City Council Preview - Aug 5, Part II

By Jim Gardner

Yesterday we discussed the dog park and the Whispering Hills project. Today we’ll discuss Village Pond Park and the city’s latest proposal.

VILLAGE POND PARK

We’ve covered on several occasions the terrible job the Parks and Recreation Committee (PRC) did on developing the plan to remodel the Village Pond Park (VPP) to lessen the problems caused by the excess urine and feces as a result of the overcrowding of ducks, geese, and other birds. In the process of developing a plan that included nothing at all about reducing the problems caused by the water fowl, the PRC managed to violate the Brown Act and to violate the terms of the contract between the city and the contractor. So what are they up to now?

Nearly 10 months after the PRC declared their irrelevant plan “excellent”, it now comes before the City Council with a request for an additional $2,618 and a one year extension. The additional time and money are required for the contractor to provide “estimated annual maintenance and operational costs” if the City is to adopt the proposed changes in the filtration system. Of course if you go back and read the proposal, you’ll find that this material was covered on page A-4, 5th paragraph.

Why would the City pay an additional $2,618 for something that was already part of the original contract?

How could it possibly take a year to provide estimated operational costs?

Putting aside these questions, among the many errors in the current report, perhaps the worst are the city’s claims that “creating a floating island”, “removing the concrete sidewalk around the pool”, “replacing the filtration system,” creating “entry plazas” etc. will “discourage the overpopulation of waterfowl.”

Nonsense! Some of these features (e.g., creating a floating island) will actually encourage waterfowl!

Even worse, the city staff evaluated the past performance of the contractor and gave the following ratings –

• Scope of services – Satisfied

• Timeliness – Very satisfied

• Budget – Very satisfied

• Customer Service – Very satisfied

In terms of “scope of services”, the contract called for three public workshops and we only got two. The contract asked for measures to discourage the overpopulation of waterfowl and there were none in the original report. One should hardly be “satisfied” unless your expectations are very low.

Even more remarkable, the city rates Customer Service as “very satisfied” when there was universal agreement that the workshop was awful. Even Councilwoman McCullough, who tends to see everything the city staff do as terrific, was in agreement that the second workshop was poorly done. And keep in mind there was no third workshop as required by the contract. To be “very satisfied” is to make a mockery of any standards at all.

FWIW – the city’s report fails to include the final report submitted by the contractor. Instead it presents a pretty picture of a redesigned park, but in this picture there is none of the steps required to reduce the waterfowl population. The proposed picture will certainly provide for a much better looking park, but it fails to deal with the problem of the overpopulation, and there’s really no point in spending hundreds of thousands of dollars making a more attractive park for the ducks and geese to fill with their urine and feces.

Here’s a list of some of the features proposed and you tell me how these features are going to reduce the overpopulation of waterfowl –

• Native garden with interpretive signage (do the geese read?)

• Picnic tables (may actually increase waterfowl)

• Small plaza

• Floating island (a good place for waterfowl to rest, safe from predators)

• 8’ wide meandering walkway (waterfowl like to meander)

• Concrete mow strip

• Entry gateway

• Entry plaza

• Low fence (Note to contractors – waterfowl can fly over fences!)

• Existing park signs to remain (Hmmm. They’ve been effective, haven’t they?)

• Existing pond to remain

• New filtration system (Great. Clean water for the ducks and geese. That should discourage them)

This entire process has been deeply flawed from the very beginning. Here’s what they should do – Insist that the contractor complete the contract. They need to give us the report they contracted to do, hold the third workshop, and then submit the final report to the council. There should be no added money and no time extensions until they have fulfilled the contract they signed.