All right, good evening.

and welcome to the February 5th, 2026 Parks and Community Enrichment Commission meeting.

The meeting is now called to order.

Clerk, will you please call the roll to establish a quorum?

Thank you, Chair.

Commissioner Langer?

Commissioner Yearby?

Here.

Commissioner Robbins?

Present.

Commissioner Labor?

Here.

Commissioner King?

Here.

Chair Gaines?

Here.

Commissioner Vasquez? Here. Commissioner Flores? Here. Commissioner Lange? Here. And Commissioner Boone? Absent. Thank you. We have a quorum.

Thank you. So I would like to remind members of the public in chambers that if you would like to speak on an agenda item to please turn in a speaker slip before the item begins.

and after the item is called, we will no longer accept speaker slips.

You will have two minutes to speak once you are called on,

and we will now proceed with today's agenda.

So first, we are going to start with a land acknowledgement and the Pledge of Allegiance.

So if you will please rise.

So this opening acknowledgement is in honor of Sacramento's indigenous people and tribal lands.

So to the original people of this land, the Nisanan people, the Southern Maidu, Valley

and Plains Miwok, Patwin-Wintun peoples, and the people of the Wilton Rancheria, Sacramento's

only federally recognized tribe, may we acknowledge and honor the native people who came before

us and still walk beside us today on these ancestral lands by choosing to gather together

today in the active practice of acknowledgement and appreciation for Sacramento's indigenous

peoples' history, contributions, and lives.

Miigwech.

Thank you.

please remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America

and to the republic for which it stands,

one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

You may be seated.

All right.

All right, so up next is approval of the consent calendar.

Clerk, are there any members of the public

who wish to speak on the consent calendar?

Thank you, Chair, I have no speakers for this item.

All right, are there any commissioners

who would like to speak on this item?

All right, seeing none, is there a motion

and a second for the consent calendar?

I motion.

All right.

So we have a motion from Commissioner Robbins and a second from Commissioner Labor.

All in favor of passing the consent calendar, say aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

Abstain?

All right.

The motion passes.

All right.

So before we jump into the discussion calendar, we have a new commissioner who I'm excited to introduce.

So Commissioner Lang is our new mayoral commissioner.

So I'd love for you to introduce yourself.

Absolutely.

Hello, fellow commissioners.

Really excited to be here.

My name is Colin Lang.

I am a resident of District 5 on the border of District 6.

I grew up in Maryland.

I moved to California about 12 years ago, and I've lived in Sacramento for almost seven years now.

I work down on P Street with the Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety,

and I do vegetation management work for them and look at utility-caused wildfire risk.

and before that

my love was in land management

and volunteerism and I worked

for the park service for many years

as well as a couple of other land management

agencies around the Bay Area

and I led volunteer groups doing

native plant restoration in lots of

beautiful places

so I'm excited to be here

and I'm looking forward

to what we can accomplish together

Excellent, thank you so much

We're super excited to have you as part of the commission.

All right, and then one more quick little announcement.

So I just wanted to say thank you.

I was not here last month when you guys reelected me as chair.

So just thank you guys so much.

I appreciate that and your guys' belief in me.

And I know that this next year will be fantastic.

So just I wanted to say thank you before we move on.

So thank you so much.

All right, and now we're going to get into the meat of it.

So first up is the volunteer recognition program update.

Do we have a staff presentation for this item?

Yes.

It is.

Okay.

Well, then just kidding.

According to this, we'll go with expanded learning first.

I just have this.

Oh, okay.

Hello, thank you for having me here.

My name is Joyce Winger Johnson

and I am the Recreation Superintendent

in Expanded Learning.

I oversee our Sacramento Start program,

our fourth hour program,

and our Summer Oasis in the Parks program.

So I just wanted to give you kind of a quick overview

on the three programs that I oversee.

So Sacramento Start this year

is celebrating its 30 year anniversary.

Sacramento Start stands for Students Today

achieving results tomorrow.

It's been opening its doors for students across Sacramento,

creating safe and supportive spaces

where children are inspired to dream, explore, and grow.

Guided by our dedicated and passionate staff,

our programming nurtures the whole child,

engaging hearts, minds, and bodies,

and empowers the students to discover their potential

and builds futures filled with purposes,

possibility, and choice.

We are located in the Robles School District.

We operate the ACES grant at five different locations,

and all five of those locations are filled

with their grant capacity and have active waiting lists.

Our key achievements in aligning with our YPSI strategic goals

is to continuing our community relationships,

strengthening the partnerships within our schools

and community organization and volunteers.

Additionally, skill building is one of those

to increase our leadership, workforce development

and wellness and supporting the youth development,

expanding inclusive programs for and supporting

our youth and special needs and family support.

In partnering with the START program, I just wanted to give a shout out to a couple of

our special collaborations with 7-11, SAC PD, Food Literacy, United Way, Playworks, Girl

Stouts, Running for Rhett, Sacramento Food Bank, and 4-H, which has made our program

grow in those programming aspects.

Our fourth R program is excited to celebrate our 40th anniversary this year.

So since 1986, 4th R has been trusted place within TK for sixth grade for kids to learn, play, and grow in Sacramento County.

For four decades, our wonderful staff have created a safe, welcoming, and recreation-based environment

where children build confidence, friendships, and lifelong memories, making lasting impact on generation and families.

Save the date for June 6th.

At North Natomas, we are going to be doing our anniversary party.

We will have games, swimming, celebrations, a dunk tank.

So if you're interested in being in the dunk tank, raise your hand or email me.

We'd love to have you a part of that.

Or you can just call out somebody and we can invite them.

All right, let's do it.

I just wanted to ask quickly, does anybody know what 4th R and why it's called 4th R?

What the R stands for?

I took a stab with the R being recreation.

It is.

So there was an old saying, reading, writing, arithmetic, and the R was recreation.

And that's kind of what our program is, is we're recreation-based.

So we're in 17 locations around the greater Sacramento area in the Natoma School District,

the Sac City School District, and the Twin River School District.

We're in six different council districts serving over 2,800 students.

we want to align making sure our milestones with the YPSC strategic plans that we continue our

partnerships we have new partnerships with the Natoma school district in serving their ELOP grants

our current grant with them is 420 students next year we are moving up to 660 and then we have

another collaboration that we have just established with the Twin Rivers again expanding with their

ELOP grants for an additional 100 spots at our one location, which is at Regency Park.

We want to continue to support our families and youth development in creating these quarterly

family nights.

We've done art craft nights.

We've done paint nights, bingo nights.

We just had our glow party last Friday at North Anatomis, Sutterville, and Coloma.

That was quite the success.

Again, we want to continue to promote our health and wellness, accessibility for those

that we want to make sure that we have access to supports with our child action campaigns

and making sure that's equitable across the board.

We have partnerships that we want to continue to establish and continue to make strong within

our community.

Our Sacramento State, we place College Corp. students at our centers.

We have Chad, which are child, adolescent, and development interns that are currently

their spring semester are actively engaging into our program, including our local high

schools and their volunteers, our partnerships with our local police fire and library, and

many others that we want to make sure that we celebrate that make forth our special.

Our summer oasis park camps are at two locations, William Land Park and North Natomas.

Last year we served 120 spots at each of those camp locations.

This year we're looking to increase our capacity at those.

So we try to get rid of the wait list that we have been having for the couple years.

And so that is going to be one of our strong goals going forward for our Summer Oasis Camp Program.

So that is a quick recap of our three programs that I oversee.

Open it up if anybody has questions.

Thank you.

Clerk, are there any members of the public who would like to speak on this item?

Thank you, Chair.

Yes, I have one speaker for this item.

Can I please, as Lambert, come up, please?

Yes, one of the reasons I come here, especially to YPSI,

is because of Jackie Beecham.

She's done a lot of things, not just her, but other people.

I can't think of this lady in the back's name,

but I know who she is by her face.

And I wanted to say that Yipsy has done a wonderful job

in the neighborhood I come from, which is Del Paso Heights.

She's done some incredible outside the box.

Well, Yipsy, under her leadership, has done a lot of things.

that are admirable. And I must be committed because I'm the only one, I believe in this

audience that's not on the payroll. So I have to be here for that. Also, my family, we own a

cheesecake business and Jackie patronized us. Very few departments down here patronized us

and she patronized us in a big way.

And so I wanted to say that.

I also wanted to say, even if she's not here,

I'm sure she's listening,

that our mother's cheesecakes will be featured

at the Super Bowl this weekend,

not in the Super Bowl.

The day before there's going to be an event there

and I'm going to leave a,

we have a tremendous millennial following.

I'm a baby boomer so the millennials children and their friends they came up with a brilliant idea

and I'll give it to you later the QR code I didn't even know what that was they came up with a QR code

and they said and I'll explain it later I know Jackie will be happy for us that there's a way to

go viral globally in the Bay Area well being a boomer I want to see it I know about the cheesecake

but I want to see this global thing

but I'll explain it more later

but shout out to Ypsi

under her leadership

Thank you for your comments

Chair we have no more comments at this

Thank you, thank you for your comment

I will say there are two people in the audience who are not on the payroll

so

but thank you so much for being here

and congratulations on your Super Bowl

Alright, are there any

commissioners who would like to speak on this item?

I'll just say thank you so much.

Two of my four boys have gone through the fourth R program, my nieces and nephews, and just very aware of what these programs do for the community and just how they increase engagement and just a sense of community, both on school sites and around.

So just thank you.

Thank you for everything you do and your team.

Commissioner Laver.

I had a question.

You mentioned 7-Eleven.

Yeah.

So what other companies or what does 7-Eleven do

or do you get support financially from other corporations or companies?

We don't get support from 7-Eleven,

but they are a sponsor of our backpack drive.

So in August, we do a backpack giveaway for the students of Robla,

and they provide backpacks and school supplies

that go in the backpacks to the students.

So there's no other financing from corporations

corporations that support you?

No.

It's all like government funded?

It's ACEs funded, it's a grant by the CDE.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah.

I had a question, I know that there's

some different like statewide networks

of expanded learning groups like California

After School Network and other organizations

that are working on like a larger scale,

especially when it comes to advocacy around expanded learning.

Is the City of Sacramento participating in any of those networks?

We do with our CDE and our grant.

They do those.

We're part of Region 3, and we have meetings monthly to talk about that advocacy.

Excellent.

All right.

Well, thank you so much.

It sounds like you guys are doing really great work, so thank you so much for being here.

All right.

So that was receive and file.

So we will move on to the next item in the discussion calendar, which is volunteer in parks VIP program.

Is there a staff presentation?

I see staff coming up.

There is.

All right.

Good evening, everyone.

I'm Sarah Musser, park maintenance superintendent over citywide services.

And I'm here to talk to you about the volunteer parks program.

I might refer to it as VIP along the way.

just so that we can kind of get through it.

But I'm excited to share an update with you

and what's been going on over the past year.

We've seen incredible engagement from our community,

and we're excited about the momentum that we have.

What you're seeing here is sustained growth,

not just in volunteer and hours,

but in outcomes like tree plantings

and diversifying our opportunities that we provide.

Participation increased across every month,

which signals system improvement, not luck.

As the VIP program became more structured and accessible,

we saw a lot more engagement, more capacity,

and measurable impacts within our parks.

As you'll see, some of our numbers here we're really proud of,

the 122% increase, 118% increase in February and March.

Those are peak tree planting times.

So you see those increases there,

but you can see all the months as well.

We currently have over 1,000 volunteer constituents

in our databases.

That's not something we've had in the past.

As we sit here, I've had 15 more this week signed up.

So I know as you all have your plantings

and YPSI continues to provide its plantings,

we're getting more and more people

within our constituent base that we can reach out to.

And we utilize our platforms such as social media,

our forms that we have here at the City Hall through Microsoft, and Better Impact.

As you know, we used to use ActiveNet to help volunteer management.

That system really is set up to monitor and manage recreation programs, not people.

And when Jackie and Shannon kind of spearheaded this work group idea,

we needed to focus on engaging our community and making sure that the volunteers felt engaged

and interested and had buy-in to come back.

Part of that was increasing their experience

and how they interact with us

and making it easier for us as staff

to engage with volunteers.

As this number continues to grow,

as it shows that it will,

we're gonna have to have the capacity

to manage and communicate

and express our appreciation to these volunteers.

And some of these platforms

are really, really adept to do that.

I signed in this morning.

We have 10 or 15 volunteers that are celebrating birthdays this week.

It just takes a click of a button and a quick happy birthday.

That means so much, and this platform helps us do that.

So I just wanted to take a moment to kind of slide in on that a little bit.

So consistency matters to us.

Our branding standards ensure that every interaction reflects our values and our mission here in YPSI and within the city.

This helps us build trust and recognition across all of our touch points from signage to digital communications

So our volunteers and partners know that they're part of something meaningful

this right here is a picture of

One of the signs that's going to be replaced in our McKinley Rose Garden

It just kind of shows you the direction. We're going in with some of our branding

so to

One of our exciting updates is our new trailer as you see here

You may have seen it out and about if not you will because it's going to be out and about

So it's going to enhance our availability and support to our volunteer activities

This investment shows that our commitment to improving resources for our teams and making volunteer work more efficient and enjoyable

To support this growth the department's going to continue to establish clear and consistent processes for requesting volunteer events as well as

diversifying the opportunities offered.

There is a very clear and distinct tree planting line or timeline.

And when that ends in April,

there's still a whole heck of a lot of time left in the year that we can still

engage the community, bring them into our parks,

and really show them what we do as EFC.

So continuing to streamline our processes is going to ensure that requests are

reviewed and coordinated and routed properly.

That's not just requests from community,

but that's requests from you all because we want to make sure that it aligns

with our park priorities, we have proper staffing

and resources and funding when it's applicable.

We're hoping to offer new trainings

and expand collaborations with local organizations

to increase our impact citywide.

And pairing accessible volunteer opportunities

with internal processes, we're gonna be building

a sustainable model that will continue to grow

and support staff capacity where we're at now

as well as in the future.

And it's gonna strengthen our community

within our partnerships and build that trust

that we hope will deliver long lasting benefits

to our Sacramento parks.

So with that said, I'm happy to take questions

that you may have.

Do we have any members of the public

who would like to speak on this item?

Thank you, Chair, we do not.

Thank you.

Vice Chair Robbins.

Yes, I just gotta thank you.

We were presenting our yearly work plan

to City Hall a couple of weeks ago

And they're just so proud of how the volunteerism has grown and grown so much and how adapted that the commissioners, this whole leadership team is there.

And just amazing to see it grow and just being a volunteer to a commissioner.

Thank you for all the hard work that you let us do.

I've seen the trailer.

I loved it.

I was at Jefferson Park.

I can't wait to do it at Gardland Park coming up pretty soon on the 21st and many more to come.

So just thank you and keep on growing the work and go volunteerism.

Love it.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

And I do want to holler out a staff.

I don't think he came.

he didn't Dennis Harris who you all know if you don't you will know get yeah

let's Dennis I'm sure he's listening if he's not I will timestamp this and he

can go back to it but Dennis Harris is our volunteer coordinator he is the man

so big shout out to him and Sean for all of their support thank you

Commissioner Laver I had a quick question on number five of the what's next for

VIP. I see

expand outreach partnerships

with a focus on increasing awareness.

Do you have like a template?

I mean, I think I'd just like to know

how to do better outreach

or are there ways that

we could help with funding?

I had the Wilton Rancheria

help out last year with

they provided water.

But I'd like to know how

we can be more informed or

have technical skills

to like do more outreach.

Absolutely.

So I had a great meeting with Dennis and Deanna

back here this week.

And we talked just about that,

you know, putting together templates,

work plans, potentially sponsorship levels,

and some kind of tools to help you with your outreach

in ways that we can be a little bit more clear

and specific about, you know,

how those processes will work.

So some of that's going to take some flushing out

as we're going to learn to mesh VIP with 916 Day

with Deanna and all that she's doing,

we're actively working on it.

So it's a strong team,

and we're going to put together something

to help guide you in that.

And when would that be?

I'm hesitant to give you a timeline,

but I would say in the next couple months,

we'll probably flesh something out for you.

This will be to help for events all year long,

not just 916, right?

Correct, yeah.

It's going to be like a toolkit.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Commissioner Vasquez?

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you so much for the presentation.

I do have some questions for you.

Okay.

So, you know, it's great to see these increases.

I'm wondering what you attribute it to.

I really think a new focus on, I don't want to put it all on better impact because that's

not absolutely 100% the truth, but better impact helps.

I think Dennis being in his place, being able to correspond and really work with the community,

He's got a longstanding relationships.

He's been in the city for a really long time.

I think that it's just a team effort.

There's not really one thing to pinpoint,

but I think leadership making that volunteerism a priority,

Jackie and Shannon and Sean putting the people in the right places to really

brainstorm and think about ways that we can make improvements.

And some of those things are working.

You know, we have pluses and minuses.

we had a couple things taken off the board as we met this week but you know

we we see the successes and I think it's truly a team effort.

Wonderful love that and then I'm wondering was everyone that was registered in

active net moved over to your new system or is it just entering them as as new

folks come along? It's entering them as new folks come along so we realized that

transitioning them from active net to better impact would be challenging for

many reasons one of which was that it's not really a great way to identify or

they just a program user are they a volunteer we don't want to take them out

of the bed out of the active net platform because they also participate in

programs and so there would be a lot of contact that would need to be made in

order to make that happen for instance my kids were at volunteer events I

register them but they also go to programs so they're still an active net

but they're also in better impact our vision is to have them in both if they

want to be a part of both but with that said you don't have to be a part of

Better Impact to register or be a part of a volunteer we have a QR code that's

scannable that they can fill out a Microsoft form I understand I don't

want another app every single time I'm trying to get doggy daycare and I've got

three apps on my phone just because I have to do that we don't want to make

that thing that now that has to be a requirement so scanning the QR code

filling out a Microsoft form and it just lives in a spreadsheet if they don't

want to do that they can then fill out the paper form but the majority of our

folks are coming on to better impact it's about a 50 50 split right now we

have about 600 in our Microsoft forms database and we have about 600 in our

better impact and so it's just a matter of copying pasting the emails sending it

better impact and then sending it out from the volunteer email address that's

the word does that make sense yeah that makes a lot of sense and I was really

surprised when I took my daughters to volunteer recently and there was a whole

new form to fill out for each of us that really took me by surprise so I think it

might be worth it to reach out to the email address as you have an active net

and say hey by the way we have a new program this is a link to it and if you

want to continue volunteering you've got to sign this up now because eight o'clock in the morning

on a Saturday wearing gloves that's not something I want to do is fill out all the forms absolutely

and that's that's part of the process you we can pull the individual activities and email those

individuals you know that could be a step in our in our process we've we've been communicating as

much as we can but I'll take a look into that yeah that'd be great because if I got one of

those emails I could re-register all three of us easily at my leisure you know absolutely and I

I know the first thing that D6 is going to ask me when I bring this back is what is the breakdown of these volunteers?

So we have this slide of how many you have by month and the increase from last year.

But these numbers would be really helpful for me to see, like, how many events did you have in District 6?

How many volunteers there are in District 6?

And I know that you collect address information.

Is the address information optional or is that required?

Would this data be possible to pull?

so we have four tree plantings for each district that was the number given to each

council office we were going to provide four tree plantings so we can pull out those dates and I can

provide you who who volunteered at those specifically I didn't pull that data and put

out for everyone to see and say, yeah, D6 had the most.

But we do have the ability to kind of pull some of that data out.

As we continue to grow within the data and the reports that we can pull from Better Impact,

that's going to be a lot easier.

But a lot of the problems with the addresses are zip codes.

They cross boundaries.

So that's a very, very tedious job to pull out every single individual and do an address search.

But we can say this number of folks showed up in D6.

I can't guarantee that they all live in D6 at that event.

I don't live in D6 and I show up at those events.

And so I would assume other people do as well.

So I can show you who showed up and supported District 6 at an event, but I wouldn't be able to identify five of the 10 that came live in District 6 without taking hours and hours and hours to pull that.

I don't want you to take hours and hours.

But I do think going forward this data would be really helpful, not just for tree plantings, but for the exact reason that you bring up, right, is that I know we have volunteers coming from different parts of the city to all, you know, of those tree plantings and all of those districts.

But I would really appreciate understanding which districts do we need to engage, you know, which commissioner here has the fewest amount of people signing into that system so that they can blast it out, right, so that their council member can put it in their outgoing messaging and say, hey, we have a new system.

this is how you volunteer so we can be more strategic in you know making these numbers even

bigger we are doing that so I've been working with marketing we have a marketing plan on we just put

out I think we another social media post went out yesterday or the day before encouraging to finish

out our winter events there was one a couple weeks ago so we're really trying to tap into

those opportunities like I said we can I can say which district had the most bodies at these events

But, again, to dial it down to who lives within that district, I wouldn't be able to do.

So we do have that data.

Again, I didn't want to make it a competition of who's got what.

But if you email me, I'd be happy to provide you some data on your district.

Sure, yeah.

Going forward, they're always going to ask me that.

Okay.

You're prepared.

I also would love to shout out Dennis.

He does such a fabulous job, not just at events, but in preparing for events and meeting with neighborhood associations, especially in District 6.

You know, all of our NAs know him by name.

And, you know, we sit in the park and we plan out what we need and how we're going to get it done.

And his follow-through is impeccable.

So I would like to give my personal thanks to Dennis as well.

Thank you for the presentation.

Thank you.

Commissioner Flores.

Thank you, Chair.

I know it was about a year ago we did a job walk on the Del Rio Trail.

We did.

And at that time, I know you and Deanna were talking about how this new platform was upcoming and some of the hiccups then.

But then some of the things you said on that job walk, I remember you can see now the fruit that it bore out throughout the rest of the year.

Because I know in creating an event, in creating a unified QR code that is simple for the neighbors to then register.

and I know, like you said, hey, if we all just had one QR code, not multiple, and we don't know who goes where,

and then throughout the year, okay, your team, Dennis, hey, we need that QR code.

We can't blast out this flyer because we want to be mindful of it's a team effort,

so let's across all the channels, then people are getting captured so they can be in the system later on,

and you can just see the bar graphs throughout the rest of the year.

So I just want to acknowledge that.

I know that was top of mind, like I said, about a year ago.

Not that the platform itself is an indication of, you know, these robust volunteer numbers,

but I know that helps in less clicks and less things to worry about so we can focus on other aspects of advertising an event and stuff like that.

But acknowledging that it does take a lot of people power behind the scenes to pull off a platform change, right?

You have to retrain people to do certain things.

Yeah, we can social media blast all day long, but you have to then click to then register, to then be reminded, to then go at 8 o'clock in the morning so you don't have to sign forms with gloves on.

So just acknowledging that part, like how to see the vision and hearing some of the bullet points back then and to see what has happened and then to see in 26, 27, how it can be even more fluid and more dynamic in that sense.

You know, now that we have about a year's worth of data, okay, what are some pros and cons?

What can we focus on?

What are the gaps?

And then let's go from there now that we're getting real, real life.

But anecdotally, I know working with the council office, we were like, we need that code to blast out.

So amongst other things in having a successful event.

So I don't think D7 was the top, but I know we're up there.

But in the spirit of competition.

But thank you to everybody in this past year and seeing the bar graphs reflects that.

Awesome. Thank you, Jill.

Commissioner Laver just one last note I see community engagement opportunities and I see

access leisure can you explain a bit about how that works out yeah so I'm currently working

with our access leisure to roll out their volunteer platform and better impact and so they work with

our special needs community and do accessible sports social nights stuff like that and so

they're really looking to recruit volunteers they have different tiers of needs so a special event

volunteer may show up just like we need them at the tree planting event they're just coming to

show up we need a waiver and they're fine some of them are going to require background check

tb test and so there's another component to that so parks was just the first step in rolling out

better impact for volunteers we're going to engage the entire ufc community into that and so it's

just really kicking it off section by section,

unit by unit and learning as we go.

Because like Joe said, flipping a system is not easy.

It takes time to build up what their needs are.

And so they'll be kicking off theirs

and expanding their volunteer pool.

Joyce was here earlier, she talked about interns.

That's a segment of volunteers.

So really this is just step one

And a myriad of opportunities for YPSI to jump into the volunteer world and really kind of respect the process of why we need them and why they come out and do what they do.

Yeah, I'd like to learn more about the outreach, how you do that.

It'd be nice to learn more about school districts, different nonprofits.

I mean, there's probably a lot of things, contacts that I could help you with too, maybe.

Absolutely.

just being in the field, you know, between Deanna, Dennis, myself, and all Esteban, who used to be

in the volunteer coordinator position, there's a large database of school administrators,

school counselors, college admin professionals. There's a huge list that we pull to recruit from.

There's also, you know, boots on the ground. You go show up at schools. Not as much as you used to,

because that can be weird.

But going to the community centers,

talking to the families,

talking to the people,

it's as simple as that.

But we also email our constituents

right out of the database.

Thank you.

Commissioner King.

Thank you.

Thank you for your presentation.

I appreciate it.

What a great speaker you are.

I had two questions.

So are we protecting these volunteers for YPSI?

My concern is that, not necessarily concern, but I want to, I don't want to like hoard them,

but I want to make sure that our volunteers are being protected and their information isn't being shared necessarily for like campaign emails, things like that.

So it's not being shared with the council members for things like that.

No, absolutely not.

I treat my constituent list as if they were all youth.

And if a council member wants to get in touch with them,

I will contact the individual and say,

hey, reach out to so-and-so please.

We do not do any of that, absolutely not.

And where I thought your question was going on first,

I wanna answer it too,

because we don't keep them just for EPC.

We're partnering with Earth Day, the sustainability crew,

and they're gonna be using Better Impact.

It's a city-wide software database that we're using,

and so we'll be able to cross-mingle

with other departments as well.

For volunteer events.

For volunteers.

That's great.

That was my other thing.

So some of our council members have volunteer events

where they host cleanups, different events,

and it would be great to get some,

maybe some like reusable lawn signs

that like has the QR code

that the council members can take to their events,

post out, and then people,

while they're at those events can also sign up

just as a way to boost that database.

Because sometimes they'll show up for council member things

or community things or neighborhood things,

but they don't necessarily,

they're not plugged into the entire citywide volunteer thing.

So just an idea, but that's great.

I'm excited about this.

Appreciate it, thank you.

All right. Well, thank you. Thank you so much. So I would just say we really appreciate it. It seems like you guys have put a lot of work into this. I want to triple down on how fantastic Dennis is. He's just been amazing to work with.

we have some events coming up and he's just fantastic.

I love the new trailers. I think that's great.

It'll really be eye-catching for people who are coming by who might just see it and say,

oh, okay, I didn't know that that was an option.

And I would like, as you guys are putting together the sponsorship opportunities,

if it's possible, I would love if there was a way to even drill down for people to be able to donate specifically to events.

like so for instance um district 8 we have two tree plantings coming up um and i will be out of

town for both of them and i would feel a lot less guilty if i could give 50 to like buy snacks that

would make me feel better so if we could even get that specific while you guys are building that

that would be great so i would love to see that as a part of it no good thank you and if there are no

other speakers this thank you so much thank you appreciate it this is receive and file so we'll

will receive and discuss.

So we will move on to the volunteer recognition program update.

Is there a staff presentation?

Yes.

All right.

Yes, I will.

Shannon Brown.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Last month, during the January Park and Community Enrichment Commission meeting,

The commission passed a motion for staff to revise the 2018 volunteer recognition program by including reviewing changes to the volunteer recognition agenda placement,

review the month the volunteer awards are held, and provide recommendations for revising the award nomination categories.

So this will open up for discussion, but I just want to kind of go through.

This is a new set of guidelines because the 2018, it had a lot of great information, but it wasn't categorized into a format where, you know, it would be easily readable and provide some kind of, you know, processes and procedures.

So with that, for the first item, I wanted to talk about review changes to the volunteer recognition agenda placement.

it will be it can be at the beginning of the pcec meeting that is up to the chair and vice chair to

make that call but it really sounded like that would make the most sense for hosting you know

these awards to have it at the beginning and really what would be great is if it is decided

to have it once a year that the agenda just kind of focuses around that recognition award and

if we can move other reports to other months and just have that kind of be the focus,

I think that would, you know, I think that would be a good recommendation.

Also, the second one was to review changes to where or the month that the volunteer recognition awards are held.

And again, this is in section number nine.

we are recommending placing it on the September agenda

to celebrate 9-1-6 day or a month that the commission decides

again it will be up to chair and vice chair

and members of the commission to make that recommendation

and then the final motion that was requested

was to provide recommendations for revising

the award nomination categories

So in section three and four, what we are recommending instead of having park, youth, and community enrichment as a category,

that we go by our department mission, vision, and values to nominate volunteers within those categories.

So that's a general overview of the guidelines, and I will hand it over to the chair for questions and feedback of the commission.

Thank you.

So just real quick.

What are the categories?

The categories are following our mission, vision, and guidelines.

So the mission, together we empower our youth, strengthen neighborhoods, and provide life-enriching programs for a beautiful, livable community.

Our vision, our beautiful parks and enriching programs create thriving communities with healthy, strong, and cohesive neighborhoods.

And then the values are listed.

so if a volunteer you know provided a safety course in water for us they could be nominated

in safety or if they dressed up you know and celebrated a trunk or treat and you know just

had you know an amazing you know just effect in the community they could be nominated for

the value of enjoyment and fun or stewardship you know planting trees removing you know non-native

species from open space areas. So the nominations, we really want them to be meaningful and reflect,

you know, our values, our mission, or our visions. So if I'm looking at the form,

the check marks would be the mission, the vision, or the each of the values listed.

So yes, attached, I did revise what the electronic form would look like.

And so the nomination category, our guiding framework, it does have check marks for mission, vision.

It's second, third to last, third to last page.

So it kind of identifies what category you'd like to nominate them in.

Okay, perfect.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Any members of the public who would like to speak on this item?

Thank you, Chair.

We have no speakers for this item.

Right.

Commissioner Vasquez.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to Vice Chair Robbins for sharing my sentiments at the last meeting.

I also was not here.

Great discussion.

I haven't had a chance to read this new form.

I would like to have a chance to look at it and think about it.

And I don't have my pretty reader glasses today, so I'm going to look at it somewhere else.

But I'm going to repeat the chair's question, which is, is it a category or a mission or a value, or is it both?

It can be all three.

It could be supporting our mission, supporting our vision, or supporting our values.

Okay, so if I was like a business that supported,

like donated to 916-Day, which one would I be nominated for?

It could be stewardship.

So number three, it would be values?

It could be, yeah, wherever you feel, you know,

are they providing a value of, you know, supporting it financially?

Yeah.

Like value and then collaboration maybe?

you can check as many boxes as you like.

We want to keep this as open and flexible for recognition.

Yes.

Just in the sake of making it clear and not adding more to choose from,

like in that instance, I'm guessing collaboration would be it and values,

but I feel like maybe one and two are kind of repetitive.

Empowering and strengthening and providing program is number one.

And then creating a thriving community is number two and cohesive neighborhoods.

So maybe like a neighborhood association might fit into vision if they were.

It doesn't have to follow a mission, a vision or value.

It can be if one part of the vision pulls to you that this person really, you know, embrace the vision of our department, then you can state that.

Or if they just were recognized by one of the values.

It doesn't have to include every segment of the guiding framework, just one of them.

And that's the lens we would like to look at the volunteer recognition through.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Let me think.

I don't know if we're voting on this tonight or not.

I hope not because I would like to think about that a little more because it's not just us nominating.

We're hoping that the public is also going to pick up the pace in nominating their folks too.

and I want it to be really clear for them.

So this is brought back again.

So we already discussed this.

It was provided in the agenda packet.

So it's up to the commission for next steps.

Commissioner Uribe?

Yeah, I just want to share my thoughts on this.

I like it.

So I think I understand the concerns

that Commissioner Vasquez brings up,

but also understanding that if it's a business

or anybody off the streets being nominated,

you're going to want to try to check all these boxes.

I think that's the way I'm seeing it,

where it gives us kind of a broad way to find nominees

or have the public nominate individuals.

I do like it.

I think it gives an opportunity to say anybody that falls under these values.

And if it is a business, if they mark enjoyment and fun,

I would like to see in the description what it really means

that this sponsor provided enjoyment and fun.

Maybe it was water balloons and not water bottles, right?

And I think about it that way.

So I just wanted to share that with my fellow commissioners.

I like it.

I like it a lot.

I'm curious on how my other fellow commissioners feel on the recognition.

I think about our 916 day being a really big volunteer day.

And I think about award seasons, the Oscars coming up or whatever.

And we're in that time frame.

this is just my opinion but it 916 day is our big volunteer day and sometimes

that's where our stars come out and shine our sponsors come out so if I were to

suggest I would say that it's it's best to bring it kind of to a January meeting

I know we have concerns about being able to give a do like give it a spotlight to

those nominees those awardees who won and I think about it as our first meeting

is that we're reintroducing a chair and vice chair.

Again, if this doesn't work in the bylaws,

I'm trying to figure out what that looks like,

but it gives us that full year to actually look at what our nominees did

through 916 day and through technically our tree planting.

If we were to look back at those numbers about where our volunteers usually come out,

and it's not in those summer months.

It's in the springtime, of course, but also in those fall months as well.

So, yeah, thank you.

Commissioner King.

Okay.

I see now the form that I understand what you're saying, Commissioner Vasquez and Commissioner Uribe.

I think it would be more clear if we had the three buckets, like mission, vision, and values,

and then it's like you can encompass one of them.

or a part of one of them, but you don't necessarily,

then there's like enjoyment, fun, safety, stewardship.

Why are there extra boxes?

Are those just other categories?

Those are values.

Right.

Those are all the values of our department.

So it's just, so, oh, I see.

I see it as like creating the award.

Forgive me if I'm speaking out of line.

Like it seems like this is what we're nominating based off this,

And then if that individual that was nominated were to be chosen for that award, they're chosen for that very specific thing that they did that fell under those missions and value.

That's how I understand it.

And correct me, Shannon, if I'm wrong in understanding where it's like if we're having that business example of a sponsor and they donated and went above and beyond,

if we have them marked under our mission and value where they followed all these things and they win that award, the award is what we decided.

which is based on that winner.

Am I wrong to understand that?

Well, this is your awards.

This is your program.

So, you know, I think when we do the certificates,

it's not going to call out specifically enjoyment.

We just want to make sure that the nominees are kind of following our mission,

vision, and values and, you know, keep it very open.

You know, it doesn't, you know,

you will be reviewing them and making the recommendations.

We're just trying to provide a more open framework for, you know, trying to capture a little bit more, you know, support within our department of what we do.

And we're hoping the volunteers also, you know, can at least check one of those boxes.

But, again, this is your volunteer award program.

You know, I like the mission.

I like the vision.

I think the values is where it's just killing me because it's like this bucket.

it's a bucket and then there's a bunch of different little buckets and so it's

almost like it's almost like values needs to be its own bucket and then it

has all of these listed and it could be one of them but we don't need to

necessarily call it out right that's that's all I'm thinking but overall I

was gonna say something about the month as well I think January is a heavy month

to host I think September is a good idea however depending on how we do 916 day I

know this year we're moving forward with 916 day throughout the year am I

correct so but if that ever changes and we were to go back to the way that we

used to do things it would be a very heavy meeting in addition to the

nominations and so I was thinking February would be a good month because

January we get some of the business stuff out of the way February we could

have the year think about it January could be submissions get everybody set

and then February we could present the awards that was just my thought and that

clears the rest of the months for things like I'm thinking like the Ranger report

the pools, swim, Camp Sacramento.

That's going to be closer to the summer.

So those are my thoughts.

But I'm open to discussion.

Commissioner Flores.

Thank you, Chair.

Hearing the comments from the commissioners,

the nomination category,

having led January's meeting,

and I think that the bullet point was

the old way of recognizing with the nomination forms is youth, parks, community enrichment.

And then the sentiment was, let's make it just an all-encompassing award that you get from the commission.

And I see these categories on this page, right, the nomination form, as the secondary.

It's not necessarily tied.

You're going to get the award that says commission, congrats, you're recognized as an award.

And then if a business did give to an event, and if it is a public member making the nomination form, maybe they think, by giving them a robust set of checkmark boxes to check from, like how you said, Commissioner Uribe, maybe it is a, if a business gave.

Right now, if a business was going to be recognized in our current form, are they parks, are they youth, are they community enrichment?

But at least here, it's a little bit now more dynamic because they were, they improved the neighborhood.

Right here, mission, strengthening neighborhoods.

Like, that's the secondary category.

The award itself is just the title.

In the staff report, it's like, the nominator says, because they gave to this, that improved our neighborhood, and we had, you know, 100 water balloons, and everyone got wet.

Right?

Like that would be the why of why they're being recognized, right?

So I think the sentiment in January was let's not be beholden to four categories.

It's one, recognition, and here's all the subcategories of why one could get nominated.

So maybe correct me if I was wrong in that.

And seeing it here, it makes sense.

It could be a little bit more clear, but because we're making recommendations saying, hey, we like this,

but we can still tidy it up, I think that's the recommendation we can move forward to codify this,

because we can get granular all day long, and we lose the forest through the trees, in a sense.

To the point of recognition month, I can hear January, I can hear February, I can hear September.

We do have to probably pick one for 26.

To me, and this is me speaking, like if we did a September one, I'm just picking September,

that is the month of 916.

Like, that marketing-wise, it's like, hey, we're doing this.

I know we're doing 916 day throughout the year,

but it's literally September to recognize awardees as a marketing piece.

It's like, hey, don't forget to be a VIP parks volunteer.

It's September.

You know, 916 day is this month.

An argument could be had.

But you're right, Commissioner Uribe, it could be we're in war season right now, right?

Like, Grammys was last week, Super Bowls this week, and Oscars is in a couple weeks, right?

We are in that mode, in a sense, for those who follow the pop culture.

So, yeah, February would be an awesome time, right?

Like I said, Grammys, Golden Globes, Oscars, right?

So that is an awesome reason why to have it on a February.

It is after business.

You know, January is the business month and stuff like that.

So we can have that, but I know in the staff report it says, yeah, September.

so maybe we move forward with a month codified,

but then it also says at the discretion of chair, vice chair.

So it's like, like I said, we can get granular,

and this is a fluid doc.

I would suspect that it's still subject to, you know, minor changes,

but the overall ask is, hey, they heard us in January.

Is this good?

I think so, and there's still room for improvement to make it better.

those are my thoughts I like crosstalk and we're crosstalking again so those are my thoughts

all right I'm going to jump in before everyone gets to say a second thing

so I was under the impression that 916 day at least for this year was a celebration so if we're

talking award season I would think that doing it in September would be the start of the celebration

here and then whatever like picnic I guess that we have for 916 days celebrating the other

volunteers from throughout the year would be a part of that so I actually like September

I'm my concern about February would be thinking about when people cycle off if we have elections

in November someone else is elected they appoint someone new to the commission how that might

affect it now they might not be that fast and like but they could be and so you know people

terming out that's just something to think about with February so that's

something to think about I would love if for council district we could add like

citywide because I always mark district 8 because I live in district 8 but most

of mine that I've nominated are actually like citywide and I just put D8 because

that's where I live but I do think that some people like represent the whole

cities so that might be something that we can do and I don't necessarily mind

having the visions or like the values laid out because I was thinking about

like you know my neighborhood association they do like like a chess

program so that's what I was thinking like enjoyment and fun like for that's a

very specific thing that they do so I could go either way on that that is all

from me. Commissioner Baskets.

Thank you, Chair.

Commissioner Flores, to go back to

you're right, it's one award,

it's one certificate, and it could be all these things

and you can mark any of these boxes.

I think what this form

shows is that it's three boxes. The third would

be values, and that's where all these little

check marks are. So they wouldn't

all be choosing one of these

values. You would either choose values

or one of the other two.

There's like mission,

Like this is the third one.

So I just want to make sure you understood that part.

No, that's not what I heard staff say.

No, it's on the nomination category.

It's select one or more.

So the mission, the vision, or the values are listed down here.

So you could select one or more.

That's what it says on the form.

So it could be one or more.

So one or more of the three categories plus values?

No, it could be one.

It could be just the vision.

or you could identify.

It's just how you're nominating them.

It's not going to, you know, so you just have to do one, at least one.

So in that spirit, I think this is a lot of interesting sentences to choose from.

Like if I look back at my past awardees and have to choose one, it would be hard

because, like I said, I think they're kind of repetitive, one and two,

and then three is really clear because it has like examples which are the values yeah but you can

just select one right but I want to make sure that I select the right one and I think I'll be

nervous if I was reading the first sentence and then the second sentence and then there's like

number three so if it really is all the same certificate why do we have to break them out

into so many different categories maybe it's just this is a paragraph of these are the things that

you could have done to support and if you did any of these things then you've won this award.

We were just looking at the overall guiding framework of what our department

is about and what they stand for and what you represent. You know you help represent our

department and so we just you know put the mission vision and values as you know all those but again

I'm here for feedback so yeah just let you know I'm here. We can add sorry to just. I'm not done

Just one second. And thank you for putting them together because that's a great list.

But it's a significant change between youth, park, community enrichment. In my mind that was really clear.

I understand adding more criteria to make it more clear. But I think for me this makes it a lot less clear as to which one I would want to choose.

But I also wanted to weigh in on my comment on the month as well.

And I do believe that January is a great month because while we do have the election that doesn't take very long.

it's when we discuss what we want to speak about for the year and I do believe that most families

would be in town in January as it's in the thick of it for school families and folks are probably

done with their vacations but I also believe that February is that is when we discuss our budget

so even though this commission hasn't had the budget workshop for the last two years in February

that is when we are supposed to have it so that we're ready for a March and April's budget

discussion so that actually should be our heaviest you know crosstalk month

should be February so I would vote again for January September is a rough time

with 916 day at the same time I do think that's a lot with back to school as

well and while I appreciate you know pop culture I think January is a great month

month for this and I think that when this was designed our initial ceremony

was a completely separate meeting it was its own recognition meeting it

did not conflict with this meeting. So to go back to the very beginning, yes, I think

it should be at the beginning of the meeting. I don't think families should have to wait

through our meeting and then be at the end. Two, I think it should be in January. And

three, I think that these could be simplified even further. And thank you for putting so

much work so quickly in such back-to-back meetings to get this together, Shannon. Thank

you.

Shannon McLean- I will say one thing to look at is that we don't have a December meeting

this year and so because we used to not have an October meeting and now we don't have a

December meeting so we would be voting in November skip December and then if we have

the awards in January so that would be something to think about for what would be on the calendar.

Commissioner Robbins.

Yes I'm just going to.

No worries.

No, I just got to confirm no matter what category we check, it's going to be the same certificate that we present to the awardee.

So it just really comes down to whoever puts down to what they do and whatsoever going forward on that, right?

So it doesn't really matter what box we check.

It's just basically the words that we put in into the awardee and how we present it.

Okay.

so yeah i just wanted to go on on that because you know i had the you know me and a commissioner

labor for uh winners of it um it's just you know it's all about celebration the people that are

great this is really what box they check if they're excellent at what they do this is just a great

thing that we do to say thank you and so that's one thing i would say like and i love the idea of

going to staff because i know we're all deeply rooted in our community so we know a guy that

does this we know a guy that does that but talking to our staff and finding out oh there's a person

that's very quiet that prunes roses every Saturday we don't know so I'm leaning back on that I don't

want to worry about what box I check up when I see this or the guy that I always love that cleans up

duck poop every single on low rider lane you know I just want to make sure like we appreciate that

so whatever way we could simplify this going forward that's great and then going towards

the day for when we do it is I go to staff is just whatever is the least amount of work for staff

we want to get through these done in a timely

matter and as the

meetings go as we have found out today we could

just move it to the front of the agenda so we don't

worry about them being bored through their minds through our

things as you can see everyone's here so

enjoyingly you know shout out to Lambert Davis back

there thank you for coming over here because

he used to be here at every meeting but

we just got to celebrate these in the right

way so I just wanted to put my two cents

on that and yeah just

we should just make this a fun thing and make it easy

so thank you

Commissioner Langer.

Thank you.

Yes, I wanted to take a moment to thank staff.

It's a very thoughtful and thorough plan.

And so thank you so much for the thoughtfulness that was put into this and the time, because clearly there was significant time.

Same question.

So just a comment, agenda placement.

I wholeheartedly agree with my fellow commissioners that at the top of the agenda is where this type of programming should go.

And back to the discussion on the month.

September, just selfishly, as a mom of several children, is quite busy.

And we will be competing with open houses and back to school nights and senior projects.

And there's just a lot of stuff that happens in that month of September in community as well.

I know because we do a lot of those things.

And so I can say, you know, with conviction that September is a very busy month in community.

I don't think that counts it out necessarily, just flagging it, just as FYI.

I also, and forgive me, I wasn't here.

I just came in in December.

So I wasn't here for much of the discussion prior to that regarding the month.

I thought just being here for the December celebration, it was a wonderful time.

It was already sort of in that spirit of the holidays and gathering and community.

And it just felt like very timely, like it felt like the right time for that type of recognition ceremony and gathering with community and friends and family and bringing folks together.

That being said, I don't have any strong feelings one way or another.

I defer to you all as the experts on that.

And just back to the nomination categories,

I do a lot of my work and what I do

is also very rooted in mission, vision, and value.

So this makes a lot of sense to me.

And just in my opinion, it does, to me,

it expands the categories and the framework

for identifying the types of recognition

that you would want in community,

only because I didn't really understand the youth.

I didn't understand fully the former categories.

And so, you know, I know we're moving away from that discussion.

But to me, this makes a lot more sense.

And not to get into the minutiae, but I think it does make sense, as my commissioners have stated, my fellow commissioners, to call these values and then subcategory them.

just so people kind of more clearly see the connection between what they're,

what they're sort of, I don't want to say voting for,

what they're nominating and where that can,

where their community folks can really provide those, those categories.

But again, you know, having such a vast and wide array of categories,

I think opens it up to so many more types of people and types of volunteers

because the former categories just seemed a little bit more prescriptive

and less to me, in my opinion, a little more narrow.

So, yeah, just enjoying the discussion,

and thank you for giving me the chance to speak.

Commissioner Uribe?

Picking back on our conversation specifically on these,

you know, we're calling them like nomination categories,

but I'm looking at the form and the top,

and this is what community members will see is this.

Please identify which YPSI guiding principles best reflects the nominee's volunteer contributions.

And I think I'll say that another reason why I really like them is to Commissioner Langer's point.

When I came on to the commission, I was like, hey, here's a nomination form.

Go look at it and try and understand where those three things, who falls under those three specific categories.

And I feel with this, I'm a person, regular Joe, out on the street.

And I'm like, hey, you know, this person's going above and beyond.

I'm going to nominate them.

I'm going to click on this form and I'm going to read that first thing.

And based on the person I'm going to nominate,

I'm going to try to see if they fit as many of these categories as possible.

And I think that's what I see with, you know, shout out to Patrick VIP,

who's out there at all those tree plantings.

I look at this, he does the mission, he does the vision.

There was enjoyment and fun that he brings to the event.

So I'm thinking about even him as an example.

He's a collaborator.

I think he's innovative and he's excellent.

I'll park all these.

And then it's our job to do the tough thing and read the description

along with these guiding principles to say, do they deserve the award for D2, D3, and so on.

So again, just saying that.

And then that's just the Oscars, you know.

You got awards here that are local, you know, my sister's house and all these good stuff.

Just that.

That's it.

Commissioner Flores.

Not speaking as a recent awardee and a recent, not at all, no experience whatsoever.

We all saw that on social media.

Commissioner Flores.

Yes, thank you. Commissioner Langer, your comments, I ditto everything you just said

right now because I was just talking to our new commissioner right now and it is those

fresh set of eyes of questioning why. Hey, these categories look old or why these categories

are almost too tight and these reasons why, I mean, if we're even going to say category,

but the reasons why one would get nominated like Patrick who may live in a certain part

of the city and is in all of our events, right, like going back to the previous report, right,

like that guy is everywhere, but, you know, he's at a D7 event, but he may not live in D7 and all that stuff.

So, and then, like I said, I know we don't want to get too granular, but maybe even where it says select one

or more, maybe that click all that apply or use language like that. So that way it's, then that triggers the

language of all of us who do surveys, right? Like, oh, yeah, that, you know, that seems, I think,

from, I'm trying to recall January, for those of us that were here in January, that the sentiment

was more robustness, more wise, right? Because it is still the award we're giving out to them. So

you said it beautifully. I won't add on to that, but it just to reemphasize that, yeah,

as a person who's been here a long, that doesn't mean anything. It's those fresh set of eyes is

like hey we need to be more robust I hear you all day long let's be more robust so

having seen this for 20 minutes um the freshest advice the right the freshest advice um

I look at these categories as not categories but I understand them as nominee contributions

instead we are not giving as if I understand the the recognition program correctly we are not

giving an award for safety we are not giving an award for mission or vision or values we are

giving an award to a person who embodies those principles or those and has provided a contribution

to YPSI so I guess my my small suggestion is that perhaps instead of calling it nomination

categories, you call it nomination contributions, which better reflects the instructions down below.

Commissioner King. Okay, finally. No, just kidding. No, I appreciate everybody's contributions to

this conversation. It's really been helpful to have a conversation and it's really changed

my thoughts on some things even since I first spoke. So January I think is a great month

for holding this. February I agree the budget would get in the way. I think there are several

things that I wasn't thinking of when I previously spoke. Although it is a great awards season,

right February is a great month but January would also work well. I agree with Commissioner Langer

that September can be rough for some families. I think that's the sentiment that we went into

with December is that it's challenging in December even though it does embody that spirit it's

challenging for not only the nominees but for us ourselves to get to those meetings sometimes and

so we just wanted to make it more accessible. So January I think is a great month.

What was my other thought?

You went in, you went out.

Oh, the value.

I love Commissioner Lange.

Thank you for that.

I love that sentiment of their embodiment of these values or the mission, the vision.

I think that's great because, again, it's not an award.

It's an award to recognize their volunteerism, their dedication to their city,

and they embody that through these values or through these missions and through this vision.

So I think that's all I had to say.

But you guys, great conversation.

All right.

Now, did I hear you say that the chair gets to pick, like, when it goes in the schedule in the month?

Yes.

The chair and the vice chair?

Because I hate January, so you guys got to convince me.

Are there any other months that we like?

October?

I do have a clear, oh, sorry.

any other month we can agree I mean I will go with January but is there anything else

well February is I hate that too I was November for everybody

October November anybody or is it January if you guys say January I'll like just look me in the eye

and say it but I hate it you said January it seems like based on choosing the day a month has to do

with having the time at our meeting because I think like Commissioner Vasquez brought up it's

like we kind of squeeze it in in one.

Any other month?

November feels thankful.

November, anybody?

Or are we all going with January?

No, thank you for the crowd out there.

Okay, I mean, just say, if you guys are saying January,

I know you're saying January.

Is that what everyone's saying?

Vice Chair, you can help.

I'm always going to fight for whatever's easiest for staff.

That's the easiest way.

If we have a stacked car.

We're talking about me.

Well, you have the gaffle.

I know.

But I don't want to wield it all wild.

yeah that's what I fight all right okay so and yes I agree the beginning of the

meeting so what I am hearing and this is what I'm gonna ask if we have a motion

for is nomination contribution instead of category and adding citywide to the

Council District beginning of the meeting and January and adding values and then adding values

above after vision and between vision and enjoyment and fun it's the values it's just a categorizing

it's just putting the values it's there make it more clear yeah I'll say one last thing on the

month. To the points that were mentioned on busyness and dates, if we have a September

meeting to finalize our awards and we're doing it kind of the 916 day, is it possible to

just do the award picture fun celebration at 916 day so that way our meeting isn't long

with photos and stuff like that and people are taking photos with us awesome commissioners

and parks behind and trees and whatnot?

Trying to find a solution for you, Chair Gaines,

on like September meeting.

I think the 9-1-6 day stuff is like not at the meeting anymore.

It's like a separate celebration.

Gotcha.

So our meeting isn't even 9-1-6 day related.

Right.

I'm thinking we just have the celebrations outside of the commission meeting.

I feel like we can come back to the date

I don't even think the date's on here.

We're tabling the date.

Yeah, there's flexibility.

Oh, I forgot what section.

Yeah, it's September or, you know,

when the chair and vice chair would like to make that recommendation.

Do it.

And then also, just for awareness, February,

we typically don't do budget update in February.

It could be, that's a little soon,

but definitely March or April is when we'll have some budget updates.

So February could also be a potential.

Typically, we're still developing some of those recommendations.

Commissioner King, is that still you, or did we not click past you?

No, no, it is me.

I was just going to respond, but now I never mind.

All right.

So with those edits mentioned, we'll talk about them a month later, do we have a motion?

I'll motion.

Second.

If that's what needed.

All right.

So we have a motion from Commissioner Uribe and a second from Commissioner Laver.

Okay.

So the motion is to pass with the edits

of nomination contribution, adding values

to the nomination contribution, adding citywide

to the council district, and moving it to the beginning

of the agenda whenever we decide to have it.

All those in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

Abstain.

All right, the motion passes with those edits.

That took 52 minutes.

I know that because I have a plane to catch.

All right.

We are going to move on to 916 day updates.

Good evening, commissioners.

I'll try to make it fast so you can catch your plane.

No problem and happy early birthday.

Oh, thank you.

Happy early birthday to you, birthday twin.

Thank you.

All right, so 916 Day.

For some of the newcomers, I just kind of wanted to just give a brief overview of what 916 Day has been in the past

and kind of where we've, you know, decided it should head.

So 916 Day has been a day or a few days in September on or around the 16th

where volunteers come together to beautify parks.

Usually what we've done is we've either had events in every single district which we decided

was a little chaotic.

So last year we decided to pare it down and just do it for regional parks and districts

that are in need.

So that was I think three events or four events last year all clustered into three weekends

in September.

I thought those went great.

I loved that idea.

but then we were hearing some rumblings of certain districts that felt left out and they

wanted a 916 day event in their district.

So to solve that problem we have decided let's just do 916 events all year round.

And so now that I'm partnering with Sarah and her crew on YPCE VIP events we kind of

came to this crossroads of what is the difference between a normal volunteer event versus what

What is the difference between what that is and a 916 event?

March is one of them, yes.

So 916 events will be anything that is council led or commission led.

So anything that you all are, you know, promoting out into the public, any events that you guys

are organizing.

Could be tree plantings, could be park cleanups, could be anything that you're doing to help

beautify our green spaces.

It can even be something like, you know, in our parks, Janine had a really great one and

I keep coming back to it because it was the most impactful before and after photos.

But painting backstops is one of them.

It doesn't have to be plant based.

It can be anything that you decide.

And we are going to take a look at the deferred maintenance list and start utilizing that in

a better way too.

Just to go out there, Sarah and Dennis and I will take some tours, see some sites, see

some problem areas are and hopefully get that feedback to you guys and you guys can decide

whether or not you want to choose those as your projects.

So tonight one thing I thought we should do and we don't have to have a robust discussion

on it but we need to identify 916 events and this includes locations, community partnerships,

sponsorships, marketing and promoting,

volunteer recruitment, event logistics,

and materials needed.

So for a paint project that could be just paint brushes,

water, and then for tree planting,

we're gonna need that whole tool trailer

that you guys just saw.

We're gonna need that whole thing,

plus bathrooms, plus other things.

So we have to start making a list of how we wanna do that

and what that sort of looks like.

Also wanted to mention that last year

We had two special task forces.

One of those task forces was sponsorships, trying to go after getting some money so that

we can fund these events and continue to have swag and continue to have snacks and drinks

at our events while our volunteers are working.

And then the other task force was for marketing.

I think marketing is going to be a lot easier this year just because of, you know, kind

of the marriage between VIP and 916.

But I would still like to have input from the commission for those.

So if we do nothing else tonight but identify who will be in those roles so that we can

start to have meetings and then what I would like to do with each of you is have one on

ones and say okay what kind of an event do you want to have, where will it be, what does

that look like to you and how can I help.

I've already been to two tree planting events, one in Commissioner Langer's district last

weekend at Swainson's Hawk and it went amazing.

And then another with Commissioner Uribe at Robla.

So I know there are tree planting events coming up.

I have the whole schedule.

But I also am not limiting myself to just tree plantings.

You know, I think as the tree planting window closes, there will be other opportunities

and probably a lot of other opportunities as far as like cleanups go and things of that

nature.

So basically what I wanted to talk to you guys about tonight is what do we want to do

differently or the same this year I've already written down reusable lawn signs

from Commissioner King which I think is a great idea to advertise especially as

we were trying to get these volunteers out there if there's just people walk

in their park their dog in the park and they see oh I can sign up here to

volunteer at this park this weekend to do X Y & Z that just makes it super easy

we just have to keep track of those signs and then the 916 day spotlight

during award season from Commissioner Uribe I think we can somehow tie that

into how we celebrate 916 day. I just want your guys' guidance and leads on that. So

I open up the floor to ideas.

Are there any members of the public who would like to speak on this item?

Thank you, Chair. Yes, we have one member. Will Lambert please come?

this is uh this is one of the reasons i came to millennials they know i'm going on the road but

they they told me to come to yipsy and this is an example of why i push and i go in front of city

council and say it. I don't just come to a commission. I go to the city council and I say

that YPSI should receive funding, not because it's a popularity contest. It's just they think

outside the box. What she just said was make 916 year round. That's outside the box thinking right

there because if you're just talking about September. Also, the millennials, I know they're

listening. They follow me heavily. They wanted me to give this QR code to Robbie because, you know,

he's a Pacer alumni, and I'm a Pacer alumni too. Speaking of that, Yipsy had something in Del

Paso Heights at Hagenwood during the holidays because I took my grandchildren to it, and it

was a wonderful presentation. It was a lot of people love that presentation and it was Yipsy

who put that on at Hagenwood Park. I will hand this to the clerk so she can pass this QR code

to everybody on the roster so you can get a picture of it and I know you'll be able to do that. Also

during Martin Luther King Day which was at Grant High School it was a luncheon there

and at the last minute they called us and asked us to do it.

That was like a reunion for me because I saw some people I hadn't seen since high school

and I think I sent that to Jackie.

We received rave reviews and then after that they parlayed that in our granddaughter's song,

which I know I played here.

That thing has taken on another world of itself and she's gone to college.

So I'll be back for the last part.

Thank you.

All right.

Commissioner Flores.

Thank you, Deanna.

Because this year's thought process is opening up the calendar,

is there opportunities of what we can't do in September

now that we have a year-long approach?

because, you know, like tree plantings kind of come off the calendar,

but then pools could come online, right?

Like if we did it like, I know there was a D8 event where they opened up a pool,

I think Cabrillo Park last year in August.

Yeah.

You know, opportunities like that, like what new things that are within the YPSI,

like umbrella that now that the whole year is available, we can have opportunities on.

So I think that's food for thought.

And if you're asking for volunteers, I would like to help out in marketing and or outreach in that.

Because then that also is what other city departments or what other commissions we can partner with.

If some of us did meet the new youth commissioner that got appointed, maybe that's a, hey, they can reach out to some of their networks.

They have great ideas that we're probably not aware of.

And then how do we uplift and support that?

and that could be an opportunity, again, under the YPSI umbrella or a partnership in braiding resources with a different, let's say, Department of Utilities.

They got some cool toys.

There could be some things there if we're expanding our horizons a bit.

And it still celebrates the city, and that was the original intent anyways.

We're celebrating the city via the assets like parks, but it could be other things too.

So food for thought.

We can go from there.

Got it down on my list.

All right.

Thank you.

Commissioner Laver, your turn.

Thank you.

How are you?

I'm great.

How are you?

Good.

So a couple things.

There was a tree planted in McKinley Park a couple weeks ago.

I think they planted like 20 trees, like over 50 people.

Then on Sunday, there's going to be a group of 50 people that go to Southside Park.

And I think it's connected to Channel 31.

They're going to be on TV, I think.

It's called Social Group, I think.

But my question, yeah, there'll be a group going on Sunday, I think at 10.

But my question is, how many of these events are we kind of required to produce or do?

I mean, is it like one every weekend?

No, it's up to you, whatever you have the capacity for.

And again, I wanted to clarify that the normal, like, Yipsy VIP events would be like something like an outside, like, I guess, not within the city.

Like, Rewild sometimes comes out and wants to plant trees.

That would not be a 916 event because it's a group from the outside coming in.

That would just probably be a normal volunteer opportunity.

It wouldn't be a 916.

Unless it's led by a commissioner or a council member.

I'm going to be there.

Oh, okay.

So it's your event.

Not really.

Dennis knows about it.

So a group reached out to Dennis.

Okay.

And then they said, we'd like to come to your park and do a cleaning event.

Like light trash.

I can connect with Dennis and see if that would be a 916 event.

The numbers will be good.

It'll be like 40 or 50 people.

Yeah, yeah.

And that's great for our volunteer program as a whole.

But we're doing, in the way that we're branding it, it's going to be completely separate.

So that will probably just be a VIP volunteer event.

916 events will be like, hey, this is led by Council Member Guerra,

and he's asked the community to come out, and Commissioner Vasquez is leading it.

and she's doing, let's say she, you know, is leading the tree demonstration and doing things like that,

that would be considered 916.

Is this in writing? Do you have this in writing?

I do, yeah.

Can you send that to me?

Absolutely.

Sorry to interrupt you.

That's okay.

But, yeah, I mean, those are good questions, Mark, and we can talk offline about, you know,

what the details are of what you know of that event, and we can figure it out.

Thank you.

Commissioner King, you may speak.

Vice Chair.

Deanna, thank you so much for being here.

My question is about, I have two questions.

The first one is about engaging with community at different areas of like our programs, Gipsy in general.

in general so like our community centers we're already maybe putting it out there that we want

volunteers are we putting it out there that we want specific 916 day volunteers or is it can we

tap that um i'm sorry i forgot the name of it the program yes the better impact volunteers for these

different 916 day events so better impact plays a huge part in uh both yipsy vip and 916 day

events they are married to each other so it's all the same information the

volunteer can decide do I want to go to this one or that one yeah so I'm thinking

we'll just like if we're doing volunteer outreach we can funnel them not only to

the 916 day events but we can funnel them also to the better impact program

so it should be like one QR code is what I'm thinking yes I think that's great

And so when we're thinking lawn signs, reusable, things like that, we can utilize them in both areas.

In both areas.

Yeah, I love that.

And then my second question is about a roster of events.

So because we're not necessarily having one day or a few days in September or in that month,

is there going to be a list of events, either past or present?

How does, like, the council members, how does the community members who want to follow along with 916 Day,

or how do even we keep track of them?

Like, we like to go to each other's 916 events.

So is there a way that staff has come up with,

or is there a way that we can help support, like a calendar?

Yeah, so earlier when I said we had those two special task force for sponsoring and marketing.

That's one of them.

Marketing is the one.

So if you have extra time, I know all of you have day jobs

and you don't have extra time for certain things,

but if you do have an extra hour in the month,

that's where we would get together, meet, and kind of decide how do we want to put this out there.

I mean, I think you guys know for 9168, I'm always down to go to schools, key clubs, try to recruit kids from there, try to recruit a lot of our own, you know, summer at City Hall kids.

The opportunities are everywhere.

You just have to look.

And I think the idea of just having that one QR code, because Sarah and Dennis and I will be at the employment resource fair, because a lot of those kids come in, you know, yeah, they want a job, but they have no experience.

and volunteerism is such a great way for us to tie in, hey, look, if you've already worked

and volunteered at our events, there's a possibility that someday down the line you could be hired

at L&L or we're used to seeing your face like when you come in for an interview with the

city of Sacramento, it's likely because you're familiar and we know you that you'll have

an upper hand. So there's a lot of things that we can do to recruit and support all

of all of that so that we have a ton of volunteers and better impact I will just be the biggest

cheerleader for because it has made my job so much easier rather than having go to two

different places and not know if one is programming or volunteering it's just made a huge difference.

Yeah I really like the idea of yeah like even like silly or high schoolers like our

high schoolers right everybody signs up for better impact you get a notification when

there's event there's a calendar of events that you can sign up for we're funneling everybody

to the same resource and that way they're showing up to all of our events because they're in there.

So I love that idea.

And moving forward, I think that's a great place to keep them.

I just think, yes, sign me up for the marketing.

I have an hour extra a month and I will help with that.

Going on to Commissioner Vasquez.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

I'll volunteer for sponsorships, relationships, making sure that these aren't yearly but like long-term, you know, relationships.

I would like to kind of switch us in that direction this year so that we can, you know, ask what are you doing this year and at the same time what do you want to do next year.

So I would love to be on that team with you.

And also for marketing, I think our former neighborhood associations would be a really great thing to tap, to go back to, you know, their former event.

show the impact. I know it was at Billy Bean Junior Memorial Park yesterday

where the year before last we held our D6916 day event and a lot of the plants

that we planted together are gone. They're just dead and I know that we

only replace our shrubs once a year as a schedule. So maybe even a recurring

event could be useful, right? This is where we were last year and now we're

replacing the plants that died. You know half of them are there great but I don't

think it has to be a new place every time. I think, you know, revisiting, you know, during that event,

it was so special because, you know, we had met with the neighbors who expressed to us the violence

that had been happening at that park and a lot of the things they asked for, we actually have not yet

delivered even though it's two years later. So, you know, signage was really important to them.

If they could please just have a sign that says this park closes at dusk or dark, then they wouldn't

have the gang activity that they have in the dark at that park.

I think that was a really simple ask and we still haven't provided them a sign.

So I know that somehow my sign conversation got off of the follow-up log but if we could

discuss what is the basic signage that is currently put at every park and is that something

that is updated on a yearly basis as well or is that something that I know at Earl Warren

park they have a fantastic sign that says when to call 3-1-1-9-1 and that this park closes at dark

so maybe revisiting okay you know going back to all of your former sites would be something good

and see if we can use them in marketing like hey our neighborhood association you know participated

in this event this is why we did it and we're going to come back and revisit that might be

more compelling to someone as a community member to get involved as opposed to just saying here

sign up here and show up here.

Seeing other community members being like,

hey, we did this like what we did and you can do it too.

That might help rope some folks in for you.

And then again, much like the website page

that exists for our volunteer recognition program

that is currently outdated,

so is our 916 page on the website currently outdated.

It's like coming soon, more information in 2025.

So if we can either just wipe out

the monthly or yearly information on that page

and make it very general,

like just put the QR code there or just the brief synopsis like you have in writing to provide to

commissioner labor as to what it is might be a better use of that website so it doesn't have to

be updated all the time and then a list of former sites would be great because if we're just using

like social media to be like hey this is where we were I don't think folks would go back to last

year's social media posts to figure out what we did last year so maybe just a

simple list instead of pictures would be good to know that they're not asking for

a repeat or to go back and see what we did before and see if the paint needs to

be done again okay does any other commissioners have anything to say today

your eyes do not deceive you I'm your vice chair Robbie Robbins the chair has

lift the building. I have to say

cousin, I enjoy 916 day

every year. I love the

marketing idea. That was my question. I was

going to say is how is marketing going to attack this?

Are we going to have a before and after

or maybe a gag roll at every single stop

and we have the reunion at the end?

I don't know.

We had really good fun two years ago

when we did that. I want to

go forward next year

and make sure we bring that back

to the table.

So, all right, let's see how we can do that going forward.

But as this has been reviewed and discussed,

we're getting to the point where we're almost at 7.30.

I want to see if we have to put to a vote if everyone's okay

going forward after 7.30, if it is needed.

All right, and we can push it to a vote right now.

We'll do it at 7.30.

At 7.30, okay, we can get to the, okay, all right,

I'll make sure the ship does not sink or burn down

while this chair is gone.

Okay, we will move on to the director's report.

Staff report.

Yes.

All right.

This will be very short, so we have just a few updates for the commission.

The PCEC annual report has passed the P&PE committee

and is going to city council on February 24th at 2 p.m. on the consent item.

for the month of january the park rangers calls for service were 859 total calls for service

they had responded to a total of 380 rapid response calls and posted 14 special park events

also in community centers is offering a senior woodstock flashback special event on april 16th

at George Sim Community Center from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

The event is $5 and will include a live DJ, karaoke,

and a light meal and refreshments.

This event does not require pre-registration,

and participants are encouraged to wear their best 60s attire.

However, we do have registration that is available online

or at your local community center, so we hope to see you there.

In addition, we are prepping for our upcoming budget cycle and the finance department reported to the budget and audit committee earlier this week that mid-year forecast shows city continues to be in a structural deficit with a budget gap of $66.2 million projected for fiscal year 26-27.

Similar to the last two years,

council will discuss reduction strategies

at the budget hearings in the coming months.

And in March, the commission,

we will have the budget director come

and give an update on the budget then.

And that's all I have for updates.

Thank you.

All right.

Do we have any members of the public

that has a speaker list for this?

Thank you, Chair.

Yes, we have one speaker.

Will Lambert please come up to the podium?

Okay.

I'll wrap it up.

You can best believe I won't be here more than two minutes.

I just heard my daughter call me and say she's outside waiting on me.

So I have people that look out for me because we started this.

This is a family-owned business.

I'm the founder of it.

We started in 1991.

And when the millennials found us, it was a pandemic going on.

And it's a group of millennials, mainly female, but some males, different nationalities.

And they said to me that we were better than DoorDash.

And I told them, no, you have it wrong.

We were out here before DoorDash was even created, including Uber.

Now, recently, the Better Business Bureau endorsed us.

They love the cheesecake.

That's a winner right there.

The millennials were stunned when I brought that to them.

And then they blew me away when they said, hey, we're going to be at the Super Bowl party before the Super Bowl.

And I said, I know you didn't get us in the Super Bowl.

I don't care how good the millennials are.

You didn't get us in the stadium.

They said, no, it's the one before.

So, depending on how it goes, we have a manufacturer in Huntington Beach that can meet any demand.

And they were stunned when I showed them that during the holidays.

My role is to stay in this lane.

And our granddaughter, who invented this song and video, which I play, she's gone to college.

But I saw her during the holidays, and she was so excited.

I told her to her face.

I said, you know, she was worried about TikTok and fame.

I said, no, forget that.

we're going to put you in position to be the boss lady.

And once you become the boss lady, then don't worry about fame.

Get the fortune.

Fortune lasts longer than fame.

So that's it.

Thank you for your comments.

That's all the speakers I have.

Thank you, Lambert.

Go Pacers.

Does any commissioners have any comments on the staff report?

Commissioner Vasquez.

Thank you, Vice Chair. I do have comments if we're moving on to the next one, but not on the staff report.

Okay, this has been discussed, and we'll move on to Commissioner's comments, ideas, and questions.

Is there any commissioners that have them? There we go. Take them.

Thank you very much, Vice Chair.

I was not here in January, so I was not able to share our monthly brainstorming for the year,

but I would like updates on the 28th and B Skate Park.

I know last time we had budget conversations, it shut down from being open to the public on a regular basis to hopefully a private provider would be found to open it up for fee.

But as of right now, it's been closed for quite a long time.

I do get the invitations for the occasional Saturday morning or afternoon special event.

and I did receive an email for the upcoming youth,

3.30 to I think it's five Wednesdays with YA Skate

and I think that's great, there's a provider

but I think the time is really hard right after school

for someone to get down there

and for four sessions it was $120.

So I do want to know what is the plan,

what remodeling has been done as it's been closed for so long

and how can we restaff that in this year's budget,

if that's possible.

That's something I'm looking for

in the budget conversations.

I would like to know, just to put a pin in,

when will we discuss the month of volunteer nominations?

Because I would like to know when to have something ready.

So if we can just make sure

that we get that on the follow-up log.

And then our community engagement

that we've spoken about working on

or maybe possibly standardizing

if City Council does approve our work plan for this year.

there's an upcoming meeting in district 6 at earl warren park and i only found out about this

because i saw it on instagram i saw a very vague flyer that says come at this time and day to the

park to talk about your park so i reached out to my council member to figure out what that was about

this park had an arsonist burned down our playground i believe in july and so this meeting

is intended to ask the community what they would like to see so i think this is a really good

example as to why I want to standardize our engagement with the community. I would like

to, maybe we could discuss as a group, you know, what should a flyer say to express to

a community member what this meeting is going to be for? What are they showing up? What

can they expect when they show up? Because I've gotten a couple of questions about the

Instagram post, like what are we talking about at Earl Warren Park? And it's such a very

specific thing that is being discussed. I think that can be more clear in the communications

with community. I would like to know how is that message being shared because I would like to be

included so that I can share it out as the liaison between the department and our local community

members in District 6. I would like to be invited to that meeting. I would like to be given some

sort of information that I can share out on my socials but also that I can post up at the schools.

This park is connected to a school. We know the family of Earl Warren who comes out to all of our

volunteer events I would like to invite you know Wendy Money the granddaughter

of Earl Warren to be at this meeting and to share her thoughts about what she

would like to see so I think that's a good place for us to start when we're

talking about community engagement when we're having these meetings who is

facilitating them what questions will be asked and how can we relay that in

advance to the neighborhood associations several were invited to this from what I

understand after calling our neighborhood association president of

of Colonial Village.

She was given a date and time.

So how are we making sure that that date and time works

for the community before we choose it?

I think that's also a good place to start.

So those are my thoughts for this month

as to how we can start working on community engagement, please.

Thank you, Commissioner.

Commissioner King.

All right.

Well, I just wanted to invite all the commissioners.

My husband and I are hosting a little pizza party for staff maintenance crew at the parks

at Chorley Park on February 13th at 1130 AM.

So no pressure, but I just wanted to extend the invitation out to all of you.

It's just our way of saying thank you to the parks maintenance staff for all the work that

they do in addition to the December recognition event that they get to go to.

But we just like to do our own thing.

So we're having lunch February 13th.

Come by and hang out.

1130 a.m.

Thank you, Commissioner.

Commissioner Laver.

A couple quick notices.

First of all, I want to thank Sean.

He replaced some items at Southside Park that were broken, and I'm grateful for that.

A constituent reached out to Phil's office and mentioned that they wanted to have a dog park.

at the children's playground by the cemetery.

So I sent a letter to everybody.

Maybe if you could reply.

I think it would need more discussion for sure.

It's a very small, tight park.

But I don't know if he can do an enhancement form.

But maybe Jason could let us know about that maybe.

There's a trash dash at McKinley Park

with the Midtown Advocates group on February 22nd from 10 to 12.

That's probably not going to count as a 9-1-6 day,

but I think you guys can put it on your Facebook page, Shannon, or Instagram.

Can you do something like that for events like that?

We can talk tomorrow.

Yeah, we can help.

And then I saw an email from Phil at McClatchy Park on the 7th.

There's a Sactown Mardi Gras.

It starts, I don't see the time on the flyer, but that could be advertised to you.

Mardi Gras, have you seen that?

That looks fun.

but I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Thank you,

commissioner commissioner Langer.

Thank you.

I'll keep it brief.

Um,

we in district one just had a memorial tree planting last Saturday.

It went exceptionally well.

It was my first event as a commissioner and it couldn't have been more

amazing.

Um,

it was a great day,

very uplifting.

Um,

it was a memorial tree planting.

Um,

But it very much felt like a meaningful community day that was really, really rooted in healing and just forward looking.

And it was just incredible.

So I wanted to thank city staff that was out there, Dennis, Deanna, Jody, and also Victor, Michael, Freda, and Trayvon,

who were exceptional in actually helping with the logistics of the tree plantings.

It was really neat to see it all come together.

and we do have another one in District 1

on the 14th, Valentine's Day, at Elderberry Park.

So more details about that will be forthcoming.

But yes, thank you all and welcome new Commissioner Lang.

We would be sitting next to each other

if this was alphabetical, so.

All right, and with that said,

I think we're moving on to the last item.

As public comments matters, not on the agenda.

Do we have any speaker slips on this?

Oh, we have one.

Okay.

We're good.

Oh, we're good.

And before I adjourn the meeting,

and you know, I love to be on this leadership board,

but I gotta give credit when credit's due to

Commissioner Rebae was recently awarded something recently.

So I wanna thank you and lead in the standard

and your community just like everyone else does

on this board.

So it's appreciative with everyone

and what you do at home and on your communities.

And with that said,

this commissioning meeting has been adjourned.

Amen.

you