Friends of Santa Teresa Park Zoom Meeting, 9/3/20

 


    • Attendees: Mike Boulland, Kitty Monahan, Greg & Roxanne Koopman, Marilyn August, Steve Crockett, Joan Murphy, Ron Horii.
    • 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.
    • Supervising Ranger Aniko Millan retired. She was a Mounted Ranger at one time. The Horseman's Association gave her a retirement party.
    • Park Interpreter Luke Bailey lost his home in the CZU Fire, as did former Park Interpreter and Volunteer Coordinator Heidi McFarland and her husband Eric McFarland, who works on the Park Trail Crew. They have online funding sites to help them with expenses. Kitty already sent a card and gift to Luke from NAQCPA. We can send cards and donations from FOSTP. Contact Mike.
    • Ron showed a slideshow. Some highlights:  With the hot weather and smoke in the air, the park, which was much busier than normal the previous month, has been much less busy. The air has been unhealthy on some days. Visibility has been poor, with smoke obscuring views of the surrounding hills. On 8/19/20, there was a small vegetation fire, possibly set by a homeless person, along the base of the canal from the Bear Tree Lot to the Bonetti Ranch. It came close to buildings, but none were damaged. There were online virtual programs by the park interpreters. Rob McDonnell did a program on the history of Rancho Santa Teresa, the Bernal Family, and the Bernal-Gulnac-Joice Ranch. He showed historic photos and a video interview of Patrick Joice. Luke Bailey and Mason Hyland talked about the use of fire for resource management. Victoria Heyse did a program on woodpeckers. Travis Trinh did a program on pond scum.
    • Treasurer's report (Greg): We have $1547.70 in the bank, the same as last month. All checks have cleared. We have $970 of the $2480 Beautify San Jose Grant to spend.
    • Beautify SJ Grant: Mike talked to Ken Podgorsek about the grant. The end date may be changed for the current grant. There's no news about next year's grant (Cycle 4). The Cycle 4 grant application form is not available yet. It's normally due in July-August. The city is looking at serious budget deficits next year, so the grant amounts may be smaller, if there is a grant.
    • We could not hold our National Night Out Event in August and will not be able to hold any events in the park until the COVID-19 restrictions are lifted. There is no way to predict when that might be, so we can't plan for events.
    • Mike, Greg, and Ron met online to talk about our budget and our grant. For the grant, we under-spent on events and over-spent on communications. We won't be able to hold events, so we can't spend any more on them. We need to request moving the balance in the event category to communications. We can spend the money on business cards, trifold brochures, bifold flyers, and newsletters.
    • The grant will pay up to $15 per shirt for T-shirts, including tax and setup fees. If they cost more than that, we would have to cover the balance out of our pockets. Greg talked to Gus about it. Gus didn't think he could get T-shirts for under $15 in time for this year's grant. We already have our own T-shirts. We can't sell them without a license. We can't give them away at events, since there aren't any planned. We can look at it next year.
    • If we don't get a grant next year, we can do fund-raising, which will be easier if we're a 501c3 non-profit. Even if we don't do events or publish anything, we still need money for our UNSCC membership, which includes meeting insurance, our website, and our PO box. If we can't have live meetings, we have less need for meeting insurance, but we don't know when we can meet again.
    • Kitty said NAQCPA might be able to donate to FOSTP. NAQCPA has $12K in the bank, but it hasn't been able to do any activities, including publishing a newsletter, because of the shutdown and members becoming infirm. She doesn't know when or even if NAQCPA will be able to become active again.
    • The Volunteer Coordinating Council hasn't been dissolved, but the Volunteer's Office hasn't been doing much. Volunteer activities are suspended. The office is closed. Patricia Vasquez is doing contact tracing. Julie Lee has been re-assigned to work on housing. Julie Kahrnoff (now Abbatelli) left to work for the Water District. Debra King is temporarily handling office matters. Melissa Hippard is still in charge.
    • The Volunteers picnic, which was moved from April to September because of COVID-19, has been cancelled.
    • We need to make a newsletter. The newsletter needs to be published by the end of September. Ron will edit it. He got articles from Mike, Greg, Roxanne, and Kim. Mike wrote an article about Jenny Clenenden's book, "Mine," about Maria Zacarias Bernal. Mike found a story about Dottie's Pond (Santa Teresa Spring) that was written by an 8-9-year old student from one of his summer school classes. Ron got some material from John Dorrance. One is the script for a video about Santa Teresa Spring, which can be turned into an article.
    • We are invited for a socially-distanced tour of the Vanderveen's ranch on Bailey Avenue, tentatively on Sunday 10/25. Roxanne will confirm with them.
    • Mike is doing a ghost tour on 10/24.
    • The next meeting will be on October 1, 7 pm on Zoom.
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       Created 9/12/20 by Ronald Horii, secretary of the Friends of Santa Teresa Park
    Funding provided by a Beautify San Jose Grant