February Public Meeting – Sports & Play – Sessions 1

Audio from Feb 2nd Public Meeting — Sports & Play – Session 1

Summary Keywords:

bocce, spaces, park, play, field, sports, area, questions, nature, chat, carla, design, elements, woodland, courts, features, people, softball, folks, add

Speakers:

Christina, Lauren Stahl, Audience Member B, Mike Murphy, Facilitator — sports and play areas, various Audience Members, Carla Schoof

Sports and Play Session

Presentation:

Slides
Diapositivas

Audio Transcription:

Facilitator — sports and play areas  00:01

[Recording in progress] … are 25 minutes. First we’ll focus on sports and play or being sorry, sports and athletics, and then we’ll take a look at the play spaces. And for each topic, we’ll share a short presentation that will include some survey questions that you can participate in. And then we’ll have an open q&a discussion, where you can ask questions and share ideas. So I’m going to start sharing my screen. And again, you can see, before we start, you could see the Mentimeter here that we’re going to use for questions, or for a few survey questions. And I’m going to put that code in the chat. So you can access that this one’s specific to this breakout group. So let me know if you have questions on that friends. So, and this just gives a little bit more information that Chris had shared in terms of if you go to the URL, you could put in this code, or you could just click on the chat.

Facilitator — sports and play areas  01:15

So to start off, just want to share a few design objectives related to the sports and active recreation. One is to one of the goals of the project is to rehabilitate and expand recreational facilities for youth and families. And secondly, it’s also important for the park to accommodate simultaneous use by organized sports teams and drop in play. And as you can see, the park program includes the baseball and softball fields. In the corner here, a large multi use field. There’s also a plan for a small multiuse field. Again, the dimensions there still will be determined in the design, and there’s some room for kind of repositioning. There’s this pump track up here in the corner. There’ll be new tennis courts and pickleball courts, new sand volleyball courts, and a basketball court.

Facilitator — sports and play areas  02:19

So some of the considerations as we move into the design phase will be to balance the organized and informal use, target a range of age groups from toddlers to seniors, and allow for flexibility to accommodate a diversity of sports and activities. And the focus is really on access for people of all abilities. And then just a couple of clarifications. As part of the design process, the team will be developing the detailed design for each of these facilities, we’ll be considering things such as the surface options. For example, for the large multiple use field, we’re looking into whether it might make sense to use synthetic turf or natural turf. For the small Multiuse field that will definitely be natural grass so that it can be used for a range of recreational recreational activities and gatherings such as picnics. The fields will not be lighted. And the team will also be evaluating fencing, or netting for the large field, it could be temporary, to ensure that it doesn’t affect adjacent areas. And finally, I just want to mention that we have a specialist in sports and athletic facilities on the team called pros consulting. And they will be helping to advise the team on the design and operations of the facilities. And they’ll also be helping to advise on scheduling and the use of the multiple facilities relative to the park capacity. 

Facilitator — sports and play areas  04:10

So we’d love to hear from you. Using that Mentimeter link we’d love to hear from you which sports or activities would you come to play or your family members come to play. So we’ve included soccer, baseball, or softball, lacrosse, tennis or pickleball, basketball, the pump track, volleyball, or other so if you click on there, we’ll start to see on this slide, what folks are selecting as some of the types of sports that you or your families might start with come to the park to enjoy

Audience Member  05:02

It’s the type is very small is tennis on there?

Facilitator — sports and play areas  05:07

Yes, tennis is here with the pickleball

Carla Schoof  05:10

and the yellow. Okay, great, thank you

05:16

you mentioned softball, but Nick was said the softball was eliminated.

Carla Schoof  05:27

Softball — this is Carla — softball is a potential. Obviously there’s field space to mark and indicate that.

Christina  05:37

I know that some folks are also having trouble with the mentee code not working necessarily. So if yours is not working for some reason, then please feel free to put it into the chat. Put your response in there. And yeah, we’re hoping that we can just honor that you only answer one. So if you already answered on the mentee, then don’t put it in the chat. But if you’re having trouble with the mentee, please put it there so we can capture that as well.

Audience Member  06:03

We have a chance to ask you questions after we do all the survey things. 

06:08

Yes, yeah, absolutely. 

Audience Member  06:11

I’m sorry, I came in late. 

Facilitator — sports and play areas  06:13

Oh, no worries. Welcome. I’m glad you could join us. Great. This is wonderful to see lots of interest in tennis and pickleball as well as baseball and pumptrack. It’s fun to see how folks are anticipating using the park from this group. 

06:35

So let’s take a few minutes to look at the play areas. The new play areas are really one of the most exciting aspects of the park improvements. Our goal is that they’ll really increase the vibrancy of the park meet the needs of youth and families by creating these destination play spaces that are welcoming and inclusive for all ages, and foster connections to nature. The plan currently includes two play areas the central place based here and a smaller place based in the southeast corner, which is currently envisioned as a nature play area. The play spaces are part of a much larger vision to create activities for all ages. The play space is located at the center of a park next to the central gathering space here as well as the administrative building the amphitheater and between the two multi-use fields. So during the design process, we’ll explore the size and convey a configuration of these different plate spaces as long with the theme experience zones and types of play. So this is going to be a really fun aspect of the design going forward. And the next few months we’ll be hosting a community event that will focus specifically on the play spaces so if that’s something you’re interested in, definitely watch for that event. And the county design team has also started discussions with the magical bridge foundation to advise on the programming and design of the play spaces to promote play of all ages, abilities and sizing. So we wanted to get asking you all a few questions related to play spaces and then we’ll open it up to some general discussion. So one thing that’s kind of fun is to think about what are some possible theme ideas for the play areas. So again, you can go to the Mentimeter in the chat and some of the ideas might be focused on land or or as the sea maybe local cultural and history or nature and just toggle back to your that previous area where you were sharing some ideas just put it back in the chat here in case of an easy way for you to access but love to hear what are your what are some possible theme ideas you have for the play space? I can see in the chat nature’s Great fit definitely. And one of the the smaller play spaces definitely intended to be nature play forest and adventure nation land art, great, space travel that’s a fun one. Cultural heritage, jungle is great also wanted to hear your thoughts on how you would rank the importance of different elements. So see so a range of possible elements could include like a small slide swings, fans. Currently there now some spinning elements, natural elements, rope structures or tunnel and we’re curious like how would you rank the importance of these structures in the new play spaces

Audience Member  11:00

you know, I’ve not been able to get this thing to work for me so I don’t know how to submit anything.

Facilitator — sports and play areas  11:05

Oh, feel free to just put it in the chat. Okay, totally fine. Well, what recapturing all the notes from the chat so yeah, well.

11:42

A lot of kind of larger physical play with natural features, rope structures, accessible swings are great. And great, and then we’ll take a look at some other elements like a big slide, Tower Bridge. claimable features, swinging elements. Flexible sculpture that can actually be double as the play space, or the sort of tensile structures that are connecting different features. Curious to get your input on some of the. 

Facilitator — sports and play areas  12:48

And as Chris mentioned, we’re going to, we’re going to hold a kind of a workshop event that’s just focused on playspaces. So if this is the area of interest to you or your family, keep an eye out for that event. And we’ll be able to get into a little more detail about the different features that can be included and how they could be arranged. Great. Plenty features a big slide bridge. That’s fun. So again, I think kind of focusing on a lot of that larger physical activity. Very exciting. 

Facilitator — sports and play areas  13:33

Alrighty, I think that is I guess the last question we wanted to ask is just what else is important in the playground? Is it benches and the seating tables shade is it art and murals or the kind of varied topography or plants and nature this is our last question on the place faces I know as a mom I’m always very interested in benches and shade.

Facilitator — sports and play areas  14:52

Thanks for those that are sharing some through the chat. More table, benches and seating plants in nature.

15:03

Before we end the session, will you recap these will we see these pictures again or

Facilitator — sports and play areas  15:10

I will be even we can post these on the county website. We’re going to recap them when we get back to the main room. More, I think verbally, but I believe we’ll be posting these on the county website as well at some point.

Carla Schoof  15:31

To that point, we will do a wrap up meeting, the meeting recording as well as you know, sort of a debrief on the breakout groups. Thank you, Carla. Hey,

Audience Member B  15:49

I had a question. I recall there being bocce ball courts in some of the planning. Initially, I know when I came to play in sports, I was expecting to hear about them but I’m not I didn’t see anything regarding that in

Facilitator — sports and play areas  16:14

Carla’s are Christina, you want to speak to?

Carla Schoof  16:18

I can speak to if you’re if you’re familiar with the park early on, or original or really common, established practice was Petanque, which is a form of Bocce. As it went through the process, beginning in February through 2016. There was a suggestion of adding Bocce, and then, as we started going through really sort of similar to this ranking process that we’re doing now. Bocce didn’t essentially make the cut. There were a lot of votes for that, compared to some other things. But one of the things you might also think about, while this doesn’t serve the purpose of Bocce, or I’m having those open fields really allows for some open play, whether that be frisbee or something like that. So it’s, you know, different way to think about some use of the some sort of unplanned, unscheduled use of the area. But, yeah, through the process, Bocce and Petanque are eliminated.

Facilitator — sports and play areas  17:33

Thank you. If so, if folks could just raise their hands so we were not speaking over each other. I think we have time for just a couple more questions.

Audience Member  17:48

Can they be added Bocce? Can it be reconsidered? Because this is a different group than what you had before meeting? 

Carla Schoof  17:56

Well, I think the process early on, and we outline the history and the engagement. And then what’s really important is the EIR process, which looked at the uses and evaluated, number of people and so forth. So we can’t add a new feature, because that wasn’t in the their environmental review document. But I think,

Audience Member  18:27

why are we here then? 

Facilitator — sports and play areas  18:29

Oh, Oh, Carla, I just found a note. There’s, I just want to make sure. There’s Judah, and then Julie, and we just have like one minute left. So I just want to make sure folks can get their their question. And

Carla Schoof  18:42

I just want to if I can just say, you know, this is the beginning of the process. We’re going to have several meetings and several opportunities. And we’ll work through and where we find these things. So this is the very beginning. 

Audience Member  18:55

That’s That’s why I’m asking if this is the very beginning. Can’t we add other things that we come up with? 

Carla Schoof  19:02

Yeah, well, we unfortunately can’t. Because of that. That was the plan that was approved through the environmental review process.

Facilitator — sports and play areas  19:12

Juna, did you want to

Audience Member B  19:15

just want to say very quickly that I understand. I’m disappointed that the Bocce isn’t there. But I understand and that’s okay. If the community did not rise to that occasion, and there wasn’t enough people to support it. I’m fine with that. Thank you.

Facilitator — sports and play areas  19:32

Okay. And Julie, I

Audience Member  19:33

think the hand raised.

Facilitator — sports and play areas  19:35

Yes. Hi. Thank you so much for prioritizing the sports fields as phase one. I live on a block we’ve got no less than 26 kids. They’re super excited to use all of that space in a number of different ways. Is there a reason why there won’t be lighting in the sports fields with the park continue to close at sunset or will they be extended for gameplay

Carla Schoof  20:00

So, Miranda, if you want me to take that, um, the park will close at sunset, just as it does now. And lighting was one of those elements that were not factored into the environmental review. So we, we wouldn’t be able to add them.

Facilitator — sports and play areas  20:21

Right, it looks like you’re also had his hand up. And then Michael, I see you’re physically raising your hand, which also works.

20:29

I just posted to the chat group, basically, I’m advocating for people more pickle ball courts as opposed to share with tennis, because that makes it more enjoyable, because then you have permanent nets and temporary nets.

Facilitator — sports and play areas  20:47

Great, thank you. And then Michael. And then I see Naomi also has her hand up.

Mike Murphy  20:53

Okay, so I’m really glad to see fieldsports at Flood Park like soccer. I think that’s terrific. However, the place that you have allocated for it right now is a really bad choice because it cuts down the central heart of the woodland. And there are options that the community has mapped out and suggested. And I would really like to see, the field shifted to one of those optional places. One of them is below the baseball field between the baseball field and the Adobe office building. And the other one is out near the entrance to the park and the open area that is adjacent to the oak shelter. And people should learn more about this and insist that the woodlands remain intact.

Audience Member B  21:38

I would like to second that. I’d also like to say I’m a 25 year soccer fanatic. I love soccer. And I agree that there we have a dire need for more soccer fields, but it’s just not an appropriate place to put it in the middle of that woodland. Because, you know, you’re gonna have soccer balls flying off the field hitting people who are picnicking, nearby, you know, the noise, the shouting the whistles is kind of be disturbing to other uses in the park, consolidate the athletic fields in one area and north, which is a much more appropriate place to happen. Thank you.

Facilitator — sports and play areas  22:18

Great, and I think we’re going to get called back to the main room and everyone will have a chance to join a second breakout room and topic area. I’m not getting the call back yet. So I think we might be able to take one more question or comment

22:48

I just wanted to say too,  I think that this park is sort of evenly divided between nature and the sports fields to the northeast. And it’s just a natural division. And it does make sense to keep really advocate for the nature of the woodland and keep that and keep the noise down and keep the the animals and the wildlife as they’re protected. And have all the sports in the sports area that just seems such an easy division.

Facilitator — sports and play areas  23:17

Okay, thank you. Yeah, so it looks like in just 20 seconds, we’ll be put back in the main room, and then we’ll have a choice to choose between urban forest or the historic resources and picnic areas for the next discussion. Thanks so much everyone.

23:35

Question Do we know that the sports fields are going to be turf or grass

Facilitator — sports and play areas  23:39

the smaller one will be grass and the [recording in progress]

Lauren Stahl  23:57

all right. I know that was brief, but I think it’s time for the second breakout session. So I’m going to open up that one. And then if you’re able to, I think that was

24:08

[End of Session]


Acknowledgements:

Thanks to the local Flood Park advocates for their work to present the materials from the Feb 2nd Public Meeting and to Mike Murphy for the transcription of the audio from the meeting.



To preserve the historic trees at Flood Park, action is needed. Below are a few ways, more ideas for action are on our Action webpage.

Ways to Participate:

The plan of San Mateo County Parks department is to cut down a major portion of the historic woodland in the park. This will have a major negative impact on wildbirds and the overall ecology of the park. It may very well have a negative impact on the remaining trees due to loss of the protective environment of those trees, resulting in hotter temperatures, stress of changes to soil microbes, moisture, and exposure to sunlight on soil.

Please visit the Action webpage and write to the county Supervisors to let them know that woodland trees should be preserved and protected. This is critical to protect this natural habitat for wildbirds and other wildlife that call Flood Park home throughout the year.

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