Good evening.

I'm Sharon Pinkstaff, Chair of PROS Commission.

Welcome to Monday, June 1st, 2026, regular PROS Commission meeting.

Commission Secretary Mike Vickers, would you please call roll?

Yes, student commissioner Conson.

Here.

Commissioner Oler.

Here.

Commissioner Garland.

Here.

Commissioner Brockhouse?

Yeah.

Vice Chair Sasser.

Here.

And Chair Pinkstaff.

Here.

Let the record show that everyone is present.

All right.

Next on the agenda is public communications.

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.

Request clear 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.

Any public comments?

Yeah, you have two uh minutes to comment on item and state the name and just city of residence for the record.

You can fill out the card, Barbara, afterwards.

Hello, my name is Barbara Yenis.

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

Um you may or may not know that uh areas around the um power lines in Lime Ridge were cleared by probably PGE or PGE contractors.

This was back in July 2025.

Um when they cleared, they cleared about 20 Mount Diablo Manzanitas down to the ground level and just left stumps, and chaparral was totally cleared in another area where there's a California endangered native plant called the Ariasrum.

Uh I have I put I wrote an email and gave you some information on the uh ranking of these plants and shrubs.

Um apparently there was a uh apparently city staff did not uh or has an agreement with PGE that would that PGE would contact them before they do any work within Lime Ridge, but in early uh July 2025, this did not happen.

Um in late uh July 2025, city staff met with PGE representatives and city staff uh assured that an agreement email stating uh the need to communicate more often and communication with PN PGE will continue to improve and this will help prevent future challenges.

Then in May 2026, just just happened, uh apparently PGE workers or contractors, I think, although I haven't verified this with city as I haven't been contacted.

Uh they went up there and did further clearing around the power lines down to the ground level.

So there were things that were growing back and took them all down.

I uh citizens notified staff on 522 is right before labor day or memorial day, and um uh appears, additional clearing except for a small area was was not continued.

So um, okay.

I just have a remaining question.

If uh city staff uh uh it doesn't have the okay from PG and E that they're gonna contact them before something needs to be done to protect some of the endangered plants and things.

Thank you very much.

Sorry for being out of breath.

All right, thank you.

Commissioners, um, any questions the public comments?

Thank you.

Any other public comments?

No.

All right.

We'll move to the next portion of the agenda, consent calendar.

Um does any commissioner wish to pull this item for discussion?

Okay.

Does any member of the staff wish to pull any item for discussion?

No.

Okay, does any member of the public wish to comment an item on the consent calendar?

Okay.

All right.

Seeing no speakers, I'll ask the commission if anyone would like to make a motion with regard to the consent calendar.

I move we approve the consent calendar item of uh the minutes of our pros commission meeting April 6th, 2026.

All right, do we have a second?

A second.

All right.

Let the record show that.

Oh, we could call vote.

Yeah, we have a first and second and I'll call roll.

Okay.

Okay.

Uh student commissioner Conson.

Um I'm supposed to say yes.

Yeah, or if you're in agreement with the uh motion that was filed to accept the consent calendar, yes.

Uh yeah, I agree.

Okay, thank you.

Commissioner Oler.

Yes.

Commissioner Garland.

Yes.

Commissioner Brockhouse?

Yes.

Vice Chair Sasser?

Yes.

And Chair Pinkstaff.

Yes.

But the motion show that it passes unanimously.

All right, moving along.

Um next item on the agenda is presentation by one of our nonprofit.

Um, as part of the year of the volunteer, I invite Bob Simmons of the Walnut Creek watershed forward to provide the presentation.

Okay.

Well, good evening.

Thank you.

Uh thank you for uh allowing me to speak to you uh tonight.

Uh I was by the way, my name is Bob Simmons, who's sort of mentioned, and I served on the PROS Commission from 2000 to 2004.

So I have had the opportunity to sit in the chairs that you're sitting in and think about some of the things that you get to think about to to help the city uh become better.

Um I was last year in 2021, and I was giving basically an introductory talk about what the Walnut Creek Watershed Council was and what it was doing, what we were trying to do.

We've had some, I'm gonna call them significant sort of uh developments, and I kind of want to bring you up to date on that, as well as talk about a couple things that we're doing and things that we could be doing in the city of Walnut Creek.

The first slide up there I like to show because it shows somebody fishing in Walnut, the city.

I mean, one more thing.

When you hear me say the city of Walnut Creek, that means the city.

When you hear me just say Walnut Creek, it will be the creek.

Um, and if you think I missed that, just raise your hand and I'll sort of do this.

But this was fishing in Walnut Creek in the 1940s before Broadway Plaza was built, uh, and before uh the concrete uh uh channel was was built, and so um I will just say you can still fish in Walnut Creek, the city of Walnut Creek, and it but except for Heather the pond at Heather Farm Park, you won't catch any fish, they just aren't there.

Um but I like this because it provides context, and I also like the quote that I use up there because I think one of the things that happens, I'm gonna use the word we here, and it's important that I'm not saying you did this or you did this, but we as a as a civilization from around 1950 to the present, pretty much buried our creeks, buried, you know, and to me took away some of the magic that water provides.

Um a couple of us are old enough to remember playing in the creek, um, and that was really a magical time.

And when you uh go hiking or anything like that, a lot of people like to hike along creeks and and we so I like that slide.

So the purpose of today's presentation is really to just update you on what we're doing, uh, and to discuss some restoration opportunities in the city of Walnut Creek.

Um we are um, but I want to start with what is a watershed, because I think that's fairly important to understand.

And let me see if I can do this right.

Whoops, there we go.

Some people, you know, if I when I ask people what is the watershed, sometimes it takes people a little while to sort of explain what is the watershed, and we get all sorts of different explanations.

But this outline really sort of shows what the uh watershed is, and basically every drop of rain that falls uh will stay within that watershed, and some of that rainwater will come out through the uh through the creeks to the bay or to the ocean or whatever.

Not all of the water will because some of it is absorbed by plants, some of it is lost to evaporation, but this really shows the hydrologic process that really to me uh um fits in fairly well with the quote from Lauren Isley, who is one of the an early environmental writer who really talked about how important water is in our in our civilization.

So this shows you the Walnut Creek watershed, shows three different views of it.

Um the top one shows where we are in terms of the county.

The Walnut Creek watershed is the largest watershed in Contra Costa County.

This kind of shows uh it a little better in a little more detail, and I hope I'm not bothering you too much with this thing.

And then this basically shows, and you'll see this again in the next slide.

Um I already hit the next slide.

Okay, this is good.

So when we started a number of years ago, there was only one Friends group that existed, and that was the Friends of the Creeks, which is a Walnut City of Walnut Creek sort of based organization, presently led by uh Leslie Hunt, who lives in the city.

The Lafayette Creeks Committee has been in place for a long time.

It actually is a committee of the city of Lafayette, and they meet regularly, they follow the Brown Act and all the other things that are associated with being a committee of the city.

The other four friends groups really were created as a result of our council uh being created, and we've each of them are doing really interesting things in their area of interest.

Um, and we'll talk about we won't actually we're gonna focus on Walnut the City of Walnut Creek today.

So we're not gonna talk about what friends of San Ramon Creek has done or friends of Concord Creeks have done, but uh and they're each doing a little bit different because of what their um what their membership is, you know, and they're but they're all working on improving the health of the watershed and educating people on what is the watershed.

The Friends of Conquer Creeks it has some uh the head of that is has some young kids, and so there's very much more family oriented.

The Friends of San Ramone Creek is a number of people in that group are are um of retirement age and they just like to go out and do things and they do.

Um so this shows the creeks in Walnut Creek.

Until I saw this slide, I did not know that there were 20 named creeks, and the word name is important there in the city of Walnut Creek, but there are.

Um before I saw the slide, I could probably name three or four.

I can name a few more now.

But it's really interesting to see, and let me see if I can do this right.

This is roughly where we are, where we're um, and by way of further expl whoops, let me back up saying okay.

What am I doing wrong?

Okay, by way of further explanation and to show it visually, uh Los Trampas Creek comes in from the west from Lafayette.

Uh Tice Creek comes, not Tice Creek, I'm sorry, and Tice Creek joins it.

Tice Creek is in Rossmore.

That's why you have the Friends of Tice Creek because it's a it's a Rossmore organization.

Um San Ramon Creek comes in from the south, basically along 680 to some extent.

They merge.

Art, I know you know the answers.

Where do they merge?

I won't really know that, but that's a good answer.

Uh the uh Las Trampas Creek and uh San Ramone Creek uh merge uh underneath the fountain at uh where Ilford Nile is.

That's Liberty Bell Plaza, and if you go there, you'll see two different colors of pavers, and that was really an artist attempt to depict the two creeks flowing in and the and the actually the start of Walnut Creek, and so uh so the next time you go down that area to Broadway Plaza, take a look at the papers, it's kind of fun.

Uh and think what's down 30 feet below you.

Um, so why do a restoration plan?

Bob, can I ask a question?

Sure.

On your list, you showed um both the Ignatio Canal and the Contra Costa Canal, which are man-made features and cemented.

I'm curious.

They're waterways, okay.

So, anything that is above you know that is visible on the ground.

Where the creeks sort of, you know, start start and then stop, that shows a culverted section that you can no longer see as a creek.

That was a good question.

Thank you.

So we we let I'm gonna have to look over here because I can't see that far over there.

So why do we do a restoration plan?

You really, you know, you want to create a community supported group, and that's what we're kind of doing.

We're doing a lot of outreach to groups like this, but also to groups like East Bay Regional Park District and East Bay Mud, and then some other creeps as well.

It gives a chance to take a look at the project.

We presently have about 90 restoration projects in the watershed.

The watershed is 146 square miles in size, and and that basically is just really in the what I'll call the middle part of the watershed.

We like to support and encourage the efforts of local agencies.

That that actually is a little more problematic than it may sign than it may sound, because virtually all of the cities and towns with a couple exceptions don't want to have anything to do with their creeks because it's a maintenance issue, it's uh there's some liability issues, and so they just, you know, like most of them have fenced the creeks in their area if you if in we have as well.

Um, but we really want to, as part of this process, engage them and encourage them to realize that uh restoring the creeks to good health is something that's important for the community to do.

I believe this plan that we're doing is going to guide restoration efforts for the next 20 to 30 years.

I believe it's gonna be transformational in that effect.

I also hope that it's gonna be aspirational, that it's going to encourage people to say, yes, I want to be involved and want to support uh restoration of our creeks.

So what's next?

We're gonna continue to look for more restoration sites.

We'll talk about that in a minute.

We're gonna continue to work with groups that we haven't yet worked with to try and uh get them to be involved in in um restoring the health of our watershed, and we're gonna prepare and complete prepare by December of this year.

I should back up and explain that for a second.

We got a $300,000 grant from the Federal Bureau of Reclamation to do this plan with the requirement that first of all we finish it by December of this year, and then we're gonna use about half the money to take the I three of the ideas that are restoration ideas that are in the restoration tracker, and get them designed to a point that somebody can come in and say, Hey, this is a good idea.

I want to fund it.

Sometimes it gets funded by different things, but it it really helps to have something designed.

Uh and not a final design, but so where are some of the uh potential restoration projects in Walnut Creek?

And this will be a bit of a mix.

This is Heather Farm Park.

Um, and uh about three, four years ago, the city uh contracted to do this study.

Uh there's a lot of restoration opportunities here.

I think what is really for your purposes from my perspective, the most important is that you can create a nice little one-mile walk and interpretation by these creeks, but you first of all have to fix the creeks because right now they're they're in varying stages and not very good.

But this is a uh would be a major effort by itself, or you could separate it into little pieces.

Uh we'll see something a little bit later uh about one of these.

So one of the other things we want to do is this slide is a little bit out of place.

I'm sorry about that, but I'll go through this.

Uh, because these pictures with one exception are all taken from places within the city of Walnut Creek.

On the far left is something called uh English ivy, like that is a picture in Rudgear Park.

Uh English ivy is invasive.

By saying it's invasive means it's non-native, and it excludes other flora from the habitat.

Um and it also, which we found out in and we'll see a slide on it later.

Um by removing uh some of the English ivy from an area of Civic Park, together with some planting of native plants that was done by the uh native plant group in the uh senior club.

They tell me that they've seen butterflies there that they've never seen there before because the what they said is that the English ivy really just prevents the butterflies from laying their eggs in the oak trees because they know that the larva won't survive uh and there's no food there there because the uh English ivy doesn't provide uh food.

The uh picture in the upper in the center part is uh from Heather Farm Park, and that's what's called Himalaya Blackberry.

Uh it is also you can see I remember from about 10 years ago when it was just a small little stand, and it just keeps growing and growing.

Uh I think the one on the right is also Himalaya Blackberry, but it's a close-up.

And the one in the bottom left is English Ivy close-up.

You have a Mexican fan palm also from Heather Farm Park, but you've got some really big ones in both Civic Park and in Heather Farm Park that from my standpoint actually affect the flow of water.

And then what we really got focused on, let me do it this way, is something called a rondo donacs.

It's also known as giant reed.

Uh it can grow, whoops, why don't you get to it?

It can grow four inches a day and up to 25 to 30 feet tall, and it completely excludes anything within it.

It's both a flood risk and a fire risk.

Um, and if you walk along the creek walk in Civic Park and look across the way to the private land, you will see an abundance of uh around a giant reed is what it's called.

So kind of wanted to show this to say, hey, you know, what native plants do is they provide habitat for native species.

I talked earlier about the butterflies, and that's uh my lida crescent butterfly.

Um you can see a willow fly catcher.

Uh the other two photos are not from Walnut Creek, but the interesting thing about about the beaver picture at Grayson Peak at Grayson Creek is we have a picture of a beaver in Walnut Creek from about a month ago.

Uh and it's really kind of neat to see.

Uh I'm not sure that everybody enjoys that fact, but it is true.

All right, we got some restoration opportunities that are coming forward.

Hazard Pond.

Hazard Pond is at the very south end of Shell Ridge, very close to Lavorna Road.

The easiest way to access is probably going to the Lavorna Road staging area.

The left shows a pre-grazing uh summer picture of Hazard Pond.

You can see from the green that this is done on the let's just say the end of July.

There's there's water there, there's moisture there.

The plants are doing okay.

If you look closely, you can see the cattle on the right side and see what impact the cattle had on the vegetation.

It basically stripped it out.

So we were contacted by a company that needed some what's called off-site mitigation.

In other words, what the what the regulatory agencies like is for any company that's impacting a part of a riparian area, they want them to do all of the restoration on site.

And the city had this experience recently with the uh aquatic center as well.

Um in this case, the company couldn't do all of the restoration on site, and so they came to us and said, Can you find something?

And we worked with the city with Mike and with Corey.

We found uh a spot at Hazard Pond.

Uh Hazard Pond has some flow of water into it uh not quite year-round, but there's a there's a little flow underground.

So we're gonna go in there.

We've got a chunk of money.

We're gonna go in there, we're giving some money to the city to build about an acre of fencing to protect that from uh grazing, and then we're gonna be planting uh 30 trees, 50 shrubs, and over a thousand grass or for plugs this year.

So if you go back there next year, this will look completely different, and it'll be something that'll be really uh valuable and attractive for wildlife that might be using the area.

This is called a seasonal wetland area, and the county has determined that uh seasonal wetlands are scarce in Central Contracassa County.

Uh this is Tice Creek in Rossmore.

We have uh here today Don McGregor who's the leads the Friends of Tice Creek.

Um, and we're trying to persuade what is called Rossmore Walnut Creek to take more of a uh holistic view of what happens here.

Literally what happens here is that there's a bridge or something like that that that constrict the flow and then really immediately downstream it pushes out and it causes the erosion that you see there.

There's significant amount, there's about five of these, um, and it's a major effort uh to try and persuade the powers that bee that this is something that really kind of needs to be done.

Um we hope we're successful.

Um let me see.

Okay, uh Mike has been down here.

This is if you go on to Rudgear Road and you look immediately to the north, you see that's where the concrete channel, the San Ramon Bypass begins.

What those two grates represent is a an opportunity for water to flow into the historic channel of uh San Marron Creek and then into underneath Broadway Plaza and into Walnut Creek.

This has been phenomenally successful at uh dealing with high flows and reducing flooding in downtown Walnut Creek.

What it wasn't designed to do very well was handle the low summer flows, and so what you see here, what we tried to do here uh is use create a coffer dam so to cause the water to go into the historic channel, but it's not working.

Um and the flood control district would like to see a permanent solution.

Apparently, there may even be some city land uh right there, and they'd kind of like to work with the city and see if it can't figure out a permanent solution because what happens with the water going down the concrete channel is it gets it warms up, it's bad for fish, it's bad for just about everything, gets more algae.

If you can direct that water into the shaded natural creek concourse, you can actually uh have some significant benefits for for wildlife.

I feel a long time before it'd be any benefit for fish.

But it it and then it would flow out of um Civic Park just east of the uh what I call the Civic Park Bridge.

Some people call the orange bridge.

This is drop structure number two.

Now the next two slides are not in the city of Walnut Creek, but they are on Walnut Creek.

Uh this particular structure, if you're driving north on Bancroft Road, you cross over a bridge, that's where the structure is.

This is also where the two young men died about 10 years, 10 12 years ago because you just can't survive there.

This is one of the structures that we're gonna have to figure a way to deal to provide for both fish passage and fish survival.

Um, this is drop structure number one.

Uh I want to particularly focus on that little critter.

Um most people don't realize that actually salmon used to migrate uh up up Walnut Creek.

Uh and this and drop two completely barred that upward migration.

Uh working with the flood control district at our request, they've sent a letter to the U.S.

Army Corps of Engineers asking them to study alternatives for fish passage at this particular site.

So we're hopeful we'll see something, but it's really important from my perspective to highlight that this barrier is actually preventing uh fish from uh continuing to pursue their uh migration upstream and their their their lifelong, soon to be very short life uh journey.

Are there other opportunities?

I can yes, I'm not showing them, but there's some that we don't know about, and so one of the purposes of coming to groups like this and knowing that some of us are being watched, um, is to see if people can say, hey, I know of this area.

There's a fair number of sites on private land, and that's a whole nother category.

It's been it's been really great working with the city on some sites in in Shell Ridge and in Civic Park, uh, but it's much more challenging to work with private landowners.

So I this particular site is Shell Ridge.

Um, it's a photo of uh Deer Lake, um, and it's one of my favorite photos of Deer Lake, but there's certainly gonna be other opportunities to do this.

So uh this photo was taken by uh a member of the Friends of Pleasant Hill Creeks, but it's taken in uh what's called a natural pond in Heather Farm Park.

And I like to kind of close with this one because you know we're just taking off, and just join us on that flight, and it's an upward uh aspirational objective that we have.

So thank you so much for letting me talk to you and and show you a few slides and show you a little bit of what we're trying to do with uh the Walnut Creek watershed and restoring our watership.

Thank you.

Commissioners, any comments, questions for the speaker?

I have a couple questions.

Please return to the podium.

Yeah.

Hi, um, hi.

So one of them is you mentioned um uh that you've partnered with uh entities that need mitigation, and you sort of said as an aside Walnut that you know, the Heather Farm Project for the Aquatic Center and the community center, and they definitely need mitigation.

And I don't know either you or Mike could remind us, are we doing creek projects as part of the mitigation for that?

Obviously, we're replacing trees and things like that, but are we doing any restoration of the creek or the natural pond?

My understanding is most of the mitigation that was required by the water agencies was to replace I'm gonna say 30,000 square feet of water sur surface water, which the city did do by expanding the natural pond uh in a way that was pretty nice.

From my perspective, I wish they had dredged it too, so that uh it would be cooler water, better for fish and all that.

But Mike can go into detail about how it is to work with the regulatory agencies on things like that, and sometimes money gets in the way.

What uh but this provides another opportunity.

The city has I think two bridges it's going to be trying to replace over the next number of years, and that's actually part of the purpose of this, so that people who you know like county like uh the project that we've done in the city of Walnut Creek and Civic Park have been the result of uh off-site mitigation money from the city of Concord for a bridge replacement project and from the county for uh Marsh Drive bridge replacement project, and so you know we are likely to see more funds there in the city.

My my perspective uh now knows it has some restoration sites that it can go to and suggest and and would actually improve the restoration sites in the city of Walnut Creek.

Okay, thank you for the question.

Did I just add that?

Of course.

So there was a study that Bob referenced earlier where he showed an image of the five different drainage channels that we decided to name.

They're not official names.

We just decided for communication's sake.

That study um uh came out of this came out of this body.

Uh one of the commissioners recommended uh that we spend $50,000, didn't cost that much, but fit put some money aside to do an analysis, do a repairing study, which was further uh approved by council, um, and that's how we got to this study.

Is there uh several opportunities in Heather Farm?

Absolutely, and when we go through the capital budget, this upcoming uh you know, January, February, March.

Uh, that'll be certainly um projects that we discuss.

Yeah, there's further opportunities in Civic Park and Rudgeer Park and maybe a couple other places that I don't know about.

Thank you for the question.

I have another question as well.

So the county I believe was leading it, maybe flood control was doing a pretty made had a pretty major planning effort for um the uh part, you know, where where it actually drains into the bay or the river, I guess it's San Joaquin River there.

Um what is the status of that?

Are you talking about their watershed plan?

Yeah, just as a technical matter, I don't use the word drain.

I use the word flow, and when you think about it to me, uh a drain is something I put draino in, and and uh I think there are some there's a category of specialists that like to use like to describe these as drainages and drains because from my perspective, my words, it kind of uh uh deemphasizes it, makes it seem like it's not really a creek, it's not really flowing, and yet if you bring kids over there, they don't know whether it's a creek or they just see the flowing water, and and they certainly don't want to teach them to use start using the word drain.

But that's that's me.

You can continue to use the word drain.

I know Mike will continue to use the drain because he works with engineers and that's how they think, and that's that's fine.

Um the county flood control district is preparing a is doing a large process to create a watershed plan for the entire Walnut Creek watershed.

Uh they started that partly because of what we were doing, that we wanted to do a restoration plan, and so they decided they needed to do it, and there'd be the p there'd be the community support to do it, and I think there will be.

Um their plan is gonna be a bit different uh in a couple respects.

Uh, they're g right now they're gonna they've entered a contract to do what's called a historical ecology study, but that's a three-year study.

And you know, they're gonna be doing a couple things on on their plan, but that plan is probably five to eight years out, and some may say it's longer than that.

Ours is a restoration plan.

It's not going to be, it's it's not gonna be anti-science, but it's not there's not gonna be scientific studies under each one of them, it's gonna be more aspirational.

It's gonna say, hey, we have these opportunities, we really do want to restore our community health, our watershed health, and this is how we do it.

We are we have a coordinating committee that we meet we every about two months, every two months with the flood control district to make sure that we're sort of understanding what each is doing.

We're a little bit different.

I mean, they've written the letter on using drop one as an example, they've written the letter to the Corps of Engineers.

We have more of an advocacy role with regard to that.

We really want to be in a position uh where that structure is no longer a barrier to fish passage and fish migration for the salmon going upstream.

So there and and their watershed plan is probably gonna focus a bit more on their facilities because they've got a lot of facilities and there's a lot of concrete structures in our in all of our creeks in this watershed, and they're gonna look at the ones that are theirs, but not at some like there's some like we're built like SES before it became uh natural resources conservation system.

You know, back in the 40s and 50s before so there's a connection because it's both the Walnut Creek watershed, but they're really quite different in terms of their function in terms of how long it will take for the flood control district to complete its plan, but they're they're they're making progress.

Thank you.

I don't give a short answer to the question, sorry about that.

And thank you.

Thank you again.

Bob, um thank you very much for coming back to us again um and talking about watershed, and um I would encourage you to um share with us a when your project is done that you're that you're working towards the plan that is aspirational for good 20 or 30 years, because there's so much work to be done, and if at all possible, we can uh hear you before we go into the capital process and uh see if we can um put some dollars towards some of those projects.

Um, you know, our I don't know when you're I remember when we used to do it historically, and so the the capital budget for this next cycle I think is for beginning the fiscal year in July is done.

So you're kind of talking about the capital budget cycle for the next cycle and will be done in December.

Um, and as you know, I just don't like to talk about watersheds, but I'll be glad to come back.

And thank you for that.

I I I will talk with Mike about coming back and and uh because we actually we believe that there's a lot of opportunity, and so we'd love it to see some money allocated to it.

So thank you.

Bob, I have a question about all the um organizations Friends of the Creek and Lafayette Um, I think Creek uh organization committee.

Lafayette Creeks Committee.

Yeah, Creek Committee.

I'm interested in if there's any kind of youth involvement in these efforts, um learning about the watershed, learning about you know our local ecology environment, um that piece.

Um the short answer is yes.

Uh, but it varies a little bit.

Um friends' San Ramon Creek tend to be uh involve more people that are 50 plus.

Friends of Concord Creeks involves a lot of people who are very young.

Um and uh they go out and do things in the city of Walnut Creek.

We have done three or four projects, um, not not just not just watershed restoration, but in Deer Lake is a project that I kind of lead in.

It's a habitat uh tree landing project for the most part.

And we regularly in involve and include youth groups, um, and I've had one come out a couple weeks ago to do what I call what to do uh not what I call to water the young oak and buckeye trees, because they for the first couple years they need some of that supplemental water.

So we do try to engage them.

It's always a challenge because when you they've got sports on Saturdays, they're busy Monday through Friday, and you got to have a parent come along with them.

And you know, but we like I I like to work with youth groups even if they just come out once because I think they learn something from that.

Even if it's I never want to go out there again, uh, they still learn something, and they learn something about what we're doing and what we're trying to do.

And and maybe for some of these trees, and some of them have planted uh acorns and buckeye seeds, and they now see they can come back ten years later and see that the tree is 10 15 feet tall and say, Hey, I had something to do with that, which is a really neat feeling.

So thank you for the question.

Thank you.

All right, I now open the item for public comments.

Um please um step forward to the podium and complete a speaker cards available in the corner of the entrance doorway.

Um, okay, having none.

We will um move to the um and any more any additional discussion.

Okay, and we don't have a motion for this.

All right.

Thanks, Bob.

All right, the next item on agenda is presentation.

Um by Boundary Oak Golf Course, I invite Tim Roberts with the City of Walnut Creek forward to present the presentation.

Good evening, Commissioners.

Tim Roberts, Arts and Recreation.

Uh I am your uh on staff on property liaison for the city of Walnut Creek with our operator Corsco.

Uh Corsco runs, owns, leases, operates about uh almost about 50 courses up and down the Western United States uh out of Pataluma.

Um I've been here since 2019, fall of 2019.

Um I sent over a little bit of commentary, so if anything there's a question, I'll keep my eyes up.

Just go ahead and interrupt me, but uh jump into it.

Uh we'll go over some of the financial stuff, not really deep diving into numbers, but more just an overview of how we're doing and how healthy the operation is uh around the clubhouse, some of the changes, golf operations, lots of exciting stuff going on up there with our new driving range and practice facility.

Our food and beverage team uh is really really solid right now, and then of course we've got a living breathing 160 acre uh property up there that butts up against the open space.

So we've got a lot of responsibility, you know, in no particular order is guest experience, being good stewards of the property and running a uh a viable business for the city of Walnut Creek.

Um I'm kind of doing this as a fiscal year 24, 25, 25, 26 kind of wrap-up.

The the years kind of mirror each other, but I didn't get a chance to come here last year.

So we did outperform our our budget uh again this year, uh, which includes um taking care of any debt servicing and salaries, uh public work costs up there, and still contributing to our operation our reserves.

So we've got two reserve accounts, one is operations, uh, and the other one is equipment, and uh, you know, we've got as you know, equipment around here is very expensive.

So we've got a two very healthy um asset accounts, uh reserve accounts.

Um the clubhouse, this is Brad, the Brad's our director of golf, uh, is also a PGA pro.

We got Brad a couple years ago, and as you can see in the background, really been a transformative last few years with the clubhouse.

Uh Brad was awarded the NCPGA merchandiser of the year.

It's kind of a big deal in the industry.

So we moved to a real-time survey on the guest experience.

So people can come right up.

We've got sandwich boards located around the property, they can come up, hit a QR code, give us a real-time feedback.

Uh, we do survey guests and events, and anybody who comes to the property for anything official, whether it's a Thursday night dinner, we do do a lot of surveys.

Surveys right now are really strong.

I think I'll touch space with that in a little bit.

Um, and then part of what the we do up there is we also, you know, we support the community.

You know, we've got a lot of nonprofits through there.

Every year.

We usually pick a charity in the Bay Area locally uh that we can support this year was the uh East Bay Crisis Nursery.

So for about a month we did a diaper and wipes and baby supplies in exchange for gift cards for the driving range, and then our holiday gala this year was fully benefiting them, and that's something on staff that I collectively do with them as well.

We go out, we get sponsors, we sell tickets.

You know, I think we had 200 people there this year, and we raised about $30,000 that goes to the Bay Area Crisis Nursery.

Again, shows a good partnership between us and our operator Corsco.

They're into what we're into, and they help us facilitate it.

Uh golf operations.

Um, so one of the th what you see there is an arification machine, and that's one of our fairways.

I believe that's number seven.

Um we're one of the few courses that in uh from our enterprise fund, part of our job is to reinvest into the property, which obviously takes care of the property, good stewards, guest experience.

What you're seeing there is a sand application to the fairway that we do twice a year, once in the fall, once in the spring.

To my knowledge, I don't know of another Muni course that does that around here.

It keeps the turf healthy, it keeps the the dirt really healthy, uh, it avoids diseases, uh, levels out the playing field, uh, and just a really when you dig up our dirt out there, it's some really good looking dirt.

Um, surveys that we pulled uh last week, we pulled our most recent little over 500 surveys, guest experience overall, four and a half stars out of five.

That does include our new practice facility with the driving reins and seven thousand square foot foot putting green.

Uh one of the programs that we're really proud that we have up there is the PGA Hope program, which is um with the VA, and we have uh local veterans come out and we do golf clinics uh once a week for seven week sessions.

We end with a uh a nine-hole on course experience, and then we have a dinner for them, and they don't pay for anything.

We get the coaches, we set it up for them.

It's they love it, they're it's getting more and more popular.

We've seen people come back two and three times, and then we're seeing those veterans come out to the course and and be participants in the course as well.

Uh tree management.

We've got, you know, on 160 acres.

I've got just over still about 1,300 trees.

Um tree mitigation, having a three-year tree plant, five-year tree plan, winter comes, this falls down.

So that is an ongoing process of managing the trees in good health.

Obviously, uh again, being good stewards of the property, you know, mitigating any fuel on the ground.

We've got a lot of eucalyptus up there, so we do a pretty good job, but we've got a lot of trees out there.

Uh the agronomy program, so collectively Corsco has a head and gronomist, so anything that we're having trouble with environmentally that we, whether it's a snow mold or a black mold on the greens, anything that we're having trouble with, we can go to Gary, and he's the the head agronomist with the with the Corsico, and he comes out and says we'll do this treatment, we'll do that treatment.

Um, so again, good stewards of the property.

Um, future of going green.

I know you guys have probably heard with the backpack blowers and the line trimmers.

We've already eliminated the backpack blowers.

We did get a whole new set of backpack blowers, they are quieter.

Yes, they don't have emissions.

Um obviously that technology is getting better and better, but we're on board with that and have hung up all our backpack blowers.

Food and beverage, we've got a full service retail food and beverage program, uh tap house downstairs.

It's got a full bar, uh great breakfast, great lunch.

We get a lot of non-golfer engagement up there.

We've got obviously plenty of parking upstairs, uh weddings, funeral bum mitzvahs, celebrations of life.

Um, so we've got a really great say uh sales team up there.

We use a lot of social media, use Salesforce for our tracking.

Um, so it's about 60 40 on the revenue, 60 of it being golf operations and merchandise, but we do a lot of weddings and a lot of events up there all year round.

Um again, part of what our strategy is is not just golf.

This is a community property, so we have a lot of events throughout the year that we want the non-golfer to come up.

We want the non-golfer to come up and experience the property, whether that's third Thursday night dinners, lunch specials, uh, the gala, things like that.

Um, if you look at our Yelp and survey we use right now, really strong.

Uh outdoors, again, 160 acres, and we've got every bit of wildlife you can think of out there.

Uh so right here is Tom and Bernadette or uh Tom and Bernadette, um Georgia, thank you.

There are bluebird box advocates.

So those two collectively either rebuilt or we reinstalled about 14 blue box bluebird boxes on the property.

Um, and I have Becky uh Rebecca Valdez out every Friday.

We call her Becky Birds.

Um she comes and we both check the bluebird boxes, we're tracking eggs, we're tracking hatches.

Um we had a PhD candidate out about a month ago doing blood samples on the birds, checking their health.

So we are an Autobond property.

The Raptor Relocation program.

So we work with a few of the airports, so your raptors are your birds of prey, your big eagles and whatnot.

They relocate them from a couple of different airports and we release them on our property.

So again, we open up to the open space, and uh that's for a bird of prey up there, that's like a smorgasbord.

Um we did have a golden eagle here a couple months ago that stuck around for a few months.

Um, plenty of wildlife, turkey, ducks, mud hens, uh, pigs, uh cats, everything, you can coyotes.

Um, so we we've got a lot of activity up there.

Pigs this year, I think across town and all the way down into San Armand was a big year for pig damage.

Uh they're coming down to a very wet and well-manicured property searching for food.

Um, so we're constantly fixing the fence line, uh, and we do have a service that comes out and helps us with our mitigating the pig problem, but this was an especially bad year.

Uh golf trends uh golf and food and beverage trends, golf trends are up.

Golf trends, our numbers are up.

We keep pumping bigger numbers every year.

We're probably the second busiest golf course in the Bay Area.

We do about 76, 78,000 rounds a year uh up on the range.

I think by the end of June, we'll probably be in the neighborhood of selling about 90,000 buckets of balls, not to mention the people that just come up and practice their putting, their chipping, come up, have a cocktail or a soda, and just enjoy the view.

In the new, if you haven't been up to the new driving range, we just celebrated our one-year anniversary.

Um, two beautiful plazas, lights, all the all the the soft scape is grown in now.

So it's a great place to just come up, get a sandwich, you can go to the tap house.

I do have a food trailer up there.

We'll be working towards some permanent food and beverage in the future.

Um, but we get again, that's a lot of our non-golfer engagement up there.

Um future improvement of reserves, again, our reserves are healthy.

Uh we'll continue to contribute to both reserves.

We have a little bit of debt service.

The debt service from the tap house that we did five years ago, six years ago.

I think I believe we've got three payments left that'll phase out in February of 2028, which is a pretty healthy chunk of money that will be able to go towards uh reserves again or buying down our other debt service.

One of the things we're looking towards in the future for the driving range is phase 3A, 3B, which we want to get a permanent food container up there, a con X box that is commercially licensed, so we can do cooking and cleaning up there.

Um as part of the construction from the driving range, we did plumb sewage because we don't have any restrooms up there, although we I am using a nicer porta potty up there uh just temporarily.

So we did plumb for the sewage from the new driving range to the upper parking lot, and then in the future we're looking to propose a permanent box and connecting that sewer all the way down to Valley Vista.

So we don't have people going back to the clubhouse or down the hill to the tap house.

You know, some of our older guests, it's a little bit of a walk down the hill and back up the hill.

So I think everyone's really looking forward to that.

We're in the process of getting the shade structure done, which is going to cover about uh 18 stalls of the 36.

So that's basically phase two B.

Um we are really busy up there.

It's you know, in the weekends, it's tough to get a stall.

We're doing programming now for corporate events, birthday events, uh, public works has been up there.

A few other companies have come, rent five stalls, we'll do a food and beverage package for them.

So now that we've kind of hit our stride, we're looking to do more programming like that.

And I think that's questions.

Any questions, comments from the commissioners?

Uh you mentioned 1300 trees, but you also said you had a lot of eucalyptus up there.

So with water being a concern and eucalyptus being a really high fire kind of tree.

Is part of your program to replant trees with kind of more native species?

It depends on where the tree is on the property as far as aesthetics or playability from the course.

If you're familiar with like the western side of our property, we're just going to continue as the budget allows to just mitigate those trees.

I've had an arborist come out at least once or twice a year.

I've had Contra Costa Fire department out there giving me advice on anything that he might see issues with offering his services with potential crews.

But yes, if we replant it's not gonna be, I guarantee it's not gonna be a eucalyptus.

Um but yeah, depending on where the tree is that we took out uh the golf trend now, you can look at a lot of courses, a lot of people are spending a lot of money to take a lot of trees out and make their courses more playable and more open.

Uh Richmond Country Club, for example, um just did a three million dollar tree removal uh and it really opened up their pro really opened up the the playability of the course, the health of the course.

Um, you know, when you get around, you know, you've got a hundred eucalyptus trees, the composition of that soil is really different than what the composition of the soil is on the other side of the course.

So it's hard to grow, but yeah, I have replaced with sycamores and other you know, other native stuff.

Thank you.

Sure.

Any other comments?

Yeah, I have a few questions for you.

Thanks, Tim, for coming tonight.

Um, and um, you know, six months ago.

If I had heard um, if you had been here, I think we would have gotten um maybe a little bit different story about what was going on boundary out.

Not that not the new um, not the new um uh driving range, but the condition of the course, and some of that was the pig damage, and some of it was just uh a general downturn in the quality of of maintenance there on the course.

Uh, but but seems to have turned around from what I hear, and I have a number of golfing friends.

Um, but there are some some issues that still resonate with them, and I'm curious about the types of thing comments you might get that would would be considered constructive comments where um, you know, you you um talked about the certain the instant surveys and stuff.

What are some of the some of the criticisms that you get from some of the golfers?

Um depending on the time of the year.

You know, I've come to learn in the last five years that this is a living breathing organism that may look one way after a rainstorm and two weeks of heat, and the the thing that really dries us out is wind, and we're right up that hill scope.

You know, we that wind comes whipping up and really dries us out.

Um, so I would say probably the most common is uh water.

Um, you know, it looks dry, it looks dry.

Well, we're we're plugging away.

We put a lot of water out there.

You know, we're putting up sometimes up to half a million gallons a night out there, so we pull from the canal at a at a grandfathered rate into the number one pond.

That's mostly it.

Um constructive criticism.

Sometimes the greens can be fast.

Um, you know, some, you know, the greens are 55 years old.

Uh, and depending on the way the ground has settled on a few of the greens, they can be tougher.

Um so they want us to slow the greens down, and we'll do that, uh, depending on if we roll or mow or not roll and not mow or one of the other vertical adding sand, top dressing.

Um, but that that's usually it is the greens are great, but they're really fast.

Uh, it is the defense of the course, though.

It's a pretty wide open course, but the greens from a golfer's perspective are the defense of the course.

What about um, you know, common things of just operational type stuff and not not the course per se.

Any comments about lack of marshals, things like that.

I I have had conversations with our operator that having the marshals more vocal.

Um, and you we do re-train these the marshals, uh, whoever it might be about every six months.

Um, and they do have to go out there, they do have to keep the kids moving.

You know, this time of year up until school's out these last two months from three o'clock to 4:30, we've got a ton of students out there, you know, from the junior highs and the high schools.

So kind of keeping them wrangled and on point sometimes can be a challenge uh to our retail golfers.

But um, yeah, marshaling the course is something that it's you know needs reminding every once in a while.

Okay.

Um also wanted to ask a little bit about the uh the debt that you have.

Um you said the tap house uh final payments uh in the next couple of years, complete complete debt.

Um, but you you didn't specifically say anything about I think the debt on the driving range.

Uh we did we did take a loan for the so the tap house loan will phase out in three more payments.

We make uh three annual part biannual payments of I believe it's three eighty-two, three hundred and eighty two thousand.

So that'll cycle off in 2028.

We did take a loan from the general fund.

This uh we did take a loan from the general fund uh for the driving range.

It's a 15-year loan, 2.75%, uh, and depending on phase three reserves, big year, bad year.

Um, you know, we could get aggressive on that depending on how uh you know leadership wants us to deal with it.

What was the amount on that?

I think it's about four.

Okay, thank you very much.

Sure.

I have a um so you mentioned water, um, and that's a heck of a lot of water.

So you get all of it from the Ignatio Canal?

We do.

Really?

We pull on the 14th hole.

We have a holding tank down there, we pump it in to a holding tank.

That tank goes all the way through the course up to the number one pond.

So the pond you see outside the building with the fountain, that's our main irrigation pond.

Our other ponds are purely aesthetics, um, you know, so we can let them come and go as seasonally as we like, depending on water usage.

Um the canal is shut off from December 1 until April 1st.

Uh, not a heavy watering season, but if we do need water, and we usually, you know, we usually do at some point.

We have a hydrant on property, the Contra Costa Water District gives us a meter.

We run that directly from the um the hydrant by the driving range underground into the number one pond.

Okay.

And then the new uh driving range took uh water conservation into account, as I recall from earlier discussions.

Was it the species of grass?

Um like is it a less water?

Yeah, it's it it's a it's a warm weather grass, it's a South American Bermuda grass, so it's a lot, it's a it's a lot more water friendly than your bent and your cool season grasses.

So it's the you know, not quite kakuya, but it's a it's a longer stringer, hardier, more durable grass uh that takes uh with way less water than a uh a Bermuda, uh a cold season grass that you might have in your in your lawn.

Right.

Well, I remember that discussion when you were you or someone was here discussing that project.

Yeah, I I'm glad you were able to do that.

Yeah, um, and then finally I really would want to commend you for like the veterans program.

I think that's wonderful.

Um do you do it with a specific veteran support group or uh there's a VA office out of Benisha that we work with, and then it's also through the that's their where they communicate to their database, but it's through the professional golfers association.

Okay.

So it's through the PGA of America, and so we work with the local one, and it's a lot of fun.

And these we have really great.

Yeah, uh men and women of all ages, you know, from all ages come out, and they're really into it, and it's a lot of fun.

And we we shut the we shut the putting green down for them, we shut six stalls down for them, um, and they have their own area that they can be comfortable uh from beginners to some pretty good golfers.

So we break them up usually in three groups based on skill.

And you know, it's Brad, it's me, it's Mike, it's Coach Dave DeLong who runs our golf academy up there.

Uh and we have a few other volunteers that come out as well.

Oh, thank you very much.

Sure.

So I also appreciate hearing about the veterans Golf Program.

Um, my two children learn how to play golf at the first tea program on Boundary Oak.

Now they're both playing.

They're a college students, they're continuing to play.

So really appreciate the programs that you run there.

So it's is the youth program still programming continuing?

Yeah, we have multiple programs for the youth.

Obviously, we have first T, we're one of their home courses, and we do have a regular group out there, and that's that's really very, very strong.

Um we have Dave DeLong's golf academy where he does some youth programs, a lot of first-time um golf programs, and we also he contracts with us through arts and recreation.

So we run our golf camps through Dave and contract with him, and we get a lot of kids up there.

That's wonderful.

Yeah.

Yeah, so my uh other question is when is the phase two be the shade structures gonna complete?

We're in the I'm sorry, yeah, we're in the process of that right now.

Um it's been a little bit of back and forth on design and and uh you know how we want to approach this, and um, you know, we're we're getting pretty close.

Uh like completion or uh construction.

Design approval, a lot of the legwork and the engineering's already been done that I've been doing for months and months.

We just decided to take just a a little different look at it.

Um, so once we come up with a defined material, we got a RFP, the general contractor, um, and then depending on their timing, it's gonna be about a two-week install, but it's it's gonna be a little bit.

We're just we hit a few snags and we just kind of went back to the drawing board.

Like summer, you think or summer?

I I think it'd be probably closer to the end of 2026.

Okay, all right, great.

My last question is about the two reserve accounts.

Um what's the balance for the operation and equipment?

Uh operations about high 800,000s and equipment is in about low 900, so I've got about 1.75 between both the accounts.

Very healthy.

Thank you.

Any other questions from the commissioners and comments?

Okay, hearing none.

We're gonna open for the um pub public comment.

Please step forward to the podium.

Um, please also complete a speak speaker card cards available on the counter near the entry doorway.

Um, once at the podium, please introduce yourself and city of residence for the record, um, consistent with city policies related to public comments.

Each speaker will have two minutes to make your remarks, written comments, submitted if any have been posted to the city website for public review and are included in the meeting record, but will not be separately read into the record.

I just have a question.

Is there a question and answer period or anyone to do?

Public comments.

Hi everybody, I'm I'm Bob Weed.

I'm a resident of uh Walnut Creek, and and I didn't plan to say this, but you know, I met with Tim Roberts up at Boundary Oaks on this issue that I'm gonna talk about, and Tim is a great guy, he's extremely knowledgeable, and I think our golf course is in great hands.

I grew up playing golf and working at the driving range at Boundary Oaks, so um uh and I and personally I think to the question about the kind of shape it's in, I think it's in great shape.

The greens are fast, but I think they're fair, and you know, everybody has kind of their own view about it.

But um the only thing I do wish Tim could do uh address for me is is my slice off the T.

It's just you know it's just wicked.

Um, okay.

So I've eaten into too much of my time.

Um so since the reopening of the driving range itself, uh there's been significant light spill into the Lime Ridge open space from the lights that are designed to facilitate the top tracer range system.

Um I can't find in the record that that was evaluated for its environmental impacts by our city.

Uh other cities who have similar projects like Burlingame and San Diego uh did so by way of example.

There are well documented effects on the wild ecosystem.

Several decades of research shows that artificial light at night interrupts the daily and seasonal rhythms that govern the timing of breeding, nesting, migration, hunting, forging, and even pollination.

The impacts are overwhelmingly negative, which isn't kind of intuitive when you think about it.

Dr.

Travis Longcore, professor of environmental science at UCLA has studied this for decades, and he says ecosystems are very complex when artificial light alters light dark cycles and in turn circadian rhythms.

The whole choreography of biological life is jeopardized.

So I'm making two requests.

One is that we do a photometric study similar to what we did for the Tice Valley Light project, and number two, that we do a biological assessment of the impacts on the open space wildlife up in Lime Ridge that's adjacent to it.

So I'm I'm a golfer, as I said, I'm not here to try to advocate for shutting down the lights, but I am proposing that we make a collaborative effort among all the stakeholders to ensure that we find harmony between protecting and preserving our critical open space and also using it in a way that's responsible.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Hello, I'm Elizabeth Hudson, and I just want to support the last speaker.

Um I think Walnut Creek Open Space and Lime Ridge were set aside to preserve the natural environment with minimal low impact um from human activity.

The idea was that nature could thrive, and as our population has grown and our recreational desires increased, we are making it harder and harder for nature to thrive and in some cases harder to even survive.

So science is pointing out and quantifying how much we need we need nature for a whole lot of reasons, and so I'm just asking you to please find a solution to the lights that are shining in Lime Ridge that is not disruptive to the wildlife and even the plants that depend on the night.

Thank you.

Okay.

So if you would like to um take two minutes and share your public comment, now would be the time.

There isn't a there's not a question and answer period, but we do have a two-minute comment period.

I did say that uh the uh presentation.

It's fine.

I'll take my two minutes.

Uh thank you, Tim, for the for the presentation on boundary okay golf course, it's great.

I also know Tim.

Um I wanted to ask about the uh autobond.

You're part of the Autobond Cooperative Sanctuary certification, which is great, and a lot of people are interested in the open space in the environment since it's right there.

Um, since you mentioned a lot of wildlife is there, birds, those types of things.

Uh, do you have a written inventory of the birds or the mammals that um you know that are the Barbara King's speaking that you use the property?

Should I ask all my questions and then let him answer?

Because I have two more.

Please make your comments, then okay.

Yeah, all right.

So just ask all the questions.

Okay, then the uh other thing was um, uh there it there is an environmental document.

It's called, you know, like I said, being certified as part of the cooperative uh Autobond Cooperative Sanction Sanctuary uh certification.

And they state in there that 80% of the trees, shrubs, and flowers should be used that are indigenous to the native plant community on other areas of the property other than the turf.

You know, it can't be done on the turf.

So I have a question about that with all the new um landscaping that put in was put in for the uh driving range.

Was any of that uh native plants?

And then the uh last question I had is uh from the documentation I could see it looks like the uh driving range was only open to about 7 30 prior to the renovation, and now it's open till 9 p.m.

So I just wanted to ask uh I've asked that question before, but just confirm that the um it hasn't been extended for the new driving range.

That's it thank you thank you which one Tim Rop uh Tim would you like to respond to yeah uh just off the top Barbara you had a question about inventory of wildlife I I wouldn't say I have a written inventory of wildlife I mean I could run down everything different wildlife that we have on property but if you're talking numerically or I'm not just somebody just excuse excuse me just for a second so so we don't have a question answer period okay um if the if Barbara if you'd like if you want to get more specific and you need additional information Tim Barbara can send you an email absolutely we can do that yeah offline yeah yeah thank you so no more additional um public comments discussion among the um commissioners do we have any recommendation follow up action no yeah so there's there's no this is just basically a report out so there's no action that needs to be taken um but you could if you have additional comments you're more than welcome to share those all right I have a uh question I think for you Mike which is um the CEQA that was done for that did not do a light study that's an accurate statement that's correct the the lights that what was the rationale for not doing that yeah so the the lights so the facilities always had lights the lights have been um within the range for at least 20 plus years I'm sure longer than that and so this was more of a replacement like for like and it was uh considered maintenance it was not considered uh as part of the project and was not evaluated through sequence okay and the lights are similar enough that the that's the case or in it sounds like I'm not really independently knowledgeable about this but it sounds like maybe they're a different style of light or a different type of light.

The previous lights were more and I'm not a light expert either I would refer to them as more stadium older stadium lights the high pressure sodium lights that were pretty large round so you know light going in all different directions I think the luminaire count was 12 and I could have that number wrong but the luminaire count between the high pressure sodium and the new LEDs are almost the same and these these lights are a little bit more directional because they have uh basically covers directional covers on top of those um as opposed to the older stadium lights so this this was considered a maintenance um the high pressure sodium as we all know uh are challenging to get and being phased out uh this was a opportunity to uh make that maintenance improvement and then sort of in a related way um is there is there an opportunity to do some sort of study of potential wildlife effects in the perimeter area could our staff our our um open space staff take something on like that on or um what your thoughts are on that so we'll we'll evaluate that at a staff level um and follow up with mr weed and then I can bring back an update at during staff updates at our next uh at our next meeting that'd be great thank you okay yeah let I just want to make sure that we have the two the the the photometric study and the biological assessment if we can bring back one update at the next pro meeting that would be great.

Yeah we'll we'll we'll decide I mean these are uh you know obviously recommendations from from the public these are staff decisions we'll t we'll talk to uh Tim and I will talk to upper management or Tim will talk to upper management and we'll follow up on our decision.

Great about the next PD yeah and Mike, can you comment about the hours of the driving range and did they change when the new with the new when the new lights came?

Yeah, it'd probably be best that uh Mr.

Robert responds to that thank you yeah, historically the range has been open to now it's keep in mind seasonal, uh you know, the middle of winter and whatnot um the the range has been open uh to nine o'clock before it has opened from historical context as a resident and growing up really close by and being around for the last 30, 40 hundred years.

Um the range did used to be open until 10 o'clock.

So we didn't increase the hours or lengthen any hours.

Um, in all honesty, before you know, if you were up there before the old driving range uh and the lights, it was it's a lot more attractive now, and it's we're we're getting we are getting more play up there.

Um but no, we didn't we did not extend the hours.

We've been approved going back in the historical data that we found uh that we're we're fully approved to be open until nine o'clock at night.

Okay, so so what are that?

Because you had said it was till 10.

Oh, back we I just as a historical point, it at certain points growing up.

I know they were open till 10 because I would go up there.

Um we are open till nine right now, uh, as per our historic approval of being open till nine o'clock this time of year.

And then what was it before the new LED lights went in?

What's the hours?

It was open till nine.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, we didn't we didn't change anything.

The lights were not new to the property to Mike's point.

These are, you know, when you're replacing anything nowadays, you're going to the LEDs.

These were just new lights, then the old ones were terribly inefficient.

I would be in, I would be interested in ways that we could have less light pollution out there.

So if there are ways to do that, I would like be like to hear what those ways are.

Thank you.

All right.

Let's move to the next item on the agenda presentation of summer program updates.

Um, Chris Farrell with the City of Wanna Creek forward to provide that presentation.

Thanks.

Hi, as mentioned, Chris Farrow, Director of Arts and Recreation.

We're gonna run through some fun things that we have going on this summer.

Um, but as always, the best place to find your information is through our summer activity guide, which is available online, and it's pages and pages and pages full of great stuff.

I'm not going to bore you and walk it through it line by line, but if you have questions about our programs or want more information, that is the best place to go.

With that, we will jump into it.

So we'll go kind of facility by facility and program by program to give you some highlights.

So Lesher Center for the Arts and our Center Rep program have some great programs going on.

In fact, just yesterday I was at the theater seeing Jagged Little Pill, and I can't recommend it high enough.

Everyone needs to go out and see it.

Phenomenal job.

Um Matt definitely knocked it out of the park with Center rep in this one.

Um so coming up, we have the return of summer sounds, uh, three concerts uh that we've seen uh in previous summers.

Um some new bands this year, um, but same series.

Uh our concert truck will be out and about once again at Shade Lens and Civit Park, and then our theater lineup.

We have Jagged Little Pill that's running now through the end of the month.

We have our young rep theater lab, which is like a theater camp with a performance at the end.

We have Pacific Mamba Orchestra coming up for the return of our Fiesta Cultural Street Fair, and then our young rep showcase.

At our Bedford Gallery, our current uh installation is at Aztec Stories in modern Mexico, and these pictures do not do it justice.

It is incredibly vibrant, beautiful uh exhibit.

Um, highly recommend that you get over there and check it out.

Um, a couple weeks ago we did have the artist in town, um, and it was really uh great to learn more about him.

He had an interpreter on site um to tell his story, and it was um great.

But even without him being present, highly recommend that you get over there and see the show.

Um, and then we have our kaleidoscope, again, an annual program that we do, um, and our public art walking tours have been really um successful.

So they go offline during the winter, uh, but they're back now, and we've added a new one, um, where you can tour the artwork that's in the library.

So fun addition.

Our summer camps, we offer a variety of summer camps through our traditional recreation programs, but also through our arts arm.

So everything from your kind of traditional stereotypical summer camp, but also the focusing on various parts of the arts.

So theater camps, dance camps, our young rep theater camp as some specialized recreation programs, and our preschool camps as well.

And we do look at the different school schedules when we do that.

So even if you are at a school district that has a different schedule, you make it out a week earlier or a week later.

We always have at least one camp going on to coincide with all of our various school districts in the area.

For classes, again, looking at both the things provided by our recreation folks as well as our Center for Community Arts folks.

We check a lot of boxes with special interests.

So drama and music and ceramics and sports and sewing and fiber arts, writing, glass and weaving, personal enrichment, culinary arts, all kinds of fun things going on at our programs, which are offered at Civic over at Shade Lens, and then at Tice Valley Gym as well.

For aquatics, we still have our Clark and Larkey pools up and running.

Clark is thanks to Public Works hanging on by a thread, but we're gonna make it until the opening of our new poll.

We say there's anything that you can do with duct tape, we're doing it out there.

Um so far, so good.

I should knock on something since I said that.

Um so we'll have all of our normal programs going on over the summer, uh, swim lessons, uh, water aerobics, and then I did want to mention our partners because they have a lot of programs going on too.

So Aquanuts, our master's program, our aqua bears program, busy busy time of year, obviously for our aquatics folks, and the part that I wanted to mention was it's a great opportunity to employ a lot of youth in the city.

So we are onboarding over a hundred people for our aquatics and camps programs this summer.

Um so it's a really great place to get your foot in the door, learn about municipal recreation, and for a lot of folks, it's their first job, and we see them again summer after summer.

So that'll give a shout out to my seasonal employees that are coming back to us this summer.

And then we have our senior services and special specialized recreation folks.

Their offices are over located over at Civic, but we really run their programs throughout the city, working in conjunction with a lot of partners, including the county who give us uh Cafe Costa, for example, and then our transportation program that brings us a cooperative between lift and a minibus transportation system.

So we're able to get those that cannot drive and have limited access to other transportation modes, we can get them out and about to the services they need, and that could be anything from a doctor's appointment to grocery shopping and such.

And then we also have many partners who come in to provide things like uh tax uh preparation, legal services, all at either low or no cost.

Um, so all of those services are available on drop-in and scheduled.

Uh Boundary Oak, Tim did a great job.

So I think we already touched on most of these things.

Um, one of the questions that came up were about our youth programs there.

So, yes, to repeat Tim, a lot of things will be going on this summer with First T, our golf camps, golf lessons at Tim had mentioned briefly that we work with the local middle schools and high schools, so they'll be on break.

So we won't see them as much, but that is a really great youth program throughout the year that they do spend a lot of time on our course, so they're familiar, and I'm sure they'll be hanging out at the driving range in the summer.

We did want to mention that we do for through Arts and Recreation, we do the picnic reservations.

So, although the parks are maintained under the parks unit in public works, we are the reservation host.

So if you are in need of a picnic site, you will be contacting us to make that reservation.

And in the summer, obviously, a big uh place that we add is the pool, so you can also rent one of those spaces out at the pool for your birthday party or special event.

We have drop-in sports going on at Tice Valley, badminton, pickleball, basketball, and volleyball.

So it's uh also a great um way to meet city staff because city staff drop in and play at those sports programs also.

Um so if you're looking for somebody in IT or in admin services, I just put you all on blast.

You guys know where to go find them now.

They're out playing at drop-in sports programs.

A lot of fun.

So a great summer starts here.

Um so here's all of our contacts.

Um I put the web addresses on since that's where most people are going on their phones these days.

Um if you have any questions, again, activity guide is number one spot.

Um website has a lot of information.

You can also register online or at any one of our facilities, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Any questions from the commissioners?

Why not?

Gotta ask one question.

What's what's the newest additions to the to the various things?

The one that jumps to the mind is we've added some specialized rec aquatics programs.

Um, so that will be uh a new one for us.

Gosh, what else?

There has to be more, but that's the one that we've been talking about the most because we're really excited about coming.

Absolutely.

I have a wait, I have a quick question.

Um, with the construction at Heather Farm and the loss of the community space there, it are we having to find new places or are the civic park facilities enough, or how are we?

So, interestingly enough, we thought that our other facilities would capture those rentals, and they actually haven't.

And so my guess is is that folks are finding other things outside of the city, and maybe that's private, maybe that's wineries, that kind of thing.

Um it's not apples to apples, our other facilities.

So if you were looking to host, for example, a wedding at Heather Farm, you're probably not gonna use Tice Valley Gym for that same wedding.

So I think a lot of probably private industry picked up those rentals, so we aren't seeing the impact so much to our other facilities.

I have a question about the soccer field reservation.

I recently was asked by somebody in my neighborhood on how to make reservation or have access to the soccer field.

Sure.

Yeah, you can contact um Arts and Rec that runs through our sports uh unit and they can help with that.

Um, going into the summer, so to back up.

Um, we do keep the new fields locked, and that's just to preserve the the quality of the turf.

However, on school closures days during the school year, we do open it and we have staff on site to monitor and provide supervision.

So that was kind of our test pilot to see how that worked for us.

Um we don't have the budget to have staff out there for the entire summer, but we will have some scheduled days that it is just open and folks can use it, um, and that could be used for uh you know, just pop-in play, could be used for um, you know, just calisthenics, that sort of thing.

But if you want to use it on a regular basis or for a tournament and you want to be the only person out there, then you would call our department and we would schedule that for you.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

So to follow up, the soccer fields are locked.

When not in use, other than school year closure dates, so like spring break and winter break and things like that.

I mean, I've seen a lot of comments online of people complaining about that because they say, hey, as citizens of Wana Creek, we just paid for these new fields and now they're inaccessible to us.

I mean, I understand that we need to make sure that a scheduled program gets priority, but couldn't you just post a schedule on there so that it's open to the public?

The bigger side, and this is per council direction, so council made the call on this, is that we have already learned that it staff supervision is required when we unlock that gate.

And on the first day that we tried the pilot program, for example, they were people out there on scooters.

There were people running their dogs off leash and not picking up after them, like on our first day of trying it.

So we've learned already that it's the staff supervision piece, and so we need to work that into our budget.

So this is what it looks like for us right now today.

But going into our next two-year budget cycle, perhaps we can look at a different staffing model and different budget to make it available more hours.

But that's what we've worked out for now.

Yeah, I mean, even myself, I ran by it the other day.

I'm like, oh, it is locked.

Like it seems weird to have a public park that's locked and not accessible.

Anything else?

Any other questions from the commissioners?

If not, we're opening for a public comments.

Any compound comments?

On the presentation.

All right.

Hearing none, we're moving to.

Thanks, Chris.

We're moving to the next item on the agenda.

Open space summary.

I invite Mike Vickers with City of Warner Creek forward to provide the presentation.

So good evening for the record, uh assistant public works director Mike Vickers.

This is a continuation of the long presentation I gave at the last meeting.

This won't be nearly as long.

Um sometimes uh feedback after the meetings are important.

So um moving um jumping right in.

So like I said, this is uh parking, this is really just focused around the open space.

Um a lot of information on these slides.

I'm certainly not going to get into all that information.

One of the key takeaways uh from this meeting here from this presentation, is you'll see uh about the fourth line down under created uh basically when the property was purchased in 74.

That is almost all of our open spaces, with exception of one or two, and that has to do with the um bond that the community decided to tax themselves on back in 1974, which is referred to as the R8 bond, uh, which that bond was somewhere around the neighborhood of about seven million dollars, and that money was used immediately after it was passed to start purchasing this property.

And so as you see some of these slides, I'm not gonna keep repeating, but you'll notice that most of it was purchased in 74.

So this is Okalani's.

This is one of our smaller uh open spaces of the four areas that we have.

It's about 200 acres, about four and a half miles of both uh combined single track and and multi-track.

There's no cattle grazing here at Okalani's, there is goat grazing.

Uh we used to cattle graze uh here in Aqualonis up to about 2010, and unfortunately, with the size of the property and the way the properties laid out, there was several um animal human uh contacts, and and it was deemed to be unsafe uh to both have cattle out there along with uh with with hikers or or civilians.

So we we did away with um the cattle grazing.

You might hear there's there's more of uh a little bit more stir in the Okalanese neighborhood about bringing cattle back.

So you might hear or see some of this stuff online.

I'm just kind of sharing some of the history with you.

Um dogs are allowed off leash at this park a lot as most of them.

And there's really uh two sections to uh to Okalani's.

There's South uh Okalanis and North Lock, excuse me, Okalani's South Okalani's is almost completely surrounded by Pleasant Hill or County property, and the same with North Okalani's, and then back in 2010, 2011 there was a joint partnership to purchase 26 acres, what is which is referred to as the John Muir property in uh Okalani's, it's an upper ridge that was going to be developed in four agencies, including the city of Walnut Creek put their funding together to purchase the property and and preserve it.

So how homestead um is a uh it's a historical property here in Walnut Creek, but it's not on the historical register.

It is it's just a passive use space.

We have 59 or sorry, 49 garden plots out there that are very active.

These are really large plots, they're uh over 600 square feet, which is the largest plots that we've found uh definitely in the county.

Uh it's a great deal.

Uh it's about $200 a year per plot, and there's about a five or six year waiting list.

It's if you can imagine people are investing uh all this time and energy and with uh with the multifamily housing that we have.

If you're fortunate enough to get one of these plots, they're not typically uh turned over very very often.

So if you're interested in a plot, you can reach out to the ranger uh department, which you can find that online, or you can wait four or five years and reach out then.

Uh there's no cattle grazing here, it is uh mostly a uh passive area as I mentioned.

Um there are a number of picnic areas out there, and and this is um really one of the opportunities for the neighborhood to get into Shell Ridge.

There's a uh single track trail, which is a multi-use trail that leads from Howell Homestead into Shell Ridge called the Pick Covar Trail, and it's uh fairly active trail.

Uh Lime Ridge open space.

So Lime Ridge is the second largest open space.

Um this property uh and I could have these dates off just ever so slightly, but we didn't start purchasing um Lime Ridge until 78, and then we we were buying it in pieces and and completed the purchase in 1993.

Um it's about 1200 uh acres, a little bit more than 1200 acres.

Additionally, we maintain 250 acres of Lime Ridge that is on, I say maintain, we don't maintain it, we manage it on the Concord property, uh, and there's uh a funding agreement there.

We basically have about a half a ranger that's funded to oversee that property.

Uh there is excuse me, I got my slides mixed up here.

There's about seven or eight miles, uh Lime Ridge is really broken into three different uh sections.

We have North Lime Ridge, which is basically north of YVR, uh, which we do uh cattle graze that area, and dogs are all allowed off-leash.

And then when you you step over to the or jump over to the uh south side of YVR, we refer to that as Central Lime Ridge.

Um dogs are not allowed in central Lime Ridge because of the some of the rare plant material we have.

And then in South Lime Ridge, dogs are allowed, uh, and we actually cattle graze there, but the dogs are required to be on leash in South Lime Ridge.

So it's a little confusing.

Um it's you know, we we're we're out the rangers are out there fairly often helping to educate and remind people just to be mindful of the regulatory signs at each of the trailheads so that you're following the rules.

So Borges Ranch, most of you know or well aware, Borges Ranch, which is located in uh Shell Ridge.

It's the whole the area that we refer to, um, which is a developed area, is about 20 acres.

There's some camping there and there's picnicking uh there at Hannah Grove.

There's a number of restrooms.

We actually do a fair amount of weddings.

I say a fair amount, not a not a fair amount, maybe uh 10 to 12 weddings a year.

Um up at Borges Ranch, which is kind of fun to have outdoor weddings, great setting, it's it's quiet.

Um there is camping uh at uh Borges, and there's also camping at Sugarloaf, but we don't allow family camping.

It's more nonprofits, it's more the Girl Scout Boy Scout uh camps.

Uh, we don't do individuals or families um anything along those lines.

If you haven't been to the house, I believe the house is open uh the fourth Sunday of every month uh for a tour, and it's it's really it's it's pretty fascinating when you walk through it.

Uh especially if you've had kids to know that you had that they had four or five kids living in this house, it would be a little challenging.

I think I would be building some tents or something along those lines just for myself to get out of the house.

So uh great great spot though.

We do a lot of family or sorry, we do a lot of youth um educational groups up there with uh the school kids are coming in.

We have a number of docents that come in and provide the history and actually some of the historical games and and it's it's pretty fun.

Shell Ridge itself is uh about 1,500 acres.

It's definitely our largest piece.

Um we do cattle graze and uh and a number of pastures throughout the space.

We used to, and I think I've shared this with you guys before that back in 2018 or 2019, nah, 17 or 18, we started installing past our sorry uh troughs around different areas in the open space because we were doing rotational grazing at that time, which is basically managing the cattle no different than you would manage goats with electric fencing.

And unfortunately, that um process is very expensive.

Our grazer no longer offers um rotational grazing, so they're back to just traditional grazing where the cattle are just basically roaming in the areas.

We can somewhat control where they're going on whether or not there's water in the troughs, but there's a big benefit to having water in the troughs other than just for cattle grazing for wildlife.

We do get some equestrians moving through some of these areas that can take advantage of um of some of those, some of that opportunity.

So there's restrooms.

Uh we have a number of seasonal ponds throughout the open space, but the majority of them are in um Shell Ridge.

Dogs are off leash, and I think uh most of you have heard of uh Fossil Hill, the Fossil Hill Project, which is over off of Sutherland.

That is the Walnut Creek Open Spaces Foundation's largest project.

I think it's somewhere around seven or seven to nine acres right now.

Um as many of you know that we've had challenges in the past with poppies and and some impacts of the neighborhood.

We didn't we didn't um see the growth in poppies that we had seen back um during that what we people refer to as the superbloom in 23.

And so there were no measures uh that took place this year in order to keep the traffic uh at bay, and and as far as we know, things were back to relevant relatively back to normal from where they were before the superbloom.

So Sugarloaf is our smallest space.

Uh we do cattle graze up there, but we actually fence a portion of it off.

Sugarloaf um is probably best described it parallels 680.

If you're driving down 680, you're looking up in the hills, you can see a pretty large portion of it.

Uh there is camping there, as I mentioned, and also picnicking.

There's a number of restroom sites, uh, great views of the of the uh surrounding uh East Bay.

Uh number of connector trails.

There's also a native plant garden, and dogs are off leash, are authorized to be off leash in that area.

And by off leash, it's typically voice control or or uh site control uh or vision of the dogs.

So we have a paved trail system.

This is uh focused on the um Ignatio Canal Trail, which is five and a half to six miles long.

We have a approximately eight or nine full uh miles of paved trails throughout the uh throughout the city that the city manages.

If you haven't been on this paved trail system, I'm sure your kids have it.

It's really a great spot uh if for neighborhood whether you're hiking to school or whether you're getting to school or you're just going out for a walk, it's uh it's a it's a great system.

There's a portion of uh the paved trail system that ties into the Contra Costa County, Contra Costa Canal Trail, which is managed by East Bay Regional.

Other than if you were looking for signage, you really wouldn't know who's responsible for what trail system because they're they're both fairly well maintained.

So I didn't I'm not gonna go through all of these.

Um this is a document uh that a committee of volunteers worked with the pros commission on actually the the chair and vice chair back in 2020 uh put a document together of um the trail recommendations and and there was a list of 17 uh recommendations.

I think I've gone through this a number of times uh with this body.

If there's let me just see if there's anything real importance to point out.

Nothing most of these have been uh most of these have been completed.

You'll see I there um which is explore the possibility of multi uh use flow trails for those of you who weren't on the commission back then, back when we were vetting this over the last uh it was probably from 21 to 24, somewhere in that range.

We did have a uh flow trail designed for Lime Ridge.

Um that has been uh that project has been completed.

We did not move forward with that project.

Um that's why it says completed up there, and there's not a lot else that stands out here.

I sent this document to the uh the commission last week.

Um, just as a reminder.

So I brought these up in case you guys have some questions.

We can uh we can discuss those during the question and answer period.

Yeah, and I would say the one one of the projects that is still uh very important to us that we haven't been able to move forward with is implementing a volunteer patrol program.

Um there is uh there's definitely a need.

Uh the rangers have done a great job.

They continue to enforce daily through the education program and to have a few more volunteers out there just to remind people to ensure that they're following the rules and doing the right thing is uh always beneficial.

So current projects.

Um this is kind of in line with uh what Mr.

Simmons was referring to earlier with the Walnut Creek watershed.

This uh Bram Hall Pond.

This is this is our sixth or seventh um pond in the open space that we are so we've already desilted I think six ponds.

This will be number seven.

We're waiting on permitting from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife before we move forward.

We do plan to, if assuming we get the permitting on time, we do plan to move forward and desilt this pond uh in August or September of this year to ensure we're done by the rainy season, you know, by it by the October 15th date.

Um we have we do partner uh from time to time with the Walnut Creek watershed.

We have done extensive partnership with the Walnut Creek Open Space Foundation.

Uh not only have they helped us mitigate replant, but they've also uh come to the table with funding on every one of our dealting projects.

It's they've really been fantastic partners over the year over the years.

Uh this is an ongoing project.

Uh you can see the uh the site probably could have got a little better example than the one on the left.

It doesn't look very great, but those signs are uh probably 10 12 years old, they're faded.

Uh they don't share probably enough information.

Um we we received some feedback and um decided to upgrade the signs.

So the we're going from the ones on the left to the one on the right.

The information is a little bit more clear.

For example, with the um symbol there of the bike, uh obviously if you're on a single track trail or on an in an area that you're not supposed to be, there would just be a red line through that that trail.

So uh these are six by six posts as opposed to four by four posts.

And we've I think we've we have about 200 that we need to install, and to date we've installed about 60.

And so once we finish weed abatement uh within the next week or so, this will be our summertime project.

Every every year we have a uh open space summertime project.

It's tough to do a lot of work on the trails in the summertime because the material the soil is so dry.

So we're either rebuilding or painting kiosk.

Last year we built some retaining walls, and in this year this is our uh summertime project.

So there was a couple other um projects or topics that had been discussed over the last couple years.

Uh one was drones.

I came to this to the commission, I think it was last year, maybe even at the end of 24 to get your feedback on implementing a drone policy.

I did receive your feedback.

I still need to take that to council.

I've I have not uh moved forward uh that project to go to city council to update the municipal code.

Um there's no reason why I haven't, other than uh, well, actually, there is a 77 million dollar reason that's out at Heather Farm.

I've been a little busy with that project.

Um, and then the second one is it was probably a year or so ago when we were having a uh discussion not only here at the PROS but also citywide that was being led by the city manager's office to update our bicycle and skateboard municipal code.

We have paused on updating the uh the municipal code as we know there's legislation currently moving through California, and we do not want to get ahead of that legislation or those bills.

We want to ensure that the state vets uh vets that process through uh before we make any decisions uh here in Walnut Creek and that's uh in the my presentation um for your action tonight I'd appreciate get feedback from all of you on uh the information I just shared and I'll open it up to questions.

Does Warner Creek have any uh rules about e-bikes in the open space?

We do so we currently follow the state guidelines that um authorize uh class one and two e-bikes in the open space Mike a while ago I I'd asked you um what the ownership status is of our open space was and if there were any reserve rights this had to do it triggered my thinking by the um articles that were um saying that Mount Diablo could be subject to oil and gas leasing because the uh the feds I guess um held the underlying mineral rights so um I'm you were checking with um people who might know this in the legal department I assume um so did you ever get a response on that are they still investigating or I have not I checked in with our uh legal department um and I haven't heard back so I will reach out to them again and see if they can move that up on their priority list and hopefully bring an update back at the next uh pros meeting yeah but I haven't heard anything back yet so I'm assuming you know state land uh is probably subject to some different laws than as opposed to municipal land but but I'll have to follow up.

Right and you part of my concern was it things that affect our open space aren't just on our land but are adjacent to our land so you know I it was a little bit broader than just our properties themselves but where we border other open space lands um kind of in that region of Mount Diablo.

So yeah thank you for that I'll follow up yep yeah Mike do you mind um um bring up that um table all the action the status of all the action items just for for reference again see so for the items that are ongoing and then can you look at can you can you make go down to the go down to the next slide and current um are is there any like priority I guess it's all depending on the the resources the funding and the staff availability or the the trail committees um availability in terms of implementing these recommendations is there is there any item that's kind of the highest priority for um on the implementation or they're kind of pursuing it concurrently um with the all the ongoing items and current items.

Yeah so do you do you have one particular or do you want me to I mean like Jay here for example uh evaluate trails that were yeah that's that that's my specific question for that item yeah yeah so as part of the uh the trail committee recommendation plan that I showed you there's a number of maps within that plan and there's some trails that were recently uh authorized there's a there's a trail in in Shell Ridge that was a um a social trail and there's a sh trail in Lime Ridge that was also considered to be a social trail that are now um permanent and they're authorized trails to be on there they're signed uh there's regulatory information out there the trails are safe um so there's those are two trails of the probably six or seven that are in that plan um that that I shared with you part of part of the challenge with that with the plan and and the um different suggestions is the the bulk of those trails are on Concord property so we don't own that property we manage it uh we've had conversations with Concord uh and we need to continue to have more in-depth conversation with them about uh whether or not that's something that they're going to be um uh receptive of okay thank can you um keep us updating the future on that item yeah yeah absolutely the um yeah uh it it's it's actually uh it's an ongoing by ongoing well it's it's a newly uh we we talked about it for probably a year and a half we tabled it Concord now has moved through some employee transition uh they have a new director uh and we started having this discussion probably four to six weeks ago and so it's coming back again uh Concord is definitely interested in talking more about it okay thanks I I have another question um L on that same page we have a trail advocacy group or similar group that says it's complete like what yeah so this wasn't really so there's a number of trail evasive groups in fact uh there's individuals um for example Mr.

Smith who's here tonight is the president of the open space foundation works and even Bob Simmons who was here with the Walnut Creek watershed work a number work with these groups fairly often there's groups such as the trail dogs um that's their name uh they they come out they help us with uh work on the trails they help come out and remove their uh fencing um fencing that might be damaged and potentially impact wildlife they'll come out and remove the barbed wire and the posts um we have develop will probably pre-COVID I can't remember if it was pre-COVID or just after COVID we had a number of volunteers um that were coming out from the biking community that were helping with a number of projects there's also a couple other groups that we regular actually the the defense there's a group called defensers and then the trail dogs two two different uh volunteer groups that we work with um we we clearly partner with um with the uh open space foundation and we regularly have uh not regularly but we we definitely get feedback and and um we've had discussions with the East Bay uh bike council uh in the past about some um opportunities that they see in the open space okay so there was nothing really specific it was more a general approach to this which is we partner that's correct okay yeah and then another um question is I noticed a couple of the open spaces have water at the um trailheads of some of the trailheads or near the parking lots um is there any chance of adding water in Lime Ridge I just something to consider for the future.

So do you have a specific area?

Uh yeah well I there's none that I've ever found in Lime Ridge.

Yeah I mean I was thinking of Valley Vista the golf course is there that's one of the benefits right the golf course has the uh public restrooms and and yeah well I live in the uh woodlands neighborhood and um you know I mostly hike there or cross the tunnel and you know go on to the other side and yeah I've never seen water yeah I mean the biggest challenge because we've we've had these questions before right why can't you add more restrooms and and um for example at some of our parks right San Miguel Park doesn't have a restroom there's no sewer there.

The problem is typically the uh utility hookups to bring in um well I'll give you an example we're putting in two uh two inch water main two two and a half inch water mains that are gonna feed the new pool and community center at a price of just over six hundred thousand and so to bring in a three quarter inch meter or five eighths meter uh to the site um and it's not it they call it the meter price but it's the piping to get it there it's the long term maintenance and those types of things it's probably you know 70 to 80 thousand to get a drinking fountain out there.

Yeah so it's it's costly.

Okay.

And then on the um grazing I I know that that you explained before the issues that the um ranchers have with the electric fences but it is a lot more difficult to take my dog to the open space when cattle are everywhere on the trails you know and I I mean I don't know is there any way of trying to convince them uh I don't I don't is are there any formal complaints?

I mean have there been issues with the cattle um being aggressive or anything or is it really not much of an issue?

There was a there was a complaint we received four or five years ago about an aggressive uh over in off the Valley Vista entrance um in in Lime Ridge there was a resident that uh said he had been harassed a number of times by cattle um we we reached out to the rancher we asked the individual most of the cattle are numbered and we asked the individual it's you don't want to get close enough to see the number but if for some reason you can identify the cow to let us know and we can get a hold of the rancher uh we put some signage up that we you know with that we that was like I said four or five years ago that's one comment that we received obviously I was sharing earlier with Aqualanis we received a number of comments and so we pulled the cattle out of that area altogether um yeah we we don't get a lot of feedback about uh about aggressive animals we we definitely get feedback about cattle being out there um and uh you know some of the impacts that they might have on trails we try to pull the cattle off before the rains hit so they're not park marking the trails um we've been asked that we go out there and and remove uh the cow pies from the trail uh we don't have the staff to do that um but so we do get some comments like that periodically but uh you know we get well over a million users and in the sixteen years I've been managing the open space we've probably had two dozen comments.

Okay well that's good to know if it's not impacting people's use um of the open space but it I don't know personally I I liked it better when they had the electric fences because it kept the cattle um under better control.

So did we so did we and in fact we we took it you know East Bay Regional they they have like 11 or 12 different ranchers because they have so much property and they don't have a uh a rotational uh grazing rancher they're just it's I don't want to call it a dying breed it's just so expensive to have a rancher out there because you basically have to have somebody on property because the fencing gets cut fairly regularly or the fencing loses its charge because the soils are so dry and so you gotta wet the area and and it's it's pretty challenging.

Yeah.

And I do appreciate what they do for fire prevention so I'm not you know I I mean I it's just unfortunate that it's too expensive to go that way.

Yeah that and you know people cutting fences is unfortunate as well yeah.

Uh yeah so I wanted to ask about the ponds and the uh the distilling uh yeah in show ridge uh I just wanted to ask if something similar is being done with the ponds under uh Indiana and the Indiana Valley Indian Valley Indian Valley yeah the school or sorry uh oh yeah Indian Indian valley yeah this the the elementary school to there's a p I'm sure there's a pond underneath it that's correct yeah I was just uh wondering if something to be similar similar is being done with the that ponds as there is with the other ponds.

So that pond uh really has a couple different sections in it.

There's a there's the upper portion and then the lower portion the upper portion definitely needs to be desilted.

It's not currently going to take place the only one we're gonna do this year is uh Bram Hall which is just upstream um from that pond and then next year we're hoping to do twin ponds which is on the twin pond loop trail and then within hopefully by 29 30 we're back into Indian Valley Pond and desilting that.

Okay.

Thank you.

Any other comments, questions from the commissioners?

If not, I'm gonna open this item up for come public comments.

Please step forward to the podium.

Uh any public comments.

Okay.

Also complete a speaker card.

Are you already at that?

Okay.

Um, consistent with the city policy related to public comments.

Each speaker will have two minutes to make your remarks.

All right.

Okay, um, my name's Barbara Guinness.

I've been a resident since 96.

Uh, there are several open space projects that were presented in prior uh prose meetings that the community uh had heard us hadn't heard a status on for a while, even though the items were presented.

Um Mr.

Vickers just gave a couple statuses tonight about the drone ordinance ordinance that's still to be taken care of going to console.

Another one was on the e-bike ordinance.

It sounds like they're waiting for legislation, which could take quite a while.

Um the other uh com uh the other um project is a status of social trails to official trails.

I think I heard Mr.

Vickers say a couple were done.

I don't know, there was one in Lime Ridge and one in Shell Ridge that I haven't heard anything about and haven't seen a trail checklist and that type of thing on that.

Uh another one was uh there's uh status of the uh Bram Hill Pond Restoration Project.

Uh there was uh a document written in March of 2025.

It was not just the de-silting, it was planting a lot of plants.

I wondered what's going on with that status of that.

And then the last thing I think Mr.

Vickers somewhat mentioned about the fossil hill restoration project.

Um I think particularly there's one more section in the northeast corner that uh was wanted to be developed or restored.

So I think it's really a good idea to uh let the community know about the status of items if they're brought up in prior prose meetings.

So we did get some status tonight, um, but I just wanted to say that's that's a good thing to do, don't let them go that long.

And then also um on the boundary oaks uh golf course presentation.

I just wanted to mention on the agenda report, it says there will be a question and answer portion for the PROS Commission and the community to engage with the organization at the end of the presentation.

So anyway, that's I thought we'd have questions answered.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Do we have a discussion on the public comments?

No, all right.

So the next item on the agenda is um staff update on park projects.

If this do the staff have any uh updates on park projects.

Yeah, I don't I don't have anything further to add other than the fact that the art and wine is gonna take place this Saturday and Sunday at Civic Park.

And I believe it's it is a I'm looking over at Chris, she may know better than I do.

I think it's uh on Saturday and both Sunday, it's a noon start and goes to I think Saturday it goes to eight o'clock p.m.

and then Sunday goes to six p.m.

Thanks.

Any other updates?

No, not from staff.

Okay.

All right.

Uh the next item is the commissioner's announcements.

Commissioners have any updates or announcements?

All right.

I have an announcement to make.

This is our youth commissioner Eli's last probes meeting.

We we really appreciate your um input, your um participation and bring the youth pers Wanna Creek youth perspective to the matters that in front of the pros commission.

So we have a little token of appreciation for you and we wish you the best of luck in your um next career endeavor.

Um right, you wanna share any your updates, your uh no, I don't have any updates.

Uh but uh I'd just like to say that it's uh an honor to uh uh work with you all and um yeah I uh uh I wish you uh the best in all of your future endeavors.

Thank you.