All right, I'll call this January 21st meeting, 2026 meeting of the Parks and Recreation Commission and Urban Forestry Board to order.

Good evening, everybody, and thank you for joining us.

Allison, can we start with the roll call?

Commissioner Bryant?

Here.

Commissioner Summer?

Here.

Commissioner Sylvester?

Here.

Commissioner Michener?

Here.

Chair Davis?

Here.

and uh first thing i'd like to do is uh introduce and welcome our newest commissioner idola rose

sylvester idola rose has been a active participant in mountain view civics for a long time served on

the human rights commission i'm sorry human relations commission in the environmental

sustainability task force as well as i know numerous nonprofits and civic organizations so

uh we welcome you to the commission and look forward to your participation um a little later

in the agenda we might ask you to talk a little bit about yourself and your background happily

thanks so much into the uh agenda for now but uh we we welcome you thank you it's good to be here

item number three on the agenda the minutes of the december 10th meeting

um so I was not here for that so I will uh moderate the the action here but I'm probably

going to vote uh at that meeting we had two Heritage Tree appeals and staff announcements

um are there any comments from members of the public regarding the minutes for the December 10th

PRC meeting are there any comments or questions from commissioners

then i will entertain a motion

and the second i'll second all right allison okay um commissioner bryant yes commissioner summer yes

commissioner sylvester abstain uh vice chair mid-chair yes and chair davis i will abstain

also i i did review the entire meeting online uh start that the state since i was officially

president so still three people approved three people carried that emotion great all right um

oral communications from the public uh this next agenda item is for anyone in attendance or online

that would like to provide public comment on any item that is not on the agenda and if you wish to

do so please fill out a blue card or raise your hand if you're participating online there'll be

a three minute time limit for each speaker and we'll let you know if you're getting close to that

staff will not respond to questions during the public comment do we have any members of the

public wishing to address the commission anybody online okay uh moving right along to the biodiversity

and urban forestry plan update um we will first have a staff presentation then we'll

take questions from commissioners then we'll take public comment and then the commissioners

will comment discuss and if appropriate make a motion so with that i will turn it over to brenda

sylvia assistant community services director and hear about the update to our draft thank you good

evening commissioners and community i'm brenda sylvia assistant community services director

and project lead for the biodiversity and urban forest plan i'm joined by lindsay wong senior

management analyst and my project partner and online we have russell hansen our urban forest

manager also with us this evening our members of our consultant team from the san francisco estuary

institute sfbi who are co-presenting this item and please to introduce lauren stoneburner

and selena pang who is online joining us virtually lauren and selena have led the development of the

plan in partnership with city staff in october 2025 the commission reviewed the draft plan and

provided helpful feedback since then city staff and sfbi have incorporated that input along with

additional public feedback to develop the updated draft biodiversity and urban forest plan tonight

we'll present that updated draft plan which reflects the hard work of city staff from multiple

departments and our partners at sfei whose time and expertise have been instrumental throughout

this effort we look forward to answering your questions and request the commission's

recommendation to forward the plan to city council with that i'll hand it over to lauren

thank you for having me tonight commissioners and thank you to members of the public for being here

and online um again my name is lauren stobiner i'm an environmental scientist at the san francisco

estuary institute or sfei and we really appreciated your thoughtful feedback in october on the first

draft of the plan we've made a number of revisions and so we're going to be summarizing our feedback

we're summarizing your feedback and how we've addressed many of those comments so in this

presentation I'll just quickly review where we're at in the review process summarize that feedback

and the revisions we we've made over the last few months and then we'll get on to your review

and hopefully recommendation.

So this is the second public draft

of the Mountain View Biodiversity and Urban Forest Plan.

We've gone through a number of stages of revisions.

First, we received review from technical advisors

as well as city staff.

In October, we had your review

with the Parks and Rec Commission

as well as the Environmental Planning Commission.

At those hearings, we heard comments from commissioners

as well as members of the public.

We also accepted comments from the public

through an online questionnaire and through email.

And we also received letters formally from stakeholders

and nonprofit organizations.

So we've addressed those questions and feedback.

And so this is the second draft.

and pending your approval and recommendation to city council the plan would be reviewed by city

council in april and then finalized and hopefully adopted in june

so we'll review some of the larger changes that we made first across the document and then

specifically honing in on chapter five called the plan charting the path which outlines the

city's commitments so this first set of revisions is around strengthening clarifying and correcting

content across the plan and this is organized where you see the feedback that we received on

the left and our response on the right so first we received feedback that the plan needed their

prioritization and a strong stronger commitment so we added language to reflect the city's ownership

of the plan and their accountability and so changes we made were along the lines of changing

could to should or will and replacing the word prioritize with something that's clear more

directive and implementation focused and then we strengthened the city's voice in the plan

and in particular there was the repurposing of what was originally an executive summary into

a word from the city. We received comments to further clarify the use of the term native

and specifically near native. So we added a definition of near native to the definition

section. And then we also added a box text within chapter 3.1 called biodiversity assessment

in the native vegetation assessment section.

We added a box text around what native means and why it matters.

Then there were comments to address the trade-offs when promoting biodiversity and the urban forest in the city.

And so we added some references to this tension or trade-off, particularly in the introductions,

in kind of acknowledging trade-offs to human health, infrastructure, utilities, and safety,

and pest species. And then in this section, as well as in an action around the human-wildlife

conflict, we emphasize the role that adaptive management plays in addressing these trade-offs

when they come up. And then we received comments to add map landmarks to make it easier to

kind of wayfind on the maps and so we added street and landmark labels.

We made an important correction in the urban forest assessment section 3.2 where in our

in the October hearings a lot of attention was drawn to our reported result that nine-tenths of

the tree canopy cover is on private property and so we realized that this framing was only parsing

tree canopy cover by property ownership and didn't account for management by the city and so

and also in the rest of the plan we define public trees as trees that are either owned by or managed

by the city so we corrected this language and um it right now it reads the city manages less than

half or roughly two-fifths of mountain views tree canopy cover including privately owned publicly

managed trees while the rest is privately managed so the new estimate is more consistent with the

rest of the plan and accounts for the proportion of tree cover that the city cares for

So with these kind of higher level comments that and revisions that span the document,

our hope is that the changes frame the document as a city policy and implementation framework

and not the recommendation of a consultant.

And we tried to clarify the city's long-term commitment, improve the clarity, usability,

for implementation and chart the clear pathways for implementation by the city.

In chapter five specifically, we received feedback to make the vision statement more direct,

accessible, and inspiring. And so we replaced as recommended will be with with what was formerly

Mount View Visions and then we revised the statement to be simpler and stronger.

And we were asked to provide more detail on how the plan will be implemented and what those costs

would be. So the city added a whole new implementation framework section and it included

the following sections where it outlines the leadership and interdepartmental roles and

responsibility for carrying out the actions, the first priorities and initial steps for implementation,

the costs and funding, monitoring, evaluation, and reporting plan, and adaptive management.

And within that costs and funding section, it laid out this implementation matrix where it groups

actions by the implementation priority and outlines their relative level of cost.

And we also received feedback that there were maybe too many actions which made the

chapter and all of these actions seem potentially unrealistic and this overly ambitious list might

seem risk in action so to better prioritize these actions and to communicate the city's readiness

to implement the plan we noted which actions are already underway or primed for implementation

immediately upon the plan's adoption and so this communicates that not all of these actions are

starting from scratch. And some of these actions were further refined to focus on key points and

priorities. We received comments on the importance of private trees. And so after digesting a lot of

these comments, we honed in on Action 18, where we expanded it to highlight private landowners,

nurseries landscapers and contractors specifically for strengthening partnership efforts and we added

details about developing a platform and outreach program to promote data collection and stewardship

of private trees and then we received feedback to clarify how the city will

set and report targets so we added details to action 22 to collect baseline data needed to

set those targets and then to develop an internal system in the city for tracking and reporting

metrics and targets and finally um to uh there was a comments to balance metrics that focus

both on newly planted trees as well as maintaining the existing trees in the city and so we refined

metrics to um that were related to maintenance and care of existing police so the intended

results of these revisions in chapter five were to make the plan more achievable transparent and

aligned with the available city resources while still advancing ambitious long-term goals

so that concludes my part of the presentation thank you again for your time

um reviewing the plan in advance of this meeting and for your comments tonight and do look forward

to hearing all the questions and comments that you might have regarding the revisions that we made

to the plan and um brenda do you want to close this out sure and just to springboard off what

lauren said we appreciate all the feedback that the commission has provided throughout this whole

process especially at the october 2025 meeting your collaboration has really helped to strengthen

this document we really leaned heavily on all the feedback we received so again just to reiterate

this is a bold important step for mountain view in positioning the city as a regional leader

in integrating urban forest and biodiversity planning in a very coordinated way so with that

we respectfully request the commission's recommendation to forward the updated draft

biodiversity and urban forest plan to city council for consideration we'll leave that to you for

questions and comments thank you thank you drenda commissioners questions yes would you like to

start mr yes thank you um so um this this question is very specific to me as a pi

i'm quoting from i think it's page 23 where you say that the plan emphasizes the use of native

and ecologically appropriate species were possible. But

strict adherence to historical vegetation patterns would

suggest minimal tree cover in large parts of the city. But

earlier on in the document where you have like the historical

landscapes, quite a bit of the city was was oak forest and

oak savanna. Especially I look particularly on downtown

because there's so many oaks and I wanted to see how that fit into into what you are describing.

And really the downtown was oak forest moving as we move south to oak savannah. So if if we took

that historical landscape it would actually mean a lot of trees in large parts of the city. So I

I didn't know where the comment about minimal tree cover.

Minimal tree cover makes complete sense for North Bay

Shore.

But in the rest of the city, it seems

like quite a lot of tree cover would

be justified by historical data.

So how do you explain that to me?

Yeah, I don't have the math to pull up on our presentation.

But yeah, the amount you're referring to is on page 19.

And so, yes, parts of the city were oak woodland.

As for oak savanna, I think the threshold for the difference between oak woodland and oak savanna is about 10% tree canopy cover.

So that's very low.

In oak savanna, you have very low tree canopy cover dominated by grasses and forbs.

So I think that's part of what this is referring to is very low tree density.

And then when you move to a lot of the city being dominated by wet meadow and alkali meadow, let's see, kind of the divide is partly along the central expressway.

So really like not even getting to Shoreline Park, but much of the northern part of Mountain View was historically marshy for a lot of the year, very low tree kind of cover, except for little pockets of willow groves.

So basically there's parts of parts of the city that the introduction of a lot of trees would be like a foreign element, basically.

Can you say that again? I'm sorry.

my voice for some reason is not working very well.

The northern parts of the city, the introduction of a lot of tree canopy would be

something new, historically speaking.

But the center of town, really, it would be completely appropriate historically.

Right.

And that's if you're kind of using the historical ecology in a very literal way,

but the landscape has been so drastically transformed that we really need to expand

beyond what was historically present but yes in just in terms of historically yes yeah so that

that was one question um then this is probably for staff um in in one of the the guides there was

talk about um what davy is proposing for for the work of the forestry department

And there are there was discussion of protections for trees during during construction. And what I didn't see called out specifically was protection for tree roots.

and certainly downtown where I see the construction,

there is a lot of digging of very deep cellars.

And so I'm wondering whether the protections

that Davey is working on include deep tree roots.

I'm going to defer to Russell Hansen on that one.

Sure.

So ultimately, when it comes to trees in our urban environment, we're just in a situation where there's a lot of limited space, whether it be root space or canopy space.

But yes, absolutely, where possible, we will be trying to focus on improving, I'll say, the growth space that those trees have in their environment in an effort to kind of create this longevity or otherwise.

Because in the industry, ultimately, we have a soil volume standard.

that that's kind of where I start is that anytime we start looking at trees now going forward,

it's got to be a situation where we have to consider, does the amount of soil volume available

actually support the size of the tree that is being planted? And so, you know, whether it's

incorporating those types of standards or whether it's creating other ordinances or otherwise,

where we have to do more to protect those, yes, absolutely. That is one of our focuses.

so Russell that that's I mean I'm glad about that but my question is really specifically

to like our heritage tree protections talk about protecting the trunk of the tree and not parking

large excavating machines under the canopy but

many new buildings are actually going, cutting through tree roots,

going like one or two stories down, hitting groundwater.

And I'm wondering whether Davey is preparing a list of protections

for the roots of existing trees that are being dug around.

Because I don't know that we have that at this point.

Sure.

No, absolutely.

And so I'm not sure when you talk about individual trees or otherwise, the answer to that would be ultimately no, Davy is not working on anything in particular for individual trees.

But in terms of construction projects, the one that comes to mind when we talk about downtown or otherwise right now for me is the project at the corner of Castro and El Camino.

Well, it's taking basically a couple city blocks right there and will involve significant excavation.

And in that case, we actually worked with planning.

We worked with the developer, et cetera.

We did some pre-excavation on some of those trees that we were talking about preserving.

And we've kind of given those as conditions of approval that certain trees can be preserved.

Here's some recommendations that they got from their own private arborist.

It's not necessarily from us.

We've reviewed them.

But so in that regard, yes, we're working on that. We're trying to do better with that.

Unfortunately, again, because of our resources the last couple of years, it's been difficult.

But absolutely, we've also implemented a process of working with the building department to where when they're on site, when they're looking at tree protection, et cetera,

they're actually reaching out to us if they don't know, if they're not sure.

where in the past there really hasn't been that collaboration where projects were being constructed.

We relied on the private arborists to kind of monitor them and keep the contractors in line.

And that's not always a successful model is all I'll say in that regard.

And so, yes, we recognize the importance of that. We've got to work on that.

Absolutely. That's a part of our focus as we move forward with the development or otherwise is, again,

to develop standards, incorporate them into ordinances where possible or otherwise.

But our technical manual is kind of where that tree protection lies.

And so that's where I go is that that technical manual is also going to be updated to improve kind of that tree protection that we're creating.

I was really hoping to hear what you what you just said, that it's actually written down somewhere.

There is a checklist for the deep roots and how those are protected so that it just becomes part of how the city works.

so thank you for that

yes absolutely thank you

and the final question

I had

I noticed the choice

of the word nativity

and that was the first time I'd ever heard that

in relation

to trees

so I asked Google

to see whether that

was like a term of art

or professional term that I'd never encountered

And Google's response, both the AI and regular Google was gave me Christmas seats.

So I was wondering if you could use a term that is more easy for the public to understand.

Because this document, I mean, it's obviously, it's a document for use by staff, but it's

also a document for residents.

And if you could go back to finding a term that is doesn't require the dictionary, and

in this case, the dictionary didn't help me.

I would really appreciate that.

And those are the questions.

Other questions?

Mr. Summer.

Thank you.

We'll get to later my comments and most of those have to do with the implementation

section that was added.

but I want to ask some questions that might help me understand how that would be used.

And so I was looking at some of the actions, trying to understand how the city implementation

might approach the various actions. But I thought maybe it would be helpful to hear from

city staff on how you would approach them. So I was just looking at action 15,

which is on page 91 um established priority priority areas and goals for habitat restoration

of large open spaces so i was hoping my question is given what we've got in the

implementation section now how would the city approach that type of action these fall in the

future categories so they're sort of amorphously the commitment is more amorphous is that too

big of a wide open question i don't think i can i can answer that with any kind of like um you know

timelines or anything like that we need to build the city implementation kind of like yeah once

that city implementation team is built we'll all be taking a look at all of our projects and plans

and workloads and how things kind of intersect with each other and how we can work together.

That might be something that planning could incorporate into their work, we incorporate

into our work, and it melds together, and then we tackle that.

There might be a project coming up where we take a look at, is there an opportunity to

include that in a project?

So we're going to have to build the implementation team and then start looking at these actions.

That's why we did the short-term, medium-term priority and sort of long-term priorities

so we know what we can tackle first.

It doesn't mean that a medium-term priority will be pushed.

If there's an opportunity to tackle that, we can.

But we'll probably be taking a look at those short-term ones first.

Right.

So this was one of the short terms.

And on the cost table, it had $3 signs.

Yeah.

So to me, that sounds like something that would have to be put on a work plan

and it would have to be resourced by council.

And this is a large-scale look at the entire city.

So it requires kind of a planning focus, not a piece by piece, you know, well, we'll stick it into this CIP project kind of thing.

You know, it's comprehensive.

So I guess that, so can you?

We, and I'll give an example, is we had two different projects.

We had update the community tree master plan and develop a biodiversity strategy.

We saw an opportunity to combine the two, and so we did.

So there will be opportunities for this entire team to take a look at, is there a, for lack of a better word, a cheaper way to do this?

Can we build this into a project and can we use some staff resources?

Can we use other types of funding?

Can we share the cost load, not just one department?

So those are the types of opportunities we need to look for.

Okay.

So on the ones where there are those $3 signs, I would assume that, you know, it's going to have to kind of go through the council.

Sure.

Yeah.

So would that have followed the city implementation team's sort of strategic thinking?

And then you figure out, you know, okay, we're going to be, we want to advance this one first,

then we got to go to council.

Yes.

You know, and go through the budget request process.

Yes.

So is this going to be the work planning process that's run through the Park and Rec Commission?

or is this going to be the council level where we never get any input well it would probably

depend on what the work project is if it ends up falling in planning that would be up to the epc the

environmental planning commission for them to kind of make that determination if it's development

standards or something like that but like this one happens to be you know habitat restoration

of large opening spaces sure um then it would it would come to prc so it would be done through our

work planning program as after the you know we need the support following the implementation

teams kind of digesting it and understanding how it might best unfold and part of this because

there there's no funding built into this plan part of leaning on these commissions and support from

our community is being able to say the parks recreation commission supports this and when

we bring that that budget request forward it has more weight behind it saying that prc

wants this to happen. So, I mean, this kind of leads me to a comment, but

maybe I'll save that for later. But yeah, understanding how that methodology you set up

would apply to the actions, that's where I'm struggling. It's still pretty fuzzy.

So another kind of related thing in guide D, I don't have the page number for that.

The material from SFDI has these kind of monitoring tiers.

And so I wanted to know how will it be decided which tier will be received?

I mean, obviously there's commitments.

Can you find the page?

Yes.

166.

Monitoring and targets.

So it's page 166.

So there's these monitoring levels and there's the lowest, the medium, and the highest.

The highest requires technical monitoring expertise,

similar to what's going on,

like let's say the burrowing owls

where you actually need the expert monitor

who has in that case probably some type of blessing

from the habitat agencies.

Whereas others can be a simpler GIS type of thing.

So, but how, who's gonna decide

which one of these monitoring levels to pursue

and when will that happen?

The team would decide as a group.

Without anybody else's input?

I think it would just depend on what we're looking at.

I don't have all those answers.

I know you haven't got there, but I'm trying to ask you.

I'm trying to go back to like the shoreline

wildlife management plan.

When we moved that one forward,

we didn't have all the answers

and we've kind of just gone as with input from PRC,

with input for their community on kind of what that reporting looks like and how often

that reporting comes, what type of metrics people want to see, and that really is sort

of tangible to them and makes sense to them.

So some of this stuff we're going to have to figure out as we go.

Okay.

That's going to lead me to a comment, but I appreciate, you know, I know I put you on

the spot.

It's okay.

Yeah, that's all right.

It's just a framework, so it's still helpful to hear.

And that's why we dubbed it the framework, because it's still a little bit flexible and allows us that room to move and to figure it out.

Okay.

Thank you.

Questions?

I really appreciate the priority and cost matrix, so thank you very much for that.

One specific question.

I had a question about why some of the goals are considered medium priority.

uh particularly incorporating biodiversity into the new precise plans or into the green features

and being planned in active transportation and my concern there is we're doing work on a lot of those

precise plans right now of our precise plan uh and if we don't incorporate biodiversity in our

thinking now we're missing some opportunities i was wondering why that got a medium priority

that was when we reviewed the city implement or the city project team and we had input from

public works planning commission or uh planning staff and everybody kind of weighed in on and we

we rated those priorities based on implementing those those plans and how when they would actually

be implemented so i believe that that was was that planning staff i don't remember who but i

also want to speak to something you said earlier about how just because it's a medium-term priority

doesn't mean it's necessarily going to be kicked down the road and that if there is an opportunity

like that um i think i think from what i'm remembering was that um some of those the

downtown precise plan were just not quite there yet as far as um we weren't there with the

biodiversity plan and getting the city implementation team up to speed on so i think that one was just

it wasn't like the actual high priority i know we took a look at like updating our heritage tree

ordinance as a very, very short-term priority. Getting some of those metrics was more of a

short-term priority and some of the softer ones. I was also going to say we also specifically

termed these as short-term and medium-term and long-term priorities as opposed to high,

medium, and low priority because of the time frame it might take to implement these kinds

of actions. So it's not only like the level of urgency, but also the time frame it might take

to complete an action so i think that's also the perspective we took the last thing i'll say is um

the how we um designated the level of priority for these actions we actually went into this hoping

for prc comments and suggestions so um if you do have like specific recommendations on things you

might change about this that's what this is for so i appreciate your thoughts thank you that that's

definitely one of the medium term which just feels like it should be more in the short term

i'll try to get a little more perspective as well even as we were working with parks and

retrofegic plan with um the overall team as well um i can see why there was a recommendation of

media from the project team so there's going to be some that are more timely versus some that

maybe the the downtown size plan may be depending on where they are so the the overall timeline of

That goal may extend a longer period of time.

But for example, the active transportation plan, as certain segments of that project move forward, we certainly want to implement.

We're not going to say this is a medium term. We're not going to play in the sandbox.

When opportunities come up to certainly look at the lens of the biodiversity and urban forest plan for those,

we're absolutely at the table and being able to support that.

But again, if that's the PRC that we'd like to highlight that as a update to this draft, we're welcome to that.

Thank you.

I'll piggyback on this because this is an issue I was building into as well.

So I'll try and frame this comment as a question.

Given my understanding that this prioritization is really kind of time and implementation

base, is it possible to add another column that would be impact priority?

What's the priority in terms of impact on the overall success of the plan?

Because I see these priorities as being, well, you know, how achievable is it?

How quickly?

And that's different than what's going to have the most significant impact on.

So, you know, arguably having a, whatever they were, you know, demonstration board at a community meeting is going to have a lot different impact than acquiring space to find more trees.

Maybe, maybe not.

anyway so that was my question about priority is maybe we need or could we think about having another

category of priority based on impact not feasibility

it's a question okay so now that i got there

with that let's open it up to public comments and i think today we will start with folks here in the

room and again let me reiterate folks will be able to make comments and we have a three minute time

limit and staff will not respond to questions during public comment and we will provide a

little warning uh when your time is about up and then i'll encourage you to wrap up if you get to

that three minute mark so uh with that um anybody here in the room wish to make a public comment

please if you'd like to introduce yourself you're welcome to

Andrew Waller, co-founder of Community for Natural Place Services.

I'm here to request that the Commission not adopt the plan as written.

It's missing a key piece of an otherwise quite thorough and all-encompassing plan.

I emailed Parks and Rec Commission members as well as City Council Environmental Planning

Commission members on October 12th regarding the plan that was going to be discussed at

environmental commission meeting on the on october 15th as i see that my suggestions to add

statements regarding artificial turf and pip surfaces and how they should be avoided is not

included in the revised plan that you were discussing this evening i re-sent that email

on october 17th to the same groups the draft is amazing and contains a wealth of important and

relevant findings and suggestions however it does not go quite far enough in that artificial turf

which is a toxic plastic ground covering and whose use is counterproductive to the goals of your plan

was never ever mentioned. The intent of the plan you are discussing is to help make Mountain View

greener, cooler, and healthier. It concentrates heavily on trees and shrubs and also natural

things that will contribute to, quoting from the plan, a healthier and more diverse community,

biodiversity. It brings up all the to-dos, but nothing about what should be avoided.

I am very passionate about cities doing the right thing for their communities and for the future

of our planet. Many cities are discussing this topic and even proposing moratoriums and bans.

Adding any statements about this to your plan is a positive step forward. Not agreeing to use

the use of unnatural ground coverings like artificial turf and PIP is leading you on a

great path for a better, healthier world for future generations. Thank you. Thank you very

much for your comments. I'm sorry? I said thank you for your comments. Sorry for mumbling. Any

other comments from folks in the room? All right. Thank you. Allison, I'll let you tee up folks

online that wish to make comments i actually don't see any oh okay please raise your hand if

you'd like to make a comment i see rashmi has a hand raised maybe we can

yeah can you hear me yes we can great thank you yeah thank you for the opportunity to provide

feedback once again i appreciate city staff's dedication to this feedback process and the

efforts that it's made for this updated draft. And compared to the last draft, they did address

my biggest concern with the document, which was that it was originally written as a list of

recommendations and best practice by a consultant. I feel like the city has taken much more ownership

of the plan now, and I think it's a lot stronger. But I'm still concerned with a lack of dedicated

funding for the plan's actions. Right now, there isn't any, and without any guaranteed funding

streams, such as, for example, a dedicated biodiversity and urban forest line item in

the capital improvement program. Progress will only be made if the city council continually

prioritizes biodiversity and urban forestry, which is something that I have unfortunately

not seen them do in a meaningful way when the rubber hits the road. Also critical to the plan's

success is transparency in the reporting process. I believe this might have changed since the last

draft, but right now there's not actually any specific commitment to reporting out to the public.

In the reporting section, the plan says may, as opposed to will, and there's no other commitment.

So at a minimum, there should be a commitment to give an annual update to the Parks and Rec Commission

in any plan that before it moves forward to council, so that there is some accountability

to the public. It would also be great if there could be some commitment to specific metrics,

even if it's just a handful, and then there can be a decision on future ones. But right now,

I just feel like that section is an area where the city has not yet taken ownership of the plan,

and it's pretty critical in terms of understanding its success moving forward.

There was a couple other important elements that members of Green Spaces Mountain View and other community members brought up in the last review of the plan that didn't get integrated into this version.

specifically addressing biodiversity and trees on private property protecting heritage trees

in a meaningful way and avoiding future use of artificial turf which is something a previous

speaker brought up and you know I don't know if there's space and time to include these now but I

do think they're very important and I want to encourage the Parks and Rec Commission to not

lose sight of these three elements, even as the plan moves forward. So I guess I would say,

I don't want to see this plan delayed. It has a lot of amazing stuff in it. And if it's fully

implemented, I certainly think it'll make significant strides to achieving our vision.

But I would say, at least at a minimum, before passing it on to City Council, I would encourage

parks and rec commissioners to make clear how progress will report be reported to the public

and even better insist on a handful of metrics to be included in this version thank you so much

thanks rashmi for your comments as well as your thoughtful written communications

we have other folks commenting i don't have any more hands online really

holiday party for green spaces well thank you for all the public comments throughout this process

they've been really productive in the plan development so i think now it is time for

commission discussion and deliberation and i will open it up to commissioner mitchner to kick it off

Sure. So, you know, overall, I think it's a really comprehensive plan.

I think that city staff and SFDI took comments and feedback to heart and made appropriate adjustments and amendments from the first draft.

I think it's a user-friendly document, and I think that's important because we need partnership of our residents if we want to accomplish what we envision with this plan.

I also wanted to note from the start that I really appreciated the yellow highlighting of changes from the first draft.

I was one of the people who harped on that, and thank you very much.

It simplified my life.

So thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that.

So my comments and feedback are going to be primarily focused on the second draft update.

As I made comments on the first draft back in October, there will be a couple of points that I want to make again.

So I want to start by saying, you know, I'm fine with the shortened and more direct vision statement.

I think that works.

I appreciate the additions and the more rigorous attention to implementation.

monitoring evaluation and reporting as described in the implementation framework section 5.4

i think with these processes the city can first get a more accurate grasp of how much work and

cost is associated with each item and second you know sort of transparently report to mountain

view residents the specifics and the tracking of the efforts to accomplish these things in addition

i think that this should hopefully increase confidence for residents that there's true

intention in a process for monitoring progress i was glad that action 22 setting targets and

collecting data to attract metrics will be fast tracked i hope that prc can receive an update

when the targets or at least most of the targets are set since the the blank lines in the target

section of the planning sort of leave it a bit incomplete um you know for me that's that's a

missing piece of this plan and the targets you know which which for me are sort of one of the

culminating items um still aren't aren't set and so that's a little bit frustrating um but i do

understand that we need to understand what the current starting points are before we can set

set targets so i i get that but as soon as we sort of have targets it would be great to get an update

to prc i thought it was helpful for the plan to provide the view of the actions group by priority

time horizon as a couple people have mentioned in section 5.4 i think that helps create a better

visual of the upcoming work plan and how the actions sort of flow with each other i i think

that though we can estimate the ranges of costs for each priority level another unknown in the

plan is that we don't have a feel for how much money will actually be available and or whether

trade-offs are going to have to be made possibly leading to you know some actions needing to be

deferred or scaled back if funding isn't available so again that's an unfulfilling part of the plan

And we don't know how much funding there is or a commitment to the funding.

I think that the plan definitely speaks to making efforts through a wide range of strategies to secure funding.

But as of today, we just don't know.

It's a blame.

I think it's great that Action 18 was expanded to actively attempt to solicit and incorporate data from private property owners about their trees.

um the trees on privately owned property remain the majority of amount of use tree canopy so making

inroads into gathering that data is important in understanding the city's overall tree inventory

you know and I was thinking that perhaps there could be a metric added along the lines of the

number or the percentage of residents or private property owners who provided private tree data

to sort of see how we're making progress in accumulating more of that data.

And, you know, again, if there's a metric, then someone will make an effort to do it.

You know, what gets measured is often what times gets done.

I thought that the commitment to progress section in 5.5 was a good conclusion to section 5.

I think it affirms city commitment and ownership of the plan, as well as the city accountability for the plan's actions, metrics, and targets.

um one of the things i mentioned in the october meeting and i believe commissioner sylvester

touched on this um tonight you know with regard to the actions there's so much development going

on right now that i really wish action number 20 which seems to be about incorporating

um biodiversity strategies into city development processes i wish that that could be short term

rather than the medium term i just think there's a lot going on right now and it would be great to

include that in uh in the planning process for these for these projects and and maybe getting

a little bit more connectivity um there's some opportunity to do that now um it would be a shame

to miss um and to sort of finish these initial comments i'm going to restate something that i

mentioned in the october meeting um partly um because who knows what who's listening now that

wasn't listening then um and especially since updating the heritage tree ordinance is designated

as a short-term priority in guide c under precise plans recommendation number five

suggests potentially moving heritage tree appeals from prc to a committee of certified arborists

and you know while that committee could have more you know technical expertise than drc i continue

to have several concerns first i'd note again that many of the certified arborist reports we received

for the appeals we hear have been more in favor of removing heritage trees the prc has been

secondly i'd have a small concern that an appeals committee of certified arborists might lean

towards upholding city decisions sort of in order to in you know remain in good standing and stay on

the city list of certified arborists and even if that's not true um perception could be out there

among the public including apple appellants who are now paying substantial fees to have their fields

heard. And finally on that, I just think, you know, as imperfect as it may be, and as, you know,

as much effort as it might take, I think that the current PRC appeals process is closer to the

concept of, I said this last time, being judged by a jury of your peers. As PRC members all live

mountain view and likely have property and landscaping circumstances that are similar to

to a lot of the appellants that that come to us um just as a side note again on that i it was

peculiar peculiar to me that the heritage tree related item was placed in the precise plans

section of the plan and i don't know if there's a better place it would just

maybe there's a reason for it to be there.

It just seems strange to have that as a dangling item in that area.

So again, those are my initial comments. Overall, I like the plan.

I thank everybody for their efforts on it, and I'll look forward

to hearing from other commissioners.

Thank you, Commissioner Mechter.

Thank you. Those were some thoughtful comments that Commissioner Mechter had.

I, as I did in October when this was brought to us, I have high regard for what was done

with this plan, and I appreciate the updates that were made with the yellow highlighting

and various cleaning up of the text.

And so I'm going to focus again on implementation.

I really like the new section that's added regarding implementation, the description

of the city implementation team and section five.

And I do, I do think that the framework approach is appropriate for this plan, you know, given

the stage where it is not having been improved by the council. But what, when I think back to the

2015 Community Tree Master Plan, there was a lot that I feel we could do better in terms of

carrying forward the the good stuff that was in the plan and so we're sort of similarly situated

we've got this really great plan but we have to figure out how to carry it forward and incorporate

it into everything that the city does and that clearly is the role of the city implementation

team as described here but what this doesn't describe is how it kind of fits into the

processes that the city uses to make decisions so you know the various boards and commissions

that work plan the capital improvement plan um you know any kind of um you know consultant

purchasing requirements where you know you've got a monetary number and if you exceed that

then it has to get approved right like it doesn't even really cover any of that and

And so it seems to me that what it needs to do right now, because a lot of that thinking is future work, because you want to have it adopted before you really dive in there.

I think it needs to commit to preparing an actual implementation plan.

It's going to schedule things out.

It's going to sign dollars, at least, you know, rounded numbers.

it's going to identify which are policies that need council approval which are which are kind of

work plan things that be brought to the commission or the planning commission or you know we need to

in as part of you know getting where this intends to go we need to have a plan for that

reason i asked those questions was that i thought you know i was trying to figure out so who is

making these decisions and how visible is it um i mean there are some of those decisions that are

quite technical and and so one option would be to have a technical advisory committee

i think you've had a lot of the commenters that we've received on this plan are actually suited

to that technical advisory committee um is that necessary i don't know but i'm just throwing that

out as one way to work through the some of the more technical aspects without having to have a

consultant on staff or consultant team like full time on hire um i i do see that there are some

roles for the parks and rec commission um but i'm not quite sure what's intended so again i

I would see that this implementation plan that really would be talking about how you would do it.

Because this plan talks about what to do, but it doesn't talk about how to do it.

So there's that missing piece.

Again, it's similar to the 2015 plan where we never really talked about how we're going to do this.

A lot of the things that I observed at their root are related to that.

Who's going to set the targets?

How would you update the targets if something changes?

I do love that approach of dynamic adaptive management,

where you're adapting to things and dynamic with change.

But still, there's some things to be fleshed out.

So turning to the metrics, I appreciate

that they're all kind of positively framed.

you know, the new and wonderful stuff that we're doing.

But I think we do also need to keep track of when we are losing heritage trees

and when we are having canopy cover reductions.

And that could be on public and private property.

A lot of times that's going to occur through the development process,

that there would be these losses.

And so when it, I think that knowing those two things will allow the city to understand if there should be an incentive related to retention of canopy cover and trees.

Because at least in the last couple of years, when we've seen development come in, they've cut down every tree on the planet.

because they're typically building a multi-story building over a podium and you have to excavate

so you can't keep any of the trees but if we gate if we thought creatively about how we can

incentivize them to retain some uh tree canopy um i mean right now we don't have the information

to even know whether that would be worth the effort so i do think that we need some i can

call negative metrics where the losses happen it it there's having this known no loss policy is great

um but we still need to keep track when things are lost and when you know when a heritage tree

is removed and what we're doing to replace it because you know if you take if you're taking a

you know 48 inch caliper tree and you're replacing it with one little skinny 15 gallon

you have lost canopy and you've lost all the habitat value of that tree.

So I'd like to see us add a metric so that we can understand what to do about it.

I think if we had that metric over the last five years, we would be troubled by it.

I think that's all I have to say.

Thank you.

I would.

Thank you.

Some of my comments might seem like I'm a little bit late to the part, given I didn't

get to comment in October on this commission.

So bear with me.

I have comments related to three specific big areas.

One are areas I wished had been highlighted in either version of the plan.

And I do have thoughts on priorities as well as thoughts on implementation.

But I'll start with some of the points that I wish had been highlighted more, because I feel that some areas really help support a more robust resiliency and sustainability set of priorities.

And I've also seen and heard a lot of public comment going back for a couple of years on these items as well.

I'd like to see more proactive use of reclaimed water for irrigation.

I wish the plan also talked about using less toxic chemicals, not just in sensitive habitats, but citywide to encourage biodiversity.

Excuse me, I'd like more discussion on the restriction on artificial turf and surfaces.

And looking at the private side, as some people have mentioned, I'd like to see better plans or incentives, or at least education to encourage native or sustainable landscaping on private land.

as well as clearer processes for working with landowners, bless you, especially commercial

landowners, especially in the development process tangentially related to Action 20.

So working with developers more proactively. And also lastly on this, more focus on equity,

like the parks plan really leans heavily into equity. So for example, when we talk about

pooling zones, are we focusing on parts of our community most negatively impacted with

most vulnerable residents and i don't see too many nods to equity in this plan compared to the parks

parks plan on prioritization i said a little bit about this about things i thought should

be higher priority um we talked about that already um we have a lot of short-term priorities things

that are in the works that could be fired up right away once the plan is implemented or soon after

that. I would like to see prioritization within that because there are so many short-term items

I'm afraid they could get lost in their own shuffle. And I'm also interested in seeing how

we should sequence some of these items to make sure that we get things done that lead to success

in future items such as staff training. And on implementation front, let's see. I would like to

to echo some of what I've heard. I'd like to see us have specific timeframes for when we start and

finish some of this work. And I would definitely like, along with dates, to see dollar signs,

more specific dollar signs attached to them, because I share the concern that there is no

budgeting, no funding allocated in this plan. I too would also like to see a review process so we

can evaluate implementation strategies and success on a yearly basis. And I would love the PRC to get

that annual update. Related on goals, we have a goal to plant over 1,500 trees by 2030. I would

love to actually see this implemented on an annualized basis. I'm afraid we'll look at 2029

and say we still have 1,500 trees to go. So I would like that particular goal to be rewritten

as an annual tree count in whatever way that makes sense. And I'll just echo again concerns

about metrics what gets measured gets done and successfully so i'd like to see some more specific

metrics and again more specific dollar signs to make sure we can be held accountable and actually

achieve thank you thank you madras mr brian yes thank you um so um so first of all i'd like to

thank staff for changes that were made to this document, which

have really made it clear or made the implementation process

much clearer, it's much easier to digest the document much

easier to it's more credible. It seems like it's not just a

document in the air, but a document that can be implemented.

So thank you for doing that.

And it's great to have an executive summary.

One of my problems is there's a lot of talk

about the city's bold commitments,

but there isn't actually anywhere a definition

of what those are.

Kind of takes a lot of stuff for granted,

But a biodiversity plan that doesn't mention native planting as a commitment to the city shall do this has something missing in it.

And there are many cities around us who have ordinance, clear plans to plant natives.

So we need to be clear about the fact that not everyone will dive deep into the weeds.

We, of course, have dived deep into the weeds.

And in the weeds, I saw a lot of wonderful things.

But I had to read 200 pages very carefully to find them.

And then I could say, oh, wonderful.

I've always wanted to see that.

But some of that belongs in the in the executive summary.

So I would like to propose adding wording to the word from the city to clarify what the city is committing to.

So I sent. Yes, thank you very much, Alice.

I took the word from the city and I added I broke the first paragraph into three paragraphs I believe and in blue I added just an idea of what I would like to see there.

so I'll just read it to you and the only thing I changed was two sentences the biodiversity

aspect of the plan focuses on protecting and growing mountain views locally native trees

and vegetation as a strategy for biodiversity climate resilience and community health

the urban forest aspect of the plan focuses on protecting and growing mountain views trees

and enhancing the environment health and social services they provide to the city and its residents

And that makes it clear what the commitments are.

There is not a single word there that I will, you know, fall on my sword for.

But I think we can't just talk about commitments and bold commitments without saying what they are and not requiring 200 pages of reading.

So I think it's really important to do that, to make clear what we're committing to.

And you've been very careful to explain the difference between what biodiversity is and what the healthy urban forest requires.

but basically somebody could be reading this document and think that biodiversity just means

trees from different parts of the world and people have said that to me you know i have a sign in my

house explaining native plants and something passed by my house and said oh you mean plants

from all over the world i said actually that's not what i meant and i think we need to clarify

that and the executive committee is a the executive um summary um would be a place to do that

i feel awfully strongly about this in case it hadn't been clear

um and then everything else in in the in the executive summary sounds correct

but it needs it needs some clarification

On to my other, some other comments.

I'm really passionate about planting more oaks.

And it seems to me that the document puts a lot of caveats on planting oaks.

a lot of information, scientific and everything, no question about it, about how careful you have

to be, how much space you need. And yet, both in downtown Palo Alto and in my own downtown neighborhood,

there's folks absolutely everywhere. Surrounding my house, there is definitely a note of 20 plus

and will they last another 400 years possibly not are they looking wonderful now and are they

likely to last for our lifetimes i think so and it worries me that this document is has so many

caveats that it provides an excuse for the quality of choice and uh

So it would be much more useful if there was an addition about what it would take to make it possible to plant more oak trees rather than be careful, be careful not to plant oak trees.

In Palo Alto, they're planting oak trees along the streets and in parks, which we are doing

also.

There are ways to do it, and it would be really useful for this document to explain how can

we do it.

So downtown used to be an oak forest.

It can't go back to being an oak forest because right now it's residential and has Custer Street

in it, but we could add.

we could add more trees, we could when we're planting trees in schools, we could add oak trees.

When we have trees dying downtown with some space around them, we could say oak trees, obviously, because this is this is what this area wants.

When you walk walk along the streets downtown, the weeds are oak trees.

There's plenty of other weeds, but you see oak trees everywhere.

So I would I would find that very useful.

um there is also a part in the document where you say we should not plant for redwoods which i

i completely agree with it it makes no sense to plant redwoods and then there is a um if you follow

it with a statement about how redwoods should be replaced by trees that provide an equal amount of

canopy. Now the easiest way to provide canopy is really an oak tree. But the wording in the document

says trees of equal, that will provide equal environmental benefits. It would have been much

easier to say oaks rather than having somebody say, oh a ginkgo tree will provide just as much

canopy, all good will plant ginkgos. And we have had

examples where the city is planning to plant ginkgos

because they want canopy. So I expect a biodiversity

document to be clear about oak trees is what wants to live

here. And we don't need to plant only oak trees and they don't

belong everywhere. But that should be a priority. That should

be where you start from.

Another. Oh yeah, now to the going to the tree lists.

There is there is mentioned in the tree list, but all trees are host host to other species,

which kind of is almost like say, well, you don't need natives, every tree host something.

there are like Dubthalamus lists that have a listing of which trees host more pollinators

support more wildlife. I think that should be part of the tree list. Especially as we

build an instrument for residents to pick a tree. So there is a size there is water requirements

there is interference with with with infrastructure, but there is also a really important

metric about wildlife supported, and that's available, but available to those who know

that it's available and it should be part of our tree list so our residents also know that.

So I look forward to seeing that incorporated.

all right um so so um other commissioners several have already spoken about updates to the prc

and there is a lot of uh of of work that is short term already in progress

like working on the tree list and and similar things which which really

should those should come to the prc and that's one way to see what is happening

and to respond to that

and to let the community respond to that.

So it's staff's work,

but it needs to come to the PRC

because the community needs to have

a finger on the pulse

to know what is going on.

And that's really the way we have always worked.

So I don't, I,

I expect that that is coming to the PRC and really the matters of what is being founded,

what is being planted, what the tree list looks like.

It is in the purview of the PRC and should come to the PRC.

My colleagues have spoken about priorities.

To me, one very great priority is staff education.

A lot of this, the way we want this implemented is from the knowledge of staff.

And the more staff education, the quicker staff education happens, the more likely the implementation is going to go the way we want it to.

All right.

there was one small before I go go on to one more important

aspect for me on page 133 you mentioned vegetated walls.

And that's mentioned just as a possibility. And as far I have

seen two examples in downtown Mountain View, complete

failures. And so I would very much appreciate if in addition to saying

that's a possibility, there was some comment about how much maintenance that

requires expertise and maintenance, because there's there's a building

scheduled for downtown that has a huge vegetated wall on the picture of what's

proposed. And I have not ever seen a vegetated wall in our

areas. I've seen marvelous ones in Europe. But the weather is

very different. And the level of expertise is very different. So

just add a sentence with a caveat there. There's so many

caveats in this document. Add a caveat for the vegetated walls.

All right, and then this is in line with what the other

commissioners were talking about in terms of who is going to make sure this gets implemented,

which I think, which is obviously a concern for all of us. Sounds, sounds wonderful. But

I looked at the list of all the committees that staff is a member of, and we feel desperate.

How can you possibly manage all these committees, go to all these committees, integrate all the information, each member of staff?

To me, part of the implementation plan is a suggestion that maybe instead of having just a Ross department team, there will be a coordinator.

And that's something I actually talked about at our previous meeting about this biodiversity plan.

a person who is responsible for the implementation, a person who will have the responsibility to

to drive this forward. And so it's in there already. It is there, but it's there as a may.

and to me it should be a this is what we will do and um i wanted to to ask my fellow commissioners

what they thought about it because i'm assuming we will accept this plan today it's it's there

But I would very much like to add a recommendation to council to implement hiring or choosing

from our current staff, somebody who will be the coordinator, whether it's a member

of staff, whether it's a contractor or on a, you know, on a temporary basis, a person

who is accountable for that.

And so I have emotional it, but it depends on whether there's other commissioners who feel this would be.

I had a kind of like slight variation on that, that I feel self-conscious because we haven't heard from Jonathan yet.

Sorry.

I'm done.

And just to throw it in, I would be supportive of that.

I think it is in the plan.

But, you know, sometimes if something comes with the PRC weight to it, maybe it adds something.

So I would be.

Okay, well, how exciting.

This is a tremendous moment and so much work has been done and it's great.

And I wouldn't be a commissioner if I didn't have a whole host of criticism.

But really, it's fantastic.

So I'm going to go backwards.

I'm going to scoop myself since we've had a couple of commissions already.

You've asked for a recommendation from this body to the city council to adopt the plan.

And as I've, I think I've articulated a few times, I've been a little frustrated on the concept of how this body advises city council, which is our purview.

and so basically to scoop my whole presentation I think there's a whole

bunch of things that can be fiddled with but none of that should impede the

really strong progress and I think it should go to council it should be

adopted and it should do so with strong I was gonna say strong caveats about

specific recommendations on the reporting and follow-up and I think we'll add to

that with a strong preference for media considerations of a staff coordinator or

something like that so that's my end point but that's not gonna stop me from the other comments

i with the intention of meeting commissioner mitchner's great two-hour meeting last time

One hour and eight minutes.

We'll blow it up.

I like the new vision.

Thank you for considering those comments.

I think it works.

I still have a comment on the number two vision statement.

Fostering a place of refuge.

Again, a refuge infers an isolated area of mitigation and protection.

It's a defensive statement.

It's like little bunkers.

And I don't think that's what we want to communicate.

I think we want to communicate a positive goal so that it's something like fostering a flourishing natural system.

Or actually the objective statement, foster a healthier built environment, nature of people.

The burden of that could be the goal, actually, with the act of being something about natural

systems.

So I just don't like that refuge because it's defensive.

And I think this plan needs to project the positive aspirations and not see biodiversity

university as a set of little protections but rather integrated process of enrichment for the

city the environmental enrichment and to that point a couple of these things don't even fit that

um refuge goal dark sky ordinance friendly standards you know they kind of are displaced

And the number nine action I really think belongs in 2B, not 2A, which has more to do with the coexistence of people and species.

So that's that.

That's just a small thing.

Another, maybe it's semantics, maybe it's the decade, is a word from the city.

It sounds folksy.

I guess it's supposed to make the document more accessible or just make it more informal, but I dislike the award.

Any traditional planning process or planning document conventionally has an executive summary.

And I get it.

The original executive summary was weak.

It was more of a process statement.

I get that it needed to be revised.

But a traditionally an executive summary provides key takeaways, findings, and recommendations for busy decision makers, in our case, the community, to understand the plan.

And what I see in this word from the city is more of a preamble statement.

It's a nice intro, but I think the report would benefit from a strong and clear executive summary.

Another sort of thematic statement, strategy versus plan.

Looking back to the original 2022 project authorization at city council, the project was called the biodiversity strategy.

And during the course of the project, it became a strategy and a plan.

And then the strategy was dropped and it was just a plan.

This is not a plan.

um quoting from the word from the city um

it's a science-based framework for informing future planning so it's not a plan but it's a

plan to plan um it's a guideline it's a very strong one but it's not yet the plan

um a strategy emphasizes what can apply and a plan emphasizes how who and when the strategy

delineates an overall approach and direction a plan allocates resources defines the act of

laying out projects timelines deliverables budgets and responsibilities so it's not yet planned

um but this is all to say that it's not complete and yet i don't think we want to hold

things up for some ideal completion.

But rather, I guess what I look forward to is the day that you say, well, we missed this

target, and we'd actually like to revise this one, because then we know we're actually

tracking it and paying attention to these targets.

And that needs to happen clearly.

And I think when this goes to council from this group, I think it needs to go with a strong commitment from staff to explicit reporting so that it can continue to evolve.

Okay.

Lack of detail in the Heritage Pre-Ordinance.

I was led to believe, well, I should say I believed through this process that the Heritage Tree Ordinance was integral to this plan.

And it's continually referenced and there's discussion and I know it's a complex thing and all kinds of factors are legal and procedural and interdepartmental things are at play.

um but we just don't have visibility into how that's proceeding so if i've let that continue

to develop that's fine but i would like to formally request that a heritage tree ordinance

update status report occur to this commission in one of the two or three upcoming meetings and

And we don't need to, you know, we don't need to pick it apart, but we do need to understand what the priority focus is.

What are you even attempting to do?

We don't know that.

And frankly, Heritage Trees is the predominant purview of this commission.

We spend more time on that than anything else.

and you know I think an annual reporting of you know the number of applications the number of

appeals the number I think that's important and you know I saw it in the Mountain View Voice

article with the data from green spaces on that and I think that that kind of data needs to come

to this commission if we're going to in any thoughtful way contribute to the heritage tree

conversation so i see that heritage tree ordinance is an omission from this plan but one that i'm

willing to accept is coming along as it continues to uh i i do strongly appreciate the added

comments about implementation and the city implementation team

um

i think there must be a fixed commitment to the annual reporting the language in the report

varies there's a couple places where it's kind of infersible depending on how staff sees it at the

time or i think there's a place where the various departments should be prepared to report regularly

you know it's just it's still a little too loose and i think i do want to point out and i appreciate

all this but it is in the report and then we failed to highlight it it's actually under action 22.

it's providing annual update to prc uh so if you and i want that update to it's on action 22 we just

failed to highlight it but we added um provide an annual summary to the parks and rec commission

with progress made supported by targets metrics um as long as that's absolutely uh clear that's

great and elsewhere it's yeah it should have been it should have been highlighted but that was

something that we heard and we did want to add and i appreciate uh rosh may bringing that up and

all of you so okay so those are my kind of big thematic things just um i wanted to make another

point about the online tree selection tool that was also in the original council authorization

on the plan. And I think as I listened to Commissioner Bryant talk about communicating

about oaks and things, you know, the technology is so available for a great online tool.

And I think we can do so much more with it than just kind of the tabular form of the plant list

in terms of education, resourcing, envisioning what these trees might look like on your property,

things like that. I really think this is where technology could help us and we could take care

of a lot of our tree advocacy within the tree selection tool. Dare I say, AI could probably

really enhance that as well. So that's great. Last really small comment on the tree list.

Russell, are you still there? Eucalyptus caliphila is not, I don't think that's really a tree anymore.

I think it's a different genus now. That's kind of picky, but because the common name is red gum

and there are other trees that go by the name of red gum

that are definitely trees in the eucalyptus species we don't want

or I don't want.

I'd ask you to look at that tree designation again.

I think it's the genus changed to where he ended up.

So that's a little picky thing as I go through the comments.

So notwithstanding that,

I think so much great work has been done and significantly huge amounts of important contributions from the community.

I will enthusiastically support sending this a recommendation for plan adoption or strategy adoption with whatever additional caveats my fellow commissioners agree to attach to that.

but i would like it to go with caveats not just you know the prc

supports the adoption i didn't comment please listening to commissioner bryant

got me thinking so i really like the guides on the various guides but when i look at

it. Guide A, which is the landscape zones, and I do like that kind of zones concept and

how it lays out the mapping and everything. Then I flip to the tree list and guide well

the plant list and guide B and it doesn't use the landscape zones. So, you know, Commissioner

Bryant was talking a lot about how you know there's certain areas of the city that might

be suited to more oak planting than others. And I think you could easily take that guide

B and instead of using the sort of historic landscape, you know, ecological discussion

that's in the column, you could put the landscape zones and so that when you're when those trees

are being selected, there's some thought being given to how we conflict guide A. It's a thoughtful

approach. I mean, it sort of helps you with that, you know, some of the trees are the native trees

are better suited to, you know, high groundwater areas, and that's fall under the water resource

enhancement or whatever it was all zoned. And so I think that would be a big addition, it would

help accomplish the what guide a is looking for is to get kind of the tool of plant list.

and I would like to see that done before it goes to council

so if I may if I may just piggybacking on that

the tree list I looked at the tree list and I was glad to see that the calorie pair had

disappeared from there. But I consider that tree list very much a candidate for change.

And I saw in your in the in the actions that that was going to happen. And quite soon.

And so just to reiterate, I expect the PRC to be part of that, because the calorie pair

certainly added without the PRC saying anything. So to me, it seems that

I don't know how much can be done immediately, but there is a lot of stuff there that will

should involve the PRC and there is a lot of work to be done. This is like,

I agree with everything you say, and there's a lot of very good tools that other cities are using

that that can be used to improve our own tools. So I don't know how much work will happen between now and whenever Council sees it, but the commitment to do it.

Sure.

Sure. Yeah, I mean, I do understand that. Because even though it's in Vi B is not necessarily the adopted treat list. So, yeah.

So I have a draft motion that can be appended to our recommendation motion, and it's no more than

it's it's the first of Allison's thank you.

I really am just taking words from these classes. Thank you.

I just took the word straight out of the implementation plan.

And I wanted, I was hoping the PRC could just say that we recommend that a council appoint

a higher dedicated staff coordinator or consultant.

And we have said it in the meeting, but I think if we make it as a motion,

council will hear it because the way our minutes look council really doesn't hear any of her

comments so i'll just add a comment i mean i totally support this i wanted to move forward

um chair davis talked about having caveats attached to it i don't want to have a ton

of caveats attached to it because i made a bunch of little points and we all made a bunch of little

points and i mean i assume you guys are logging them and you take them in context with all the

other stuff that you that you're here so i'm a minimalist on the caveats that i want to add

but this one would be one i was going to ask you would you accept two

this and the integrating like landscape zone with the plant minister however you would like

Yeah.

Because I think this essentially covers kind of my concerns or the notion that we need

to not just recommend adoption, but put a little bit of concern, our primary residual

concern.

So I hear you.

We don't want to load it up with excess stuff.

Right.

Sorry.

Go ahead.

for me saying, I would take,

the thing about adding a staff position

is that you have to justify it.

And so in my mind, there's actually some work

that needs to be done that will take a while

to come up with the justification.

So that, well, and I would call that work

an implementation plan.

we've got an implementation framework.

We need to let that framework kind of form itself

and prepare a plan,

which this is to your point, Jonathan, as well,

because, and I should get you to read what you said

that the plan was supposed to contain,

but really what we have is a strategy

and we're missing the how and the when

and some other things.

um yeah i i would say that all we could really ask the council for now is to commit the resources

to allow the city's implementation team to prepare an implementation plan so it's really

just step one and that implementation plan would kind of resummarize the projects i mean i would

turn them into projects they're not just actions because each action contains several projects

So let's get some projects and maybe they need to be short term, you know, we can't like put in it all for the next 20 years here.

But, you know, the short term actions, turn those into projects, because what this is all working towards is the work planning process.

It would also need to include staff roles and responsibilities and staffing, because I think Reneet's completely right.

I mean, staff already has enough stuff going on.

How are they going to add this additional layer on top?

It needs to be looked at with whatever method the city uses for that.

You know, some people do loading, which drives me crazy, but, you know, one way to do it.

We need to see a schedule.

You know, it needs to contain a schedule.

It needs to settle on the metrics, targets, monitoring, and reporting, all the details for that.

and it needs to start thinking about funding needs.

And then from there, you can actually decide

how to unfold it in the various departmental work plans,

CIP, and where there's a gap,

start to look for funding grants or whatever.

So in response to that, I would like to ask staff,

um the budget process has already started what kind of budgeting have you asked for that is relevant

to that is relevant to this plan and um what what uh how will this show up in the next cip

So we currently have a line item under our Parks and Open Space division that is biodiversity

plantings which we've already started out here in Rainstorm.

We pulled out some of the unused turf and we put mulch around the trees when we did our

Arbor Day planting.

That's one of the efforts.

We're moving forward with asking for funding in this next budget cycle to support creating

the online tree selector tool. That was something that we weren't able to move forward with prior

to. It was an ad alternate, and we're putting that in. So we're putting some things in place.

The plan hasn't been adopted yet, so asking for staff is going to be tough, and we have to go

through that process and the budget and working with sort of HR, like you say, kind of an analysis

of what does that look like, but we are making forward progress, and we felt like the tree

selector tool would be a great way to like immediately start that once this time is adopted

and part of the cip that you were referencing that we used for planting out here we also

identified um improving the medians along el camino um to be more biodiverse but we actually

were waiting for some of the outcomes of this plan so we actually have the funding to go in

redo some of the irrigation as well as the planting to support the biodiversity so we're

we're looking at that as well can we do that i mean that's not yes we have the right to go and

do that based on agreements or whatever

i would like to communicate whatever we come up with i'd like to make sure that it does

indicate enthusiastic support for the project.

If we have a caveat, I don't want the negative side to override the positive.

So something like the PRC enthusiastically supports biodiversity framework strategy

while having strong concerns about implementation.

It encourages adoption of the plan along with consideration of...

and committing resources to allow the city implementation team to prepare an implementation

plan i couldn't put that fast but yeah along with this is a short-term commitment you've got to come

up with the integrated dovetailed analysis and let the let the staff team do some work for a while

and figure out how it all kind of comes together okay you said commitment to something implementation

to commit the resources to allow the city implementation team to prepare an implementation

plan that identifies staff roles and responsibilities schedules metrics targets monitoring reporting

and and rough estimate of funding needs those details well i don't know what do you guys

So my one concern about that is I like the direction which you're going, but I really,

I'd rather have things happen than work on an implementation plan.

And that I'm sorry, we weren't able to hear that comment.

I'd rather things happen.

i'd rather you guys went and planted some trees uh then work on an implementation plan uh that

sounds like another year spent in talking whereas i'm completely on board with asking council to

commit the resources i see that as the operative ask in that the resources to allow the implementation

to implement that they did what are we implementing what does it cost when are we doing it it's

It's not in there.

We don't know.

We need to know first.

No, we really don't.

We cannot build a plan now for the next five years because it will take forever and nothing will happen.

I do get your point, but it's not intended to stop the...

Well, so if you remember the...

Where is it in there?

they've got the short term acts and progress is being made. It's a table that has two halves.

And it has this, then the other half is the city implementation team will make these,

will deal with it. So what I'm talking about is the part, the second half of it. The first half,

I agree, should completely move forward. And we don't have to have a necessary,

should we find it? I have to find my computer open again.

it was the table that in the implementation section that had the two halves sorry seven

uh page 107. i've had the progress is being made list that was going to move forward

uh

Yeah, so this future phase is what I feel like, which is got a lot of stuff in there.

there's eight things that can move forward. Well, that was what it was identified already in progress

or beginning upon plan adoption. And so I'm not saying well, don't start those because you got to

do a plan. I'm saying it applies to this implementation team. Sure. My, my, my take on it is though, if

would say put money into the future phase, I'd like to say

just put money into it. And I'd like the current phase to start

taking place because plant an additional 15 1575 trees by

2030. You know what that was our goal in 2015. And we're not

even halfway there. For me, they made it is where the resources

should be put in. And so I'm, I'm, I would be happy to

enthusiastically accept this plan and ask council to put in the

appropriate funding to implement it period. I'd be very

comfortable. I just don't think that council would even know how much funding to put in.

They have no way of knowing there's nothing here that tell them.

This is for this is the plan for this coming year. If we wait for the implementation team

to figure out how much money they need for the next three, four years.

THE MONEY NEEDS TO BE NOW.

WELL, I PERSONALLY DON'T THINK COUNCIL'S GOING TO WRITE A BLANK CHECK.

I THINK THAT THAT WOULD BE IRRESPONSIBLE OF THEM TO WRITE A BLANK CHECK AND THEY WON'T DO IT.

CAN I ASK CITY STAFF, DIRECTOR MARCHAND, I MEAN, YOU GET THE GIST.

WE WANT TO GET BEHIND HAVING RESOURCES TO DO THIS.

yes and i'm in and i'm trying to um commissioner summer i'm um i'm having a hard time delineating

the the desire for those items that have already been identified as short-term or immediate

and things that we're already working on and the desire for an implementation plan and i understand

what the context of an implementation plan is would and tell me if i'm going off base please

would there be a benefit to first creating a implementation plan for those items that are

considered to be short-term immediate so that we can create some of those timelines

goals so that they're we're working on and um commissioner brain is saying let's work on those

things that we can do now right and so i think an immediate win or a very short-term win is looking

at those um those short-term items creating that framework and then we can come back to the prc

and say, here's a framework for the rest in due time.

And I'm not saying a year or two from now,

but giving us a chance to create a framework that works for us,

but then also works for you within a smaller number of items.

So then we can build on that success, if you will.

I'm trying to create layers,

and I'm not sure if that makes sense to you.

but just just getting to mr brian's point does it help to have us nudge that i mean

i think you're going to need a person right and even the plan says you need a person

so we're just calling attention to that yeah no that's fine i mean is that okay

and within the context of that recommendation it does not um

we in the in a short term can identify an existing staff person to get things rolling

and then as we move along then we can say okay we've got far enough along our own internal staff

don't have the resources to do this it's becoming a little bit more now we're at a point to say

as Commissioner Summer said

having that

justification

we ourselves

as the existing staff are now beyond

our

allocated time

and it's time to bring in additional resources

so I see that

motion being able to be a little flexible

to get to

that point and so yes I

I

I

um I think that's a fair emotion yes so I just want to share kind of where I'm coming from

because as much as I admire and respect the city staff the city's processes are extremely slow

we take forever to do things and the only time I have ever seen an agency change up its processes

to focus on a new plan like this,

it took what I'm talking about.

Otherwise, people say,

oh, we'll just import it in our usual process.

And, you know, that's slow.

There's this concept that, you know,

if you have a fixed container,

which that's the full resources of the city, right? It's fixed. And you've got these,

you know, call it a project, but it's big, right? It's a big rock. And you're trying to stick

all these big rocks in this fixed container. If you fill that up with a bunch of little stuff,

there's no room for the big rock. You actually should put the big rock in first. You got to know

what it is, what it takes, and then you can fill in the space. So the plan is a big rock,

and you've got to make space for it, but you don't quite know how much. So that's kind of

where I'm coming from. Those two ideas put together that you've got to change the city

process pretty dramatically in order to accomplish this stuff, because otherwise it's just going to

be a nice plan, and we get a couple little things done, you know, that we don't even

really right now know what the impact is.

Or a thing that we want to do, but we don't know how much they

move us toward the goal, which is what the point that Jonathan

made. So yeah, let's do the easy stuff and let's not let's, let's

do it, not worry about all this other detail, but at some point

in order to actually get to the things that have high impact,

we will have to do that task. So I was just proposing doing it

sooner because i don't think you can justify hiring a new staff coordinator until you have done that

but i don't want to stop us getting to the main point maybe that can be tweaked to you know at

the appropriate time one upon adoption or yeah i don't know you can put the timeline on that or

something so i took the words exactly from the action item it says appoint you a hire

the easy things aren't easy. We were going to plant 1500 trees in 2015. That didn't exactly

happen.

Right. No, we didn't have a, because we didn't do it. Because we didn't. To me, having somebody

driving the process is important.

um we are now going in circles so can I give it a shot yeah or could that reference you know

say as referenced in the whatever wherever it is in the plan anyway I'm not making a motion I'm

illustrating what one might sound like to get your comment so make a motion to send

to Council a statement that PRC enthusiastically supports the biodiversity framework and strategy

while having strong concerns about plan completion and implementation drc recommends council adoption

of the draft plan contingent on commitment to allocating resources to belt to

a dedicated staff coordinator and detailed project plans and deliverables contingent

makes it sound like if they don't do that problem yeah um with strong consideration of

um so the recommends council adoption of the draft plan with strong consideration of

you can make two sentences the prc also recommends

yeah i think the two sentence thing was better because then your then your first sentence is

stronger you you don't want to weaken it because you really want that first one to be right

enthusiastic

okay so make a motion to send to council a statement that the prc enthusiastically supports

a biodiversity framework and strategy while having strong concerns about the plan completion and

implementation that's two the prc recommends council adoption of the draft plan

incorporate and and incorporating so so let me throw this out yep i thought the last part of

your first sentence weakened weakened your first sentence i would take the last part of your first

sentence and build that along with your second sentence so the strong strong concerns you know

to a second thought yes as a method for doing this we strongly recommend you know something

something like that to um address concerns about implementation the prc recommends

some stuff

and i'm wrong most of the

ad herbs

jared davis yes sir would you be willing to walk uh allison through this and so we can put it up

first sentence first

for everyone.

I'm sorry.

mm

just make a motion to

send a statement

actually I do want to make a statement

I want it to be more than just a blanket.

Framework and strategy, comma, and recommends its immediate adoption.

I'm not losing.

It's fine.

See, I think the truth is that a staff coordinator is not enough.

Right.

What's a staff coordinator going to do without a plan?

Right.

And money.

Just like that.

Or is that baked into the plan somewhere that that's obvious?

Well, I guess it's not obvious enough to us that the coordinator is supposed to come up with the plan that takes care of all of the future actions.

Yeah, and then selects the metrics, targets, monitoring, reporting, comes up with the schedule, breaks the actions down into actual projects.

how can we say that succinctly though so we're not giving a laundry list of what that person does but

explains the importance of what why we need them now why i came up with a thing called an

implementation plan yeah the coordinator coordinates i mean the coordinator coordinates

the team that is the post but it's more than the city's city team it's more than that there's

policy decisions to make there's the whole metrics targeting monitoring reporting

and there's different conditions and council there's different departments that are responsible

for that you need a coordinator to coordinate between the planning department that will work

on development and community services that will work on the tree on the tree list

there needs to be a person in the middle who coordinates this

i i do agree but what i'm trying to say is that's not enough

yes it's not enough

there needs to be advocacy and push from council and a staff person will not be able to do that

so it's part part of the community

how much of that all do we want to say

I primarily want to communicate.

We want the plan to move forward, and we have concerns that it's not going to be,

there's real risk of it not being implemented without a stronger commitment to completing the plan.

I don't necessarily want to pencil out all the things that staff or that the council has to approve for that.

Would the council come up with the solution just telling them the problem we're seeing?

well say that we want to encourage adoption of a plan along with the commitment to allocating

resources to its detailed project plans and deliverables you know and i don't it could be

stated with the staff coordinator or the support of additional but but the important thing is the

commitment or the council commitment to the resources to push it forward okay i could get

on board with that yep should we be clear about our concerns about implementation i mean our real

concern is that without an implementation plan this plan will not move forward and will not succeed

i feel like to address concerns about implementation you'd have to have been in this room to know what

that meant i think it's there are multi-faceted aspects about implementation the metrics aren't

developed the um the accountability the budgets the the actual prioritization of

impacts things like so it you know the framework is there it is a great framework it just needs to

move along and and if it goes to council with adopt the plan and they say great adopt the plan

then it's the risk is it doesn't move a lot so i think let's simplify this and and instead of

expressing let's just say that we recommend the adoption and we strongly um

encourage council i don't know that this is right it could be written down encourage council to

to put in the resources to implement it and to me i would like a coordinator i think we need a person

to put it together now the actions are all there so i think we do that the council goes to implement

there is so much stuff there so i think it's not so much implement the plan it is to complete

so it can't be implemented it just isn't

i was going to say commit the resources and if we could take out the dedicated staff but commit the

resources for detailed project plans and deliverables to develop detailed project plans and

deliverables that's not necessarily committing the council to funding all these components

but it's but it needs to be fleshed out but we want we want things to happen we don't just want

money committed to building a plan there are steps here already for implementation

there is already a prioritization this sounds like we're saying okay there's a plan now let's

build another plan no i'm saying it sounds like there's a good framework now it needs to become a

plan yeah and a plan include you know if council has any questions about well why isn't this a

a complete plan. Well, it lacks these things.

Yeah, that was why I was making the list.

And then you can go, is it in there?

No, it's not. That's needed.

We don't have to call it a plan

if we feel like that inhibits

the moving forward.

I'd say detailed projects,

plans and deliverables.

Is that too

descriptive?

Deliverables, though.

I would use the same terminology that's used in the

report.

To that end, even on that first sentence.

chair david i know that i know that you isolated on whether this is a plan or a strategy or

but it is what it is in this document and i i want whoever reads that for a sentence to

know that we're talking about this document so which is a plan why we are

so if we're calling in this document the biodiversity plan we should call it i

we should call it that i agree with that for simplicity okay if you call it the draft biodiversity

plan sure

it's not the biodiversity plants it's got a more longer of a name whatever the urban forest plan

yeah

yeah i mean i get what you're doing but yeah i mean we can so i to me truly we should accept

the plan and recommend appropriate funding to implement it period i don't want to i don't want

to to to raise questions about do we need to put more work into this there is a plan there

there are actions there we recommend funding and i would leave it at that

but that's a big ask yeah because they don't know that's the blank check again

yeah that's their problem that's the prc does not deal with money council does the prc recommends

that when staff comes with actions for implementing this plan the prc recommends that that money be

approved i don't want to come to council and say we need another plan i i really don't want to no

No, no, we don't need another one. We just need this one.

We need another pay plan.

We need this one. We need it.

We need it.

Let's start work on that.

For me, we should say we accept it.

Please fund it. Period.

My hesitation is that

even though we have short term, long term,

you know prioritization there's an awful lot of short term and it looks to me like back to doing

everything at the same time you know kind of willy-nilly which is why i recommended prioritizing

our short-term actions because there are so many yeah yeah so even those alone that speak and and

it's kind of hard because it wouldn't be possible to do that until you know that the council's

you know behind it so you almost have to adopt it first and then you have to do this other thing

which i'm not going to use the word plan you have to do this other thing after it's adopted so that

you can actually decide what to do first now clearly some of these things can be unfolded

in work and that's already underway and those ones are obvious but you get to a bunch of hard ones

you really do you get there fast and and then you're stuck with oh we got our annual budget

process and we've got our work planning and though we're off cycle so we have to wait till

next year and the things that you that are really important to do get stuck in that

that is a reality sandy and that's going to be a reality even if we come up with a new

implementation plan that's i've been trying to get a work order system just a system a digital

system for almost five years it's just the reality of city process unfortunately it doesn't have to

be that way it really doesn't if you guys had a bond money you would be doing it i'm telling you

you would i just want to i want to set ourselves up for success and and we do we are working as

or meet said with other departments.

And so we do have to consider their workloads,

their work priorities.

And when we did this,

that was something that was a big conversation.

And so while I know, you know,

you want funding allocated

and you want to see some timelines,

we do have to have some flexibility

and be a little bit pliable and say,

hey, can we ease this into the workload?

Sometimes it's going to be a little bit of a small bite

or a small step forward as opposed to that big rock just not every time but a lot of time because

there are there is a lot of rent tape in government there just is i sort of like i mean jonathan went

up our chair davis went up there and did some magical stuff i'm pretty good with that let's

we're starting to we're going in circles yeah i mean we're doing stuff that's going to be irrelevant

to city council no so this does a couple things it indicates support also indicates concern and it

leaves a pretty in a lot it gives council latitude to move forward because all we're saying is

allocate resources to yeah detail the plan and deliverables and they'll say okay john carry that

OUT AND THEN WE'RE MAKING THE POINT THAT IT'S GOING TO REQUIRE SOME EXTRA STUFF PROBABLY AND THAT'S WHAT

THAT'S BUT WE DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT EXTRA STUFF IS YET IS IT CLEAR ENOUGH THAT THAT'S WHAT WE MEAN

AND I GUARANTEE YOU I'LL BE ASKED THE QUESTION WHAT RESOURCES NO ACTUALLY ABOUT YOUR YOUR

your recommendation here and I'll be able to address that.

Perfect.

So are you, do you have comments on this?

No, we both said we can get behind that recommendation.

Okay. So I, however, still have comments because we are asking a commitment to allocating resources to develop detailed project plans and deliverables.

But I really want to see implementation.

So can we throw the word implementation in that same sentence?

That means we're there.

We have concerns about implementation.

And so we want to see project, I mean the inference is you get to implementation if you

have, or these other things are needed to get there.

There is plenty of stuff that can be done from the list that we already have.

have i want to see that was happening while we think about the rest of the things like you said

sandy yeah there's immediate things and then there's the future we need to take care of both

and for me the immediate is more difficult yeah well but we're right now we don't know if the

immediate risk is going to get us there like the what if we had the caveat to develop detailed

project plans and deliverables for the future phase and theoretically add something while

continuing to work on the current phase that's in right in in parallel that's getting so complicated

what if you just said instead of deliverables you said implementation or something like that

to develop detailed project plans and and and completion of and

just so you know that if you want to develop if you want a detailed project plan with develop with

deliverables that could be a year to a year and a half out that they'll they'll want to hire

somebody to come in and coordinate that with all the departments and look at their workloads and

and and so so what if what if you said what if you said take to do this stuff what if you just

said adopt the draft plan with the commitment to allocating resources for i mean for implementation

we're carrying out the actions my concern is implementation is so big that that's daunting

for council no i don't think so but i don't think they're going to like say well the prc

he's worded it exactly i mean i think i think if we say resources develop project plans and

deliverables they'll say okay director mashad can you do that he'll say yes and we'll start getting

more specific yes will we get them all um no it's okay to to develop allocating resources to both

carry out the what does it call it on their idros? Oh, the current phase, the current phase,

while also developing default future phase. Sure, that's fine. But that, you know, let's just vote

on that because we're going in circles, but I don't think it's going to make any difference.

The thing I wanted was one specific ask. What we're doing here is it's becoming very much

if you want to vote on it let's vote on it because we're going in circles and we're no

longer really i'm sorry what's your one specific ask she wanted a head count commitment

i wanted a person responsible and accountable for moving it forward because

work by committee is really difficult for it to come up with results see i figure

account then we're getting into i think council looks at that and says john what's that take is

gonna say i need the headcount yeah i need to come out well i don't know but council will ask

but there we go if you want to vote on that let's just do that and maybe alison can get rid of the

track changes and what we're not using so that we can see what the motion is

is the coordinator baked into the plan enough that it'll happen without us pulling it out no

people can the word maybe change to be a powerful word instead of a wishy-washy word

would that solve your concern or need which is the wishy-washy word yes but i doubt that staff

will do it what's the the may hire that may appoint or hire i'm sorry coordinator

versus will or must or need to have that authority to make that decision but we can certainly play

around with like urge or right like something that makes it because could or what some of these other

words are just too soft and it doesn't even sound like it's important to have the coordinator

i'm just wondering if this would make commissioner mariah feel more confident

so would you add this position would you add another setting that says we record prc recognizes

is it frankly further support that we support um

hiring well signing is good enough

the word there is assigning or hiring yeah that's that's good we recommend assigning

carc recommends assigning yes he recognizes that this will likely entail the one who just recommends

okay

just to get more no i will also make note that within the context of the updated parks and rec

strategic plan um we are i'll call the word cross pollinating a little bit um and one of the

recommendations now listed is to hire um staffing to support the biodiversity plan oh so it's in

another plan as well oh it hasn't gotten there yet yeah um if you go online it is one of the action

items already so we are putting that in multiple places yeah that's good to know

the more frequently it's said more likely it is to be heard signing slash hiring of project coordinator

yeah this project coordinator the term that's used in what's used the same what term to use in the

We'll take a look at that wording though and see if we can bolster it and make it a little

bit stronger.

Yeah, that'd be great.

But if that's emotional, we should use the correct term.

I think it's like implementation was in that description.

We put a dedicated staff coordinator or consultant.

but just dedicated staff coordinator somebody dedicated solely to tearing this out that it's not

added work onto somebody as opposed to their that this is their focus that was the intent

yeah it doesn't there's no descriptor it's staff coordinator not implementation not some other word

I'm not saying it was anything but staff coordinator or consultant.

To facilitate implementation.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Very good.

I think that strongly communicates that we have implementation concerns.

And I think that's adequate.

Who made this motion?

Was that you, Renee?

All of us.

All of us.

Who wants their name on this one?

I'm happy.

Renee should still own it if she likes it.

Awesome.

And who's going to second that?

I'll second it.

All right.

Great.

One last question.

Current phase, is that clear?

I was looking at that.

We didn't use those words, future phase or current phase.

We didn't use those.

So maybe short.

Did we?

Yeah.

Oh, okay, great.

And those are what you have as short-term.

That's right.

That was the implementation matrix.

Right.

Implementation matrix.

That's good.

Okay.

Is everybody here making that motion?

Sure.

And I seconded it.

Oh.

Ready for the vote?

Chair Davis?

Ready for a vote?

Yes.

Brenda, are you satisfied?

Yes.

Please, could we call the vote?

We have Commissioner Bryan.

Yes.

Commissioner Summers.

Yes.

Commissioner Sylvester.

Yes.

Vice Chair Mitchner.

yes and chair davis i'm a strong yes an enthusiastic yes

emphatic uh enthusiastic shoot i lost my cheese thank you very much all right thank you thank you

we really appreciate it it's been a lot of work and we appreciate your commitment and you know

your partnership on this thank you congratulations it's well done ma'am mauren congratulations great

work and the city will benefit from this work yes last night cheat sheet um our next agenda item is

the election of officers um and uh before i nominate 200 which i probably won't nominate a

brand new commissioner but um welcome to the commission would you like to take a moment to

say anything about your um commission appointment and anything about you that you'd like to express

to the commission oh sure oh absolutely um like i mentioned i'm very excited to be here now

especially since we got through my first motion uh this is great it's um it's a real pleasure to be

here it's an honor to serve with you and to serve our community together and also to learn from all

of you and i've already done a tremendous amount of that and it's only been a couple hours so thank

you. A little bit more about myself. You did a great job Claire Davis explaining a bit about me.

I've been a Mountain View resident for 25 years, actually more, 20 or so in the Varsity Park

neighborhood. I live right next to a tiny little park known as Varsity Park. It's a place I go

every day and it's one of the reasons I care so much about this work. I get to experience the value

on a daily basis of our parks. I get to see how our neighbors of all backgrounds enjoy and value

our parks but i also get to see some of the challenges and opportunities in a little microcosm

right next to my house before this i served for seven and a half years on the human relations

commission i focused on issues like housing equity gender and much more before that i served on the

second environmental sustainability task force focused on outreach and community community

collaboration so a lot of the perspective you'll see me bring to this commission is from the

intersection of sustainability, deep appreciation for trying to balance the needs of everyone in

our community, and really listening and leaning in and listening to all voices in the community.

Other things I do, I serve on nonprofits such as Community Services Agency, the Mountain View

Historical Association, I sit on the board of my Neighborhood Association, and I'm a mediator for

the city of Mountain View. I also do a lot of community organizing, and for fun I'm known for

my famous halloween haunted house which attracts thousands of people

great it's fun well welcome to the commission thank you

with that um our next item 5.2 the election of officers for the council advisory board process

and prc procedures we hold annual election of officers namely the chair and vice chair it's been

my honor to serve as chair for the past year and we will now look to the year ahead

and this is interesting because well i'll just first of all i guess

we should ask if there are any public comments

anybody online wish to make a comment uh any commissioner comments

i do i i we've kind of had a practice uh going with people kind of in an order of tenure

i'll just make that comment yeah so interestingly uh so we've got a new commissioner which although

i undoubtedly ida rose would be a fantastic chair it's probably not um being right out of that gate

um commissioner o'brien this is the last year of service

so typically the vice chair has really two functions one is to

serve as a substitute if the chair is not available and secondly to be the next

line of succession which if this is your last term probably

so um so um what is your interest in serving as vice chair um i would be happy to do that

i was the chair in 2024 and what is your interest in serving as vice chair

none i will serve if we have no other takers but to me joe should be chair okay and i think

ida rose would be fine as a vice chair she will have a year to get used to the prc that's true okay

i think if we were to do that um

the we would kind of be teeing her up to be the chair the following year but that's out of order

for how we've traditionally done it since i've been right

well i will just say i have no opinion to the matter whatsoever it's clear that joe will be

chair next year because that's the way we have done it which i think works well

i might suggest and then later make a motion that uh vice chair mitchner uh be nominated as chair

commissioner silmer the vice chair with a strong indication that next

next up uh the vice chair will be i've brought you for following that sequence so so i'll

go ahead and make that motion uh that uh the commission elect vice chair mitchner as chair

for the 26th and commissioner summer as vice chair and i'll second that and could we have a vote on

that oh sorry you second yes uh we have um commissioner bryant yes commissioner summer

yes commissioner sylvester yes and chair davis i really don't know yes

okay thank you for that um staff announcements

thank you chair i will leave with

i need to go pass all my comments from

good job very good job i mean let me just i'll just say real quick i'm not this is going to be

like a city council thing where they talk for it but chair davis did a great job i mean this was

we had big stuff this past year.

The biodiversity plan, the strategic plan,

those were big.

And I remember if you were,

you did the big pickleball.

But anyway, those were big things.

You've done a great job.

Thank you.

My pleasure.

all right as i said i will be quick i don't know if you have any other things to share tonight or

not um so i spoke of the parks and recreation strategic plan update that's going to be going

to city council next tuesday um in the email sent um by allison there is the link to the

new update. There is also another document that's almost like a cheat sheet of what has been

changed, looked at, updated. I have to give both Christine and Audrey a lot of kudos.

That work would not have been possible without them. We spent a lot of time looking at those

updates we did all of those revisions in-house we did not utilize the services of the consultant

we really wanted this to be um true to the mountain view way and um and and really be

something that we can be proud of to bring forward to the city council based on the great feedback

from um you and also the great feedback from that we received from members of the public as well so

just want to say thank you and you will see significant changes from the original plan that

we are proud of um and think we're delivering a good product to city council um based on their

review and recommendations i anticipate making another round of revisions hopefully not too much

we'll bring that back to you in the next round and then ask you to send that back to council

for formal adoption so thank you um one of the other large items that um our department as well

as other departments are working on is the nexus study for parkland fees um we are working with a

consultant to help us do that a nexus study is necessary if we want to use um the mitigation fee

act framework for that purpose and so this consultant is helping us do that we did go to

the council finance committee earlier today with just some initial information initial calculations

that we the the nexus study what it does is creates the framework for the maximum available

funding that the city could um place on development um and for the first time we're looking to not

only put those fees associated with residential but also non-residential um the cfc this morning

recommends that we bring both of those fees to the overall city council um the documentation

is available online if you go to the council finance committee link you can see that there

again this is the first step of a few but we are making progress and we certainly want to get to

the finish line as quickly as possible we anticipate both the nexus study being adopted

as well as a updated ordinance related to parkland fees to be updated by the end of the fiscal year

That's all I have.

We said no other.

Any commissioner?

I want to let everyone know that I will be absent at the next meeting.

I'm going on a vacation in February.

thank you the powder in japan falls oh nice hopefully i'll be here

i had a question during my tenure as chair about 40 minutes ago i

did make a request for a heritage tree ordinance just informational update to be presented in the

next couple meetings i'm not i don't necessarily even want us to weigh in on anything i just want

to understand the scope of what's anticipated in that process is that going to be possible

the request to have that update is possible the the request has been made

not to work on it but yes the status status of what i hammer the so i just want to understand

Let us look at the existing schedule and we'll get back to you.

Yeah, I mean, I've got a full workload and I'm working on now bringing this to council with my other job.

I'm just not sure if we have the time to carve something like sitting down and figuring out what the next steps in that would be just yet by the next couple of meetings.

That's a pretty big ask.

there's multiple people involved that there's there's no scope at the moment

i'm not asking for details on what the changes are but just what are the components you're

you're looking to update because it you know over our last few heritage tree appeals we've had new

things presented to us like the adu overriding our ability to do stuff about allergies as you know

and even bringing that level is not a simple ask yeah and to try to put that on top of the existing

workload is very difficult so if you allow us to look at a the schedule what we have we'll come

back with a recommended timeframe okay Jonathan I can tell you that one of the things we've talked

about and this is one of the things we intend to do is when this plan is adopted is is take a look

at doing this in phases so updating the the protections updating some of the um the processes

and taking a look at doing those in phases but it does require city attorney's office planning

depending on what those are so there are people that we need to loop in and again I you know

ask for their presumption is that because of its ordinance revision this is a big count it's a one

swing at the council you're not going to be going multiple times we intend to go multiple times

one swing is too big of a lift and it would it would involve so we're we're looking at it taking

it like say in three phases and carving it out by um by subject matter if you will and that was a lot

easier to do than one giant swing it's a pretty big ordinance it's a hopeful understanding of

where it's headed that's kind of and that those have just been sort of the preliminary talks that

we've had but who we need to involve and what those um what those like subjects are that we're

going to group it into phases those are all the things that we've just surfacely talked about

and who would we need to loop into those conversations how long do we think that'll

take because i mean in city attorney's office we have to go through them as well sure sure okay

yeah

thanks any other comments questions

do you have maybe a sneak preview what's on our agenda for next month at any high level yeah

we have a tree appeal

anything else no the and then right now no um march uh we'll be bringing the um

the mitigation plan for the safety building public safety building as well as a couple heritage

um Harris trees but we we only have that after those two we don't have any more at the moment

as of right now there's only three pending one in March I'm sorry one in February two in March

yes and then there are no others on the horizon

all right well if there's nothing else I will adjourn our meeting until uh February 11th at 6

p.m.