Okay, good evening.

I'm Sharon Pinkstaff, Vice Chair of the Walnut Creek Pros Commission.

Welcome to the April Pros Commission meeting.

Before we do a roll call, I would like to introduce and welcome newly appointed Commissioner Matthew Brockhaus for the for his first prose commission meeting.

Oh, Matt, I don't know if you want to take the opportunity to introduce yourself and say a few words about uh why you're interested in the committee and um your vision for the position.

Sure, thank you.

Um I moved to Wanna Creek in 2020 and immediately fell in love with it and have been an active user of both the parks and the open spaces since the minute we moved here.

I have a dog, I have two young children, and it's inspired me to want to get involved and make Warner Creek an even better place than it is now.

Great, thank you.

All right.

The next portion of the agenda is a roll call.

Commission secretary Mike Vickers, would you please do the roll call?

Yes.

Vice Chair Pinkstaff here.

Commissioner Brockhaus.

Here and welcome, by the way.

Commissioner Garland.

Here.

Commissioner Ohler.

Here.

Commissioner Sasser?

Here.

And let the record show that Commissioner Congson is not here tonight.

All right, moving right along.

Um the election of the pros commission chair.

So this time of the year that we usually do our chair um nomination and vice chair nomination.

Do we have a nomination for chair?

Commissioners.

I nominate Sharon Pinkstaff, Chair of the Commission.

Is there a second?

Second.

Secretary Vickers.

Would you do the roll call?

Yes.

Commissioner Sasser.

Yes.

Commissioner Garland.

Yes.

Commissioner Ouler.

Yes.

Commissioner Brockhaus?

Yes.

And soon to be Chair.

Commissioner, Vice Chair Pinkstaff.

Yes.

Yes.

Excellent.

All right.

Commission chair.

Okay.

Next is election of pros commission vice chair.

I'll nominee Girl Glorianne Sasser as a vice chair of the Pros Commission.

Is there a second?

Second.

The nomination.

Right.

Oh, call roll.

Yeah.

Chair Pinkstaff.

Yes.

Commissioner Ouller.

Yes.

Commissioner Garland.

Yes.

Commissioner Brockhaus.

Yes.

And Commissioner Sasser.

Yes.

Please let the record show that Commissioner Sasser is now the Vice Chair for this upcoming year.

All right.

Now we get into the public communications portion of the agenda.

This portion of the meeting is reserved for comment on items not on the agenda.

Under the Brown Act, the Commission cannot act on items raised during public communications, but may respond briefly to statements made or questions posed.

Question request clarification or refer the item to staff.

Written comments submitted have been posted to the city's website for public review and are included in the meeting record, but will not be separately read into the record.

I actually have a couple of public comment cards.

So I'm gonna call the commenter.

Um I don't know, do we have any on the websites?

They've submitted public comment on the website.

There is not.

All right, so I'll go.

So I have these are for individuals that are going to be speaking at public comment for an item that is not on the agenda.

So if she calls your name and you're here for the agenda, uh please wait till the item uh is presented.

Thank you.

All right, first shell dresser.

Just a reminder, there are two minutes for your comment.

And please state your name and the city of residence for the record.

Jill dresser uh Walnut Creek.

Good evening, Secretary Vickers and Commissioners.

I'm here to invite you to the bringing back the natives garden tour on May 3rd from 10 to 5 p.m.

at Sugar Loaf Open Space Native Plant Garden.

I don't know if you all know that there is a native plant garden at the Sugar Loaf Open Space in the Walnut Creek Open Space.

The bringing back the Natives Garden Tour is typically a tour for residential homes.

This is the first year that the tour has accepted a non-residential home to be on the tour, and sugar loaf is going to be on there.

And Sugar Loaf is going to be on there.

The garden at Sugar Loaf was established a few many years ago by a former ranger.

And during the pandemic, I walked by the garden and saw that it was in need of some TLC.

So I got together two friends and we started working the garden.

We've been there since um October of 2020, and it's a nice little demonstration garden.

We are there today, in fact, we go there every Monday to water and prune and pull weeds and admire how beautiful uh nature has created these native plants.

So I'd like to invite you to come.

I have a um handout for each of you and for Secretary Vickers.

I also want to thank the City of Walnut Creek for being a sponsor for this tour.

So they have made a financial donation to the tour.

The nutshell has done a nice little piece about the tour in the recent nutshell and the sustainability group also did a shout out in their most recent eco newsletter.

So the word is getting out there about this little native plant garden.

If you can't come on May 3rd, please stop by any time that sugar loaf is open.

We have a closed gate.

We just ask that you close the gate, otherwise the deer get in and eat our plants.

And we hope to see you on May 3rd.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Next commenter, Richard.

Oops.

Okay, next commenter, Richard McChesney.

Good evening, Council members.

So I'm not sure if I'm out of order or up to wizard because I didn't I picked up the agenda, but I don't see specific items that are for tonight.

So I might be out of order on my comments.

So anyway, so my name's Richard McChesney, and I live in Concord.

Um I'm 72 years old, and I'm a mountain bike rider for probably the last 15 years.

Um I ride for um exercise.

I ride for challenge, I ride for fun.

I also ride for strength training and balance and for cognitive health.

Um I prefer riding in the nature, right?

I I don't really want to compete with vehicles with road dust, inhaling, you know, the uh gases from the cars and vehicles and everything else.

So I ride in nature.

Um, and Lime Ridge Open Space is a perfect place for me to do that.

I'm also a new member to a club.

It's the Contra Costa Composite MTB Club.

Now that club is for uh, I think it's from sixth grade to 12th graders, and so we coach and um ride the trails as much as we can to help these kids have a sport and an activity.

Um it's just a great organization that stresses health, courtesy, and um safety.

So it's training our next generation of mountain bike riders to embrace the public and embrace the pedestrians and everything else in a polite, courteous way.

Um is that my two minutes already?

Yes.

That's a trait.

I can I have like 30 seconds more.

For a trait, that's a trait that really I find in most all mountain bikers that I see everywhere from Brionis and Lime Ridge and they're courteous to people.

And I know there's a lot of pushback from people that are pedestrians that are using the trails, but I think we can do it together.

And um, these kids and us adults need a place close to home that we can do those activities safely and with respect to the rest of the trails and the other people.

So please I ask you to consider expanding the MTB use of Lime Ridge area.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next commenter, Matthew Tarlock.

Very good.

Good evening, and thank you for hearing me.

Um my name is Matthew Tarlac.

I'm on the board of the Mount Diablo Bird Alliance, which until a couple of years ago was the Audubon Society.

And I mean, just here to talk about the natural area and the natural lake at Heather Farm, someplace that you know I've walked around with Mike a few times.

And we're really glad to see that a lot of the trees that you've planted, the city has planted uh over the past year or so or have taken hold and and that's looking good.

Uh we appreciate the wildflowers uh that have been planted in the area where the lake was expanded and excavated there.

Um as spring has warmed up, we're starting to get concerned about the health of the natural lake there.

And for Commissioner Brockhouse, who's new, you know, a lot of people don't realize that the natural lake at Heather Farm really is a natural lake.

It's been there for hundreds of years, and it's a very important resource for local wildlife and for people who enjoy local wildlife.

And we're a little concerned that it's starting to get already uh green and slimy.

And in past years, uh there was a skimmer that was put out there to kind of control uh the algae.

I I'm calling it algae that's out there.

Uh, but the uh the boat ramp we notice is part of the lake modifications, the boat ramp is gone, and we're wondering how you're gonna get a skimmer in there or if there's gonna be a skimmer, and we're concerned about that.

And also the toolies are getting out of control.

Um I've sent an email as public comment, which you should be able to see that shows some pictures of uh some of the viewing areas are pretty much completely screened off now by Thule growth.

Uh that stuff really needs to be dredged out.

And I know that the uh city has a really nice plan for restoring the lake and the feeder streams already on file, paid some money to put that together.

And I hope that uh now that the pool project is well underway, we can start looking toward working in the natural area and maintaining a really great resource we have here in the city.

So I I'd love to hear about the skimmer and any possibility of dredging the or removing and cutting back the Tulies in the near future.

But uh yeah, thank you very much.

Do we have any response to the comments?

Yeah, and I can elaborate um a little bit more during the presentation that I'm gonna be giving of an overview of all of our parks.

Uh, but we will be um harvesting the algae uh in the lake in the next couple weeks.

We're actually just using a smaller skimmer, so to speak, uh that's gonna come in from the area that's referred to as the beach area that's gonna come in there, and then I'll elaborate more on the uh the overgrowth, I'll call it of Thule's uh during the presentation.

So thank you for your comments.

All right, next comment are Glenn McBee.

Good evening.

I'm Glenn McBee.

I am member of the Walnut Creek Racket Club, and I'm the city liaison for a number of years.

Occasionally I make it here to see you all because everything has been going along so well for us.

There is one thing of particular concern that I I brought to your attention, I think the last meeting, and I'll continue to do it just so we keep top of mind.

Of course, the courts at a Heather Farm were built, I believe, in 1970.

And the equipment on courts one through seven are original lights.

Technology that has lived its life.

The equipment fails much more frequently now than it used to.

The replacement parts, bulbs, ballasts are virtually not available.

And it can take an immense amount of time.

For I think uh we had like four lights in a row out for like six weeks.

And it wasn't because of neglect, it was because of lack of supply and an equal part of what the what's called the lift to get it in.

And it's not a cheap thing.

Uh I've spoken with Lifetime, and we're gonna the club is gonna continue to support and talk about ways in which we can assist in getting uh new lighting.

But I just want to keep it kind of on the top of the mind.

We are the largest public tennis club in the Northern California, second largest in the state.

We're a destination tennis facility.

Life time has done a tremendous job bringing attention and growth uh coaching and clinics.

So as if you ever go by there on a on a weekday, weekend or weeknight, you'll see that all the courts are tremendously busy.

It's it's a thriving tennis community.

Um that's our biggest need.

Another one we'll hear more about, but that was the one I wanted to focus on tonight.

Is just over time we're gonna be you'll be hearing us talk more about LED lighting at the tennis courts at the Walnut Creek Tennis Center.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Do you want to provide an update?

I can just provide a couple comments regarding the the lights just for uh for all the commissioners here and for uh Mr.

B who I believe under who knows this.

The lifetime activity partner of the city uh is responsible for the maintenance of the lights and other maintenance responsibilities at the facility.

But as I mentioned, they're partners of ours.

We want to continue to work with them closely.

There is a retrofit um LED kit that we're currently looking into right now for the ball fields, and uh according to the representative for this company, he believes that retrofit may fit into the existing fixture at the tennis club.

And so we are actively working on um trying to find uh affordable solutions to get those lights um updated to LED.

So just to there'll be more to come on that, but um I I can talk to you, Glenn, uh, when I see you out at the park with get you some more details.

Yeah.

Thanks for the update.

Next comment are Barbara Ginos, Genos.

Sorry.

Hello, my name is Barbara Guinness.

I've been a resident of Walnut Creek since 1996.

Uh we all know we've had an extremely dry January, uh a record dry and hot March, and the second lowest snow pack figure um on record right now.

So we can all surmise that it may be an extreme uh fire season.

Um I sent an email uh which I think I sent to all of you that lists some of the fires, the wildfires that occurred in Lime Ridge open space.

Uh in the last 20 years, there were uh 20 some years there was at least uh 10 wildfires, so it's about one every other year.

Uh many of the residents that have homes and properties at abut the open space there, Lime Ridge.

Uh they know that the uh open space is considered high or very high uh fire risk.

Insurance companies have canceled many people, their homeowner's insurance.

Uh if they're not canceled, they're really raising the rates up.

I think some of some of you may experience that too if you live by any open space.

Uh city staff presented a couple times about converting two social trails to multi-use trails and lime and shell ridge.

Uh and city staff touted adding extra signage and advertising and uh social media posts to advertise the uh new uh trail they uh planned open.

Uh the U.S.

Department of Forestry says in many articles, human activities cause 85 to 95 percent of the wildfires.

Uh so inviting more people to the open space, increased human activities can raise the already high and very high fire risk.

So I think it's somewhat irresponsible for city staff to think to not consider the wildfire risk for people that enjoy the open spaces.

Um considering the long list of wildfires in Lime Ridge, and I just found some of them inadvertently on internet.

Um the uh we can say that the taxpayers uh tax paying citizens of the community probably don't need another multi-use trail.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Do commissioners and secretary have any questions on the public comments?

Oh, all right.

Thanks, commanders.

Um the next item is Kens and Calendar approval of minutes from our February 2026 meeting.

Um move to approve.

Second roll call.

Yeah, I'll move forward with the roll call.

Um Commissioner Garland.

Yes, Commissioner Ouller.

Yes, commit Vice Chair Sasser.

Yes, Commissioner uh Brockhouse, yes, and um Chair Pink Staff.

Yes.

Motion passes.

Does any of the public have comments on the consent calendar?

Oh, you don't.

Okay.

So next item is consideration.

We have two presentations from our nonprofit community partners.

First is Mr.

Fred Ransler.

Did I get your with the Walnut Creek Senior Club?

He has a presentation for us.

Welcome.

Well, thank you for this opportunity to discuss the seniors in the community.

My name is Fred Rentschler.

I am the president of the Walnut Creek Senior Club.

And it is a volunteer position.

And it is one of those jobs that you cannot leave until you find your own replacement.

And I want to thank Jessica Bailey, who was in Mike's office, who did the brilliant job on the uh PowerPoint presentation from my kind of incoherent bullet points.

My mission here tonight is twofold, actually threefold.

I do want to get through a PowerPoint production without uh screwing it up.

But I do want to give an overview of the club in the context of political reality now, that the senior population will be competing with other groups and interests that have equally valid and legitimate claims on city resources and funding.

I want to make sure that we have a seat at the table.

So far, so good.

Secondly, I want to talk about a paradigm shift in what I'm seeing in the Walnut Creek Senior Committee, senior community.

I also have waited years to use the word paradigm in a sentence.

I want to give an overview of the club in the we are growing as the senior community is growing in uh numbers and sophistication.

We are healthier, wealthier, more comfortable using tech devices and social media than previous generations.

And I, by the way, I would like to point out that with a phone, you have all the world's information in your palm, but on the other hand, you have all the world's misinformation also.

But that is the world we're living in today.

We will expect more from local government and senior organizations, and as you would probably know, a larger percentage of seniors vote than the population at large.

Our challenge is to rethink and change our approach to the way seniors are viewed and how we can improve their quality of life.

The Walnut Creek Senior Club is in a unique position to help.

The Walnut Creek Senior Club is in this unique position because unlike every other senior club in the area, we are not part of city government.

We receive no city funding.

We are an independent, registered nonprofit run entirely by volunteers.

We have no salaried staff or employees.

Our only source of income are yearly dues, fees, donations, and grants.

That said, we could not exist without the help and expertise of the park and rec and other city departments.

And I would like to thank Karen at Park and Rec, Mike at maintenance, and uh Jim and Hope who are over at Heather Farms.

They have been very helpful in uh in our running of the club.

I will give a few more examples of the cooperation between the city and the club later in this talk.

And to answer the obvious question, nobody knows why this exists, why why we are an independent uh nonprofit.

Okay, now we're gonna talk about senior club.

Uh we have uh we have four off-site groups that serve about 380 members.

Largest and most successful is the Creekers Senior Softball League.

Uh the Creekers are a play on the word Walnut Creek and Creaking Bones.

The volunteer administrative committee that runs the league has made it the most successful senior league in the area fielding.

20 teams in four divisions.

And also the Creekers and the tennis group are revenue neutral to us.

The yearly fee for the Creekers is about the same as two rounds of golf.

Our tennis group consists of 35 men and women that play three times a week at Larkey Park all year long, weather permitting.

Our walking group, the walking buddies, and our bicycle group have weekly tours of the area and average about 35 participants per week.

These are the two biggest uh on-site groups that we have.

We have bingo.

They meet weekly, and they are the only group in the in the club that the IRS allows members to leave with more money than they came.

The IRS differentiates between gaming and gambling.

Gaming is when no skill is needed to uh to win the money.

Bingo, uh Raffles, Wheel of Fortune.

Uh gambling is when skill, skilled players will usually leave with more money than unskilled players.

We're only allowed to do gaming.

Uh the only uh nonprofits that can do gambling are ironically churches.

Second is the Mahjong group who play the American version of the popular game.

We have about 45 members playing each week.

The city runs a class on how to play the game, and they refer everyone over 50 of years of age to our group when they complete the class.

Let's move along pretty well, huh?

Uh these are our on-site uh groups that meet uh at the uh community center, just right over the across the street.

Uh hooked on books, which about 25 members meet monthly to discuss different books every month.

They use the library, another way the city is helping us, and the room is free.

The perennial garden group also meets monthly, where about 25 participants share gardening advice and listen to selected garden experts.

The Let's Sing Group is an a capella group that with about 20 members, including several who have had professional experience.

It meets about it meets twice a week.

The group also performs at various assisted living and nursing facilities.

Another musical group, a new group, is the folk music jam group with about 16 singers and acoustical instruments.

We have three smaller groups that meet twice a month to play bridge, chess, and peanut.

There are about 10 persons apiece that are join those those groups.

The trivia group is still on Zoom.

Uh they start on Zoom at when COVID hit, and uh they get about 25 people.

They meet monthly.

Uh our Q Gong group of around 10 people practice a Chinese balance exercise, and there's also a Zoom in which uh the exercise is also practiced.

And a special note we have a native garden group, like this other woman that was here, um, of around 12 members who are working in partnership with the city and other nonprofits to return the actual Walnut Creek to its pristine natural state by removing invasive non-native vegetation and replanting native varieties.

The senior club is helping by planting butterfly gardens around the creek.

It's another example of the help we get from the city.

Mike Vickers has been uh very good with the resources and advice.

The Walnut Creek Senior Club has about a thousand members down, now down from a high of about 2800 uh 15 years ago.

Reasons for the decline in my judgment are of course the COVID COVID epidemic.

We still haven't recovered from that.

Uh lack of parking at Civic Drive.

We all know that that that's that's a problem.

And uh and the demise of our travel program.

Uh we had a woman, Jody Johnson, who retired at 93 about uh five years ago, who ran the program.

Uh six of us took it over and we ran it into the ground within six months.

I know the city has a travel program, which is in hiatus right now.

Uh and uh most of our members now use uh the travel program at Pleasant Hill.

They have a very good program.

Um the other reason is uh and if I can use my wife as the poster child for this, is uh seniors uh have uh a phone in their hands, and they've got a hundred things they can do every day, and and they don't need the senior club for the socialization that the previous generations did.

I can give example of myself too.

Uh I'm an avid gardener, have been for 50 years.

When I have a problem or a question, I go to YouTube.

Uh there's a thousand YouTube that will answer my question.

And and so this is also something else of why I think that there aren't as many seniors uh using using the senior club.

Okay, let's go to eight here.

For the future, how do we serve this valuable, diverse, and increasing segment of our population?

I see two problem areas, one existential, the other mundane.

As I have mentioned, we need we need to change our perception and attitude about our senior population and what they can and cannot do.

And we need to focus on the increasing number of studies that show that the two most important elements of a meaningful quality of life for seniors is uh socialization and exercise.

And some recent studies have shown that socialization is even more important than exercise.

The other problem is more frustrating and reality-based, parking at Civic Drive, the playground on nice days, the ice rink that takes up about 30% of the parking, uh three months out of the year, and of course, the root cause, there are just too many people in California.

Fortunately for seniors, this problem has a solution.

The Walnut Creek Senior Care Center wants to move work with the city and move our operation to Heather Farms when the new community center is opened sometime in 2027.

And if we could get some space for a small office, that would be great.

That's it.

Uh I'll take any questions if any of you have any.

I I have a question.

Um is there a transportation element to the C any of the senior programs?

Like if you don't drive or the city has a uh agreement with Lyft for transportation.

So does it work in coordination with senior activities?

Yeah, I think you have to be 50 years old age to use it.

But the city does run that.

Okay.

Okay, thanks a lot.

Now I'm anxious to hear about the model trains.

Does the public have any comments on the presentation?

If not.

Hey, one more question.

It's probably more for Mike, but um do we know the demographics of Walnut Creek now?

Like are we trending younger, older?

Umy places are of course aging.

And um I do we keep track of things like that as at the city or we do.

Um, and I should know this information.

It's been shared with me.

Uh, but I'm afraid I'm going to misspeak.

Um so I'd have to follow up with you.

I I know generally the demographics in Walnut Creek are above average in other communities within the Bay Area in terms of age or an older age here in Walnut Creek.

I think the average age is like 46 or something along those lines, which is a little above average if I remember correctly.

And a lot of the new development downtown is it family-oriented or uh uh younger-oriented?

I'd be guessing.

I'm not positive.

Yeah.

I'm just curious because um, yeah, it makes a difference as we sort of plan ahead for what kinds of facilities and activities and things like that are important, is sort of what what is that trend in the demographics?

Yeah, and I'm gonna share a little bit about this in my presentation.

But one of the exciting things that is uh coming up for for this body, uh, not only a look at phase three and what the reimagining Clark Swim Center uh hopefully will be focusing on that this second half of this year, but there's also a general plan update uh that's being led by the planning commission, which will also be here in front of um in front of all of you sharing this information and trying to drive um you know a future look at what Walnut Creek is gonna uh you know gonna look like between now and 2050, and a lot of that information will be shared uh during those during those um sessions.

Yeah, I just had one quick question.

Is there a cost to be in the senior you said it's all nonprofits and what's the cost?

A very reasonable $20 a year.

All right, any other questions?

No more questions.

Now we welcome Mr.

Woody Hodge with the model of Railroad Society to provide his presentation.

Okay.

Good evening.

My name is Woody Hodge, and I'm here to represent the Walnut Creek Model Railroad Society.

Each year we welcome over 44,000 visitors and provide hands-on and educational experiences for families and the community.

Tonight I'd like to share with you some of what we do and how we bring value to the city of Walnut Creek.

The Walnut Creek Model Railroad Society is dedicated to promoting and sharing the hobby of model railroading.

It is a hobby that combines creativity, craftsmanship, and technical skills, and it's something that you truly uh enjoy sharing with others.

We provide a place for model railroads to connect with each other, to learn from each other, and to build lasting friendships.

We often described uh the club as one of the uh Walnut Creek's most well-keeping secrets.

Where else can you entertain a family of four for under 20 dollars?

Oops.

There we go.

Okay, let's start off with a little bit of history.

Uh the club formed in 1948 when six model railroaders got together in a round robin format, which meant they rotated through each other's houses, got together, worked on models, worked on layouts, work, ran trains.

In March of 1950, they came together and formed the Walnut Creek Model Railroad Society as an unincorporated organization.

In June of 52, they then became incorporated in the state of California as a nonprofit organization.

The first building was a storage shed that was acquired from the Hercules Powder Company in Hercules and was moved to near the Southern Pacific Walnut Creek Depot.

They learned very quickly that there were problems with weatherproofing.

They had to apply stucco to the outside of the building, and then they found out the roof leaked, had to give it a new roof, and uh then they put uh wallboard on the inside to manage the regular regulate the heat and the cold.

Well, the shed was being worked on, they constructed a 20 by 40 foot layout in that building.

They held their first public show in June of 1954.

The show included a golden spike ceremony where the president they had actual this thing's going on its own.

Oops, went the wrong way.

Okay.

Um, the golden spike ceremony.

They uh the president of the club held gold-plated spikes in place while it was driven home by the Southern Pacific District Engineer as their ceremony.

There was a new entrance to for the shed that was fashioned from the last 20 feet of an observation car.

Here's a picture of that car.

Uh oops.

I'm on picture.

There we go.

Picture.

Oh, that was it.

Yeah, okay.

We had our first ending.

The U.S.

Carmen Army of Corps Engineers needed to do a flood control project in Walnut Creek.

That was part of the South Broadway extension project.

And the club had to give me out of the shed by mid March 1971.

Their last show was in January of 71.

New beginnings.

They have first attempted to move the Southern Pacific Depot to Heather Farms, which seemed like a reasonable task until we got the estimate from PGE to disconnect and reconnect all of the power lines from the original location down South Broadway to Heather Farms.

That just made it cost prohibitive.

Then we looked started negotiations for an unused parcel in Larkey Park.

Council approved a city lease agreement in January of 1972.

The city approved a construction of a 50 by 80 building on Buena Vista, which is where it is today in Larkey Park.

The space was used as a polling place in the pre-mail-in ballot days.

And we committed to do it holding public shows, which we continue to do today.

Most of the work was completed by the members on weekends and evenings.

Members were preparing to raise the big beams from the steel kit with blocks and tackles.

One of the neighbors wandered over and says, What are you doing?

And they told him.

And he said, Hang on, I'll be back in a few minutes.

So about 30 minutes later, here he comes with his crane.

Lifted those beams in place without a hitch.

Today the building is still maintained entirely by the club members at no cost to the city.

The Walnut Creek Model Railroad Society is a 100% NMRA member club, which means that every member of the club is also a member of NMRA, which is the National Model Railroad Association, which is broken down into national divisions, which is actually worldwide, not national regions, which is North America and divisions.

And we are in the Coast Division of the Pacific Coast region of NMRA.

And some of our members are actually members of the Redwood Empire Division, which is just across the river.

Our members have been or are or have been officers or volunteers in those three.

Walnut Creek has hosted or participated in both Pacific Coast Region and National Conventions.

Sources of income.

The first is our public open houses by charging admission.

Our admission charges are very, very reasonable.

We're open for 118 hours every year.

We have a Friday night, last Friday night of the month show.

We have four weekend shows, typically in odd months.

And then in November we have our two three-day weekend holiday show.

We also operate a gift shop that is open during the public shows.

We collect annual dues for Walnut Creek members.

We see payments for special events and private parties, most of which are like, well, I'll go into that in a minute.

We do not charge for school events, although most of them make a donation anyway.

Dad's old train, but he died.

I don't know what to do with them.

We had 44,460 visitors in 2025.

And this is the breakdown of adults under six seniors and children six to twelve.

We also one of the ways that we advertise, and this number is down from 2024.

One of the ways we advertise is through the Arch and Rec banner service.

And we lost Heather Farms in 2024 when it died through a windstorm.

So we haven't had that available, and it won't get fixed until they're done with Heather Farms.

Growing demand for events and programs.

Last year we had two school visits and three birthday parties, a total of five events.

So far this year we've already had four birthday parties, one school visit, and two more events are scheduled.

Which already exceeds 2025.

At each outreach event, we provide hands-on interactive experiences where participants operate trains, engage participants through conversation demonstrations and QA.

We share information about our layout, events, and programs.

We had hounds on STEM exploration stations.

We had the SERS, so Sons in Retirement.

Okay, looking forward to 2026.

We're going to continue with the exploration stations.

We're adding a Pleasant Hill Thinker Tinkers and Thinkers Innovation Fair.

This one's going to be very fun.

It starts in April.

That's what they start with.

It's a piece of track and an oval-shaped thing.

The two on the left are what they are going to make.

It's something along those lines.

So each kid will be able to make their own, and then at the end of the session, we'll put them all together.

They hook together and make a layout and run a train.

And we will also go back to the Walnut Creek trunk and treat.

Okay, building maintenance.

Over the last couple of years, we've had three major maintenance projects.

We had to repair the building siding, which in many cases replacing T 111 panels and re and completely repainting the entire building, which was done in two stages.

We painted the south and west side in one year, and then the following year we did the east and north side.

We also had to replace the whole air conditioning system, which meant two air conditioning units and two heater blower units.

And the roof developed some potholes, I think from the squirrels, which had to be fixed, repaired, and then the entire roof was recoded and repaired.

Uh resealed.

All of this work was funded by the club and not at the city.

It's the expense.

American Disabilities Act upgrades.

The building itself is in co is in grandfathered compliance.

It hasn't been structurally modified since its original.

But we have a desire to become ADA certified.

We started by hiring a certified access specialist to perform an accessibility survey, which was done in January of 2025.

The accessability survey also noted that the city maintained hardscape around the club business building has accessibility issues that need to be addressed.

When the city several years ago worked in Larkey Park, they did the parking spaces in the parking lot, and they worked on the sidewalk on the street, leaving a big gap between those two.

That's where the issues lie.

So we're gonna plan have to plan on that.

The Walner Creek Model Railroad Society has agreed to convert one bathroom to a unisex handicap accessible bathroom.

The other one is will be converted to unisex, and uh the work also includes some minor accessibility issues.

The timing of this major work, i.e.

the bathrooms, uh will have to be coordinated with the city's plans for doing the hardscape around the building, or we won't be able to put up the appropriate handicap access placards.

And that is the end.

It did.

It was ahead of me.

It knew.

Thank you.

Any questions?

Can I ask that?

Commissioners, do we have any questions?

Does anybody have any questions?

Clarification?

No.

All right.

Thank you.

I will now open the items up to the general public.

If anybody has any comments, please come forward to the podium.

Please introduce yourself.

Hey there.

Hey there, everybody.

My name is Jarrett.

I've been a resident of Walnut Creek since 1989 when I was born.

I've been riding mountain bikes in Lime Ridge and Shell Ridge since then.

Um and I'm here to continue uh advocating for uh more trails for mountain bikes in Lime Ridge.

Um the strategy of exclusion is no longer valid.

Um mountain bikers are here, they're here to stay.

Um, if we're not building access and allowing more mountain bike users to get out into those open spaces, they will continue to build illegal trails and build rogue trails and be unsatisfied with their usage.

Um, a good example is myself in the 90s and 2000s.

I built plenty of the illegal trails out in Shell Ridge and Lime Ridge.

I built plenty of the illegal trails out in Briones, and they all get shut down.

It's resource time and money spent to shut down our trails.

Um, but if we actually build you know trails for mountain bikers, that's gonna levelate a lot of our problems.

Um, most of you guys are probably aware of the Briones pilot project and Briones Regional Park.

Um we put out a survey to all the user groups in Briones, and one of the questions we asked those users in 2025, did you see an increase in mountain bikers in the park or a decrease in mountain bikes in the park?

And most of them said they thought they saw a decrease in mountain bikers in the park, and they were more satisfied with their user experience because it reduced user conflicts on that because mountain bikers aren't on those multi-use trails, they are on their dedicated mountain bike trails that are for them and for them only.

And one of the other big benefits that come out of that, those rogue trails that were built very unsustainably back in the day.

We actually got all of the original trail builders, got them involved with East Bay Regional Park District, got them involved with a biologist.

Now they actually have carte blanche to continue maintaining those trails in a very sustainable way.

And when we go out and do our dig days, they actually send a biologist to come out with us and identify areas that we don't want to disturb and areas that we can disturb.

So Lime Ridge, perfect example of a place that could be done with a pilot project.

I've been building trails in that park for years.

I've seen trails built and I've seen them destroyed.

And what's really cool when they get destroyed, two to three years later, you can go back to that.

Nature has reclaimed it.

And that's the point of that is to say that that park is a very durable park.

It can handle the usage of mountain bikers on there if we allow mountain bikers and if the city wants to get involved to actually build sustainable trails for mountain bikers.

So I'm gonna be here at the next meeting.

But I would love to see a pilot project launched in Lime Ridge.

Not just for myself, but also for those Contra Costa Composite kids and all of our youth that are using those trails.

They want to go somewhere to ride their bike.

And right now we don't not we don't have trails that meet their skill levels or meet their desires for riding.

So if we don't build a pilot project, we don't build trails for mountain bikers.

We're just going to continue building illegal trails, and you guys are gonna be wasting money to shut them down and trying to fight against the problem.

A really good example.

Remember skateboarders in the 90s and 2000s, we're sick and tired of you guys riding around on the cities and grinding on rails and riding on the sidewalk and stuff like that.

And we invested millions of dollars in a skate park, right?

And that problem went away because we gave skateboarders a place to go enjoy themselves.

Now we need to give mountain bikers a place to go enjoy themselves.

Not just so mountain bikers enjoy their outdoor experience, but so that other users can enjoy their experience better because they don't have to worry about a mountain biker coming down a trail and almost running into them.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Commissioners, do we have any questions?

I had a little question.

Um I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with what should happen at Lime Ridge.

But my question is more if you are admitting that mountain bikers are building trails on their own that are illegal.

What guarantee is there that that would stop if some trails were built?

Perfect question.

So pilot project.

Please come to the pod again.

Uh so the pilot project.

Uh, we got four of the formerly illegal trails in the northern region of Brianna, as we got those formalized signed downhill mountain bike only trails, not multi-use mountain bike only.

But in that zone where we've now legalized trails where we used to constantly build illegal trails, myself included, we haven't seen the creation of any new or rogue or illegal trails in that area anymore.

Does that answer your question?

Yeah, thank you.

Yeah.

Any other questions, commissioners?

No.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Next on the agenda is park and open space summary.

I invite Mike Vickers with City of Wanna Creek for the presentation.

Oh, sorry.

Yes.

Please state your name and your residence.

Hi, my name is Miguel Perez.

Um, I live in Concord, and I've been riding bikes most of my life, okay.

Um started when I was a little kid, and you know, it was something fun to do, but it quickly transitioned into a full-time hobby, and I now raise cross-country with the Contra Costa Composite team.

And one of our staple places for us to ride and train is Lime Ridge, but we don't really have a lot of trail access, but it's really a place you really have to rely on.

Um it's one of the best local spots, you know.

I live in Concord, so I can't really go to as many other places.

Like I maybe can't go to Brioni some days, but I can go to Lime Ridge.

It's easily accessible for me.

It's right off the canal trail.

Take the canal trail there to and from.

Um also want to say my team and I, we have put in countless vours volunteering over at Briones and Mount Diablo to give back to the trails that we ride.

And I was hoping we could really get something like that over in Lime Ridge, you know.

It's just riding these trails, it's it's really changed my life.

Um, let me see.

It's also one of the fastest growing sports among the youth.

It's ranked around the sixth fastest growing sport, not only mountain biking, but just cycling in general.

It's really good for us.

It's active.

I I see a lot of people nowadays they complain, hey, kids are just on their phones the whole day, they need to go out and go do something, but then we actually try to go out and ride trails.

Okay, we can ride these trails, but after a while we get bored, you know, maybe maybe we try to build some new trails, but those trails get dozed down.

And it's like it kind of takes some fun out of it, so we could maybe see some new trails out in Lime Ridge.

Um we'd be happy to contribute.

You know, my team would probably love to go out and help dig with the city.

And yeah, just having a lot more trails in Lime Ridge would mean a lot, not just to me, but my whole the whole biking community.

More trails would give riders safer, more diverse options and help reduce crowding and trail conflicts.

It would also create more opportunities for younger riders to get into the sport, just like I did.

And I don't know, it's had a big impact on my life.

I would really like to see something happen out there.

That's all.

Thank you, guys.

Thank you.

Any other commenters?

Well, these two years.

All right.

Could I ask both of you to complete the written card?

So we have a record.

Thank you.

All right.

Could we could we also add that um we do have the public comment section earlier in the agenda?

That's when it's most appropriate for you to make your comments.

Thank you very much for being here.

We were skipped over.

Apologize for that.

All right.

Next on the agenda is a park and space summary.

I invite Mike Vickers with City of Walnut Creek for the presentation.

Good evening, Commissioners.

Uh my name is Mike Vickers.

I'm the assistant public works director for the City of Walnut Creek.

Um and tonight I was um planning to share an overview of our parks and the amenities uh both in our parks and our open space.

Um share a little bit with you about what the uh public works org chart looks like in regards to my responsibilities and talk a little bit about budget.

Um and then dive into the details here.

Okay.

There we go.

So I just ran through the agenda.

Um as I mentioned, our objective for tonight is to share an overview of the parks and open space projects, um, our division, and a general overview of our budget as it relates to projects, which includes our MMP, our CIP, and our our capital budget process, and I'll share more details about this uh in just a minute.

So who are we uh in regards to my side of the um the org chart?

Uh we have a total of 43 members of this team, and it starts uh there on the left with our building uh maintenance team, which is made up of nine individuals responsible for 69 buildings throughout the city, uh including uh the Lesser Center, which is a facility that we just recently took on uh last year, years prior, the Leisher Center was generally maintained um by the theater techs and the uh recreation um division, and there was a uh a transfer and responsibilities uh which has been really great, um both both fantastic for the facility, but also great for the two departments that are working uh much closer together and and securing that the facility is is getting the needs and the attention um that it deserves.

Um the parks, uh we have two park supervisors, uh Brad Griffin and Chuck Montgomery, they divide the parks equally.

Uh for the most part, Chuck maintains passive parks such as uh Civic Park, for example, and Brad would maintain Heather Farm because it's a program facility.

Um and then we have Corey, who is our senior ranger, oversees the uh the open space with a team of about six or seven in total, but the parks and open space, there's about 34 uh employees.

It's interesting to point out that uh before the Great Recession that we had in 08 in the parks and open space division, there was over 50 employees, uh, which is now down.

It's been almost 20 years now.

It's dropped uh probably by by about 40 percent.

And I'm not gonna sh get into this level of not going to share this with the budget, but you might ask, well, how can you drop 40 percent?

And if you um if you take a look at our amenities today versus where they were, you know, 18 to 20 years ago, they're in much better condition.

And a lot of that is due to this body supporting um the funding, the park and loo funding for maintenance activities uh that takes place every two years.

As I go through my updates in the parks, you'll see projects completed.

We've we've updated all of the irrigation systems throughout all of our parks, uh, which is a big time consumer as you can imagine, digging up main lines and and valves and laterals.

It it's a considerable amount of work.

And so with all those efforts with the support of this commission and council, we've been able to reduce the staff uh because we've been improving our amenities.

So our budget uh overview, and this is this is obviously not our operating budget.

This is regarding uh projects.

Um our MMP, which is a maintenance master plan, which by the way, is not a uh a typical plan that you would see in in a lot of other communities.

This is fairly unique to Walnut Creek.

Um Rich Payne, who is now the public works director, created this uh program 15, 20 years ago when he was a uh public works maintenance uh supervisor overseeing the operations and and really what what this has done is been able given us a tool to capture all of the resources within the city of Walnut Creek, put a date and when those resources were installed, and then put a um the uh life expectancy date.

So you can go anywhere in our parks and every bench in our parks, every drinking fountain, bike rack is listed on our MMP, that goes the same as in our streets, all of our street infrastructure, whether it's our signal uh infrastructure or our storm drains.

Uh every every piece of infrastructure within the city, including our facilities is in the MMP.

And we use that MMP uh for a number of different reasons.

One is it helps us project, forecast what uh operational needs we have, and also what capital needs we have.

And so I'll just give an example the the playground over at uh Civic Park that we're getting ready to renovate.

That playground was installed in 97.

It reached its useful life back in 23.

We came to this body, uh got the recommendation to upgrade that facility, went to City Council, they provided the funding, and now we'll go out and and replace that amenity.

So we we use the maintenance master plan to budget and forecast uh future projects.

The those forecast items are moved from our maintenance master plan into our capital budget, or sorry, into our CIP, which is a 10-year planning tool.

So once something is identified, uh infrastructure is identified that needs to be replaced, it goes on to our uh CIP.

That CIP is brought to the Commission every other year uh at the beginning or the yeah, be the end of the uh two-year budget cycle in preparation for the following two-year cycle, we'll bring to you a list of recommendations for amenities that need to be uh repaired or replaced.

Um we'll evaluate the the priority because obviously we don't have the funding to fix everything.

We'll share those recommendations with this uh with this body, get your your guys' support, answer your questions, um, and then take this recommendation on to the city council.

The city council will then appropriate um uh the priorities as they see fit, which then goes into funding the uh the actual amenity improvements themselves, which we refer to as the capital budget, which is a two-year uh capital budget.

So it starts with the MMP CIP and then a two-year uh capital from there.

So this is just a uh quick look at all of the amenities.

I'm gonna get into much more detail here in a minute, but we have um parks uh overview guides, and at the back of the guide, this this is in uh the spreadsheet is in the guide stating where each of the park is at and which amenities exist in each one of the parks.

So Alma Park.

So the reason one of the reasons I'm sharing this presentation with you tonight is my my initial thought, and I shared this with some of the commissioners prior, uh, was to update our 10-year park plan, which was uh which was originally uh put together back in 2016.

Um it's a 10-year park plan, and so it's expired uh this year.

And we decided to take a step back because as I mentioned uh a few minutes ago, we are going to be doing a general plan update the for the 2020 the 2050 general plan, and we thought it would be better to take the take that time to take a more holistic look at our parks.

And so the Planning Commission uh probably around the October meeting will be coming uh to the Commission and start those conversations, as they will all the other all the commissions throughout the city.

And that's generally they'll share more information or you'll get more information leading into that.

But generally, we we're trying to get from your standpoint from your viewpoint what the parks are going to look like over the next 20, 25 years, which is pretty challenging, right?

I mean, technology changes, you know, every every five to ten years.

Um new amenities and new sports uh come up.

It's it's really hard to, it's really hard to uh decide.

So we're looking more at in in general.

Um but keep in mind as you're going through this process, and we're not gonna discuss it too much here tonight, but but keep in mind the condition of facilities.

Um just as I stated in our MMP, uh we have aging facilities here in Walnut Creek.

Obviously, we've got a huge project tackling uh some amenities that were built back in uh late 60s, early 70s.

We have a community center and a clay arts facility, an assembly hall in Walnut Creek, or sorry, in Civic Park, uh that you know, 10 year they're about 60 to 65 years old now.

And so as we're going through the general plan process, we should also be thinking about uh how these amenities are being used and their in their life cycle.

So um if you and I've seen that some of you had the 10-year park plan that I emailed out uh to all of you, or actually Ashley did, thank you, Ashley, uh a few weeks back, uh, just to kind of give you an idea of what what was discussed over the past ten years, give you a little insight into what we're talking about tonight.

And and if you had an opportunity to go through it, you'll notice that there's a section where we we focused on what we refer to as feature parks.

And uh the goal there was to uh was to look at it was it was really based around the parks in the downtown.

Um because as the community was starting to grow and we were getting much more multifamily housing uh condos and apartments built in the downtown.

We were made we wanted to reach out and and really put our heads together to ensure that we are bringing enough amenities into the major green spaces that we have in the downtown, which is really Alma Park and Civic Park.

Now there are other parks, Walnut Creek isn't that big.

So I mean Heather's you know, only about a mile and a half from from Civic, Walden isn't too far uh from Civic.

But when you think about the downtown parks, most people actually only think of Civic Park because they don't really have an idea where Alma Park is at.

Alma Park is a fairly small park, but it was one of the feature parks that we were trying to uh bring more community awareness to and maybe some more many some some more um uh amenities for different user groups to to Alma Park.

And it's and it's really challenging.

Uh we we get came across a number of challenges when we were working through this process and identifying feature parks because Almo Park, for example, which is is pretty well hidden.

It's surrounded on three sides by um high density housing.

And if you were to drive by, you would really think that it is an HOA property that is really owned and managed by the uh by the condos and the apartments in that area, and it and it's not.

It was uh the park was um as part of the permitting process, it was uh the city took possession of that park and opened it in 2003.

It's it's about two and a half acres, somewhere in that range.

And it has some pergolas, so some shaded seating areas, um, some grass areas, and if you'd go there in the morning, it's a uh it's kind of a dog park.

Uh people live in the condos and apartments need an opportunity to get their dogs out, uh, walk them around and um and you know, do what they do what they need to do.

Uh it's it's very aesthetically pleasing.

It's it's really well maintained.

Um we've had some older oak trees uh that have come down.

There's an area that we refer to as the bowl, which is really kind of a it looks like a bowl, actually.

We had an oak tree that was somewhere in their age of uh 200 years old come down and as one of the when it was identified as a feature park, one of the commissioners uh recommended that we go in and do some high-end landscaping in that area.

In fact, there was uh there was discussion about community gardens and other things, and when you're gonna put a community garden in right below, you know, 200 people's balcony, uh, which could drive noise, could drive you know other challenges, including rodents and those types of things, you you get some pushback and and and rightly so.

Um and so we just we just went with a passive garden uh in that area.

There was some other things that were talked about, improved seating.

We also talked about building a small play ground, not a structure, but play panels and a seating area that would overlook uh Mount Diablo.

Um we never got that far.

Uh we we don't have the funding to do those two, and we also learned that there's uh there's a permit to build another structure, uh another apartment complex that would block your views uh from Mount Diablo, and you'd probably be looking right into someone's um patio.

And so I think once that facility gets built, uh maybe we can relook at um re revamping and coming up with some different ideas.

We talked about public art.

There's a couple great spots for public art.

The the public art team knows about it, and I think that when those opportunities come up that uh, you know, they may come back to the commission and say, hey, we want to move forward with those uh with those ideas.

So Arbolato Park was also um identified as a feature park.

We we accomplished uh a lot um over the last several years with Arbo.

You can see that the park opened up back when the uh Arbolato neighborhood was built back in 93.

It's 2025, 26 acres.

About 18 of those acres are maintained and developed.

The other six acres is an old uh walnut orchard that uh remains undeveloped with the with just the older trees and um it acts as a uh really good buffer between uh the active park and and the homes on the back side.

Uh we we looked at developing that six acres uh along several years ago, and as you as kind of the theme, you know, we got fair amount of pushback, right?

These beast people built bought their homes, they had a buffer, and now we were considering or having conversations about doing away with that buffer, which obviously frustrates uh property owners.

And so we put that aside.

Um there was another space down at the uh this northwest corner of the park where there's about an acre, acre and a half that we actually put funding aside, council approved funding to put a plan together to improve that section of the park.

Our Arbolato Park, it's it's off of uh it's kind of tucked away a little bit, but it's a really active park.

Uh there's a lot of sports that are going on there, there's a lot of local use with the playgrounds and what we consider the passive area there to be a bowl.

Uh you go by there on a weekend, especially during soccer season, and it's a lot of street parking, all the parking spots are filled in both parking lots.

It's very active.

And the decision um not too long ago was to pull that funding, and that funding actually went into the synthetic turf uh project because we needed some additional funding.

And so that that acre and a half will continue to sit um until we uh bring it back as a high priority and then uh work through as I as I shared, the CIP process and then the capital budget process.

So in the last several years, we've added shade structures, uh, we've improved a connection to the open space.

Um we've just recently resurfed resurfaced the tennis and basketball courts.

As I mentioned prior, I'm not gonna say this for every one of the parks, but we completely redid the irrigation system.

Um the playground structures uh are not brand new.

They were put in in 2001, 14 or 15, um, and are and are doing well.

So no no real need for uh improving the structures at this time.

Can I interrupt quickly for clarification?

Yes.

So Arbolato is a community park.

Correct.

And Heather Farm is a com community park.

The farm is considered a regional, yeah, it's correct.

Right, regional park.

And most of our other parks are something else.

So could you kind of go through the definitions of the different kinds of parks?

Yeah, there used to be in fact some of the old signage would say neighborhood park.

And so now we have two distinctions.

We have one regional park, and all the other parks are considered community parks.

So size and amenities aren't part of that definition, at least how it's being considered now.

That's correct.

Okay, and I I know I guess I'm getting into more than then, just a quick clarification.

But um I think people perceive parks differently.

I mean, we run into this, right?

People at Red Gear, even people at Arbolato, right?

Did not want in shade because more people will come.

And it's like but it's a community park, and it's meant to be open to the community, not just the neighbors.

So is that more of a conflict you see happening or um it it comes up?

You know, when when you talk about developing the six acres of orchard, uh that buffer, um, you know, you hear the comment you hear the comments that hey, this is a neighborhood park.

This was built here to support this neighborhood.

It wouldn't be here unless the neighborhood was here.

And because of that conflict, the language changed.

And so they're not neighborhood parks anymore.

I mean, we're gonna we're gonna talk about the old Lancaster Park, now the remembrance park, which is a very small piece, right?

It's probably 12, 15,000 square feet.

It's community park.

It's no longer considered to be a neighborhood park.

Yeah.

And and you know, this is um I'm gonna go through each one of these parks.

So thank you for for the question.

If you have questions, let's tackle them now instead of waiting to the very end.

It'll just it'll save us time having to go back.

So the boundary golf course, there's been some requests uh from commissioners to get a uh more of a formal update on uh what's happening and what's new at the golf course.

Um the golf course is considered a park.

So before I go on, that that update will hopefully be at the next uh June meeting.

Um hopefully we'll have someone uh from the recreation team uh give an update on all the great things that are going on out there.

But um, as you can see, the the the building and the golf course were built in 69.

Um the city put, I can't remember if it's six or eight million dollars into the actual facility back in fifth back in 2016 or 2017, where they revamped a lot of the uh infrastructure, the plumbing and those types of things.

Um they also did a lot of improvements at the grill, um, HVAC systems and and some of the banquet rooms, those those uh were all in need of improvements from a facility that is uh quite old.

And then most recently, as all of you know, we uh the recreation team along with the engineering team and a golf course designer updated the driving range and installed this top tracer, which is uh really really taken off uh quite well.

Um Mike, but there's a differentiation in that it's uh self-funding organization for for golf.

And were those the uh driving range was also self-funded, wasn't it?

Yes.

And and this is specifically why we brought you back to the commission is to remind me of some of the important details that you're well, just because the I mean the the amount of money spent on the building facility was beyond the capability of the self-funding nature of of golf uh golf range maintenance, but but that's that's you know understandable.

Actually, the the facility is what's considered an enterprise fund, and it's fully self-funded, and the funding that was borrowed uh for the facility upgrades along with the driving range are being fully supported by the operational uh revenues that come into the golf course.

It was not not funded by the general fund.

So thank you for reminding me to bring that up.

Yeah.

Very important point.

So Castle Rock, um, sure a lot of you know where Castle Rock is, it's adjacent to Northgate High School.

Uh we do share some tennis courts.

There's 12 tennis courts uh at that facility.

Four of them are publicly uh used after school hours.

Um weekends and evenings uh obviously during the day, they're used by the students.

They're fairly regularly used by uh by community members.

One challenge is there's there's no restrooms up there for the public, which makes it a little bit uh a little bit challenging.

However, there are um uh restrooms down by the soccer field.

There's a little bit of a hike between the soccer field and the uh and the tennis courts.

If you get a chance to get out there to take a look, it'd be worth seeing this this facility was built in uh 2003.

It's built on Mount Diablo school property, and the city has a 50-year lease with Mount Diablo uh school district to have this uh facility in that location.

Um there's big parking lot there, it's it's really a sports park for the most part.

They there's two adult-sized soccer fields during soccer season, and then there's this uh little league uh ball fields um that are out there as well during baseball season.

Mike, I have a question.

Yes.

Um what's the public accessibility to the tennis courts?

So the public has access to four of the tennis courts.

I believe it's the four lower courts uh after school hours and on weekends, after school hours.

Okay.

Thanks.

Yeah, and those courts were recently resurfaced by the school district, and uh the city did participate in the funding uh to resurface those courts.

I have another question.

Um this is more of a general question, but this is what triggered it.

Um does the city have agreements with Mount Diablo for other facilities like pools or anything like throughout the district?

We we do not.

You don't?

Okay.

No.

I'm gonna get into Northgate Park here in a minute, and there is a little bit of mixed use there I can share with you, but no, not with pools.

Yeah.

So Civic is uh mentioned is uh is was one of the feature parks.

In fact, uh Commissioner Worthy, Tom Worthy, who served on this uh body for uh at least two terms.

Uh this was his park, and and there were some interesting ideas.

Uh he was really trying to activate um the east side of the park and uh had an idea of moving the playground over to the east side to provide more space on the west side, also get more users over on the east side.

That actually led into um some funding that was set aside to do a park master plan at Civic Park.

Um then we got into a bigger discussion about our facilities and our facility needs with council.

Um so that funding there was $350,000 set aside to do a master plan for Civic Park.

That funding eventually uh went into your park your future, which ultimately led to the construction and and uh new development of the of the pool and and recenter.

And so the the master plan still sits the master plan concept and idea for civic park still sits in the CIP unfunded.

Um but we have made a number of improvements as you can see.

We added some uh where Mr.

Worthy was suggesting the playground goes, we added some um exercise equipment there.

I wouldn't say it's overused.

Um it it gets you see a lot of the same people uh that are using it.

Um but it it certainly gets used.

It's just you you'd like to see a little bit more participation.

Um parks, you know, right around 17 acres.

Uh it's it's surrounded by the clay arts building.

I don't know.

Most of you probably are aware of the clay arts building where the restrooms are.

That building I think was installed in the 40s.

Um very old building, well-built building, uh very active building, the the clay arts uh that are in that facility.

I think are seven-day-a-week classes and uh very very active.

Um what else we got there?

So many of you know in 2010 we opened up the library.

Uh there used to be tennis courts where the library is and a smaller library obviously that all came together in in 2010.

We're re uh constructing the playground and the playground, this should go out in social media here hopefully this week, that by the end of this by the end of this month we'll be under construction uh at the playground.

I talked to the playground construction company, they said it's probably gonna be about five to six weeks for construction.

So fingers crossed we'll be done before the end of May.

So Diablo Shadows, um not too far from the golf course.

Uh in fact, there's a trail that uh runs along the back of Diablo Shadows that'll run you right up to the Ignatio Canal Trail right there by hole number fourteen.

Uh small small park, um, you know, probably the definition of a neighborhood park because it is so small, but it is a community park.

Um two and a half acres.

Uh it it gets a little bit of use for soccer.

We were trying to get um as the Wilnut Creek Soccer Club continues to grow with the with the younger guys and gals.

We were trying to get them to use some of this space out there, which they did uh this last year, because they're they're competing for space, right?

The program continues to grow.

I think it's just short of 3,000 uh individuals, uh though sorry, athletes.

I know that the synthetic turf fields uh will will greatly help that need because they're it's all weather, they can use it more more regularly, get more bodies out there.

So I'm not sure they'll continue to use uh Diablo Shadows, but it's great to see the park active.

It it really is for the most part used by the neighbors.

Get the odd birthday party out there, the shade structure that we put in.

There's a number of barbecues and and um other seating areas out there.

Before we leave Diablo Shadows, um two things.

One, I've also seen flag football practicing out there.

Uh girls flag football.

Okay.

Interesting.

Yeah.

Um and then also, you know, there's the connector to the trail, but then there's also the the I guess it's a power corridor that runs down all the way to um Oak Grove.

Yes.

Okay.

And there's a bridge.

Yes.

When you were giving me my tour four years ago, you talked about that bridge, but the bridge is the same.

So is there a problem with that bridge?

Structural problem or um I mean I walk on it all the time.

Um there's no structural issues with the bridge at all.

Okay.

The bridge is uh safe and sound.

It's it's in our CIP.

The long-term goal is to get rid of the stairs.

Uh uh so that you can get easier get, you know, the little guys and girls can get their bikes up or or strollers, you know, those types of things.

And so it's more of an accessibility um goal of ours, and it's I think it's still in the CIP, to be honest with you, uh, just to make the bridge accessible is really what it comes down to.

Okay.

And then secondly, on that corridor that's under the power lines um from the park to Oak Grove, that is not the city's property, correct?

It is the city's property.

Oh, is it the city property?

Yes.

Okay.

The paid trail is.

The uh the bike young kids on bikes have built themselves a nice trail with jumps and stuff like that along there.

So I didn't know if it was the city's responsibility or if it was the utilities responsible.

Yeah.

The utilities uh a number of years ago, PGE came in and removed a bunch of oaks.

Um I don't know if you you you probably see some of the stumps out there.

I'm sure the kids are using those as jumps.

But um, they came in and removed a number of oaks that were growing up into the up into the uh the wires.

Uh but that is full, that is city responsibility.

If you're if you're out there, as you are, you'll see that the gravel roads that uh go on either side.

Those are the service roads for flood control.

Those are obviously their responsibility.

The Pine Creek with Pine Creek, that waterway that runs through there, that portion is fully uh flood control's responsibility.

There is a there's a Pine Creek portion that the city has further upstream than that, but that's all uh uh flood control.

Yeah.

So the paved trail areas of ours.

All right.

So El Dovisadero right next to Bree and Christian um soccer field there for the most part.

We've added a couple amenities with some picnic tables and uh improved drinking fountain.

You can see kind of the uh balance beam logs uh that we added, and we added some exercise equipment, knowing that parents are out there uh maybe with their little ones and the little ones are watching the older ones play soccer and get bored so they can go climb around on the logs and and rocks, and maybe you know the the adults or teenagers can use the exercise equipment.

So it's it's worked out well.

The exercise equipment was a big trend uh 10, 12 years ago, um, which uh so we we did it here and we did it at Civic Park.

Um we've seen like I said, moderate, moderate use out of out of those facilities.

So Heather Farm, I'm not gonna spend a ton of time on Heather Farm.

We all know uh what amenities this has from an equestrian center over to now pickleball courts.

Um it it's it's got it, it's got everything that you can think of.

It's a large park.

Um here's the master plan.

This is one of the few master plans that we have uh citywide.

Um there's a couple things to point out here.

Look at that, how fancy.

Uh the all Billy's playground, obviously not new, it was built and opened up in in 25 or sorry, 14, 2014.

The great thing about the all Billy's playground, well, good and bad.

If you've been out there and you look at the resilient surface, the rubber, uh it's it's not looking like Wilma Creek standard.

It's it's really pulled apart.

But we just got funding.

Uh council just uh appropriated uh, or actually we received funding from uh our recycle smart fund.

Um so we have uh the money now uh to replace that resilient surface, believe it or not, to replace that resilient surface is about a million dollars.

Things are getting expensive, there's no doubt.

So that's a project that our engineering team will help out hopefully this fall, if not uh sometime next spring.

Um the Centennial Grove that that uh went in place in 2014 when the city uh hit its 100 year mark.

Um the greenhouses there at the uh gardens uh was um donor funding that they received and the city supported that with a community garden that uh the gardens uh maintained for us.

The passive pick the passive picnic area.

I don't know.

It feels like this mic keeps going out, but maybe it's me.

Um for those of you who aren't aware, that's actually the equestrian center.

The the 2003 master plan that was adopted shows the equestrian center going away and more recreation space being put in that location.

There's a little sports court it shows in there, and then that brown circle there is um is a facility, a restroom or something along those lines.

And then uh bocce courts were originally uh proposed there at uh what we have as our maintenance yard.

Um those ideas kind of went by the wayside when we lost a portion of our corporation yard off of uh Lawrence Way when the when the new um hotel went in there.

And then you can see that this how old this plan is uh where it showed two basketball courts and is now a dog park.

Um the goal obviously when they were doing the master plan was to try and uh get some additional court surfacing out there, but the uh dog park won it over and uh the dogs uh are out there to stay.

So, and then you know, we we completed this is uh we see the pool and rec center project.

We completed phase one uh last summer.

We're in the middle of phase two, a lot of exciting things out there.

I can't wait to get see your grandson out there seeing all the big trucks and equipment run around.

We're doing the excavation, the mass excavation right now.

Um right after that, within the next uh few weeks, we will be uh putting in the uh underground utilities and then start uh working on the foundation and then start construction, you know, by summertime.

Uh and then comes phase three, and I mentioned this briefly earlier.

Uh phase three, uh it's my understanding the recreation team is going to be leading uh the reimagining of the Clark Swim Center, which is about 3.4 acres.

Um and if you've been out at Heather Farm and you've seen that fence, the construction fence that's up there, it's really taken a big swath out of the meadow.

Uh it doesn't mean we've gotten less people.

If they're just working in they're just playing in smaller areas now.

Um it will be interesting to see what comes out of that.

We lost about two and a half, two point eight acres, and then we're gonna gain about three point four acres with the with the new um pool, or sorry, with the uh Clark Swim Center.

Um there'll be the more to come on that planning process.

But co council's goals to start that planning process the second half of this year or spring of next year, based on uh depending on priorities.

And Mike, the the commission will have a role in that, correct?

Yeah, absolutely.

Okay, yeah, I hope so.

There's a lot of interest in that.

Yeah, yeah.

And um also, yeah, I boy, I tell you that the park is always crowded.

Maybe it looks a little more crowded because there is less space, but there's so many people out there.

A lot.

Which is great.

I mean, it's wonderful um to see so many people out there enjoying the park, even with the fences up and stuff.

The day after in terms of maintenance, the day after 4th of July is uh probably our most challenging uh maintenance day, and then the day after Easter is our second most challenging.

Yeah.

There's a lot of uh candies and stuff all over the place.

So it's uh you you know everybody had a good time, uh, especially when the calls come in on the Monday mornings.

Why aren't you guys out here type of thing?

So uh the guys do a great job.

There's uh about I say four and a half because there's some other responsibilities to oversee um 102 acres with over 1.5 million visitors and four and a half people is pretty impressive.

Uh so Larkey, where the um the model railroad uh station is.

Uh seen some upgrades in the in the pool back in 2016.

Uh the pool, for those of you who remember, we used to be an L-shape that was squared off.

Uh I believe it might have been deepened.

I can't remember.

I'm not positive about that.

And then there was a uh splash pad uh that was installed there.

And I was share these numbers that Karen Heaston uh shared with me back in 17.

That when the in 16 prior to the pool being opened, or the new pool being opened, they were getting about 3,500 visits per year.

And with the additional um size of the pool and the splash pad, they the following year they got over 35,000.

Um, which is going to be interesting when we open up a new pool and rec center with a lazy river and a big splash pad that 1.5 number might go to 1.8.

We'll see uh at Heather Farm.

So we'll see see what happens there.

But uh Larkey is a great park.

It uh it's it gets a lot of uh a lot of visitors.

I don't know the numbers, but it's very active.

We we increased the number of volleyball courts, sand volleyball courts over there not too long ago, just just before COVID.

It's got our only horseshoe pits.

Um it's really active uh tennis center.

There's been um, you know, as as pickleball continues to grow, there's been some people pushing to add pickleball uh to make some of those courts uh pickleball friendly or multi-use.

Uh that hasn't taken hold uh because it is so close to to neighborhoods.

Um the uh, like I said, the basketball court uh is out there.

The swimming swimming pool isn't open year-round.

Um, although it's it's becoming more frequent in the winter as we have challenges with the heather farm uh pump system and heating system for those ponds.

So we want to make sure that we got providing opportunities for our swimming uh community to keep going wherever we can.

It's challenging with that old pool, but uh I mean meaning the Clark Pool, but um we do our best.

Uh and then we resurfaced uh the tennis court and basketball court, I think in 21 with a uh a state grant uh that we received.

LaRue, uh LaRouce, uh interesting piece of property that uh was deeded to the city uh back in 75 by Mrs.

LaRue.

Um uh the agreement was that Mrs.

LaRue would remain on the property until she passed.

Uh she passed uh unfortunately in 2003.

The city went in and worked over a four or five year period to get it public ready and open the park up in in 08.

It's a 10-acre park.

If you haven't had an opportunity to get out there, the views of Mount Diablo are just terrific.

Right now, certainly right now with everything being as green as it is.

In fact, you don't see it up there as much as we used to, but people would be up there with easels.

You'd see four or five people up there almost every day with easels painting uh you know Mount Diablo.

There used to be a home up there as as as shared.

There was a swimming pool.

Um we eventually took the home out, uh, filled in the swimming pool, and this water tower, we moved it over slightly, and we left that in there more as a memor more as a memorial for the LaRue family.

Uh there's some uh historical signage that a Boy Scout did.

There's an old wall in it hauler um that was up there that was uh dated back to like 1920.

And a Boy Scout, uh Boy Scout troop came out and uh they overhauled it and and repaired it and got it functioning and uh basically restored it and it's up there now by the water tower.

Uh this is uh this property is completely fenced in.

Um if you're out there at 8 o'clock in the morning, it's uh a lot of dogs.

Uh and and certainly um for the most part used by the neighbors.

There was a an exercise that we went through a number of years ago.

Um we were re-looking to uh develop this park more than it is.

We actually worked with an architect, we had a uh a plan to build a playground up there.

We talked about building um uh large perglas or shade structures uh almost like uh farm, not farm, but barn-like shade structures up there for community outings.

Uh there were some uh people in the neighborhood that really thought that this was an ideal uh wedding spot, and so they were trying to drive more interest uh in in that area.

And what we did end up doing was we built um all weather uh trails.

It used to only have dirt trails, and so we put DG trails so that you can still get out there in the winter without getting mud all over your shoes.

We've planted I don't know, 60 to 80 trees out there, oak trees and and fruit trees, um, and then added some seeding.

Um there hasn't really so we don't have any funding.

So it was a kind of a phased approach.

We we completed phase one, phase two was to go build the playground and those types of things.

And we haven't had much push back from the community.

In fact, and the neighbors would prefer that it's not activated anymore.

Uh parking is uh almost non-existent.

Street parking is very minimal.

Um so it would uh it would certainly drive uh uh more users with maybe not all the resources you need in order to do enjoy your experience up there.

And and restrooms, no restrooms up there either.

And restrooms, you know, based on the um the conventions and and the different shows that I go to are somewhere in the range of 500 to 700,000 to build restrooms without the service hookups.

So restrooms, you know, you start you only have so much funding, and that's you know, when we're working through the CIP, that's what we're trying to prioritize.

What are we finding balance?

Mike, can I ask a question about LaRue?

Yeah.

Um I haven't been up there in six months or so, but the east entrance is fairly steep.

Um I don't know if if if maintenance has been able to go and like grade it or if they could.

The um Shady Glen, right?

Is it Shady Glen Drive?

Yeah, it's JD Glenn.

That entrance on that side is very steep.

Yes.

So I don't know if if maintenance can grade it or you know, whatever, or if it's it's intentionally steep.

But yeah, definitely look into it.

Thank you for that feedback.

Okay.

So Liberty Bell, most most of you probably didn't know Liberty Bell, which is uh right downtown at uh uh Broadway and Mount Diablo uh is considered a park.

Um it's all hardscape.

Um it's got the the decorative fountain there, and it's kind of a pass-through uh for shoppers and uh others that are just visiting the downtown.

We do um I've worked closely with the Walnut Creek Downtown Business District, and we are looking to um improve some seating to try and get uh provide another spot for somebody to sit down and have a sandwich or uh enjoy the company they're with, and and there's um drinking fountain out there.

We're gonna convert the drinking fountain to a dog or a pet-friendly drinking fountain.

We had a fair amount of feedback about that when people are walking around in the hot downtown, uh, and then there's an aged kiosk that we're gonna be replacing in those types of things.

So not a lot going on down there.

We're trying to make it a little bit more inviting, add some shade, those types of things.

Uh Northgate, I I touched on this earlier.

Northgate is right adjacent to the parking lot for Northgate High School.

Uh the Northgate High School volleyball team uses the new um volleyball uh sand volleyball courts that are there.

They also use it for PE.

Um, they'll bring out uh they have the removable uh disc golf netting nets that they'll take out there.

I think they use it for shot put and and some other things out there.

But this park was renovated, I think in 15 or 16, I can't remember.

Um but it was obviously you can see here was it was created back in 79 and and it went when it was created it had a roller skate rink uh within within the trail system, which was really interesting.

When I first got to this city, I was like, what's going on here?

What were they thinking when they did this?

And then I learned it was uh for roller skating, so good old days.

Um so there is uh there's no parking unless you're parking in the in the school parking lot, it's mostly street parking.

Um it's it's joined to uh Castle Rock.

Um when when we re when we renovated the park, the area next to the San Volleyball, we made flat enough for two youth.

By youth, I mean uh four to five-year-old soccer fields.

Um and there are restrooms at Castle Rock Park.

So it's uh it's a bit of a hike.

You've got to basically go the distance of a uh uh an adult-sized soccer field to get from one spot to the other.

But uh we improved the seating, the landscaping was a really great improvement.

This this park was really, really tired um and used to get a lot of graffiti, uh, a lot of um litter and those types of things, because it's kind of a pass-through for the uh for the students at Northgate, and and uh, you know, once we improved it, the the kids uh we didn't get any more graffiti, we didn't get any more litter.

It was almost like, hey, they they care about it, so now do we now now we do as well.

So it was a really great project.

Old Oak Park um is uh this could be a trivia question, actually.

Where is Old Oak?

Where is yeah, Old Oak Park?

So if you're um let me see, I'm gonna get my directions wrong.

But if you're at the intersection of Tice and Rossmore, the way that I'm facing, if you were gonna turn west, it that would take you into Rossmore.

If you turn left, which would be like almost like you were gonna go to the safe way, if you went straight up the hill, it dead ends at a park, and it's called Old Oak Park.

The only thing there is a sign and a two-rail fence to preventing anybody from driving into the park.

Um this park uh was purchased along with a lot of the open space, and I'll share some of this with you in in a few minutes through the R8 bond that was passed by the community uh back in ninety-four, or sorry, 74.

This park was one of the parks that were purchased with that eight uh 6.8 million dollar bond.

Um but back in 2010, just before I got here to the city, the my um my old boss, Dan Cather, uh was getting some push from the community to build a disc golf course.

And with this park being 16 acres completely undeveloped, um there's not even any walking trails up there.

Uh the goal was, hey, how do we find how do we activate this space just through a passive use?

And um, and it didn't go over uh as well as you thought.

Uh they went out and designed uh the 18 holes.

Uh they had it a community uh uh prose community meeting, and uh the council chambers were packed full of neighbors, and uh they left there knowing that they're not gonna build a uh disc golf course.

So it was it was a challenge.

Um it's it's you know, I have said this a number of times about the neighbors, and and part of it is uh I and I know I've learned about I I've done a better job or think I'm doing a better job at this, is making sure that you're getting out in front in front of this and and not just bringing a plan to the commit to a neighborhood, almost almost ready to go, almost shovel ready.

It's about getting them more involved earlier on.

We've done that with a number of projects, uh, you know, whether it was San we had San Volleyball uh subcommittees where we took commissioners along with uh active community members, put together subcommittees, and we'd go out and evaluate these different spaces.

We were having these study sessions out in the field.

We did it with uh botchy.

Uh we ultimately did it with disc golf um based on the experience that we learned from Oldlook Park.

We put together a committee and and found that uh the back of Walden Park could it be active, it could be better activated.

And so we put nine holes in the back of uh of of old of Walden Park.

I'll share and I'll share that with you here in a minute.

So, you know, it's about getting the the neighbors more involved and getting them more invested and and making sure that they have a voice to share is is generally what I've learned uh over the last uh number of years.

He might could could this become an open space instead of a developed park.

Yeah, so so a lot of people consider it a land bank, consider it open space, um and you know, the gen the general plan says it's a park, but e either way.

Uh there there was funding that was uh approved, $25,000 to build some trails back in 17 or 18.

Um the work was never completed.

That money sat uh there long enough that uh when we needed it for the synthetic turf fields, that money was uh moved over and and um uh supported the synthetic turf field.

So um yeah, it it basically is open space now.

I mean, if you go up there.

Really the only thing the only maintenance that it gets is we go out there once in a while and pick up litter um and then we have to abate it.

We we disc we diss that field out there.

So uh it's you know it's it's off the beaten path, right?

It's it's almost outside of the city limits for the most part, so it doesn't get that much attention.

Does it have trails or no trails?

There's no trails there.

Okay, because the slides that it has walking trails.

That's why.

Well, I'm sorry.

The so though see the paved trail there on the one picture?

Yeah on the on the bottom picture.

There's a walking trail that basically takes you from that end of that street up into a neighborhood.

But it's not a dirt trail, it's not actually well, I guess it's probably part of the park, but it's not like uh two-mile unpaved trail that you like an open space trail.

Yeah, it's just a uh just that neighborhood access.

So remembrance park, um, like this used to be uh Lancaster Park, uh not that long ago.

Um I think this the park name changed maybe in 21 or 22, somewhere in that range.

Uh it was previously named Lancaster Park.

Um like almost all of our parks are named after the road that they're on.

Um this fell right in line with that.

Uh there was a push from the community to uh come together and provide a space uh to recognize individuals um for a number of reasons.

Uh this space was chosen.

Uh it was really just a um it was really a great project.

The uh the community came out, they they donated money, they they put pavers out there, uh they donated the funding for the benches for the for the table, the umbrellas.

Uh we had to redo some of the pathway to make it a little bit easier to walk around.

Um and it was really a a great, great event.

And it's it what's what's interesting about the PROS commission is nine times out of ten, they're making a recommendation either to staff or to council um on where to take a certain item.

Um and in this case, the PROS Commission uh it was held responsible for the name change.

Uh this came solely from the PROS Commission, didn't have to go to council.

And so when the community was here pushing for uh for this, the the PROS commission got to make the uh make the final determination on on the name change, which was really great.

In fact, there's um there's a couple other amenities uh in the open space uh that we're considering some name changes for, and so we may be bringing that to you in the June meeting or or later this year uh to get your guys to to weigh in and get your opinion on those.

So very small park.

I mean it says an acre, this is definitely not an acre, it's less than an acre.

Uh but it's worth it's worth going by and seeing it a lot of the vegetation and the and the plants and flowers you see on the um on the bench.

That's just one bench, there's three benches out there.

This this material is maintained by the community members, and uh it's it's a good spot.

Hey, Mike, when when that came before us, I remember discussing this a little bit, and the suggestion was made that um there be an explanation of of the significance of the park.

Um and did they put it up any information like a plaque or uh kiosk or we have not anything like that?

No, we have not.

I mean, it's something that we'll make note of.

It might have just been something that fell off our priority list, but uh there isn't any information out there stating why the name change.

Yeah.

There might be online, but there's not at the park.

But there's also, I mean, isn't this the maybe I'm remembering misremembering, but uh isn't this the one where this is kind of dealing with with literally with it is like a memorial park.

I mean, there were certain young people maybe that had suffered with mental illness and and had passed away, and this park is is in part in remembrance of them.

Yeah.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah.

And it seemed to me at the time that since that's the case, it's not about the name change per se, it's about what is the significance of this part.

Correct.

So anyway, okay.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's definitely worth revisiting.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, there's there people that are recognized there.

I mean, one of the biggest pushes for this was uh teachers from Las Lomas had reached out to us and and uh were in full support of of um kind of changing the theme and also changing the name, uh something to represent the students that had gone through their school.

So Rudgear.

Um nothing new at Rudgear.

That was a mild attempt at a joke, but uh pickle pickleball is uh is going on.

It's not new.

I mean, pickleball's been around for a little while now.

In fact, uh the original pickleball courts when they were doing um joint use between tennis and pickleball, where I think it was the lines were painted.

The temporary lines were put in back in 2012.

Um and then permanently put in in 2018, I believe.

I could have those dates a little bit off, and then the this board, as we all know, has just grown drastically from there.

Uh they get a ton of use.

Uh they've had some change of hours over there, which uh a little bit of change of parking to uh to respect some of the neighbors' uh parking spots or street parking spots over there.

And um I know the noises uh continued challenge.

Um, but for the most part, the court is uh really well maintained.

They pick up after themselves.

Uh they're continuing to honor the uh the unsanctioned parking agreement.

Um and it's it's super active.

It's it's really uh it's probably the most active space that we have in all of Walnut Creek in the morning uh that I can think of, maybe outside of the pools.

Um but it is just get a lot of fun, a lot of laughing uh and and people connecting over there.

So it's uh it's it's been interesting to watch.

Uh Rudgear um, you know, before the pickleball, there those were two tennis courts.

So it used to have five, now it has three tennis courts, eight pickleball courts.

It's got a uh youth soccer field and and softball field.

Uh we recently resurfaced the three tennis courts and repainted.

Uh we didn't resurface, but we repainted the basketball court.

Um it's, you know, get there in the morning.

If there's a lot of dogs running around and uh uh people just getting out and exercising, it's got really great connector trails.

Goes from um Sugar Loaf, there's a paved trail from Sugar Loaf to Rodgear, and then if eventually takes you over to Shell Ridge.

Uh so good hike good hiking trails, very accessible, uh well-maintained park.

Uh we we just put in a new playground uh we replaced the two to five structure in 21 or 22, uh, added some resilient surface, added some shade structures over there.

Uh it's it's it's it's really been it's really been a great project for for the youth for the the two to five, and I got to share a funny story with you.

If you go out there, there's an instrument that you turn and it plays kit uh children's music.

Um we got a call one day uh from a neighbor and said uh, hey, you know, my my son or daughter was spinning this unit and uh the music wasn't very appropriate.

And we were like, okay, you know, we get calls sometimes uh and so we got another call and we were like, okay, so we better go out there.

And somebody had been able to open it and put their own chip in there of rap music and took out the uh the kids uh the kids' music.

It was super creative, but it was it was it was it wasn't that inappropriate.

It was just wasn't for that that age group.

So it was pretty creative.

Mike, before you move off of Red Girl, I I did hear um recently that uh Martinez has closed their pickleball courts, which were signific were significant draw, and um we may feel some um pressure um for more pickleball from those people that were playing there previously, looking for a new place to play.

So might be worth keeping an eye on.

It's a good point.

It's a good point.

You know, we opened up uh as you know, uh Art, you've been on the commission uh when we opened up the two new courts at um permanent courts at Heather Farm, and then we have three other courts that uh double on the practice court there.

So basically about five courts uh at Heather Farm.

So we're up to what's that, a thirteen courts citywide.

Um the challenge with the courts at Rudgear is I I'm sure there's gonna be more demand.

I don't know if there's no more space or or not the space obviously isn't gonna grow, but I mean timing for more people to play because it is so active over there, it'd be interesting.

And the pickleball courts at in Heather Farm continue to get more and more active too.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

It's great.

How does the pickleball is that uh pick a picklewall courts preservation system work?

Is it the same as the tennis courts?

At Heather Farm?

Uh at Rutgear.

At Rudgear, it's just drop-in play.

Oh, just walk.

They they have the they have a uh I think it's a Walnut Creek or uh Diablo Pickleball Club, something along those lines that's pretty well structured.

And so they they structure it themselves.

That there's no fee to play uh at Rudgear.

There is a fee uh to play at um at Heather Farm, and that's why it's more structured at Heather Farm, yeah.

Yeah.

So Sam Miguel, um I was sharing this with the with the chair uh and vice chair last week.

Uh Sam Miguel's a challenge.

Um it's it is a dog park uh from basically sunrise to 9, 9 30, 10, 10 30, 11, somewhere in there.

Um it's really nine, nine thirty, but it it drags on because the park is so underutilized.

Um the the we get a lot of runoff from the hills around, and so the grass can stay moist, which gives an opportunity for dogs to dig.

Uh and they do, I don't want to say damage, but they they're a maintenance challenge.

The the park is really activated by the neighborhood um in terms of the dog use out there.

I'm not proposing that we take away the dog use at all.

Um, but it would really be there's a lot of opportunity to improve this park.

It is definitely not up to Walnut Creek standard.

Um we we've had some uh conversations uh and some plans to improve this park in the past.

We've had uh community conversations uh which didn't go very far.

Um and so the park is kind of sat uh in the condition it is now.

I mean, we we resurfaced the tennis courts uh several years back.

Um they're used.

It's a it's a really great spot, uh pickup spot.

The challenge at at uh San Miguel Park is there's no restroom facilities.

Um it's great for trail access, it's easy to get on the Ignatio Canal Trail and go for a hike.

Um playground is is utilized um moderately.

Uh the basketball court is an individual um uh basket, so it's a half a court uh and the concrete could be improved.

Uh it's it it's definitely a a park.

I I think that we should explore other opportunities uh moving forward.

It could it kind of reminds me of Northgate before we renovated Northgate.

It could it could definitely be improved, yeah.

Can you go back for a second?

Yep.

So um I noticed you said under opportunities it lists community gardens and in the tenure plan, there's a section at the back that talks about um additional work that they looked at, and one of the things that they looked at, for example, were was Creek Restoration, a parkour, spotchy, but they also had community gardens, and apparently in 2014, the council, city council asked pros to look into that and find out what the opportunities were.

So I've never seen that report or anything, kind of didn't really even know they'd looked at it before.

But um is there a report from that effort?

Is that before your time or no, no?

There's a there is a report that I can share.

Uh it was one of these subcommittees that we put together.

Uh-huh.

And and it was back when Mr.

Simmons was still uh Bob Simmons.

Uh I think you might have actually been mayor that year.

Um, you know, Bob's really driven by the environment and getting people outside looking for opportunities.

And it was one of the big pushes was to put a community or committee together.

We identified three locations.

And this is one of them.

This is one of them.

Heather Farm was number one at the gardens, and so we moved forward with that one.

This was number two, and number three was at Arbolato.

And uh so we we took the community garden idea to the uh to the uh HOA there at the time.

You know, mind you, this is 10 plus years ago.

Uh and it didn't wasn't received well.

Yeah.

Oh, sorry.

Um Sheddings Museum, uh it's uh, you know, where are the Walnut Creek Historical Society is based out of, it's great uh great opportunity for youth learning.

They have a lot of kids uh programs that run out of that facility.

Uh they hold a lot of events, mostly weddings and community events.

Um city uh works closely with the historical society in in regards to the uh the maintenance of the facility.

Tice, uh as all of you know, we just opened up the light or just turned the lights on there six six or eight months ago.

We've got a playground out there.

There used to be the Jewish community center out there that was sold to a developer.

Uh so it that we expanded the parking lot, and the Jewish community center still owns the space where the gym sits.

I don't think they own the gym, but I think they own the space, and we have a 50-year lease.

I think they own the land, and we have a 50-year lease on that land.

Uh there's restrooms out there, and um uh I know the recreation team is looking to install some picnic shade structures out there.

Valley Verde, this uh very small less than an acre.

Um it's kind of a pass-through park, it's right next to Valley Verde school.

Uh there's not a lot lot going on out there, it's a pretty small space.

Walden is the disc golf course uh that I shared with you uh that went in back in 2012 or 13 or something along those lines.

And then the experience with the disc golfers has been fantastic.

Uh there was a lot of comments initially when the disc golf course was going to go in that everybody is they're gonna be doing things they're not supposed to, including drinking and smoking, there's gonna be litter everywhere, and uh the place is spotless.

The the disc golfers really respect the space, uh respect the staff and do an excellent job at cleaning up after themselves.

Uh in addition, uh all through volunteer work, they poured the pads, uh, which you know, the T's.

They installed the city, purchased the baskets, but they installed them, they did this all the signage, they installed the signage, they really did uh a great job.

It was really good partnership uh with them.

As you know, we looked at uh funding some improvements to the uh to the playground.

Hopefully we can talk about that during the next um budget cycle.

I've heard that um that the uh disc golf is a regional draw.

It's very highly thought of.

It is.

Absolutely.

Yeah, they have a uh there's a Mount Diablo disc golf course or disc golf club that is run out of Walden.

Yeah, it's got four four or five hundred members.

Yeah.

So uh we have a couple options.

I've been up here talking for a long time.

Um I'm gonna get into the open space.

I can zip through the open space um and keep going, or I can bring this back uh at a future meeting.

Um probably about 15 15 minutes more or so.

Uh what do you what is what is the commission want to do?

I can bring this back and we can have a more discussion.

There's a lot of things going on in the open space.

We've got a lot of feedback and there's a lot of history here that should probably be shared in a little bit more than 15 minutes.

I can and I can continue.

If it takes longer, I can continue that as well.

I don't I'm just trying to get it, feel the temperature from the commission.

If you think you have more to say that you're not going to say right now, then I'd say we should wait.

But if you want to say it all, I mean if it's all ready to go now.

But I I think this is worth a big discussion because we have so many issues.

We have many public comments as tonight as well about open space issues and all that kind of thing.

So depends on what the outcome.

I mean, I know this is only an update on sort of what's going on and where things stand.

So I you know, I don't know.

I I would be okay with us punting on this as long as we can do it at our next meeting.

Or is that agenda?

We'd bring it back in the June meeting.

It it's definitely worth more than 15-minute update because if we are the intention of all this is to share history, right?

We have some newer commissioners and we want to share history of the amenities and some of the challenges that we've uh seen, some of the lessons that we've learned.

Um, and there's a there's a lot to there's a lot to unpack here in the uh in the open space.

I would I agree with uh Commissioner Garland that we probably would benefit from uh having its own space uh uh in the in the next meeting.

Okay.

Yeah, I agree.

And also, Mike, I have a question about the CIP process.

Is the open space separate from the parks, or it's all one pot of resources that we're it's a good question, right?

So in terms of funding, yeah.

So it's parks and open space.

Okay.

Yeah.

And and in terms of funding, there's a number of different funding sources.

There's the general fund uh which funds most of our operations, there's grant funding, um, there's park and loo funding, uh, there's some recycle smart funding that we get for items that are made out of recycled materials.

But the majority of the money, the capital money that goes into our parks and open space comes from park and loo.

Okay.

Um and that is vet out, you know, based through the CIP, obviously, and then we come to this commission, which we will be coming here in February of next year with a whole list of projects, which we'll talk about reprioritizing and get the commission's feedback on on what they think are the most important or the highest priorities moving forward.

And then we'll take yeah.

Okay.

So it is it's park and loo money.

And that park and loo, just um, I believe you all know, is funding that comes from developers.

So the Brio, for example, that is out here on Civic and and uh YVR.

Um you have an option to build so much green space uh based on the number of occupants, or you can forgo building the green space and pay and pay an additional tax, so to speak, which is referred to as park and loo, and that money has to go back in and can only be spent in our parks and open space.

Can't be spent on our streets or roads or any of those types of things.

All right, thanks.

Okay.

Great.

So uh if there's no more questions, I will close this presentation and then bring the open space portion of it back in June.

Could I ask one question just um about Tice Valley?

Um what's the current status of the consideration of pickleball courts uh there?

So there was talk uh a couple years ago.

It's been on and off over the last few years about looking for other options uh to potentially move pickleball out of Rudgear and and find a space over here in TICE, which wasn't doesn't have near the residence uh around around the facility that we have at Rudgear.

Uh there was some talk about putting in the back of the park.

Um there's been some talk about putting in the parking lot.

Um, and I don't know uh much more than that.

I I haven't I haven't received an update.

Uh I know that we're still have some challenges in what's going on at Rudgear, and I think that's where it sits right now.

Um I don't know of any new conversation about activating this side.

Thank you.

Okay.

Any other comments from the commissioners?

All right.

Does anyone in the public email audience wanted to make a comment?

All right.

No comment.

Oh, all right, Barbara.

Please um come forward to the podium.

Okay.

I just had one uh comment about that.

Here, Barbara, speaking to you so we can get it on the record, please.

Thank you.

Uh comment about uh boundary oaks.

You know, it it's uh um art, I think you said it was self-funded.

Um isn't there a uh 10-year loan from the general fund to pay for the driving range that was done?

Does anyone know that?

That's why I just thought it's self-funded, but they whatever the driving range costs, six million or four million or something like that, between four and six.

Um the golf course didn't just you know pay for it.

They had to borrow money from the general plan or from the general fund, sorry.

Does anybody know about that?

That's why I just when I hear the self-sustaining, it kind of is, but it's kind of not because you give them a low uh interest loan.

So that that that information is accurate.

Uh the general fund supported the loan and the enterprise fund repays the uh the loan along with interest.

Okay.

So it is and it's a low, low uh low rate loan, correct?

I I don't know the rate.

Yeah, I think it was uh that's the way it was presented.

Uh another thing, somebody mentioned something about the Diablo Shadows Park.

I didn't realize there's so many parks, great.

Um but there's bike jumps that are built by it.

Is that something the uh maintenance staff would take care of?

Yes.

Okay.

Because there's also jumps in what about on the uh canal trail, contra cost or the ignatio canal trail.

There's bike bike jumps there also.

Yeah, those should be addressed during maintenance needs, yes.

Okay, so that I'll just mention it again then.

Okay.

Uh that was the big thing I wanted to mention, and I had a lot of comments or a lot of interest in the open space, but it sounds like we're gonna put that off till June or something.

Okay, thank you.

Thanks, Barbara.

Please come forward.

Oh sure.

My name is Jim Harrison.

I'm with the Model Railroad Club in Larkey Park.

Been there almost 50 years, and I'm I'm still a baby of the bunch.

Anyway, the parking lot lights.

The gardener's uh shack does not put on out enough light for our patrons.

What's once they get what 20 feet, 30 feet past?

It pitch dark.

You can't see your hand in front of your face.

Number one, the first one up by the gardener shack, doesn't it works and then it don't.

It works and it don't.

The other one that was down by the pool used to face the parking lot.

It was turned around.

Now I'm almost 77, as you can see, I have issues walking.

We have guests in there that are 80s, 90s from from here to older than me.

And I don't want to see somebody fall.

I know I have a hell of a time getting up when I fall.

And I've have said other things about this, and it was said, yeah, we'll fix it, we'll look into it.

You can go up there right now, you can't see it in front of your face, and after you get about 10 feet down.

Yes, my building needs to get new lights in it.

Yes, I'll put those in next week or so.

But I don't want to see somebody he'll take a face plant.

I may have to go out and pick them up, but I can't do that anymore either.

But anyway, just a little quick thing.

Uh you know, might might look into it, see.

But there's no light in that park at all.

And once the swimming pool closes, you stand here like this, and you can't see anything.

That's all.

Can I respond to that?

Yes.

You know, so um, so you're right.

Um in fact, I was at the meeting and I I stated that we would uh make it a priority, and we haven't gotten to it yet.

It's probably been uh six weeks or so, or maybe eight weeks.

Um the the light on the maintenance shack is motion detected.

Yes, not on all the time.

No, no, it is on all the time.

Okay, then I'm I'm misunderstood.

Uh, but I totally agree with you.

The lighting needs to be improved over there, and and we will move on it.

Yeah, because I mean I it's I just don't want to see somebody taking those plants.

I totally understand.

I appreciate it.

And uh originally the lights were facing out on the parking lot, and when the pool was rebuilt, some of the light, the parking lot lot parking lot light.

Just turn from the parking lot was turned around like this.

And I was told that the other one, somebody hit it with a back hole.

Well, I can run a back hole.

Okay, I'm sorry it was hit, but put the wires back together.

And the middle light does have a timer, or it's got a and the blue or orange, I don't know what what color it is.

Timer on it.

You know, no night and day timer.

It's not working.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Um, perhaps Mike, can we make this as a staff update item for the next prose meeting?

Yes.

Okay, thank you.

All right, so the next item is the staff announcements and updates on projects.

Do we have any front staff?

I'm the only staff remaining.

So I have two uh two quick updates.

Uh community service day is on April 18th.

Uh, if you're interested, you can go on the city's website and sign up for a project.

Uh we always need volunteers.

And then um, I just got a uh an email, which maybe went out community-wide that the um art and wine festival is I believe going to be held at Civic Park again this June on the 6th and 7th.

And I could have those dates wrong, so you're gonna have to double check, but it's art and wine in June at Civic Park.

That's it.

Thank you.

Commissioners, do we have any any announcements or reports on activities?

I had a question I was gonna ask.

Was that is would it be possible to do to have the commission do field visits or anything like that to any of the parks?

I think it would be a great idea.

We used to do um more uh in the field um sessions.

Uh and so what I'll do is I'll poll the uh commission.

Um I'll come up some some dates and times, and then I'll pull the commission and and uh see what feedback we receive.

Um as as we did three of us chatted about last week, uh there could be a number of opportunities to go out and actually put our eyes on some of these areas and and have a discussion while we're out there instead of me just showing uh some videos.

So I think it might be helpful.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Any additional updates or comments from the audience?

All right, the meeting is adjourned.

Thank you.