• Meeting attendees: Mike Boulland, Ronald Horii, Kitty Monahan, Holly Davis, John Dorrance
• At the last meeting we talked about the restrictions on the use of the playing field at Santa Teresa High School. Mike wrote a letter to the school board supporting loosening these restrictions. The school board voted to allow the principals at the high school to decide on how the field will be used.
• The parks department put out a contract to fix up the old barn at the Bernal Ranch. It will be used for housing animals.
• California Trail Day will be at Canada Del Oro at Calero on Saturday April 24 (meet at 10 am at the Equestrian Parking Lot). We agreed to go there as a group.
• We will go to Grant Ranch to tour the restored ranch house. on 3/6 from 10-3. We need to schedule it with the rangers.
• We would like to have sprinklers installed in the barn We need to talk to Mark Fredericks, Robin Schaut, or Lisa Killough about it. The barn needs sprinklers to protect the artifacts housed there. We can't have classes or meetings in the barn without sprinklers.
• The new agreement with the parks department allows friends groups to meet on park property. We would like to meet in the park someday.
• 4H can meet in the park if we put them on the calendar. We can be an umbrella group to have groups come in.
• The Clampers want to make a stand for the grist stone. 
• The Clampers gave a presentation on monuments. They used the Bear Tree monument as an example. They want to put more in parks. They are planning to put them up in Alviso, Stevens Creek, Calero, Coyote Lake, and Lexington.
• John Dorrance, news on the Bernal Ranch:
• John Dorrance has a wagon he wants to restore. John met with a restorer at History San Jose and talked about the restoration process, which involves removing all the metal parts and rivets and cleaning them. John will leave the metal parts on and sand and wire brush them in place. He will match the paint. The interns from West Valley will help. 
• John will be getting new rabbit hutches made of milled redwoods. A cabinetmaker will mill it. There will be a table across the back, with pull-out trays, and the hutches on top. They will be inside the bar. The current hutches will go outside. 
• Wash Days start in April at the Ranch. They will be on the second Saturday of the month from 1-4:30. They will have farm games, clothes washing, and hoop racing. They will continue until August or September.
• On the third Saturday in July, they will have a ghost hike from 7:30-9:30. They will have a lady from Ghostbusters come to it. Rick Leonard will help. They will have ghost stories, stargazing, and a night hike. 
• On the third Saturday in August, John will show old B&W Zorro movies at the Ranch from 7:30 to 9:30. He wants to show ones with Fandangos. They might do eggs with confetti.
• They are working on a documentary and expect to have it done within a year. The first of it has been roughed out. It puts the timeline to words with a narrative and sound track. A San Jose State radio and film student is working on it. They will get voice talent. It will be in English and Spanish. They will show it in the barn on a TV built into the wall. It will be around 10 minutes long.
• John is preparing a 2-minute talk for potential airing on National Public Radio. It will be about Santa Teresa Springs and the weird things they've pulled out of it.
• There have been 2-3 school classes a week coming to visit the ranch. 
• They had a couple of fire extinguishers discharged into the springs. They had to clean it up. They have been getting about 1 major case of vandalism a month and minor weekly graffiti. They have been picking up trash 2-3 times a week. The lights at the springs are working, but they are not keeping the vandals out. They neighbors phone the police and county, but the response time is poor. Park rangers are not responsible for responding in the park after hours.
• There has been no vandalism at the caretaker's house, ranch house, and chicken coop.
• There's a winding stone pathway in front of the house. 4H can help put a heritage garden in front. Interns can put in sprinklers. 
• John's school tours are 2 hours long. They go from the ranch to the spring and back. There are 6 signs. They spend 8-10 minutes per sign. They then split into 2 groups. One group tours the house, while the other pets the chickens or plays games. Afterwards, the class has lunch at the picnic tables. 
• In the spring, they will do scrub-a-dub. They will scrub clothes and have a soap lecture. 
• We talked about putting in a community garden at the empty horse pasture at San Ignacio and Curie. Unfortunately, the area is zoned for parking when an interpretive center is eventually built. Another possibility is the area below the canal where Heaton Moor turns east. There are orchard trees still there. 
• 4H (Holly):
• 2 new families are working on the chicken coop.
• John will ask 4H for help when the new hutches are set up. 
• We have $643 in our account.
• We still want a trail from the Bernal Ranch to Buck Norred's. Holly and her neighbors want a fence below a trail. The neighbors own the land for 20 feet up the hill beyond the canal.
• Hours:
• Kitty Monahan: 3
• Holly Davis: 10
• Ron Horii: 10
• Mike Boulland: 10
• Ron showed a slideshow showing the PGE access roads above the Bernal Ranch as potential trail routes. He also showed the new "no fishing" sign at the springs, the city trail across Curie a block away from the Bear Tree Lot, the Pyzak Ranch and the narrowing of Curie Drive, the field below the canal at San Ignacio and Heaton Moor, the condition of the Buck Norred house, the new corrals along the Mine Trail above Buck Norred's, the muddy trail at the end of the parking lot at the Pueblo area, and the waterfall in Laurel canyon.

Return to the Friends of Santa Teresa Park Home Page