Anything so they created this home essentially to be her home.

Um, and then see in 1921.

Sorry, I gotta go back it up here.

So Harem died, and then his wife died, Mary died, and finally, it was actually Bessie who ended up with the house.

And Bessie was born and raised at Shadowlands, and she was fortunate enough to go to uh Stanford and then Cornell, where she met her husband.

She met her husband, Albert Johnson, and they came back here to manage the the uh the house.

They managed the house um up until the 1940s, where they ended up they hired Edmund Moyer to help manage the ranch, a role he held until the ranch ceased operations in 1945.

Um at that time, Bessie passed away, and Albert established the Gospel Foundation of California.

He established a foundation to keep the the farm working and to keep uh the ranch running.

And uh that foundation eventually took over, and they had to start selling off portions of the property in order to maintain the farm and the land.

They sold off almost everything except for 1.5 acres, which eventually they sold to the city of Walnut Creek in 1970.

So they sold the foundation sold the house and the acreage to the city of Walnut Creek.

The city agreed to assume responsibility for the exterior of the house and the surrounding grounds, while the interior, along with the artifacts, furnishings, and everything else would be managed by the Walnut Creek Women's Club, which eventually became the Walnut Creek Historical Society.

So when the Women's Club was running, the the uh they started the restoration of the house.

They called themselves fondly the shady ladies.

So this is a picture of the shady ladies, and they were responsible for going through the whole entire house, going through the attic, the basement, the closets, everything, putting organizing everything, making the displays in our museum, and in the midst of that, they came across these um sketches by Frank Lloyd Wright, and this is the sketch right here.

So Albert Johnson early on decided he wanted Frank Lloyd Wright to build him this beautiful building in Chicago, but after the depression hit, he never came up with the money to finish it.

So these the plans were stored in Shadelands, which they were discovered, and in 1988, we sold them an auction at Christie's in New York City for 244,000 dollars, which is a lot back then, and some of those funds were used to restore the house to the way it is today.

Um interesting enough, too, is the reason that they know how to restore the house is that there was over 1500 letters found in the house that written between the sisters and the mother mothers, you know, going over all the details of what was going to be done down to like the color of the paint in the in the dining room, the blue paint, which is the color that we have today, the original colors.

So that's how we know how to put everything back together.

And this is how our house looks today.

So most of the things in it are the Pennement artifacts.

Um we do take donations of different things from Walnut Creek.

We have a lot of Walnut Creek like maps and information and things like that.

If there's someone's looking for something, we have an archive called Past Perfect.

So if there's people come to our house all the time and they say, Hey, can you find the house I grew up in, or something like that, and we can go through our archives and find things like that.

So this is this is our house right now.

This is how it looks today.

The exterior that is they found the original paint color that that maroon paint color there, and of course, this is our gazebo.

Um, quickly, the mission of our society, the mission of the Walnut Creek Historical Society is to preserve and interpret the history of Walnut Creek and our local environments to enable our community and future generations with a better understanding of the Walnut Creek's past, present, and future, and to promote and develop community involvement and community spirit.

Our museum is open, it's open Sundays and Wednesdays from one to four.

Um, this is one of our our Ted Dobbs.

He's on our board, he is the house dozen extraordinaire.

So if you're lucky enough to have him, he's amazing.

And we also do um you can do private group tours by reservation by calling the office.

I'm speaking with Jackie.

Um, and once again, I will tell you that uh if you're not familiar with our house, it's at 2660 Ignacia Valley Road, which is like on the corner of Via Monte, close to like Oak Grove Road.

It's a big turn of the century house.

You really can't miss it.

Part of our agreement with the city is um we are required to offer educational programs.

So these are pictures from our third grade history, or sorry, we call it the third grade living history program, where over we have over 30 different classes from the Walmart Creek and Mount Double School uh school districts.

Um, it's entirely volunteer run.

Each field trip requires about 12 volunteers, and you can see, the kids really enjoy pretending they live they're living like in the early 1900s.

They actually have a lot of fun washing clothes, making ice cream, they're beating rugs and they crack walnuts and all kinds of activities like that.

And so they enjoy that.

They also we also provide the downtown history tours.

So these classes, the the kids will come if they come in the fall to do the Living History Days, they'll come in the spring.

We'll take them downtown and do our history tours.

So we also partner with the Wolna Creek Libraries, each both um Ignatia Valley and our downtown library.

We have cases there where we do displays.

This is currently what's on display right now in the downtown library.

This is uh a history of teas, right?

It's still there.

How long will it be there?

Uh till the end of the month.

Till the end of the month.

So you it's right across the street.

You can pop on in there.

It's on the second floor by the fireplace, and this is has the history of the teas or some cute little anecdotes about teas and the things like that.

And these this um, in addition to our third grade history walks, we also offer adult walks on Saturdays.

Um, you can register online.

We also offer, we partnered with the city back in 2014.

That was a centennial when we created the um the Heritage Walk.

So there's over a hundred stops.

There's I think six different walks.

You can go around with your phone, you can call a number.

I think they send you a text back, you click on it, or and then it will give you information.

We always joke.

If we say, if these third graders start having phones, we're gonna be out of a job or volunteer job.

We're gonna, so um.

We also hold several different kinds of events, fundraisers.

Um, we have the summer market, the holiday teas.

Uh, this is our car show.

We're on our fifth year of our car show.

It's become very, very popular.

Last year we had over 250 cars.

We have um great food, live music, raffles, trophies.

It's a fun-filled day.

There's Kevin Welk, he's back our mayor again, so he he's already contacted me about giving out the mayor's choice award.

It's a favorite.

These are awards are handmade in Michigan out of car parts, so they're really desirable.

This is a picture from our summer market.

So that will take place.

Uh let's see, August 23rd.

It's always on a Sunday, and there's over like 50 different vendors, local vendors.

That's Joy Bound, which used to be ours, so there were some animals for adoption.

Um this is our Santa at Shea Lens.

We always do this the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

Santa Claus comes.

That's our first day of our teas.

It's the first day that the fair is open.

This year we had over 400 families sign up to see Santa Claus.

It's only it's like $5 for the whole entire family.

That just covers our costs.

And this is the picture of our holiday um activities.

This is the tea.

We do, let's see, there are what 16 days of tea.

There's two seatings per day, and then there's two champagne teas, there's on Saturdays, two different sides, it's special champagne teas.

Um over 1200 people are served, and let's see, we also offer it takes 75 different volunteers to put this on.

So it's very labor-intensive, and we're always looking for volunteers to help.

Each year we also host over 20 private events and weddings on our beautiful grounds.

We've hosted weddings, board mitzvahs fundraisers, and more.

We can host up to 2025 people outside.

Um, the rides used to really love to be in the gazebo.

As you can see, our uh grow is becoming very popular for the actual ceremonies underneath the beautiful oak tree.

This is our staff.

This is Jackie Bird, she's our museum manager.

Christine Baldsley, she is our event manager.

We have a new archivist, Samantha Chen.

She's amazing, and these are our board members.

So we're uh we're a volunteer board, but we're also a working board.

Each board member kind of has something that they focus on.

For instance, like I do the downtown history tours.

Some people are into the teas, some are focused on you know, house chosening, and of course, we have got an amazing financial group.

We are welcoming two more board members this month, Donna Lendine and Steve Woodhead, and our historians Lee Colver.

So we're it we're really grateful for our relationship with the city of Walnut Creek, namely Mike Vickers Public Works, and we're also the proud recipients of four grants from the Walnut Creek Civic Pride Foundation.

We've used those grants to fund the printing of our third grade walking tour booklets, our weekend adult tour booklets, and also the restoration maintenance of our herb gardens that we use for educational purposes during our living history days.

So thank you so much for having us.

If anyone has any questions, wow, thank you very much.

Uh questions from either public comment or from the uh commissioners.

Mark.

Can't help myself.

Are you a 501c3?

Yes.

Thank you.

Yes.

And thanks for thanks for coming tonight and talking about historical society.

We bought some of our.

Let's look at the back and have these uh history of the house, history of the oh, fantastic.

So uh booklets in the back of the room for those uh public comments uh regard to the Walnut Creek Historical Society.

Yes.

Uh I just I just have one question for you.

You know, you mentioned educational programs, and it's basically the city that asked you to do some of those things.

Do you do anything with uh Borges Ranch or is that considered it's it's part of the open space, and okay, so we don't like you don't do anything.

Okay, thank you.

Other comments or questions for the Historical Society.

Thank you so very much.

It was a wonderful presentation, and I think we all feel like we need to go back and see it again.

Some great stories.

Do you know where the designs ended up the uh where are those designs today on the right?

Oh, that information.

Yeah, just curious.

Okay, next I invite uh Joan LeCasey uh with the Gardens at Heather Farm Park forward to provide our next presentation.

Hi, Joan Lucese, Executive Director of Heather Farm Garden Center Association Inc., which is a mouthful, so we are DBA, the gardens at Heather Farm.

We are a 54-year uh partner of the city, and I'd like to take a few minutes to tell you about the history of the garden and why our nonprofit was originally formed.

This picture was taken in 1959, and these two boys on their questionable looking watercraft are floating on the lake in the north end of what is now Heather Farm Park.

About five years after this picture was taken, the city bought approximately a hundred acres of this property to build Heather Farm Park.

And they set about making a master plan, and there's a hillside underneath that oak tree that is particularly steep that they decided would not be appropriate use for parkland.

So they set that property aside for a public garden.

The only problem was the city didn't have it in their budget to pay for a botanical garden, which is very expensive to build and very expensive to maintain.

So in 1968, the director of park and recreation made a very strategic move by contacting some local members of the Diablo Men's Garden Club and solicited their help in fundraising to build the garden.

It included the Moors, Moore Dry Dock in Oakland, the Howard's Howard Terminal in Oakland, Jack Cunningham, who was a C-suite executive with PGE.

All of these people had wide spheres of influence in the community, lots of contacts, and they turned out to be very, very efficient fundraisers.

These are three of the original founders.

The gentleman on the right is Robert Cowden, and he was a nationally recognized Rosarian, and he's responsible for the design and layout and choice of the original cultivars in our rose garden.

So this group got together and they formed a mission, which was to enrich the community through beauty and environmental stewardship of the gardens and to provide education programs for adults and children and venues for social and cultural events.

They filed order articles of incorporation in December 1970, and they received 501 C3 status in January of 1971.

They were had demanding full-time jobs, and they were doing all of this as volunteers on the evenings and weekends and were remarkable fundraisers.

They fundraised for 10 years, and their funding goal was one million dollars.

So these are the major funding sources of that money.

And in addition, there were thousands of small community donations.

Looking at our donor database for the 1970s, I doubt that there was anyone who lived in Walnut Creek that didn't make a gift.

It was remarkable.

In addition, they built a greenhouse in Lathhouse in the city's corporation yard where the volunteers would go and grow plants, which they would sell in plant sales, which also turned out to be a major source of revenue.

New home construction was exploding during that period of time, and there wasn't yet a nursery in Walnut Creek.

So these plant sales become became very, very popular for all these people that were building homes and needed plants for their landscaping.

This is one of the plant sales.

All the plant sales were held at the community center on the patio in the back, and they would carry all these plants from the greenhouse in the corporation yard over to the community center for the sales on the weekends and then take them back.

Between January 1971 and January 1980, they raised 1.1 million dollars.

For the 70s, that was a lot of money.

So this was August 12, 1979, which was the groundbreaking for the gardens.

I had the pleasure of knowing a few of these people, and they report that they were absolutely giddy on this day.

When they first started raising money in the early 70s, they weren't sure that their million dollar goal was going to be accomplished, something they could accomplish.

And not only did they accomplish it, they exceeded it, and they were really happy.

And not only did this group work tirelessly to raise this money, once the construction started, most of them actually came after working on weekends and assisted with the actual construction of the building.

And there's the oak tree that we saw in that very first picture of the boys on the lake.

That sits just to the west of our parking lot.

So with money in hand, they hired Harry Nakahara, who was a building architect, and Singer and Hodges, who was land who were landscape architects in Berkeley.

And they were both very well-known architecture firms.

The next thing they did is they hired the Seabees to come in and grade the site.

So the site had to be heavily graded and was terraced before construction could begin.

Water and sewer lines had to be put in, and there I have to tell you, there's hundreds of miles of irrigation pipe in the garden.

It's everywhere.

During grading, this is the garden is in the park, but the axis is actually on march banks.

And this is looking from the construction site across the street to the greenery at the Dihablo Hills Golf Course, and then John Muir Hospital is over to the far left, that tall white building.

And this is the view down the hill toward the community center.

So three years later, opening day, September 21st, 1983.

The building was the first thing completed, and then after that, they started on the hardscape.

The first demonstration garden built was the sensory garden, which is right at the back of our building.

This was a project that was funded by the Lions Club and by the Diablo Women's Garden Club and the Learning Pavilion, which is right there.

That's that was used in our children's education program.

This is the children's garden and the rockery, and you can see this beginnings of the gazebo in the back.

These two gentlemen who are building the gazebo are both are both volunteers and board members.

And this is when the rose garden was first laid out.

And when the roses were put in.

There are 32 different demonstration gardens.

I'm not going to go through all of them, so to save us some time, we're going to fast forward 44 years.

This is the Rose Garden.

This was this last summer.

It features over a thousand rose bushes.

The American Horticulture Society's guidebook considers this a must-see rose garden on the West Coast.

This is the new children's garden that was put in about five years ago, which was funded by Redney Associates.

This is Joa, which is a metal sculpture by an artist, Ron Moore and Lafayette.

The Diablo Ascent garden features a large bronze eagle.

This garden is interesting.

It was sponsored by a family.

The three children grew up on a ranch on the side of Mount Diablo.

And when their parents passed, they made this gift to the garden and their parents' memory.

And if you sit on that bench and look toward Mount Diablo, you can actually see where they grew up.

So it's a nice gift in honor of their parents.

This is the Shade Garden in LA.

The garden, of course, makes us a very popular wedding venue.

It's a really important source of revenue for the gardens.

We don't charge admission, so the founders knew that for a free garden to be able to exist into the future, it had to have a revenue source.

So that's one of the first the reasons they started with the building first.

So there was a vehicle for income coming in to be able to continue to support this work.

In 2003, the garden caught the eye of a production person who was looking for a site to do a filming for American Idol.

So this is Alanis Morissette.

You can't really tell, but it happened to be pouring rain that day.

But they filmed their final episode for that season in the garden.

It was a really interesting experience.

The garden is maintained by volunteers.

So we have approximately 50 volunteers that come each week that maintain the garden, and another 25 that come twice a week that work in our greenhouse propagating plants.

And then we host 15 to 20 corporate volunteer events every year, which is a great way to get things done.

If you have 30 people showing up for three hours, you can spread a lot of mulch.

And I will say that most of our garden volunteers have been volunteering with us for more than 15 years.

In 2018, we moved our greenhouse and lath house out of the corporation yard and then moved it on site, which has been such a blessing.

The city helped us with grade the pad for the greenhouses in return for our moving our operation out of their corporation yard.

And in 2019, we finished the installation of the garden and we use our the greenhouses and we grow plants there, not only to maintain the garden that provides 82 garden plots for local families to grow organic food and garden with their children.

The garden was built entirely by volunteers.

The LDS helping hands, six different Boy Scout troops, several corporate volunteer groups, our board of directors, and other garden volunteers.

Education is central to our mission.

The natural science classroom program was started in 1987.

We have a staff of 20.

11 of those are teachers.

We host over 175 school field trips to the gardens each year, and our teachers do classroom presentations in over a hundred and fifty schools across Contra Costa County each year.

Our reach is about 20,000 students every year.

In 2025, we had 275 students divided into two age groups.

They come to the garden uh every other Tuesday, and it's a really fun group to watch.

We have several education collaborations.

We teach the in-classroom composting classes and summer camp classes for Recycle Smart.

We manage and lead the wetlands field trips to McNabney and Morin Marshes in Martinez.

We manage and lead the field trips to the Los Vicaros Reservoir and the John Muir Interpretive Center out in Brentwood.

And if you've never been there, that is really a worth a trip worth taking.

It is so beautiful, especially in the spring.

And then we also manage and teach the in-classroom clean water and pollution prevention education program for Central SAN.

Well, sorry.

So anyway, we won't go any farther.

So we're really grateful to our support for the city of Walnut Creek and the support of the community.

Our fundraising continues.

I mean, we are nonprofit and we rely on the generosity of our community for us to continue our programming.

And we would love to have you come.

If you've never been to the garden, we'd love for you to come and take a personal tour.

And that goes for anyone here.

If you haven't been to the gardens, please come.

We'd love to have you.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Uh oh uh we may have some questions for you.

Hold on, just one.

Uh commissioners uh questions or comments.

Hi, um, I'm curious about your where you work in partnership, the educational things, kind of the last slide you had where you work with Central State.

And you work with Costa Water, et cetera.

So, but and you're nonprofit, but obviously they must pay you for your time or like how they do, it's an important income stream for us.

Okay.

And it's also part of our mission.

Okay.

And so these are the people you said you had teachers on your among amongst your volunteers.

Are they traditionally?

They're paid staff.

Our teachers are paid staff.

So we have 20 paid staff.

11 of those are credential teachers who work in our education program.

Oh, okay.

Great.

Thank you.

Welcome.

How many weddings are you hosting a year?

We do about between 60 and 75 weddings, and then another 50 or 60 other kinds of events, you know, celebrations of life, corporate meetings, birthday parties.

Wow.

And uh did you mention what year the photo with the two boys in the lake was?

It was 1959.

Okay.

Any other comments or questions from the commissioners?

Uh public uh comments or questions, a two-minute period.

Anyone?

Yes.

How often do you have the plant sales?

Is it scheduled?

It is scheduled.

We do um and we put it on our website.

We do six to eight in the spring and another six to eight in the fall.

Any other um public comments?

Okay, great.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for the invitation.

We really appreciate it.

What a treat.

All right.

Next we'll invite uh Jane uh Vanderwerf from the Walnut Creek Equestrian Center to come forward and provide us.

Not Jane.

Could be.

Jane is in the audience, and uh she's a powerhouse, uh, has done a great job building the board and building the equestrian center.

She recruited my wife and I.

So uh tonight I want to uh well um talk about the equestrian center of Walnut Creek.

I'm a family member, and I think it's been pushing 10 years now, my wife and I.

And I'm the ambassador to the Walnut Creek Chamber of Commerce, which we're a member of now.

Next slide.

Do I do that?

Oh, I get it.

I didn't take training.

There we go.

Just that button.

Yeah, to the right side.

Do I have to point?

Is that switching?

It's refusing to play, huh?

Yeah, well, just bear with us for a second.

Yeah, no worries.

Um it seems like it's locked up here.

Can you go back to the slide deck and see if you can manually click on the next one?

There you go.

We could go with that.

So our mission is providing recreation, education, and wellness through equestrian center activities in the heart of Heather Farm Park.

Bring up it next, please.

Thank you.

So when I found this out from the American Horse Council, that our annual horse economy in California is 11.6 billion dollars.

Absolutely surprised me.

However, because most of us in uh in horses are kind of siloed.

Um we don't see that.

However, this is the American horse council's um numbers.

There's um about half a million horses in California.

Um, and the uh if you add up recreation and uh and uh um competition, it's four point five billion dollars in the state per year, and that's larger than the horse racing industry.

Uh it's it's big and and uh I'm so glad that you have equestrian center here in Walnut Creek as a result of it.

So this is the did you know, and uh I'm gonna I'm going to uh go read this for you.

Heather Farm has always had a hor horses and horse facilities in 1921.

That's 104 years ago.

The year my dad was born.

John Marchbank built a thoroughbred race uh training facility here, raising uh many champions.

He named his ranch Heather Farm after his champion stallion, Heather King in 19 uh Heather King.

And then in 1931, actor Clark Gable uh filmed uh sporting blood at Heather Farm Park.

One night we watched it and we learned about the difference between um the way people were treated in various races back then and the way they're treated now, but we were sure proud of uh knowing that horses were there in Heather Farm Park.

Fifty-five years in Heather Farm Park.

We're a member of the Walnut Creek Chamber of Commerce, and we're a member of the California State Horsemen's Association.

I'm gonna talk about what that means.

Next up.

Let's see.

I think there's a couple of heavy hitters in the room.

Gail, would you stand up for a minute?

So our president.

And she's on the up there, and um Susan, uh howell, Sue Howell, she's in the room over there.

And Jane would have been there, but I think he was a working stiff at the time.

And um, that's yours truly.

And we got the award for having been 50 years in Walnut Creek from the, it's called a legacy award from the um Walnut Creek Chamber of Commerce.

So we got to take lots of pictures.

Uh we're dressed pretty well that day for a bunch of horse people.

On this one, California State Horseman's Association divides its regions into, I believe it's 18 regions.

And if you look there in the San Francisco Bay Area, um, Contra Costa and Alameda County make up region five, uh, the same same region as uh East Bay Regional Parks.

And uh one of the very important clubs in the California State Horseman's Association is Equestrian Center Walnut Creek.

You can see us flying the state flag over it.

We're very proud of the number of events that we do with the California State Horsemen's Association, including Jim Canna Horse Mastership and uh obstacle challenge, and I believe we have some other events with them.

Uh English Western, but Jim Can is really fun because you watch the kids who are uh enjoying going really fast on the natural motorcycle that they that they get to actually that has a mind of its own.

Next up, please.

One of the joys of being part of the uh um Walnut Creek Chamber of Commerce is participating and representing the Equestrian Center of Walnut Creek.

Uh, I'm there along at your art and wine festival and participating, and then in the uh slide next to it where I'm holding up the tickets, that's uh a former mayor uh Cindy Silva, and she and I were uh were handing out water that day.

It's a pleasure to be a part of uh that group because we get to know the people of Walnut Creek.

This is our um 2025 list of events.

Um you see the word CSHA there are I know it's it's it's hard to read, and that's okay.

But CSHA, that's the California State Horseman Association.

Some of these groups are uh pony clubs, some of these groups are equine assisted therapy, some of these are uh professional organizations that that bring um their uh horse their horse riders here.

Adventure day camp is a big one that happens from sick uh June to August.

So this is we're pretty proud of this.

Um, and and we we raise our money from the fees that these organizations pay uh to be there.

Next up.

This is a couple that we're really proud of.

The um a couple of e there's equine assisted therapy, and and I want to talk about equine assisted therapy for a minute.

Horses help humans.

Uh I serve on the board of directors of the International Horsemanship Foundation, and we have a medical doctor down in uh Florida on our board.

He's a retired army colonel.

He um medical doctor who jumped out of planes with special forces as their flight surgeon.

You think he might have faced a little PTSD?

Well, he went and studied it, and he now says that for some uh cases of PTSD, um, equine assisted therapy is the only modality that works.

We're watching spectacular things happen, like children with autism who haven't spoke 45 minutes with a horse, and they begin to speak to the horse.

The next thing they're not talking to their mom and they continue to speak.

It's spectacular, and so every time the equestrian center of Walnut Creek gets to welcome one of these awesome places that is doing this kind of work, um, where riders um caters to the veterans.

We like to reduce that suicide rate in soldiers and veterans, and we were convinced that the horse is going to play a major role in the mental health crisis.

Right here in Equestrian Center of Walnut Creek, we're welcoming those organizations at our facility.

Next, you can see the young lady up in the corner.

She's going real fast.

She's a very talented young lady, a teenager.

And then down below the young girl in the helmets, my granddaughter.

She was going really fast on that bouncy horse.

And then up above, you see kind of the big and the short.

That's a uh a draft horse and uh and a mini horse.

And it turns out a mini horse is a horse, unlike a pony, which is slightly different, and uh um donkeys and mules are different.

Those are both horses, but those kind of the the big and the short, and that was a spectacular photo to capture at one of our events.

We're making some beautiful progress over there.

Um, that drawing up above um was a concept of um 33 arts, which gave money to uh to put a to have this this young artist, talented artist come and um paint a mural on our um uh on our snack shack.

Uh one of the problems with having a snag shack out in the back, out where people don't see us very often unless they come all the way back to the school, is that that's a target for the taggers.

But it turns out the taggers tend to respect something beautiful like this, and thanks to um this organization, 333 Arts and the great work of this young lady, there's now a uh material that goes over it so that tagging won't won't actually stick.

It's a spectacular, beautiful um uh building now.

Uh I encourage you to come out and see it.

The drawing up above was the concept, and then just to it's very busy, but you can see a map with lots of drawings.

That's a fence we're working to build, and so it shows that we're current and we're working hard on improving our facility out there, and that's going to help protect our uh wonderful parking lot from no longer being a place where donuts are run.

Um we are way out in the back, and we're doing what we can to uh preserve our facility.

Next up, these just events, people happy, people smiling.

It's one of the things that just makes it wonderful to be around horses, be around the people that are from all over.

I I did I did jump miss to say that we actually have competitors who come all the way from Nevada to come to our event, and most recently um the CSHA Jim Canna, that's the group with the that they like to go fast.

There was an upgrade done uh partly by a um a DHA, which is Diablo Equestrian Heritage Foundation uh gave money and also money raised from our own organization.

We redid the footing, and we went from being the worst facility that uh wouldn't draw very much Jim Canna, to we are now number one, and um it is now the number one place for Jim C S A J Jim Canna in the San Francisco Bay Area to come, or at least in the East Bay, I'll say that California State Horseman's Association in partnership.

Next up.

This is a couple of big events.

The the one uh the lower on the uh right, that's actually my wife, uh former Diablo Valley College uh professor, former dean at uh Contra Costa College, and she's on the member of the board of directors.

I bought her her first horse, but she's leading that group in an obstacle challenge where she's now a senior judge in the California State Horseman Association.

We bring our horses and they get to inside of arena, um, learn how to address obstacles that are quite contrary to a half-ton bunny rabbit on a string prey animal.

Um, and we show that they can be equanimous, they can be uh calm, and they can follow our lead.

Up up above, that's a um uh a show that's that's shown.

Uh I mean, uh a horse show where a lot of people are there seeing, and then um young lady Hannah Wright is presenting uh an award to a gentleman with um the local veterans.

She puts on a wonderful event.

The future, the future of the equestrian walnut creek.

We're proud to be in Heather Farm Park.

We're proud to have been there for 55 years, and we're intending to be there for the next 55.

And that young rider to be will be able to enjoy the equestrian center walnut creek in the heart of Heather Farm Park.

Thank you for your respect and attention.

Thank you very much.

It was that was wonderful.

Uh comments, questions from our commissioners.

I won.

Um, when I've been out there, I haven't don't really see many horses, so you're not having an event, but known boards there, or did you know horses do not live there?

Um it's uh I don't know where that when that history started, but we maintained the facility for events, and the horses come and they go.

Um I attended a mini horse event there a one few years ago.

Uh, angels, right?

Oh yeah, angels from angels, right?

No, oh, angels for minis, okay.

Angels for minis, yeah.

Does she uh still host?

She does, okay.

She does a lot of rescue.

Yes, and hosts uh charitable events at the equestrian center there.

Yeah, I rented a mini horse in a competition in one third place.

So, yeah, you can go to my Instagram page and see me in the mini horse.

Uh my daughter got a kick out of it.

Oh, that's fun.

Well, it's always good to horse around.

Yes, good one.

Walked into that.

Uh comments, uh, questions, uh, two-minute comment portion for the uh is our president.

Oh, fantastic, Gail Jackson.

I just wanted to make a comment about the uh Adventure Day Camp that goes there.

And I believe I think Gene did talk to him and got the count, but they serve in the summer months.

There are about 700, six to seven hundred kids that come in from adventure day camp in the summer from all around here, and they get the experience of learning about horses, riding the horses.

Um, it's just phenomenal.

If you go there in the summer in the morning, and that you'll see they bust kids in, they bring the horses in from uh walnut creek um barn.

And uh I can't think of the name of Nancy DuPont, Nancy DuPont's Ranch.

Uh anyways, so these kids bring them in, and I mean they have the best time.

They're having so much fun out there, they really love it.

And I mean just the impact of the summer kids, plus all the events we have.

Um, sorry to interrupt.

Do you do you mind coming up here if you so we can so people at home can hear you?

Yeah, thank you.

By the way, raise your hand if you're with the Equestrian Center of Walnut Creek.

Thank you.

Excuse me, I'm Sue Howell.

I do membership for the Equestrian Center of Walnut Creek, and the Adventure Day Camp is such a fun thing for all kinds of kids.

My both my grandchildren worked the horse facet for the adventure day camp uh during the summer when oh gosh, I think they were starting at 10, 11, 12, and with uh the minis that were there.

So their job was to show the kids how to interact with the minis, and it was such a a great character building thing for my grandchildren as well as the kids that they were teaching, and it was just the the most fun little thing to watch, and so now excuse me my granddaughter's going off to college so it really the horse stuff that she did through that type of thing and all the other things involved it just made her personality so much more compassionate and giving and she's just a wonderful kid you know and I'm so proud of her and the equestrian stair was part of that so thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Other comments hi I'm Valerie Sterling and I'm the leader of the Clayton Canyon Pony Club which is the local chapter of United States Pony Club which is like scouting but for the horse people horse kids and so I just wanted to invite you to come Saturday we're having our meeting at the equestrian center.

There'll be about 20 horses there and and kids sharing these horses and and now adults are part of that program too United States Pony Club has invited not only the kids but adults to participate in the the learning and the teaching that happens with this organization.

So we're gonna enjoy your beautiful facilities this Saturday and we have a series of these meetings set up for this year.

So I invite you.

Thank you.

Thank you we are proud of our customers.

Other comments I I didn't even know there was an equestrian center in the in heather farm so I'm happy to hear that and I'd I'd like to get a copy of your presentation if possible because we have we're involved with horses um one thing one thing you probably answered already with the question was do any horses they're not uh boarded there at all.

Okay.

So historically they were but then we're okay and so I was my question was going to be do you do trail rides you know up or up in like the open spaces and things but I guess you don't really do we do a lot of trail riding horsemen association can you can you respond into the microphone just so people at home can hear thank you.

Well we do a lot of um the California State Horseman Association does a lot of trail riding um we do get out on the trail just outside of the arena um for some of our events there within uh Heather Farm um but most of our events are in the arena it's a little safer for most horses horses are prey animals with their mind of their own and um but getting them out on the trail that's a very high order for a horse and yes we do move around outside uh they're in Heather Farm Park.

Anything else yes the reason why I was mentioning the trails is because there are trails in the open space that are marked equestrian or pedestrian only but they're not they're heavily used by mountain bikers now and i e bikes and all kinds of other things.

So I was just wondering about your experience if you used any of the trails you know what's your experience with that because like you said horses are you know you can't have a bike come around a corner you know with uh with the horse because it's gonna be very dangerous.

I don't mind responding to that if you want okay and then the other thing I just wanted to mention uh my husband and I were involved in the Rose Parade and they had those mini therapy yeah mini therapy horses there and I guess they even take them I think they take them into hospitals and stuff.

And I saw a mini horse up uh south southeast uh Lime Ridge uh but that's where they wanted to put the flow trail, but now it's not there, but equestrians are starting to come back because there's some equestrian, you know, right down there on I don't know, whatever's that Walnut Avenue or whatever.

And so then they come up, you know, by the uh golf course and then walk up to the open space.

But they're kind of staying around in that area of you know, southeast uh Lime Ridge, so they don't go where the other horse where the uh trails are that are supposed to be for the horses, but uh they don't they don't dare go there.

Okay, so I just wanted to mention these things.

Um the two things were um, the minis.

The minis.

And then the other one was about um trails and oh, sharing the trail.

Yeah, um, which might I want to make sure I answered because I heard two questions, but I do want to talk about um trails.

Uh we are the um at the top of the um pyramid when it comes to yielding.

So if you're on a trail, some people wonder why is a horse at the at the top.

I mean, did somebody just pick that?

Is that you know maybe they were their first.

Well, it turns out that when you have a I keep referring to him as a half ton buddy rabbit on a string, prey animal who for a million years has run away from predators, it's quite a high order to be able to get a horse to to be successful and be a trail horse.

Um often our demographic, our largest demographic, are women who are beyond childbearing years.

They finally have dream they've dreamed of having a horse for years or finally get a horse.

My wife was, you know, I bought her a horse when our younger son finished high school.

Um that's our biggest demographic, and one of the things that I'd like you to consider is when we talk about sharing of the trails, um, a mountain bike flying around a corner, or someone not respecting what they have, uh, could create a lot of danger.

And that danger could be um the horse, the the person on top, or the rider, I mean the the bicyclist.

And so we want to share the trails where appropriate.

We want to keep separate where appropriate, um, but I would be happy to come back to you at any time and explain to you in more detail.

I did a 10 minute presentation before um a walnut creek group on why the horse uh does get yielded to, um, but it's really partly because he's got a mind as of his own, and um we're talking about you know, somebody who finally got that opportunity to ride their horse, and if they're getting scared and they're not feeling protected, they're not feeling like they can go without worry, they're just not gonna go.

And to me that's one of the saddest things that somebody who could look so forward to having that horse and going through the process and learning and getting their horse to be to a point.

Let's let's help there be places in Walnut Creek where they can ride their horses safely.

Your other question?

Did I?

Uh no, that's why I just wondered if you use the open space trails because you know there are some that say pedestrian and equestrians.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, and so the the thing is absolutely um maybe you don't see very many of us, and by the way, we're very proud of the fact that um horse people have learned to um they they tell us um don't leave anything behind.

The only thing we might leave behind is horse poop, and by the way, pre-animal poop is no big deal.

Uh I'm I walk through it all the time.

I probably have some on my foot now.

But you know what?

Um it's it's natural, it's just processed grass.

But other than that, you really don't see us, and we we we like it that way to leave the trails beautiful the way they were when we got on them.

Anything else?

No, thank you.

Thank you.

Anything else?

Thank you very much, Andrew.

Thank you.

Next, uh lastly I invite Kime Smith with the Walnut Creek Open Spouse Base Foundation to come forward and provide a presentation.

Ah, excellent.

Yeah, it's just a forward.

Okay, and the top one's a pointer.

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

Well, good evening, Chairman Cook.

And other commissioners.

And other commissioners.

I'm Kime Smith, president of the Walnut Creek Foundation.

And thank you for the opportunity to come here to tell you a little bit about our organization.

I'm sure many of you are familiar with it.

It's a 501c and C3, and we've been a nonprofit for the 47 years of our existence.

And we have no fundraisers.

We rely on either donations from the public or membership fees from our members.

So let's see, let's go to the next one.

As you all know, the city owns an extensive amount of acreage.

And as a matter of fact, it puts Walnut Creek somewhere in the top 10 or 15% in the country.

And Walnut Creek was the first city that had its own ranger in the history of our country.

So those are a couple of things to keep in mind.

So it's a pretty special place.

The stewardship needs to go beyond core services, and that's one of the things I'll be talking about.

And the community interest uh in helping with that stewardship, active care of the open space is very high.

And you can see here's a volunteer event that happens quite frequently on Saturdays, more so during the the uh spring and in the fall, but there's a lot of community interest.

Oh, uh the foundation exists because there's a gap between what the city reasonably provides.

We have no qualm there, uh, but the community is eager to provide even more for the open space.

Uh there's 2700 acres, which is larger than Central Park.

So does anybody have uh an idea of how many times bigger the open space is?

It's about two and a half times bigger than Central Park, so that's pretty impressive, and it's also larger than the count uh the country that I listed up there, Vatican City, and this is all maintained by uh an operating staff of about six, so keep that in mind.

Okay, so uh not only is it big, but it's kind of spread out across Shell Ridge, Lime Ridge, Alkalanes Ridge, and uh there's a small piece in Sugar Loaf.

Let's see, okay.

So, what are some of the things that the foundation does?

We coordinate the volunteers that want to work out in the open space and contribute.

We do education and outreach.

For example, you see a woman there looking at a display that we have uh had in one of the public libraries, and uh we plan to have uh lectures in public libraries, and we also do stewardship support in the lower left.

There's a picture of uh the staff and the foundation volunteers working together uh to clear some brush from a fallen tree and make use of it to build a wildlife um brush pile, but there are clear boundaries.

The foundation owns no land, uh we don't have any authority to set policy.

Uh there's no trial enforcement by the foundation, and we have no operational control.

And to offer alternatives to land use priorities policies that could cause rapid deterioration of our open space.

At the same time, our organization is committed to the encouragement of policies and projects that will enhance the Walnut Creek open space for the benefit of generations to come.

So, what's our value to the city?