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HomeMy WebLinkAboutApril 20Town of Los Altos Hills Parks and Recreation Committee Meeting Minutes Meeting Time: Monday April 20, 2015 from 6:00 – 7:30 PM Meeting Place: Parks and Recreation Building 26379 Fremont Road, Los Altos Hills, CA 94022 1. Call to Order/Roll Call (Quorum = 5) 1 open position Welcome Council Liaison and Committee Members Present: Chair/Secretary: Kathy Evans, Vice Chair: Champa Sreenivas, Elizabeth Hitchner, Val Metcalfe, Patty Radlo, Scott Vanderlip, Julia Zarcone. Staff Sarah Gualtieri. Council Liaison John Radford (briefly) Absent: Kavita Tankha, Associate Members: Kit Gordon, Rebecca Hickman 2. Approval of Past Minutes -Unanimously passed March minutes as amended 3. We voted unanimously to add Helena Carlsson as an Associate member to help with the Egg Hunt next year. 4. Public Comments: (Members of the public present) Kjell Carlsson (briefly) 5. Continue to Discuss P&R GOALS for 2015 Begin to think of recruiting new Chair/Secretary –elect at June meeting. Kathy asked the committee who was interested in this position and everyone gave reasons they were not available. Will discuss again in May and start thinking of nominating a successor. All members encouraged to bring in new members. There was discussion on the list of current committee members who had not completed the required Brown Act training mandated by Council, as a condition to serve on a Town committee. Julia, Patty, Champa and Liza are all missing the online course certification according to Deborah Padovan. The committee asked to look into the possibility of adding another 2 hour live town hall course to complete this requirement. The current online course is too time consuming to complete, and they will not do it. There are no consequences to committee members for not completing this training. Annual Brown Act training at town hall is preferred. Kathy will check with Deborah Padovan about another Town course. Goals for Increased Programming – How to question public on needs Brief discussion on programming goals, and the need to survey all ages of residents to determine current resident priorities for programming. No need to survey if we need facilities – we do! But we do need to see what classes and programming are a priuority for our residents, so that we can begin to establish the best use of a new flex building on town land. This use will determine design and storage at a flex space. We will update the committee in May, at the next meeting, on possible survey questions that might help us decide our programming priorities , and the possible uses for new flex space if it is built. Update on meeting with Tori on Toilet / Sink facility for camps at Barn Val and Julia met with Tori Dye the Barn Manager, as the P&R sub committee on the Barn, and asked her about her needs and wants for the upcoming year. P&R has interest in a toilet and the Consessioner might want a covered arena. We needed to clarify and prioritize. There was a concern at the March P&R meeting, because these competing needs might present a fundraising conflict. Val and Julia found out that Tori is in the process of asking her constituants what they would be interested in supporting and placing as a priority. She felt that for her, it was a higher priority right now to continue to strengthen the financial performanc e of the riding programs before embarking on a big new fundraising project like a covered arena. Val and Julia asked her about her needs for a toilet near the lower arena, and she indicated that since the nature programming has seen a decline recently (lack of toilet and sink are a contributing factor) that currently there is not a raging demand for these, until we can increase programming again. It’s a catch 22. Past nature instructors really stressed the need for these toilet and sink facilities to expand programming, because little kids cannot make it up the hill fast enough – and younger campers require supervision if they go to the barn bathroom – making it prohibitave to increase the programming without lower arena toilet and washing facilities. However, Sarah has contracted with a porta potty company for temporary facilities, and Town staff will try to cover these plastic eye sores with wood, for a more natural “outhouse” look – making them less offensive to overlooking neighbors. This will meet our programming need temporarily, and should solve immediate problems for this years camp season. Update on Building Additional Classroom FLEX space at Town Hall Champa reported again about the several meeetings that have taken place on the potential new flex classroom space that could be built on town owned land behind the Heritage House. P&R supports whole heartedly the idea of adding a multi use building, but conceeded that a real survey needs to take place, identifying all the interested committees, residents and user groups, and all the possible uses for the land, and what are our residents highest priority for its use. We looked at the mock plans, and felt that moving the Heritage house over and making a better overall lay out for the land and new building, would be better than trying to fit a small new building in an already crowded space. The need for P&R facilities is so great, that a larger building, possibly uncluding underground space, as well as 2nd story loft space, would be desireable. P&R would like to see the Council appoint a new Adhoc committee to take this project on. It should include members of each interested committee, as well as the public, and should take as much public input as possible, including a new survey, and including neighbors in all aspects of the planning process. All the pitfalls of building the new Town Hall should be avoided and learn from past mistakes. Including neighbors input from the beginning is critical to the success of the project. P&R Motion: The Parks and Recreation Committee, at their 4/20/2015 meeting, voted unanimously to recommend to the Town Council, that the Town move to form a new AdHoc Committee to explore use of land north of the Council Chambers for multiple purposes, and to perform a Town wide community survey, and hold community meetings, to gather input from neighbors and assess needs. The motion was proposed by Julia Zarcone and 2 nd by Val Metcalf. Passed unanimously. 6. Fall/Winter Guide Preview / Spring/Summer Review: Sarah Gualtieri Sarah reminded us that text blurbs and class suggestions need to be in to her by June for the Fall guide which will be out in August. Karen Drucker will provide teacher suggestions for art classes, directly to Sarah. 7. Programming and Marketing Update: -Town Newsletter Submissions (September / December / March / June) -Fall Guide Blurbs due June 1st / Final by June 15th -Discussion tabeled for New LAH Speaker Series –Kavita Absent. 8. Champa Sreenivas – playgroup update for Spring Activities & Publicity Champa will be leaving the country for 4 months. She will miss the Town Picnic in June and needs someone to cover this event and gather emails for parents of preschool age children to add them to the playgroup list in the fall. She will miss the May/June/August meetings – No meeting in July. She will be copied on the meeting minutes so she can keep up. These are excused meetings and her responsibilities have been covered. 9. Request for NEW Comprehensive P&R Survey – Sarah Gualtieri Start to discuss possible survey questions and outcomes and timeframe. Vote on proposal to Council and justify need and expense. Make arrangements to add to Council agenda for council discussion – John Radford We began a discussion on possible questions for a P&R survey and agreed to come to the May meeting with more ideas. John Radford, who joined the meeting early, and then had to leave for a Council meeting, agreed to take his survey design expertese, to take our suggestions, and tweak them to make a better Town wide P&R survey. The scope of the survey has grown from P&R programming needs, to now include facilities needs, and best use of town land north of the Council chambers. We also need to include a van for Seniors somewhere in the programming discussion. 10. 2015 Events Update: Town Picnic 6/7 – Needs Table Volunteers / Preschool Member Drive 4th of July Parade 7/4 – Sarah Gualtieri Hoedown 9/12 (Saturday after Labor Day) Kathy Halloween Pumpkin Carving – cancelled for lack of leader Youth Commission Events – Sarah/Kathy Hoppin Hounds – Sarah/Rebecca Hickman LAHfamily Spring Egg Hunt - Champa /Helena Earth Day 4/26 Kathy Evans/ Nancy Couperus Pathway Run 5/9 – Scott Vanderlip 11. Barn Facilities Quarterly Update: Westwind Community Barn –Report from Barn Manager – Torie Dye Tabeled again. P&R has submitted a formal request to include Tori at the next P&R meeting for a real update to the committee. It shoud include: Status on YRRP, programs / Camps, 4-H, PRPC, Other users. Status on rodent abatement, barn owl boxes, hill path maintenance. paddocksByrne Preserve - Programs / Maintenance (weed abatement - Acterra). Future facility and programming needs. 12. Discuss dates to be set by Town and LASD, for joint community meetings, so that we can discuss progress with LASD and Foothill College contract for Facilities Use – Needs / Wants. Other cities have contracts with their schools re facilities on after school programming. Need blurbs for Fall guide. Make list of Town facilities needs. Forward to Courtney so she can set a meeting. Follow up with Courtney and LASD after meeting. We discussed that Courtney has begiun to set up regular meetings with LASD to discuss safety arouhnd the Gardner Bullis School. If we want to discuss the use of facilities at the LASD campuses, we need these to be separate meetings, but should still go through Courtney. Other towns do have contracts with their school districts to rent faciltities. We could pursue establishing such a contract, but it is not a current priority, if we have the ability to build our own facilitiy, instead of fighting with the district over high use fees. In the last 15 years LASD has refused to allow our P&R public programming to occur on site at their schools in town without high use fees. The high fees make our programs too expensive for public programming. There is still an interest in using the gym, the multi purpose rooms, music and computer rooms, because we have a need which will not be met with our own multi use building because of space constraints. We have had better luck with Foothilll College in using their facilities , and instructors, and we willl continue to try to expand this use. In the mean time, it is the recommendation of Parks and Rec. to pursue the building of our own Town controlled flex space, for immediate programming needs. 13. Ongoing Park Facilities Responsibilities: -Purissima Park Fields – Programs / Maintenance: Nothing to report -Purissima Park Riding Arena – Programs / Maintenance / Arena Footing LAHHA would like to add and pay ½ for some dust control for the Town arena at Purissima Fields. Sarah will lookk into the material and make sure it is environmentally sound. -Edith Park /O’Keefe Preserve – Programs / Maintenance: Nothing to report 14. Old Business: None 15. New Business: None 16. Set Next Meetings: May 18th 6:00 – 7:30pm Bring Potential New Members, 6/15, No meeting in July, 8/17, 9/21, 10/19, 11/9, No meeting in Dec., 1/19/2016 confirm Associate Members, *Special meeting. New Officers announced to Council each July(We elect in June) Associate Members confirmed each January. 17. Adjourned Time 7:30pm