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- Attendees:
Mike Boulland, Kim Gardner, Greg Koopman, Joan Murphy, Steve Crockett, Ron
Horii. Visting: Dave Zittlow.
- This
was an online Zoom videoconference meeting. Mike sent out a meeting link for this Zoom meeting. Here's the agenda for today's meeting.
- Dave
Zittlow was our invited guest. We wanted him to talk about the
volunteer programs at Martial Cottle Park, where he's the volunteer
park lead.
- Dave supervises the land stweard team,
which had 12 members and is now down to 9. He reports to Jeremy Celaya
of Park Maintenance. They meet once a week and go over what needs to be
done. The volunteers work Tuesday and Thursday mornings from 8-12. They
maintain the 144 rose bushes, the pepper trees, and the orchard trees.
They record their hours on Samaritan. They don't have meetings. Their
expenses are covered by the Parks Department.
- They also rehab.
the antique farm equipment and display them at the spring and fall
festivals. The senior maintenance manager supervises. Their goal is to
rehab. 1 piece of equipment per year.
- Park Maintenance takes cares of the turf, the restrooms, and the picnic areas.
- Volunteers
are not allowed on the 190 acres of agricultural fields, which are
farmed by Jacobs Farms. Those fields are organically farmed, which
means there are restrictions on who can go on them.
- The volunteer land stewards don't do fund-raising or special projects.
That's what the Friends of Martial Cottle Park (FOMCP) do. They are a
501c3 non-profit, which started 4 years ago. Dave is a member, but it's a separate group. They give paid tours of the Life Estate with a catered lunch as a fund-raiser and also ask for donations. Their
first project was the hedgerow. It's a 900-foot native plant garden
along Chynoweth, between the trail and the farm fields. They bought the
wood chip mulch and the plants, which they got from Our City Forest.
Parks did the tilling, installed the irrigation system, and spread the
chips. Volunteers, recruited by FOMCP, planted the plants.
- The
Martial Cottle Park Foundation was started by Walter Cottle Lester and
is managed by trustees. Their goal is to help the County with the
family's collections and repair and restore the historic structures on
the Life Estate. They paid to repair the barn, replace windows in the
historic house, and repair the house's roof.
- The Rusty
Areias Community Garden was built by the City of San Jose, which
manages it. It has 40 plots, with ADA-accessible raised beds. The
garden opened last year. Gardeners pay a fee to use it. It's currently
in Phase 1. It will be expanded in later phases.
- Dave is
trained as a docent, so he also gives interpretive tours. They used to
have school programs, but now they are being done virtually.
- The
volunteers have a newsletter. It started out as an email newsletter.
One of the volunteers had computer skills. It was prepared by the
Park's program coordinator. It went to lots of people. It was only
online and not printed. It was stopped during the lockdown and hasn't
resumed.
- The bird and bat boxes in the park were built by
Americorps, funded by a grant. They built 6 barn and 6 kestrel boxes
and mounted 2 bat boxes.
- Casual volunteers show up and sign a
waiver. Long-term volunteers get Lifescan screened. They wear green
volunteer T-shirts, which they have to wear so they can be identified
as volunteers as they work on the park. They are trained to work with
trimmers, blowers, and mowers. They can't use chainsaws.
- FOMCP
was required to be a 501c3 before they could be a friends group. They
submit proposed projects for the following year. They had donors. It
was started by Chuck Rose, who was the president until he moved out of
the area. Michele van Zuiden was the vice president and is now the
president. Joyce and Bob Chesnos are officers. Stephen Kinsey is the
secretary. Adina Pierce is the webmaster. They have an annual meeting
and regular board meetings.
- Dave will be coming to our
First Friday work day tomorrow at the Bernal Ranch to see what it looks
like and give us some advice. He came to the Bernal Ranch several years
ago to help with one of the cleanups. Kelsi was there at the time.
- Joan
wants us to tour Little Uvas Creek Preserve, which is near Uvas
Reservoir. She suggests the first Friday in April. It's an Open Space
Authority preserve. Ron will check with the OSA. April is usually busy
because of Coyote Ridge events. The CNPS is also planning a tour of
Little Uvas on April 16.
- We should tour Martial Cottle Park. We
can go on a Tuesday or Thursday in the afternoons. Dave will be there.
We can also tour the Master Gardeners' parcel. They are open every 3rd
Saturday of the month from 9 to noon.
- We will have our workday tomorrow from 9-12. Meet at the Bernal Ranch by the Ranch House.
- Ron
showed a slideshow: The garden boxes, our work day cleaning them up in
January, our tool cabinet, Maintenance repairing the cracked window on
the ranch house, the moon viewing event at the ranch and spring, the
empty chicken coop after one of the chickens died and the other was
moved out, a new memorial bench on top of the Vista Loop near the
grinding rocks, the new trail and concerns about bike access (see
next), the historic Bean Sprayer and places in the East Barn where it
could go to protect it, new tree planting tubes along the Mine Trail,
and Ed's new memorial bench in the Pueblo Area.
- The east
entrance to the new trail by Bernal School needs a ramp inline with the
trail entrance so bikes can get to it without making a sharp turn. The
west spur of the trail to Curie Drive ends at the sidewalk and the
wrong side of the road for bikes going westbound. There needs to be
safe way for bikes to get to the right side of the road. This is the
city's jurisdiction.
- Treasurers' report: We haven't submitted
our 501c3 application. We paid the final bills with checks. We have
$571.10 in the bank.
- We submitted the final report for the Beautify San Jose Grant Cycle 3.
We were awarded $1500 for Cycle 4. We will be getting that eventually. We need someone to be the lead for the grant.
- We can do National Night Out. We need to fill out the NNO application. We need someone to be a lead for NNO.
- We need to submit a group activity work plan to the volunteer office. Mike is working on it.
- Next month we'll have board elections. We'll have nominations for the board.
- Joan asked if we could put native plants in the garden boxes.
- Greg
said there are useless downed phone wires and a pole going through the
Bear Tree Lot to the Bonetti House. He thinks they should be removed.
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