Bidwell Park and Playground Commission — Recap

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The moderator of the regular commission meeting of the Bidwell Park and Playgrounds Commission. First order of business will be roll call. Commissioner Nava? Present. Commissioner Nichols? Here. Commissioner Paiva? Iva. Here. I am so sorry. I had a problem. Here. Commissioner Scheer? No. Commissioner Thomas Petty? She's on vacation. Vice Chair Blatchie? Here. And Chair Willis? Here. Okay. Anyone wishing to address the commission on any matters listed on the agenda should first complete a speaker card found at the back of the chamber. Once completed, turn in your cards to the clerk, which is called roll. And the speakers are taken in the order that cards are received.

Once the first speaker begins, no additional cards will be accepted. Persons demonstrating rude, boisterous, speaking on matters outside the jurisdiction of the city, or engaging in otherwise disruptive behavior will be called to order by the Chair. If such conduct continues, the Chair may call a recess, requesting the removal of such persons from the Council. The Council Chambers adjourn the meeting or take some other appropriate action. Consent agenda. All matters listed under the consent agenda are considered routine in nature and can therefore be enacted in one motion. We have the minutes and then anything. He moved. He moved. I'll second. You second it? I'll second it. I think Nicole beat you to it.

Okay, vote.

Commissioner Lawler? Yes. Commissioner Nichols? Aye. Commissioner Paiva? Yes. Vice Chair Blachley? Yes. And Chair Willis? Aye. Public comments. Members of the public may address the Bedwell Park and Playgrounds Commission at this time on any matter not already listed on the agenda and within the jurisdiction's authority. Comments will be limited to three minutes or as determined by the Chair based on the number of speakers. The BPPC cannot take any action at this meeting on requests made under this section of the agenda. Does any member of the public wish to address the Commission? Seeing none. We will move to the regular agenda. Presentation on the proposed ranger position reform. The current staffing model has not met operational needs.

The proposal is to convert the park ranger positions to police officer positions supplemented by community service officers to improve staffing efficiency and ensure coverage for calls for service in city parks and greenways. And we have the presence of chief billy Aldridge. You have the floor. Thank you. And thank you for the invitation tonight. I'm not sure how deep you want me to get into this tonight. I've got an overview of kind of what my idea is because right now it's just an idea. It's an idea that is a solution to a problem we've had for many years now as we've tried to recruit and retain park rangers for the nation's largest municipally owned park system. And it is hilariously understaffed, obviously.

I'll just kind of give you a little back history real quick. I believe it was about 10, 11 years ago now that we, I wasn't in a command position at the time, but the decision was made to switch over from non-sworn park rangers to sworn park rangers. Since then we have had recruitment after recruitment and training after training to try to fill these positions, keep them filled. We got to a point where we had all three positions filled, but one of the trainees failed the training program. And so we dropped down to two. And ever since then, we haven't been able to fill that third spot or get anyone to stay in it once we've hired them. Luckily, we've had park ranger Dylan Bradford, who obviously is here tonight.

And we had park ranger Joel Holmes for a while. He just switched over to being a police officer. But you have to have people who want to be in that position, who have to understand that there's no movement in that position. And you have to want to be a park ranger your entire career. And so what we found through the, you know, the years of trying this system was that people who we would hire and send to the academy would say, you know what, I've decided that I want to go and be a police officer because there's more ability to move around, do different things. Or we've had people who just simply fell out of the training program. And so to talk about that training program a little bit, real quick, just so you understand it.

The park rangers go through the same police academy as our police officers. They come back to the police department once they graduate from the academy. We put them in a police officer uniform, blue uniform. We put them through the same post-approved police officer standards and training, field training program. And they have to successfully graduate from that program before we place them into the parks. It can be accomplished by the folks who want to be park rangers. Park ranger Bradford did an amazing job in our training program. He blew through it without any problems and has since been in the park system for a while now and has done great in our park system. Joel Holmes came through the system, did the exact same thing, breezed through our training program, has done an amazing job in the parks until recently when he decided that he wanted the ability to move around, do something different and chose to switch over to being a police officer.

And so our goal here with this idea that we've been thinking about for a while is not what a lot of people who are commenting and saying things about the idea in terms of taking staffing from the park. The idea is to increase staffing to the park, to increase our presence, to increase the safety of using our parks. And knowing that we've had no luck in the park ranger program to fill all three positions and keep those folks in those positions, I do know that I can hire police officers. I do know that I can train them and then place them into the park system at my whim if I want. It's my decision on how I deploy staff. And the idea is that we would convert these positions to police officer positions, hire them, put them through the training program.

They would backfill a senior officer who is already working, who would then be given the opportunity to be assigned to the parks as a specialty position. Again, movement in your career where you can go do different things. And, you know, recently we came to council and asked for two additional community service officers. That was approved. Those positions will be assigned to the park along with the three police officer positions. And the idea behind that is that over the years, we've had our park rangers who are sworn peace officers, gun-toting peace officers in our parks, do things that, in my opinion, should not be done by peace officers. And so the idea is that we get civilian community service officers who can take that burden and further assist our park division with accomplishing several of those tasks.

And some of those do include the interpretation side, you know, in terms of understanding, you know, the things about the park, the history of the park, the vegetation types in the park, the animal types in the park, you know, all of those kinds of things, along with doing some enforcement at their level, such as parking enforcement. I know they're looking at, council's looking at approving the kiosks for the parking up in the parks. And that would be part of their task also, is to do some parking enforcement, along with other minor things, very minor enforcement type behavior issues. But it is my opinion that this model solves the problem of keeping staffing in the parks, you know, consistent.

And, you know, I've asked my staff to take a real deep dive into this, give me the challenges you see in it, let's poke holes in the idea before we provide it to council. And, and I kind of got put into a sticky situation at the budget hearing, where I asked for the TCSOs, and then I had a council member, you know, who asked me for further details on it. And if you recall, I said it might be a little premature to discuss this idea. But nonetheless, I gave a little cursory overview of, of what the idea was. And so, now that the cat's, so to say, out of the bag on my idea, I would just want to make sure that the Park Commission understands, the idea is not to take services from the park, it's to increase services in the park, it's to increase the level of staffing in terms of the police department's presence in our park systems.

And I think that it'll, it'll play a major factor in ensuring that people feel safe where they, you know, recreate in our park systems. And for me, obviously I have a philosophical difference in feeling safe or being safe. You know, if you ask the general public, they want to feel safe in our community. You ask me, the police chief who's charged with providing safety to our community, I want you to be safe. And so, I think by increasing this staffing, converting these positions, hiring these community service officers, it will definitely create an environment where it's going to be safe in our parks. Our parks are, you know, the crown jewel of this community. And I just want to make sure that the police department is thinking outside the box on how we can, you know, continue to provide services to the park system, make it a very safe environment for all of our community members and visitors who come in and visit this beautiful park and do it in a way that we can deploy expeditiously.

And I think that this is one of those mechanisms that once we're given the green light from council, we definitely will be able to make this happen fairly quickly. These positions will be assigned to our target team supervisor. So, they'll have a direct sergeant. And then, same thing with the CSOs that will be assigned to that same sergeant. They'll be deployed across the week. So, you'll have overlapping schedules. So, you have someone working at all times in the park system. And then, also, like I said, assisting our parks division with some of the other details of, you know, job-related tasks that a sworn peace officer should not be doing. And, you know, I'm open for suggestions from our staff.

We've been talking about this. We just recently had a meeting with Director Lipsky. Shane, I'm sorry, what is your title, your formal title? Parks and Natural Resources Manager. Shane, Romain, myself, and Captain Jeremy Struthers, who's the operations captain of the police department. We went over everything in detail to understand what their concerns were, listen to them, give them the ability to be heard from their division. And then, brought that back and talked amongst ourselves as to what it is we can do to further assist them with their requests. So, I'm here tonight to answer any further questions you may have about it. I hope that gives you a fairly good idea of the why behind my idea to create a solution to this problem that we have.

and hopefully it clears up any of those concerns from our community. One other thing that just popped in my mind was I've heard people say that, you know, the rangers are much different than the police officers. There's no different training. They go through the same training and then we put a tan and green uniform on them and assign them to the park. They don't go to a state parks academy. They don't go to a fish and wildlife academy. They don't go to any other, you know, academies that would give them further knowledge or make them much different than a police officer. You know, if that were the case, I could still send police officers to, you know, training that would provide them the information they need to do the same task that our current park ranger driver does and, you know, get them up to speed on any of those natural resource questions that may come up.

So, but I just want the community to understand there's zero difference in a park ranger and a police officer. The only difference is their uniform, their classification and something within their paying benefits. That's it. Okay. Vice Chair Blachley. Oh, well, you're at the top of the list. Okay. Commissioner Nichols, or Nichols, you? Chief, thanks for being here. First of all, acknowledge the outstanding professional work of your team last Monday at the tragic situation in Lysbury. Outstanding work. You said this is your idea. Is it supported by the city manager and the parks department? This idea of changing positions? No, this was an idea that was born within the police department. But it has been run, has not been run by or with the city manager?

No, I definitely, when I have an idea, I run it by my boss. So, the idea has been floated by him. We have, you know, discussed that need, obviously, because he allowed me to put those two positions on the budget request. And then, we're just working through the process now of, you know, making it through to the parks commission. We have to do some human resource related stuff in terms of converting positions, working with unions and things of that nature. So, it hasn't made its way to council yet, but in the very near future, I hope to make it there. These positions will be permanently assigned to the park. They won't have other police duties? Yeah, so, the idea is that they become a specialty position and their, their beat assignment, if you will, is the park.

And so, they're assigned to our target team with their beat assignment being the park. Now, that doesn't mean that we won't pull them from time, you know, to time for something critical that happens and we need staffing. Things happen in the city and we, we know that we don't have the number of police officers that we, we should have for this community. We have what we can afford, but there are times where things happen, as you saw last week, where every resource is needed. And if that's the case, we're going to pull everybody we can. And so, I can't say that no matter what, they're always going to be in the park. Okay, but their, but their main duty, their, their main assignment would be the park, the shift in the park.

And my last question, I assume police officers are paid more than park rangers, so there's a budget implication to this change. Is this will be more expensive than park rangers? Yes, there's a slight difference in the pay, obviously more, but that is something that I think that is offset by some of the other issues in terms of the ongoing vacancy that we've had, you know, the ongoing recruitment that we've had, the challenges of having enough park rangers in the park for the nominal increase that we're going to see in this. The benefit to the community is much greater. Thank you. I have one quick question. Are these officers going to be in police cruisers which are intimidating or are they going to be in park vehicles?

So they're going to be in the park ranger trucks. We're keeping the trucks. Okay. Thank you. But to answer your part, I'm not sure what you mean by an intimidating vehicle. Well, some people are intimidated by cops and if people are seeking information, they're much more likely to approach a ranger vehicle than they are a police car. Okay. It doesn't stop us from still having police officers in the park and those types of cars. That's fine. I'm just trying to ease the, if you're going to be using the park vehicles and that. That's the main vehicle, yes. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. I inadvertently deleted Commissioner Nava. She had gotten in there first. So, yeah. So, you're up, Nicole. Yeah. Just a couple things.

First, just want to make sure, is it seven days a week like the original intent was for the coverage? Yes. I wasn't sure if you said that. Yes. You did. I'm sorry if I missed it. And second of, and then I have something just I wanted to say, was, Chair, are you going to be reading the letter we all received today aloud? I talked to Shane about that. We're just going to acknowledge that we received a letter from Mr. Paul Belt. Enter it in the record and move on. Okay. All right. So, for my part, I just want to say I don't really have a problem. I think we just need coverage. I would like to see people there. I like the idea of having community service people and maybe just even partnering. if there's like community people who we can vet and want to be out there as like a volunteer giving educational things to people who want to hear it.

I don't see any problem with that, but I like the idea of what we're saying that it will be just police officers that will be assigned to do it. I think it's important that people in the community understand it's a huge amount of acreage to cover and we've been woefully short on being able to cover it and people, like you pointed out, safety is huge. People want to feel safe. I think we need to start evolving our lingo and getting away from saying that there. I understand where you're coming from, Chair, but they shouldn't be intimidating. The vehicle should not be intimidating because our people are really well trained. You guys do an excellent job there. We have opportunities like National Night Out that's coming up in August, the first Tuesday in August, that we really want to work to de-stigmatize this somehow because when this started happening that people insert that on either an inanimate object like the vehicle being intimidating, we shouldn't.

It's our job to de-stigmatize it and to make people feel safe and to let them know they're here to protect and serve, which they do really well. We have a beautiful park. They're going to assign people because they want them to feel safe and educated and all the things of working together. The community policing model is such that we're partners in this with the police department. We're there to kind of give this structure to it and to show what we're going to do and the park is looking amazing, more amazing every day with all the wonderful things that we have that are new and being added to things to improve the user experience for kids and elderly people alike. So I just want to encourage us as commissioners and others, city staff, to help us get there together so that this won't be seen as an intimidating thing because there may be times when they maybe have to use a squad car and I think...

Can I respond to one of your questions? So you talk about how we're selecting people, people that want to be in the parks, community-oriented type officers. So the way we select people for specialty assignments in the police department is through a testing process. We don't just randomly say, hey, you're going to go be a detective. You're going to go be a traffic officer and in this case, you're just going to go be a park ranger. So it's a memo process. The officer has to want to do it. They have to put in for it and they have to explain why they want to do it. And then they meet with a board who does an oral board testing. We have questions, you know, things of that nature. I'd imagine that someone like, you know, Park Ranger Bradford will be part of that.

We will know a lot of information about the parks, see if people have prepared themselves for the position. And then we select people based off of those attributes we're looking for. And then the process by which once they get in there is if they're not performing and I don't like the way they're performing, then they serve at the will of the chief, the discretion of the chief. And so those positions, I can pull them right back out and replace them with someone that wants to be there. So the process in terms of getting selected for that position or any specialty position within the police department is pretty rigorous and we vet people thoroughly to make sure the right person is going into the right job.

You know, sort of the square peg, square hole kind of idea. And then the last thing that you talked about was the volunteers in the parks. I'm going to leave that to Shane because they already run that process, but that wouldn't be something that the police department would do. Okay, Vice Chair Blachley. And before you do, may the record reflect that Commissioner Scheer has joined us. Chief, first of all, I'm speaking to you as a 30-year retired law enforcement park ranger. So your comment that there's no difference between a police officer and a park ranger was so refreshing to me because it took about 30 years for that to come to attrition. So thank you for that comment. I think what I'm looking at, though, is what I refer to as a ranger image and what the park visitor is looking for.

And I'm so glad to hear you're going to keep that ranger vehicle out there because when the visitor sees that park ranger, they'll flag them down. Hey, I have this question about this bird I saw or something like that. Sure. But at the same time, I think that the officers, they're going to be in this park division, whatever you want to call it, just like you have a traffic division and you have a narcotics division. This would be a parks division. I think it would be wise to have them in the park ranger uniform. They could keep the Chico PD badge. And where I bring this out is I did most of my work down in Southern California and we worked with sheriff departments that were a contract for contract cities.

And so these officers that would go out in the contract cities would have a different uniform than, say, the deputies. And that way, the local people could say, oh, that's my police officer or that's my person that's here in my city. And I think that with the park ranger uniform, but still with the Chico PD badge, then that still, when that individual is out of their patrol vehicle, oh, there's the ranger. Let me go talk to them. I'd like to, you know, suggest that. And if you are putting a committee together, I'd be happy to be a part of that. I also, I taught at the Butte Academy. I was the RTO for fish and game. Oh, okay. So I'd be happy to help in any way like that. We're always looking for great people to sit on the boards.

One last thing. I do understand the problems with the rangers currently because they don't have the full peace officer retirement. I know there's, you know, not an officer's 24 hours a day that has to do with concealed weapons. And I understand that. And so I understand why this transition is being done. Yeah, there's definitely a benefit to the last surviving ranger, if you will, in terms of pay and retirement and things of that nature. While I care about those things, my greatest concern is how do I create a safe park system? And that's my reason for this possible solution. So, but thank you for the request. I'm definitely taking notes and I'll take it back and talk. Thank you. Commissioner Piley.

Thank you. I have a whole page of questions, but I won't ask them all. I want to focus on that last statement that you just made. First of all, thank you so much because I've seen the chatter online and I was like, this is, we need clarification. So thank you so much for being here today to provide clarification for us. Because we are getting comments and we are getting letters and things like that as commissioners. And so I really appreciate you being here so we have a better idea of what's happening or what would likely happen. But I do want to comment, I do want to ask and follow up on that last statement that you made, that your goal is to make sure that we have a safer park system, that people feel safer and that people feel more comfortable to be in the park.

And so this is why I ask these questions. So at present, it sounds like Park Ranger Bradford is the only person who is assigned to the park. So what happens when Park Ranger Bradford takes a day off, goes on vacation, just goes home to sleep at night? Who's in the park patrolling? That's a great question. And to prove a point about something I said earlier, about police officers still going to our park systems. When there's no Park Ranger available, it rolls right to our police officers and we go and handle any kind of criminal issue in the park or civil issue if there's no Ranger available. So oftentimes when, you know, Ranger Bradford is not available, a police officer who's assigned to that area, that beat, because that portion of the park falls within a certain beat assignment for officers.

And so if something happens there and Ranger Bradford isn't available, then that police officer responds immediately and handles the situation. Just like if a big issue happened in the park right now and Ranger Bradford was working, we would still send him backup officers who are in a black and white patrol car and in a blue uniform. So that is a great point in terms of what I've been trying to say. We're trying to increase services in the park and right now it has, you know, police officers handling those calls when the Ranger's not available. Okay, thank you. My second question is, will this, again, I have a whole page of questions here. My second question though is how will this, so if there are, if we're basically going to pull or going to make these police officer positions and they will be city of police officer positions, I assume, and I'm going to assume that probably, because we've requested three park ranger positions, does that mean that we will have this park beat will be comprised of three dedicated officers?

And if so, and two CSOs. My concern is, how will this impact the city of Chico coverage if we're pulling potentially, because we already have park ranger Bradford, but potentially two current police officers from the Chico patrol, how will that impact the city of Chico's coverage for patrol officers? It won't impact that at all. These are positions that would be converted over and we would hire positions under that new classification. So it adds to, it doesn't take away. Okay. Thank you so much. And I believe, I had an answer here for you. I knew I had a number, but the total dollar figure difference from a park, from a senior park ranger, which is Ranger Bradford, right now, a total salary benefits roll up is $7,000 difference between a police officer and Ranger Bradford.

So it's very nominal for what we're getting in return. We're going to get it raised. Okay. Do we have any other questions? Commissioner Navin? Yeah. Sorry. So is it three that you, you're saying you would perceive it would be ongoing since that was what was originally budgeted? Are we going in a different direction? I miss that nuance. Three. So we have three. We have three authorized park ranger positions. Those would be converted to police officer positions. We have two vacancies currently of those three because Ranger Bradford's filling one. We would then recruit for police officers, those two positions to backfill two senior officers who would leave to go to the parks. That's what I thought I heard you say.

Okay. I just want to make sure because I'm going to be grilled about this. I know. So I want to be sure I understand. The CSOs to do the more non-sworn kind of things we've worked out between departments. Thank you. I appreciate that very much. Yeah. And I get, I also appreciate the community concern and the letter that we got and other things I just have heard throughout the community. I think it's just that people have that traditional picture in their head of you almost see the like Yogi Bear images of your head of people out there in the park but they know their park and they're doing this and the fear is that they would lose that, you know, that happy educational experience. Your friendly neighborhood.

Right. And people are thinking it's just going to be straight up enforcement and I hear you saying safety but I understand that like I think the dynamic has changed and we have to put that foot forward but for the others to happen we have to be safe. Sure. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. And that's where the vetting process to choose the right person for the job happens. You know, making sure you choose someone who wants to be, you know, a community engagement person wants to be in the parks, understands the parks, the history of the park, the desire for our community to have safety in our parks and things of that nature. So definitely the vetting process is where you find the right person for the job.

Yeah. And then one other point of clarification real quick. So the number I just gave you, the 7,000, that's just a senior park ranger position. So a regular park ranger position to police officer is $25,000 difference a year. So we're looking at $57,000 for the ranger switchover, which is, you know, it's very nominal for what we're getting. Anybody else? Sure. So to the point of making sure that, I mean, I don't know how much a police officer I get, they would be community oriented, type one would know maybe more than an average police officer about the park itself. But are we going to have an open mind then about maybe pairing them with, or not necessarily even pairing, just having a presence there of someone like a park pal or someone who has way more knowledge about the aspect of the park so that those people who have that concern maybe have that alleviated a bit.

Is that something we can maybe have as part of this, any type of community meeting or something, not community, but whatever board meeting kind of thing that happens about this topic? Or is this just it and then it's going to council and then it's like a done deal? I just, I just want to make sure that if someone was some great experienced person who wants to be out there helping to lend education, that that opportunity maybe can be considered so that we can plus them in. Just making sure I understand the question, you were asking that if there's a possibility of like a volunteer or something for lack of, just to create a vision to like go on a ride along with the officer assigned to the park to maybe talk.

Either that or even just be there in the park like maybe they have a shirt like the park pals does and like, you know, has some kind of community role to do something. But not having on the enforcement side, the education fund side. So the, the PALS volunteer program already exists and does fulfill that. Once upon a time when we had Park Watch, we had Park Watch out there and then we converted that to the PALS. Once COVID hit, a lot of the outreach portion of that program dropped off, but Lindsay's doing a great job of rebuilding that. Okay. And I foresee that we'll be offering more tabling in the park. Okay. And those educational opportunities and outreach opportunities like we had in the past.

Also in the past, you mentioned National Night Out and we've partnered with PD on National Night Out before. So I see that happening again with parks and, you know, the officers that are assigned to the park, you know, doing those types of community outreach things. One of my favorite National Nights Out was we still had the mounted unit and out there with Abigail and all those guys. That was a lot of fun. So I'm hoping to see that coming back and, you know, a lot more community outreach. Right now, we're just, we're running on empty in a lot of ways just with community engagement in the parks. So there's a lot of room for ideas and outreach opportunities. Okay. Thank you for that because I did notice that we just don't see the people out in their right shirts and things like I used to a lot.

And so I just feel for the people that want that experience. And so I think this is great and it could be a nice blend. And just to add to that a little bit, part of the reason probably why you don't see that as much too is back with Park Watch and the Rangers, they were very, they worked together very closely and a lot of volunteers that want to do that community outreach for different things that have been going on in the parks. There's that comfort level's not there and there hasn't been availability of Rangers. They weren't confident of like, hey, if I call dispatches, they're going to be someone that's going to come and help me if I get into a weird situation. So with this increase in presence in the park, hopefully that will rebuild some of that confidence as well.

Thank you, Shane. Appreciate that. Okay. I think, thank you, Chief, for your presentation. It was very informative and it sounds to me like this is going to be a net plus for the park. I personally feel like it is. Okay. Well, I think so too. All right. Okay, moving on. I see the Rod and Gun Club's here. The next item is a proposal for the amendment of the lease of the Chico Rod and Gun Club to basically to eliminate the San Francisco Union wage provisions for everything they do, also known as the prevailing wage. So who's going to give the report? Shane? I can give you the general overview and James can fill in the blanks if you have questions. Oh, well. So. Hasn't the city attorney already approved it and it's before council?

Yes. Yes. So this is an informational item. So you guys are in the loop of changes happening in the park. It was a lease amendment. Rod and Gun Club has had a lease with the city of Chico for decades. When the lease was written, there's this prevailing wage provision that was put in there that really probably didn't need to be in there and the city attorney reviewed it. They wanted to do some substantial improvements. And once the city attorney looked at it, he said, you know, if there's no cost to the city, we can make this amendment in their lease, charge them nominal fee for rent, and away we go. Okay. So this is improvements. This is all going to be done with Rod and Gun Club money, right?

Indeed. This is not public money? No. And there's no reason to have a prevailing wage provision? Exactly. Okay. Any questions? I used to be a lawyer. Yeah, I picked that up. Okay. Okay. Well, do you have anything you wish to add, Mr. Ladan? Okay. Okay. Sounds to me like the city attorney's already signed off on it and it's going before council, so I would assume that it's Thank you, Mr. Chair. We've been very, very busy within the Parks Division over the last, this whole 2026, and we're going to continue to be busy. Latest feat that we have undertaken was the initial cleaning of the sycamore pool. There was an incredible amount of sediment this time. There was quite a bit last year like we had never seen before, and then this year there was just as much if not more, but it was different.

It didn't have the amount of cobble that we usually see in it. it was pretty much all silt and sand. The volume, I think part of what contributed to that besides the burn scar sediment coming down the creek and the significant rain events that we had is that we only cleaned the pool once last year because of the 0157 bacteria, and just that additional few months of not cleaning, I feel probably contributed to the sediment load. We got over 150 dump trucks worth of sediment out of the pool. I have to recognize park staff and other support staff for working extremely hard to make that happen last week. People are on overtime. They were working too much. It was an incredible feat for them to get it done for the weekend.

So kudos to them. We'll be working on getting that sediment out of the park. We're taking it out to the airport. I don't know if you've seen the mountains and mountains of it over there by the horseshoe pits. We want to get that sediment out of there before they start the painting on South Park Drive. They're anticipating maybe starting painting as early as week after next. Last thing we want to do is drive loaded dump trucks. Yes, exactly. We're working on that this week. We'll be doing our next pool cleaning this Thursday. We've been keeping a close eye on our E. coli levels just because of the way that the advisory has been presented by public health and without getting too technical, we're in a threshold of an average of anywhere between probably about 150 is what our overtime average is.

The suggestion is if you're over the 100 mark that you should be in an advisory type of situation. We're most likely going to be in an advisory throughout summer. It's during the winter months and early spring is when we fall in the 70 to 80 range, but then as soon as it warms up, it creeps back up. We haven't reached a critical stay out of the water red phase, which would be a 320 reading, but we decided last week just to get a clearer vision of what our average levels are, instead of the weekly, switch to a daily testing model. We started that last week and we're looking at that. Right now we're in an advisory where that basically means there's bacteria in the water. When you're in the water, use general precautions.

Don't swallow the water. Rinse afterwards. Keep an eye on the little ones especially because they tend to swallow water. But we're negative for that 0157 that was making folks sick last year. So we're erring very much on the side of caution and we've been in very close contact with public health and we'll continue monitoring the pool, like I said, with daily testing. Questions on that? Just on, that's a lot to... Are you going to be on your regular every other Thursday schedule this summer? Yes, so there'll be another cleaning this Thursday. Okay. And then alternate weeks? Yes. Okay. Thank you.

I do have a couple questions. How far up the creek are we testing for E. coli? So we only test in Sycamore Pool. We test on the east side and the west side. Okay. Corridor, the Chico Area Recreation District, they're testing in various places further up the creek around like the nature center close to five mile where Camp Chidaka is because they have programs where they have the children attendees using the creek. So they're doing their own testing for those programs further up straight. Okay. And I heard that you said that we're now doing daily testing. I'm wondering what is the turnaround time on the results for that? So we get the preliminary results fairly quickly. We just started last Friday and we already got results today.

So since we're doing daily, we're going to get preliminary results pretty much on a daily basis. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Commissioner Piper? Nobitt? My question is actually about the surfacing situation and the road closure. I'll get into more detail on that. If I don't fill in those blanks, feel free to ask me. I'm very, very, very excited to announce that the Cape Acres Fence Project is finally complete. It should have been completed today. They have one little section to complete this morning. It looks fantastic. that nice new shiny black fence is covered with dust from the road construction by Wilwyn Sadoff. But it came out great and I'm really looking forward to reaching out to Rotary and talking with them about getting the high schools together to get our work that they created mounted this fall after the road is reconstructed and do a formal ribbon cutting.

There's a couple other surprises that I've been waiting to install in Cape Acres. once the fence was complete and looking forward to sharing those with you as well. The park entrance signs that we talked about earlier that I shared different designs with you and I shared the one that was decided on, they should be here next week. So once those arrive we're going to construct the cement pads on the north and south sides and get those signs installed and another thing I'm very excited about to have some proper signage at the entrance to both sides of One Mile and Bidwell Park. The Iron Canyon Fish Ladder Project is going extremely well. Skylar, Lindsay and I, we had the privilege of taking a ride up in the crane and boy what an experience that was.

It was really incredible. and the work that they've done and the professionalism I was blown away. The scaffolding that they've built up there, the progress they're making, they're moving along quickly but very meticulously and in a very caring type of a way. You can just see it on the work site. I've really never been more impressed with a construction site. The safety measures that they've put in place. The communication with Cal Trout has been fantastic. So I'm really looking forward to seeing how that whole thing progresses. It's doubtful that it will be done this year but anything's possible. It'll probably carry into next year but slow and steady. If you haven't been up there to check out the crane and see what's going on I encourage you to do so.

It's impressive. Been trying to get goats back in the park. I'm told now mid-July and they will be in Middle Park primarily. They'll be grazing from five mile to around the horse arena. That whole chunk of Middle Park. And also within the old walnut orchard area. And depending on how long it goes we might put them back in the no channel again. But by that time it might be so late in the season that it just makes sense financially. Upper Park Road lot B is still on schedule to be paved in August. And South Park Drive that project is moving along quickly. Last week I went out there after a construction progress meeting at about 10 that morning they hadn't even ground out the road and by the end of the day the road was ground out all the way from South One Mile to Centennial.

It blew me away. They have the parking areas torn up right now and they're talking about having those areas done first, paved, paved and South Park Drive in South One Mile area paved as quickly as possible. Like I said possibly starting next week. They want to get that section done so it's reopened to the public as quickly as possible. Right now it's an inconvenience. It's summertime. Everybody wants to be in the park. There's a lot of activity. But in the long run this is going to be a short time of inconvenience for something that's going to be very beneficial for years to come. Questions on that? Yeah. So there has been a lot of confusion by people when they look at the signs. I mean it does say road closure.

But so people aren't sure like does that mean they can't walk on it, bike on because there are people still biking on it which is not great and walking and all that. So I'm just concerned about delays or just the potential injuries because it's of course very uneven. Like people even have their little little kids biking on it. So just wanted to check in with you on are we going to do a more hard type closure or is it like what do you envision here? It's very difficult to do like a hard type closure. I've been in the park where there's been tree crews working doing trimming that they have blockaded the road with branches and things to even with signage, caution tape, everything else, pre-branch blocking the road and people and guys say it's closed, dangerous area, chip are going, blowing chips and mothers with babies and strollers will walk right and go right through.

we're doing the best that we can. Engineering and the construction company in the meetings that we have weekly, the progress meetings, that's the first thing that we talk about is the concerns about the public coming into the work zone. They're doing absolutely the best that they can. I was out there the other day, I mean, there's a dump truck, a loader, great, all these things happening and this guy's like riding his bike in and out of them. Exactly. So is it supposed to be though that there's no foot, bike, any traffic? There should be no traffic. It's supposed to be. So we might want to just say then South Park closure or something because I think people are just interpreting it to mean that they can do stuff at will and it is a popular side of the park but I am concerned about the usage because it doesn't seem to be getting through to people.

We have our progress meeting tomorrow morning and I'll bring that up in that meeting. Okay. With that, if there are no other questions, I might hand it over to Lindsay and she's going to talk to you about all the exciting stuff that we've been doing with the California Conservation Corps and the Volunteer Program. Thank you. I'll try to keep it brief. first thing is we just wrapped up the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund grant that we applied for not long after I started and that was to put in the South Rim fuel break. There was already a dozer line that was 10 acres and then we continued that another 10 acres and so we wrapped that up. We got well over 100 piles burned. We've probably got 40 out there that we'll have to burn this upcoming year but it looks a lot better out there.

We also reseeded the burn piles with native grasses so that'll be really helpful in fire mitigation because native grasses don't burn the same way as invasive grasses do. So we finished that grant. We also used the California Conservation Corps and the Stonehenge Preserve which is out in the Picoline neighborhood to do a bunch of fuels reduction out there. The amount of work they got done in just a few days was truly impressive. We also, you probably noticed we did not burn the Horseshoe Lake burn unit this year giving the land some rest but I would encourage you to go out and walk the line between the unit and what's outside the unit to see how successful that star-thistle reduction burning has been over the last four years.

We did have the Seas crew go in and we call it snipering so they go in and just like hit star-thistle so they grit out and go through that so that's a good way after four years of burning to continue the work and not let it reseed in there and so if you go into that unit you're not going to see any star-thistle because they did hand work a couple weeks ago for a whole week. They were out there today they're working on Upper Park Road past where the Iron Canyon project site ends. The Upper Park Road was getting pretty overgrown so for emergency access and things like that they were going to trim all along Upper Park Road and cut back so that a type 3 fire engine can get through all the way to the end of Upper Park Road.

They've also been working on Yahee Trails so they're started at the very beginning and working up towards the end and so we should be able to tie both of those projects in together. We also are hosting them it's their 50th anniversary for the California Conservation Corps and they're doing this huge statewide bus tour and on Wednesday they will end their bus tour in Bedwell Park as their last stop. They're expecting Secretary Crowfoot to attend and it should be a pretty cool ceremony if anybody wants to come I think that's about 10 a.m. on Wednesday morning right by Horseshoe Lake so that's pretty cool that they chose Bedwell Park and our projects to end their entire statewide bus tour so that'll be on Wednesday.

For volunteer stuff we've been doing really great with volunteers increasing like the Stewardship Saturday which is an educational opportunity for both volunteers and community members and that's been going really well. We also had a couple volunteers that are retired master carpenters and they've taken on kiosk restoration so they've restored the kiosk at One Mile they are finishing up the one at Cedar Grove and then they're also repairing all the benches and world of trees and they are just this really adorable duo of retired men that just want to help the park so that's been really fun. We also have a new group the Chico Stewards and they're taking on adopting sites in Lower Park and doing restoration work with planting and removal of invasives and California Native Plant Society has adopted YAHI Trail as a site for them and the seas went through and cleared brush and things like that and Native Plant Society is going to come in and do restoration work with plants and invasive species removal.

Looking forward working on a PG&E grant to continue the South Rim fuel break. We want to come in from the other end and try to get a lot of the down and dead out of the olive orchard there behind the golf course and we're also working with Butte County Fire Safe Council looking at a Cal Fire grant that is looking pretty good and if we did get it we could treat a very large portion of Upper Park with that grant and it would be of no cost to us. They would project manage and all that stuff. So the final grant proposal went in last week and so we should hear if we get that very soon. And that is the end of my report. Any questions? Who was the last grant through? And the turnaround is pretty quick though.

My guess is that that one got implemented it'd probably start in fall or spring next year. Any other questions, comments? You're up Richie. Thank you Chair Willis. I have a number of updates from the tree division since the last time we met in April. The last time we met we'd just taken delivery of all the trees for the phase one citywide planting so that's now complete. Almost 60 trees were planted in various locations outside people's homes across the city. Phase two will commence in the fall of this year so we're currently compiling the location list for those trees so that's exciting to see that happen. In-house the city tree crews have been tremendously busy now that we're into the summer season with all the students away we've been able to take advantage of the streets being somewhat quieter, less traffic.

They've been working on school safety tree trimming around most all of the elementary schools to improve sight lines, open up stop signs, traffic signal heads, things of that nature. And also for probably the first time in many years we've trimmed the entire mansion neighbourhood so we're very excited to see that happen. all of our staff recently attended a new type of tree pruning training so there's a new standards coming out so we're very proud that our crew are pretty much really ahead of the game and there's additional training as well so now they're actually putting it into practice and you can really see the really high standard of tree trimming that's going on and I know the neighbours in the mansion neighbourhood are very happy to see our staff.

So yeah that's really great to see so I encourage you to take a drive around the mansion neighbourhood and see if you can tell the difference. Hopefully you can. Other items to report on. Today we started on Vallambrosa the tree trimming all the way from one mile through to Manzanita 210 trees will be trimmed hopefully by the end of this week so it's quite an ambitious project but looking at the work they've achieved today because they started today really slick awesome operation excellent traffic planning things are going really well got multiple trucks operating at the same time leapfrogging each other as they finish trees and just moving on through to the end of Manzanita so currently they're already at the Highway 99 so I encourage you to take a drive there and you can really see the difference as you may recall some of the trees were so heavily overgrown that they were pressing on the communication cables you could see them stretching like a rubber band so that's all being taken care of now it just looks a lot better so yeah I'm really happy to see that so hopefully by the end of this week they will finish that entire project.

Other work we've started with the contractor they've started South Campus phase two phase one was last year last year they trimmed what I call the Chico streets I can never remember what that Chesnut Hazel Ivy what's the second cherry there it's the cherry that always gets me and now we're doing the cross streets this year so they've just started that and they'll continue through the summer obviously taking advantage that students are out of town so that's great to see and also citywide removals that will be picking up speed again so we're currently preparing work orders for that and on the back of that stump grinding to get ready for the phase two planting so you know all these things are connected.

On hold currently is work at Cedar Grove we still have a great horned owl that refuses to leave so we did have a bird nest survey done a month ago in anticipation that we could start the next week well that didn't quite work out so card staff that are based at the Chico Nature Centre they're very familiar with where the nest is and they're giving us daily reports if the owl is ready to leave and he seems like he's dug in he's I guess he's happy with all the kids and all the camps that are happening at Chico Nature Centre there's a mutual admiration going on obviously the kids love seeing this baby owl that hops around on the ground and you could probably pet it if you could get close enough to it but we try and keep our distance because it is wildlife so hopefully eventually it will leave because otherwise it will start impacting some of the work on South Park Drive as Shane mentioned there is a plan to pave the parking lot technically that work could get put on hold until the cell leaves but I'm sure it will eventually right it'll grow up and literally get pushed out the nest so we'll watch that space.

Other work that we've been doing from a regulatory point of view we've had a lot of plan checks this last couple of months myself and the Linda Shepard the plan check coordinator we've been on some great inspections with the Enloe Cancer Centre is one absolutely phenomenal obviously a great it's going to be a great service to the community but the landscape is truly ahead of its game it's a really wonderful landscape another item is the Notre Dame bridge I don't know if you're all aware that there's now a full connection and you can now drive over the creek which you've never been able to do before so that bridge already been used heavily and again great landscape and that was managed by engineering so they did a really great job other items as you know we've had three recently inducted heritage trees City Council approved those three Bidwell Mansion Enloe Mansion and Little Chico Creek Elementary School this summer we do plan to do work on the tree at Little Chico Creek so I'm in contact with the landscape superintendent at Chico Unified they're going to remove the turf from underneath that tree and then we have some mulch from a recent pine pine pine tree removals that we did again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again So we'll spread that mulch underneath that tree, ready for when the kids return for the next school year.

So that'll be exciting to see. Other items, I've been working with engineering and some environmental groups. You may already be aware that the groundwater sustainability plan is up for review. So we've been working with the Viner GSA to look at some of the potential impacts of the city of Chico. You may be aware that currently nothing in the city of Chico, including Bidwell Park, is classified as a groundwater-dependent ecosystem. We don't necessarily agree with that. So we've been looking at the data and the technical memorandum that's recently been published. I would encourage you to search for that, and I can send it to you if that makes it easier, so you can start to digest that very technical document.

We are pretty much picking it apart because we don't agree with it. We don't agree that Bidwell Park is not a groundwater-dependent ecosystem. So we're in communication with the Viner GSA. Their update is due by, I think, January 2027. So now is the time to make ourselves heard. One suggestion I have is that we have them come and present to the Bidwell Park Commission, and we can have a discussion about it and see if we can have those amendments and specifically have Bidwell Park recognized as a groundwater-dependent ecosystem, which I believe it is. Hydrology is not my area of expertise, but to me it just seems intuitively obvious that Bidwell Park is dependent on groundwater. Just a question.

What do they say is the source of the water for the park? It's not groundwater. It's not riparian. It's an excellent question. It may be right along the park. Yeah. One of the mitigation suggestions that we heard was that we can just water the trees by hand. So I've got an issue with that. So we can apply supplemental water, and they're not dependent on groundwater. So we've got a little bit of work to do. And, Richie, who prepared the tech memo on GDE? It's an environmental company called ESA, and I don't off the top of my head remember what the acronym is. And I'd be happy to send it all to you all, and maybe we can have a discussion. That concludes my report. So I'd be very happy to answer any questions.

Commissioner Blavitt? Thank you. I specifically, actually, I was going to bring up the issue of the aquifer. I am, we have had long-term depletion of the aquifer, the 97,000 acres or so that surround the city of Chico that create the aquifer. And the city is reliant on it, which is multiple wells, to provide water for the city, not only for the trees, but for the city as well. And the plan at this point is to deplete the aquifer down to a level so that they can make room for forced recharge in the aquifer. My question is, we are an urban forest, and we are dependent. That is a non, something that's non-debatable. Our urban forest is dependent on the aquifer in which it sits. The levels of decline are shocking, to be honest with you, over the past five, ten years specifically.

And as we know that the aquifer is a, it is all connected. It is a system of underground tunnels and spider webs and things like that to deliver water all over the place. At what level will our urban forests start to suffer from the depletion of the aquifer? Do we have that? I know that that data is out there. Do you have an idea at all of how close we are to that situation where we're going to start seeing, especially the shallower rooted trees all over Chico, start to suffer from this aquifer depletion? It's a great question, and I don't feel I have the answer. As you've alluded, if we continue to pump groundwater, you know, the keystone species is valley oak, and there seems to be a lot of disagreement about what the rooting depth is for valley oak.

But there is published data by, you know, peer-reviewed scientific research, and the number I'm finding is 28.2 feet. But in the technical memorandum, they use a figure of 18 feet. So right there, whether it's a typo or I don't know, but that's something that gives me heartburn. You know, at a minimum, I would like to see that corrected. And they rerun their analysis based on the scientific published number, which is 28 feet. But if you look to data published by agencies such as the Nature Conservancy, their published numbers is even deeper than that. And one thing that concerns me is that this study ignores the particularly favorable ground conditions in Chico. You know, I'm not a soil scientist, but I know that the Viner loam is some of the best dirt in the world.

And it lends itself to tremendously deep rooting because it's not compacted. It doesn't provide any impedance to rooting. So tree roots can go very deep looking for water, providing that the water is there. So, yeah, as you've mentioned, it's all connected. And I'm just having a hard time agreeing with the research that I'm seeing that leads to a conclusion that there are no groundwater-dependent ecosystems within Chico. And that we should just water our trees, giving them supplemental water if they start to decline. Which will come from Cull Water. Right. So, yeah. And, you know, socioeconomically, you know, we're not an affluent city. And water costs money. And so even if people wanted to water their trees because they find that they're dying all over the place, could they even afford it, even if they're aware that they should be doing it?

Yeah, I could see things getting bad in a hot minute real quick. So I know some of the environmental advocacy groups have compared other cities, for example, Bakersfield, where they've had serious depletion. And they don't have an urban forest anything like the city of Chico. So I think we need to get proactive that we preserve what we have. And it sounds like you've done some research on this as well. So if the commission thinks that's a good idea, maybe we'll have someone from the Viner GSA or from the ESA, from the consultant, come and present the data. I know they've done a lot of workshops, public workshops, and I know a lot of the environmental advocacy groups have showed face. But I think this would be a great forum as well.

And, you know, we'll make it a public comment session, and people can come and listen in and give them feedback. Like where are you getting your numbers? Right. Any other questions, comments? Okay. I seem to have hit the end of my agenda. So we will stand adjourned until July 27th at 6 p.m. here. Okay. I am sure you want to leave you again. Thank you.