Hopefully good flashbacks.

They're good ones.

Happy memories.

Everybody ready?

Hello and welcome to the Parks and Recreation Commission meeting for Wednesday, September 3rd, 2025.

We are in the city council chambers.

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Moving on.

Commissioner announcements or agenda amendments.

I have a couple.

First, I want to say happy Labor Day to our city employees over the weekend, especially our park and rec team, because they're awesome and did great at all of our events that we've been having all summer long.

I also want to thank the community members that joined us for the cleanup with a commissioner day in August.

That was super fun.

We met a lot of new Belmont residents, which was really cool.

Six plus bags of trash, which was awesome to remove from our corridor.

And then I also want to just shout out the made out of dough.

I attended with Mayor Mates over the weekend.

They're opening on Oak County, just a walk away from our Alexander Park.

You can now grab your cinnamon roll, walk to the park, hang out.

So we're super excited about that.

So yeah, thank you.

Excellent.

And then happy to say the Salston Trail is being restored.

There's heavy equipment, hard at work, so very, very happy about that.

And then there's AYSO opening day Saturday, which everyone's welcome to come see.

It's uh it will be a wonder for everyone to see how five-year-olds and this year in a breakthrough under four.

Work in a march.

I know.

We've got 20 under 20 under fours that will attempt to march.

It will be a treat.

A treat is a word for it.

It'll be fun.

Yes.

Okay.

Item number five, the consent calendar.

Um, consent calendar items are considered routine in nature and will be enacted in one motion.

There will be no separate discussion on these items unless a commissioner or staff request specific items be removed for separate action.

We only have one thing under consent calendar, and that would be the July 16th, 2025 minutes.

Does anyone have any?

I move to adopt the minutes as presented.

A second.

Commissioner Lee.

Yes.

Commissioner Hill.

Yes.

Commissioner Whitmore.

Yes.

Commissioner Cunha?

Yes.

Commissioner Lieford.

Yes.

Chair Emkin.

Yes.

Motion passes six and oh.

Okay, on to the fun stuff.

The items of business.

So for item A, we have Belmont Community Foundation event recap, and thank you.

Good evening, Commissioners.

Good evening, Bridget.

Thank you for having us.

I was going to do some introductions at the end, but because we have our amazing team all here, I would like to start actually with the introduction.

So this here is Karen Schornstein.

She's largely responsible for our marketing.

Nancy is, sorry.

Nancy Zang took care of all of our community and wellness programs for our event.

Clarissa Nafsker is involved in absolutely everything and is key to the holding the whole organization together.

And Alia, hi, is our newest volunteer as of like yesterday.

And we are very excited to welcome her on board as treasurer.

So moving on.

This evening, I would love to just give you a little bit of a recap of our Imagine Together Festival.

Many most all of you were there, and many of you were very involved in it.

So thank you for that.

First and foremost, the parks and rec department for the city of Belmont.

Bridget is an incredible, phenomenal partner.

Absolutely would not have happened without her and her entire incredible staff.

Anne Marie, thank you.

I was in touch with Anne Marie quite a bit throughout this whole um lead up.

And just truly incredible staff did so much on the day of and and in advance.

So thank you very much for that.

Karen Haas Folletta with Footsteps Childcare was also a really important partner, really um integral to getting all the young families there and putting together a great booth with face painting and um uh she had other stuff going on.

Oh, smoothies, uh bike smoothies and um all sorts of things, and also brought in some of our wellness um parts.

Um we had an optometrist there who was giving free vision exams and gave out something like upwards of 90 pairs of glasses that day, which was shocking to me.

So that was fabulous.

Made out of dough.

Michelle and Courtney were amazing.

They basically brought in all the craft vendors and all the food vendors for this event.

And they did just have their big opening, and it looks like it was a huge success, and very much want to wish them great success and hope that everybody here supports them.

And then finally Karen Haas Folletta also brought in the Belmont, the Rotary Club of Belmont Redwood Shores.

So great set of partners.

The goals of this event were really too create awareness and momentum around the community center project.

To bring the community to the site to see the current state of our community center and also to see the vision for the future.

It was also just a great day of fun for the community, lots of play, lots of food, lots of gathering, which is what we hope a future community center will be.

And while fundraising is always a goal for a community foundation, on this day it really took a back seat, and really what we were doing was building awareness and educating the public.

In order to get people there, we needed to get the word out, and we did that in every way we possibly could.

And thank you to our BCF team on the marketing side, particularly Karen and Clarissa as well.

We had phenomenal graphics, which you'll see a little bit of later, and that is all thanks to Mandy Gibbs, who is one of our volunteers.

She's a great graphic designer.

We had an awesome team of interns, Alex, Lindsay, Veronica, Abby, and Jolie.

And none of that would have been possible without Han Fon, who was the person who recruited and also managed our interns for us.

He does the same kind of intern program for the Belmont Water Dog Run.

And it is tremendous and such a great opportunity for the young people.

It was great to work with them, and it was great to have him manage them, and he does that beautifully.

Because a lot of people who had not heard about it ended up just seeing that there was something going on and came over, and we were able to pull them in and talk to them a little bit about what was happening that day.

But here's an example of some of our marketing materials that Flyer was put together by Mandy, and it's also a great opportunity to call out our sponsors of the event, Peninsula Clean Energy, Jacqueline Kirth Orthodonics, Prometheus, as well as MGM Builders, Austin Lee Admissions, thank you, and hometown Realty.

So it was great to have their support for this event.

Festival components, there was a lot going on on this day.

We had, like I mentioned, craft vendors and food vendors.

We had a whole play area, which was a huge inflatable slide.

All of mobile rec, another way the Parks and Rec department really pulled through.

All of their games were out on display.

We had Badminton going, we had pickleball going, we had pickleball motivators who were who were there playing and teaching people.

So that was fun.

We had a whole community and wellness area, as I mentioned, and big thanks to Nancy on that because she was the one interfacing with all of the Belmont organizations, Belmont and beyond, but mostly Belmont organizations, and the wellness area.

I mentioned before, Karen Hausfeld played a big role in that.

But it allowed for all of the organizations to have their own booths and do their own thing, and a lot of them had fun activities as well as just information.

We had a whole emergency preparedness area as a way to talk about the new community center being an emergency resource center and doubling as that and the importance of having that in our community.

And in that area, we had our fabulous Belmont PD and our awesome FIRE, as well as our CERT, our uh certified emergency response team.

We had them there as well.

And that whole area actually doubled as our first aid, and that was awesome because that was not a part of the plan, and they just stepped up and were able to play that role for us.

So that was great.

We had a video rolling on loop in the multi-use room, and that is all thanks to Steve Sunwu who put that together for us.

It's just like a little informational piece, which will be on our website soon, explaining what this project is and a little bit about it and the importance of it.

We had our fabulous Parks and Rec director Bridget giving tours three that day, showing people all the ins and outs of our crumbling community center.

That was, I think, very informative.

There was a lot of interest, and Bridget did a great job on those.

DJ Leo really kind of brought everything together, created great ambiance, and uh really it completely changed the mood once he when he started playing his music while we were doing setup.

So that was a really important component.

Our ambassadors were I think critical to the mission.

Um they were out there mingling with people, engaging, talking to them, letting them know what was happening and when.

So really driving people to the tours and to the architect's presentation.

Um drumline played a similar role.

They they brought attention very quickly to, hey, look at us, um, look what's happening here, brought everybody to the black top, and then kind of served as a pie paper to bring people into the multi-use room for the architect's presentation.

And then we kind of had what what we think of as the centerpiece of the event, which was the architect's presentation.

Um, there were nearly 200 people in the room for that presentation.

Group four did a phenomenal job.

I looks like you're gonna get to hear from them a little later this evening.

Um, but like I said, we drove traffic to the presentation through our ambassadors, our drumline.

Um, we had incentives so people could get raffle tickets or or prize drawing tickets for um watching the video, joining a tour, uh going to the architect's presentation, and for making a donation, and that really we weren't sure how that would um what kind of an effect that would have, but people were really psyched about that.

Um, and all of the prizes were donated by the vendors, and so people got to come up and pick a prize if their ticket was called, and so there were a lot of a lot of winners.

Um, so that was super fun.

Um, quick shout out to my daughter Noah who did all the art for this um map and Mandy who did the graphics on it, the text.

Uh and here are just some photos.

This, these are photos of the um actual presentation by group four.

There were there were boards up front, which was great because we got everybody in there a little bit early, so people had time to gather, study the boards, chat, um, and then again to engage with them after.

So that was that was a huge plus.

So thank you to group four for those.

Um here are just some examples mostly of our community and wellness area and of Bridget giving one of her tours.

Um we've got this is some of photos of the play zone.

We got a water table, pickleball, inflatable slide, many, many things to do.

And then here just some people enjoying the event.

We also had a community art project that was done by the Belmont art in community art intern, which turned out super cute.

Um people, you know, visiting the craft vendors and and getting prizes from the from the prize table.

Um, this is a list of our community booths that um Nancy was able to pull together.

So those on the left were all there or were supposed to be there.

A couple ended up not showing up last second, but um, it was a great turnout.

We had a lot of lot of community um involvement and a few that were not able to join us.

Um and our takeaways from the event, it was a great turnout.

The community is excited about this project.

There's definitely an interest and a need.

Um, and I asked some of our ambassadors for their impressions after the event, and um, a couple that I got were here.

People were excited about the size of the tournament and felt like there was a gen it was genuine momentum with the community to make this happen, and very positive energy and great assortment of activities to involve all different ages.

Also loved the food and artist stalls, felt like a very welcoming and energized community festival.

Um, and I already did the introductions, but again, want to thank and one of our um volunteers is not here, Su Jin Wong, who really was critical on the day of in terms of setting our timeline and making sure we stuck to things and was really grave on all the details that day.

Um, but um huge thank you to the BCF team here, because it really was a huge effort to pull this festival together.

Um I think it turned out great, and we're super excited about it.

So that's it.

Thank you very much for your time.

And uh oh, sorry, I have one more slide.

It's very important.

Um what's next for BCF?

Um, our plan is to continue the dialogue with the community, and exactly how we're gonna do that.

We're still working on that plan.

Um, we are planning out our next steps.

You will see us with a table at the water dog run.

We'll continue to go to community events, we will continue emailing our um mailing list, we'll continue our work with the parks and rec department.

Um, and we're gonna do a fun little thing on January 9th.

We're doing a Belmont night out at the Warriors.

Um, we will you will um hear from us soon about how you can get tickets to that.

It's a little bit of a fundraiser for us and just a fun activity.

Um very community center adjacent adjacent with the um, you know, basketball.

So uh thought it'd be a good way to keep our name out there and um have another fun uh community event.

So I think that really is it.

Thank you.

Thank you for the presentation.

Um we can probably do comments and questions together.

First, are there any public comments or questions?

No.

Okay, so then we can do commissioner comments and questions.

Just like that end.

Sure.

Um I sort of echo the theme and the you know uh sort of takeaways and impressions that you presented in the in the slideshow.

There was a fantastic event, the attendance uh and seeing a lot of the everyone up here uh on the commission at the event, and just that sense of sort of community involvement, even if it were people that hadn't heard about it before and just came in because they saw uh the action that was taking place.

Um, and I'm hopeful that it you know sort of again sort of continues or helps uh create that momentum that we're looking for.

So I don't really have any questions.

Yeah, I'll add on to that.

Just say the energy was fantastic.

I was really impressed with uh how many people came.

I guess that leads to my first question, which is um did we have goals for attendance?

Did we meet them?

Do we know how many people came?

Uh, did we get donations?

Do we know how much?

Um we we did get some donations.

I wouldn't say we got an overwhelming number of donations, but we we got um, you know, probably half a dozen donations, um larger donations though, generally not the smaller ones.

We were promoting, we do have a match happening for anyone who donates over a thousand dollars.

Um there's a community member who is matching all of those donations as you know, early investors in the in the project.

So we did get some significant donations, which was great.

Um, in terms of estimates, this is part of why the layout of the community center as it is now is not ideal.

It's very difficult to j it's very difficult for us to get any kind like entry with a clicker because there's so many ways in.

You know, we had our two main entrances, but people were wandering in, you know, two different entrances on the Ralston side, probably three different entrances on the Bellbourn side, so very hard.

Um we do have some estimates.

We were discussing this um today at a meeting, and we think it's well over 700.

I we think we were all told probably close to a thousand people throughout the day.

So, and that very much we didn't set a specific goal because we really had no idea what to expect.

Um, we were hopeful for in the neighborhood of 500.

Um, and I do think we met that.

Well, you said the energy was great, so congratulations on a nice thank you.

I would definitely say it was a day of fun.

Um I got there at 10 something, and the my my first image showing up was a commissioner eating a giant ice cream cone.

I thought, okay, this is gonna be a good day.

Everyone's ready to have fun.

Um I'm not gonna say who wasn't.

Uh was there any feedback from the community that was pertinent, negative or or positive that you you heard from anyone that was.

You know, we we did, and I can actually pull together some of that information.

Um, and and some of it is from our ambassadors giving feedback based on their conversations with community.

I think you know, there are some concerns from the community about dogs, there are concern, you know, it's it's the as expected, like there are people who are concerned about what what will change mean for us.

Um, and so I think it'll be really important to work with the community on those kinds of questions in the future.

Um, also questions about you know, pool, really, really, really want a pool, or maybe we don't really need a pool, you know.

So as with everything, there will be people, but but mostly um mostly what we got back was a lot of interest and a lot of excitement.

It was the questions were more when and how long, because we want this to happen yesterday.

I I would agree that dogs and pool were the two things I heard talked about most.

Um if there were to be a ballot measure in the future, would you consider having a similar event in the lead up to garner more interest?

I think we have definitely talked about having another event.

Um as a five as a 501c3, we cannot get super involved in the political side of things.

Um, but we certainly would host another event um in advance of any election.

Great, it was wonderful.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Echoing all that.

I don't have any questions, but I think that the community did really see like what could be with the activation, you know.

Um, my one of my favorite parts was the signage in the lawn that you can like literally imagine, you know, what would go here.

I thought thought that was really clever.

Um, you guys are doing a great job.

Great job team.

Keep it up.

Thank you.

Yeah.

I echo all these.

It was uh far exceeded expectations, and I had high expectations going in.

So I was really impressed.

And it was great to see the number of um, there were a lot of kids there, and there were a lot of people.

What I was especially happy about was number of people that had clearly not been tracking and paying attention, uh, that had been pulled in.

So I think that was a key key outcome.

Engaging the unengaged.

Great.

Thank you.

Yeah, I agree with all these statements.

I mean, I wasn't there, but I did hear like as soon after it happened, I did hear like I heard that it was very fun.

I did see like I uh like a lot of things saying like oh thank you for everybody who came and a lot of people seemed happy with it.

Um you said that like you're gonna go to other events just to like communicate with people, like how will you be doing that at those future events?

Um so typically we'll we'll have a table, um, like at the water dog run, we'll have a table.

We've been there for the last two or three years.

Um so we'll continue doing that kind of outreach.

Um and we've we've you know batted around some other ideas that we'll be we'll be talking to Bridget about in the in the future too.

So I'm sorry I wasn't there.

Oh no, that's okay.

I'm glad you heard about it.

And um, yeah, you can join us in the future.

And so I would just echo what everyone else said.

It was a great event.

It was actually much bigger than I was picturing.

I uh for some reason I thought it was going to be rather small, and then I showed up and there were so many things to do.

So many people, and it was just it was great to have such a large community event.

Um I talked to a lot of people who just had seen it and wandered in and and that was almost kind of nice because maybe those were the people who were not being reached by the traditional marketing, and so they were getting to learn about the community center.

And yes, most of the questions were pool, dogs, and how much and when.

So those are all big questions, but it was a great event.

So thank you all for putting that together because um it was great to see everybody out at the current Barrett Community Center really picturing and imagining what it could be with all that potential.

Yeah, but thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, next, um, in the same vein, we have the Belmont Community Center refresh presentation by group four.

Right, so um Belmont Community Foundation again, also from me a huge thank you for all your blood, sweat, and tears putting that event together.

I really do think it exceeded everybody's expectations, and um uh as everyone said, brought brought some new people, some new faces to the community center to hear uh the presentation that uh Jonathan from group four is gonna present.

It might look familiar to some of you.

We've got we've added in a few updates from uh the August 9th event, but um that's a perfect segue to take it away.

Group four.

Thank you, Bridget, and uh good evening.

Uh Commissioners.

Uh pleasure to be back in front of you again this evening.

And uh was lovely to uh get a chance to see many of you in August as well at the event.

Am I not loud enough?

It's on.

It feels on, but should I?

Is it am I good?

Okay, I can how about is that better?

Excellent.

As I was saying, lovely to see many of you on August 9th.

Uh very very fun.

My family enjoyed it as well.

I don't know if they enjoyed the event or watching their father sweat more, but um I think both were true in this case, uh, and multiple uh definitions.

So uh as Bridget said tonight, we will um kind of do a little bit of a recap, and so many of the things will look familiar.

Uh we'll fill in fill in a little bit of additional commentary as we go.

And so I think we can just uh jump right in.

Um, and so uh again from a schedule standpoint, uh uh we are continuing to evolve the program, the uh design and architectural updates, and the cost estimates as we are sort of moving forward.

Uh, this is all as you've heard before uh aligning with some of that polling work that uh the city's been doing independent of group four's work, and uh, for those of you that missed the um the last city council meeting on August 26th, I believe that was, you can go back and hear some of the results of that.

Uh, we're not gonna cover that too much tonight, um, but that's all part of this sort of synergy that we're working towards here.

And again, we're gonna be kind of bringing this all back together together for the council on October 14th, and so that's what we're working towards at this time.

And sort of in the macro perspective, we are still in that master planning stage, and then we have all the future phases ahead of us as we continue to evolve this together.

I'm not gonna read.

There's lots of words on lots of slides tonight, so we're gonna have to find our way through this uh together here in an efficient way, but um, again, these are slides I think that many of you saw on August 9th, um, so I'm not going to read all the words, but uh suffice it to say that the Barrett Community Center is well loved, well used, uh, and ready for for new things.

And so we're gonna click on through here, and and it is well loved and well-aged at this point.

So in previous conversations, we've talked a little bit about these different benchmarking metrics.

Um nothing's uh specifically changed here on the graphics from what you've seen before.

The one thing I would add is that we've gone ahead and starred uh there was a couple of questions over the summer uh about you know uh how current some of these things are.

So we went through here and we starred some of the um local uh cities that have done things in the last five years that have added community center, community center space in the last five years just to try to add a little bit different perspective to some of the things that you're seeing, but none of the actual metrics on the bar chart have have evolved.

Um so as you can see, a number of uh our peers in Belmont have been investing in their communities just as uh Belmont is looking to do so.

Uh these slides also you saw on August 9th, and um possibly previously, so these are again the results of the 2019 outreach.

This work that we're doing now is a continuation of that and really building upon that.

Same for this as well.

Again, uh trying to continue as Bridget said, lots of lots of coffee and other talks over the last uh few years and really continuing that work to the present.

And again, the best practices, community-driven, holistic wellness, accessible to all, that adaptability, really having that that ability to turn over the same space in multiple ways throughout the day, uh sustainable design, and and then sustainable operations as well, or efficient operations in this case, which is is key to all of these facilities.

And here again, lots of things uh from that from the outreach that's been done, and really trying to look at those against some of the national trends and all those check marks or things that we've current currently sort of shown graphically in drawing or have the ability to do graphically in the drawings that we've been showing and presenting again tonight.

There's really for a number of these other ones: the outdoor fitness equipment, park shelters, pickleball and paddle sports, therapeutic recreation, there's no reason that those things cannot be added to the plan.

There's nothing about the plan or some of the vision that's been cast so far that doesn't that precludes those things.

If there's a gymnasium, we can we do paddleball inside.

We proved that we can do paddleball outside on August 9th.

So uh or pick pickleball.

Sorry for all the paddle people that I just did.

Um pickleball outside, um, and same for outdoor fitness equipment, of course, that can be added as well.

Um so there's always the chance to change the check marks and add check marks to this list.

This is just kind of showing where we are uh relative to the graphics today.

And again, that foundational framework, really looking multi-generational, multi-functional, sustainable, and focusing on health wellness holistically, and again that resiliency center.

And how many of you were uh affected by the power outage?

Was it was that this week or last week when the power was out?

I know I heard about it from my daughter at Ralston that power was out, the internet was out, you know.

I I think she tried to convince me that learning continued, I'm not quite sure.

Um, but I know it was a it was a big deal.

And you know, Bridget was sharing with us that you know when the power goes out for more than an hour that technically uh licensed preschools have to call the parents and bring them in.

You can't just have your kids in an unpowered building after 59 minutes, right?

And so this is actually like a strategic challenge uh for for this facility, and so some of these ideas about resiliency.

While we were we've been talking about them at kind of this community-wide level at a programmatic level within the facility, um there's some real impacts there as well.

Being able to add that emergency generator, have those battery backups, have those different things available as a whole city resource, but also for the people that are there in the moment.

So we have that here.

Um I guess I buried the lead there a little bit.

So again, the resiliency center, all the things that we've talked about previously, apply and uh continue to be demonstrated with um our awesome power grid in Belmont.

And again, uh centrally located all slides that you've seen before.

Uh, this actually um I'm not sure how many I I agree.

I think a lot of the comments that I heard on August 9th were about uh pool and dogs as well.

Um, but there was there was actually some questions about resiliency too, and kind of what that means and how how that could work, and so I think those are exciting opportunities for us to continue to explore and um for group four to work with the city and and others on messaging and and how those opportunities can be delivered.

And next slide.

So again, just refreshing the um the site plan from a few years ago that we've been using as sort of our touch point here.

Um we have not updated this uh again.

One of the things on this slide that I would point out, I believe it was in the last uh meeting here, it came up again in August 9th, was questions about parking quantities.

So I just wanted to go ahead and touch on that.

So this slide shows that you know, between the on-site spaces and then the street parking on the belt, the south side of Bellbourn, there's 161 spaces that have been counted in this drawing.

For perspective, I think uh Commissioner Hill, I think you're somebody, Commissioner Whitmore, somebody Googled it last in our last meeting and said there were 65 spaces.

There's a lot of unstriped spaces.

Uh, and so if we count again the south side of Bellburn now, and we count the combination of striped and unstriped opportunities.

I think we're somewhere in the 80 to 90 space range, is what our count was.

Um, and so kind of on a given day, uh depending on where you cram everybody in, that seems to be the capacity of the site right now.

So just for some perspective.

Um there was also some questions um in July, and again on August 9th about bicycles.

I think we're gonna touch on that in a little bit, but suffice it to say that um uh the building code is is actually undergoing a little bit of a shift right now.

So there's a there's a Venn diagram of of things that apply to bicycles.

Um, there's the building code, there's a um there's the municipal code, and then there's some uh transit plans uh that all apply in that and um all of them seem to be pushing the numbers up a little bit so um these are good opportunities for us to um do better than uh what the current standards are now and um so these are things that are going to continue to evolve um as those interpretations of some of these new regulations uh take effect next slide so again um this is uh the same slide that you've seen before this is again not a specific design proposal but as uh my colleague Andrea talked about on August 9th this is really just a test fit right we're just making sure that everything fits and so there's opportunities to move things around there's opportunities to do things differently there's intention behind the things that are shown here but this is really just making sure that the things fit um and that we can uh kind of achieve the the numeric goals that we're that we're set out to do next slide and the same for the second floor as well lots of opportunities here for continued refinement and again as we've talked about previously looking at uh sort of on the far left the red package is sort of what what we might call sort of the community center or the the most basic part of the the building and then there's opportunities for gymnasium for aquatics for gymnasium and aquatics and as it becomes more clear sort of what the the funding opportunities might be the you know we can figure out how we're gonna progress from left to right together and again the same applies to the program again that left hand column being that red program kind of being the core program and then these opportunity pieces that we want to add on to the project or have included in the project are shown in the right two brackets and you can see that kind of range for the total square footage of the building here.

Next slide and as has been so eloquently described tonight already uh an amazing event on August 9th really appreciate the opportunity for us to participate in that and support that effort lots of uh really good questions in a very warm room literally uh amazing so uh really great to have that kind of enthusiasm and I didn't realize there was bribery involved but I'm I'm supportive of that if it took tickets uh to get people in there that was really lovely next slide please and so um uh some uh things that we haven't shown here before but we wanted to touch on and I I I really am not going to read all the words here so we'll can kind of talk through this together a little bit.

But the FAQs here from the summer I'm gonna call it not specifically from one event um you know why can't uh a new center uh just be why can't the center just be renovated I think we've touched on that uh the the building is is a it's just not that's not the return on investment that um that that makes sense there's lots of reasons for that uh we've enumerated a number of them here on this slide uh reasons for moving the community center towards Ralston um we actually had a slide in here for uh a half a minute uh that kind of went back five years to show all the different permutations that we that we uh went through and had been publicly presented and so those are all on record and we can go back to those at some point if that's desired um but there's a lot of input on um in strategy on moving things towards Ralston I think you can see um some of the rationale here timeline um lots of questions there and you can see the response really um from from when we sort of receive a green light to to press on through construction assuming that there's no pauses in the action there we are looking at somewhere in the 36 to 42 month range and I think many of you have heard the question what what what happened you know with the 2019 thing and really it wasn't a stop so much as it was a pause right we were paused due to COVID and then those conversations as Bridget has said have continued since then and we're really kind of ramping up that energy and effort now uh with uh alongside the city and so the square footage is uh square footage is here so you can see in context uh from existing to new so uh really exciting opportunities there uh for that range of 31000 to 45000 compared to the current uh 16,000 plus square feet now I know that a lot of people and I heard this on August 9th don't didn't believe that the number was so low for lack of better term for for what the building is now but just remember that you know uh Barrett is a the prototypical post-war mid-century California school paradigm of exterior breezeways almost no interior circulation like it's really um it's it it's hyper optimized into being classroom focused and has no other real supporting spaces whatsoever so um it's you you you feel it a little differently um than the numbers imply um concerns about the adapting future needs uh I think uh we've talked about this quite a bit um but are really trying to use those best practices and leverage the things we've learned in the last six years and apply those to that good work that was done in 2019 using that as the foundation and really evolving that 2019 forward using uh all together the active transit uh continues to be a theme heard lots of questions about that over the course of the summer and I think there's just a lot of movement on a lot of fronts there.

Again the um the bicycle plan comprehensive pedestrian bicycle plan is currently uh still in process um and there's lots of things that continue to evolve on that front which is which is lovely and wonderful I continue to see more and more um young teenage boys on e-bikes all over town and if that's a marker for anything that's of the future um you know we will continue to see more of that from old ages I think lots of questions about aquatics but sorry ballot measure um and so that's an ongoing conversation I think that'll be a a topic at the October city council meeting so we'll we'll kind of defer some of that to that.

And then questions about aquatic operations as well.

And so I think I've had some of those conversations with a few of you as well.

So obviously there's some very big differences between seasonal operations and year round operations and the economics behind some of those things and those are things that continue to can continue to be explored um as uh it becomes more clear what the city's funding priorities uh and opportunities are current tenant spaces uh again I think this is specifically uh not specifically talking about the the preschool as much but about uh uh footsteps stepping stones and heartbeat um are kind of the three biggest tenants there and so uh over the summer we did meet uh with each of them uh one-on-one to talk uh to talk to them and um those things those conversations will continue to go on parking capacities are already touched on here uh traffic impacts again this is this was studied quite extensively in 2019 including traffic engineers it'll continue to be studied as the project evolves but really trying to um design an internal circulation for the site that is uh not dependent on people coming in off of Ralston finding there's no parking driving all around through a residential neighborhood to Belburn finding there's no parking over there and kind of repeating the cycle and so really trying to find a way for once you enter the site that you you can find a home there and be able to work within that context and relieve some of that burden on both Ralston and Belburn and the surrounding neighborhoods.

The noise from sports fields was definitely a topic over the course of the summer.

And so I think there's some good reasons for the rationale there.

Happy to dive into that in QA if you'd like to talk about that further and then again the resiliency center.

So lots of things it can be used for.

Lots and lots of things that it can be used for.

Tremendous asset for the city to pursue that idea.

Tree preservation came up in several conversations on August 9th.

And forgive me if I don't remember if this was part of the formal QA or if this was a side-to-side conversations, but on the graphic here, the existing trees are shaded a little bit more of an olive tone compared to the darker green and lighter green or kind of truer color of the new trees that are proposed.

So we are definitely interested in preserving trees on site.

There's some lovely mature trees.

And that should absolutely be part of the benefit of redeveloping an existing site.

And so we will continue to work towards those goals.

And we've tried to be honest about the trees that we're trying hard to save through our color scheme here.

Happy to go into that in more detail.

The dogs, dog parks was also extremely hot topic over the course of the summer.

Again, right now on the graphic on the screen, that bottom by the Chase Bank there, there's a there's a label for dog park.

There's lots of different ways to think about dogs on the site.

There's lots of conversations that translate translated from dog parks to the next topic, sports fields, and the materiality of the sports fields and who will have time allotments on sports fields.

All of those things are to be determined in the future and are really um important topics, and uh we we will we will get there and then again the sort of accessible engagement is there opportunities within the facility to have this meeting to have other meetings like this, and will the technology be there, the cameras and all the systems to be able to handle those kind of things.

And those are things that we see in some of the other communities around here that have been developing in their community centers, and there's absolutely the technical technologically possible to do those things here.

So if that's the part of the scoping desire, it can absolutely happen.

And so I think with that, I'm gonna turn it over to my colleague Don Mercus to run through some of the design slides, and we'll be happy to take your questions.

Thank you, Jonathan.

Good evening, commissioners.

I guess I get the fun part.

Um, what we're showing in the next series of slides is really kind of a vision, a vision that's been translated from all of the good community engagement, all of the good input we've gotten, and from the master plan.

It's it's not about the architecture in any ways, even though architects love to be dive in and get into the architecture.

We're really trying to restrain ourselves there and really talk about the goals of the site with these images.

And so as we look at the current facility, really depicting the age, the warm, the, you know, it served the community extremely well.

Well, long before its life should have served the community, perhaps.

And as we're looking at the new facility, looking at it serving another 50 to 70 years.

Um this is looking from Ralston Avenue at the new entrance, really being pedestrian and bicycle focused.

So I get like goosebumps talking to your planner, and she's like, We're not all about the cars here.

We want to talk about bikes, we want to talk about pedestrians and how the communities could access the site.

So it's really encouraging to hear that evolution because 10 years ago, planners were not there.

We were saying, No, we really don't want all this parking.

Um, we don't want to pave paradise, and your planners are here, which is fabulous.

It's about the internal site circulation, cars being able to turn around on site instead of going into the neighborhoods.

It's about being visible on Ralston.

So people know there's a community center there, right?

You don't have to put signs on the fences that the community centers there, the activity, the magnetism of the facility, the activation of the site is gonna pull people into the site and really announce itself.

Um, and so that's a lot of the goals as we're looking from the Ralston side and kind of the two-story mass, the transparency into the activities inside, and all of the things pulling people into and through the site.

As we get a little closer, again, having that warm, welcoming entry.

You can see how we've used zero curb to get into the facility, so really making it universally accessible for people with canes, for people with strollers, for everyone, people with tricycles, uh being able to get into access the site, have the transparency in, have the transparency out for security as well, and then really use the trees and the landscaping to create a really nice warmth as we enter the facility.

As we're looking now from Bellburn, you can see some of the images of the outdoor amenities on your existing site.

Again, they've seen a good life, been used well, and as we're looking at goals for our reenvision site, we're looking at activating as much of this space as we can, and having it even the outside spaces transition over the day.

So that multi-use, multi-generational aspect is not just about the indoors of the space of this building, it's about the entire site.

And even laying out how we have these picnic tables along the parking lot, the driveway here.

You can envision a fair happening here, having the pop-ups be spaced along here as well.

If there's some kind of community fair going on, like you just had with the foundation, it could easily be integrated into the site design and be envisioned different ways.

We have outdoor restrooms that are accessible to the park.

So even if the buildings closed, the restrooms could support the park, and then just the play areas for the young kids, the fields for the older kids and the adults, and all of the spaces in between.

Super exciting.

Definitely goes to the inside.

This is actually laying out the community room as that resiliency center, kind of as an informational center, a place to pick up information, connectivity, place to check in, just many, many different ways that these spaces can be used, and with current technology and current infrastructure, it's really a game changer.

And we know from all the community meetings, all of the advisory committees we tried to have at the center, you know, being able to do Zoom meetings, being able to do broadcast meetings, things like that.

If you don't have the infrastructure, it's incredibly challenging.

And so thinking about all these things as we're designing the spaces, really support the multi-use.

And here is the same space, reenvisioned in a different way.

And so that with the visible walls, the infrastructure for the AV, as well as the furniture, indoor-outdoor connections, there's just many, many different ways we can integrate that.

Most of you have been probably visiting new centers, right?

And some of the spaces, having hard classrooms, soft classrooms, rooms that can support maker spaces, arts and crafts, fine arts, activities from young to old.

That's really what the program is about and has evolved to.

When we're doing preschool and early childhood recreations, these are spaces that you do want to accommodate them a little bit different, not just in the furniture, sometimes it's the bathroom fixtures, and wellness is definitely something on the forefront of everybody's safety and security, and all of those things will be taken into the future, even in today, and creating the spaces that allow you to do early childhood recreation classes, activity classes to yoga classes to dance classes, is really been an important part of all of our new facilities.

And then just that third space, right?

And what's lovely about your current Barrett Community Center is the third space is outside, right?

People meet their neighbors, they sit there and talk, and they've created that third space out in the open space, but having a space where you could actually uh be waiting inside in the winter time where it's a little bit more comfortable for your kids to class or waiting for your class, really allows your community to come together at all times, and that's really what we're envisioning what we call the community living room space.

So with that, we're happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

So first, do we have any public comments or questions?

We do not.

Okay, so this time why we start down at this end.

Any thoughts?

Um, I I think I said this last time too, you guys presented.

I really like the idea of a resiliency center, because I just think it's nice to have somewhere to like, you know, like if I need anything, like stop by, and I think other people can do that too.

I think that's really helpful.

Um I can't think of any questions right now, but if I do, I'll come back to that.

I continue to love it.

Why can't it why isn't it done yet again?

That's of course the the yeah, we all enthusiastic about it.

I really love the um the evolution, how it's how it's gotten tuned over time, and I think I speak for everyone and just want to get it done.

Yeah, same.

I mean, it's beautiful, looks beautiful.

Um, one thing looking at like the diagrams today that came to my mind, unfortunately, to bring it downer is safety with all the windows.

I love windows, right?

We want to see the greenery, um, but just with everything in the news constantly, especially having children in classrooms and um these spaces.

I wonder like, is there a plan?

Are we thinking about safety for our kids and our community in these spaces in case God forbid something happened?

Um I'll I'll take a shot at that and Don can fill in some other things.

Um I think it's unfortunate that um this is the world that we we live in, but it it is the world that we live in, and it's something that we need to address.

I think one of the great things about it's not so obvious on the diagram, but great thing about the intention of the diagram here is that really every space on the ground floor has an uh a door to the outside, you know, and so some of the unfortunate things that we've seen unfold over the last many years.

You know, people have been trapped in places where they can they can only exit through an interior hallway, or they can only exit this way, or they can only, you know, the this this center will have the flexibility to exit directly to the outside from all the ground floor spaces.

Um there's by code multiple ways that you have to be able to exit from the second floor, not just one, and then um as you've probably seen, there are some specific technologies and um opportunities for hardening and doing other things in specific locations within the facility if that's the direction that um is determined that we should go.

Um, and those may end up getting prioritized by space and user groups and things like that.

Um, but there's there's definitely some opportunities there to explore further.

Um, but I think um having flexibility in how you move through the building uh is a level of safety.

I think the other way to think about is that that transparency is also a different type of safety mechanism, and so um it's um the that sort of the constant exposure, which is a lovely thing on a day-to-day basis, the ninety nine percent to be able to activate the streetscape and activate all those things also is is in its own way a safety measure as well just to add um just because we were specifically talking about this, um the preschool spaces actually have um security to even get into them like uh you have to be let into the vegetable to get into the preschool area and then they do have their own secure yard as well and so there's actually two playgrounds located in that uh area of the site one that is accessible at all times to the public and the other one that could be made accessible to the public if it's not being used for classroom use.

And as Jonathan was talking about the transparency, um the transparency is actually not just surveillance security, it's being able to see something coming as well.

And so it's much safer if you have that connectivity and you're able to react um if you don't than if you don't and and these are all things that there's studies on and are integrated on you'll see those bollards in the entry where I was pointing out the kids and the zero um curb line.

All of those ballards along there is also another security line as well.

Thank you.

Um I get that part of the presentation is showing current photos and making it look you know show showing the current imperfections.

I think you did a great job with that because those photos make this place look really run down.

And it looks like you took them on an iPhone three which really adds to the whole the whole concept it's really I I said my daughter there every day and I'm a little embarrassed.

Please don't expose all my professional tricks.

Um the current plans for the playground is it the one that would be in use at all times is it larger than the one that's we have right now smaller about the same size square footage wise.

So um I'm not sure if we've quite gotten to the sp that specificity yet.

I would say that there's sort of two playgrounds proposed here right there's sort of the the preschool level playground which is shown inside sort of the fenced preschool enclosure area and I think previous conversations have talked about the flexibility there to be able to open up that playground after hours right and then you have kind of the K through five playground that's the the playground I believe that you're referring to.

I don't think that we're anticipating that it's smaller than what's there now and I think there's opportunities to to do to do better.

Great.

Is that about the same as Burlingame and Milbrae would that be the same like a similar timeline for how long they took to get theirs built?

Um maybe I you don't you don't if uh millbray was not uh so so the caveat that I mentioned a few minutes ago was that if everything continues unabated right so uh Millbrae had a pause in there somewhere along the way which is why I'm hedging a little bit um trying to try to do the math um I think that Burlingame in general um progressed around around that pace.

Yeah yeah right so so at the same starting point would we would that take about the same amount of time yeah I would say Burling game was a similar schedule to what was shown here.

And square footage for Burling game how would that compare to ours?

It's in the middle of the range that we're showing okay.

Uh not not counting the subterranean parking garage.

Yeah and then going westbound on Ralston trying to turn right into it would there be is there a chance that that would turn into a right turn lane there where it's it's a pretty large sidewalk with trees and then space toward the chain lake fence is there would would there ever be an idea for a right turn lane there or is it there's there's an interest I mean I think that's something that can be explored that's not something we we did look at a number of different ideas with the city um and the traffic engineers um previously in that area it's just a really interesting nexus there which I think you're touching on so the short answer is yes there is the opportunity for that.

I would say that you know that's a little bit of a challenging piece with the bike lane and some of the other pieces that are there.

And frankly, you've got some very nice mature uh street trees and other things that are happening along that edge.

So I think that would want to be a a delicate and balanced conversation, but it is technically possible.

And in the afternoon heading right toward the sun, it just it's it's hard for for cars to see everything that at that time.

You are correct.

Um thank you.

Yeah, just like everybody else, I'd love to see it uh as soon as possible.

Um, and you know, I've got a couple of topics that are always near and dear to my heart.

I rode my bike to the event in August, and there's just not great places to lock them and store them, and most people seem to have driven and walked across the street and you know had to do something with their cars.

Um so yeah, I'm I'm super happy to hear that that the state of things is really addressing that, you know, with other alternative methods of getting to the getting to the events.

Um I've since joining the commission, I started going to the Barrett in the mornings occasionally.

My wife goes far more often than I do and talk to the people there, and the one thing I hear from them is they really hope that it's gonna be real grass and not some sort of synthetic alternative because we're dirt, you know, like we have at the other dark dog park that they don't like going to.

So I'm just passing that along that uh they would love to have it be real grass.

So uh better than that, it looks beautiful and I just can't wait for it to happen.

So I hope we move quickly.

Great.

Awesome.

Excuse me, thank you for coming back again.

So I mean, it seems like I imagine you are on a grand speaking tour all of the time uh with these presentations.

The um similar to uh what uh Bubby said talked about earlier with uh car access to the lot and the and parking, um, and I I know we talked about this last time.

Maybe you haven't had a chance to incorporate it just yet, but thinking about like the bus stop and public transport that's there is uh those options as well on either side of the street, and how we can incorporate those effectively, especially if we're moving towards like alternative transportation as part of our mission in the city.

Um so making sure that that stays uh part of the priority, um, but probably similar challenges with the trees and the sidewalks and bike lanes and all the same things that exist for cars.

Is that fair to say?

I think that's fair, and I uh appreciate your ennobling my my speaking um uh this summer.

Um I I'm I'm a little bit of a loss for which conversation happened at which time, but there was some follow-up conversation regarding the the drop-off circle.

Um can we get um buses for camp SOAR to get in there and to be able to do what they need to do for camp SOAR and other types of similar activities and still have cars be able to bypass them safely, and and so those are things that we've been kind of geometrically exploring to make sure that we're checking those boxes.

And um, yes, we did go back and look at all the bus stops uh and trying to figure out how we can if there's opportunities to add, that's a little bit more of a complicated conversation with Sam Trans and others, but um I think all those things remain in play and excellent points.

And similar sort of safety theme, and I don't know if the the like the aerial view represents that very well.

But I was just this has been sort of top of mind for me lately, but noticing that the like the dog parks location to the main entrance of the building and smaller children, bigger children interacting with the dogs and how uh and those dog park the dog owners using that space, being thoughtful about those types of interactions and the conflict that that might create, or even if I mean positive conflict, like children getting dropped off and then running over and trying to see the dogs and or negative interactions as well.

So I have is the does the design incorporate that?

I know there's flexibility still in where we put that potentially, but that's one thing that I was just thinking about and looking at where it is in this current iteration.

Um there's been a lot, as you can imagine, um, for as many conversations as there's been in the community about dogs and the dog park function.

Um I think we've had an equal number of conversations internally um and and with staff.

Um I think um as you alluded to, it's difficult to sort of have your cake and eat it too there.

Um and so um I think that there is some intentionality in where it's currently been cited, and I think having a little bit of separation is part of that intentionality and gives some flexibility and safety and avoids some of the conflicts at the kind of uh vehicular and pedestrian-specific drop-off zones relative to the front entrance.

Um, you know, some of that is all in the eye of the beholder, dog owner, and others, uh parent uh as to what what's the higher priority there.

Um so those are things that can continue to be uh visited, but it's a little bit tricky uh and appreciate you identifying that.

Um the last question I had did from in your August 9th presentation, did you have any sort of general takeaways or sort of what feedback that you received that was I don't know, interesting to report on.

I think um I think I think it was um I think a lot of the conversations that the group four team had, uh, not just me uh specifically since there was uh four of us there, um, mirrored I think the conversations and the recap that um the that you had um uh dogs and pools were big, schedule was really big.

Um the continuing conversations subsequent to the August 9th event, um, the and my personal daily interactions were similar themed.

A lot of them were schedule driven, um, just want to get it done.

It was the the consistent theme I heard.

Um there was just I guess for the record, and I appreciate your all of your confidence in group four, but I I was asked by two people at the event if um if this was my day job or if this was um just sort of a side hustle because I'm a Belmont resident, I'm a nice guy.

And that's the honest truth, and and um, and so I just want to assure you that group four actually for the last 40 years has specified uh we we do civic architecture, that's what we do, and uh so dozens, hundreds of libraries, community centers, uh facilities just like this, and it's a real privilege to be able to do that uh professionally and to be able to um uh have this opportunity within my own personal community is uh tremendous uh blessing for me.

So it is my day job and it is my sidekick all in one.

That's all I think.

Um I I just want to add one more um point to uh to uh Commissioner Lee's question, and that is that I think where we still have some work to do in our messaging, is to uh have the adult and senior community really envision that this place can be for them.

Um because Barrett, and even on the family day or on the on the festival day, it had a great family feel.

And um, maybe we need to have um an evening event for uh for adults and seniors there to really kind of convince folks that this of what could be.

I'm not sure if people get it yet.

They still I I heard some feedback from from people that said I still don't I it still feels like a family and young people's place, and part of that is because we have the Twin Pines senior and community center here, so there's already sort of an a separation in people's minds, and and somehow I think that's some that's a challenge for us, uh, not an insurmountable one, but something where I really think we need to figure out our messaging to show what it can be for adults and seniors.

Maybe there's a way whenever we're trying to do some events with those folks uh and our current facilities aren't meeting it, or you know, we're not able to do what we want to do to point out that if we had this other facility, this could be even better, or you know, we could do something that we can't do today.

Right.

Well, there are three things that all go together.

There's the senior center, there's the new community center, and there's the library, and it's the three of them in concert, right?

The library is an incredible place for kids coming out of Ralston and Carlmont, and also a great place for like maker and things like that.

But my point is holistically for the community, they address a whole set of different and complementary needs and hopefully can cross fertilize.

I don't know what the right cry.

In other words, people from the senior center can be directed up to eventually to the community center for another set of activities, so they're not thought of as little silos.

Right.

Yeah, I think part of the issue is right now we do have a lovely senior center and a lovely library that are addressing two groups, and so they see the the new community center and think, well, I have I have what I need over here.

So I don't remember in the floor plan.

Is there a community room that during the daytime is geared towards senior activities and then yeah, as I thought?

Um but even just having the adaptable flexible spaces with more storage and and that sort of thing is gonna create some incredible opportunities for us.

And better parking, nice handy, better parking, nice handicapped parking, so it's very accessible.

No curb.

Yeah, that's right.

Um it's always lovely to hear the presentation.

I enjoy it every time.

This time I was actually focusing a little bit more on the outside spaces because I've seen a lot of the inside spaces.

Um and you mentioned the noise.

Could you talk a little bit?

I hadn't really thought about that too much before that the the bulk of the building said being on Bellbourn, and then at night, the people who live there having an fairly empty community center building there that now they'll have a field, and on the weekends they'll have a field.

So are there any measures in place to kind of mitigate the noise?

And there's no lights, correct?

There's no.

So are there lights or no lights?

But so what about are is there a tree, is there a tree buffer along Bellburn to kind of break up some noise?

I know there's the garden on the one side and the parking lot in the dog park over there, but could you talk about the noise a little bit and maybe the impacts on the neighbors on that street and what's been the thought process and what's been done to try to mitigate that?

Sure.

So I think you you said it very nicely.

Uh there are there are trees all along Bellbourn, uh, whether they're existing or we're adding more trees.

So there is um a little bit of a visual break there, and uh to some extent an acoustic break.

Uh there are no lights.

So you know, we do not have the sort of Belmont Sports complex schedule.

You know, that's not the intent here, and I think that's a big piece of it that you know.

I mean, honestly, when I was uh when I was uh driving eastbound on Ralston tonight uh to get here, and I kind of looked over my shoulder at Barrett, you know, pretty much at 6 35.

The parking lot was cleared out already, and the field was had three people in it, and you know, it was pretty quiet, pretty quiet place already, whether it was in the field or indoors, and you know, I mean, some of that is gonna be a programming thing.

Um, and certainly we have an opportunity, I think, with this um enhanced facility to have more evening programming, but that evening programming is indoors, and so pulling that away from the neighborhood and pulling that towards Ralston, I think is kind of an acoustic benefit to those to those neighbors, right?

We want to kind of pull that away.

Um, and again, we have some operating hours opportunities with the field to kind of control some of that sunsetting acoustics.

Um, but yes, they're there their weekends will be a little bit louder than then they are now, um at least during the daytime.

Yeah, and the field is.

The field is set back about 40 feet from Bellbourn.

And in the preliminary design talks with SWA, the landscape architect, we actually talked about the opportunity to burn it, Bermit a little bit, and so then you kind of create a little natural seating area for people who want to look towards the field, but then it also helps create that acoustical separation from the neighbors on Bell Burn.

So all of those refinements are not really showing yet on the plan, but I recall specifically, so does Bridget talking with Marco or the landscape architect.

We have enough space that we could do a little bit of berming and buffering, not just with the trees, but also with landforms there.

And I know on the pool side there's uh there's a wall between the neighbors, so hopefully all the sound from that is contained.

Okay.

Um I think let's say what else has any other questions?

Thank you so much for your presentation.

We always enjoy having you here.

We are very proud that you are part of the Belmont community, and that this is both your day job and your side gig, and it's really a lovely plan.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, so up next, item C.

Happy hydrants and Utility box project and selection committee.

So we're switching gears here a little bit.

All right, hello everyone.

You're going to start hearing a little more centennial talk over the next couple of months.

Just a reminder here's our great logo.

You'll be seeing more of that on slowly but surely on Letterhead and on Swag and on banners around town.

So it will start to look very familiar.

Okay, so I'm talking, I'm here tonight to talk about the uh happy hydrant uh refresh project and utility box art program.

So I don't know if any of you were in Belmont back uh 50 years ago, I think it was 50 years ago, that the hydrants were decorated throughout town, quite a few of them actually decorated throughout town for the city's uh 50th, and that coincided with the nation's bicentennial.

So it was a huge effort, and some of them have uh faded a little bit over time, and some could use a little love.

So I reached out to the mid-Peninsula water system.

They are the ones who own and oversee all of these hydrants, and so we cannot um move forward with any kind of refresher or anything without their express permission.

And um, fortunately they have agreed to come up with a plan that uh that allows us to kind of partner with them.

They've gotten some they've approved certain locations.

So just to be clear to you in the community, not every currently painted hydrant will be able to be refreshed.

So we have to be very mindful of that and and respect uh midpenwater's uh requirements for that.

Um so we put together an application packet uh that outlines which hydrants can be uh repainted or refreshed, and some of them I think are not painted at all now.

Um they're primarily on the Ralston Corridor and the Alameda Dels Focus corridor, so they'll be very visible.

Um there are certain uh requirements for the type of paint to be used, the type of colors to be used, um, the amount of black paint that can be used on the hydrant, and um some other precautions to make sure that everything is done safely, neatly, and does not in any way compromise the functionality of the hydrants because none of us want that.

So, with that, we are launching an application process.

Um I think it will go live shortly on our website.

Yes, it will.

Um, once it gets approved here this evening, it'll go live on our website uh on the centennial um webpage, and folks can submit their preference for a location and uh give us a sketch of the type of uh art that they want to do.

That sketch will then be approved or reviewed by a committee that we're gonna start to appoint here this evening, and then it does also require approval by midpen water and um, and then once the artist gets the go-ahead from us, they can uh they can paint the hydrant.

Uh here's uh here's a map of the uh approved locations.

So again, there are quite a few.

This may not be every hydrant on Ralston, but these are the ones that were approved by Midpenwater along Ralston Avenue, and then quite a few on Alameda Delos Fogos.

I know uh 50 years ago there were more sort of in the neighborhood areas in the central and Cipriani um neighborhood.

Uh those need to remain as they are.

Um, but uh we are very happy to have so many um locations offered to us by Midpenwater.

Similarly, we have a utility box opportunity.

There's a utility box at the intersection of Sixth Avenue and Ralston, kind of uh Caddy Corner from the 76 station, and uh that had art on it.

Um that art was painted over, and so now that's a new opportunity for us to put um uh new kind of decoration on it.

We are not we are not doing anything with our beloved dogs at Ralston and South.

So this is just an example of what kind of uh art could be on a utility box.

Um again, uh this is only one location at this time.

We know we have some new uh utility boxes that were installed further up on Ralston at Cypriani and Hillcrest, I think um but we have to wait a while those are newly installed and we have to make sure that they are all functioning as they should before we decorate them so more to come on those locations.

Right now we're just talking about one location in downtown Belmont and we would like that because that's in such a um such a part of historic Belmont the the painting should be something to honor our centennial in 2026.

So we're looking for sort of a um while we love the dogs um at this at the new location we're looking for something with a little bit more of a nod to Belmont's history.

And so here is a photo of a location right here next to the Woodmont real estate um location.

So it really it has one major face uh facing the city but we do ask that all four sides and the top be painted in some way and that is all so with that um then that you've maybe had an opportunity to review the applications please let me know if there are any questions in that that uh that don't make sense and then we're looking for um the appointment of two commissioners to join our ad hoc subcommittee to help us review any applications that we get in the next month.

Alright okay so first any public comments or questions no okay so let's do commissioner comments and questions and then we will uh talk about which two people would like to join this committee.

I'm sorry if I missed it but what was the number of hydrants?

I think it's 24.

Awesome well that's fantastic I'm excited we it's gonna be a fun project.

Yeah.

How do we how do people find out about this other than maybe if they were watching this are there uh is there some sort of outreach do we go to artist groups or something like that.

Yeah we're gonna we're gonna um reach out to um all the artists that we have kind of on record in the city we've got something uh that went out in our uh monthly newsletter just earlier this week yes Tuesday yesterday um we'll be putting it on social media and the social good point maybe we'll send something to the schools as well so um the the hydrants in particular I think are a great opportunity for a family to to join together to do those again the utility box that we're talking about in downtown is probably something that maybe a more experienced artist would want to do the application process asked some more in depth questions about people's art experience.

Is Yu Chen involved in this she has gone back to school.

Oh okay so um she helped kind of put all this together and um and we'll be um promoting the historic mural um project shortly yep.

My only question was about I love art um was about the style this there's a stipend for the utility box but not for the fire veterans.

So there's no opportunity to like reimburse people I don't know how much it costs to do that project.

Do you have an estimate for the less well it really depends on the um the color scheme how many different colors but I did uh so the the paint that spec is a Benjamin Moore paint and I did go to the Grays Paint um right over here on Ralston and um they have not yet gotten back to me but they absolutely want to be community partners I don't know that they'll offer the paint for free um but they did indicate that maybe they would um they would provide some kind of a discount and then what I was thinking is once we have a few folks that have started painting maybe they didn't use all their paint we could receive that paint and then we could kind of have a repository of paint for other people to use that's a good idea.

They could even have like a launch party at the bench at the parking lot of that paint store.

Oh to kickstart the painting that would be super fun okay I would attend okay for sure.

No this is awesome.

This is gonna totally help increase the vibrancy in the city.

Are any of the hydrants near Gray's paint?

I'm sorry or any of the hydrants near Gray's paint I bet they are because they're oh it'd be good to uh be a hydrant sponsor.

Well, just to be like, you know, they'll they can see their own things displayed.

I know you can't promote anything with the hydrants, but it you know it'd be nice if someone painted the one.

And then you have more colours.

But actually that's a good point.

Maybe what we could do as the city, um, uh maybe we buy some quantities of paint and then we can kind of distribute them in smaller containers to people rather than have everybody have to go get their own paint.

So I'll think about that.

Yeah, or if businesses would sponsor a hydrant anyway, um response for the artist to do the hydrant.

Um there was at one point discussion of the library being able to paint in front of the library is all about.

So that is one of the that is one of the potential mural locations that um that our art intern this summer um came to, and right now we're just launching this one, the other mural things will go next.

Yeah, I'd love to go and see the complete at some point the complete program for art, not just the hydrants, but you know, the utility boxes, there's the library.

I think there's some other things that we're talked about.

Right.

So we had a presentation this summer.

Yeah.

Um about that, and and um we're starting these and then we'll got it.

Work on the next one.

In due course, got it.

Thank you.

Um on that note I did have a conversation with the California uh, I don't remember the name of it.

Um there's an art and music school that is um that's using the community art and music school, something like that, that's over in the um ground floor of the artisan crossing um housing development, and uh we had a meeting with them just today, and they were very interested in participating in some kind of a community art mural project.

So I'm excited to see it.

I'm just sad it's not more in the neighborhoods, but I get it.

I have one more.

That's okay.

Oh, okay.

Um are they applications?

I mean, you just mentioned like families doing a a fire hydrant, are the applications like prioritizing like professional artists or can like anyone not for the hydrants, not for the hydrants, just for the utility box.

Um and I wouldn't even say it needs to be a professional artist, but it needs to be an experienced artist.

We're gonna ask what kind of large-scale work has been done before.

Because a utility box needs a sort of a different um level of skill to make it that's a pretty important location that we have and we have sort of one opportunity to get it right and do something really special in downtown.

And then who is gonna be responsible for like the painting materials and stuff?

Like, do they have to bring their own things or like are you guys gonna support them or what?

For which one?

For either.

So for the utility box, we'll do we'll reimburse up to two hundred and fifty dollars for art supplies.

Um, but for the fire hydrants, um, again, we might just provide some paint, but we would ask that the community members use their own brushes and drop claws and that sort of thing.

Okay.

Then I'm excited either way.

I see the the dog utility box all the time.

Like when I'm walking to school or from home, I'm like excited for that.

Yeah.

Great.

Um I just my question was the three that you had in your presentation, are these three locations that could be redone?

I don't believe so.

Okay, one is very close in proximity to where I live and I see it every day.

Yeah.

So I will say I have one of these hydrants in my front yard and I love it, and it's not one of the ones that's gonna be repainted, so I won't touch it because I don't have permission for mid pen, but they bring me joy because they are so fantastic.

And I am so excited that Midpen is allowing us to do ones along uh Ralston and Alameda Daily's pool guts because I think it'll be a chance for people in the community to leave a mark on Belmont and be creative.

Um so for the application itself, I know uh we saw the application.

How do they submit it?

Is it a paper application?

Do they scan it and mail it, like email it to you or how how is it submitted?

Okay, you're asking me a technological question, so I'm gonna look at Amory.

Um they we've done um we could do it as a fillable form, couldn't we?

You know what though they have to still be able to do.

Because they have to have to draw it out.

Yeah, so they figure out if they have to hand it to you or if they can scan it, they can scan it anyway.

So we take a picture and like with their phone, like if they sketch it, if you can upload it.

Right.

Or if they do a computer rendering, like how I was curious like how they actually submit it to you and make sure it gets to you because the deadline is the 29th.

Right.

So the fast.

The um, yeah, when we did the utility boxes, people dropped it off or or scanned it to us.

So it should be fine.

Um, and then uh so if it gets approved, do you have any idea when the painting would actually happen?

Because it's gonna hopefully it rains, you know, this winter, but is it during the winter or is there a timeframe?

You know what, I don't quite know that yet because um well we could probably schedule convene our committee and and make some decisions correctly.

I don't know the midpen waters timeline.

So um so that's something still to be determined.

And then Midwen has to midpen has to go and kind of prep the hydrant.

So we have two other um obstacles.

So it's that's kind of why I want to get this started now because there might be a little bit of a time lag.

Yeah, so long as it happens next year during the centennial yeah, it seems like it will I'm hoping by spring at the latest, this will get started.

And then the other fun thing, I'm not sure if it's in the application, but midpen did say that if somebody pays a high paints a hydrant and then for some t reason in the future that hydrant gets decommissioned or um needs to be replaced for some reason, the artists will get contacted and they will be offered the opportunity to have the hydrant and bring it home.

So a quick question.

Did midpen say or do we know what their plan is for the existing older painted hydrants?

Like are they just gonna fade away or they're gonna repaint them or followed in?

I don't think they're gonna be repainted.

I think it's more likely that they'll be replaced, but that's a good question.

I did not ask that question.

Okay, so but they there might okay the hydrants might actually get replaced because of their older need to upgrade for whatever reason.

Yeah, I think the requirements for painting are different now than they were then.

So I was hoping they'd be like grandfathered in, like exceptions to the new rules, and then we could, you know, yeah, turn them over to a community and have them like refreshed with their.

If I could repaint mine in the original design, I think it definitely would refresh it because it's looking a little worse for the wear at this point.

So well, my whole yard is, but it just blends right in.

Okay.

Well, so um, if we don't have any more questions or comments, uh we need two commissioners to be on this um committee.

Um so are there any commissioners who would like to volunteer to be on the committee?

I do.

I'd like to be on the committee.

I I would love to say I think she would.

Is there anyone else?

We can maybe arm wrestle, although I'm not gonna arm wrestle Austin.

But I have a pretty strong right, so I avoid arm wrestling.

Would anyone else like to throw uh put their name out for consideration?

Because I can I'm happy to step back if someone else is excited about this.

I think it's in good hands.

Okay.

I think we're excited about it.

So I think um if someone wants to make uh a motion to approve this project and to appoint um us as the committee members, that would be.

I'll move to approve it and to have the two you represent us ably.

I'll second, kind of third.

I think thirds are left, yeah.

Commissioner Lee?

Yes.

Commissioner Hill?

Yes.

Commissioner Whitmore?

Yes.

Commissioner Cunha?

Yes.

Commissioner Leiford.

Yes.

Chair Emkin.

Yes.

Motion passes six and no.

Thank you.

I'm very excited about this.

Um, one of the comments if for some reason we don't get enough, we don't get applications for all the hydrants, then we'll just do a second round.

So we'll kind of keep this going.

But saying this is gonna be important, especially because if we want students, if we want students to get involved, is there a good way to reach them aside from like art clubs and social media, like students and families?

There's gonna be an art group of karma, right?

Yeah.

It's very lively.

Like that just doesn't mean that there's that much opportunities for those like kids.

Yeah.

So I think definitely reaching out would be good.

Yeah, because it's a quick turnaround, so they need to hear about it and come up with a plan and design it and submit it.

And like a lot of the kids are busy too, so yeah.

I mean, if you want that to happen, like it better be quick.

Okay.

Well, but so if we don't have enough hopefully there's more time if we'll do another round.

Are commissioners allowed to apply, or is it a conflict of interest?

Commissioners may apply.

Oh, commissioners' families may apply.

Yeah, you can wear a sandwich board around the school.

Oh my god.

Funny thing is I would totally do that.

All right.

So moving on.

Other business updates, departments updates.

Okay, it's been a while.

As we've heard a bunch.

We had the Imagine Together festival.

Here's just some different pictures from the different areas that we had there.

I was there and it was it was great to see all the different uh ages and everyone interacting with everything there.

We had our first movie night in the park a couple weeks ago here at Twin Pines.

We saw Inside Out 2.

I'd never seen it before, but it was a very good movie.

Sneak peek.

This may or may not be our theme for our trunk retreat.

So we'll just have to wait and see what that.

But we had our uh Xfinity came again.

They had their um 360 photo booth, which is always a lot of fun.

Um, and then our next movie night will be next week at Alexander Park.

Then, as we heard earlier, we had the cleanup with our commissioner.

Um people were super excited about this, so hopefully we can do more stuff in the future.

Um, last week our hideout had its big grand opening.

Um we have almost a hundred children signed up for the program.

That doesn't mean a hundred kids are there every day, but just um there's a hundred kids signed up, so it's it's really great to see with that.

Um they had lots of different activities going on from the games, video games, homework, and then they had different arts and crafts as well.

Um, and then our city has launched the new climate action and adoption plan update.

Um, so we're taking um feedback right now, so you can go to the website.

Um, there's a survey, you can sign up for more updates, and then we also have a bunch of upcoming meetings where you can get more um information on it as well.

You wanna or do you want me in?

Oh, sure.

I'll I'll do this.

So we're um gonna be tweaking our office hours a little bit.

Um normally we're open from 8 to 12 and 1 to 5.

Uh starting this week on Fridays, we're gonna be open from nine to five.

Yeah, there it is.

So we're gonna be open through the lunch hour.

We've kept a tally, we have very few walk-ins.

Um, so we hope that this is not too significant an impact on our uh community.

The first hours from 9 to 1 will actually be served in the senior and community center.

Um, but the staff there is fully capable of handling any of the walk-in activity we might have.

And then from one o'clock on, it'll be at the park and rec office on Friday.

So just a little adjustment to uh accommodate different work schedules.

Alright, and like I mentioned, um, we have our next movie in the park coming up at Alexander.

We'll be showing Mulan, the original one, and then the Water Dog Run will be on September 27th.

I think you're still able to sign up for that.

Um, and then new this year, um, our high school fair is coming back, but we're also incorporating local colleges.

Um, so we'll have high schools and colleges there representing so middle schoolers and high schools are high schoolers are able to attend to get more information right now.

I think there's around 20 schools total that will be there.

Um it's all listed on our website if you want to see the exact ones, and in years past, some have just shown up on the day of, so there's always the possibility for more.

Um third or fourth annual Diwali celebration will be on October 19th at the senior center.

We've had a lot of community um participation requests.

So we have a lot of different um performers and booths and stuff like that.

So it's a really good um community event, and then our Belmont Boo Bash, which is um the haunted house, and then as well as our trunk retreat will be on Wednesday, October 29th.

There's still a few spots available if you would like to have your car be a part of the vet.

Um that part you do need to register for just so we know that you're coming and we have a spot for you.

But if you would just like to attend and see the the haunted house and all that other stuff, you can just show up.

That's all I have.

Alright.

Do we have any comments or questions?

Did you expand the number of spots for the Belmont Boubash trunk location?

No.

We expand.

Are there more spots than last year?

Last year, wasn't it totally full last year in terms of trunks?

It was totally full.

And people showed up extra.

Yes, we had an extra random car show up.

Um we didn't expand this year.

Maybe eventually we were thinking of being in this area, but when we were planning it, we didn't know what was going to be going on in the park, so we just wanted to keep it there.

So it's the same.

There's like 28 slots.

And depending on how many people we are on the wait list, we could put some around the oval.

It just kind of depends on what we get with that.

So is there any update on the Alameda corridor uh roundabout project?

I have not heard anything in a while.

Okay.

So sorry.

For the um the high school and college fair.

Do you know which colleges are coming?

Which?

It's on our website.

I don't know off the top of my head.

There's like five or six of them listed.

I know San Jose State, and then a couple like community colleges as well, but yeah.

Um I was just wondering if there's any way the commissioners can support in the climate action plan.

Any of the work that you guys are doing there.

Is there anything that would help for us to attend, do anything in regards to that?

That's a great question.

Um I would say for sure go online, fill out the survey.

Um, and let me check in with our assistant city manager.

She's the one kind of leading this charge and see where it might be helpful to have some other ambassadors.

Awesome.

And then maybe the commissioners need to have a trunk.

If we have some open spaces, that might be a good idea.

We can collaborate on a pretty sick trunk.

My trunk is not very big, but maybe somebody has a nice size trunk.

So I have a couple little questions.

Uh the movies in the park.

I remember a few months ago, Commissioner Cunhed suggested uh sports showing sports.

Did we ever get a chance to look into that and see how expensive it would be with the licensing or anything?

I apologize that fell off my radar.

Oh no, showing what?

There's so much on your radar.

Yeah, we talked about maybe doing like a soccer world cup, yeah.

So then we also talked about.

Super Bowl.

Super Bowl.

Did I just didn't know if there'd been any um any update on that?

Valkyrie's Valkyrie's.

Oh yeah.

Um and then the the cleanup with the commissioner.

I wish we'd had a little more notice on that because I would have loved to go.

But um, so maybe the next one, hopefully, there's a little more to be claimed.

More advanced notice because I think there's probably probably more people would have come if it was announced a little bit sooner.

So I was really excited about that.

I could bring you some Girl Scouts next time.

Yeah.

That'd be great.

They would probably have a lot of energy.

We we had to do a little coffee in the morning to like pipe people up, but we had a solid group.

Commissioner joined me, and yeah, it was super fun.

Yeah, it looked fun.

Um, and then uh for the the boobash, they're you're doing the haunted house again this year, right?

That's cool.

Very nice.

Okay.

Fun fact The Grateful Dead used to be called the Warlocks.

Yeah.

And they played in Belmont for a month.

And so they're going to be featured.

So do we know where they played?

What's that?

Do we know where they actually where they played?

Um, do you remember what it was?

It was a place.

I think it was on Old County Road, something.

Where are Carl and Chuck Winnie?

They know these things.

I don't know.

Um, yeah, but we'll have some fun history about that.

Is that Marvin Gardens or something?

I don't remember.

Okay.

Um and then I believe that's uh it, right?

Commissioner questions or comments.

I believe anybody have any closing questions or comments or things you need to announce before our next meeting?

No, okay.

Um, if that is the case, then I will adjourn this meeting.

Thank you everybody for all of your help today.

Thank you.

Probably in the subject.