Friends of Santa Teresa Park Meeting, 12/1/05


  • Attendees: Mike Boulland, Ronald Horii, Kitty Monahan, Paul Vincze, Ed Jackson, Kevin Pietschker, Mario Blaum, Sam Drake, John Dorrance
  • The Golf Course gate was locked, so we met at the Flames restaurant.
  • John Dorrance came to talk about the BGJ Ranch. 
    • A group of kids from 13-18 from 2 high schools would be coming on 11:00 Saturday 12/3 to paint the fence.  John needed 2-3 adults to come around 10:45 to help supervise.
    • We talked about why the gate at the parking lot at the ranch is always locked. John said to ask Robin Schaut. Mike talked to Robin. She said that she was concerned about the historic area being too open. There was some question about what the master plan said about it. Kevin said that Paul Romero told the neighbors on Manila Drive that the parking lot would be used by visitors.
    • Holly wants to get a combination lock on the gate so 4-H could get in.
    • John said the pigs got into the planter boxes at the ranch. He modified the gates and added some wire to keep the pigs out.
  • Dan is the caretaker at the BGJ Ranch. He is on the trail crew.
  • There is a "No Parking" sign at the Bear Tree lot. One of the neighbors said it was put up because a homeless person was parking there.
  • Heidi will be back as volunteer coordinator in January. Eric Goodrich has been handling the job for her.
  • Ron showed some picture of the park: the fallen gate on the Coyote-Alamitos Canal east of Santa Teresa Spring, places along the canal where pigs could cross,  re-planted bushes at the BGJ Ranch, Santa Claus coming to the BGJ Ranch on Dec. 10, leaking water pipe by the Pedro Bernal House, new gravel surface on the Mine Trail from the corral at the Pueblo Area to just past the creek crossing by the Rocky Ridge Trailhead, and the widening of the Hidden Springs Trail.
  • We talked a lot about the problem of pigs in the park:
    • Ron made a Web page on the pig problem
    • There was a community meeting on 11/28 called by Forrest Williams and Don Gage. Ron gave a Powerpoint presentation on the pig problem at the meeting. Different speakers talked about the problem and how difficult and expensive it was to solve it. Forrest will be having more meetings in the future.
    • The pigs have been eating Holly's iceplants.
    • One neighbor has lived in the area since 1972 and has never seen the pigs attack the neighborhood before this fall.
    • Mario has lived in the area for 20 years and has never seen the pigs come out before.
    • The Bear Tree Lot used to get torn up.
  • Mike and Ron got an E-mail from the US Deaf Cycling Association. They are planning to hold the World Deaf Cycling Championships in the Bay Area from June 18-24, 2006. They want to use Santa Teresa Park as a venue. They asked for help securing the park. Ron gave them information about who to contact in the parks department and other bicycling groups.
  • Drew Merry has been doing a good job on the trails. He works under Jim O'Connor. We would like to recognize him.
  • We need a policy statement for our FOSTP Yahoo Group to say what is acceptable and what is not.
  • We need to add up the volunteer hours for the year. Ron can do that from the meeting minutes. (If anyone has additional volunteer hours to report, let Ron amd Mike know.)
  • Lisa Killough did not like the way the plan for the new trail around Buck Norred's was written. It has too many inconsistencies concerning trail usage. They will re-write it and go through the full CEQA process.
  • Kathleen Hooper runs the outdoor recreation program. Ron did his photo class under that program. he can do it again in the spring. They want Sam to do a program on geocaching.
  • Mike will be doing a treasure hunt class at the Muriel Wright Center in December. It will be a CSI-like investigation on "Who killed Changara?"
  • Ed says the response time for rangers has been getting longer.
  • We will have a regular meeting in January. 
  • We will have a dinner meeting at Mike's house in February.
  • Volunteer Hours:
    • Ronald Horii: 55
    • Mike Boulland: 30
    • Kitty Monahan:  3
    • Paul Vincze: 20
    • Ed Jackson: 3
    • Kevin Pietschker: 20
    • Sam Drake: 28
    • Mario Blaum: 8
    • Holly Davis: 16
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Created 12/6/05 by Ronald Horii, secretary of the Friends of Santa Teresa Park