|
- 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 meeting. This 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.
Return to the Friends of Santa Teresa Park
Home Page
|
|