Friends of Santa Teresa Park Zoom Meeting, 5/6/21

 


    • Attendees: Mike Boulland, Kitty Monahan, Kim Garland, Greg Koopman, Joan Murphy, Marilyn August, Gus Letona, Steve Crockett, Woody Collins, Youngmee Kim, Ron Horii, Ranger John Maney. First-time visitors: Gina Whitney, Suzanne P. Guest speaker: Teri Rogoway. Greg Koopman is in Delaware. Roxanne is traveling and could not attend.
    • This was an online Zoom videoconference meeting. Mike sent out a meeting link for this Zoom meeting.  Here's the agenda for today's meetingThis was the flyer for today's meeting.
    • We have an email address for the organization: fostp@stpfriends.org. We can use it instead of Mike or Ron's personal email addresses. Ron and Mike will monitor it. People who want meeting access can send requests to this email address, and we can reply with the Zoom link.
    • Ranger John Maney gave a ranger report:
      • He talked about the new flip-open trail closure signs, which are opened after rainy weather to announce that the trails are closed to bicycles and horses. They are much simpler and attention-grabbing than the old ones, with graphics and a hotline number. The rangers went out to Santa Teresa when the trails were closed and talked to bicyclists when they saw them unloading bikes. They informed the bicyclists of the trail closures and which parks had open trails (Calero, Quicksilver). They saw less bikes on the trails in Santa Teresa when the trails were closed.
      • He said that there will be interpretive panels on the Rocky Ridge and Stile Ranch Trails. They will talk about serpentine environments and why it's important to stay on the trails.
      • He said that during the pandemic, the Hellyer rangers have been working as training officers and working out of class. He and Roberta are the only rangers covering Hellyer, Santa Teresa, Martial Cottle, and the north part of the Coyote Creek Trail. Bryan Lue is acting senior ranger for the Hellyer Ranger Unit. Rich Bender, who was senior ranger for Hellyer, is now acting as regional supervisor.
      • Mike asked John if we could do a celebration in Santa Teresa for the opening of the new trail. John said if we had <25 people, and it was a short ceremony, it would be OK. We just need to inform him about it.
    • Teri Rogoway, Coordinator of Educational Programs at the Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority (OSA), was our guest speaker. She gave a presentation about the OSA, how it responded to the pandemic, and partnership opportunities. 
      • Teri joined the OSA in 2007 and began its educational programs.
      • At the end of 2019, POST, San Jose, and the OSA bought lands in the North Coyote Valley, with OSA managing all of it. They were planning for programs and public access days there and on Coyote Ridge, but the pandemic shut all of that down in March of 2020. All in-person programs were cancelled. Volunteer activities were put on hold. Office staff was sent home.
      • Richard Tejeda and his organization, Saved By Nature, stepped in almost immediately to provide virtual nature walks. Before the pandemic, he had been broadcasting his nature walks for people around the world with disabilities. Suddenly, his audience expanded to people sheltering at home due to the pandemic. 
      • Besides Saved By Nature, OSA has partnered with Latino Outdoors, Valley Water, USFWS, County Parks, Phoenix's Curiosity Cabinet, SJ Public Library, Beth Killough, WERC, artist Edward Rooks, Merav Vonshak of the BioBlitz Club, UNAREP, Morning Crane Healing Arts, Mark Hehir, and others for providing virtual programs.
      • Virtual Learning Lunch programs were held for volunteer enrichment.
      • Even with the resumption of in-person programs, virtual programs are here to stay. They transcend geography. They get viewers from out-of-state or other countries. They are getting more diverse audiences and are looking for more partnerships.
      • The OSA preserves never closed during the pandemic, though there were some restrictions for social distancing. People began to flock to the preserves. They had 325K visitors in 2019. Visitation nearly doubled to 600K in 2020.
      • Looking forwards: lots of land has been purchased and protected in the Coyote Valley. Santa Teresa Park is next door. There's a potential for partnerships.
      • The OSA has a grant program. We can apply for it to do events or programs.
    • Ron Horii showed a slideshow:
      • He compared park visitation before and after the parking fees were reinstated on April 5. Visitation dropped a lot, and many cars were parked without a ticket displayed. The exceptions was when there was a group picnic and a group bike ride. The trails have been less busy lately.
      • On April 2, Mike Boulland, Woody Collins, and Ron Horii worked on weed removal at the entrance to the Bernal Ranch, using only hand tools.
      • Someone was cutting giant letters in grass on the hillside above Manila Drive and St. Julie Dive. He cut a T and was starting to cut another one when he was stopped by a ranger. He was going to write his girlfriend's name on the hillside. This was near where someone had placed white panels many years ago with the message, "Marry me, Meg."
      • There was a temporary antenna on top of Coyote Peak. A ham radio operator was using it to talk to hams in other states. He said he was operating in the 7 MHz band, and was not getting interference from the Coyote Peak transmitters, which run at much higher frequencies. He left eventually.
      • There were goats grazing on the hill above the Muriel Wright Center.
      • There were elaborate rock stacks on Bernal Hill and Coyote Peak. The one on Coyote Peak may have been toppled by the recent earthquake.
      • There is a new flannelbush planted next to the men's restroom entrance at the Pueblo Area. Flannelbush is a popular drought-tolerant landscaping plant. It is native to California, but not to the Bay Area. It can grow to be huge and is covered with tiny hairs that can cause skin and eye irritation.
      • Ron showed wildflowers on the Joice, Bernal Hill, Vista Loop, Stile Ranch, Mine, Fortini, and Hidden Springs trails. Some wildflower species were less abundant because of the lack of rain. There were lots of poppies and ithuriel's spears.
      • There was a volunteer's recognition program on Zoom, organized by Volunteer Coordinator Blair Pagano. They thanked the volunteers and recognized people who had reached certain volunteer hour milestones, including Greg for 1000 hours and Woody for 4000 hours. They recognized Woody for his trail maintenance work and Ron for park photography. Kitty talked about the history of NAQCPA.
      • The garden boxes at the Bernal Ranch need weeding. There's poison oak growing in the garden at the corner of the house.
      • Santa Teresa Spring needs to have vines trimmed away and mud cleared from around the spring's font and shrine. There's lots of invasive French broom growing around the pond, but it's mixed with poison oak.
      • There's a new camp host at the Buck Norred Ranch.
      • The field at the Bonetti Ranch has been mowed. It may be in preparation for the new trail.
    • Jeremy Farr sent out a notice to the neighborhood around the Santa Teresa Historic Area about the new trail construction. It should start in May. They will build a new trail from Santa Teresa Spring, through the Bear Tree Lot, then along Curie Drive inside the fence. They will remove the fence boards and leave the masonry pillars. The Pyzak House will be fenced off. The trail will end at the corner of Curie and San Ignacio, across from Bernal School. 
    • The Bear Tree Lot monument will be moved closer to the Bear Tree. There's a time capsule buried next to the monument that came from Mike's class. That will be dug up.
    • When the new trail is done, we want to do some kind of ribbon-cutting celebration, as well as a time capsule opening. We'll need to know the schedule before we can plan it. The Parks Department may plan their own opening celebration, but it may depend on what is allowed at the time, and what the staff is doing.
    • There was no Park Commision meeting this month. They are being held every other month.
    • Most of the park interpretive staff is doing disaster service work during the pandemic. There is a new interpreter: Karen Kao. She made a video about banana slugs in redwood forests at Sanborn.
    • We got clearance from park maintenance worker Jeremy Celaya to do cleanup work in the park. We are planning to do it on the first Fridays of the month, but it can be re-scheduled. We had a work day on April 2 (see above). Our work day for May 7 is cancelled because everyone is busy. We'll plan for a work day on June 4 from 9-12.
    • There are pictographs at the golf course. Mike can show them to us after our work day on June 4. We can meet at the Bernal Ranch at noon, and head over to the golf course.
    • Treasurer's report from Greg: we have $1902.70 in our account. Most of it is from the BeautifySJ Cycle 3 Grant, which was supposed to last for only 1 year, from 2019 to 2020. We need to stretch it to cover expenses for 2 years, until the end of 2021. We got $2480 allocated to certain categories that included events like La Fuente and National Night Out. While we spent money on La Fuente in 2019, we could not hold National Night Out in 2020. We need to spend money on renewing our UNSCC membership, paying our website and Zoom fees, and paying for our PO box. Mike talked to Ken of UNSCC about it, who said it was OK to move the money around. We just need to submit a change request. We have enough in the bank to pay for our 501c3 application.
    • There was some interest in seeing Little Uvas Creek Preserve. Saved By Nature did a recent program there. It's closed to the public, but we may be able to have a docent-led tour of it. Ron is has led tours there as an OSA docent. He'll look into it.
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       Created 5/9/21 by Ronald Horii, secretary of the Friends of Santa Teresa Park
    Funding provided by a Beautify San Jose Grant