I call to order the museums and cultural arts commission on Thursday, December the fourth, twenty twenty-five.

May we have the roll call?

Yes.

Chair Kimsey.

Present.

Vice Chair O'Neal.

Here.

Commissioner Evans?

Yes.

Commission Commissioner Witchkowski?

Here.

Commissioner Fullop.

Present.

Commissioner Caldy.

Present.

Commissioner Turgeon.

Present.

Thank you.

That is a quorum, a full quorum of seven today.

For staff, we have the library and museums director, artifacts.

Oh, sorry, the library and museums assistant director and the artifacts specialist and the recording secretary myself.

Can we have consent agenda?

Do we have any problems with the um minutes from last time?

Any changes, any additions?

No.

So I hear a motion to accept everything on the consent.

Okay, the end of the consent agenda.

The new commissioners have to abstain, of course.

Do we have any general public comments today?

Anyone wishing to speak?

I can take this time to announce that the public can participate remotely by Zoom with the information found on this meeting's agenda posted at Monterey.gov slash agendas or by telephone toll free at eight three three five six eight eight eight six four.

The webinar ID for this meeting is one six one six two two two two two nine nine.

Remote commenters will be muted until it is their turn to speak.

Vice Chair O'Neill.

Commissioner Evans.

Yes.

Commissioner Wachkowski.

Commissioner Fullip.

Commissioner Keldy.

And oh, do you um abstain?

Thank you.

Um and Commissioner Turgeon.

Abstain.

Great.

Thank you.

Those minutes are approved as submitted.

And we can move on.

Thank you.

I think so.

I think so.

Turned up the the volume.

What's that?

I just turned up the volume.

Okay.

I'm going to go over the um our lower presidious sort park, and I'm going to go over a presentation, especially as we have some newer commissioners on here because they give you an overview of what exactly we are talking about here today.

So background, as you'll see in the commission report, this is a project we talked about for quite some time, and it went to council back in March of 2025 about next steps here with the lower partial sort of park.

So earliest history.

This is actually an indigenous site.

You go back to that.

Great.

Cool.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

So I'm sure we're talking about it.

Um so this has a this site has um several thousand-year history here on the lower presidious historic park.

The location of this park is over on the curve, basically separating old Monterey from new Monterey.

It's the lighthouse curve, and we'll see the hillside right over on there.

The site is historically significant and on a national register of historic places, and as listed as El Castillo.

And so it's first used by the Rumson and SLN and Lone First Peoples.

And it's been owned by the US Army since 1847.

But since 1996, the city has a 50-year lease for 25.15 acres of public access there at the park.

This is the site, the overview of the park.

You'll see the aerial view here of the park.

There's been other work done over time on there.

Um, but initially, the 1980s, the US Army doing what they're calling BRAC, based relocations and closures.

They were looking at disposing of 123 acres of lower presidio.

That includes the Presidio, which is now the defense language institute, Huckleberry Hill, um, here and at the lower Presidio Park.

And Congressman Leanne Panetta, he convinced, as you see there, to reject the Army request and just save this park from future development.

That created what they call the Monterey Way, which was also how the city and the army consistently worked together for public works projects and parks maintenance over at the sites.

Um you'll see their 1984, this article at the time, Presidio land sale blocked.

The and basically the thought was initially was to sell it for housing.

You're initially going to auction off that house site for housing all around there.

And instead, they wanted to make it more of a passive park.

They actually wanted to restore the fort that was actually there before that at El Castillo.

Um so you'll see this highlighted being recommended the US Army began negotiations with Monterey for lease of the money.

So city improvements over time.

There was the Presidio has been uh the museum was restored.

That was actually an army museum.

Uh building 113 was an artillery shed, and it's now turned into a museum and it started off as an army museum.

Entry signs have been replaced.

We'll talk a little bit about that in a bit.

The Sarah Monument Path, uh, public art security plan, mowing, weather control, um, museum retro cleaning.

The city estimates added about $80,000 annual costs for making it some there.

So many improvements and they're not showing on this um here, but I will just I'm just gonna point out on here where you see the raised trail that goes on there, that 88 path.

That's because this is an archaeologically sensitive park, and you cannot dig out and grade onto this area.

So the city did infill um in partnership with old Monterey Foundation working on different grants.

You'll also see that the road signs there are also surface mounted, they are not done into the land, so they are done in concrete um pillars placed on top of dirt.

So they don't dig post or dig anything in there.

So all of the paths, so the pathway that when you walked around the Sarah path and all those things, you'll notice that is all raised dirt that was added on there rather than dig into the archaeologically sensitive site.

Oh, so there it goes.

So there's the there's the walkway and then comes in.

Um the purpose of the open space.

So the city indicated initially that they wanted California State Parks or another agency to handle maintenance and restoration of the historic fort.

One thing of note is the Sarah landing spot park.

That landing park is actually California State Parks at the Creek, which is a little, there's a little walkway in the creek behind there.

If you go to the end of Van Buren, that is actually the Sarah Creek.

And on one side of that is owned by state parks.

The other side over there is United States Army.

Um the state parks did not get into negotiations as you see.

1984 is when they were to be started.

But 1996, city got into a 50 year lease agreement for so that goes through 2046.

City responsible as you see for minimal maintenance functions, including Boeing, litter control, restroom maintenance.

As I mentioned, we have our museum.

That's one of our museums and cultural arts sites for commissioners joining us.

We'll give I'll give you guys more insight on that too.

But we have the Presidio of Monterey Museum, which is there operated by VCM doses by volunteers on Saturdays and Sundays.

But in the older Presidio Museum, there used to be different models that they had from the 1960s that were models, El Castillo, our models like up the Mexican Fort Biff was there, models of the early American forts, those were sent to Virginia.

A lot of the other stuff's in there.

So the majority of the exhibits that are currently in the museum are either owned by the city or they are owned by Monterey History Art Association out on the road and moderate public libraries.

So over the years, um we've got over a million dollars invested in this park, funding from general fund, the capital improvement program, NCIP, grants from Golden Monterey Foundation.

So all of this was done in partnership with the with the United States Party.

All of this was drafted in terms of interpretation plans, in terms of maintenance science, everything has been done in consultation with the United States Army Air Fund.

Some of the history coming in here, it's the original landing spot.

That site right there is the founding of California.

We we consider it that.

That painting there's inside the uh inside the museum that's done by Agatha Few.

You may know that this building retins, the Few Memorial Complex from Agatha Few and her husband Charles Few.

They donated money from their estate when they passed away to build City Hall to build the expansion of the different buildings that we have here.

So Agatha Hugh actually recording in progress.

And it's the site of the only land and sea battle on the west coast of the United States from Pipelito Pushar.

So from 1818 and Argentina came and sacked them.

And slope monument, so the slope monument represents the 1846 capture of Monterey for the United States of America.

So that was done by the Mexican uh the veterans of the Mexican American War, and they wanted to do it after a 50 year celebration.

So they started working on it in 1896, got congressional approval, got some funding, and that's why all the different stones on there are donors from different stones from different organizations, different counties, different cities, all donated over time, and it was um launched again.

Some of the other sites we have a Rumsey and Alone, what some people call the Birkenstone, some called the rain rock.

There are the Lake Hornido Cross was damaged.

It's not up there at this time, but it's the he was actually buried further near where the tree was.

But he was the first non-indigenous person buried in Alta, California.

He was a free black slate from Mexico.

The Bouchard Monument, uh the Sarah Monument, which is a massive granite statue of uh Father Sarah arriving coming on a boat donated by Jane Stanford from this um they went and Jane Stanford, you know, founders of Stanford University.

So they have high here as the big four from the railroad site, and the slope monument and recognized the fifth year anniversary.

Also the site of the Buffalo Soldiers, the 9th and 10th Cavalry, 24th and 25th Infantry stationed here in the Presidio.

Um these are all black regiments served as also as our U.S.

park rangers at U78 Sequoia National Parks after they left Monterey.

And so as I mentioned on this part, that there was a 2002 interpretive master plan developed, and that was an interpretive plan regarding the different signage, the different areas to highlight there.

And so it's you've got 7,000 plus years of history, depending on who you talk to there at the site.

Now, a couple of things to think of also regarding historic preservation guidelines.

Anything that we do needs to be guided by Secretary of Interior Standard, because this is a nationally historic site.

So Secretary of Interior is the National Park Service, that kind of arena for the federal government.

And there are four areas you look at when you're working on a nationally historic site.

You look at either preservation, rehabilitation, restoration, or reconstruction.

What that means is that you want to keep as much of historically significant areas as possible.

Then think of it in that kind of a lens, whenever you're working on these historically significant sites, that's where all the different federal legislation comes into play of like when you have a site on a national register of historic places.

So with that, there's been different projects, those we mentioned the walkways, park improvements, entry signs, interpretive signage, um, the stable study.

There was a study for the cavalry stables.

This was a cavalry site.

The lower procedure earlier on when it was a military site was for cavalry.

As you see, the Buffalo soldiers were cabin.

And so they started off with Pacific Grove while they were building the military housing up at the Presidio because there was a period of time where this fort was abandoned by the United States Army, and then re-it came around 1903 back and reformed and actually started building up new housing.

And that's what a lot of the housing from the Presidios from the 1903 to about 1910, 1911 era.

But at the time, the stables were falling apart, and there was a study done several years ago, and they tore down the stables.

Some of our commissioners, I'm sure well familiar, quite familiar with that project as well.

And there are still a couple buildings out there, the blacksmith shop, building 105, which is used for storage by the Army Building 113, as I mentioned, which is the Presidio of the Museum.

And there.

One of the things that's brought this kind of more to the forefront is the lighthouse curve coming in here.

And I'm not sure if anybody here has walked along that curve, but I'm sure you've probably driven past it many times.

So as you'll see on the left side, the part of it, the majority of this property line is owned by the United States Army garrison.

And you'll see on the left side, Department of Army and the boundary, and on the right, the public right-of-way is part of the city of Monterey property.

So because this is archaeologically sensitive site, there's concerns about soil and erosion on the hillside.

So you have primarily a granite base or granite rock, but there's a lot of soil, partially some of it could have been when they created and they leveled off to make the fort because when they made Fort Mervine, which was the earlier fort called Fort Mervine.

And when they moved it off or to build the slope monument, you probably capped off some of the hillside, pushing further girt down.

But we have a lot of uh rodents out there.

We have scrolls and gophers that have been kicking up dirt out there along that curve.

So on the city portion, uh they put a service mount wood retaining wall, as you'll see there right on the city right away.

So that's why it's not on the entirety of it because we built it on our side of it, but that comes from 2021.

This is I started here in 2022.

So this is before my time started here.

But the army asked the city to build a wall on their on their property to retain the soil that is falling down on the curve.

And so they wanted the the city to fund the design, the construction of full height along that um curve up there on an archaeologically sensitive site right around there.

So that's been a challenge right over there.

So the city at cost estimates at the time are about 1.5 million dollars.

I'm sure it's much higher, even four or five years later for building a high retainable, especially MEPA is a national environmental kind of uh standard sequels California Environmental Quality Act.

Um, there's historic and tribal consultations, the work coastal commission.

There's a lot of entities that would be involved in anything like that, including a review by urban court engineers, funding as uh many of you may be aware with the city's fiscal challenges building a 1.5 million dollar plus retaining wall was challenged and also is on this is the majority of the area is actually on army property, it's not on the safety property.

So questions for consideration, these are some of the questions that I brought to council back in March, and along with our assistant city manager, Matt Rodana Sophia, but should the city continue the lease given that the land is now fully protected from future developments and turned into a historic park?

Will the U.S.

Army continue to provide open access to the park if the city decides to terminate the lease early?

Should the city continue to invest general fund dollars into the maintenance and preservation of the area?

Can the city afford to continue this lease, giving its competing priorities with other city services and assets?

So a couple pieces on there.

So the other part was as the federal, should the city pursue and advocate for national monument or national historic site designation to reserve public access in perpetuity and to secure permanent federal maintenance and upkeep through the National Park Service.

Now I'm gonna mention this and I'll take questions on a little bit too.

But one of the items that I've been working on with our assistant city manager is with Congressman Panetta's office.

So as you remember, I remember Leon Panetta was the one that worked on saving the park.

We've been working with Jimmy Panetta's office on getting a special with the first step, would be a special resource study from Congress.

And what that would do with the Congress would then authorize the National Park Service, the Secretary of Interior to do a study about the historic significance and the build ability of this to become a national park.

So that gives it into control and purpose.

So the other question I have is, and I know this has come up regarding some of our other sites.

Is that in 2046?

I mean, that's going to come up, you know, it's not real soon.

But I mean, it's going to be that's going to come up before we figure it out.

But at 2046, what's going to happen?

Because at the at the moment, the Army is charging market rate looks as for their sites.

Now, 25.15 acres of public land.

I'm not sure how you can market that, but if they were going right now, we have a lease that basically says you can lease it as public access to the park.

You know, you have to maintain it, operate a museum, have historic interpretation, but we pay that cost for you know park maintenance and everything like that.

But if there was a charge to us in the city of Ford to pay a charge for 25 acres of COPIN space if they start charging it.

So we did some feasibility of federal management of federal park.

Um what are the Army's plans for lower presidious historic park two?

They have plans for it because it was still, even if it if we're going to be operated by National Park Service, it could still be owned by the United States Army Bears.

So there are different parks that are that are still owned, federal parks, national park sites that are owned by Navy, by United States Army, that are operated as uh federal parks for public access.

And different capital and maintenance costs, as we've seen, costs for different construction projects continue to rise, and doing um work and building a 20 to 25 foot high retaining wall along the curve would be quite costly.

Um, so the recommended public engagement approach was um initial engagements with residents and community.

We've created a survey that's on have your same Monterey, we sent it out on the city newsletter, put it in the what called city focused newsletter, we put it on the city notices, and putting it on the library newsletter coming up.

And so one of the things on here that we have on our agenda is to choose one commissioner to act as a liaison for different having a different uh workshop there at the Presidio Bot next steps, a public week.

Now we're gonna have a commissioner from parks and the PRC's parks and recreation commission, historic preservation commission, and museums and cultural arts commission.

So we'll have a community workshop um related to kind of what the next steps are, but I believe we're still gonna go forward with the uh looking at it in initial study, just because that is a first step, and that would go to council already um in terms of a letter, and then would work with uh banana's office.

Um any questions or feedback on there, Dill?

Yeah, a couple uh comments.

Um I think you indicated at the in bro, uh at the end, Brian, that it was supposed to be a 15 to 20 foot high wall.

Do you imagine that on lighthouse curve?

Basically, the solution is much worse than the problem.

The problem the problem was that these the sloughing of the slope may have contained remains of Native Americans, and the Native Americans uh put a tremendous pressure on the army to resolve this, and the army corps came up with the worst possible solution a 20-foot high wall.

Um the army actually they wrote a letter saying that if we didn't if the city didn't comply with this, they were going to take back the land.

Then they thought about it and they looked at the maintenance costs and all their responsibilities with no revenue coming in, and they said, hold it, you know, uh, we're gonna take back that other letter and write a new letter saying consider um solving this.

And so I think that's where we're at now.

I don't know what um I think the city uh we haven't actually had any public hearings.

I actually participated in a public survey.

I think the commission all got a public survey on that too.

The existing commissioners prior to this, but have there been any public hearings by any of the commissions on this yet?

No, no, not on the commission.

So the thought is just to choose a commissioner from one each one of these three, and then find a date to have uh public to have a lot of information.

Okay, so one movie.

Uh initially there was supposed to be uh each commission was going to review it, but now it's come up with one public meeting on site with representatives from all the commissions.

Yeah, so I think that was what we talked about.

So we'll have like we're just doing the presentation to the commission here, although it's into a presentation, parks and recreation commission again next week, and then whenever historic preservation commission does it, just to give them just a like a basis of oversight of what it is, and then we'll find the date for a public meeting.

I I've been heavily involved with this because I'm the president of a nonprofit group called the Old Monterey Foundation, and actually the old Monterey Foundation want a lot of city assistance, but we've put in most of the improvements, and I would encourage all the new members to go there, walk to we put in uh ADA accessible walkways, picnic benches, historic signs, both and has incredible views.

And so um I would I would uh say that I would probably represent the old Monterey Foundation whenever there's that public meeting and on our commission.

Not the commission, and not the commission.

I think there should be somebody else because we sort of have a buy.

I mean, we uh I have to respond to our board on the old Monterey Foundation.

So I uh I've talked to Brian a little bit about this.

I think it would be better if there was someone else from the commission who would represent uh the museum and cultural arts commission.

Do we have a volunteer?

Well, I have a question in the report as I read it.

There was something about taking out the sidewalk on Lighthouse Curve.

Did I misread that?

That's in the NIP, the NCIP.

That's it.

That's in the NCIP.

There is a request that a uh citizen wrote in to actually fund to the end on the current the current NCFT projects that are being proposed right now and being reviewed.

Somebody has proposed to take out the sidewalk along the curve and build the wall right there.

And I will say, um, on my side, I'm not you know, I'm not an I'm not a city city engineer, you know, but I come on it looking at a couple of pieces, which is going back to Secretary of Interior Guidelines, and I think about when you look at this hillside, which is the founding place to me, one of the founding places of Monterey, and we built the lighthouse curve with the roads, you know.

We've covered up, we've done infill and we've covered up the creek where you know um Sarah landed, and you know, the Skygo landed, like we've covered up a lot of these areas.

That hillside is still like the original hillside that you know, the indigenous natives would be there, you know.

The when the Bouchard was there building like a massive concrete wall on their side that really think conflicts with Secretary of Interior standards of that site, and I agree with um Commissioner Mukowski on that, which is that I think that's a very large project as well as it's archaeologically sensitive.

So if we're concerned about like dirt coming down and the soil and droppings, if you build a 20-foot wall, you then have to dig down to pile down to you know to to build that, and then there are bars that come around off of that curve also daily to get on here on the Pacific or to get off right before the tunnel.

Um we have had people flash the cars, you know, get around there.

So I personally uh I think that I'm more of a fan of doing something that is lower impact on that on that side in terms of managing that and keeping historic character of the site, but then also looking at how we provide, and I also want to have my goal with this is to provide consistent public access to that part.

And I also want to have my goal with this is to provide consistent public access to that part.

The goal of line is that basically the we need to have consistent public access for the lower presidious historic park, maybe our coatsum, because in you know, 23, 24 years, I mean it's gonna go honestly, it's gonna be really fast.

And so we have to get a project started about what will happen in three four, like the anything going on with the federal government.

It takes several years for anything like that to happen.

So if we get the ball rolling and we get started thinking about what could happen here with the park, I think we're we'll be on a good path um moving forward.

Ryan, I have a question.

Um is the possibility of some other solution available, or is the army, I guess, really stuck on this wall.

Um, so I'm not sure where they're at because my one of my contacts left the environment.

Um the cultural cultural resources, and I forget their specific title, but our cultural resources contact.

I have several other contacts, but the cultural resources contact that was working on a project and plan, but we never got to see the plants.

They would not share with us what actual plans were there.

We wanted to get find out what it what are you guys talking about?

Like show us some drawings, show us some of that.

And I never got to see them.

Um, and I will say also the commanders change every two years there at the presidio.

So we'll, you know, we have a great relationship, I think, right now with our with the United States Army garrison right now.

I think it's a very positive relationship.

Um we haven't had a lot of uh we haven't had a follow-up that says where where are you with this?

But I think it's it's a it's a good point for us to be at, but to see like what is the city, what are our residents want to see also?

Do the residents are they really interested in maintaining this public park or other public parks?

Um are there other as I mean on here?

Is there um right now we have annually there were trucks that clean up that site, and that's coordinated by our public works staff in in consultation with the United States Army.

Um, there's archaeological firm uh Dudek that was just out there about a month ago.

If you're driving up the little trucks in the morning, they they're still doing that.

We still do that annually, just maybe.

John, I know to answer your question, there was some discussion.

I've never seen any kind of analysis, but is there a possible way of controlling the gophers at the top of the hill to stop the sloughing?

Whether you know, whether you do something in the ground ahead of it with screens or whatever.

I don't know if that was ever under the discussion by the Army Corps.

There was there was discussion about what can you do for you know because there are different gopher treatments.

Um the other thoughts were uh just landscaping.

Like, are there natural plants that hold in that are better at are there plants that are better at holding in dirt than just having dirt and grass and rock?

Like, is there something that we could put on there?

Is there places that have netting?

You know, so there's some of these other pieces that are better on there, and I do think that's that is another you know, component for that too.

Um and I I think at this point we haven't seen it, but it's whether is that the you know, gonna be the goal of creating the netting or who's gonna who is gonna fund any of those projects, I think for that side is enough.

It will be a will be a future question too.

And we should figure out whoever it's chosen from the three commissions fits together and kind of figure out what kind of questions we want to ask on the top beyond that.

Do we have a volunteer?

So you had a question.

Thank you.

I have a quick question.

If you could remind me, when was the Hill remedy report issued?

Like what year was that?

What year was the work the remedy report?

When was that issue?

Um, I think it was 2021, and around that time.

And we've had a couple different commanders since then was when they when they uh there was an article in the Monterey and Missal Herald also rebounding it around that time.

Okay.

And then the follow-up question would be I know that there was uh a wall discussed as a remedy.

I've seen other national sites where they've used like a gun-ide approach to it.

So it looks like they're shooting actual soil, but it's more like a concrete.

So think, you know, a Disney Imagineer fixing that hill so that it actually blends in with the environment instead of being an eyesore, and that could also hold back the slepping off the erosion, all of the rodent work that's going on there.

So I don't know if that was something that was discussed, but that would be something I would want to explore.

I think that was something actually Commissioner Bukowski had talked about um before with me also because of that side, which was like how do we have the kind of the false and the spray of something on there so you can build up on top.

You saw that a little bit higher up on there, but I won't mention things like um you know the white wood fence that's around there.

You notice that that's actually built on the old chain link fence.

So an old Monterey Foundation did that because we can't we can't um put in new concrete mounds, so they did it to make it look nice, it's wood surrounded on metal poles, and then the fence comes up across there.

So everything we do in that's that's where like when you as I mentioned like secretary of imperial guidelines, that's where you're doing like reconstruction, and that's appropriate because then you're going by guidelines that says you can do things that are new, but you do them in the in a manner that looks that looks like something that would have been 250 or 500 years.

But you do it you do it in a natural way rather than building like a concrete.

So it's just a matter of like as I mentioned, that the engineers and the designers and those kind of people like that have to do those involved.

But it goes back also the question is is the city the one aim to install that and do that on army property when the lease is expiring as we're we're our tenant of the property that lease is expiring in 2046.

Okay, my follow-up question would be do we have a copy of the lease and what would be any type of damages for breaking that lease?

What would it cost us to get out of that?

So we do have a copy of the lease.

I think that might be in the sure Janet and our property management has that.

Um I believe the army could pull out with one year notice.

But either one, there's no because there's no we don't pay anything for it, so it's not like a monthly, we just do the we do the maintenance.

So I think it's all there's there are terms in there that like how each each entity can pull out, and that's why those questions were presented to council as whether um, because if the army was saying we are going to pull out public lease on the emission of 7 in 2021, there was well if the city doesn't have the money to fund those projects, it's the city, then that was some of the questions that were presented to council on that part.

But I think it's it's listed in the lease.

I'm just I can't give you a correct answer.

I will just think about my assumption on it was that there was like a one-year written notice on either party issued issued to the uh their property management provisional segment.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

We are looking for a volunteer.

I'm sorry, Bill, but you can't do that.

I understand, but you're looking at me.

I'm looking at John be willing to do that.

Uh reluctantly.

Well, we can support you anyway.

You need to if you need a backup, we could uh have someone that would be a backup of if uh we can I think that'd be I think that'd be appropriate primarily to back up the question.

Yeah, do we have any idea on the time commitment?

I think that's what bothers most of us.

We're busy doing other historic stuff.

Do we have enough time to take this on?

We're I mean, we're not we're all I'm hurt hunch for time too on the staff side, I'm quite punched for time.

So I think that the thought is like we already have a survey out, sorry, posted on the website.

This is just attending public meeting and being that the person that's attending whether it's a one meeting or two meetings, but I don't see it as really more than that at this moment.

That's kind of what we wanted to have was to have one or two public meetings and have the person attend as the representative so that we don't have a quorum of each commission because I mean this is the type of this is the type of thing which would be importance to multiple people, multiple commissions, and if it's you know, we can have it as a meeting, but that's not noticed as a public.

There's a lot more requirements for you know having quorums of different people at the at the meeting.

So I think it's better just to have like a single representative as representing commission and attending as the voice of the commission at that moment.

So that's where I was thinking it's probably one meeting or two meeting, whether that's a couple hours commitment, um, meeting with myself or with the city staff ahead of time, but that's also I'd be willing to take that.

Okay, wonderful.

Thank you.

Yeah, one additional comment.

I think the important thing to remember is not who controls the land, whether it's leased to the city or the army.

The main thing is, you know, we've heard rumors.

I mean, the old Monterey Foundation has heard rumors that some groups would not like to have any public access, any use there at all.

And that's, I think our point.

The old Monterey Foundation is to have public access.

This is right in between two neighborhoods, Old Town and New Monterey.

People can easily walk there.

There's plenty, there are very few parks in the city of Monterey where there's an overabundance of parking.

And this park has incredible views, not uh as well as all the items that Brian said about history.

So the main thing is retain public access.

That's the key.

Okay.

Thank you very much for doing that.

Any other questions, feedback, whatever?

So we'll move to the next item.

Next item will be the Colton Hall concert series.

Are you sharing something now?

Sure, yes.

Yeah, stop sharing.

Go back to you soon.

All right.

Welcome.

Okay.

So I was just one, which is very brief on here what we have listed, but we've had, I don't know if uh Chair Kimsey, do you want us to do you want to talk about the concerts?

Right.

We've so far had two.

We have another one coming up Saturday.

Um, they've been very well attended.

In fact, we have 50 seats, and I think we've had over 60 people each time, which is wonderful.

It we are limited because it's a small, small area, small seating area.

Um the feedback that I have gotten, and I think we've gotten some good donations too on that.

Um, is that they'd like to see it continued.

Um I have made some contacts for um performers for the spring concert, and they do seem interested, would be a variety of uh performers.

We had a nice variety this time, I think.

Um to say more about that.

But I'm very pleased that we've started this series, as you know, that's near and dear to my heart.

Yeah, and I want to uh thank Chair Kimsey for her support and getting this getting this restarted.

And um, you know, we had, as we mentioned, we shifted it to a 4 p.m.

start time.

We do often have, as I mentioned, um, at a prior meeting, we do have an uh quite often an older audience.

And so getting access into Colton Hall around dusk, around 4 p.m.

is actually quite nice.

I I think because getting people on uh you know parked and out there and on there, and we're getting full access on there.

And as a way to get in there, we are getting um, you know, as as uh Chair Kimsey's mentioning, we're getting donations from that, and then following up with people just saying if you want to donate to the um concert series, donate to us.

This is way what a great way to do it.

But for our newer commissioners, we are not charging um for these for these this music series events, and it used to be a candlelight concert series.

So it was a candlelight and evening concert series.

Um, but also that from the staff side, because we are very limited on museum staff.

We rely primarily on you know, you're myself and Brianna's here in the audience and Melissa's here, but mostly like quite often it's one of us or what we call our price part-time seasonal or on call or hourly staff.

So having something in the evening is a little bit harder for us to staff.

So having it right at around four o'clock when typically their shift ends, and I just ask them to extend their day for an hour and a half.

It's a lot easier for us to staff that as well, because then we get everything going.

So that's where um we're trying to consist trying to meet the needs of the commission of having the concerts and to do that.

And I think they ask that um I want to just wanted the recommendation here in terms of the commission here is that that we continue with the 4 p.m.

Saturday sessions.

I think that's worked for the musicians, worked well for myself or for uh Chair Kimsey to attend and also to do an intro at those dates, and then start them again in the spring.

So our hope is to do these again in the spring.

It's always nice.

Any commissioners attending, just to kind of get a sense of Colton Hall and see it there.

But if there's any other feedback or questions on there or any kind of recommendations on start month, I would say in talking with Melissa earlier today, we're generally trying to get our calendar out about two months ahead of time.

So for booking out of our programs, if we start looking at February or so, I think would be ideal for uh library museums so that we make sure that we get we we'd like to get all the um everything on our calendar.

So it goes on our newsletter and it goes out to different groups and you know, we get it all to the weekly or all the you know, all the different areas that we can get so that we can get a full house.

I think it's a great program, and I would encourage uh the city to keep on doing it.

And thanks the chair for her funding for the past program that we've had.

Yeah.

So it's great.

Uh initially I was concerned about the lack of candlelight, but you've explained it very well, Brian.

And I think four o'clock uh makes a lot of sense.

We need to come up with a new name for the series.

Yeah.

New catchy name.

Right.

Yeah, since we don't have candlelight.

Yeah.

Well, we we do have the we do have the official, because I mean, like if you're there in the day, even in the daytime when it's when it's cloudy in Colton Hall, it is dark.

So there is no, you know, there's we that's why we turn up, we still turn on all the ambient um candlelight, and it's still, I think it's still quite nice too.

So everyone is in full, yes.

Question?

What's a question?

What are the paid staffing requirements and how many volunteers would you need or would you like?

Yeah.

So the paid staffing is typically, it's usually just one staff member that's there.

And oftentimes it's a um museum attendant.

I've been, I just been attending myself anyways, because I will come in, I'll bring over the food or set up and help out.

The one staff member generally helps like set up the chairs, they lock up Colton Hall, they just maintain anything there.

And then if we sell any things at the museum.

So you know, right now we're selling like Colton Hall Angel ornaments or selling books or puzzles or those kind of things, those are done by the staff because we don't want volunteers at this time to access our uh financial, you know, our online financial systems.

So the volunteers, typically what we've had is um um, we've usually had about one to two volunteers, and we've had a volunteer base, usually at either end of the two doors.

We've had two volunteers at the doors welcoming people in, um, just checking them in and getting them to their seats.

And then one of those has been uh Chair Kimsey, and I think that's been uh you know, where you were in there, and then we've had other volunteers who generally volunteer with our other museum sites.

And I believe it was uh Commissioner Fullop who's gonna volunteer as well this Saturday as well.

So she'll be there.

So we have our, I think if we have two, that's but that's typically what we have is one staff, two volunteers for most of those events.

And because when we'll get everything, like the staff will be there to, and I've been there just to make sure that the musician has like everything they need for the day, too.

Okay, shall we move to the next item?

Which is the master fee schedule we need to discuss.

Yeah.

Um, no, I think it's just I don't think it's a formal motion, just a recommendation for us to go forward and you know, continue to work with that project, that process if folks are good with they have any.

Um this one just to bring up on here, which is we had just a little little bit of background also, and um I look forward to meeting with some of our New York commissioners and any existing commissioners if you want to meet um let myself or um assistant library director Melissa Mihano, so we can set up some times, you know, to meet up, just kind of give you a more overview of anything here with the museums as well in libraries.

Um but fiscal year 2024-2025, I added to the city fees to do um tour cost.

And typically what that what that means is that when we are doing private tours of Colton Hall, when we're doing private tours of Pacific Biological Laboratories and Presidio Monterey Museum, and these are and we were not we're not charging for education.

So we're not charging for our public schools at this time.

Um and we're not charging for defense language institute because the DLI, they actually do regularly regularly, they do tours of Colton Hall as well.

And they do them actually for their language students so that they practice their language by it's quite often the Russian students of other students come in there um to do those kind of they'll do a tour after repeated in Russian, and then their instructor grades them on how they do their things.

But we do also tours for third graders, fourth graders, eighth graders, we do different tours throughout the year.

But when people come in and asking for a private tour, um, we've been charging.

So this is banned.

Sometimes we'll you'll have like a a tour group that's coming in that's coordinated somewhere else, and they like they want to bring in 15 people.

So we started charging those groups because I felt it was appropriate for us to charge for that staff time for people coming in and asking for that.

City code states that access to Colton Hall is free by city code.

But at the time I asked for master fee schedule and went to council because they can still walk in and get access to Colton Hall.

However, if you want the staff access to getting a private tour and information, you're paying for that staff time.

You're not paying, in my view, you're not paying for the the access to the building, you're paying for the access to that staff time to doing that.

So that's where it was $60 base for one to four people.

Each additional person was $15.

So that's currently what we were charging.

Um, and I'll also mention that before my time, we actually used to allow um public booking of the Pacific Biological Laboratories, Ed Rickett's lab, they're on Canary Row, 800 Canary Road next to the aquarium.

That used to be $35 an hour Monday through Friday and $60 an hour Saturday and Sunday.

It was quite cheap, I'll say to uh to have a use of that building.

I was I wish I knew that when I was younger.

But you know, with $35.

So we were charging that.

So when I started here, we were actually using that fee as the rate for doing private tours at Pacific Biological Labs.

So we would charge them for 1.5 hours.

So we would charge them $52.50 for for any size group to do a tour for an hour and a half.

So that's why I changed it to per person and to do a base level because it brings we don't bring in a huge amount of revenue, but it does recover the staff time and cost of us coming out there to do that part of the tour.

Um, another fee that we currently have that I added was filming within the museums.

Now the city does have a permit um process, which is an hour, you know, which is a daily permit fee that used to be done by police department and it has now gone through.

Currently, it's being handled by the conference center.

This the master fee schedule actually list it as something that the museums commission can do.

Um, but the city has asked the conference center to manage those those uh filming permits right now.

But what we do charge is a filming inside of the buildings.

We are charging uh I put in the master fees control at that time, $50 an hour with a minimum of four hours.

So we would charge, even if you filmed for two hours, we're gonna charge you four hours minimum.

So we're gonna charge you $200, and then every additional hour is $50.

So that typically will cover essentially someone like Brianna's time out there, or my time, or one of our on calls that's going to be there for that person to film in the site, because before they just paid the the permit fee, but they did not pay the staff costs.

So I added on that um to add that fee, which was an hourly cost because we are getting people asking to film inside the old jail to do some short film, or they want to film inside of Ed Rickett's lab to do a documentary.

And I would I want to have recoup the staff cost and staff time that's kind of being on there.

So one of the um, so the my follow-up on here is that I believe that we should be looking into the possibility of working with selective groups to actually either book some of this the spaces um or charge fees for the use.

The other one I I imagine would be um if we are looking at, so there's a possibility of let's say if there were weddings.

So you could do a wedding right now on Colton Hall lawn.

I think it's for residents.

I think it's 206 to do a wedding at Colton Hall Lawn, and that's done through um parks and recreation.

Now, if you go through California State Parks, Monterey State Historic Park, you know, there are different fees regarding um, you know, I I do know like Pacific House Garden, you have a controlled garden.

So it's just you know, it's it's it is different than Colton Hall Lawn.

But I think it's a it's at least we don't, I don't know if I need like a full decision on all the fees today, but I would like to get kind of the feedback from the commission in terms of what would the commission think if let's say we set a package to like let's say somebody wanted to get married at Colton Hall, and we didn't say Colton Hall lawn, you paid 206, but you got married inside, paid a higher fee, and then you also had access outdoors.

Or the other one, I do have um or request right now.

There's a there's an individual that wants to do um ghost hunting um inside Colton Hall.

And you may know that there's a private company that meets in front of Colton Hall in the old jail almost every night.

We don't they meet because it's a public park, so then we don't get a dollar off of it.

Um and all the attendees pay, I mean, probably 25, 30 dollars ahead to go out there.

Um, and the person I'm that is connected with me would be interested in splitting revenue.

So giving us a revenue split in terms of like if they charge X number of dollars, we get a revenue split from anything they hold inside of a ghost tour inside of Colton Hall.

And it goes back to the idea that you're not limiting somebody from accessing the building under regular building hours, but what you are doing is you're saying you're paying for that person's staff time.

You're paying for staff time, you're paying for this time.

Um, so this is where I I think there are there are possibly um opportunities for this.

I will also say that the Ricketts Laboratory, we do there's that's enough a little bit later on in the session in terms of ADA accessibility, and the city has not wanted public programs in Rickett's laboratory because it's currently not ADA accessible.

But I feel like if we were to do this, that that would be a great revenue generator in the matter of having some kind of activities there that support education, the sport, um, either private activities that can help fund museum services in the future.

So just thinking of how we could actively use our resources, but happy to answer any questions or any feedback on those.

How do you put the a ghost tour together in Colton Hall without um reorganizing the exhibits that are that are there now?

So I mean I think what the people do is they they try to um the person that I'm talking to, they are um they basically they do them at two other sites, and they actually do ghost tours in Las Vegas right now too, but they do them at other historic buildings, and they they want everything intact.

They don't like to move everything around because they want to basically be in there to basically say, you know, like, oh, look at this site and come over here and this is they're more interested in as much as possible on that, um, keeping it intact.

I will say, like for filming, filming is um Brianna will know that oftentimes the people will come in and say, like, you know, we need to rearrange all of your furniture, you know, because I need to set my tripod here and I need to do this, I need access into this building.

So filming is actually you need a lot more moving, I think quite often.

I think special events also you would need more moving and everything.

Like people will say, like, I want to put a table here.

But I think like a ghost tour specifically, you work out the details with them on the contract that says you know, you know, you could either write in the contract, no, like these are the hours you access, these are the things you can touch, these are what you cannot touch.

Um, but private events, I think there's a lot more requests of like what you can and cannot do.

And that's why state parks is pretty limited in terms of what spaces they allow and what they don't, and also what you can touch and what you cannot touch.

There's no question that um we should we should indeed charge for these things.

Um we need to recoup our costs, you know, we have a huge debt deficit for the city and anything we want to do, we're gonna have to generate some income.

So and I think it's only fair as you say what what state parks charge, what private venues, even Pacific Grove for their little community centers, $350 and not much.

So I think just comparing that, and certainly with the hotels, it's enormously more.

Yeah.

So I think it'd be attractive, and I think that'd be something that we should market.

And uh an all-around good idea.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And Commissioner Caldy had a comment.

Thank you.

I'm in big support.

Uh, what I'm hearing is to recover the staff time on the cost side.

What I'm not hearing is what about the additional wear and tear on our buildings?

Because there are more people going through.

I know that would be a normal course and scope of the public, but it's more of an impact when it's a private group or it's a private film company coming in to do it.

And then also to acknowledge that are the fees that we're proposing to charge, are they comparable with other cities?

And would we be working in conjunction with C Monterey to promote our city?

Yeah.

And I'll say, you know, I've been I've been working quite a bit myself with CMONRA on a several different projects as well.

And so I'm going to be working with them on history and sharing a lot of that stuff in the in the next year.

And um I do think getting we'll be working more with with the finance department if if we can move this forward with the finance and city manager's office and getting things that would actually recoup costs as well as as you mentioned, the wear and tear, because I will say, like the Colton Hall floor has not been reconditioned in several years.

And that is that floor has to be hand waxed because it's it is a uh it is a like a pine wood floor from 1849.

And so it is the still the original floor.

So when they come in, you can't you can't use a sander on it, you have to hand scrub it.

You have to get everything out, and then you have to put hand wax and you do it from one end to the next.

And it's it's a long process, but it has to be built into that.

Same thing with Pacific Biological Laboratories.

You can go if you walk in there, look at the floors, look at in there and see what's in there.

And that's where I do think it's you know, building into that side where you say, okay, we need maintenance.

And if you go look at Pacific Biological Laboratories, happy to give you guys a tour because you know, you start looking at that.

And that's where things like Colton Hall on the exterior, and as Commissioner Evans knows, like, you know, we're looking at the project for NCIP for Colton Hall, there's a lot of exterior needs for that too.

But you know, we use Colton Hall for all kinds of different the backdrop for Fourth of July for Memorial Day, right?

We have we come in here and do tours for I've done tours for Japan and Croatia and you know, different groups all around that come out there, and all those things like we need to invest back in that facility for that kind of that that maintenance.

And that's where I do think that making it that's why that's why I mentioned specifically the Pacific Biological Laboratories fee, which was extremely low, is you know, $35 an hour for a site on Canary Row next to the Intercontinental and next to the aquarium.

That was in that's an insanely low amount to charge for a site like that.

So I'm a little confused because you're talking about these fixed rates, as if there's a schedule someplace where all these things are going to be, but then on the on the uh report, you have this list of basically criteria.

So where are we going?

So I think this is what the master fee currently, the master fee schedule currently states, and I put this in here.

So right now, what we have on the master fee schedule is a couple of things for museums.

One says private tours, one to four people $60, each additional person $15.

That's what it says there.

And then it also just states the other part, which says um, you know, commercial filming, $50 an hour, minimum a minimum of four hours, and then every, and then every additional one is on there.

Then it has these other parts that says if we're going to do special events, this this part, the master fee schedule is more for special events down here.

And this is taken from recreation.

And what this means is that this is to recoup the cost because like I think you know, if you look at master fee schedule for let's say you might have you might take a ceramics class or you know, up at Hilltop Park, you take a ceramics class, they're gonna they might there might charge you a different rate than their poetry class or different rate, you know, it's gonna depend on materials and all of these things.

So this this part right here, the last paragraph is basically put in their kind of crib from recreation that allows me to say, hey, if I wanted to do another program here, we could have that, and the library museums director could set the fee for that program so that we could have that on here.

But what I would like, what I would like to do is to have that fee schedule, which is similar to what what other um as I was mentioning as Chair Kimsey was mentioning too, where if you go to Pacific Grove or if you go to California State Parks and it says, do you want to do this activity?

It's this cost.

This is the this is the type of activity that we that we allow here.

This is the cost for it.

This is the minimum number of hours, this is your deposit, or whatever that's gonna be.

And I find that that's that would be a um, I think that would be a good way for us to look into this and to go forward.

So I think on this one, as I mentioned right now, I don't have like a hard list on on the agenda which says this is what we're doing, this is what we're doing.

I just wanted to start this conversation with the commission to think can we move forward with a new way of thinking this?

Because then I think the the final approval of master fee schedule then goes to city council.

The council then approves a master fee schedule.

If we were to say we want to do this, and then they can say, you know, no, we don't want to do that, or that's a great idea, or however they want to do it.

But I think that would be we would work together, put together a list and bring it to a future meeting.

Yeah, boost your numbers.

Um you can't find any kind of service around here for 50 or 60 bucks an hour.

You know, you're talking at least 75 or 100 or more.

So if you're talking about recouping the cost of the personnel, I think you're way under evaluating it.

Yeah, I think we're we're charging based on our museum attendant rate, which is a museum attendant, which is their part-time seasonal, which is an $18, a $20 an hour, it's a non-benefited position.

But when you're looking at my position or even Sri Anna's and Melissa's, it is quite higher, right?

It is quite hard because what is what is fully encumbered when you're fully encumbered for retirement, you're fully encumbering for you know, health and benefits and all of those things.

But if we're doing it, and that was what I mean, that's why I'm calling out the $35 and $50 an hour because they were basing that on a part-time seasonal cost rather than saying, hey, you know, if you have a party, you know, if you have a party for $35 an hour inside Pacific Biological Laboratories, there's cleaning costs, you know, there's all of these other costs that have to be incurred that are incurred by the city in a longer term.

Brian, who would be administering this?

The contracts and so on and so forth.

I think that would be somebody in our probably in our library museums administration would be doing it.

I mean, right now, oftentimes it's one of the three of us that does any of these uh that does any of these these contracts.

So if anybody comes in and contacts us for they want to do filming or whatever they want to do, and the same people that are doing the tours, and we send them a link through Clover for payment, or we have them sign a check.

But we've we've been doing that all around.

I think I agree with Bob's comment on the fees, especially on the filming.

I think um the possibilities of problems after the filming are much higher.

And you want to make sure you can solve those problems with the money they give you.

Yeah, and I'll and I'll say right now because the filming fee itself was just is around it's for the city of Monterey, the filming fee is 350, 350 to 1,000 a day is what the city charges.

So you can see that like the Monterey Film Commission, they have a they have uh a list of the different cities and what they charge.

But depending on what the kind of the needs are there, but uh yeah, 350.

And that's why to me, that's why initially I just started and I did start low, I will say at 50 an hour.

But at the time when it was the person was paying a 350 permit, we didn't get any of that recoup back from the museums, right?

So that was my thing is that I said, okay, well, I'm I'm there six hours, or Brianna has to be there for four hours or six hours, right?

I want I want to uh acknowledge that there is a cost for whoever's coming in here asking for us to do this work and that we um bring it back for them.

I agree with Commissioner Evans.

But we do need to really look at those fees and make sure that it getting encompasses more than just staff time.

It's our duty to preserve our gems, and the only way that we can do that is by getting some costs back and making sure that's gonna be built into the fees.

We also mentioned affordability for um youth and seniors, and I would suggest maybe for 501c3 is also have a different schedule for them.

Yeah, and that's actually another kind of one, and I think it's I would what I would like to bring back and bring back for a large larger kind of discussion on this one, also maybe bring it back, is also the education.

And I know that's kind of a it's kind of a hard one because you want to provide access to schools to come in there, but there are times um like myself and um Brianna and one of our friends and foundation, we did a architecture walking tour for Monta Vista Elementary, and we've done that this year and we've done that last year.

It's great tour, but it takes multiple people to do those things, and we didn't charge because we haven't been charging for education, and so people they're coming by now.

State parks does charge for education if you're going to Custom House or Pacific House, or what are other places?

So I think doing some research in terms of like what's the lighthouse charge, what does some of these other places charge?

Is there an education rate?

Because when then would the school pay, you know, for us or and you know, Monterey State Historic Park Association, some of their nonprofits help by basically offsetting the cost for buses and the nonprofit helps to offset the cost for classes that want to go to these tours.

But I think that's another thing that I'd like to bring forward on that discussion later on is that should we charge a still a fee, but a reduced fee for education?

And I think that's something to discuss here with the commission.

All right, there we go.

I think we will move to um the NCIT report.

Yeah.

So I'm and I'm as you may know, I'm not representing the NCIP.

And I'm not this is just um items that I have searched and pulled from the current topics that are on there.

And I know the NCIP is still in the middle of looking at their projects up there, neighborhood community improvement program.

Um some people remember it as NIP or there's different iterations over time.

Um so the city gets for folks who may not be fully aware of the program.

The city gets a transit occupancy tax every year, people staying at hotels and a specific percentage of that.

I believe it's around 17% of that 16%.

Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Evans.

It was right around there.

Uh 16% goes to the neighborhood community improvement program for commissioners that are that are representative of all the different neighborhoods in in the city to then um review proposals that are submitted by the community for uh spending on community projects.

So I wanted to just bring these projects to your attention, and there's no need for any uh recommendation or anything of that nature.

We'll um because there'll be they're still going through all the process on here, but I just wanted folks to know about things that may be of interest at this time.

Um there's downtown, so that's that DT13.

So DT is the acronym that they use for downtown Hartnell Creek Park Enhancement um reparations.

So this is Hartnell Creek, is the gulch that runs along the park over by the library in between parking lot C and the library.

And as you'll see, there includes improvements to the vacant lot between Hartnell Gulch and the Monterey Public Library.

Um this one says cultural and museums enhancement, and this would focus on indigenous narratives and the space would be used for library and community programs.

So this what kind of programs could be?

It's a pretty narrow uh site.

It uh serves as a walkway.

Well, I think what they're looking at is this one primarily, not even the they're looking at the parking lot, what used to be the uh city attorney's office.

So what the city attorney's office used to be there's a vacant piece of property that's right next to parking lot C and the Monterey Public Library driveway.

That was the city attorney's office.

So to turn that into like a sunken amphitheater to use like that as like an amp, like an outdoor seating area with lighting and the ability to do programs right over there.

Um, that is a one of the recommended one of the current projects out there.

I will also just mention that there was a project a couple of years ago that's going that's gone forward regarding just renovations of Hartnell Gulch, just because to get to restore it and remove all the invasive species or that that's another project that's gone out there.

Um Monterey NM is the acronym for that, zero eight.

So that's project uh zero eight received for them.

Lighthouse curve historic preservation and road improvement.

Um this is what um one of one of our commissioners was talking about, and I think that might have been you, Commissioner Evan.

And this one is the this is the to um remove the sidewalk and install a wall, the 20 to 25 foot wall along the Presidio curve up there for that.

That was the recommendation on this project proposal right over on there for the city.

So, as I noted on there too, that the hillside is uh federal property of the United States Army, and it's not we're not looking at city on there, and so that would be um that's another project out there, and then new Monterey 11.

I'll answer any questions too on on these two that you may have is the hilltop park center art mural upgrade and expansion.

So the panels that are up there on the on the side by the parking, those kind of parking and basketball courts and tennis court over there, there's a mural that was done by Meg Biddle and Marcia Perry.

Marsha Perry and Meg Biddle are the founders of YAC Youth Arts Collective over there in Kaya Principal, but they did this mural many years ago, back when they had high school arts careers academy.

And so the project proposal is to expand the mural out.

Possibly it, and the their recommendation on there is that the parks and recreation staff would work on that project on choosing the artists and moving forward.

And then there was the old town, which is OT, that's here, OT 11.

That's Colton Hall Old Jail site drainage improvements and other necessary weatherproofing for buildings.

That is the project that from engineering Reggie Paulding came out here and Reggie and I talked about that building for the Colton Hall needs and Commissioner Evans put forward the project.

But for our newer commissioners, essentially when Colton Hall was built, they put plaster on the outside of the stone.

And the plaster was on the outside of that stone.

It's a very porous stone.

And a couple of years ago, there was there was an approved project for repointing.

So 19 around 1972, 1973, Colton Hall was restored and they did different things in terms of renovations of Colton Hall, uh, structural modifications to restore it.

But unfortunately, they used the wrong type of grout, and that's repointing.

So they used a Portland cement, which is harder than the stone.

So when we get heavy rain, the rain soaks up the grout and cracks the stone.

So Colton Hall continuously falls apart.

We continuously find pieces of stone that are falling off of Colton Hall.

So repointing, part of that repointing process would be going through and removing the we have about 130,000 left on that available for that project, would be removing some of the grout, uh replacing with called like a hydraulic lime cement, which is a much softer.

And then the other part on this one is that there's drainage improvements because what's happening is around that time they did what's called hardscaping.

And so hardscaping is all the brick that's around there.

So when you have rain comes down, rain hits the brick, black splashes comes back up, and the water comes up onto the building.

So there's possibly needs to be better drainage around the around the building, and also a sealant on the stone because when they did 1973, they put out a lime wash sealant on the stone to help protect it.

But I don't know how often that's been done.

The other part that I think is a possibility, and I think would be us to look forward in the future is possibly re-plastering the um, I think that's the north and the west side, which is the back of the building and the side facing Gordon House is to plaster that because people liked the exposed stone.

So in 1973, they they took off the plaster to restore it.

And they said, Everyone said, Hey, we like this, they like the exposed stone, so they kept it exposed ever since.

But it was actually was plaster.

It was that kind of light pink plaster.

That's why Colton Hall looks red in the painting behind you, is because it was a pink building um years back.

And so what the thought is that can you do a lime wash to protect the exposed stone on the side of the building, which gets the east side, which actually gets quite a bit of sun that dries out the stone, but the north and the west are covered by trees and shade.

And so the rain really heavily affects in the north and the west side are the higher side of more damage.

So I think this one project would be on um different additional funding to repair some of that objects.

And then the MN11 is multi-neighborhood community-wide art celebration of local Native Americans.

Um, this one looks at repositioning the panel, the art piece that's on the trail, the Viscano Sarah Oak, moving it off to the side and adding in another indigenous art.

And it says or moving it and adding additional um artwork from indigenous peoples and hire a local indigenous artists on that site.

So just put on here that the voting night on the projects is happening Wednesday, December 17th.

And as you'll see, the January 21st, they're going to review, um, put for their formal recommendations to council.

And then it's tentative.

The date is looking at Tuesday, April 7th, is the recommendations presented to city council.

And the NCIP meetings have been happening inside the library.

So it's we believe I think the December 17th and January 21st should be inside the Monterey Public Library.

Um happy to have any questions, comments, discussions on any of these kind of items that are on there.

Do we want to set any sort of priorities?

They haven't fully reviewed yet which ones that they're actually going to go.

They haven't gone through the second round review to cut out anything, any projects that they do not believe are under the city's purview.

Right.

Right.

So I don't think I think it's too early to make any kind of that's what I don't think it was any recommendations or rankings at this time.

Because I'm planning to be there when they get to the second half and to uh what is now called old town, but I'm from New Monterey, so I'll be there to campaign for it.

Yeah.

And if you want to see what's happened to Colton Hall, just go around to the north side where the road comes around, and you'll see the hardscape and how that has impact splash and that has impacted the lower uh courses of uh bricks, which are really bricks or stones, yeah.

That Carmel stone or Monterey Stone, whatever they want to call it.

So Brian, for the NM11, are they saying that Yak will not be involved this time?

Um they haven't said I I know that it is they just said that they would choose to choose a youth art or something.

I'll say that um Marcia and Meg are still active, but they're they're not running Yak anymore.

So uh Jesse and Marissa are over there running, yeah.

They're still active on there.

I do think and and on my side and my interpretation of how our city code is and city art collection, I do believe this commission should be involved in that process.

That's my interpretation.

So I would like to work with the parks and recreation department.

If that is if that one does go through, I think that's just going to be my thought is that we should um we can go back to the city code in terms of the you know the semantics of everything like that, but the choosing and putting everything in one of the items.

I mean, some of the things I've been working with Brianna on is making sure inventory of everything we have in our collection is accurate because we have to make sure we know who made the art, who owns it, what what did it cost us?

What's you know, what's the insurance value?

All of these kind of pieces on there.

We need to know all of these things.

So we need to be involved.

The museums needs to be involved in those processes also.

And I do think there's a process for choosing it, which I think we should be make sure we're going through also.

Any other comments?

Yeah, those murals are are open to anybody that wants to see them uh at Hilltop.

Um just drive into the lower parking lot and you'll see them right away.

Shall we move on to Pacific Biological Lab, our last item?

Yeah, I'll go jump back.

Slides.

Thank you guys for your patience here.

All right.

So is it am I sharing Jennifer or not yet?

Um go to Zoom and then go to share screen.

Yeah.

And then click the blue highlight.

Yeah.

Just here, screen, right?

Yeah.

Got it.

Okay.

You should be able to hide all that stuff in the shop.

Oh, okay.

So I don't see if I'm gonna do it from here.

This might be maybe zoom in.

What's that?

Maybe zoom in.

This might be easier.

I'm not gonna go through every page here because it's quite a long um document that we have here.

Um, I just want to go over briefly in terms of this is the rear entrance to the Pacific Biological Laboratories.

800 Canary Roads, the 740 Ocean View, for the street was renamed at Ricketts Labor Laboratory right there.

So 2019, the um museums commission worked with um architectural resources group for an accessibility study.

That accessibility study looked at accessing the lab from the front of the building, which would include either going through the garage, the garage is a little bit around six feet, and so it would have to lift up the garage on the door and actually take up part of the um living room, the living area of rickets in that main area as you come in there, or build a false door through the front and go in through there, chop down the rate of um because of the how steep the the garage driveway is it basically if you were to just build an 18 to one ramp, it would go pretty much from the street all the way to the back door.

It's so far out, so it wasn't there.

So uh when I started here, I connected back with one of the projects I wanted to do was go look back in and revisit the study to look back at what other options are there that are less invasive.

I prefer to be as least invasive as possible in some of these projects, but it was to go through the the rear entrance of the uh of the laboratory as you'll see there, and that's the coastal easement there on the left.

But you'll see here it's very um part of the original study was looking at the front, just because we don't own the property off to the left or the right.

On the site on the top of that is owned by the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

The other one is a hotel intercontinental, the Clement.

So here in the front view of it, and that coastal easement is open and as part of the intercontinental.

So there's the coastal path right there, the specimen tanks on there.

So with that, we looked at two different um, we'll see if I can do there.

This is just the drawings on here.

And one of the options, so basically, I looked at can we come in through the coastal easement where there's a chain link fence, remove part of that fence and get the lift to go down in the back there.

So think of the same way that you would basically go, people get accessible access into Colton Hall.

It's it's just a very similar design to that, which would be to redo the stairs and and create a lift and possibly put in a restroom as well.

And I will say also the 2019 report looked at if you were to make the restroom ADA accessible, you also have to tear out the restroom upstairs and pop that out several feet so just because of the size.

And I don't want to the moment you start breaking into a historic building like that, uh, just it's gonna go downhill in my mind.

So as much as possible, I don't want to break into the building.

I want to do everything on the exterior side.

So with that, you'll see there's kind of a you know, a platform lift, the staircase coming up and down.

The pink area also what I would love to see on there as a leveled patio, like whether that's decking or something that's just built right up, either built on top of the concrete or replace some of the concrete on the ground is so that it's a more secure place for people to walk.

Um, the other side here also has this option B of the platform lift on the aquarium side of the building and um and a restroom underneath the staircase as well.

Look at the restroom there in the corner, which would fit into it.

So their cost estimates, their cost of estimates were um pretty high.

And I think it was because of the historic property and just the where the site is and limited accessibility.

Um, but I don't see I just see these as just like estimates at the time.

This is not, we don't have the drawings, we don't need we don't have that.

So I think this just like take this as just part of what their consultant from architectural resources group that they worked out for there.

Um, but they're looking at if you see a cost per square foot of 2,281 dollars per square foot.

And so because what they're looking at is if you're looking at 810 square foot.

So if you were doing, let's say if you did $500 a square foot, you know, remodeling fee or somewhere between 500 and a thousand dollars a square foot.

I think that's what I think 2,281 dollars a square foot is quite high.

Um, and that includes the the lift in here.

So this breaks that down in terms of the foundation, uh, some of the things plumbing and roofing that needs to be replaced across there.

Um, as I mentioned though, I don't want to go into too much on here, but 1.8 to 2.2 million dollars on here.

So what this project here um I'll just say the restroom options.

This is on here.

This is the as you see, one of their options here takes out part of the kitchen.

That's that green area right there.

You would have to make that, so you would have to knock out part of the kitchen area to make that an accessible restroom.

Um, or and I would not put that in the exhibit area either because that's the original exhibits.

So you don't want to, as I mentioned, like these kind of things like that.

I don't want to touch anything that's original at all.

I think if we were to use a restroom, either we work through this project with the um you know, planning building, historic preservation, all of all of those commissions.

There's a nearby public restroom available at the aquarium.

There's nearby, you know, depending on how we do this in the future.

But I find that an outdoor one that's built as a facade on the outside underneath the staircase would be the ideal way to build this because then you're not uh wrecking the historic nature of it.

So this then it goes into this 2019 accessibility study, which I won't go into right now.

So um, but essentially what the project is for this is that the ADA study has to be adopted by historic preservation commission.

So for us to because it due to city code, so it's an H1 designated building.

So I've put in this document because the 2019 one was I don't think was ever filed.

So I've put in the 2025 one to allow for us to get accessible access.

So that's going to historic preservation.

There's a possibility of um at this point 260,000 from potentially Western Flyer Foundation for use there.

What they would like to do is use the they would like to have access to the lab for their school education programs.

They do as as you may know, that's the Western Flyer is the boat that Ed Ricketts and John Steinbeck took out and they have the boat on lost landing and sometimes they come back out here in Monterey, but they have funding through HUD housing and urban development and to 250 to 260,000 possibly here for uh renovations here on the lab.

And so my that's enough.

I think what we should be doing is getting this approved by the historic preservation commission to get move forward with a project for 8088 access and then get an agreement with Western Flyer Foundation to get for them to work on the actual architect, the actual costs, and what what can we start getting done and then start moving forward with a project for how do we actually get that like a staged approach for uh making the site accessible?

Because otherwise, I think we're gonna be working on having a report on file and not backing them.

You know, I'm completely in support of getting ADA access, especially the city-owned buildings, but I wonder if there's a point where just not financially feasible.

There was an annual uh historic garden league that my wife attended this week, and there was a fellow there from the state parks department, Richard Fletcher.

Have you have you had any discussions with him?

I I work with him all the time.

Oh, they are trying to provide access to the Larkin House, ADA access, and that's a challenge.

But if you think that's a challenge, go to Casa Soberanas across from Troyas Market, which has steep stairs, both on Pacific Street and on um Del Monte, and they're finding it completely infeasible, and they're they're talking to state parks, and I think we've talked about this before, Brian, about an alternative.

Is there an alternative that you can provide some kind of a visual analysis of the intent, you know, um with an iPad with our partners to the south, the Intercontinental Hotel, or even on site.

So somebody could come up there and there could be if they're in a wheelchair or uh handicap, that they can see an iPad and see what's in the complaint interior, because I think the state is looking at this pretty thoroughly, and they may come up with I don't see how they can provide uh access to Casa Soberanas.

And and that's great point.

And I think one of the points that like the federal government, the national, like you'll see that a lot of federal sites where the where the National Park Service, they they're the one that put out the the reports on ADA and any ADAs put out reports that says even though you are um you can say that they'll say you have to do everything in your power to make that site accessible.

That's that's kind of what they work out for at least historic sites.

So that's why you see a lot of sites that have like built the modified the back and for a lot of these historic buildings out on the east coast because they're making as many of them the sorts, but it was for right now.

That's why we're able to do uh tours, private tours, but I mean we're not able to do programs.

So the request to do programs or requests to use it for anything other than like a a walkthrough tour and seeing that, and we do have that.

So um Ryan and I watched a we worked with a local filmmaker that made a VR tour, it's it's fully narrated.

We haven't made it accessible.

One person that's watching it at a time, but we have a fully narrated VR tour of the Pacific Biological Laboratories right now, and we have an audio tour that's on our website.

So that's how we are accessible for our tours right now.

We are accessible because we have a full fully guided video tour.

So if something comes in, we can say we have an iPad, and we could say, hey, we can show you this on our YouTube.

So we have that.

But if you want to do anything else back on that site and make it open for more public education, more different public programs, different access to the site, then we have to look at what are the other means for there.

And there are quite pieces of like what's the priorities and funded.

And that's where I do find that either funding through nonprofits or funding through an arm that might be helped to raise capital and revenue because there are a lot of Steinbeck lubricates and are possibly willing to donate more funding for a site like this for renovations.

So the um brain trees the um the boat group, the western flyer.

Yeah.

Um why do they want to put up and what do they expect for their 225,000 or whatever it is?

So what they would like to do is they bring in, they have a site.

I have to talk with them and figure out what they're in for just it again.

They have a site right now where they're gonna um a we have an office site and heritage hard or in there.

They were looking at they basically got unfunding so that they could bring the renovate some areas of the dock of the work to dock the boat here as well.

So they would they would spend some money from housing and urban development and help to pay for some dock repairs so that they get docked the boat.

And then the thought is that when they have students coming to visit, can they have science explorations or science activities, which they generally do?

If you go on the boat right now, they have like science equipment in the whole of the boat, and they do different activities for different schools.

So I think what they would like to do is science exploration activities in the back of that museum.

And I think what we what we get, we get a lot of different um, you know, part of that does take a lot of our time, but it's like we get different schools and groups always interested in visiting that site, you know, to do things on that side.

And I and I think they would just they would want to come in there to be able to host programs at the site, and not looking at it as like a permanent office space or permanent rent, but they'll do that possibly hosted the program site.

But the so the hood funds is gonna repair the the dock facilities and do something at Rickett's lab.

Right.

So it so that's why you're talking about just using it as as sort of a planning grant to get the actual uh drawings and whatever we need in order to actually do the ADA activity, right?

And so, whether it's that like the right now, because like right now, if you go there, the rear stairs are really in poor shape, and so it's like how much of that money, if we have 260,000, can you what can you stage out and basically say I want to start replacing a lift here or does that I forget the total amount?

I think it was around 200,000 for Poulton Halls.

I don't know, some of the commissioners may remember that for the stairs and the lift that were on the back of Pulton Hall.

That was around that when that was done 2019 or so.

So it's just like that's where I'm looking looking at what would the actual cost be of something like that to just do stairs lift the engineering on all of that work.

What can we get done with that funding?

But I feel like that would be a good start for us to start getting returning back to access because if you can get access to the back of that building in the long term, going back to what activities could you do with the plummet in the back of there?

What activities could you do with the aquarium or something like that?

It would be rental fee off the back of the back patio.

That would be another kind of revenue source.

I think that's like you know, would be like the other part is like can we get access in the long term through nonprofit partners to renovate the access to make it cleanly accessible to do fund programs in the space, and then potentially we could bring in generating revenue on a uh standing basis, and and it and improve the exhibits down in the in the lab in the garage, yeah.

Any more questions, comments, feedback?

All right, so the estimate is for almost two million dollars and the Western Flyer Foundation has available 260,000.

That is a very large, yeah.

Yep.

We are not being pressed right now to make the building ADA accessible.

And it says even in the ADA compliance says a key concept is a removal of architectural barriers under the ADA where alterations to provide access must be done to the extent readily achievable, which means if we go in there and we make all of these renovations to this historic building, it loses its character.

So that's really my concern is that we have a duty to preserve that building to keep it safe to the public to not be a big liability to the city to provide access because we want to extend and expand our services, but we need to stay within some parameters so that it doesn't just go completely outside of the scope.

Because we all know that you start opening walls in this city and your independent box of problems.

So even going down that easement between the buildings, getting into the back, if you start knocking up concrete, you're going to find problems.

There's going to be some type of erosion underneath, or there's an underground um waterway, or it just could get very, very expensive when we start opening the walls and opening the cement.

And I have had the privilege of having it toward that building, and it made my eyes open because of the liability issues that could be present there.

So I think we need to be very, very careful and minimal in our approach to this project.

And I agree.

Well, that's what I mean.

Like when we look at the when you have whatever we do anything, like especially on the inside, and we just mean like you look at the doors and everything like that.

It's like what's feasible, you know, what what can you do?

And that's are some of those things that's like you know, for the library, the library, I'm gonna use the library for example.

Libraries from 1956 renovated in 1983, but we still are doing bits and pieces at a time on accessibility.

We can't do always the full amount, but you can start working piece by piece.

And like, for example, those rear stairs that I mentioned for the lab, those are not original.

So we don't worry about like that, like the deck, and I I showed somebody I was giving somebody towards just the other day, and I said we look at how they installed the deck, they did the deck leaning towards the building.

So when the rain comes in, instead of it leaning away and going off the deck, it leans it goes back into the into the actual building.

You know, so those are the kind of things that was done at a later time.

Those kind of things lead to issues.

So I think that's where I find like what can we get a project that looks at like what minimally can we do?

Because if we start breaking into a door frame, and that's why I said breaking into the restroom, and you start breaking into the kitchen and you start doing all this other kind of stuff, and then you it's a snowball effect with with that building.

Um, Rickinson Steinbeck and them, I mean they did it at a with their friends, you know, they built a building with really low cost anyways, and we can't you know, we just we just can't get into there.

So anything we could do minimal work to start making accessible, I think is ideal in my thinking.

Well, isn't based on that, Brian, isn't there a concern going ahead with the ARG report?

It has uh some of the issues that Monique pointed out.

I mean, if that's adopted by the HPC, then that's what the city has to live with.

You mean like for how so for the like for it the costs are just like are just or less than the changes.

I think it was their option.

So the option that one of the options is for the restroom is to do restrooms access outdoors.

That's why that's why not to adopt the 2019, but adopt the 2025 because the 2025 says the 2025, I asked them not to do the changes to the front of the building.

Don't do the changes to the inside of these parts because I feel that those changes will model modify the historic nature of the structure and it will also open us up to a huge amount of work that I think is unnecessary for that building.

So I think that's where just focus on minimum access of like let's get the access through the back side of a of a building through a fence, which is which is there, or placing stairs or placing things which are not historically significant.

So focus on stuff that's not historically significant.

I would suggest you leave out a lot of those slides and just include the slide or the the page with the with what we want to do uh with the modified stairs with the restroom underneath it and the lift.

Keep it simple.

I appreciate that.

So another concern is that when let's say we do the lift, it's approved, it's funded, and now you've got people up there with walkers or with wheelchairs or whatever their mobility devices are, they can't get through the doorways because the doorways are not ADA compliant.

So again, we just get into problem after problem after problem.

uh with the modified stairs with the restroom underneath it and the lift keep it simple okay i appreciate that so another concern is that when let's say we do the lift it's approved it's funded and now you've got people up there with walkers or with wheelchairs or whatever their mobility devices are they can't get through the doorways because the doorways are not ADA compliant so again we just get into problem after problem after problem we have to really really be careful in limiting the scope and I love the virtual reality I think that is we're there we're already there in life and that can definitely be maximized it is not the same as being in there but it's also not the same liability it's not the same danger of the steps that bounce when you go up them and down them and uneven walkways the entire back with all of the cement is uneven there's tripping hazards everywhere so we need to be very careful um the other thing is i'll I'll just talk about alphon in the room we're always talking about what are we going to do about sea level rise i mean we're gonna put two million dollars into a building that's going to be underwater that then we have to worry about sea level rise so we need to be careful which argument we're making and what position we want to take and I think one piece on there also is that there's a possibility this site is not in the tight land trust right now and other sites on the tide lands trust if it's if it's in the tight ends trust there's funding that that's allocated cover years in the Tide Lines Trust or buildings that are in that sea level rise area so this there's a potential if we get this work in there to get it under the tight lines so that that would at least support some of these but right like sea level rising go there next one that see scratch yeah new types of that any other comments all right shall we have comments from our commissioners you'd like to start no good thank you really excited about all the projects that we have going on in particular for me um the Colton hall music series I'm so excited to be a part of um let me know how I can support them really excited for Saturday I hope I see you guys there I was done okay I'd just like to welcome all the new members of our commission look forward to working likewise thank you thank you I've said a lot of words tonight thank you all for having me and letting me run through my concerns I do kind of wander off and look at a big scope and I'm always worried about where people can get hurt when this lady can get soothed how do we minimize and otherwise I could be a big dreamer but then our means and right now we're facing a lot of dollars and um challenges in our budget.

So I did want to mention that um with Christmas in the adobe's December 12th and 13th and Brian has sent out a notice if any of you would like to um be volunteering there I don't know if the new people got that email because they did okay good it's a it's a lovely event and I think you'll really enjoy it and I'm so happy to have all of you here and um they'll was offered to give you a tour of the museums if you'd like so he's you want to talk to him yeah that would be a good part of the orientation I think it would be wonderful.

Sounds wonderful we'll take you up on that love it um our next meeting will be February the 5th of 2026 so um if there are no special meetings or whatever we feel we need to call that's what's established this time okay so no further comments I'll adjourn the meeting thank you so much