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P&R 09-05-02 APPROVED PAR S AND RECREATION COMMISSION CITY OF CUPERTINO REGULAR MEETING THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2002 CALL TO ORDER Chairperson Peng called the regular meeting of the Parks and Recreation Commission to order at 7:00 p.m. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE ROLL CALL Commissioners present: Jeanne Bradford, Rod Brown, Frank Jelinch, Roger Peng, Kris Wang Commissioners absent: None Staff present: Therese Ambrosi Smith, Director; Marie Preston, Administrative Secretary MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETING 1. Minutes of August 1, 2002 were unanimously approved with the addition of the commissioner's name, Wang, added to page 3, second bullet from the bottom. COMMUNICATIONS NOT ON THE AGENDA ORAL - Naomi Bloom, 19940 Brenda Court, inquired about the feasibility of starting a dog park in Cupertino. Ms. Bloom was told that this item would be put on the November 7 agenda. The commission asked Ms. Bloom to talk to people she knows and encourage their participation in this meeting. · WRITTEN - None UNFINISHED BUSINESS 2. Stevens Creek Trail receipt of Planning Commission findines and recommendations to City Council: Commissioner Brown recused himself. Therese reviewed the Planning Commission Resolution No. 6152 that found the Stevens Creek Trail was consistent with the city's General Plan. She also reviewed Resolution No. 6153 (Minute Order) that recommended the Parks and Recreation Commission incorporate their recommended comments and information into the preprint "final" draft of the Steven Creek Trail feasibility study prior to consideration of the City Council. Public Comnlent: Robert Levy, 10802 Wilkinson Ave., has strong reservations about what has been planned for the Stevens Creek Trail. He believes that the goal of the Stevens Creek Trail is fine; he believes that the implementation that has been suggested is terrible. He also Parks and Recreation Commission September 5, 2002 Page 2 of 7 believes that the process has been ignorant of what has been suggested in the past related to this trail. He raised the concern that the Canyon Heights developers will use the haul road as a bargaining chip for approval of their project. He believes that the city will use eminent domain to obtain access to the haul road, which he objects to. He also believes that the desires and interests of the property owners near the Stevens Creek Trail have been completely ignored in the city's desire to have something for everybody. Commission Comments: · Commissioner Jelinch stated that after looking at the 10 items that have been added by the Minute Order of the Planning Commission, he recommended the commission go through them and decide which ones are changes to what has already been recommended. He also stated that some statements are general and not worth discussing at this time. · Commissioner Bradford agreed with Commissioner Jelinch in that some of the Planning Commissions items are repetitive to the comments that the Parks and Recreation Commission sent when they approved the feasibility study. She thinks that adding clarifying definitions is a good suggestion. She stated that the Parks and Recreation Commission should include their comments in a Minute Order. She thought the Stevens Creek Trail Task Force and the Parks and Recreation Commission were quite clear that the actual alignment through Blackberry Farm was not desirable; in fact, it was very problematic. The assumption by these two groups is that the recommendation would go to the City Council so that they would reconsider the fee-based usage of Blackberry Farm to allow the city to do a more sensible alignment. From watching the Planning Commission, she believes this is still not clear that the recommendation from the task force was really looking for the consideration of the fee-based usage being changed. Commissioner Bradford would like this comment made stronger. o Therese stated this language could be put into a Minute Order · Commissioner Bradford also had concerns with Planning Commission's item number 7, which recommended reconsideration of the boardwalk in Study Area C (haul road). She respectfully disagreed with the comment from Mr. Levy. The haul road is the only piece of the trail alignment that is directly up against private property. The task force spent a considerable amount of time with the neighbors coming up with an alternative alignment that really put a wider buffer between the residents and the trail. This alignment was not the lowest cost solution or the easiest, but it was really to take into consideration the privacy of the neighbors. She is concerned that there is not enough public knowledge of the effort that the task force took to make that consideration and involve the neighborhoods. Commissioner Bradford would like this point made so that the City Council will understand the good reasons for this costly recommendation. · Commissioner Jelinch stated that of the 10 recommendations, he saw that only numbers 5, 7, and 9 as being items where there are small shades of differences. Item 5 talks about Study Areas B, C and D. Item 7 talks about the boardwalk that Commissioner Bradford brought up. Item 9 has already been discussed. All the other items seem to be general policy statements and not specifics. Parks and Recreation Commission September 5, 2002 Page 3 of 7 Commissioner Bradford stated that item 6, to including broad public participation, might want to be addressed with comments on specifically how that will happen. Therese stated that currently the study lists 24 public meetings by date and topic. Therese reported that Godbe Research has been surveying the community regarding the Blackberry Farm/Stevens Creek Corridor area, and that the Commission will get the results of the focus groups and the actual data from the Godbe community-wide survey for the October meeting. After the commission reviews this information, it will be disseminated out from there. Commissioner Bradford, looking at item number 2, "The feasibility criteria and optional alignments studied should be identified," stated that specific information had been requested to be added to the final draft because she had made that request, and expects that item to be in the final draft. She also stated that it might be useful for the Planning Commission and the City Council, when they see this list, to get some idea of what those answers are to increase the level of discussion. Some of the items in the Minute Order have already been addressed; they just were not in the particular document that the Planning Commission saw because they had not been incorporated yet. o Therese said she would follow up by preparing a Minute Order that addresses those issues discussed. She also stated that each of these points would be discussed in the preprint final. There will be a staff report that explains how the comments came in and how the document evolved from that. Commissioner Bradford stated that it would be useful to include a sentence on how the task force was formed, and where there have been incredibly large numbers of people participating in every single task force meeting, as well as commission meetings. Even with this, there have been issues around participation and how the task force was put together; background information for the City Council would be useful. Commissioner Jelinch noted that when the Parks and Recreation Commission first started on this project, there were dozens of people appearing at public hearings, and now we are down to just a few. It appears to him that people have been accommodated along the way every way they could through the public process. It is a process that has been going on for two years. People have been notified, there have been free and open discussions, and looking at the way the property owners along the haul road have been accommodated shows the commitment of the task force, even at great expense, to make sure that people are happy with the process. ACTION: A motion was made, seconded, and unanimously passed 4-0 that the comments of the Planning Commission are to be forwarded to the City Council. Commission Bradford asked how the Minute Order would be prepared. Therese stated that the order would be prepared for the chairman's signature. Parks and Recreation Commission September 5, 2002 Page 4 of 7 Commissioner Wang acknowledged Commissioner Bradford's efforts on the Stevens Creek Trail Task Force and representing the Parks and Recreation Commission. Commissioner Bradford said she enjoyed the work on the task force very much. o Sports Center update: Therese reported that the City Council reviewed and unanimously approved the functional program for the Sports Center. She reviewed schematic drawings the City Council saw at budget time with a basic budget of $2.4 million for cost and design, construction administration, etc. She then showed the final schematic drawings and explained changes from the earlier drawings. She explained that programs have been moved around to take advantage of ceiling heights that exist and to make the best use of the more open spaces. She displayed a chart showing how the space was reallocated. The Teen Center will be designed in such a way that teens will not have free access to the other parts of the Sports Center. Therese reported that a new table tennis program started at the Sports Center. On its first day, nine people showed up. The program will be Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays to see how popular it is. There will be no site changes to the tennis courts. Therese reported that the next steps would be full speed ahead, with construction commencing in May 2003. The bidding process will probably be at the first of the year. The City Council has asked for a marketing plan and they want to see how current pass holders are going to be dealt with through construction, which staff is working on now. Duration of the construction is expected to be 12 months. The commissioners were very pleased with the schematic drawings. NEW BUSINESS 4. 4th of July: Therese reviewed the current programming for 4th of July that accommodates approximately 15,000 spectators at De Anza College and Memorial Park; our program is a well-known regional draw. She explained that De Anza College has building projects that will now preclude the city from using that site to shoot off fireworks. Staff has reviewed many options for shooting off fireworks, but has not found a suitable site that would accommodate the setting off of fireworks with spectator viewing. The findings were reviewed by two members of the 4th of July Committee--On'in Mahoney and Gary Niedermier. It appears that the city may need to "go dark" as far as fireworks is concerned. An old-fashioned, daytime program has been drafted that could replace the current program. The commission reviewed the tentative schedule of events and proposed budget for this program. This program provides approximately 25 percent in cost savings over an event with fireworks. Therese asked for commissioners' comments. She will be presenting this project to the City Council. Parks and Recreation Commission September 5, 2002 Page 5 of 7 Council Comments: Commissioner Jelinch asked if this would be a temporary suspension of operations for one year or? o Therese reported that she is unsure. For 2005, the department will approach the fire department to see if they will allow detonation of fireworks off the top of the new De Anza parking garage, but this idea would limit the number of spectators on campus. But the thinking is that if the city is dark for three years and the regional appetite goes away, maybe that would be OK. There are no answers yet until construction at De Anza is completed and the fire department has had a chance to review the site. Commissioner Jelinch asked if anyone had looked into an alternative to fireworks such as a laser show? o Therese stated that a laser show had been tried in the past, possibly 1996, and it was not well received. She also said that the city might have to be dark for a couple of years to get off the regional map because we don't have a venue any more that will accommodate a regional crowd. She knows that Cupertino High School has fireworks at homecoming. They use very small shells on the football field. Commissioner Bradford asked if staff looked at the property near Vallco? o Staff did look at that area last year, and thought about having a community-wide tailgating party with Vallco being the viewing area, but staff could not get cooperation from the property owner, which at the time was Compaq. Staff did try to call again this year, but did not get a response. Commissioner Peng stated that the community would be disappointed. In the past when the city went dark, what was the community's reaction at that time? o Therese reported that when fireworks were stopped originally, the public's reaction was strong enough to raise money to bring it back; that is where the 4th of July Committee came into play. There is incredible attachment in the community to having fireworks. Staffbelieves that in order to bring the fireworks in at a smaller scale, we have to be dark for a few years and then not advertise outside Cupertino. Cupertino no longer has a venue that will accommodate 15,000 people. Commissioner Wang requested staff to continue looking for sites for fireworks. c> Therese said it might be possible to have it on a different day; there are other cities that do that. She stated that a staff member who has done this event for 17 years is adamant that to go from having an event that attracts so many thousands of people to something smaller is a recipe for disaster. If we haven't been dark for a while, and we have a large crowd come, and they hear that it is a Monta Vista High School, what do we do with the 15,000 people that descend on Monta Vista High School and the neighborhood? Commissioner Bradford stated that we should probably go forward with the 4th of July plan and then if there are alternative things that the staff wants to look at, that is fine. Parks and Recreation Commission September 5, 2002 Page 6 of 7 Commissioner Jelinch asked if it were possible to set off the fireworks at one location and the crowd be in another location? o Therese responded that the staff had looked at that option, but the question remained as to where cars for 15,000 people would park. She stated that this idea is doable if the larger crowd doesn't show up, but we don't know how to make the 15,000 regional people go away. Commissioner Wang asked about using Abundant Life Church's parking lot. o Therese answered that that Abundant Life has been very generous in the past in allowing parking on their lot, but the issue is having an area large enough to detonate fireworks plus accommodating the people and cars. Commissioner Wang stated there are also the people who go to neighborhood parks. That is probably a lot more than 15,000 people. The people will be disappointed if there are no fireworks. Perhaps the people can watch the fireworks from a local park. We could announce theme will be no fireworks at De Anza and encourage people to go to a neighborhood park. o Therese responded that if it were their recommendation to go ahead with the fireworks and not have spectators on site, she would forward that recommendation. Commissioner Bradford stated that the fireworks could be detonated from Monta Vista, but the crowd still goes to De Anza and Memorial Park. The general issue is can you physically separate where it gets detonated from where the mass of the spectators is? o Themse stated that the answer is yes. She asked if the recommendation from the commission was to continue to pursue the fireworks. Therese said that if it is their decision to go ahead with a new daytime program, the entertainment needs to be booked right away. ACTION: A motion was made, seconded, and unanimously passed to accept the tentative schedule and the budget, and ask the committee to go back and see if it is feasible to physically separate the detonation of the fireworks from the major spectator point. MISCELLANEOUS - NO ACTION REQUIRED Staff Oral Reports: Therese announced the Cinema At Sundown entertainment at Memorial Park. She encouraged the commission to check it out. She also stated that each of the events has had an approximate attendance of 350 to 500 people. Legislative Update: None Community Contacts: · Commissioner Jelinch announced that at the next CPRS conference in San Jose in March 2003, the California Association of Park and Recreation would be presenting a program out Parks and Recreation Commission September 5, 2002 Page 7 of 7 of Cupertino with people from the commission and from the Shakespeare Festival staff. The topic of the presentation will be how to put on a public performance for a nonprofit group in the park. Other Information: · Commissioner Bradford asked if a member of the Sunnyvale Parks and Recreation Department would be presenting their grant program that offsets costs of festivals for nonprofits. Therese said that is scheduled for the November meeting. Also related to that issue, Therese announced that City Council wants to revisit the whole fee waiver policy. · The Stevens Creek Trail Feasibility Study will be going to the City Council on a special meeting on September 23. The Council has asked for a tour of the alignments followed by a special meeting to review the feasibility study. ADJOURNMENT Chairperson Peng adjourned the meeting. Respectfully submitted reston, Administrative Secretary Televised Council meetings may be viewed live on Cable Channel 26, and may also be viewed live or on demand at www. cupertino, org <http://www. cutgertino, or~>. Videotapes of the televised meetings are available at the Cupertino Library, or may be purchased from the Cupertino City Channel, 777-2364. Approved at the November 7, 2002, regular meeting.