MEASURE DD COMMUNITY COALITION MEETING
JULY 19, 2004
MONTCLAIR RECREATION CENTER
Agenda Committee: Jennie Gerard, Liz Borowiec and James Vann
Minutes by Kathy Raymond, Executive Director, Friends of Oakland Parks and Recreation
In Attendance:
Beat 15x NCPC – Jim Ratliff
Bicycle & Pedestrian Advisory Committee – Ron Bishop
Chabot Park Highlands Homeowners Association – Ken Benson
Friends of the Cleveland Cascade – Barbara Newcombe, Jim Ratliff
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, Don Walls
Greenlink Taskforce – Nancy Rieser
Jack London Aquatic Center – Robert Kidd
Lake Merritt Breakfast Club – Aileen Frankel
Lake Merritt Institute – Stana Hearne, Liz Borowiec
Lake Merritt Rowing Club – Jerry Denham
Oakland Parks Coalition – Jennie Gerard
Spanish Speaking Unity Council – Rita Torres
Also:
From the City of Oakland:
City Auditor’s Office – Michael Kilian
Council member Jean Quan’s Office – Richard Cowan
Council member Larry Reid’s Office – Pat Mossburg
Mayor’s Office – Libby Schaaf
Public Works Agency – Joel Peter
The meeting was called to order at 7:10 P.M. by chair Jennie Gerard. The attendees introduced themselves.
EXECUTIVE MEETING:
Joel Peter, Public Works Agency, gave the update on the Executive Team meeting for Patrick Daughton and Rita Torres. At the Executive Team meeting, Christin Hablewitz, City of Oakland Cultural Arts, gave an update on public art. There will be a public meeting on July 29th at the Lake Merritt Sailboat house for anyone interested in this process, flyers were distributed and are available on the Friends website. An expenditure summary was passed around , but copies were not handed out, as it is not in a user-friendly format. Tom Sheets, an accountant, has been hired by CEDA to work exclusively on the measure DD expenditures. One of Tom’s first orders of business will be to put the expenditure sheet into a user-friendly format for distribution among the committee.
PROJECT UPDATES:
Joel Peter, Public Works Agency, the 12th Street project is moving along and Rajappan & Meyer, the prime consultant, will begin drilling along 12th Street to do soil testing. At the same time they will be drilling at the E. 18th St. Pier that is falling apart. In the meantime environmental consultants are working on other Surveys, and the traffic consultant is expanding their traffic study. They are aiming for a public meeting sometime in October.
The Lake Merritt Water Quality recommendations and the Creek Restoration and Acquisition recommendations were unanimously passed by the Life Enrichment Committee last week and are going before the City Council tomorrow, Tuesday, July 20th for approval.
Fairyland is moving ahead with design and construction. One issue that arose is that there is very poor water service at Lakeside Park for fire. It is becoming an issue due to the expansion of one of Fairyland’s buildings. They are looking into possibly using some of the Lake Merritt Systemwide category funds to help bring in better waterlines to help all of the buildings at the park.
The Municipal Boathouse is moving ahead and the 1st community meeting will be August 4th (note: this date has been changed to August 12th). A flyer will be distributed through email and on the website once it is finalized. WRT will be holding the meeting to discuss all three of there projects, El Embarcadero, Lakeshore/Lakeside park and street changes and the Municipal Boathouse. It was asked if an RFP had been done to look for a restaurateur that may aid in the cost of the renovation. They are in the process of doing this but do not know if they’ll find someone willing to do this or not. Also, it was asked if a feasibility study had been done of putting a restaurant here, it was indicated that a formal process had not been gone through, however, they did have restaurant brokers tour the facility and gathered their input. They predicted a mid-range restaurant would work best. Also, the issue of parking was raised, as there was concern a restaurant would need more parking than was available and may want to remove green space. It was stated they would not be removing any green space and they were looking into possible solutions like partnering with a nearby facility and providing valet parking.
Kerry Jo Ricketts-Ferris, CEDA, is putting together a list of the Lake Merritt system wide improvements for consideration. It is not yet ready for distribution. The E. 18th St. Pier is planned to be restored as it currently exists. Staff is working with the City’s historical staff on this and an additional floating dock component is being explored to aid gondola service, etc.
Waterfront is moving forward, they have done initial soil testing and so far they have found nothing too bad. They also using surveyors and landscape architects from the as needed pool. They are still in discussions with many various parties about acquisitions.
Union Point Park is moving along very well. They are beginning discussions with the low bidder for landscape services, Valley Crest. This will be for Phase 2.
Studio One is also moving along well and the designers are taking the input from the last community meeting and moving forward with the design.
Joel provided a map of the Lake Merritt Estuary and the plans to make a continuous pathway from the Estuary to Lake Merritt. They are also hoping to increase the water flow into the Lake. In the Measure DD Plan the 12th St. component (bond series 1) and the 10th St. Component (hoping to move to bond series 1 and 2, as it was originally planned in series 3) will remove the two biggest obstacles related to these restrictions. The removal of these two obstacles should increase the peak flow into the lake 2 to 3 times what it is currently. Together with the 7th St. project, it will also allow for a kayaker to go all the way from the Lake to the Estuary, though there will still be some obstacles to get around at high tide. The one issue that they are looking at with URS continuing a feasibility study is where to move the 7th St. flood control pumping station. Originally it was proposed to move it up to 12th St. but this would open areas that are now protected by flood control, like Laney College, to possibly be subject to flooding. Also, the new cost estimate is nearly $40 million. Currently $16 million is allocated. Suggestions on moving the pumping station down closer to the Estuary could provide additional flood protection benefits but are also very costly, ranging from $27 to $34 million. There is also a suggestion to make a bypass channel around the pumping station, which is cost effective ($7.4 million), but not the most attractive solution. Currently, the City is looking at the cost analysis versus the benefits and seeing if they may be able to raise additional funds. It was suggested that Alameda County Flood Control, who is on the hook for some of the water quality issues at Lake Merritt may be an additional source of funds. Apparently, however, they do not have funds available currently due to other projects going on in the area at Lakeshore and Grand. The City will speak with Laney College about funding as they would have obvious benefits and possibly increased flood protection with the downstream option.
Overall the projects are on budget and on target with administrative expenses. However, all the projects are currently under funded. The bond measure was $198 million and to do all the projects to their original vision another $160 million would be needed. They are currently designing the projects to the budget they have in place or committed.
LAKE MERRITT INSTITUTE
Liz Borowiec, Lake Merritt Institute, noted that the Institute has been helping the City on the Lake Merritt Water Quality issues and how the $4.5 million would be best spent. The Institute coordinates volunteers and maintains the Lake and has been doing this for about 6 years. Recently, the City’s Public Works Committee decided that they wanted to go out to an RFQ to for the work that has been done by the Institute. The Institute will continue until May with their work and they will submit an RFQ to the city to continue the process. However, if they are not selected, as a non-profit organization whose mission is to help the Lake they may no longer be around if this happens. Numerous individuals at the meeting expressed that they didn’t think this should have happened but that when the City compares what they charge versus anyone else they most likely will get the contract. As no one feels anyone else could do it for their cost or would have their expertise. Liz, noted that the institute did a lot of research to establish the best places to put the new water filters.
PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS
Libby Schaaf, Special Assistant to the Mayor, came to the meeting to discuss the progress of setting a policy for public-private partnerships. As she sees it there are two distinct types of issues that will need to be addressed, one is the developer issue, when non-profits manage the building of park projects (for example) and then the operator issue when the non-profit is actually managing a City facility, like the Zoo, Fairyland, Dunsmuir or the Jack London Aquatic Center. The City would first like to tackle the developer issue and Jane Brunner is leading this charge by setting up a meeting in late August with a number of City agencies and non-profit groups to discuss the issues. Prior meetings have been held with smaller groups, like Trust for Public Lands and Friends of Oakland Parks and Recreation to discuss the issues so, hopefully, a proposed policy can be talked about at this meeting. It was noted that the City needs to understand that private funders have specific goals for their funds and do not feel funds should go to high administration costs. Libby, noted that one of the things the City hopes to do is to meet with some various foundations to get their take on funding and to also explain some of the City’s fees so they understand what those fees go towards. Libby also noted, that she spent 5 years working on the Union Point Park project issues and is aware of many of the issues. It was also noted, that the City needs to be able, when necessary, to say no this is not a project that the City wants to take on and learn what is feasible and is not.
Friends of the Cleveland Cascade has launched version 1.0 of their web site located at http://clevelandcascade.org. They will be requesting to set up a Fiscal Account with Friends of Oakland Parks and Recreation in August.
OAK TO 9TH STREET
John Sutter, East Bay Regional Parks, said the Perata’s bill had come up and people from Oakland had gone to Sacramento, to provide support for sticking to the original Estuary Plan. Some modifications have been made and more hearings will be had as well as some of the Estuary Plan elements will be incorporated. It was not everything they wished for but it is a start. Libby Schaaf, Mayor’s office, mentioned that the 5th Street artist colony will be preserved as is and will not be moved.
Next Agenda Items that were suggested:
1. City’s Measure DD PowerPoint review
2. Update on the Public Art Meeting (Liz Borowiec)
3. More on the issue of establishing a Conservancy (perhaps invite Coastal Conservancy)
4. East Bay Sports Complex (Sept.)
5. Review of proposed public-private partnership policy
6. Annual Meeting Discussion
7. Update on WRT Meeting (Aug. 12 th)
8. Update on Oak to 9th (Sandy Threlfall)
9. Update on East Bay Regional Parks (ballot proposal)
The next meeting dates were set, they will continue to be on the third Monday of the month. August 16th and Sept. 20th.
The meeting was adjourned at 8:45 p.m.