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P&R 07-11-96CITY OF CUPERTINO, STATE OF CALIFORNIA 10300 Torte Avenue, Cupertino, CA 95014 Telephone (408) 777-3200 MINUTES OF THE SPECIAL MEETING OF THE PARKS AND RECREATION COMMISSION City Hall July 11, 1996 CALL TO ORDER 1. Regular meeting of the Parks and Recreation Commission called to order at 7:05 p.m. SALUTE TO THE FLAG 2. ROLL CALL 3. Commissioners present: Commissioners absent: Staff present: Buhler, Hopkins, Lohmiller, Shukis, James None Stephen Dowling, Director of Parks and Recreation Linda Lagergren, Recording Secretary Bert Viskovich, Director of Public Works ORAL COMMUNICATIONS 4. None Chair Buhler asked for consent by the Commission to change the order of business. NEW BUSINESS 6. Bert Viskovich, Director of Public Works, gave a presentation regarding the park maintenance program. He reviewed the inventory of parks and school sites and the number of staff that take care of the grounds. There is approximately 1 employee per 11 acres of park land and there is an $8,000 cost per acre for maintenance. He then reviewed the level of service which included tracking of tasks, routine maintenance and facility improvements. He then reviewed the 5 year capital improvement program which includes major park improvements and renovations. Commissioner Hopkins asked, "What is the policy if you find hazards in a park, such as a broken swing? Who do we call?" Mr. Viskovich stated, "Those are daily tasks that staff are told to do immediately. If it is a hazard and they don't have the replacement parts they will immediately remove the equipment. They will order the part and then get the piece of equipment back up. To report a hazard, call the Service Center at 777- 3269." Commissioner Hopkins asked if Public Works has an ongoing program of evaluating the play structures. Bert said there is a $50,000/year budget for renovation in the capital improvements program. Commissioner Shukis asked, "If you renovate an existing piece of apparatus or play equipment, does it have to come up to meet today's code in relation to the disability issue?" Approved Call to order Salute to Flag Roll Call Presentation by Bert Viskovich re: park maintenance Director Viskovich said, "You have to divide this issue into if it is a modification or if it is strictly maintenance. If you are dealing with strictly maintenance, by replacing like or reinforcing, and you are not changing the design, modifying, adding to, or deleting then it is considered maintenance and it does not have to be brought up to today's standards. But if you modify the equipment in any way, then you must bring it up to code. We have taken the position that we will maintain for safety and call it maintenance and we will try to program for renovation in long term plan." Chair Buhler asked if the policies and guidelines that govern the task list are formal policies. Director Viskovich stated that they are in the process of accumulating all those guidelines, review them through their time motion study and compile it into a binder and then each employee will have all those procedures and requirements." Director Dowling gave commissioners the approved 5-year Capital Improvement Program document for next fiscal year that council acted upon in June and walked commissioners through the items that were approved. UNFINISHED BUSINESS 5. Director stated that "in commission's packet was a description of council's action upon your recommendation for the teen task force. Council was very supportive of the work plan and had no modifications to that. With regard to the composition they saw something initially that we were envisioning ultimately and that is a two-tiered approach, one being the group that oversees the operation of the task force and a second group that does the work of the task force. What they have asked the commission to do is to more clearly define the role of the working group." Director said, "Commissioner James submitted a comprehensive list of suggested representatives for a working task force group. ! added to that a couple of organizations that we may want to consider as well. I would like you to have a discussion this evening about this particular list and finalize your recommendation to council about who should be on the working task force." Director reviewed the cand. idates for the working task force. "I think it is envisioned that the task force would meet once a month and the advisory group would meet quarterly at most." Commissioner James stated that what she is trying to get on the task force are people that like to work with teens, that have experience working with teens, and that have a passion for this whole idea. Commissioner Lohmiller said, "In looking at this and what has come about I think we should just eliminate the advisory panel. You don't have an advisory panel and then hire their staff for them. The intent of having the top people in the community involved in this, was they had the resources to do this. By coming back in this manner I think we have eliminated the benefit of this group. I think this approach however it came about diffuses and takes away the responsibility of the advisory panel. Shouldn't the advisory panel put together the team that is going to do their work?" Chair Buhler stated, "Sandy and I talked about that. The role that we envisioned of the advisory or policy group was to review the recommendations that came out of the task force in order to gather some kind of community support. They would have input in the beginning and be in a position to receive the recommendations, so when they went forward through the normal city processes there would be a larger group of supporters behind it. If that was the intent to have them involved in the result, then they had to be involved in the front end. That was our conclusion." Commissioner Lohmiller said, "We have the advisory or policy group involved in the front end, why are we doing the most important part of their task, developing the team that goes together." Director Dowling said, "Maybe the council didn't envision the administrative group making appointments to the working task force." Page ~ Presentation re: park maintenance programs (cont'd) Teen Task Force (~omm~ssloner Lohm~ller sa~cl, ~I can see how that woulc] happen hasecl off of the scope of work~ Rut I thought we had communicated pretty well that subcommittees would do the grunt work." Chair Buhler agreed by saying, "I think they didn't realize that we had envisioned this policy group appointing a task force." Commissioner Lohmiller said, "We were trying not to come up with conclusions with this. If they are just a review body, and we are their review body, do we need them? To me the definition has changed by us coming up with the list of names." Director mentioned, "It might be just a misunderstanding. I think council wanted a more specific product, sooner whereas this commission saw this as a much more broad based assessment. I think they were looking for a specific group of people coming up with a specific program, in a short period of time." Commissioner James said, "I think there is a number of issues here and in many ways I agree with Dick. It is amazing to me how far afield we have gotten from the original intention of this task force. I think everyone wants to get to the end position, but how you get there is the question. I would really like to talk to the council myself because I do believe that the intent is the same for everybody. It is important to have buy in from people at the top level and it is silly to think we are going to have representatives from everybody that everybody wants in this community. It will be too cumbersome. It can work either way, it can start with the task force and work it up, or work it down. We're looking at a long process that will take devoted people. Setting up too stringent of parameters to start with sets up roadblocks. ! have no problem going back to the council and saying that we have looked at it again, we understand what you have asked us to do, therefore here is a list of suggested people, but what we would still really like to do is to talk to this advisory group first and present our ideas. Either way it is going to get changed in implementation, people are going to get added and subtracted." Chair Buhler said, "I'd like to suggest a process. We have to decide what is the structure that we want. Is it one-tier or two-tier, and what are the sizes of those tiers? We need to complete the list and then make our selection from the list. We could create a task force that we say is made up of appointees and certain members of the advisory board." Commissioner Hopkins said, "I think the original intent when we discussed this a couple of months ago was that we wanted representation from these organizations and that we would go to these organizations and they would pick their representative to be on the advisory group. And then we talked about that the advisory board would study the issues and they would create a task force to deal with specific issues." Director Dowling stated, "When I think back to the council meeting I did not say that the task force as we recommended it would make the appointment of the working group. If I had, maybe they would have agreed to the proposal as submitted." Commissioner Lohmiller said, "I would recommend that we go back to council to indicate that we thought that with all the resources of people and facilities that this group would be the best one together under a chair who understands the whole thing quite well, to utilize their management skills, to put together the best team." Chair Buhler stated, "We are now at a decision point. One alternative is to go back to the council and say the task force is now renamed the "advisory or policy committee" and we recommend that it appoint the second tier that you have envisioned. The second alternative is to move ahead and define it ourselves. That is the first decision." Teen Task Force (cont'd) ~2ommlssloner James sald, ~If I could just change the terminology just a little blt. We can send it back and say that this is an advisory committee that would work with the chair to help formulate the composition of the task force." Commissioner Shukis mentioned, "All the items except items 2 and 4 of the scope of work are administrative items. All the rest are the charter of whoever is running the show." Chair Buhler stated, "It's very clear after reading the scope of work why the council came to the conclusion it did because they saw this as the task force. We may want to change some wording in the scope of work." There was a consensus by the commission to go back to council with this item. There was a consensus by Commission that a policy committee shall be convened comprised of top level administrators to form a task force to do the scope of work defined. NEW BUS1NESS 7. Director stated, "We went out for RFP's on the food and beverage service at Memorial Park. We sent almost three dozen RFP's to various vendors including those in The Oaks. We received zero response. We followed up with the two gentlemen, who were here for several meetings and were very encouraging that this program be put in place, and found from one gentlemen that his vision was for a permanent ice cream stand and that was what he had in mind. The second gentleman did not offer a reason. We may want to discuss this next spring to see if we would want to try it again." MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETING 8. Commissioner Lohmiller moved and Commissioner Hopkins seconded the motion to approve the minutes of the May 2, 1996 Parks and Recreation Commission meeting as submitted. All in favor. Commissioner James abstained. Motion carried. WRITTEN COMMUNICATIONS 9. Director reviewed with commission the written communication from County of Santa Clara Parks and Recreation Department regarding Diocese of San Jose open space areas to be dedicated to public agencies. MONTHLY REPORTS 10. Director reported on the success of the 4th of July celebration. Commission agreed to agendize for next month a discussion regarding the community fund raising for this event, the city's role and the effect on service clubs. 11. Under community contacts, Commissioner Lohmiller announced an upcoming inspirational speaker at the Memorial Park amphitheater on the subject of "We're more alike than Different." Commissioner James reported that she participated in the opening of the All Star Little League games at the Kennedy complex. MISCELLANEOUS 12. There was no legislative update. 13. No one was in attendance at the Mayor's breakfast meeting. 14. There was no staff report. Teen Task Force (cont'd) Repo~ on food and beverage concession MOTION Monthly reports ADJOURNMENT 15. Commissioner James moved and Commissioner Lohmiller seconded the motion to adjourn at 9:15 p.m. to the regular meeting of the Parks and Recreation Commission on Thursday, August 1, 1996, 7:00 p.m. Council Chambers. All in favor. Motion passed. Respectfully submitted, L~nda M. Lagergren, Red~rdlnl~ecretary ATTEST: City C ]~age ~ Community Contacts MOTION