So, we'll call to order the meeting of the Parks Recreation and Trees Advisory Commission for May 20th, 2026.

Can we get a roll call, please?

Stoltz here.

Richard.

Here.

Wallace.

That's O'Neal.

Uh here.

Graffuus.

Here.

Binum.

Here.

And Bordona's absent.

Thanks.

Quick review of the agenda for the meeting.

We're going to approve the minutes in a minute.

We have presentations this evening from Napa Little League and also the main street doc.

We have administrative reports on Harvest Park project update, which is the talk of the town.

And comments by commissioners and staff at the end of the meeting.

With that, can I get a motion to approve the minutes for if you're comfortable, both March 18th and April 15th?

Mike moves.

Yeah.

Oh second.

Thanks, Joe.

Joe with a second.

Any uh comments or discussion on those two sets of minutes?

If none, uh, uh everybody that approves say aye.

All right.

All right.

Any opposed?

Any abstentions?

No.

All right.

Minutes are approved.

Can we do them together, Elijah?

Or do they have to be separate actions?

Uh, can we do them separate?

And then can we go back to um agenda review?

We're gonna have a supplemental report for uh 5A.

Okay.

Supplemental report for 5A.

Got it.

Okay, we're gonna do the minutes separately.

So can I get a motion to approve the March 18th regular meeting minutes?

I'll move.

Thanks, Joe.

I'll second.

All right, thanks, Jeffrey.

Uh all in favor, any discussion on March minutes, no?

All right, all in favor say aye.

All right.

Any abstentions?

All right.

And then moving on.

Uh, can I get a motion to approve the walking tour minutes?

April 15th.

I move.

Mike moves.

I'll second.

Joe seconds.

Any discussion on that?

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

No abstentions.

All right.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

Uh, Jeffrey was not at the April meeting and is abstaining.

Okay.

Um, we're gonna start with uh the Napa Little League presentation.

And Katie Perez is here, and is is Nasser here as well?

NASA won't be joining us now.

Nasser will not be joining us.

So Katie and Nasser are co-presidents of Napa Little League, and uh Katie, the floor is yours.

Thank you.

Um thank you so much what for welcoming me tonight.

We're just excited to share about the state of Little League this year.

Um I have our supplemental reporting that Elijah's gonna share.

Um, we submitted our annual report in March.

Um, just talking about the health of the league along with our profit and loss reports.

Um we are sitting in a really healthy place.

We just completed our annual golf fundraiser in May, and that netted about 41,000 in fundraising.

Um, and that all goes to projects around little league.

Um, we just completed a very large um retrofit project of our infields on two of our infields.

Um we brought in a professional company called Dura Edge that completely dug scraped and replaced all of the uh all the material in the infield as well as the infield grass, and the fields are playing like MLB parks.

It's amazing to see.

Um actually, Elijah.

Could you scroll up to the top of that?

All right, so this is just after that completion of the park, and you can see um how green everything's looking, how healthy everything's looking.

Um, and it's just been beautiful.

Everybody's been excited to be out there playing.

Go ahead and scroll down, please.

Um, so 2025 in review, we have had um many, many families returning year after year to little league.

This year we have over 730 athletes, and that ranges from T-ball all the way up to juniors, which are 14 years old, and that's the last year they can play for Little League before they would be eligible for high school.

We play spring ball and we also play fall ball.

Um, our spring registration this year for the 10 through 12 year division filled up in 36 hours and was on a wait list from that point on.

We are looking at the possibility of expanding our majors division because that's kind of where the bottleneck is.

We don't want to turn kids away from playing Little League.

We think it's a quintessential youth experience.

We have I've got the breakdowns in there, and I can we can send that out.

But yeah, our T ball division is for four to six years old, rookie for six to eight years old, minor B, seven to nine years old, minor A, nine through eleven years old, majors is 10 through 12 year olds.

And then juniors is a full 6090 field, and that's for 14 years old.

The breakdown in numbers there, 143 T ballers, 138 rookies players, 154 minor B players, 144 minor A players, 120 majors players, 26, 570 players, 24 juniors, so 729 total.

So the league is healthy, the league is thriving.

The biggest struggle that we're dealing with is the fact that we have to rent so many fields in order to have a successful division.

We spend tens of thousands of dollars every year renting renting fields from NVOSD, and unfortunately, NVUSD has not been doing their part of maintaining their fields.

So it's it's been frustrating dealing with we are not able to use Silverado Middle School during bottle rock weekend at all.

Um so we have to find alternative practice places and game places during those times.

We're not able to use Silverado Middle School during our playoff week, which is a big time for us, but they have graduation commencement set up.

Um so that's been the hardest part for us is dealing with finding appropriate playable spaces for our kids.

We're open seven days a week, we have practices or games all week long.

We have we have our challengers division, which operates on Sunday mornings, and we partner our majors division level kids with our developmentally disabled and physically disabled students.

So it's a really great learning opportunity for both.

Um IHomeschool and one of my uh one of my co-op friends has a son who is on the autism spectrum, and this year he joined the challengers division, and getting to watch him grow and thrive and get to play baseball in such a supportive environment has been really beautiful for their family.

Um financially, again, really healthy solid year.

Um we spend the most on field rentals, baseball, and baseballs, and uniforms, and that's really that's the bulk of where our money goes year to year.

Um we love getting to do these special projects.

Um, we're just now completing a secondary bullpen on site so that we can have bull pens for all of the operating fields for warming up, and that's in that's in process right now.

Any questions?

Thanks, Katie.

Uh any questions?

Joe.

Just one, and this is amazing.

I love the work you do.

Um our scholarships or aid available for that.

Absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think we had about 15 scholarship requests this year only, um, and for everything ranging from partial to full, um, and we awarded every single one that was asked.

Um we and we live in a community of vast disparities in wealth, and so we we do want to make sure that everybody gets to play baseball.

So you're able to support the them at need.

Yes, absolutely.

And we also just this year um we just voted on it at our last meeting.

Um, we're starting a scholarship fund for uh high school graduating seniors who have been a part of Napa Little League to honor them in their secondary education, whether that is going to college, going to trade school, um, whatever that whatever they're pursuing.

Um we just started that.

So this will be our first year getting to award that.

Of course, thank you for the question.

Yeah, your numbers are very impressive for the number of kids who are actually playing.

It's that's really great.

Um, a question about uh watering, how do you use recycled water for the new?

We are not plumbed for recycled water at this point.

Yeah, yeah, hooked up to the light.

We are not where our location is not uh is not ideal for that.

Is something you'd like to do, or is that I mean I don't think we would say no to that because our water bill is uh another one of those high costs that we would love to bring down.

I mean green green fields come at a cost.

Yeah, um and dry dry seasons.

I mean, we have we have we're fortunate with the rain this year, but also on the other side of that, it caused us to miss a lot of games that we had to reschedule on the back end.

Um so the rain comes at a cost also.

Um I mean, this year with the with the infield retrofit, we only had to reschedule a total of three days at Garfield Park.

Whereas for NVUSD, we had to reschedule probably seven, seven plus days.

And and just a question of cost.

How much does it cost each child to be a part of the program?

What are the USSR?

Yeah, so ranging between 180 to 360, depending on the division.

Um, and those costs cover baseballs, they cover field rentals, they cover the child's uniform, we provide hat, jersey, belt, socks for every kid.

That includes the insurance too.

Also insurance, yes.

That's another one of our fun costs.

Okay.

Thank you.

Of course, thank you for the question.

More questions.

Uh thank you so much for joining us tonight.

I do have a couple questions.

My son is also in minor A's.

We were just out at Silverado one last night, and it is his fourth year playing baseball.

Um, couple questions, thoughts.

Um obviously the the need for the district space is I saw up there 3,800 hours.

Yeah, which um Garfield is 1900 hours.

Um, are there any long-term plans to either work with the city or another location to get a more viable option?

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

What is what is in the, you know, kind of works there.

So I will be at the harvest meeting um when they when they have that at the beginning of June.

Um, and we want to have our voice heard there.

We have expressed to Dan um quite regularly our needs.

We do rent city fields, we rent um Kennedy one and two and three um for our 50-70 and juniors division, um, and we had initially rented harvest um and then walked back our reservation.

But when we realized that we really could have used the space, Napa United had already grabbed it.

Um so we do also use city fields.

Um the problem is the sizing of the fields.

Um, so some of them are sized for 60, 90, some of them are sized for 50, 70, some have all three sizes available, 46, 46, 6, 50, and all the way through, but they're not all designed for little league.

Um so just finding available playable spaces that are suitable for the age level.

So where is your um biggest need?

It seems like it's at the minor A, minor B level.

Is that yeah, minor A minor B is the largest.

Um we do have issues.

One of our one of our other issues that we ran into a lot this year is the fact that almost every elementary school in Napa has an after school program, and they refuse to have us on their site whatsoever if after-school programs are happening, even if there is quite a distance.

Um, and some of that comes down to families with younger children playing on the playground while the after school kids are there.

Um, so I understand it, but it just has made it really difficult because our kids during the spring before the time change, we can't get on site until 6 p.m.

Well, by 6 p.m.

it's dark.

Um, so finding appropriate spaces that will let us on site with after school care has been really difficult.

But yeah, the minor B minor A level is where we have the most need.

And have you thought about approaching the city, for example, for existing locations like Kennedy to try to retrofit to fit better for the needs that you have?

We've expressed our needs to them.

Um, and part of the problem is there so one issue that we faced with Kennedy for the older divisions this year was that they weren't even open and available to us until April because they're so low on the water table that they just don't drain.

Um so they were underwater basically until April 1st.

Um so even getting to play there if they retrofitted could be uh an issue because of just the way that the drainage is.

And then just last question for Garfield.

I believe the answer is no, but lights are not permitted.

Is that correct with the neighborhood?

We have not had positive uh positive ground made towards getting lights.

Um we would love to.

Um, I believe we're right up next to the neighbors.

I think the one field that we could maybe consider would be cardwall because it's further away from the neighbors.

Um, but we do have some pretty vocal neighbors, um, which is so fun because we were there first.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks, Simone.

Anybody else have questions?

Oh, one thing I wanted to address um to Mike's point about the number of kids playing.

Um, we are one of the few leagues in our division that is growing versus looking at downsizing or folding, and that that is common um all over little league.

Um there are divisions that are either consolidating or folding all over the place, and we are one of the few that is looking at an expansion.

Great, doing something right.

Uh, one last question.

Um, my question.

Um, yeah.

The your after-school programs at the schools, uh, what what kind of pla uh program do they run?

After school care for parents who work until 5 30 or 60.

And they use the grass fields?

Not the grass fields always, but they're on the playgrounds, they're on the blacktop.

Sometimes they might go to the grass fields.

It just depends on the program and the school and what they have available.

And in school district isn't definitely no, yeah.

I'll I'll add to that, Mike.

It's a state mandate that's come down from the state level, and it has impacted the way that communities can use school space.

Uh it's impacted, you know, the city doesn't own or operate enough fields to even run our own programs, so we are also at the mercy of renting school district fields, and it's shifted all the usage past six o'clock, which is further uh compacted in already existing problem that we have in this community around you know, field space, baseball fields, soccer fields, courts, uh, you know, sports courts, every everything.

Absolutely.

Any other questions?

Is you know you mentioned that you have a waiting list.

Is the reason for the waiting list basically just is it space-based?

That is part of the equation.

It's not the sole part of the equation.

Another part of it is um is volunteers.

I mean, you know, you don't want to flood it with terrible volunteers.

Um, so finding high quality volunteers is difficult you're year in and year out.

Um, so that's another piece of the equation.

Um, but I would say that uh field space is one of the primary that makes sense.

Uh my son, who's 23 now, I've spent a lot of time in all the fields that you mentioned, including Garfield from uh T-ball days until all the way through middle school and um uh Garfield Park is really, I think a phenomenal uh little league park.

It's just so beautiful.

Um as a side note, and my day job, I work for the Napa Valley Veteriners, and we sponsor the Challenger League, the entire league.

Thank you so much for that.

Yeah, no, it's fantastic, and we try to get out there and and share those athletes on uh a couple of times per year.

Um and just finishing with uh uh a big um, you know, pat on the back to you and and the volunteers that make it happen.

It's not easy, it's somewhat thankless, and it takes a lot of time and a lot of effort.

So that would not happen without uh leadership of people like you.

So I I think we all say thank you very much.

Thank you so much for your time tonight.

Okay.

Alright.

Um on to the next agenda item.

And that is the main street dock.

And uh I'm guessing that's Sean O'Malley.

They're in the front row.

Welcome, Sean.

Thanks for having me.

The floor is yours.

Well, I am my name is Sean O'Malley.

You might need to pull your mic up.

They're not very sensitive.

Is that better?

So again, my name is Shauna Malley.

I run uh Napa's Main Street dock.

Uh we started out as a uh single gondola, and we used to call it, well, we still call it Napa Valley Gondola.

And last year we won the uh contract to take over the entire dock doing multiple um offerings.

So we now offer the kayaks and canoes, and as well as uh um a river cruise, so uh a powered electric powered Duffy boat.

Uh we we're starting out slow with that.

We got one boat going now, and it's increasing business as we speak.

Um we have um we've got 11 employees.

We uh we built a well, we rebuilt the kiosk down there.

What it used to be just a shed, now we rebuilt it so it's a ticket booth.

So we're allowed to uh be able to get more walk-ups so when people come to walk up, we can have that manned, and it allows us to one increase business, but it also allows to get more eyeballs on to the services that we do.

Um we've been in uh business since 2019.

Uh we offer uh family and group and corporate waterfront experiences for not just tourists but also locals.

Um we do uh we just recently did a big community event.

So we kicked off um opening day on the river.

We did that on May 2nd.

We had uh roughly 2,500 participants.

We gave away um free gondola rides, free Duffy boat rides, uh and then we also had the Ohana um rowing club, the Hawaiian Rowing Club come join us.

We had a DJ, and then uh we offered uh uh gifts.

We had drawings for free gondola rides and Duffy Boat cruises, full cruises.

The ones we were doing were just abbreviated versions, what we normally do, just to be able to give out to the locals, they can see the river, see what it's like.

Um then Ohana was their uh club, so they were able to showcase their club, be able to get more memberships, and it was it was very successful for them.

We did a total of uh hundred, let's see.

We did a hundred, we did uh 38 gondola cruises that day with 152 passengers.

We did six uh Duffy boat cruises with 36 passengers and then 14 Hawaiian outrigger canoe rides for 56 passengers.

Um, and that was we we hope to do that, make that an annual event.

It was really it was a lot more successful than I planned it to be.

I knew it was gonna be fun, but I didn't realize um that we would get the participation that we did, and I was very happy to see it, and it just shows that there's uh there's a desire to get on that river if if people want to do it.

We uh we worked hand in hand with uh the riverfront building that's there, so they help sponsor uh the DJ and the music, the balloons.

Uh they also helped pay for the the media that we we did.

We did a lot of social media on it to get it out there.

Uh we also had help from do Napa and and visit Napa Valley.

So we had a group of us that worked hand in hand to get that rolling, and and it was our first time, and I think it was very successful.

The uh we'd like to do an end of the season um celebration as well.

We'll call it the uh we do it anyway.

It's called uh witches paddle.

So we get witches and warlocks around um Halloween where you dress up as a witcher warlock and you get on a canoe, a paddle board, or even the gondolas, and we'll go in mass and do a big paddle.

Um it was great last year, even though it rained.

Um so this year hopefully we'll get a little bit better weather.

Uh some of the other things that we're doing is um one of our gondoliers is a local high school kid, and at his school, he started a uh Venetian rowing club.

So we now have 12 high school kids participating in learning how to row a gondola, which is not easy.

How to uh maintain a gondola, and the hopes is we get um a handful of them that are proficient enough that we can send them to the Valanga in Venice.

So we're gonna we're planning on one getting them set up to be able to row, and then two uh doing fundraisers for that club so they can raise that money to be able to go to that trip to Venice, and we hope to be able to do that every year.

And uh it's so far so good.

So I'm really surprised that these kids one they're interested in doing because it is it's not something you usually see, and the ones that are doing it are getting addicted to it because it's one, it's it's a lot of fun, and when they see the older guys that do it and sing and and have a blast with it, they're um they're really it's I was really surprised that this summer we're having them come out and learn and then a few of them are gonna work for us as uh as uh workers on the dock helping out with other things besides uh gondolas.

Uh the other thing that we're doing too is we are working with uh Nimbus Arts.

So Nimus Arts, uh local art, um, I don't know how you would explain it, but it's a non-for-profit.

They're just trying to get people to do more art.

So they're coming out on the gondolas, um, then they're painting what they saw on the gondola.

Uh they're also uh coming out in groups to go onto the kayaks and go explore the river to get fine mews on what arts that they want to paint.

Um so this has been our first year with this, it's been very successful.

Uh we did have an issue with weather on the second one that we did, but it's they're they're selling it and they're selling it out, and then we donate the uh the equipment and the time to be able to allow them to do that.

Um we are also doing um one of the things we want to implement for the community is we want to start offering, and we're either gonna do this every Wednesday or every other Wednesday to allow locals to come down, take the canoes out, and get garbage out of the river, and then we'll have contests to see who can get the most garbage, whoever gets the most garbage.

We'll give them free gondola ride or a cruise or or whatever it may be, but we want to get that participation.

There's a need for it and a desire for it, and it also helps get people to go down onto that river during the week when we're generally slow.

Um one of the other things we also want to implement is creating a club so people the locals can join the club.

It'll be very nominal price, just enough to cover the expense of uh having one of the employees uh manage it.

Uh but I want we want to get locals on that river during the week when it's slow after work, be able to go out, not have to take your personal kayak, bring it down the steps, which we see a lot of.

So we believe that there is a um a need for it, so we can uh help uh people be able to enjoy that river at a nominal price, and then we're working to get participation with uh the company called CTRK in Sausaledo.

They do a club format as well, and what we want to do is do reciprocation.

So their club can come to Napa, our club members can go to Sausalito or Alameda and be able to use the use the equipment in those locations.

So that's one thing we're trying to get implemented this season.

Um hopefully by next week.

We're just finalizing uh how we're gonna market it and how we're gonna uh operationally take care of that.

Um this year, you know.

So we took over the contract last year.

So it took us a little bit to get the kinks worked out.

Um our season started April 1st.

We got the contract at the end of January, so last year was a learning curve.

We uh I invested a lot in marketing to get things off the ground.

Those investments are now starting to show green shoots so we are uh 50% above where we were revenue wise from last year and it looks to be so far our pre-bookings are uh 75 to 80% better than they were last year.

So our our our real green shoot is the um the river cruise.

So the river cruise was so brand new no one really knew about it but the marketing that we've uh implemented is starting to showcase it and we're starting to see good results from it which uh I'm very happy about because it we we did have a loss last year but it looks like um we're gonna be definitely in the black this year um we've also this year introduced a new 401k for our employees to all employees not just full time uh we do have three full-time employees that uh participate in the 401k we also uh provide medical insurance for them um this is really helped we have uh a core group that's been with me for now almost five years and I think that's really been the the reason for our growth and our success is having those key employees um not turn over and um yeah I do believe that that really is our secret to our success is those employees and I will tell you the the gondoliers who've been doing it there is a an addiction to it is that's it's hard to explain.

I mean I've done a lot in my life from venture capital to uh play baseball I coached uh in your league uh and basketball there's uh there's something about rowing a gondola that will unless you do it you you won't understand but it it is it's addicting you think about it when you're not doing it and you can't wait to get back on it.

So the employees that we have that do it really do love it and these kids at the high school are starting to get that same experience.

That's it for me.

That's terrific I know that was a mouthful.

No that was very very cool.

Uh and I see the mic has a question.

Yeah uh Sean uh congratulate congratulations on that revenue revenue growth for this yeah that's keep going in the right direction.

Doing something right yes marketing does pay off I'm sure that helps yeah um the question I had was um how far uh I see when they get in the gondola how far do they go out is there a limit they can go are you know are they restricted somehow no they're not restricted they can go as far as their bodies will take them but we you know it's funny when we first started doing this we used to do hour and a half cruises the gondoliers could do it but the passengers couldn't bathroom breaks have come up so we learned quickly that we've reduced it to an hour.

So however a gondolier as far as they want to go as long as they get back before the next cruise within the hour.

On occasion when because it really is a really great workout um if we don't have another cruise and we're willing we will take them as far as they want to go like we'll do two hour cruises as long as the customer's willing to do it and it allows the gondolier to really get a nice workout in and we'll go as far as uh we'll go as far as Lincoln Road at a at a high tide and then as far as uh nap uh Napa River Park we'll go as far as that at high tide but generally we the furthest we usually go 99% of the time is behind Copia.

So we go as far past the uh the oxbow as we can.

It's amazingly pretty over there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay that's it.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Coming more questions Darren.

Hey there thanks so much for the presentation.

I feel like the Napa River is such an important resource for Napa and contributing to its identity.

And so I feel like what you're doing in kind of um getting people out there experiencing Napa in a new way is really awesome and just really appreciate all the work that you're doing for that.

Yeah.

Um I'm curious and also with the local aspect too, because that's something that I've thought about a lot is like I want to get out there after work and you know, it's just it's tough.

Um I'm curious uh what you feel like people from out of town, what their perception is of the river itself.

So it's interesting is out of town they have no historical uh animosity to it, like locals do.

Locals have an not an animosity but a preconceived notion that it's still like it was in the eighties and early nineties.

Um so when we get tourists on it, because they don't know, they just see the way that it is now and always assume that it's always been that way.

So for them it's it's just more beauty of Napa.

What I really love is when we have locals come on the boats and they go out, and they cannot believe that how pretty it is, how misinformed that they were about the river, and and how underutilized that it is.

Yeah.

I mean, we have I'll tell you a story.

When I first moved here, my wife got a job at uh Domain Shandon, and we were looking for places to live.

And I grew up at the beach, so I used to surf, sailed, and we were moving from Santa Cruz, and the first house we looked at, uh, we went and it had a dock behind it, and I couldn't believe because I've been to Napa a million times, had no idea that there was water, let alone boats.

So I immediately was like, wow, this has been my dream my whole life is to have a house that had the ability to have a boat behind it.

So I ended up, you know, four years later buying one, and in that meantime, I would take the boat that I did have go on the river, and could not believe one, there weren't any other boats hardly, and two, how pretty it was.

So when I was looking for I was semi retired, I had our son, and I was looking for something fun to do, and I thought, oh, why don't I use my personality for good as opposed to evil and go find uh a tour guy job.

I wanted to get a tour guide job at a at a winery, and there happened to be an ad for um a gondola tour guide on the river in the same section on his credits list.

So I called the guy, told him I used to row crew in college, love boats, have a dock behind my house, and he went, You have a dock behind your house?

And I said, Yeah, I I have uh other rowing skulls and rowboats at my house as we speak, and he we hit it off, and he was the original owner who had started in Napa.

I don't know if you guys remember him in 1999 to 2003, and then when the river front building got was being built, that all went away, and he went down to Oakland and when um the the dock was ready to repopulate with vendors, he got called back, and that's how he came back, and he was looking for somebody local to run it for him.

So I started working for him, immediately fell in love with it because of that addiction thing, and uh made the comment that uh I would love to buy it because I knew I knew once people got on the gondola, specifically, that they would see what I saw and fall in love with that river and see the the true beauty of it and get past the notion of uh the way that it was during the tannery days and and uh this the this the sewer plant days when it was up here.

And it and I was right, it was really right.

I mean, we went from when I bought it, we I think uh that first year it did eighteen thousand dollars.

My wife thought it was crazy.

The next year it doubled and it grew 30, 40, 50% each year over year, and now we're getting into um diminishing returns because there's only so many cruises we can do.

We only have three boats, we can't grow much further in the gondolas.

The the Duffy boat we can, but not the gondola.

So we're we're at capacity, and and it is true.

When I love getting locals on those boats because they are they're always the most genuine when they're react to it and see that see something that they never seen before in a place that they may have lived at their whole life.

Thanks for that.

I just had a follow up.

Um I don't know if you said this, do you guys offer like wine and food on any of the river cruises or anything like that.

We um we just started doing a charcuterie play on the Duffy boat.

We do have wine.

We have one of our um one of our gondolers, it's not a fiance, they just got married this weekend.

As a matter of fact, he's coming back from his honeymoon tomorrow to row.

Uh they uh they have a little brand called Ward for Wines.

So we work with the city, we uh have uh their liquor liability um uh permit with the city to do parks and rec, so we do do wine, and that's the one we do.

So we do wine tastings and we also uh serve bottles.

Awesome.

Yeah, it seems like a great opportunity to feature like smaller smaller businesses that you know just to get their name out there and kind of work with them a little bit.

Yeah.

And then we also work with um the restaurants that are above us that uh we do we allow BYOV, so they can go to those restaurants and buy it where they can bring their own.

Uh we're I just got a call from um um I can't remember the name of the winery.

Uh it's they have a big lake and they want to use the gondolas for a big party.

So we get those calls.

Those are hard to do, we actually it's the the gondolas are thirty, six and a half feet long and they're twelve hundred pounds, so it's hard to move them.

But we do get those calls.

So we're the word is out that we're out there and and people would love to do that.

Um but I just got a call from Cliff family that they want to do something with their wine club and bring their wine club members down to the down to the dock.

I'll have that meeting tomorrow, so but we're always constantly reaching out to other businesses, other um like Ohana, and trying to incorporate and be out in the community to to get eyeballs in people on that river.

Thanks.

Mike, you have another question.

Yeah, speaking of reaching out, uh, how much outreach do you do with the schools as far as getting the younger kids addicted to this uh so I don't know here?

I don't know if you remember in high school how the clubs work.

Yeah, so it's um the good the the high school gondolier that we do have, he's the youngest gondolier in the United States.

He started that club this year, and his sign-up was twenty-one, and he averages twelve kids.

They come down to the dock with uh their teacherslash uh guardian to come and we teach them how to row, teach them uh boatsmanship, um and all aspects of being a gondolier, and it um and that's just one school that's doing that.

Who knows where it'll go?

I have a feeling once you start one, and if it's successful, then the other high schools will follow.

And it's also it's great when you have those kids doing summer jobs down on the dock.

It's a great summer job for those kids.

Yeah.

Smo.

Uh I was just about uh ask to ask about that if you were interested in working with the other schools as well, because I know I'm a high schooler.

Yeah.

And I know a lot of people at my school, which is New Tech, would probably be interested in that, but I had never been.

I also need is to have one kid come see me.

And you know, there's no um template for this.

The the boy who was our gondolier, he went out of his way and did it and approached me with it and I said, Yeah, it's we'll we can do that.

We have the insurance for it.

Um just as long as you work with the um the parameters and rules of the school.

Because it uh you know most of those clubs they meet at the school, right?

Yes.

This is a very unusual that they come to the dock to do it.

They have certain meetings at the school too.

Uh they did the um they show me what they did.

They they went and did the history of the gondola, history of Venice, the history of the singing gondolier and how that all started.

Which is very captivating that that boy took that time to one learn it because it's I really didn't think he was interested in anything but rowing, but he got into all the nuances of of the gondola.

And now he's proselytizing to his is co co-students.

So yes, there you go.

The door is open.

We are open to do it.

Charge through it.

If there's a um uh a student who's interested in doing, they can talk to me and we'll I'll do whatever I need to do to allow them to do it.

It's it's not hard.

We're already doing it now.

Yeah.

Fantastic.

Smoke.

Thank you.

Thanks so much for coming to talk to us this evening.

Um you mentioned 2500 people or more at the opening day, which is awesome.

Yeah.

Um how how are you promoting that to the local community?

I know you mentioned some of the local organizations, but for example, I almost always hear about everything, and I did not hear about that.

So how are you kind of working on the outreach to the local?

So we uh worked with Do Napa to get it out.

We also worked with um Visit Napa Valley to get the word out.

We we also social media did to the locals, not just followers.

We uh we we boosted it, so we we got it out to the masses.

That's why it was so big.

Now how you didn't see it, I have no idea.

Um I'll be uh signing up for your uh social media account when I get home.

Second piece just on the local membership, um, because that is something I think like you had mentioned that's really important for the downtime in the valley, right, when you don't have the tourists during the week.

Yeah.

Um you said that was gonna be an approachable membership as far as uh costs.

What are you roughly thinking for the membership?

Like twenty, thirty bucks a month.

Something something nominal, yeah.

Is that like an unlimited or twice a week or what are you thinking about?

They probably do Monday to Thursday, yeah, or even Friday.

And then Yeah.

But it's it's it's interesting is gondolas are super popular.

Kayaks people are still hesitant because they're gonna get in the water.

But having done it a million times, it's not that big a deal, but once you get 'em in once they'll keep going, but it's getting them in.

Like I said, tourists don't have an issue because they don't have any preconceived notions about the water.

We're locals do.

So when we do get locals in, it's just gonna it's it'll be a snowball thing.

So once we get one, you know, they'll keep coming back.

'Cause when they go and see how pretty it is, especially if they get in a canoe and they can take three of their kids with them.

It's uh I I see it just being just like the gondolist starts out slow and then ramps up.

Great.

No, that's really exciting.

It's something I actually really like kayaking, so it'll be fun to see it for your locals.

God willing if we can get the C track to participate in in reciprocation and that you know then that that'll be great because then we'll get they have a giant club and then we'll get more people here to take a look at our river.

Fabulous.

Thanks for doing what you're doing.

Thank you.

Jeffrey or Joe?

Thank you.

Um, um thank you uh Sean for the presentation.

You're welcome.

How how many uh passengers do the Duffy boats accommodate?

Six.

Six.

Yeah.

It accommodates more, but we limit it to six.

How far up the up the river can you go in a Duffy boat?

Can you go farther than the Duffy boat than a gondola?

No.

Well, they can go farther faster.

We can go to places that the Duffy boat can't go because our draft is this much where the Duffy is a lot they have to have they have to have more water underneath them.

So their path is generally south.

So they like to go south towards Kennedy to see the uh the birds out that way, maybe go through the neighborhoods.

Um where we tend to like to go to head towards the yard and copia, because we get out of the wind.

Is you know, when you row, the wind is the the true enemy of the gondolier.

So it's it's perfect that dock is perfect for gondolas because we can get out of the wind and the wind starts now all the way until we get hot in September.

And the route that you take for the the cruises is it depends on the weather and the tide and No, we'd always go south on that.

Sometimes if we have a super high tide, we'll go up by downtown Joe's, maybe to Takeria Maria and back down that way.

But it starts to get a little hairy past uh Takaria Maria for uh things under the water and the depth of the water.

Even at high tide.

Do you supervise the kayak operation?

Yes.

So the the rentals that are um it seems like that has become less of a focus than in previous years.

Well uh during COVID, kayaks were very popular.

When I inherited the the kayak business, I went through the data to look at it, and there was me moderate uh it was kind of flatlined and then COVID hit and it really peaked because there was nothing to do in outside, you know, besides gondola or kayaks.

So cop kayaks went way up and then as soon as um everything c reopened it's it crashed.

So we're now seeing in a this is one of the other things we're gonna do this year, is uh we're working with uh a group of manufacturers to do a demo day down at the dock.

And when I was having my meeting with him and I said, How is it business for you guys?

He says, It's very tough.

It's not like it was during COVID.

Um a handful of the big uh manufacturers have gone out of business and have been bought by um Bass Pro Shops.

Bass Pro Shop has bought the majority of the big kayak companies.

So kayaking is kind of uh dying, if you will.

Um but um and and also participation is kinda slowed down a lot too.

Yeah.

I don't know why.

Um it just is.

Thank you.

Um Mike, I think you had another question.

Um when you have maintenance you have to do maintenance on the gondola.

Do you have to have a dry dock somewhere?

You take them out of water or uh Yeah, so over time I have really have um um learned a lot about maintenance on wood boats.

Uh we work with the marina in just south of town, and we're very good, we're great customers of theirs.

So they do all of our maintenance.

Oh yeah.

Um we do a little bit it's funny is there's a guru down there who's been working on wood boats forever, and he's teaching one of our gondolers how to do it because once he's gone, that's gonna be it.

It's kind of the same issue they have in Venice.

All the old boat makers are dying, and there's no one backfilling it because the kids don't want to do it in Venice.

So it's it's uh it's becoming a lost art.

And thank God one of my guys is really interested in in in knowing all the nuances on how to maintain a wood boat in a salt water environment.

But we have honed it in.

It took a while to um work my way through it.

You know, not having a um I don't have a trailer for those gondolas, so they're in the water all year round.

In the winter we storm down at the marina under a roof, uh we take them out, we have to bottom paint them, get the barnacles off.

If uh planks need to be replaced, we'd redo that, and then it's a constant painting chore.

Any other questions?

I have one silly one.

Go ahead.

Do any of your gondolers sing?

They all do.

They all do.

They none of them did when they started, but they all do now.

And they all sing in Italian.

Even the high school kid.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I had uh I went a year and I vowed I wasn't gonna sing, and I was like, I was getting asked too many times.

Do you sing, do you sing, do you sing?

And I finally broke down, learned a song, and then took another six months to work up the nerve to sing it in front of somebody.

But again, no, no, uh, traditionally gondoliers don't sing.

There was a uh an opera that was written by Gilbert and Sullivan in nineteen oh eight, and that's where the the stereotype of the singing gondolier came from.

But the gondoliers in Venice all like hate that stereotype.

Because of these macho men and opera singers aren't typically macho guys.

So there's been a uh there's been a kind of a pushback on it, and uh what's funny is like lately in the last 10 years, because they get bigger tips, they'll all learn to sing, and it's the same for here.

The more you sing, the better the tips.

Well, I've learned a lot.

Yeah, and uh going last, you know, uh most of the things I was curious to learn about have been asked and answered.

So thank you.

Uh I'm on the and I've been on the board of directors of Friends of the Napa River for a very long time.

You guys gave me uh your um, you wrote something good, I hope uh to get the contract.

Yeah.

Um, but you know, Friends of the Napa River is is clearly primarily focused on the health of the Napa River and the watershed, but also secondly, something else that you've said numerous times and was asked by some of my uh uh commit uh colleagues on the commission, and that's getting locals to realize this valuable resource that we have in our own community, and it's really like the spine that runs through the Napa Valley, and and I've been here I don't know, 35 years, and I could probably count on one hand the number of times I've been out on the river prior prior to getting on the board of the the Friends of the Napa River, and and those uh electric uh boat rides are awesome.

Uh everything you're doing is very cool.

So uh thank you.

You know, congratulations and keep up the good work.

Thank you very much.

All right, thank you.

Thank you very much.

All right, thank you guys.

All right.

Thanks, Sean.

Okay, on to administrative reports.

Uh we have the Harvest Park Project update, community engagement planning from Allie.

And uh thank you very much.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

I was looking for the button because of hearing.

Okay, because it's buttons on the other side now.

Uh yes, okay.

Okay.

Good evening, commissioners.

Commissioners Allie Koenig, uh, parks planning manager.

Uh yeah, excited to be here this evening to do a presentation on this project, as Rex uh mentioned, uh, very exciting uh time for the city of Napa.

Um, also excited to do the first reveal of the project logo.

So um we worked with our uh city manager's office and branding team to um put together a logo and tagline that will help represent the project's goals and aspirations.

Um so as you'll see, we have our brand mark and then play connect belong.

So you'll see more of this logo as we move into the project and community engagement.

So this evening, uh we're at a significant milestone in the project, and so we'll be discussing a status update on um where we are, what our next steps are uh related to the acquisition and development of the former Harvest Middle School property.

Um this project uh is setting the stage for Napa's first public recreation and aquatic center.

And um this evening uh we'll do a recap on the presentation that was done at the January 2026 meeting to discuss the milestones at that point in time, uh, provide an overview and background on on the project and what our goals are, our upcoming milestones, and then particularly um community engagement.

Uh what we're anticipating doing for community engagement for this project.

Uh and there is a recommended action for this agenda item to get input from the commission on the community engagement approach um and some of our next steps.

So in January of this year, uh we brought a presentation on uh the status of this project.

So uh in September of 2025, the city council approved a purchase and sale agreement uh with Napa Unified School District uh to acquire the Harvest Middle School property on Old Sonoma Road.

Um this was uh a step forward from the closure of that that uh middle school in 2022.

Even prior to that, there was community engagement by the school district to discuss what it would mean for the city to to acquire it.

Um so following September, it launched into an eighty-five day due diligence period where the city initiated a number of parallel efforts to understand the site, do some feasibility studies, technical analysis, understand what the cost would be to operate the property in an interim basis and develop the next steps for a long-term vision.

In the interim, we've undergone a number of repairs and maintenance on the facility to bring it up to a higher level for the public.

So we'll highlight that a bit.

Additionally, using our Placer AI data, we can also see the traffic at the site.

And just in the last year, we've seen over 60% visitor increase on weekends.

So the site was open to the public last year to use at its leisure.

And since then, since we've acquired it and brought it under city operations, we've seen that spike.

So it's good to see the use by the community.

So now launching into our project here.

This project represents a significant investment in Napa's public recreation aimed at enhancing the quality of life in our community while meeting our key recreation facility gaps.

As you can see, the aerial photo on the right hand side shows our 26-acre property and some of its key features.

This property offers opportunity to meet key gaps with facilities that NAPA does not currently have, and so we'll learn a lot about that here through the process.

So in the last several months, we've launched an RFP to solicit services for design.

This kicked off in January.

We did a competitive process through our online portal to solicit proposals from qualified architectural firms who are qualified to work on aquatic and recreation facility large-scale projects.

And as a result, we received 16 proposals from firms across California, mostly in the North Bay.

We completed a thorough evaluation.

We had a cross-departmental panel evaluating proposals, checking references, interviewing.

We went through a very diligent detailed process to ensure that we were making the best selection of a team that would help move this project forward.

Following that evaluation, we've since proceeded to award and city council awarded that the project agreement to Nolan TAM architects.

They're a Bay Area Architectural firm.

They're out of Berkeley.

They were founded in 1992, and they've worked on many recreation aquatic projects.

Most recently, they were they worked on Walnut Creek Aquatics Project, which is now in construction.

And so we're really excited to work with this project team.

They've assembled a number of subconsultants, both locally here from NAPA and other qualified companies to help deliver the services.

And then since May, we've worked through agreement terms and are ready to launch here in June.

So some upcoming project milestones, if you want to take a look at your attachment in your packet, this identifies the number of milestones that we'll see in phase one.

So this project has three phases.

Phase one is focused on concept design.

Phase two will be our construction documentation and bidding, and then phase three is construction administration once the project is in construction.

And so the concept design has mentioned launching in June, and then moving through essentially the fall of next year.

And this first major step that we'll launch into is community engagement to collect input from the community on what they're hoping to see out of the property.

We'll then move into a concept development overall, and then two design alternatives that will get brought forward in the beginning of 2027, and those will be vetted again through council, commission, the community, to then bring us to one modified preferred design that represents what the community either voted for in the two design alternatives, and any additional feedback that was received.

So after that modified preferred design is then approved, we would move through with any final cost estimating a financial study for long-term operations for what the concept is proposing, traffic study for the outlying area, how we would phase the improvements, our environmental impacts, and then adoption by council.

So leading up to this point, we've received a lot of community input on our facilities.

Last year we brought forward many of those results, and we knew with such a significant project that we wanted to go into the concept planning with the baseline idea of what are the community interests.

This was an extensive effort through statistically valid surveys, in-person community meetings, our commission meetings, as well as an open survey.

So as you can see, some of the response levels there.

That's told us a lot about what the city's the community may be interested in seeing at the harvest site.

And here's a table showing the results from each of those various efforts, which is really interesting to see because the types of facilities that are listed on the left-hand side, as you can see through the controlled survey, which was the statistically valid survey, and then the open, and then the city, and then a citywide survey survey that was done through our city manager's office.

They're all very consistent.

We're seeing top recommended rec facilities aquatics being number one, multi-use facilities, as number two, sports courts, which is a collective for pickleball, tennis, badminton, and other sport court uses, followed by a recreation gymnasium, sports fields, and then passive or gathering amenities, picnic areas, pathways, et cetera.

So all of this information is really helpful and significant in the process because it gives a strong baseline for what we might hear from the public.

That said, we will still be launching into significant community engagement for this project.

And here are several of the efforts that will be underway starting very soon.

We'll do an analysis of the 2025 citywide survey results.

We'll launch into a site-specific survey.

We'll host four town hall meetings, one with the council, bilingual meeting on site, a Spanish-only meeting on site, and then also a virtual option for anyone who can't attend any in-person meetings.

We'll also be doing focus groups, pop-ups at community events, local neighborhood outreach, and other civic organization outreach.

So here are some of the focused group categories that we're starting to organize based on what we're hearing from the community, and an effort to hear from a lot of different stakeholders.

And so based on some of the last few slides, so we'll we will be focusing on hearing from our commissions, you guys here at our meetings, city council, groups related to aquatics, our sports field users, our sports court users, our gym users, local programming organizations, so groups that may use indoor multi-use space, seniors, youth and families, inclusive based groups, our neighboring residents, and then passive park users.

So this evening uh we're hoping to provide all this information and gain any uh input or considerations that uh city staff should consider through our next steps and community engagement efforts.

Thank you.

Just gets more and more impressive as the uh weeks and months go by.

Does anybody have questions for Allie?

Okay, Mike.

What's uh you what's a pop-up um for community group?

What's that?

Yeah, so for pop-ups, meaning that uh we would essentially pop up at an existing community event.

So go to where people are going.

Show up with table, tabling at an existing community event.

Like participating in a farmer's market event, we can go out there and interact with the public.

That sounds like a new cereal or something.

Simone.

Thank you so much for presenting on this.

So I have actually a number of thoughts, questions.

Um the first thing I see on this is that we really it looks like we're trying to be a lot of things to a lot of different people.

Um, and with a 28-acre facility, I really uh wonder how that's gonna all play out, just given how many pieces we're trying to fit onto this property, also giving its existing infrastructure, which was very helpful for the commission to see last month, and we appreciate you guys walking us around.

Um, for example, when I see some of this information out of the surveys, I'm wondering if it's because we have more vocal people in the community who are raising these issues.

So, for example, I play tennis, I play pickleball, but my kids are athletes on fields, soccer and baseball.

And I think if you look at the sheer numbers, we're gonna find that, for example, artificial and natural sports fields are used a lot more than tenants courts or pickleball courts.

Um, and so I'm just curious how we're gonna make sure that the surveys really match the reality as we figure out how this property is all gonna come together.

That's a great question.

I'll start with it, and then Allie can chime in.

You mentioned a couple of you know constraints, just the size of the property, all the various you know, things that the community is going to desire to have on this property, and on top of that, we're gonna have financial limitations.

There's only going to be so much that the the city will have to spend on this project.

So that is our biggest concern out of the gate is that this is not going to solve all the community's issues, and it will not be able to host all the things on this property, you know, that everybody wants.

So our approach going into this and in the guidance that we'll be giving our design team is multi-use multi-generational and there will probably be um limited space available for you know specialty or kind of designated space yeah yeah I just think as we think about this this is really a complicated project and it's really an exciting project um but these numbers are a bit surprising to me based on my experience in the community and the number of people who are actually utilizing the facilities so I just want to make sure as we're looking at this that we get that really lined up with where the needs are as opposed to vocal communities right yeah um because vocal communities are going to get people to fill out the survey yeah and yeah and I'm in a lot of those groups so I see the communications around pickleball and splash pads etc.

But when you have a situation for example like field sports that are more spread out across a number of organizations we have Napa Napa Little here tonight uh Napa United etc.

They're gonna really have to work to come together because I think if you look at sheer numbers the field sports are going to be far larger than some of these other considerations.

And then we have the challenge of a 28 acre property that fields are quite large right so how many can you really conceivably fit onto this property not as many as you could pickleball courts for example or you know something else.

So I just I think when I see this it really looks like we're trying to be a lot of things to a lot of people and like seeing that we're trying to do even passive space you know this may not be a passive space location right and we may have to ultimately say to the community look we can't do everything for everybody but what we can do is accomplish certain needs and then we're gonna have to look to other locations right to solve a passive space I mean we have what 45 parks in the city of Napa it may be for example that passive space is not something that ends up on this facility right um if that makes any sense look at this kind of big picture it absolutely does and I think looking at the statistically valid numbers first were important for us for having a sense of just what the general community wants and we have incredible insights not just from our place or AI data but in renting fields to the community we know what fields are being used by how many people and how many hours a week and how many months of the year and we have all that data from the school district.

So that really captures I think we have a really good understanding of the field use in this in this community as well.

And that'll be I think really helpful if we look at this that we don't forget that data as well because I I do have some concerns about for example only relying upon survey data to then build out the models that we're gonna present to the community.

Yeah.

Well the survey data is being provided to the design team and then we will be launching into the robust I think site specific community engagement to actually build out the designs hopefully by the end of the year.

So it sounds like then there'll be flexibility to adjust based on community feedback.

Oh absolutely that's I mean the intent of doing great questions feedback for sure uh Joe.

Um couple quick ones um you mentioned that this commission's gonna be included in the stakeholder meetings July through September are they going to come here to and will this be agendized so that we as a commission can provide input and feedback collectively how are we gonna how we're gonna do that.

Yes so we'll uh we'll approach the different stakeholder groups differently so yes for a style of commission we would come to the commission meetings or council come to the council meetings okay um and then for other groups that are more focused we would hold host those in you know in a meeting room or virtually well fair enough I just wanted to make sure that there was dedicated time for this commission to provide input yes much like the questions that Simone just raised um when the engagement summary report and recommendations are released in October.

How is that information shared?

Who gets it?

Is it presented to council?

Is it released publicly?

What's the mechanism for letting people know what the findings were.

So for the the October milestone is related to when the community engagement would close and then launch into the design planning.

So the next public point would be in the new year when that information is presented with uh feedback and then how that's being displayed in the design alternatives.

Okay.

I'm interested in that because I think getting a sense of what the design team heard from the community.

Not that we want to, you know, inject ourselves into a particular point in the process and slow them down, but it might be helpful to know what were your what were your final findings that you will be using in your design process rather than here's what we heard and now we've moved on to the design based on what we heard.

It's a am I making it?

You are you are making sense, and we've been following a couple other cities that are a little further out ahead of us in this process as well, and certain pieces of the community feedback will be simpler for us to synthesize.

Um we're looking at a city that did kind of post a depth of their community engagement online so you can and surveys are more simple because it really comes down to data.

So I think it's um more the the qualitative stuff that you hear in public meetings might be a little bit more challenging to s synthesize, but we'll do our best to be as transparent and to make as much of the information public as possible.

Yeah, I I guess, yeah, I guess just the transparency part is what I'm really interested in, right?

Because we don't want people to feel like they provided all this engagement and everything like that.

And then the design came back.

Well, we heard you, and here's what we came up with.

It feels like there may there may be a gap there that people may feel like, oh, well, thanks, but I could have used more information before you got too far down the road.

Absolutely, and I think even being very transparent or as transparent as possible in the process, that's still gonna be a challenge because what we hear from the community is not going to be able to wipe, everything we hear from the community, I understand just context, I guess, for the final design uh would be helpful.

Real quick, what's do we know what's driving the increase in usage out there?

I mean, is it just the fact that the city took it over and started to schedule it more, or did people just not know that the site was accessible before the city took it over?

The the usage up there is increases remarkable.

Uh I mean we can only speculate, but um, you know, Allie spoke to the investment we have done even on the interim basis and making the the turf more.

So people just sort of organically found out that hey, it's a much better place.

Yeah.

We also have uh the Lost Flores Community Center close.

So I think that's driven some additional traffic um over as well.

And the challenges that um Little League spoke about going on at the school district where people are driven off of school district fields till after six has also driven more people our way.

Thank you.

Darren, did you have a question?

I do, yeah.

Um thank you for that.

That was really exciting to see.

Um I'm really eager to um see the design develop and um yeah, just essentially kind of see the the spaces that get created in this.

And um I'm curious, um, you know, gonna do a lot of uh excited to learn more about the architecture firm that was selected, and I'm curious if there are any other um precedent projects that you all are excited by or um that you're hoping that this project is kind of modeled after that you've been looking into.

I'll let Ellie think about that one for for a second, but just speaking to uh, you know, your your first point about uh being excited for the design when we get to our milestone at the end of the year, or I think it's in January to have two concept plans, it's essentially gonna be kind of bubbles on the map, and that's what it will start to share with us and share with the community what the ingredients are gonna be.

Um, whether it's like one pool and one field and eight courts, you know, we'll we'll start to see that formulate.

Um, but then we'll launch into design from there.

So it'll be an additional number of months before we'll kind of start to see this the style um of of the architecture.

And there's several projects we're looking at.

There's no like one slam dunk that I can say is exactly like ours, but there's a few that we're watching.

Yeah, we're trying to keep an eye on new construction, new projects out there.

Um we're finding in kind of ingredients of the different facilities.

Is to actually see some facilities, and so uh we'll have a chance to think about precedent projects and what we might want to work toward.

All right, Jeff.

Um my main concern I think at this point would be um to to know how you're planning to form the focus group of neighboring residents, uh, how you how you plan to um apprise them, apprise the neighborhood of the plans.

And I think that's been expressed by a couple people, but um, how many people would be on the neighboring resident focus group and how you go about giving notice in a way that that will you know uh trigger their interest.

Great question.

You know, the stakeholder groups uh will be a little bit easier because we know who our leagues are and we know who our user groups are, and it'll be easier to bring them to the table, you know, as as a as like-minded groups and kind of facilitate it that way.

Well, uh we're also planning to do general community outreach to the whole entire community.

Similar with the survey, we did a mailer to every single household in Napa, in the city newsletter, in the department lose newsletter, on social media.

I mean, we will use all the tools, but um most affected to the neighborhood.

We usually do an additional mailing to a certain radius within any project site.

Um, and sometimes we've even done, you know, door hangers, um, you know, on doorsteps, especially for homes that are adjacent.

Yeah, yeah.

We plan to do that.

I we haven't talked about a specific radius at this juncture.

Okay, cool.

Thank you.

Mike, another question.

Yeah, Simone's uh your question was her comment was very well taken about when you start big projects like that, there's always a hesitant, you know, hesitation to do too much with too little, and you you know you get you can run away from you, you know, go south real fast with some of my experiences I've had with schools.

So uh and I think it's possible you can get it done because these focus groups are gonna probably even expand as soon as the word gets out.

You know, I haven't even heard from dog lovers yet, you know.

I mean, people are gonna want they got a lot of interest, yeah, and they're gonna see 27 acres, and wow, I'm gonna get my two cents in there, you know.

So I think it's really important that the city in particular and the parks really be focusing and that you're consistent in the messes of how to sell it.

Uh, what's best for the for the city in Napa?

So it's gonna be a challenge because this is a major, major thing.

It's never happened in Napa if we were like this, you know.

So it's gonna be an interesting ride through, but uh it's got a great potential.

This is you know unbelievable potential.

So, Trajan, do you have any anything to add?

Um I symone, go for it.

Just one other thing that I wanted to ask about.

Um, it had come up at our last meeting, our walking meeting.

Walking meetings are fun, we should do them again.

Um, was around sort of ease of access to the property.

So is that something that is being, I assume, um, is there community outreach on that, or is that more on the design phase of how do we get into the property safely?

Because right now we're just with the old Sonoma Road entrance.

I know there had been some discussion of potential considerations for other entrances in, and with that, even for example, is there a potential to get an easement to enter on the backside, so where the the fields currently are.

Is that all being looked at in this process?

Because you're gonna add a lot of traffic to old Sonoma Road, and that is a really squirrely entrance, even there isn't an off-ramp from the freeway, so it's it's really kind of actually a messy entrance into there.

Um, so is that part of the consideration of how do we make this a safer access into the property, both not only for people coming, but also for the neighborhood as well.

And are we kind of exploring all potential avenues to make that as you know smart as possible?

Uh yes to both of those.

Yes, it is part of the process, and as we get down to two concept plans, and especially once we get into a preferred design, it will be doing full traffic engineering studies, everything is on the table, a site of that size will likely need more than one entrance if it's feasible.

Um of the reasons that we'll be looking at some passive, so getting to the property is a concern and then navigating through the property, especially something of this size, which is why there will need to be some passive spaces, whether it's just connectivity or some gathering spaces just because of the size of this project.

And just last question there.

Um right now there are no stoplights at any even potential access points.

Um will that be part of the consideration as well when we're looking at you know total budget and feasibility?

Yes, yep.

And pedestrian access and bike access and all the safe, yeah, safe roads, I think is a big initiative of our council and the community.

Um, so it would definitely be very pertinent to this project.

Great, thank you.

Anyone else?

I don't know if I was supposed to do this before, but is it okay to see if our two members of the public have any comment on this since they've stuck around for the entire meeting?

Yeah, very curious to hear about Sean or Katie.

You guys, if you have anything to add, now's the time.

Just come up to the microphone.

Come up to the microphone if if you if you want to, and don't feel like you have to if you don't want to.

I have questions on the uh adjacently addressed.

Um, I had a couple questions.

And uh will when you know dirt starts getting moved, will the actual construction impact existing uses of the facility and and potentially compound issues like Katie raised an hour ago with you know other uses and things like that.

It almost seems unavoidable.

We don't know for sure, but I agree with you.

I don't think there is a pathway forward that doesn't impact existing uses.

So our goal is to make them as minimal as possible.

Uh we'll see impacts during demolition, and that's gonna be the first thing we face is can we you know demolish the existing school buildings with limited um impact to the existing user groups?

Because you guys uh were out there recently, you saw exactly how much use this facility is getting, and uh quite frankly, there is going to be nowhere for them to go when they're displaced.

So keeping disruptions minimal is our goal, but we don't know exactly what that looks like yet.

That makes sense.

Um I was at the NAPA housing coalition meeting this afternoon, and um there was questions at that meeting about the um amount of housing that will go on this, and it's something we talked about briefly during our walking tour.

It's not been something we've really talked about tonight.

Do we know what that looks like at this point?

Uh based upon this the city's general plan, which was adopted a year or so ago, council certainly could give a different direction for either more or less housing, but since the general plan was recently adopted, we assume it's relatively in alignment with what their expectation is.

It calls for 2.65 acres of high density housing.

I think that's about 53 units.

Uh and so during this design process, we'll is an essentially just call out a uh a building envelope on the map.

It'll be a little rectangle or a square and it will just be set aside for future entitlements.

Premature to say right now where that would be on the process.

We have yeah, we don't know yet, but that will be something that we'll all be working on with the community as part of this this process.

There's a subcommittee of the housing coalition that's just bird dogging this this issue.

Um then I just looked at the recommended action receive a report by the staff on upcoming milestones and community engagement.

I think we've done that.

I mean, my my I'm impressed by the present I continue to be impressed every time, and uh it seems to me you guys are doing all the right things in terms of getting soliciting the feedback from the community, and and there's been a lot of good input and questions from the commission.

Is there anything further that we need to do here this evening?

No.

You've done it.

All right.

Well, thank you very much.

This is exciting.

Um, on to uh the last item comments by commissioners and staff, uh, bicycle and pedestrian advisory commission representative update.

That's you.

This will be easy.

I was not able to attend my first meeting, but I will be there on June 11th and we'll update at the let's see, when is our next June meeting?

I will update at the June 17th meeting.

Thanks, Simone.

Thanks for doing that.

Joe, uh Napa Parks and Recreation Foundation update.

Yeah, so uh we had one board member step away, but we have a new board member joining.

So we've managed to maintain our current board roster at 6.

Um, we are always open and uh uh open to meeting with people and considering them uh to join us.

So if you know anybody who's interested in uh getting more engaged, please let me know.

Our last meeting, we reviewed our mission and values uh in preparation for planning for the second half of the year.

Um specifically, we're gonna be working with staff to potentially identify a specific project or program that could be sorted uh supported through our give guide um outreach.

And then uh everybody has a letter, a very well-written letter that I cannot take credit for.

Uh um thanking uh staff for supporting a volunteer cleanup on April 29th.

Um our board member Drew Lehman uh led a effort to just sort of uh spruce up the Fuller Park Child Start Center.

Um there are photos there.

Um he did an amazing job with uh just a few other folks and uh some uh outstanding uh staff members, uh David, Valentin, Alex, Jose, Nate, Jesus.

Um we greatly appreciate all the support for that.

And uh it looks great.

I mean, it's um the the pictures is just brighter and more colorful and it looks wonderful.

So uh just wanted to make sure that we thank staff for the support on that effort, and also thank our own volunteer effort to um do that work.

Thanks, Joe.

Thanks for what you're doing.

Park maintenance and recreation division updates.

Is this you, Jeff?

I will make it quick.

Um Sunday afternoon.

I'm sure you guys all felt the wind.

We had Sunday and into Monday.

So we opened up the DEOC, which is kind of an unusual topic for me to talk about in May going into June.

Um typically something we deal with more in the winter.

Um so opening the DEOC is really just uh opening up an emergency operations center at our courtyard or wherever that might be and bringing in additional staff.

We had about 30 calls in a 24 hour period coming through dispatch.

Um, mostly all centered in all red the trees too as well, and mostly all centered in North Napa, which is kind of unusual.

Um, but anyways, staff did a great job.

We are still in the process.

If you've gone to any park this week, you've probably seen or walk the sidewalk.

It's lots of sticks.

So yeah, we were in the process on Sunday and even into Monday of just kind of okay, that's safe, leaving it there and having to come back and get it.

Um, probably Vineyard Park had probably the largest of trees that we lost, which were some redwoods there.

So huge shout out to staff.

They're able to work really hard and efficiently, and big thanks to our dispatch to getting all that information and passing over PG and E when we need to and all that good stuff.

So good practice for for the winter, I guess.

And that's that's it for me.

Great work.

Uh, behalf of Recreation, just wanted to share they are in full gear planning for summer programs to start.

Uh staff training will be held the week of June 8th with most of our internal camps opening the following Monday.

Uh Camp Napa will be hosted at Fuller Park this summer.

That's probably our largest internal run camp.

Uh, having the harvest property, we have a lot of contract camps that will be running out of harvest.

And thank you all for your support.

And many of you attended the Fuller Park uh ribbon cutting cutting.

We've been getting um some great feedback from the users out there on the site and some happy kids running around.

So thank you.

Great job with that opening, by the way.

Shout out to staff.

Really well done.

Um, it was produced flawlessly.

It was just a wonderful opening and a great event.

Thank you.

I was on an airplane and sorry to miss it, but uh thanks for the force.

It was busy.

I'm like, I didn't even get to say hi to Joe.

Like, and he's gone now and it's over, I know.

Simone.

Um I've been following some of the feed on Fuller Park on the Napa mom's group, and um it's mixed so far.

So I'll be curious to see how it um sort of filters out.

Um my son is there this evening right now for his first time.

So I'll report back next month.

Excellent.

What he thinks.

Um that's his second time.

Correction his second time, his first time was actually pre-opening.

And he I think we'll see.

I thought he was there with us.

He actually he did remind me this evening that he was the first to go down the slide.

That's right.

So that will be maybe his mantra for Fuller Park.

Um, but a little bit more seriously now, it does seem like some of the parents of younger children are raising some concerns about the park.

So I'll be curious just to see how it plays out.

Um, but it's so exciting to have it for our community, and it really is beautiful, and just seeing that Camp Napa's gonna be there this year, and I've already talked to a number of people who are gonna be scheduling birthday parties for the shade structure.

So it really is fabulous.

Um, but with everything, there's always you know some people who are not happy, and it does seem so far like it seems to be parents of younger kids.

Yeah.

Uh the I I think looking at the foot, even though it is our largest playground, looking at the footprint that's dedicated for two to five year olds, it is a smaller space.

We have several playgrounds in Napa that are only for two to five year olds, so I think our focus was on trying to um deliver uh a product that was geared um towards older kids.

But thankfully with 33 playgrounds, we have other options and try to have a variety for our community.

And I think that makes sense because we are except for Park Fantastico, we are lacking space for older kids.

Um, and I think what's nice about having a park like Fuller Park is you know, kids tend to age out of playgrounds.

Um, but this allows kids to stay in that space a little bit longer, which with everything going on in the world, technology, et cetera, you know, these are positives for the community when we hear about the gondoliers in high school.

These are all things that are really positive to get kids out into the community as much as possible.

So that's really been the only complaint that I've seen is for the younger kids.

We got a couple of phone calls, and you know, it's like there's big kids everywhere.

Yeah.

That's good.

Any final comments by commissioner staff?

Yes, Mike.

Yeah, just from the concept of safety, from what was there before.

There shouldn't be zero complaints of what what you produced.

I mean, you know, I maybe have a little biased kid, but just safety alone.

And in talking to people in the community, I I I stay on that that uh aspect of the whole thing from what was what's safe, you know.

I mean, as far as how it looks and the colors and uh the art impact, yeah, it's part of it, but it's a safety.

You can't compare to what was there.

Well, some of us remember playing on playgrounds prior to 1981, which is when uh playground safety standards were implemented, and so now there are a whole host of provisions.

That was 1981.

I'm surprised more of us didn't die.

Uh any other comments?

Um yes, Trajan.

Uh I just had one thing about Fuller Park.

I normally do a walk around Fuller Park, and I've had to move it by like an hour later because there is so many people using the park now, and it is so loud that it is no longer like the quite the experience that I Darn it.

I'm looking for so I uh that's a good thing overall, but like, yeah, if you want passive, you're gonna have to go somewhere else.

I just wait until it's dark now and they all have to go to bed.

Anyone else?

Well, uh it's an exciting time to be a city of Napa Parks and Recreation Commissioner, that's for sure.

So uh with that, we'll adjourn this meeting uh to our next uh regularly scheduled meeting, which is June seventeenth, twenty twenty six.

Peace out