MEASURE DD COMMUNITY COALITION MEETING
APRIL 19TH, 2004
LINCOLN SQUARE RECRETAION CENTER
Agenda Committee: Patrick Daughton, Rita Torres and Aileen Frankel
Minutes by Kathy Raymond, Executive Director, Friends of Oakland Parks and Recreation
In Attendance:
1000 Friends of Studio One – Patrick Daughton
Beat 15x NCPC – Jim Ratliff, Barbara Newcombe
Bicycle & Pedestrian Advisory Committee – Ron Bishop
Butters Land Trust – David Barron
Chabot Park Highlands Homeowners Assoc. – Ken Benson
Children’s Fairyland – C.J. Hirschfield
Coalition of Advocates for Lake Merritt – James Vann
East Bay Bicycle Coalition – Rick Rickard
East Bay Regional Parks District – John Sutter
Friends of Oakland Parks and Recreation – Kathryn Raymond, Judy Johnson, Don Walls
FROG – Theresa Nelson
Greenlink Task Force – Nancy Rieser
Jack London Aquatic Center – Robert Kidd
Lake Merritt Institute –Stana Hearne, Elizabeth Borowiec
Lake Merritt Rowing Club – Jerry Denham
Lake Merritt Breakfast Club- Aileen Frankel
Oakland Heritage Alliance – Naomi Schiff
Parks & Recreation Advisory Commission – Theresa Nelson, Matt Webb
Urban Ecology – Diana Williams
Interested Participant – James Corless
Also:
From the City of Oakland:
District 4 Council member Jean Quan’s office – Richard Cowan
District 7 Council member Larry Reid’s office – Pat Mossburg
Office of the City Auditor – Michael Kilian
Community & Economic Development Agency – Kerry
Jo Ricketts-Ferris
Public Works Agency – Joel Peter
Public Works Environmental Services – Lesley Estes
The meeting was called to order at 7:00 P.M. by chair Aileen Frankel. It was asked that we move the meeting in June to the 21st, the third Monday of the month. The Coalition approved the change.
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEETING:
C.J. Hirschfield and Naomi Schiff attended the City’s executive meeting about the Measure DD bond. C.J. found the meeting very informative and encouraged the coalition participants to attend if they had the chance. Kathy Raymond had handouts from the meeting for coalition participants as well as putting a number of the handouts on the web site located at www.oaklandparks.org/measure_dd.htm for distribution. The handouts include the current list of as-needed consultants that the City Council approved and the current project status summary. One of the interesting discussions that arose was how permanent does permanent have to be to be deemed a capital improvement project.
PROJECT UPDATES:
Pat Mossburg, District 7 Council member Larry Reid’s office, mentioned that the East Oakland Sports Complex would no longer include an Olympic size pool. The current cost of the project is around $32 million. The city has submitted a $3 million grant to aid in this project. Staff is also looking into the possibility of seeing if the Salvation Army may help (as one center from the large Joan Kroc donation). Joel Peter, Public Works Agency, updated the coalition on a number of projects. He mentioned the 10th St. bridge project (Phase III funding) may be moved earlier because of flood control issues and funding in coordination with other projects. Staff also hopes to work in coordination with Peralta College on some projects that affect both the College and DD projects. It was mentioned that we should actively try to get representatives from Peralta College and the School District to attend the coalition meetings.
There was a 12th St. kick off meeting with the consultants (Rajappan & Meyer) where they kicked around ideas about an interim bicycle plan. The Interim bike route is from a separate funding source from Measure DD. The City of Oakland has a federal (TDA) transportation services grant for $116,000. There will be opportunity for public input. Ron Bishop, Bicycle & Pedestrian Advisory Committee, pointed out the need to improve pedestrian safety along with bicycle safety.
Lake Merritt Water Quality will need other funding sources for monitoring equipment. There is a group meeting monthly, led by Lesley Estes, on water quality issues. The Lake Merritt Institute would like to put in a new aeration fountain in the Glen Echo Creek arm, which would cost about $15,000 plus installation. The coalition thought it would be fine, however, there was questions on the fact that at an earlier meeting there was discussion that a fountain really wouldn’t do much for oxygenation. Lesley pointed out that while it doesn’t necessarily help increase oxygen component in the Lake water significantly, it would give a place for fish to go, immediately underneath the water droplets, that would provide for more oxygen when the water quality was poor. It was also pointed out that there was a concern that if the spray was too high the salt would burn the trees so the fountain spray should be adjusted correctly.
C.J. Hirschfield, Children’s Fairyland, said that not much had changed since the last meeting. They are proceeding with design and are awaiting the City Manager’s office to finalize the Zoo contract so they can then proceed to Fairyland’s contract.
Oakland Parks and Recreation are moving out of 1520 Lakeside Dr. on April 24th. They have had an environmental consultant go through the building but have not had the structure evaluated yet. Staff expects to probably have the structure evaluation by May 3rd, thought they do not expect many problems with the building. There was some concern that the boating and rowing clubs would have to be relocated, this is not the case. There may be a short time during renovations where they would be relocated but it would not be permanent. It was brought up that it may be nice for the new restaurant to work with the Camron-Stanford house for events like weddings to provide more space. It was asked about if a restaurant person was on board at this stage, it was mentioned a restaurant consultant is on the team and they would like to have a restaurateur and architect on board by the design phase. It was pointed out it would be good o analyze what works for other restaurants in public settings. City staff noted that several restuarant brokers were consulted regarding the potential for a restaurant at 1520 Lakeside Drive and it was thought a mid-range price point restaurant would work best. Concerns were voiced on if there were any guidelines already outlined in making sure whoever moved in would not be able to encroach on the existing park. It was brought up the architect design and signage will need to go through the Oakland Landmark Board. City staff assured the Coalition that these issues were addressed as a part of the Lake Merritt Master Plan.
WRT is the consultant contracted on board for the municipal boat house and pedestrian and bike paths. Traffic Engineering has started a study. The plan will include narrowing roadways and expanding pedestrian and bike paths.
Union Point Parks is underway and Studio Onedesigner has begun to meet with the Studio One advisory board. There will be due diligence to have public meetings and gather public input as the Studio One design is developed.
There were concerns voiced about the Cathedral proposed for the Kaiser Center site formerly approved for a high-rise office building and how the plans may not interact well with the Lake Merrit Master Plan. When questioned, Kerry Jo noted that the City did not address zoning regulations for properties surrounding Lake Merritt as part of the Lake Merritt Master Plan. The preliminary Cathedral plans were passed around and it was stated that the Cathedral plans would need to be watched closely. Any communications that could be done to make the Catholic Diocese aware of the changes planned to enhance Lake Merritt and Lakeside Park and to have the Cathedral design respect its proximity to those enhancements would be beneficial.
WATERFRONT:
Kerry Jo stated that there were essentially three pots of funding for the waterfront from Measure DD designated for the Oak to Ninth Area. Estuary Park, which is fully funded, with project design funded in the first Series of DD, the project construction in the second Series of DD. Funding has also been identified in DD to partially fund improvements to Meadows Park and the 9th Ave. Terminal Park. These will happen in the 2nd and 3rd phase. Kerry mentioned that the developers for the Oak to Ninth site would soon be initiating the EIR process with the City, which would kick off a public dialog on any proposals for the area.
Naomi Schiff and John Sutter expressed their concern that the port plans seems to conflict with the original Estuary Policy Plan that took years to develop and went through a great deal of community outreach. Participants in the coalition feel that open space appears to be getting the shaft. For example, housing had not been originally planned in the Estuary Policy Plan. The Oakland Heritage Alliance did apply to make the 9th Ave. Terminal a historic landmark. It seems that there are a lot of competing ideas and the coalition feels there has not been sufficient public discussion since the Estuary Policy Plan with the changes that are now being proposed. The Waterfront Action group has set up a meeting at the Port with the developers on March 21st at 8 a.m.. It was mentioned that Oakland citizens has historically been shut off from the waterfront and that the waterfront should be developed in a way for the publics benefit. It was understood that this will include both development and parkland and a greenbelt, , but that the development needs to make sense with the open space because currently it seems to be eating up much of the open space.
Diana Williams, from Urban Ecology, spoke to the group about their work with the lower San Antonio neighborhood. Urban Ecology is non-profit group made up of architects and land use planners that offer their services free of charge to low-income neighborhoods to help with neighborhood planning. They are working with 23rd Ave. which is now a sad site, one of the poorest neighborhoods in Oakland where there are 35 different languages spoken. They have the lowest access to open space per capita. She wanted to bring to the coalitions attention this neighborhood and how to get them access to open space. For example, they live less than a mile from the waterfront and yet have no easy access.
The coalition was hoping to have a representative from the Mayor’s office come so we could discuss sustainability and how public-private partnerships can help a city. Unfortunately, there was a conflict and they couldn’t attend. There was discussion on how to put this on the agenda of the Mayor’s office as there is a strong perception that the city does not work well with non-profit groups. We left the discussion where members of the coalition would follow up with the mayor’s office to find the appropriate person to invite to our May meeting.
CREEKS MEETING:
Lesley Estes announced that the Creeks Committee that had been formed from the DD Coalition. Participants had met and the David Baron had agreed to be the chair. They were still refining their role but are working to help figure out the guidelines for prioritizing projects. Two projects that have crucial elements warranting immediate funding were brought up and asked the coalition its opinion about funding them before the full community process. These were the acquisition of Butters Land Trust property (or a conservation easement) that they may lose if they don’t get the funding quickly and the Rockridge Greenbelt project where they are close to finalizing design to begin construction in late summer or early fall. If the neighborhoods do not know about the funding they would not be able to implement it in this cycle. The coalition felt that both these projects were worthy and seemed to meet the draft criteria of funding requirements. The Coalition did have questions on what in the future would constitute a priority and if these should be the only two before the full community process. A public meeting on the Creek funding guidelines is scheduled Monday, April 26, 2004 from 7-9 p.m. at Hearing Room 3 in Oakland’s City Hall.
CLEVELAND CASCADE
It was mentioned that more discussion around the Cleveland cascade would happen at the next meeting but that there was work under way to restore the cascade. A picture of what the Cleveland cascade looked like when it was first built was passed around. Kerry mentioned that there was money in Measure DD for a project titled Lake Merritt system wide improvements in the amount of $6 million, but it has not yet been decided what specific projects will be funded from this source. She was going to bring more information about this to a later meeting.
The meeting was adjourned around 9 p.m. and a few people stayed after to hear more about the cathedral plans.