MEASURE DD COMMUNITY COALITION MEETING

SEPTEMBER 20, 2004

MONTCLAIR RECREATION CENTERLAKESIDE GARDEN 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

Cameron-Stanford House Preservation Assoc. – Jo Ann Price

Chabot Park Highlands Homeowners Assoc. – Ken Benson

East Bay Regional Parks District – John Sutter, Brian Wiese

Friends of the Cleveland Cascade –Jim Ratliff

Friends of Studio One – Patrick Daughton

Coalition of Advocates for Lake Merritt – James Vann

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

Greenlink Taskforce – Nancy Rieser

Jack London District Assoc. – Simon Waddington

Lake Merritt Institute –Liz Borowiec, Stana Hearne

Oak to Ninth Community Coalition – Andy Nelson

Oakland Heritage Alliance – Naomi Schiff

Oakland Parks Coalition – Jennie Gerard

Urban Ecology – Amy Tanner

Waterfront Action Coalition – Sandy Threlfall

 

Also:

 

From the City of Oakland:

CEDA – Kerry Jo Ricketts-Ferris

Council member Jean Quan’s Office – Richard Cowan

Public Works Agency – Joel Peter

 

 

The meeting was called to order at 7:10 P.M. by chair James Vann.  The attendees introduced themselves. 

 

ADVOCACY & GRANT FUNDING:

Jennie Gerard spoke about setting up a committee that would meet with the lobbyist from the Port to figure out how best to advocate for funding.  Ron Bishop, Sandy Threlfall, Kerry Jo Ricketts-Ferris and John Sutter are the committee, Liz Borowiec offered to help prepare materials and Naomi Schiff will help with any historic funding areas.

Kerry Jo Ricketts-Ferris, CEDA, said she is starting to look beyond the very obvious state and federal grants to see what else is out there.  She is looking for unique fits and partnerships.  Kerry has had an initial conversation with the Coastal Conservancy representative in Sacramento about assistance, and they will help with what they can.  She is also hoping to meet with the Sierra Club.  The group is looking for how to amp up the advocacy role and put some structure on this.  Another suggestion was to invite lobbyists to a group meeting.

 

 

MEASURE CC OVERVIEW:

John Sutter, East Bay Regional Parks, went over the Measure CC bond proposal on the ballot.  It relates to property of the Martin Luther King Regional Shoreline.  Measure CC would provide money for developing a park along the bay trail and managing it for 15 years. It would include field areas and if they get a state grant would also include a boathouse for the Oakland Strokes and other public entities.  It would be 11 acres.  The majority of CC funding would go for vegetation management and general maintenance and funding for the waterfront area.  A question was asked about Gateway Park, this is currently not in the measure, as they will need it for a staging area for the bridge.  10% of the funds would be discretionary.  So far the polling has been positive but there are a lot of parcel taxes on this ballot.  A question was asked about pedestrian and bike pathway along Doolittle.  In the Measure there is $200,000 to do a feasibility study on this.  It was suggested that perhaps the Port may help on this as a mitigation project.  John mentioned that all of the funding is within a particular zone and in that zone they have predominately older parks and larger fire hazards.

 

 

PROJECT STATUS:

The 12th St. project had a presentation at a meeting that went well.  They plan to hold another public meeting that is tentatively set for Oct. 27th.  Studio One has another public meeting set for Oct. 25th at 7 p.m. at Studio One.

 

Walter Hood is working on a set of design guidelines and developmental standards that will be used along the estuary and Measure DD design.  This way for both DD designers and private developers there will be a set of guidelines that will still tie the project together.  Also the Cultural Arts are going to provide some funding to aid Walter in developing lighting and signage standards.  There was some concern mentioned about the lighting.  It was felt that lights at eye level and below are best at night.  The current lights proposed are 15 ft for most of the lights, kiosks at 18 ft and a gateway at 23 ft.  It was noted that lights above eye level make the rest of the world seem darker.  It was also asked if the historical society will have input on these standards and Kerry said yes.  Also, it was asked that Walter make sure to read the city’s bicycle and pedestrian plan when he is working on these elements.

 

The Sailboat house is going out to RFP soon to look for a designer and the Municipal Boathouse is going out to bid for HAZMAT clean up.

 

 

 

 

 

UPDATES:

 

Oak to 9th St.

Sandy Threlfall provided an update on the progress.  Thanks in large part to the work of the Waterfront Action Coalition, the Oakland Heritage Alliance and the Sierra Club significant language was included in the proposal that they feel will significantly aid the process.  The language helps to guarantee the land must stay in Oakland. Also the Port approved that they would hold at least one public meeting before any exchange of Tidelands Trust Property that would speak about the location and how it would be used.  These amendments were accepted and the Governor signed them.  They are also working on a proposal to do a Charette for the Oak to 9th that Harbor Partners would pay for.  A draft of this is being worked on.  There was some talk about that the charette concept should be included in PDZD (Plan, Develop, Zone, District).  This will aid in revisiting what will happen to the last large 62 acres on the waterfront. Naomi Schiff, added that this should include backing up to discuss not just the project design but also the project concept, what the land should be used for.  This charette process probably would not start until at least January.  The City will select the consultant that will run the charette.  Andy Nelson, Oak to 9th Community Coalition, suggested that the charette was a good idea but possibly may be somewhat premature for where they are in the process.

 

East Oakland Sports Complex

Jennie Gerard reported that they are looking into possibly scaling down the project somewhat as well as working on a State Competitive Grant and looking into the private donation that was given to the Salvation Army to aid in recreation projects.  The Salvation Army most likely won’t have any grant guidelines until at least January.

 

Studio One

The Studio One design is moving along.  The community had a lot of say in who the architect would be on this and are for the most part very satisfied.  There is a community meeting that will be held on Oct. 25th and this will probably be the last real chance to influence the design.  One issue now is parking; there is a strong feeling that they do not want parking in the front of the building.  They also hope they can work out a collaboration with Oakland Tech.  The big issue will be where to move the current classes while the building is under construction that will be around 1 ½ years.  Especially because they do not want to lose skilled staff.  Any help the coalition could give on this to make sure the council and others understand this is a priority would be helpful.

 

MEETING SCHEDULE:

There was a proposal to move the meetings to every other month beginning from this meeting.  There was some concern that it could be too long of timeframe between meetings when important elements are happening.  One suggestion was to set up active sub-committees that would meet periodically between meetings.  Another suggestion was to set up a Yahoo work group, this was thought to be a good idea and Jim Ratliff offered to help set it up.  One concern is that sometimes throughout the year there is more happening than other times, like the Fall and Spring are prime times.  A proposal was made to continue meeting in Oct. and Nov. of 2004 and in January set a schedule that would have 8 meetings a year, coinciding with when the City is most active.

 

AGENDA COMMITTEE

The next Agenda Committee was selected that will serve in October and November.  The members are Ken Benson, Ron Bishop and Sandy Threlfall. 

 

EXECUTIVE MEETING:

James Vann and Liz Borowiec will attend the Executive meeting on Sept. 27th (I believe the meeting was moved to Sept. 29th).  The group asked them to please get an updated expenditures listing.

 

Next Agenda Items that were suggested: 

  1. Financial Report – expenditure review
  2. Exec. Committee Update
  3. Invite Coastal Conservancy to speak
  4. Creeks Update
  5. Update on Oak to 9th (Sandy, John and Andy)
  6. Update on Studio One Meeting (in Nov.)
  7. Update on 12th St Meeting (in Nov.)

 

The next meeting dates were set, they will continue to be on the third Monday of the month. The next meeting date is October 18th  at the Garden Center in the Ebell Room.

 

The meeting was adjourned at 9:00 p.m.