This meeting combined updates from the Parks, Recreation and Open Space (PROS) Commission and the Planning Commission, along with public comments, staff announcements, and a decision on a food truck special use permit. (Note: The transcript includes a portion explicitly dated April 9, 2026, but the overall meeting date provided is May 14, 2026. This summary treats the entire transcript as the May 14 meeting.)
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 13 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, it's great. How does the pickleball is that uh pi picklewall courts preservation system work? Is it the same as the tennis courts? At Heather Farm? Uh at Rutgear. Uh 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 Samigal's a challenge. Um it's it is a dog park uh from basically sunrise to nine, nine thirty, ten, ten thirty, eleven, somewhere in there. Um it's really nine, nine thirty, but it it drags on because the park is so underutilized. Um you know 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 uh 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 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 a individual um uh basket, so it's a half a court uh and the concrete could be improved. Uh it it's definitely a a park I I think that we should explore other opportunities uh moving forward. It c 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 look at and one of the things that they looked at, for example, were was creek restoration, a parkour, bocce, 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, kinda 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. And and it was back when Mr. Simmons was still uh Bob Simmons.