MEASURE DD COMMUNITY COALITION MEETING

APRIL September 18, 2006

Lakeside Garden Center

 

Agenda Committee:  Judy Johnson, John Sutter and Ron Bishop

Minutes by Kathy Raymond, Executive Director, Friends of Oakland Parks and Recreation

 

In Attendance:

Bicycle & Pedestrian Advisory Committee – Ron Bishop

CALM – James Vann

Chabot Park Highlands Homeowners – Ken Benson

East Bay Bicycle Coalition – Rick Rickard, Robert Raburn

East Bay Regional Parks – John Sutter

Essex HOA Board Member & Residents – Joe Matera

Friends of the Cleveland Cascade – Jim Ratliff, Barbara Newcombe

Friends of Oakland Parks and Recreation – Kathryn Raymond, Judy Johnson

Garden Center, Inc. Anne Woodell

Greenlink Task Force – Nancy Rieser

Lake Merritt Institute – Elizabeth Borowiec

Oakland Heritage Alliance – Naomi Schiff

PGA Design – Chris Patillo

Waterfront Action – Sandra Threlfall

Interested Citizens –David Mix, Cayren King, David Bolanos, Ken Pratt

 

From the City of Oakland:

Office of City Administrator – Joel Peter

City Auditor’s Office – Anica Ashbourne

Council Member Kernighan’s Office – Jennie Gerard

 

The meeting was called to order at 7:05 P.M. by chair Ron Bishop.  The attendees introduced themselves.  The new agenda committee was selected, Anne Woodell, Barbara Newcombe and Jim Ratliff will serve as the agenda committee through the end of the year.

 

PROJECT UPDATES:

Joel reported that the 12th Street project was out to bid and the bids would be opened the 16th of October.  It would include E. 18th all the way around to 14th and Oak.  The City is facing a lawsuit on the tree removal and is working the way through the legal process.  They are going ahead with projects that won’t affect the trees currently.  The Pergola is under construction.  They are moving ahead with the fire hydrant project of installing new hydrants around the lake.  They are also working on a public information plan to inform the public of the upcoming construction.

 

The restaurant lease at the Muncipal Boathouse is going to Council on Sept. 19th; the resolution would give authorization to begin negotiations with the owners of the Beach Chalet.  The parking dispute was resolved with a compromise settlement.  There will be a parking lot on site, but ˝ the size that was originally planned and then a Median island for more parking on Lakeside.  28 parking spaces on site and the rest on the street.  They hope to begin on the foundation soon; they are still negotiating with the contractor.  They will go ahead with the current design even if the restaurant lease doesn’t go through. 

 

The Lake Merritt Channel project will have a public meeting sometime in October to discuss current concepts.  There will still be flood control gate at 7th St. and the channel will go around, it will also have a gate.  They need to find money for the bicycle/pedestrian overpass at the railroad site by Channel.  It was mentioned that there is concern on how to maintain the wetlands being proposed.  Joel indicated that they were looking at options, the Lake Merritt Institute currently handles the wetland areas in their contract, also the Laney College Environmental Program may wish to aid in the maintenance.  They will be doing a Map Search on what are Public Trust lands along the channel.  The Waterfront Action Committee will be getting a presentation on the design standards for the waterfront at 8 am on Sept. 20th at the Port of Oakland Exhibit Room.  Elois Thornton is the City contact on these standards that were worked on by Walter Hood.  They will be building a prototype Kiosk at Estuary Park to get public feedback; it should be up in a couple weeks.  Joel will bring photographs to the next meeting but encouraged everyone to go and see it in person.

 

Joel went over a possible scenario to save costs around the Lakeshore Ave. project.  Currently the proposal is to move the curb to provide more space for the multi-purpose walkway and DG jogging path.  This would mean curb and gutter replacements as well as replacement of the streetlight.  The path calls for parking, bicycle lane in both directions and 1 lane of traffic in either direction.  Joel asked for comments on what was thought of not moving the curb, eliminating the DG jogging path and letting joggers jog on the grass and a center left turn only lane could then also be accommodated.  A number of individuals felt that perhaps median strips in between the left hand curb lanes would both beautify the area and aid in making sure that lane didn’t turn into just another lane.  It was asked if Joel could come back with more details on what costs would be saved.  There was discussion on both sides on if the Multi-purpose path should be as large as is currently designed.

 

CLEVELAND CASCADE

Chris Patillo of PGA Design presented the plan for the Cleveland Cascade renovation.  They are trying to preserve the historical look of the Cascade.  They plan to use the one pool at the bottom with recycled water.  The top pool will be turned into a planter.  They plan on keeping the lighting less intrusive and have a plan to include LED lights in the handrails.  They will need new drainage, irrigation and electrical.  Howard Gilkey designed the original cascade in 1923.  The stairs are in pretty good shape and will only be repaired not replaced.  The Cascade is in the running for some grant funding via American Express and a partnership with the National Trust for Historic Preservation.  There is a web site where you can vote for your favorite project(s) up to once a day, it is www.partnersinpreservation.com supporters are encouraged to sign up and vote.  The Fox Theater is also in the running in Oakland so the Coalition is encouraging you to vote Oakland.  Coalition attendees praised the design.

 

BIKE LANES:

It was asked what would be done with the bike lanes on the one way stretch around the lake.  Joel said that in Series B there would be plans to implement bike lanes around Lakeside and Harrison past the Kaiser Center.  The plan now seems to be that the one-way area would have lanes up Lakeside and back down on Madison.  The design of this is a ways off as this is in the next bond series.  There was some concern about the safety at Madison St. especially at 14th and Madison.  It was also asked about the surfacing on the pathways, Joel indicated that he had gotten in touch with the person from Colorado that was testing a new surfacing but he had been told it wouldn’t hold up to vehicle traffic which is necessary to change the necklace of lights and other maintenance.  Ron was doing some more checking on this.

 

OAK TO NINTH:

James Vann gave an update on Oak to Ninth regarding 2 lawsuits that have been filed against the City challenging the EIR process.  One lawsuit was further amended today with 5 additional complaints.  There is also a third component of a group that has been gathering petitions to put this on the ballot.  They had gathered $25,089 signatures and turned them in challenging the agreement with Oakland Harbor Partners.  A challenge had been issued that the group had not used the current developer agreement and the City Attorney agreed with this and invalidated the petitions.  However, the group indicated that they were told by the City Clerk to download this version from the City Web Site and it was three days after the Council meeting.  John Sutter also gave the latest update on plans.  The Developer did agree to not put Condos on the Cash & Carry and clean up the area to be park.  The Cash & Carry site still has an 8-year lease.  It was asked if the Developer will take care of tearing down the Cash & Carry and cleaning that up as well, it was thought yes, but no one was 100% sure.  There were two other parks called for in the Estuary Park Plan, a number of people are still attempting to get one of the other two parks completed in full, Channel Park.  Also, the developer still has to go through BCDC approval on some parts of the project. 

 

The RFP went out for the 9th Ave. Terminal.  It would be for 40,000 up to 90,000 sq. feet.

 

It was noted that the Embarcadero Bridge does have funding due to the fact it is not earthquake safe.  However, it has apparently been stalled in design for years.  It was also noted that CalTrans has plans to widen 880 and it will extend out towards the water, which may impact some of the development.  It is scheduled to start Sept. of 2007.

 

There was a brief discussion on the Coalition Administration and if the Coalition would like Friends to continue or perhaps the City to take over this role.  The Coalition attendees did not want the City to assume this responsibility and asked that Joel work out a continued agreement with Friends and make sure it goes back to the time the Friends contract expired in July.  There was some discussion on if the scope should be changed, this is open for discussion but it seemed that instead of changing it a better job should be done about implementing the areas outlined.

 

The meeting was adjourned at 8:50 p.m. and the next meeting is to take place on October 16th from 7-9 p.m. at the Garden Center’s Ebell Room at 666 Bellevue Ave.