Friends of Santa Teresa Park Meeting, 3/7/19

 


    • Attendees: Mike Boulland, Kitty Monahan, Woody Collins, Debi & Jorge Porras, Greg & Roxanne Koopman, Gus Letona, Sam Drake, Ron Horii, visiting Ranger John Maney
    • Volunteers need to put in 100 hours of opportunities listed on Samaritan to get a free parking sticker. 
    • Mike met with Julie Lee. There has been a realignment of responsibilities at Santa Teresa Park. Hellyer rangers and maintenance will continue to be assigned to Santa Teresa, except for the Bernal Ranch. The gardens at the Bernal Ranch will be handled by the Martial Cottle Landscape volunteers. Maintenance and interpretive activities at the Bernal Ranch will be under Martial Cottle maintenance and interpretive staff, respectively. The grounds of the Bernal Ranch will be re-landscaped, under the direction of the Martial Cottle landscaping group.
    • Ranger report from John Maney, ranger at Hellyer, Santa Teresa, and Martial Cottle. John has been a ranger for 1 1/2 years, starting at Motorcycle Park. He's been at Hellyer for 6 months.
      • Lisa Pappanastos is back at Hellyer as acting senior ranger. She supervisies Martial Cottle, Santa Teresa, and Hellyer.
      • Proposals for maintenance projects at Santa Teresa should go through Lisa.
      • Carolyn Schimandle at Martial Cottle will handle interpretive events at the Bernal Ranch. Kelsi Ju reports to Carolyn. She works at the Bernal Ranch on Friday and Saturday. She works at the Casa Grande the rest of the week.
      • Volunteers who want to work on the garden boxes at the Bernal Ranch can go through the Volunteers Office.
      • The cleanup at the Pyzak ranch was successful. There have been not many trespassing calls. Lisa talked to the nearby schools about preventing students from causing problems in the park. 
      • There have been unauthorized trail use by bikes after rains. The trails are closed to bikes and horses after it rains. Report unauthorized trail use to the rangers.
      • For urgent problems in the park, call County Communications at 408-299-2311. They will pass the call to the park dispatcher. To report problems at the Pyzak Ranch, give the address as 272 Curie Drive. For Santa Teresa Spring, give the address at Manila Drive at Manila Way (Manila and Manila). There are signs at Santa Teresa Spring with the phone number to call to report problems.
      • Radios aren't being provided to volunteers. They weren't using them properly.
      • There are new trail signs. They tell what trail you are on, with arrovws to the next trail junction. The trail junctions are numbered. Those numbers are being placed on the signposts. New maps are out. 
      • They are replacing the information boxes and mapboards. The new maps show pictures at vista points.
      • Halloween pumpkins were dumped at Santa Teresa Park. They attract pigs, which dig up the park. Lisa put up signs saying not to dump food in the park. It's illegal and bad for wildlife.
      • Rangers are required to rotate their park assignment every 4 years. It's to get a broader education and to provide more opportunity for younger rangers.
      • They have hired 6 permanent and 4 seasonal rangers. Hellyer is the busiest unit. Martial Cottle is supposed to be a separate unit, but is temporarily part of Hellyer until Hellyer gets a permanent senior ranger. 9 rangers are in training. Reuben Suarez is a new ranger at Hellyer. A new female ranger will be starting in July.
    • Mike talked to Jason Gorman, head of maintenance at Santa Teresa, about the power poles on the Rocky Ridge Trail that used to provide power to the now-gone microwave relay station. The poles are unnecessary and an eyesore. Jason will talk to PGE about them.
    • Our Beautify San Jose grant check is coming this month.
    • Mike and Kim made an organizer to keep receipts for our grant.
    • We want to get a table cloth for events. One with a full-color image costs $400. We can do a small panel to overlay a colored tablecloth, which is cheaper. Sam said the 3-color tablecloth for the Umunhum Conservancy cost $270. 
    • Steve is working on our 501c3 application. He's modifying the Umunhum Conservancey application. 
    • At our next meeting, Lisa is coming to talk about the Grant Ranch. We want to publicize that meeting by passing out flyers. Julie Lee needs to approve it first. Mike will send it out as a PDF to print out. Treats for the meeting are covered by our grant. Gus will buy the treats. We need to come early to setup. Ron can make a slideshow showing pictures of the park and our activities. 
    • Michelle Dexter in Johnny Khamis' office invited us to have a table at the Oakridge Mall Senior Winter Walk and Resource Fair. We had a table, staffed by Mike and Steve. (Here are pictures of it.) We had pictures of Santa Teresa Park, our events, flyers of our upcoming events, and the Chinese pavilion ("ting") project at the Casa Grande. We had lots of visitors, including Supervisor Mike Wasserman and the editor of the Almaden Times Weekly, who would like us to write articles for the paper.
    • We worked with the Parks Department on beautification days at the Pyzak Ranch, which they call the Curie Drive House. The fence had been knocked down, graffiti was everywhere, the house was broken into, and the vegetation was overgrown. On 3/2/19, which started out rainy, volunteers, rangers, and maintenance worked on trimming trees, clearing walkways, and preparing the fence to reconstruction. On 3/3/19, which was a dryer day, we had more volunteers, including a Boy Scout troop from Cupertino. They painted over graffiti, hauled away brush, and repaired the fence. (Here are pictures from 3/2/19 and 3/3/19.)
    • Ron showed a slideshow: Oakridge Senior Fair, Pyzak Ranch work days, Ron & Mike's hike up Bernal Hill showing wildfires and fire recovery, Roxanne's birthday hike up Bernal Hill to the Vista Loop.
    • Mike talked about the annual group activities work plan that he filed with the volunteer department. It lists the ST Historic Area (Pyzak Ranch) beautification, National Night Out on 8/6/19, tree watering in the Pueblo Area, maintaining gardens at the Bernal Ranch, Adopt-a-Trail, graffiti removal and clean-up in Santa Teresa, supporting special events, outdoor rec., and interpretive programs. The form lists the responsibilities of our group and of the park staff.
    • Ron had a photo exhibition at the Campbell Library for the month of February.
    • Ron is giving a photo class/wildflower hike at the Bernal Ranch on 4/27 at 10 am.
    • We will be giving a hike on the Stile Ranch-Mine-Fortini Trail loop again on 5/11, the day before Mother's Day, starting at the Stile Ranch Trailhead off Fortini Road. We need a poster for the hike. Ron will work on it. Mike, Sam, Greg, & Roxanne can help with the hike. We can stop along the hike to point out wildflowers and talk about history.
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       Created 3/8/19 by Ronald Horii, secretary of the Friends of Santa Teresa Park