90s, there was a move to pave or improve the parking area that Mike
alluded to with the nine spaces. At that time, a number of residents were promised by the
city that there would be no enhancements beyond that. That in fact, there would be no signage.
There would be no public restrooms, drinking fountains.
Basically they were just dealing with a problem associated with the dust and the rock that
was there and the neighbors that were being affected by that.
But we were told at that point that we wouldn't have any further impact.
Well unfortunately that promise has been broken as far as we can tell.
So here we are current day.
And, you know, the initial intent, as I indicated, was to maintain the space.
Now what we see on the Open Space Foundation website, it says it has become more than a
restoration project.
It has become a lab for developing methodologies for future generations.
Well, we can appreciate what they've accomplished, and they've done a lot not only in that area
about across the open space, but certainly now that we have a laboratory for restoration
for future methodologies for future generations, I think we've really stepped beyond what was
the original intent of the bond and the commitments of the city made to the neighborhood.
Unfortunately, oftentimes projects are undertaken and there's unintended consequences.
And clearly, from our perspectives, and it's very evident in the video you're looking at,
has really become a public nuisance and that may sound serious and like how
could you possibly say that but if you look at the penal code it basically says
a public nuisance is described as anything which is injurious to or an
obstruction to the free use of property so as to infer with interfere excuse me
with a comfortable enjoyment of the property we are clearly impacted we have
We have had situations where we have safety issues.
The county did come out and finally painted the corners red.
We had people parking the wrong way.
We had people parking on the corners.
We had people parking the wrong way in front of a fire hydrant,
which I don't understand at all.
So that blocking driveways, not being able to get out of your driveway,
waiting for people who are standing in line,
waiting to find an open parking space.
Neighbors, you know, the people that are coming,
allowing their children to run into our yards,
trample our landscape.
We've had individuals urinating in yards.
We've got more trash.
We have more dog poop to scoop.
So we've also found that the additional notoriety
of the space has caused more people to be in the open space at night. We've got
parties going on up there now and that doesn't say that wasn't there before but
there's a noted increase. So all of these things you know the you know with the
traffic that you're seeing we've stopped you know we've had trash services
interrupted, we've had delivery services interrupted, we've had mail services
interrupted again clearly a public nuisance in terms of what we see and how
it's impacting us spoken with several different real estate agents they've
indicated to us that given the situation that now exists that this will have to be
something that will have to if we choose to sell our property that will have to
make a notation because this is it has to be disclosed that we have this public
nuisance that you're gonna have to deal with. So this has negatively impacted us
financially. It's negative impacted our lifestyle. It's negative impacted our
families with small children. There have been situations where people
have been verbally abused because they've asked people not to park on the
corner. They've asked people not to stand in their yard. It's a serious, serious
situation that I think you can understand. So we've been asked what
could, what do you suggest? Well frankly I don't know that it's our solution to
solve. It's a solution that the city needs to take a major portion of the
responsibility because they have allowed the Open Space Foundation to do the work
that they've done. But we do have some ideas that we want to suggest. First off
we need to restrict the traffic. Foot traffic within the open space itself,
within the fossil hill area, there's a split rail fence. Let's slow people down,
meaning let's close those entrances so that people aren't traveling into those
spaces. I can tell you we're not seeing hikers, we're seeing people in dresses
and fancy suits, and this is a picture opportunity. We have people coming from
all over, you name it, all over the Bay Area and beyond to come see these
flowers. So if we can slow down some of these people that would be the way to do
it. We also, there's been a question about expansion. We are, there's a question
about that for us. Right now there's a lot of space that has been cleared. We
would like to see no further planting of any sort, even in the cleared spaces.
because frankly if you continue to add to this public nuisance this attraction
it's going to be make it even worse. We also think that we should that we should
allow nature to take over. Right now you know we're trying to make a the the
objective is to try to make it something that it hasn't been for many many many
years and unfortunately our street our neighborhood it's not set up to provide
this space for that. Close the main gate. Eliminate open space foundation and
media efforts to popularize the project. Bottom line that I want to leave you
with is this problem that we have that we need to eliminate it or at
the very least mitigate it and we look forward to seeing what solutions you
have to help us solve that problem that basically has become a public nuisance
for us. Thank you. We're going to have the Open Space Foundation get up right now, and
then you'll probably be receiving some questions as we move through this. Mr. Smith, please.
Good evening, Chair Moran and commissioners. I'm Kyme Smith, the president of the Walnut
Creek Open Space Foundation. And as you've just seen, the neighborhoods of Sutherland
Drive and also Virginia Court near Sutherland entrance. Mr. Smith, can I interrupt you just
for a second. Can you speak a little louder into the mic? Yes. Yes. Thank you. As you've
just seen, the neighborhoods of Sutherland Drive and Virginia Court near the Sutherland
entrance to the open space have reported issues with parking and traffic due to visitors to
the foundation's Fossil Hill restoration project. The foundation started the Fossil
Hill project about 12 years ago to address the area's unchecked growth of
black mustard. Uh, there have been few issues with traffic until last year and
we believe it's due to the rise of social media, the renewed interest in
the outdoors due to the pandemic and the abundance of rain both during the
last rainy season and the spring of this year. Uh, that said, this spring, a
gridlock situation occurred, we fully agree with the neighbors that this must not happen again.
However, the neighborhood has proposed curtailing or shutting down the project
to solve traffic and parking issues, trivializing the work at Fossil Hill as gardening and not as
originally intended. All foundation projects adhere to the principles and goals of the
general plan, specifically chapter three, natural environment and public spaces. Fossil
Hill is not an exception. Reading from the Walnut Creek general plan, goal one is to
maintain and enhance the open space lands. Policy 1.2 of that goal is to protect and
and enhance the natural environment.
Action 1.2.1 is to identify, protect, restore, and enhance sensitive biological and wetland
resources and areas.
And finally, action 1.2.2 is to strive to eliminate non-native plant species and expand
areas with native plants.
I would also like to describe how the Foundation Restoration projects are conceived and executed.
A potential project manager reaches the research's historical records for the area.
In the case of Fossil Hill, our project manager consulted the writings of John Muir and William
Brewer from the 1800s to determine the populations and species of plants that were common in
the area before it was converted for grazing by area ranchers.
The area's current state of plant distribution is then assessed.
Finally, a project plan is written by the manager and reviewed by a foundation committee
that includes city staff.
If recommended by the committee and approved by the board of directors, the project begins.
Ongoing project reports are updated and reviewed annually.
If any proposed plant species is no longer found in the open space, a similar review
process is followed and the board approves planting as appropriate before anything is
moved into the open space.
Here's an example.
Here are the project plans from 10 years of work in Fossil Hill.
They've all been reviewed by peers and by a city division staff member.
And every year they've been updated with the progress of the and the character of the project,
including maps, photos, so on and so forth.
The project is so that I think and if something new has to be moved in, there's almost as
high a bar set for moving something that has not been in the open, that we have not found
in the open space into that area. So this is clearly not an impromptu gardening project
come up by one person that has spread over several acres. The project is also intended
to educate. For example, two high school students will be doing an internship from August to
As part of the Walnut Creek Open Space, this project contributes to community
health, well-being, natural beauty, and environmental diversity. Fossil Hill was
never intended to be an attraction and the foundation believes that it is of
great value to the community. To close down the project or block public access
to it is not the solution to the traffic and parking problems in the area. If
If closing down Fossil Hill is not the solution, what can be done?
We believe no single entity can solve the traffic issue during the seasonal high visitation
period.
It will require the cooperation of foundation, the city, the county.
The multi-jurisdictional nature of the parking and traffic in the area has frustrated the
neighborhood in its efforts to obtain a solution from one agency at a time.
I don't think it was finger-pointing on the part of the county or the city or us.
It's just that the problem cannot be solved by one particular agency.
So the foundation met with representatives of the neighborhood last Tuesday.
We discussed bringing representatives from the neighborhood, the foundation, the city
and the county together in one room to formulate a plan.
With the right experts present, we aim to identify a feasible solution.
The neighborhood and the foundation recognize that any solution we develop with the city
and county will not be perfect but will serve to lessen the parking issues and reduce traffic
as required.
To date, the neighborhood, the city, and the foundation have all agreed to meet with the
county.
The foundation is currently in the process of contacting county representatives to commit
to the proposed multilateral meeting as well.
There are steps the foundation has already agreed to take.
We'll hold the fossil project at its current size and working with the neighborhood we'll
address some of the websites that seem to be pointing and bringing unwanted attention
to the open space.
We are optimistic that a mutually acceptable solution will be achievable if we work together
and in good faith.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Smith.
I just wanted to add just a couple of things and then we'll open it up for clarifying questions
and then move into public comment if that's okay with you.
Brianna who's here in the audience is with the traffic and city's traffic engineering department
and it was probably three weeks ago it may have been four when a number of the residents showed
up at City Hall and we had an opportunity to sit down and listen to the challenges that they're
they're faced with.
A couple weeks back, they went to a city council meeting,
were up in public comment,
sharing some of their frustrations.
So we thought that this topic was important enough
that we wanted to bring them here today
for the commission to hear.
So as Mr. Smith pointed out, we do have,
in fact, Brianna and I met with the county traffic engineers
a number of times.
I know that they've put together a draft plan.
I'm not sure that plan is ideal for everyone.
But we are certainly, in fact, Brianna,
I met with the traffic engineer at the end of last week
and everybody, including, as Mr. Smith pointed out,
the foundation, the neighborhood, the county, and the city,
we need to get together and work to resolving this issue.
We've got a little bit of time,
but it might take some time to put these measures in place.
And so we need to move as quickly as possible.
I was chatting with some of the residents back there
before the meeting started.
And the goal is to get a representative,
probably Mr. Bear and some of the city staff
along with the foundation and schedule a meeting,
get something on this, sorry,
get something on the calendar,
hopefully by the end of this week or beginning of next week
where we can all sit down.
So that being said, I just, I wanna let you guys know,
we understand that this is a challenge for the neighborhood.
we want to be good neighbors and good partners.
And we're going to work through this in good faith.
So I would share that with you
and we can open it up to clarifying questions.
Thanks Mr. Mayor, Mr. Smith.
Does anybody have any questions for anyone who is spoken?
Please, go ahead.
I follow this pretty closely.
What was the period of time that it went from normal use
or reasonable parking and traffic to unreasonable,
then back to reasonable.
I assume that period has ended.
And it was, was this a three week period
or a six week period?
I'd say about two months, generally.
Okay.
Okay, can you, excuse me,
can you just hold your comments?
You'll get an opportunity to speak at public comment.
Thank you.
The other thing, there's just been an overall increase.
I mean, certainly as the areas become more popular
then people want to come back, so.
But the major impact probably was
for about a two-month period, I'd say.
Yeah.
I live down the street from Marshall,
which is the other side of Indian Valley,
and it's more popular.
People are going outside, there's some of that, so.
Mike, I assume in showing us that first photo,
you were looking at it from the perspective
of alternative parking would be
at Walnut Heights Elementary?
Is that, it's tough to say at this point,
we don't know what guidelines the school district has
about after hours parking.
We'll have to reach out to the school district
and have those conversations
as part of the collective group
trying to come up with a number of solutions.
Okay. Yeah.
Mr. Baer, how were you given the leadership role
for your neighborhood?
I live on the corner of Sutherland and Virginia Court.
I see this issue as a significant issue for the neighborhood and they asked me to speak
That's how okay. Is there an official neighborhood association?
What the Sutherland Virginia slogan earlier, but I can't share it with okay
It seems like some of the neighborhood issues are very similar to
What the pickleball neighborhood was having in terms of parking and interaction between guests and neighborhood members?
So I was wondering, have any of the tactics of installing
certain signage?
I know there was mention that more curbs were painted
to restrict parking in the neighborhood.
But have any of those measures been taken?
There was a draft plan that was put together
by the county engineering department
and in support of the city staff that
had similar recommendations.
The difference in this situation versus the challenge
over on Dapple Gray and Rudgier Park is that was a club.
And we could get the message out to the vast majority,
if not all of the users in that situation.
And that's how Mr. Safin, Director Safin,
was able to work that situation out.
They honored the recommendation of just parking
on one side of the street.
This is different because people are coming in
from all over the Bay Area and we don't have control.
currently we don't have control
on where those people are parking.
Jump in here, because I took over from Fran
earlier this year as the liaison
to the Walnut Creek Open Space Foundation.
And in all the meetings I've gone to,
I've found them to be fantastic stewards of the community
and people just really dedicated to the open space
and doing the best work possible.
I wasn't able to attend the last meeting had Chair Moran, I think, took my place for that.
But much of this came from, you mentioned, Mr. Smith mentioned social media.
So there's one particular gentleman on social media that was the primary factor for why
this exploded.
I assume you know who this individual is.
Are you aware who this is?
Some people?
Okay.
So I tracked this guy down.
He does some amazing videos throughout the Bay Area where he highlights certain areas.
He highlighted, when he highlighted Shell Ridge and the Bloom area, it's a great video,
you can watch it online, but the video he posted before this had a few thousand views
and the video after it had a few thousand views.
The video that he posted of Shell Ridge was 700,000 views.
So when you get people from all over, you know, so this is a new problem and I know
the Open Space Foundation folks have done an amazing job and are great neighbors, and
this is a new problem that we'll have to continue to work through and deal with because we certainly
don't want to discourage access to our wonderful open space, but we do need some, obviously
some work that needs to be done.
you and I just wanted to add one thing before I turn it back over to you for
potential questions there was a comment by mr. bear and I've actually met with a
resident who lives up near that nine stall parking lot about partying and
after-hours events that are taking place I've been in contact with PD they are up
there more they're informing me that they're up there more frequently on the
weekends and later in the evening and we are considering installing a vehicle
access gate at the end of Sutherland to stop any to be able to close that after
hours so that we can keep people out of that lot so just want to share that with
you I hope that any mitigation actions that are taken that will be involved in
in part of that discussion because closing that gate has impacts on other
people in the neighborhood because the people will just choose they won't park
park in the neighborhood in the gated area. It's closed. They'll just park on the street
next to people's bedrooms and so forth. So it's a challenge, right?
Yeah, totally understood. And that'll be part of our group discussion.
Perfect. Thank you.
Absolutely. Yes.
Secretary Vickers, maybe you can, I don't know how deep into the weeds you can get,
because I don't know if you know, but I thought I heard the county had ideas, or they, there's
been discussions from the county level in terms of this is what we can do to
help we know what those were can we talk about certainly yes they they drafted a
plan I don't know if it's reached everybody out in the neighborhood yet or
not but there has been a plan drafted that pretty much consisted of no parking
barricades lining Sutherland and Virginia Court likely to be installed in
a Friday afternoon and removed on a Sunday evening or Monday morning,
something along those lines that would prevent people from parking on the
street in front of the neighbor's homes. The challenge with this proposal is the
neighbors would likely need to comply with the no parking on the street, which
would potentially impact some of them that have more vehicles than it could
fit in a driveway or in a garage, and so that would impact the neighbors directly
and in the feedback that we received from a couple of the neighbors that we spoke to that
um that at this point wasn't uh wasn't going to be strongly considered by some of them.
So it's still in draft form it would be something that we'd be discussing further along with some
other options uh if everyone agrees to meet. And when the county sits down with the city
and open space and the neighborhood it's is it one or two people or who I don't know what
which you need to name names, but is it somebody in charge of making those decisions or?
Yeah, from a Walnut Creek staff level it's going to be myself and maybe the lead ranger
and Brianna that's going to support or speak for traffic engineering. We'd like to have
a couple people from the foundation. The county, there'll be at least two traffic engineers
and we feel it's important to have a pretty robust group from the neighborhood that might
be challenging early on and we may just have one or maybe two or three representatives
kind of put a general plan together and then bring more of the neighbors in because the
whole neighborhood is going to have to be in agreement to a future plan, not just the
majority is what the county is saying. And that's part of the challenge that was shared
by Mr. Bear or Mr. Smith that this is in unincorporated county. The city has been contacted by Breonna
City PD has been contacted by Brianna
about potentially supporting traffic citations,
parking citations and things along those lines.
And the Walnut Creek Police Department
doesn't have the bandwidth to reach outside
of their jurisdiction.
Other questions?
Thank you.
So Chair, there is a couple of speakers
if you wanna turn it over to.
Sure, seeing none.
If there's no more questions from the commission.
We're going to take public comment, and these will be reserved for two minutes.
And if anyone would like to speak, now is your chance.
If you still want to-I have cards for Niles Heckman, Nick Moffay, and Gwen Baumburger.
If you're interested in speaking, you don't have to.
Hi, I'm Gwen Baumburger, and I live on Virginia Court.
I just want to say that I have to disagree with,
I am not all with, and there are many of us
that don't agree totally about shutting down the open space.
I have been using that open space since 1977.
It was filled with mustard, thistle, and poison oak.
And as you can tell, that was annoying and painful
in some ways.
And I've watched the wonderful volunteers eradicate
a lot of that.
And we've been very lucky as neighbors
because it has been somewhat of our little secret to use it.
Not that many people have used it over the years.
And then suddenly, and we have watched the Open Space
Committee start to put in the natural environment.
I think this has been a gift to us.
Nobody has complained.
Nobody has even said one word as they watched Phil
and his crew put in the flowers and the native flowers.
And then all of a sudden, because of social media,
we get parking.
We don't own the open space.
We are neighbors there.
We are not entitled to say what happens up there
or what doesn't happen.
That is up to you.
That is up to the Open Space Committee.
I came back from Africa, where we went big, huge buses
through small neighborhoods.
And they get that 24, seven days a week.
To use a word like public nuisance is a bit of hyperbole.
If you use that for the open space,
then you have to use that for the Walden Heights Swim Club, who
has a parking problem every time.
Is my two minutes up?
Unfortunately, yes.
I want to see it stay the way it is.
Yes, we could do something about parking.
Maybe we can make it a little easier for us, just those four
weeks out of the year.
But I don't want to see it shut down.
I would like to see it expanded.
It's a gift.
Thank you.
It's a gift for us and our children.
Thank you.
I live nearby the entrance to Fossil Hill Open Space.
And I agree with Gwen.
I think there's a lot of good comments coming
from both sides of this aisle.
I see two primary sides.
One is maybe more what we could argue
is a conservative ideology, conservative mindset
of my property, my property, and in others,
maybe a more liberal mindset of the community as a whole,
or I guess I should say people as a whole,
and even people coming from outside
of the immediate community and the well-being
of the whole community.
And even though those are people coming from outside,
still sharing of a public resource. So I identify with the mindset that, yes, this is a problem
with traffic. It is only in a limited window of the year. So whatever the ultimate solution
is, I agree that we shouldn't ultimately denigrate the Fossil Hill Project. It's a gift. But
it also has caused some problems, which I agree with all of the neighbors on. But whatever
the solution might be, hopefully that will be something that only affects the limited
window when it occurs and not something that affects the whole year.
So you mentioned the pickleball issue over by Red Gear. That is something that they've
had to do with all year and they seem to be putting up signs on the street so
maybe a compromise between these two mindsets is that we do something that
allows for limited parking only in the certain window of the year so thank you.
Appreciate the opportunity to speak. I'd like to understand that I'm here open to
solutions. I truly have no interest in closing the space to anyone yet as much
as I agree that the traffic concerns are considerable and this must be addressed
I am here to emphasize the position that we have allowed for an attractive nuisance to
develop in our backyards, and that planting must come to an end.
Allow me to say I do appreciate the effort, however, I do feel it is misguided to be clear
with the fencing, the soil amendments, the seeding, the planting and the watering, there
is really nothing natural about this project.
If we want to improve the space, there are plenty of trails that can be improved with
steps and erosion control, perhaps a bridge or two here and there. These may
be worthy of consideration. With that said, the restoration of poppies in the
Shell Ridge Open Space has become a significant distraction and it simply
must be reconsidered. With additional traffic, additional risks, additional
risks associated with the traffic accidents involving property, pets and
children, additional risks associated with the exposure. The exposure is
magnified by the nature of the terrain with high peaks directly overlooking our
yards and exposing us in all manners to those who may have ill will or bad
intent. On top of all that the deadlines for fire related abatement have just
passed and I would suggest that with the additional traffic there is additional
risk of fire. With all the extra attention the extra traffic we have
multiplied the risk factors associated with the personal security of our homes
and our households as well as the risks associated with the fire. On another
note has occurred to me that this project is important to the foundation
the Howe Homestead Park is an excellent space to display our state flower in a
little better setting. You make note of this videographer, I'm not mistaken this
gentleman continues to spend time at the Shell Ridge regularly. I can't say that
for sure but I believe that's true. Unfortunately it's two minutes. On top of
everything else this project has the potential to create stress in the
neighborhood and we can see that already starting to develop a little bit and
that could develop into conditions that are less than comfortable for all of us.
Thank you.
I think that should be considered as well.
Thank you.
Hi.
I'm Elise Spernacci, and I also didn't fill out a form.
But regardless, I want to point out this map,
because what I'm looking for clarity on,
and hopefully Mike or Kime can talk to this.
But if you see the darker green area sort of in the center
and then the lighter brown areas on the side,
those lighter brown areas have been weed whacked
and cut back and whatever,
I think they're prepared to plant.
And that's almost half again as big as what we already have,
where we can't cope with what we have.
And so if they grow it as it appears to be intended,
but nobody will answer,
which I'd love to get an answer tonight,
I don't know what we're gonna do.
And people say that we could park at Walnut Heights,
but the video that you saw played,
none of that was repeated. It was all done on different days, different times of day.
It shows you that every spot at Walnut Heights is taken, every spot in both directions on
Walnut Boulevard, occluding traffic, making that very dangerous. The parks, they go down
McConnell and all the way to Golden Hill and down that. And, you know, it's just, it's
kind of devastated our neighborhood and our ability to enjoy. We have so many people coming
and going, we have people sitting in cars getting high before they take a walk, and
you know, I myself asked multiple people to stop smoking up there, I backed to the open
space, mine will be one of the first houses that burns down, and I don't know what to
say, but we ask the city to help us, because this is not what, this is not our neighborhood,
and I know, you know, multiple places such as LaRue and the Lakewood Mansion have successfully
worked with the city to make them understand that it's not fair to inflict this on us.
You know, I don't hate the poppies, but I hate what it's done to my neighborhood.
Good evening.
I'm Crystal Bertha.
So I'm one of the residents at the Four Corners on Virginia and Sutherland.
So there was talk of this is only for a short period of duration.
It's not true.
There's been a cascading effect because of the popularity that it's now even through
the week.
have cars constantly lined our side of our house in front of our driveways. I
have two three-year-old twins that can't even play outside because there's so
many people, so much traffic, it's been a complete nuisance. It has become a
public nuisance. We're not saying to shut down the open space, but we
definitely need to mitigate and stop further expansion, further development of
it, because if it's already a problem and we've clearly identified as a problem,
everyone city county open space that it's a problem why are we going to
develop it further to cause an even bigger problem when we can't even solve
it as the problem that it is now so we really would like the people to come
together to come to an agreement one of the things we would like to see is
permit parking not restricted parking for the residents we paid good money to
be in this neighborhood quiet cul-de-sac and then you're gonna say we can't park
on our own streets. It's ridiculous and it's not a solution. It's a solution that
can't be made. So we would like something like permit parking where people can
still go but they can also go to different openings as well. Thank you.
One point I want to make to everybody here is you know we the agreement was
that everyone would get 10 minutes as a representative of both sides of this
issue. So while I don't want to cut off public comment that is one of the rules
that we do have, right, in terms of we let everybody speak or we have a
representative speak for the 10 minutes time. Does that make sense to everybody?
Having said that, what I want to do now is put it back to my commissioners for
some clarifying questions for people, or do we have one more that we want?
Is there maybe one more speaker? twist my arm. My name is Susan Bomba. I'm a resident of
Sutherland, I've been there over 30 years.
And several years ago, I want to say in the early 90s,
before there was a parking lot at the end of our street,
it was just a simple foot gate.
And there was a proposal to put some parking places there,
because the residents on the corners there
were having a lot of people park from within the community.
At that time, we were promised that the trailhead would never
be on any maps, would not be publicized as a main entry
into Shell Ridge.
And they put in a gravel lot.
The gravel got messy.
They paved it.
Now there's a billboard, Shell Ridge.
Now there's drinking fountains.
There's maps.
I love Shell Ridge.
I want my ashes shattered on Fossil Hill.
I love nature.
I am a tree hugger.
I love the flowers.
I love the foundation.
I'm part of the Oak Restoration Project.
But our life has been turned upside down,
I think you've heard that.
I'm not suggesting we close it.
I'm looking for a solution.
And we have a world of volunteers that are up there
doing backbreaking exercises.
Maybe they can come help direct traffic.
Maybe we can have a different entry at a different point.
I don't know if it's Homestead Park
and there's a trail that leads up there
that will minimize the photo ops.
The people that are going up there,
I've seen birthday parties with balloons and wedding
parties in tuxedos and full garb because it
is easy to access it and to take those photos.
They're crushing the photos.
They're crushing the flowers because they're taking photos.
If they have to walk a little farther
to see the beautiful work and the beautiful nature,
maybe the photo ops will be mitigated,
and that might minimize the traffic.
It's becoming an entry to a national park,
and it never was intended for that on our street.
Thank you for listening.
Okay, I'm gonna put it back to our commissioners
and see if they have any clarifying questions
for Secretary Vickers, Mr. Smith, Mr. Baer, anyone else?
And again, we're not here to solve all the problems here.
We're here to listen to your input,
see if we can come up with some possible solutions
and keep moving forward.
It's a very good sign that everyone's going to sit down,
I think, that we can all agree.
But if anyone has any questions or comments, please do.
Mike, maybe just a timeline.
Obviously, there's a calendar here.
So there has to be some progress made before next year.
So how does that, what are your thoughts
on how these conversations would go
and things would work in the next nine months?
So I haven't thought through all that.
The first goal here is to get everybody to the table
and then kind of set the agenda and set the parameters
on how we're going to move forward.
And at that point, if we decide as a group that we'd
like to put a schedule around this, which I'm sure everybody
would like to get past this and come up with some solutions,
we'll discuss it at that point, and then I'll end up coming back
to the commission and giving you guys a progress update.
So unfortunately, I don't have a timeline for you,
but we will at some point I can share that. Do you have new recommendations for
the neighborhood on how they would go about choosing representatives? Yeah
that's tough, that's tough because there are as we heard there are individuals in
the neighborhood that don't see this as a serious an impact as the others. I
believe the majority based on feedback that I've received I believe the
majority see this as the traffic as a serious issue, I think if we could minimize the traffic,
deal with the traffic challenges.
As was mentioned earlier, we hadn't received feedback in the past about the growth of this
project, and I think it's more about the mitigation of the traffic than it is about the project.
So how we get there at this point, I'm not certain 100 percent, so.
I didn't hear what you said.
There was a question about whether the project was going to expand, and I think we did hear
from the Open Space Foundation.
They have agreed not to expand their footprint.
Kaim, you want to come up and maybe address that?
Sure.
The question was in regards to...
We've agreed not to expand.
Hold on.
Kaim, can we stop?
Kaim?
The areas that were cleared last year have to be planted.
Oh, sorry.
The areas that were cleared last year will be planted.
If we don't plant them, then it could be solid poppies in those areas.
Because the poppies are self-planting, they're annuals, and they migrate, and it would either
be weeds or whatever's in the air, and it could very well be three times as many poppies
next year, unless we plant them with native plants that will compete and keep the poppies
out.
Some of them will be plants that bloom.
Some of them will be grass.
It's a mixture.
It's supposed to replicate the California prairie.
kind. Excuse me just for a minute. These meetings are being shared, you
know, through social media and other things. We can't have questions from the
audience because people at home can't hear those comments. I think we
understand where we're going. There was a question earlier from one of the
neighbors about the size of the area that has been we debated that you are
implying is going to be planted as we've agreed on. Right. And do you have a rough
estimate on the size of that space that they're referring to? Is it a half
acre? No, I don't have to read this. I'm not familiar, but it would be in
here so I would be able to do that after that. Okay, I can share with you the
areas that have been we debated to eradicate the invasive species the area
left to be seeded or planted is approximately a half acre out of the nine
that are currently there. Any more questions for Mr. Smith, Mr. Baer? Do we
want to have just general comments or would yep please just your general
All right, I will turn it over to anybody who has something to say.
Uh, just again to reiterate, uh, what a great group of people the Open Space Foundation
are and how hard they work, and that seems to be generally recognized. And I know they will, um,
being good neighbors is really important. They are our neighbors, they do live around us.
Um, that, that's really important to know. Uh, and also, I'm obviously glad to hear there's going to
going to be some formal talks about making some mitigation
efforts on the traffic side.
As I mentioned, I sort of live over
on the marshal side of this thing.
And during COVID, we definitely had a lot more traffic
that extended parking all the way down.
And much of that has continued on that side as well.
It's still more popular than I grew up in Walnut Creek.
I grew up three blocks down Walnut
on the corner of near Nob Hill and Walnut.
So I know these areas really well across country runner.
So I know Sutherland very well.
But there is a point where it becomes
through when you start to get larger and larger populations
viewing these great places to go to.
Because California poppies, as a photography opportunity,
This is an issue in many areas in California.
And I know we are not alone in this,
in that social media spreading the popularity here.
But I know as all good neighbors and residents of this area,
we want to work to do what's best for everyone.
So I'll leave it there.
I just wanted to say I'm encouraged
by the openness of all the interested parties
to get together to try to solve the problem collectively.
So I hope that that is successful
in finding some solutions.
Yeah, I won't say anything really more
than what my colleagues have just said.
I do think though that there's, you know,
and it's, if only anybody was from the county here,
but if there is a way to essentially block traffic off
and make it equitable so the neighbors
can still park their cars on the street,
whether there's a permit or some sort of other idea.
That to me seems the most problem solving idea
that is going to make some people happy.
Clearly that's out of our hands to some degree,
but I look forward to hearing what you guys come up with
when you sit down with county and everyone involved
and thank you for working through all of this.
Yes, moving on.
Moving on, thank you everybody for coming.
we are going to do the commissioners reports.
Yes, does anyone have any reports?
I'm not sure how many of you were able to see
the recent city council meeting from May,
but I leave chair, you were there,
so you saw that meeting.
But I'm very excited to announce
that the seat at the table program has been extended
and city council has moved to make that a permanent position
and moving forward, it'll be a two-year term,
non-renewable, so every two years
it will be a different youth representative.
It'll be a very similar recruiting process
to find high school students
who are Walnut Creek residents,
and they're also looking,
City Council is also looking into,
actually making it into a voting position,
rather than just a preferential vote, so.
Very exciting on that.
I will sadly be gone after the August meeting,
but I'm very excited to see this continue.
Can I just chime in a second?
Thank you, Carlina, for that update.
And at this point, though, it is still a preferential vote
that might come in a later time, but they
haven't decided that yet.
And it's great news that they're extending the program,
and the terms will run from September,
so like when school starts, through August.
So those will be the two-year terms.
And the meeting code has to be changed.
So that will take some time.
Oops, I have a quick report.
As Commissioner Cook noted,
I was his substitute for the Long Creek Open Space Foundation
who was members of now all left.
But I was there and I just wanted to say
that there's real concern on their part,
just having been an outsider in the meeting
regarding how they can help mitigate the problems
or issues that have come up in regards to the fossil health.
So they do great work and it doesn't go unnoticed,
but I just kind of wanted to make the point
that there's a hand wringing that's going on about,
you know, are we doing the right thing
and how can we work with them and all that.
So it's encouraging to see people come to the table,
but I just wanted to make that point
because I sat there, you know, for a good long time
listening to them try to come up with solutions.
And that is my report.
Staff reports?
Good evening, again, for the record, Kevin.
Safeen, Director of Arts and Recreation.
I have two things to update you on.
One is the Heather Farm Aquatic and Community Center project,
which is full steam ahead after we got support from the City
Council.
In April, I believe you would have
heard that the Aquatic Foundation is
in support of the project design.
So thanks to them.
Thanks to you for your input.
So we are now in design development stage,
which means that we are refining the project
to the point where we're now looking at square footage
and furniture and materials and all those things.
So I believe that Orlando has reached out to you
about another meeting, a special meeting,
so that we can present to you some of those attributes,
landscaping features, features of the building.
So I'm excited to do that with you in September.
I think we're still looking
and a couple of different dates for that,
but hopefully that will be in our calendars very soon.
So that's exciting.
And then the second project that,
there's a lot going on in Walnut Creek, by the way.
The second project that we are moving forward on
is the driving range improvement project at Boundary Oak,
which also had your supports back in 2022.
So we have a contractor on board now
to actually implement the design.
So we will be closing the driving range
within two to four weeks.
So either as early as mid-June, as late as early July,
and it will be closed through November-ish
to improve the work include grading,
irrigation improvements,
putting target greens up there on the range,
improving the T stalls, a new technology to track your ball
and do other things while you're playing.
There'll be a plaza and a new putting green.
So very exciting that that's happening at the same time.
we're doing all these other things.
So it's a good time to be on this commission
to look forward to ribbon cutting and other activities.
So stay tuned for that.
So I have a couple updates as well,
one on the 50 year anniversary
and then another one on the flow trail.
But I did want to just add on to what Kevin was saying.
I was, I spent a little time in the golf industry
and when Kevin and the team get the new tech installed
next to the tees, it's going to be a game changer up there.
It's gonna be a lot of fun for the entire family.
So I'm personally really looking forward to it.
So at each of your seats, I shared with you the passport.
This is a passport that was put together
by the Open Space Foundation,
the Historical Society, and city staff.
We have two major events this week.
We're kicking off the 50 year anniversary
at the Penniman House, which is this Thursday,
which is exactly 50 years from the day
that the bond measure was passed.
So we hope all of you can attend.
It's a four to six event.
It's a free event.
There'll be lots of exhibits in the house.
We have one of the major pioneers coming to speak.
Audrey Bramhall will be there to speak
and answer some questions.
The mayor will be there and a bunch of other city staff
and people that have really committed a lifetime
to the open space.
So it's gonna be a great event.
A couple days after that, this coming Saturday,
we have Borges Ranch Day, which is a fun family event.
There's a number of historical games.
You'll get a tour through the Borges Ranch home.
We have a mechanical bull up there.
Don't tell anybody, but we do.
Petting zoo, we've got food trucks.
We've got all kinds of things going on,
and that's this Saturday from 11 to four,
and you'll want to park.
You'll have to park at Northgate High School,
and we'll have shuttles bringing you in.
you've been up to Borges Ranch, you know that's a one-lane road and we don't want
too many traffic issues, so we hope to see you. Both events are free admission
and we hope to see you there. The second update is on the flow trail. It's been a
while since since we've talked about the flow trail. It's been several years since
we've been working on the flow trail and the staff has come to the decision to
not move forward with the flow trail and at the end of the day, cancel the
project. As Kevin mentioned, there are a lot of large projects taking place
around the city. The Public Works Department is involved in every aspect
of those projects from mitigation to design to bidding to construction and we
are going to be focusing our efforts on those larger projects and devoting less
time to the discretionary projects. So I was talking with a commissioner not long ago.
At the end of the day, if I could have gone back four, five years ago when we started
talking about this and been able to envision where we are today with all of the unauthorized
trails that were built over a period of time have now almost entirely been restored. It
would have been worth every bit of the effort that had been put in the last four or five
years.
The open space is in much better condition than it has been historically and as most
of you well as all of you have seen through my presentations we have gone through a number
of challenges whether it is fire or COVID and everything else.
So Corey Frazier and his open space staff have just done a terrific job.
Commissioner Oler you served on the committee that brought to the commission 17 recommendations
for the open space. The flow trail was just one of those recommendations. We have continued
to work on the other 16, and we will continue to see those recommendations through and bring
you updated update progress reports as time goes along. So I know I'm kind of dropping
this on you, but the decision was just made recently, and the focus is going to be on
council priorities and some of the other capital projects that we have on the
books. So thank you. I have a question on that. Is there going to be a statement to
that effect somewhere next door? Yes, I mean for the many many people who
have expressed their opinions. So we will get the message out publicly and I don't
know exactly how that's going to get out whether it's through a city manager's
monthly update or if we just put something on the news sorry on the
website potentially push it out through next door I don't I don't have an answer
for you but we will work on getting that out more publicly I have a question on
that as well does that mean there are any other flow trails being built at
other locations or it's just the general project is on pause right now yeah so
that the we have not designed or done any environmental work on any of the
the other flow trails.
This was the only one that was being proposed at this time.
And the project is now canceled.
It's not paused, correct?
That's correct.
Okay.
Last thing on this.
I have seen a lot of different flow trails
in different states around the country.
And what they typically would do
would not have those trails be close to easy parking,
because you get beginners.
So what they would typically do
is put these trails out somewhere
where you gotta work real hard to get to,
and that is available,
accessible from multiple access points.
So people are coming from a half dozen different directions
rather than just one targeted area.
Just my two cents.
Thank you.
I'll just put a quick bow on it.
On behalf of all the people that put in hard work
on the PROS Commission over the last couple years,
I think our current commissioners included yourself, Mike, I know you put a lot of time in dealing with a lot of different stakeholders and maybe down the road, it can be revisited, maybe not, but you know the city's got a lot of work to do clearly and so do you and so does your staff, but I just want to at least publicly say that we appreciate your efforts and just getting it this far.
Thank you. I appreciate that.
Any other staff reports. Yes, it's not really a staff report.
but it was mentioned earlier
that we're trying to have a special meeting
and the two dates are September 9th and 16th.
So if you could get back to Orlando as soon as you can,
whether you're available for one or both of those,
so that we can schedule that.
And sorry to have a special meeting.
I know it's hard for people's calendars,
but we appreciate your time.
There's an email we haven't responded to.
Is that what you're saying?
Okay.
That's kind of what I was saying.
Fair.
Anything else?
Yep, please.
Sorry, I had one last thing.
I noticed in the public comments
that there was an individual who asked
about a resurfacing project for the Arbolado
and San Miguel tennis courts.
Is there any status on that?
Yes.
In fact, as part of the capital budget,
there's already been money allocated
to resurfacing both the red gear,
the three courts at red gear,
the three courts at Arbolado.
We are in the process of looking for a temporary measure
for the three courts at Rudgier.
If you've been out there recently,
we've had to remove the netting from the center court
because of the crack for safety purposes.
And there's a temporary measure
that we're looking into installing,
I don't wanna put a date because I'll get it wrong,
but sooner than later to get us through
to the resurfacing of those two courts,
which is likely going to start next spring.
It'll be bid out this fall,
and then we'll start when the weather gets better.
And if the funding is available
from the funding that was allocated,
we're also going to be resurfacing the basketball court
at Arbolado.
No other staff reports?
Okay.
Well, thank you all for coming.
This concludes the June 3rd, 2024
pros commission meeting,
and we are adjourned until August 5th, 2024.