7/6/2017 -- Board Meeting Minutes

Post date: Jul 15, 2017 6:08:20 PM

River Oaks Neighborhood Association

Wednesday, July 6, 2017

Elan Meeting Room, 7:00pm-8:00pm

MINUTES (kindly provided by Rick Collins)

• 1. Santa County Creeks Coalition - Richard McMurtry

  2. Overview of plants and animals. Purple like a sunflower is salsify. Other side (of the creek area from River Oaks area were given remediation in the 1990s. We learned some of the plant types in the Coyote watershed area: There are two varieties of wild blackberries, two types of walnut trees one on each side. Many of these plants are fruiting now. Cottonwoods, native to this area.

  3. July 22nd - Saturday, there will be sponsored activities and volunteers working between Tasman and Montague. There will be upcoming plant surveys for what is there, and not, and get rid of some non-native plants. They often are problematic causes for flooding and fire prevention.

  4. Non scheduled speaker

  5. A person spoke to the group about problematic teenagers in the area. She felt that renters in the area should not be able to send their children to the upcoming schools at Agnews.

  6. Santa Clara School District - Larry Adams

  7. We received an update on the new schools at the Agnews site.

     1. Construction three new schools on the Agnews project.

     2. Went out with requests for building.

     3. LPA Architects. Office in San Jose and based in southern California.

     4. Preliminary program and education specifications.

     5. Size and what type of schools and educational programs in those schools.

     6. Not ready for design of schools and rather the information to see what kind of buildings and cost estimate.

     7. General education bond from June 2014 for funding. $200,000,000.

     8. Funding expected to be sufficient for elementary and middle schools but appears to be some issues for the comprehensive secondary school funding.

     9. First phase of secondary school may not open as the fully comprehensive plan.

     10. Planning and ready for state agency review.

     11. It is expected that the process of cleaning on the site will begin this fall. Some existing structures will need work. Chemicals and toxics in the land will then need to be processed.

     12. Then the new building will commence with the elementary and middle schools.

     13. Design for the proposed comprehensive secondary schools may not have enough funding at this time.

     14. Break ground a few months after that.

     15. September 2020 is the planned opening of, at least, the elementary and middle schools.

     16. Many new trends for the schools. Special Ed has higher proportion of classrooms

     17. There have been some meetings for joint use library, use of fields, community usage for meetings, etc.

     18. Larry said getting these schools on line has been almost a ten year journey but momentum is picking up.

     19. Toxic land clean up starting this fall (2017) and cleaning up the site through the winter.

     20. Park and Recs are supposed to have some say in planning the 20 acres.

     21. They have a new employee on board for that coordination.

  8. Iris Chang Park and why it is taking so long.

     1. The city and Epic have disagreement of how they will handle the differences.

     2. Mostly concerning about what to do with the current area installed design features and how they will be handled as the final designs are planned.

     3. City does not have the $800,000 for fixing.

     4. City is trying to get more land details.

     5. Essex doesn’t seem to be “cooperating” neighbors. The following paragraph was recently released from the city that helps to explain the delays in finishing the park behind Epic.

     6. “The City and Essex have different interpretation on the language in the land dedication agreement about removing the previous improvements and transferring the "clean" site for park development. The whole park site was lime-treated to increase the soil stability for using as the parking lot before. The top 18" layer of the lime-treated soil has high PH value which is not suitable for planting, and it is also not permeable just like a concrete layer. The City has considered the lime-treated layer as part of the previous improvements and would like the developer to remove it and import clean planting soil. However, the developer thought they has met all the requirements by cleaning up the above ground debris. Removal and importing soil would cost about $700k. The City definitely does not have the extra $800k to improve the site alone. Staff has been negotiating with the developer on how to resolve the soil issue and finding additional funding. In the recent meeting, we have come to an agreement on sharing the cost verbally and are currently in the process putting it in writing. Hopefully we will get it resolved and complete the design plans accordingly soon. Also City staff has learned the lesson and will add more details when negotiating the land dedication agreement with the developers in the future.”

  9. River Oaks Parkway maintenance for medians.

     1. Very brief discussion on lack of design consistency.