We'll do roll call.

Holland here.

Wolf.

Broxen.

Marks.

Holman.

Stevens.

And Seegers absent.

We have a review of the pre previous one.

Agenda.

There's no change changes to the agenda.

No, no.

I need a first and second on that.

No.

Just for the minutes.

Okay.

First, I want to introduce two new members to the commission.

It'd be Deborah Stevens and Katie Holman.

We'll start with Katie.

Could you say a few words about yourself?

How you got here?

Yeah.

Hello.

Thanks for having me.

Okay.

Hi.

Okay, let's make sure your microphones on.

There we go.

Is that better?

Oh, look, I'm a human now.

Okay, sorry, everyone.

Thank you for having me.

I'm I'm pleased to be a member of the commission.

And I am owned good lord.

Sorry, everybody.

Just uh over here.

Um I own a senior home care agency called Seniors Helping Seniors, and I'm a fairly new to the business owner.

I've been in business a little less than a year, and so when I learned about the senior advisory commission, it felt to me like a really good opportunity to get to know what is going on from a government and sort of logistical level.

And also I feel that um as I continue to you know operate my business and I have a lot of clients in Napa, I will be in the position to hopefully be useful to this commission with regards to presenting um perspective, you know, from local seniors.

So that's a little bit about me.

Great, thank you.

Debbie.

Um Deborah.

I go by Debbie, but whatever.

Is it on now?

Yeah.

Um I was asked by Liz Marks to come to the meeting, and uh I'm a senior.

Okay, like that.

Okay.

Since I'm a uh a senior and newly retired, I decided yeah, that'd be fun to be a part of it and learn things, and my husband's getting sicker, so I need to know more stuff.

Well, welcome aboard.

Thank you.

We have um approval of the of the minutes.

Make a motion we approve the minutes.

I second.

All in favor.

Aye, opposed.

Okay, minutes are accepted.

We have a uh leadership alignment workshop with uh Mr.

Probolski.

Research.

Good afternoon, commissioners.

Nice to see you all.

I know there's a couple new faces, so for those of you who haven't um had the opportunity to meet yet, my name is Brianna Brandt and I'm the parks and recreation director here for the city of Napa.

We are very excited um to embark on this uh leadership alignment activity with you today.

A little bit of context and background about how we got here.

In 2023, we conducted a parks conditions assessment, and some of the findings of that report were that a lot of our park infrastructure was aging and was in need of uh replacement.

And as we um started to work on some priority improvement projects, uh we started to uh hear from the community that not only was there a desire to fix um the equipment or the amenities that were broken or failing, but there was definitely a desire to see some more um additions to our our park system, some things that communities have a typical size similar to Napa may have.

Uh last year, uh the NAPA voters passed uh the local sales tax measures, so measure G created a new funding opportunity that's very um important to the city and creates a lot of opportunities for us.

So one of the things we are starting to uh prioritize or invest in is our parks system, and our park system doesn't just include our our park parks, but it includes our recreational facilities as well, like the senior center, like the Las Flores Community Center.

So where we are right now, um we are starting to look to the future.

Now that we have some additional funding opportunities, and we are starting to prioritize where we may we might want to go uh from here.

Also to set the stage for those of you um that didn't hear the news of last night our city council approved the purchase um of the harvest middle school on the old harvest middle school site from the school district and so we are officially in escrow uh to purchase that property so next year in 2026 that will definitely provide some opportunities for us looking at expanding our system.

So the exercise that um we're asking you to do today is the same one that we'll be having our park rec and trees commissions do tonight um as an advisory body to uh the council um both of those bodies are very important in making sure that um what we're recommending to council builds upon our existing parks and facilities master plan um includes input from the community and this in the stakeholders and um includes the input um from the important bodies like this one that it is charged with making that recommendation to council so um this is one of the kind of the first phase that we're doing um meeting with you we also did a controlled community survey um that's created some statistically valid um results for us on what the community would like to see around parks and recreation facilities and then later today we're gonna be opening wide a community wide survey that anybody can take and share their input on what they'd like to see more of in our parks and in our recreation facilities.

So with that we are very honored to have with us um an expert in the field uh probolski real research we have um adam probolsky here with us today and he's going to start very high level with you and talk about um what's what's working what's not working and where we want to go so with that I will uh turn it over to Adam and thank you in advance for um participating in this with us today thank you guys thank you brianna thank you commissioners for entertaining this uh today uh good to see you I I think I've talked to most of you uh ahead of time so uh context-wise yeah we went out there we have a uh statistically valid survey that's uh being looked at right now from a reporting perspective opening to the public for for broader input but uh you all kind of have a little unique uh touch to the community and and a very specific perspective so the goal today is to get kind of all your ideas out on these pages on these easels so with that I'm gonna um maybe we'll move these around a little bit and maybe so we can all uh see them and we're sorry um and I'm gonna uh oh sorry and I'm gonna ask you all to kind of like there's gonna be a motion effort we're gonna we're gonna be writing we're gonna be moving we're gonna be putting stuff on board so if anybody needs a little bit of assistance with that you'll let us know otherwise you can just come down here and put things on your uh on the dias there you've got uh yellow post it notes and you've got uh a a um uh a marker and you've also got some stickers that we'll we'll get involved with later um for right now though uh the the post it notes and the uh marker is gonna be the the focus and um the goal is as we write to maybe write like one word two words three words uh no no rationale for writing five or ten words right the the the goal is to have just very succinct ideas uh on on one uh on one sticky note and so with that I'll come around hopefully everybody can still hear me and um what we're gonna do here is uh the exercise.

I've got this little part here.

If anything comes up that just isn't germinating to what we're all talking about, it's gonna go here.

It doesn't mean we dismiss it it.

It means uh we're gonna put it here and we can talk to staff about it later, and we can come back to it.

Uh but for right now, the idea is we're gonna do this little uh effort to understand what we think is going right.

Basically, what we think is taking us forward.

But what we're what's happening, making us go forward.

So I'm gonna, in my very rudimentary way, draw ourselves a little sailboat.

And uh we've got a uh water line here, and the idea is we're gonna take all your ideas for what you think is going right, write those down, and uh and we're gonna put them up here and start the effort that way.

So you have yourself a question.

Yes.

Yeah, my question is, is this specific to the senior center, or is it speci is it involving all parks and seniors' participation in all parts?

You know, their relevancy to all parks.

Anything related to what you all do and the conversation about parks.

So you get to take as many sticky notes as you want and write down all the things that you think are going well, that's propelling the city forward related to parks and super centers.

So we got five minutes, go for it.

All the good stuff we're trying to get right now.

Yes, one uh one idea, one concept on every uh post-it note.

Everything's going well, that's moving the city forward when it comes to parks, recreation, trails, senior activities, center.

All the things you're happy with, you love.

So having them on individual.

Yeah.

So I have a spring last time.

Oh, I see.

Let's see.

Finish the test early, huh?

Yeah.

Right on the back.

See if this will this still work this way?

Hopefully.

Okay.

Um, so uh that's fantastic.

So we we've got some that didn't get so much uh attention, but clearly the the senior center, the staff, the activities, uh, the fact that it's clean, the fact that it's safe, everything surrounding the senior center is a clear thing that you all think is propelling the city forward.

Um, a lot of positive comments about parks, uh maintenance, um, parked for kids, uh, accessible walking paths, all the things and being maintained well.

That's fantastic.

Uh, and then there's um uh kind of that whole theme of of uh programs and staff and the the softer parts of what you all do.

So I think that's uh a great illustration.

Uh anything uh surprising up there that somebody else didn't think of, or you think somebody got right or wrong?

There's no right or wrong answers, but okay.

Um, so now, and if anybody needs more sticky notes, let me know.

Uh what we'd like to do is uh, hopefully in the most positive way possible, uh identify all the things that are holding the city back.

What resources don't you have, what facilities don't you have, what uh uh your programs do you think should have you have, or should the city have?

Uh, what do you wish, right?

I wish we had uh all the things that you think could change to make parks wreck trails senior activity center better.

So you get to write down all the things that you hope would change, and you can think big uh and and grand as you want, or as finite as possible.

Uh, because we're gonna look at these in different ways and what we can actually potentially accomplish.

So what I'm gonna do here is just to give you an illustration, we've got a uh an anchor, and theoretically, this is what's that is a terrible anchor.

Um, but that's what's holding us back.

So let's uh identify those, and we'll put another five minutes, but if we need more time, we can have it.

Anybody need more post-it notes?

Remember one, two, three words.

And hit us with all the ideas you've got.

This is anonymous, right?

You're all using the same pen and the same yellow note.

So you can put whatever you want down.

Dream big.

Thirty seconds to go.

See more than three words.

All right.

Oh, yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

All the time.

So I didn't think to write that down.

I didn't think to write that down.

Too late.

Well, I could take it over there.

School.

Okay.

Um, we are we are starting to see some something good stuff here.

So uh I really appreciate the input.

I I think this is an awesome.

This is kind of a lot of things you all told me, uh, when we talked.

Uh, there's some talk about uh better communications in general.

The website publicity, public outreach, uh, is kind of over here on this column.

There is uh programming, uh, sports programming, volunteer opportunities like day trips, youth and elderly programming.

So um, and then uh there's talk about transportation, including uh sidewalk uh fixes, and repairs to bocce ball and golf course, uh kind of maintenance issues, and then a whole lot of talk about facilities from bathrooms to pickleball to tennis courts to uh making the senior center more accessible.

There's a whole bunch of different things here.

Um visible.

The goal now is to identify things here that are holding us back that you really want to focus on.

And to maybe start to put some priorities around it from your perspective of what you think we should move forward with and maybe try to address.

So with that, uh, you all have stickers, little smiley faces.

Um you are um on the honor system.

Uh, you get uh five of these stickers to place on something that you think is really a priority for you.

And you can put all five on one sticky note if you want, if that's what's important to you, or you can spread them around.

So uh my goal now is for you all to uh grab your stickers.

There's some more here if you want, and come on down and place them wherever you want uh to prioritize.

It's anonymous.

Nobody's gonna be looking over your shoulder, and we'll see what comes up as far as uh what people really care about, what uh what might we want to move forward on.

And you can move sticky notes around a little bit if you want to uh if you need to, but it's we're looking at everything below the water line here to understand what we want to address, what we want to focus on.

Take as much time as you need.

Go for it.

Like I said, if you see a sticker that's kind of hidden and you want to put something on it, feel free to move it around a little bit if you need to.

So uh with that, maybe if staff wants to come and um we will use the parking lot to create some themes since we really need to use that.

Uh looks like the website has some uh looks like bathrooms are there.

Oh, yeah, no more about you.

Okay.

Maybe that goes under the website, you think we should add that together.

Okay.

Okay.

So you all have voted, and uh you came up with some pretty pretty good categories, pretty wide group of categories.

It looks right here like we've got kind of transportation, getting around uh sidewalks, uh, but broader than that.

We've got some bathrooms, uh, community pool, and some of these things, by the way, came up in our community meeting we had with the public.

Uh, and then you've got repairing of bocce ball courts or just in general, bocce ball, more about you ball, uh, some commentary about pickleball, dog park, uh volunteer opportunities, and then maybe public uh I guess public outreach and and website.

So the the idea now is we've got three, six, seven, eight or so categories uh of things.

The goal now is to um, from your perspective, identify the things that uh, you know, not just are important to you, but maybe you think should be actually acted upon uh sooner than later, if there was the ability, if there were the resources, uh, and put them into some sense of of order.

And so I'm gonna bring this board over.

And this is a chart you may be familiar with.

You've seen something like this before.

Um here we've got uh uh impact on this axis and effort over here.

So the idea is if we put things into this box, they are high impact and relatively lower effort.

So maybe that's a place that we could, you know, start things that you all could maybe be uh um uh a big part of and and then over here is uh big impact, but also high effort, so the big stuff the things that you know might cost a lot of money, might take years to put together.

Uh down here is you know, lower impact, we're not really gonna accomplish much, but it doesn't really take much to do it, and over here is we don't really accomplish much, and you know, it's it's hard to do.

So presumably there's some things here that may be able to be accomplished, uh, and that's where I think we we eventually want to get to.

But before we do that, I want to create an environment where we're maybe solving some problems.

So let's pick uh these.

We've got you know a little bit of time here.

So first off, on uh on sidewalks and transportation, uh getting around.

The question is, how would we go about doing something about that?

Uh and if you've got an idea, go ahead and write it down.

Uh, and I'd like everybody to kind of at least write one idea for how to address each one of these categories.

So take 30 seconds or so and say, here's how we would solve this problem.

Here's how we would address the the challenge of sidewalks and broadly getting around.

What would we do?

And it doesn't have to be specifically anywhere on this matrix.

Uh it could be expensive and hard.

It could be uh, you know, or it could also be something that's very easy and simple.

So what's your solution that you might want to do to address that?

Can you just read the top one?

Yeah, it says uh uh easy walking uh paths for seniors.

Thank you.

And then there's cruddy sidewalks, and then there's more transportation uh for seniors.

So kind of though, getting around part of things.

So you can have more than one, but if you have one kind of solution-oriented idea, let's grab it.

Okay.

And what's gonna happen is I'm gonna take a little bit of responsibility, but I'm gonna put some of this on staff to kind of put it into these categories of you know, re realistically, because they're the ones that know how to spend money.

So we'll take these and put them into the park fence, um, transportation.

So, difficulty.

Okay, we're gonna keep this moving along because we got uh several topics here.

Uh bathrooms.

What would be our solution to bathrooms?

How would we go about uh whether that's I don't know if if you're contemplating the need for more, they're contemplating the need for for oh, that's not good.

Um keeping them, keeping them clean.

Uh I'm not sure exactly what was contemplated in your heads, but go ahead and give us a solution.

What is that look like for making bathrooms better in the city?

You got you got uh a minute, you feel free to write one or more.

Uh, but we're gonna start to get a sense of what we can accomplish here.

That's great.

Fidelity.

Okay.

All right, so we're solving the bathroom concern problem issue.

Uh oh, I think we're got some ideas here.

Uh all right.

So we're moving along.

We're starting to get some things that could potentially be done, and uh others that be more challenging.

So let's go ahead and and look at um next up is uh like big facilities.

So there's a couple that are mentioned.

One is a community swimming pool, another one is pickleball courts, and then another one is uh designated dog park with benches and and um or in small parks.

So kind of like creating little mini dog parks.

Um, let's solve one of these problems, or all of them.

Go ahead and write down your ideas for how we would address the idea of either getting ourselves a swimming pool, uh, presumably growing uh the the number of pickleball courts, or access, and uh, and or um how we might create uh mini dog parks or address the the idea of having more access for for dog parks.

So go ahead and give us a solution to one or all of those.

And again, you can dream big or you can go real small.

Sometimes the small ones can actually get done real quick.

We are we are doing it, folks.

All right, next up we have um volunteer opportunities.

How might we develop more volunteer opportunities?

Go ahead and give us all the ideas you've got.

And that could be recruiting, how might we recruit volunteers?

How might we communicate with volunteers, uh, where would we place volunteers?

Any of those things that you want to address with uh volunteer opportunities.

Okay.

Oh, we got one more.

Bring it in the volunteers.

Okay.

We're going to keep this going because we only got one more category.

So website and public outreach.

So how do we solve this?

What does that look like to you all?

It can be obviously a whole bunch of different things.

How do we improve the website, redo the website, make it easier to use, give us some solutions?

And then from a public outreach perspective, how do we tell the world about what we have resource-wise?

Get people more engaged, whatever those things are that come to mind on this subject of telling the world and specifically on the website itself.

And then bottom left is not so much effort, but also maybe not so much impact either.

So uh we don't have to do this.

You can all maybe think of it in different ways.

But if we start here with the high impact and low effort, or lower effort, we have publicity.

Uh make your content make parks easier to find and the and the program easier to find, social media marketing, publicity, that's something that can be done pretty quickly.

Uh if if if that's a priority for you all and a priority for staff and the city and the council.

Um volunteer matching service, uh, improve uh recruiting visibility to make it easier for them to find.

Um and senior center volunteer opportunities.

Those are things that could potentially be done pretty quickly, and I'm sure they exist right now, but maybe you can expand that.

Volunteer connections on the website.

There's a lot of this stuff that can be done digitally.

Uh bathroom maintenance is a is a cost, but something that can be turned on if there's the resources for it.

And there's a couple here related to uh oh, this is Molly's Angels.

Who got somebody give me some context for Molly's angels?

Yeah.

Perfect.

So something that can be, you know, turned on potentially.

Um partnering with schools, that's a phone call and maybe an agreement.

Um, and then there's another one here with transportation.

Provide call-in transportation so that fits in with Molly's Angels.

Uh, and then more opportunity with volunteers.

So it seems like there's some things here that you've uh identified as challenges that you've prioritized and you've identified that could potentially be things that you'd want to move forward with.

Um, that's kind of exciting because it only took us 50 minutes to get there, and uh we now have these things that you might want to make recommendations about, and you also have these other things, these bigger things that I'm not in any way dismissing, but the things that would cost a lot of money, right?

Like more public restrooms or um redesigning the city website or uh, you know, creating a pool uh a new public pool, uh things that I think are also really worthy priorities, but might be longer term.

So I think you get to make recommendations, get to come up with ideas, and they may be put in that longer term category.

Um, and we're gonna capture all these.

None of these gets to you know be thrown out, and everybody's gonna have this on the commission gonna have this, and you can refer back to this and point to things that are important to you and and uh get uh get other people hopefully maybe rally around the cause.

So I think that's what we've uh accomplished today.

Uh what didn't we get to folks that we probably should have?

Is there something that didn't come up that you didn't have the opportunity to uh to to mention, or did we get everything out?

I didn't when you were explaining the different things.

I didn't hear anything about um activities for um such as bocce ball or whatever.

I didn't see a category to to put that in there that that you mentioned.

Yeah.

Uh I I think that would be in the uh well uh bocce ball uh didn't necessarily come from the priorities to to over here, but I suspect it it goes right up here in the um uh in the uh you know long-term high cost, high impact category.

Uh and um but would no nobody wrote down the idea of building bocce ball courts or anything like that as a solution, but I think that's a viable.

Can we do that?

Yeah, should should should we should we do that?

Yes, yeah.

I do think we skipped the fourth column.

Maybe it got lumped in with a swimming pool and whatnot, but the one that's like four over from the bocce on my.

Oh, oh, oh, oh, okay.

I'm sorry.

We gotta do it.

Guys, boccee ball, uh it's a whole category.

Thank you, Ms.

Sherman.

Uh, what's our solution to bocce ball?

Think big, folks.

You are right.

Thank you for pointing that out.

Well, give me a give me a note.

Tell me what it looks like.

I can put that online.

Okay.

Yeah, I wrote down there utilize the harvest property for some of these big act bigger activities, but and it's right here, it's featured prominently, it's just that it's a high expense longer term kind of.

Oh no, it is.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Let's get our solutions to bocce ball.

Can I just make one comment about the volunteer um bucket?

Many different um nonprofits and other organizations, including, you know, Napa County Mental Health, Health and Human Services.

They all have their own separate volunteer kind of way of recruiting volunteers.

And we used to know we used to have a local volunteer center where it was really easy to like go there and say, hey, I want to volunteer what's available.

And we don't really have that anymore.

So I I see that as a multi-agency, multi- you know, um collaboration.

Just that's just my thoughts.

Because I think every so many organizations want that, but you know, having worked for a nonprofit, we would just recruit our own volunteers for something and try and vet them and all that.

So if I can see that on create new volunteer center, um, which is I think might have been interpreted as um as a facility.

What was was your suggestion maybe a volunteer center might be more of a of a collaborative effort?

When I wrote that, I meant I just wanted to explain the background of my thinking of that, is that it really needs to be a collaborative between government, nonprofits, um, and other, you know, agencies.

Like a big event like hands across the valley, they need a lot of volunteers, but I know that they typically just recruit their own, but it's it just makes more sense to have like a volunteer center.

I'm gonna resource or volunteer center.

It used to be a physical space where you could walk in, and obviously all of it would be online too, but yeah.

I wrote some of them.

I'm gonna move it over to here because that's a coordination effort.

Yeah.

I wrote something kind of aligned with that, which was um I don't know exactly what I wrote, is something like uh volunteer matching.

Yeah.

Um, and I was thinking of it kind of in the way of um you get you know those those folks, and there's a physical center with this, but those folks who are helping um people find work and they're trying to match them with opportunities and then provide them with the resources they need.

And I was thinking of like if there's a central uh digital or physical or both location where you know organizations looking for volunteers and volunteers looking for opportunities, know to go.

So that's like actually very aligned, I think, with what you said.

Yeah.

Perfect.

Well, uh, I feel like we accomplished something this uh this commission meeting.

Uh I hope you did too.

Uh this will all be captured.

I'm sure it'll be shared with you, and there's some good opportunities for next steps right here.

So thank you very much.

I have one question that earlier that they said that there was gonna be a uh survey open to the public.

Yes.

How do people get to that survey?

Uh so a whole bunch of the city already uh took that survey, and that was that reporting is happening now.

But now everybody in the city gets a chance to take it again, or or uh you know, make sure somebody who didn't get a chance to, and that could be taken at Napa Parksurvey dot com.

And that is live.

Live on the website sometime later tonight.

But you can also go directly to it.

That was Napa Park Survey.com.

Yes, okay, thank you.

Because outreach came up here today and we're talking about a survey, which is a huge opportunity to engage our community.

I just wanted to take a quick minute to speak to some of the the methods that we're using to get the uh word out about the survey.

I mean, we have very traditional city um, you know, ways that we communicate with the public via website, via social media, via newsletter, and that's both a citywide newsletter and then the parks and recreation specific newsletter as well as the senior specific newsletter.

Um, but we're also um doing mailers or postcards to every household in NAPA to encourage as many voices as we can to go ahead and take the survey.

We're also using some of our um collaboration networks, um with the school district and some of our local nonprofit agencies are gonna be assisting us and pushing out that message as well because any feedback or any input from the community is going to be valuable, but the volume of feedback we get is also going to be you know valuable to make sure we're reaching um all the sections of our community.

Yes.

Do those mailers go to like assisted living residences and independent living residences to each resident per chance?

I don't think so, and that's where we're gonna have to lean into some of our partner um or our collaboration or partner agencies and use them, you know, use them to help us get the word out to like specific individuals within their organization.

Okay, yeah.

Have have the um mailers gone out already?

They have not, no.

Um the survey's just going live today.

Um we plan on keeping it open um probably into November, maybe even the end of November, and then we'll make a determination at that point how many people have taken it and does it need to stay open longer.

So, yeah, that was actually my question.

Is there a threshold of response before you turn off the survey?

There is not.

Um I mean, you did you need to have a certain number of responses or uh we did for the controlled portion, um, and Adam can speak to that.

There was a certain threshold um like certain threshold we had to meet in certain demographics.

Uh yeah, so there were 400 in the statistically valid survey, and to put that into context, uh statewide.

Uh we would poll a thousand, and uh, you know, even LA County, we would poll 300 and and not to make it uh political, but that would be predictive of outcomes of elections like a bond election or something.

So 400 is pretty robust for a city the size of Napa.

I think that concludes my part of the agenda.

So back to you, Mr.

Chairman.

Thank you.

Any comments by anyone on the step?

No.

Okay.

Uh adjourn the meeting.

I thank all of you for attending.

And our next meeting will be on October the first.

Have a lovely safe drive home.

I this is just uh for the good of the order, but I just want to congratulate you guys on getting harvest midd