Friends of Santa Teresa Park Meeting Minutes for 4/3/03
- Meeting attendees: Mike Boulland, Ronald Horii, Mario Blaum, Kitty Monahan, Judyth Hieb, Lynne Paulson, John Klimaszewski, Mario Blaum, Hazen Anderson, Greg Bringelson
- Mike: paid the organization's tax license fee.
- Greg Bringelson - Park Trails:
- Greg is in charge of trail maintenance for all the parks.
- Adopt-A-Trail: groups will adopt all or part of a trail. They can do light maintenance, like prune back brush. Parks will be training Adopt-a-Trail leads on 4/26 at the Nature Trail in Santa Teresa Park. The nature trail has a lot of problems like graffiti, brush, etc. that will make for good practice.
- California Trail Day will be on 4/26 from 9 am to 12 pm. Trail Day sites will be at the Ohlone Trail in Santa Teresa Park starting at the archery range, the New Almaden Trail in Almaden Quicksilver County Park at the Macabee entrance, and the Tony Look Trail at Stevens Creek County Park. Bring water, sunscreen, and gloves. Beeny plans to have a BBQ lunch. (Click on the thumbnails below for a bigger picture. Hit your browser's Back button to return.)
- Volunteer trail crews will handle heavier maintenance. The volunteer trail crew leads will be trained to a higher level. 4/12 will be a training day for trail leads. They have 6 people so far: 2 West Valley College students, 1 older person, Roy Ichinaga, Steve Crockett, and 1 more. The trail leads will supervise the volunteer work crews. Greg wants to have work days regularly, like every 8th Saturday. The crews will rove from park-to-park. They will classify trails and prioritize them. Greg envisions a trail crew for each park unit, and eventually one for every park. He wants the trail crews to be impromptu interpreters. They can talk about the park history to visitors.
- Greg will be asking for funds for tools from the Silicon Valley Parks Foundation.
- The parks department now has a 9000-lb. mini-dozer for maintaining single-track trails. It has caterpillar tracks, rippers, and a bulldozer blade. It can rough up the ground on a trail to make it easier for crews to maintain by hand.
- There is a skip loader at Buck Norred's.
- The parks department is working on the trails. They want to correct drainage on the trails to have the water run off early and often. They will put a 5 percent outslope with rolling grades. They put straw down to protect seeds from birds and pigs on the sides of the trails that have been reseeded. They are seeding the narrow trails back to a 10-foot width. They will put rocks on some trails, but not too much, as it takes away from the natural-look of the trails. They may close some trails seasonally. Bicyclists, equestrians, and vehicles (contractors and rangers) have the most impact on the trails.
- Trails should follow the contours of the hills. They should be less than 12% grade.
- For trails through serpentine soil, they need to do an environmental review.
- Greg wants volunteers or grad students to get native plants to plant.
- The Rocky Ridge Trail will be worked on next week. They will be working on the area from the bridge to the corral.
- Kelly Gibson is the parks trail planner.
- New trails won't be built until the park is master-planned. The Santa Teresa Park master plan is 12 years old. It includes the trails that are already there. We need to revisit the plan.
- Machines can be used to maintain the service road trails. Volunteers are needed for the single-tracks.
- Mike wants to get the cross-country trail maintained. It runs around the Pueblo Area. Adults can easily see where the kids are running.
- They corrected the seep at the Joice Trail. The trail is a candidate for re-routing.
- On the PG&E service roads above Cottle Road, water has created erosion gullies. Some kids who were 4-wheeling in the park got stuck in one and were caught. Greg wants to find out who is responsible for these roads. They haven't been maintained.
- Greg wants to find out who are the lessees who use the trails. The parks department needs to establish a protocol so the lessees can call to see if it's OK to use the trails.
- Trees: Greg would like to have the parks department have their own tree nursery. Right now they buy them, which gets expensive. The Water District has their own nursery. Hazen said the Uvas Canyon Park Association has lots of plants. The Santa Teresa Foothills Neighborhood Association gets trees from Our City Forest. Our City Forest gets trees from the highway department, which must provide 3 trees for every tree they remove for road construction.
- Park trails came out as a big item on the parks strategic plan. They want existing trails maintained, planned trails to be done, and better trails.
- Canada Del Oro will be opening in 2004. Bear Ranch will be opening in 2005. They will close down old ranch roads and put in new trails.
- Frank Dido is a trail expert who was hired to work with Greg. He worked at Mid-Pen OSD.
- Elections: Mike put up a slate of officers. He called for a vote to approve it. Motion passed.
- Trail report: Mario, Judyth
- The Joice Trail is muddy. The rest of the trails look good.
- Cars have been parking at night by the Springs. One light may be damaged.
- Activities:
- John Dorrance plans to have Wash Days at the ranch the second Saturday of every month.
- There will be star hike on Saturday April 5. John Dorrance will publicize it.
- The last Saturday in July (26th), a professional photographer will give a guided walk through the park. The cost will be $5.
- 6/28: Dedication of the Mounted Ranger Unit at the Buck Norred Ranch
- The Historic Heritage Commission put aside $100K to restore the old barn at BGJ. It will cost $250K to restore it. Next year, they will set aside more.
- Nancy Bonetti Ray wrote to us. Her family lived in the Pedro Bernal House, which the Bonetti Family lived in until the 90's. She talked about growing up the area and the families that she got to know, particularly the Joice's.
- Ed Pyzak has moved out. Are the artifacts at the house gone? There are broken windows on the hill side of Pyzak's. The out-buildings are opened up. Maybe the ranger staying at the Pedro Bernal House could keep an eye on Pyzak's.
- Hazen wants to get a metal plaque set up at Santa Teresa Springs, like the one at the Bear Tree lot. It may cost $4K. The one at the Bear Tree lot cost $2500. The Clampers got it at cost and did the work for free. Hazen moved to start the process to the get the plaque. Motion passed. Hazen will work on it. The parks department has a master plan for signage. WE have to make sure we don't conflict with their policy. If the sign can't go by the springs, it can go by the tree on Manila Drive.
- Hours (last 2 months):
- Mario Blaum:12
- Judyth: 6
- Kitty Monahan: 3
- Ronald Horii: 25
- Mike Boulland: 15
- John Klimaszewski: 3
- Lynne Paulson: 3
- John and Lynne from the Santa Teresa Foothills Neighborhood Association talked about 2 issues:
- They are protesting a proposed development in the Santa Teresa Hills.
- They are proposing the opening of the Coyote-Alamitos Canal levee road as a trail. $400K has been allocated to study it. The City of San Jose has scheduled a community meeting for Wednesday, April 23rd, to present the preliminary findings of a feasibility study for the potential new trail in the Santa Teresa Foothills. The meeting will begin at 7:00 p.m. at Sakamoto Elementary School, 6280 Shadelands Drive, San Jose.
- Ron showed slideshows of the following:
- Girl Scouts came to tour the BGJ Ranch on 3/8/03. They toured the house, raced hoops, learned how to wash clothes the old-fashioned way, and toured the Springs.
- Ron walked from the Fortini Trail and back along the Stile Ranch Trail, showing trouble-spots and wildflowers.
- Website: Ron
- We have a new Website with our own domain name: www.stpfriends.org
- The old Website is still there, but the home page points to the new Website.
- All the existing Web pages have been transferred to the new Website, with links modified to point to it. All new Web pages will go on the new site.
- New pages on the new site:
Secretary, Friends of Santa Teresa Park
