Report Prepared by: Jennifer Arellano, Recreation Supervisor, Parks and Recreation
Title
SUBJECT: Selecting 3 of the 13 Potential Park Sites for the Submission of 3 Proposition 68 Statewide Park Program Round 4 Grant Applications for an Amount not to Exceed $8.5 Million Dollars ($8,500,000) Per Application
REPORT IN BRIEF
Considers selecting 3 potential park sites for the submittal of 3 grant applications for funding of park renovations, expansions, and/or to create new parks throughout Merced for an amount not to exceed $8.5 Million ($8,500,000) per park site.
RECOMMENDATION
City Council - Adopt a motion selecting 3 project sites for the submission of 3 Proposition 68 Statewide Park Program Round 4 grant applications for an amount not to exceed $8.5 million dollars ($8,500,000) per project site.
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ALTERNATIVES
1. Approve, as recommended by Commission; or,
2. Approve, as other than recommended by Commission (items to be specified in the motion); or,
3. Deny; or,
4. Refer to staff for reconsideration of specific items; or,
5. Continue to a future meeting (date and time to be specified in the motion).
DISCUSSION
On June 5, 2018, California voters passed a $4.1 billion bond measure to fund state and local parks, environmental projects, water infrastructure projects and flood protection projects throughout California. The Statewide Park Program is one of the funding streams resulting out of this bond measure. This competitive program will create new parks and new recreation opportunities in underserved communities across California. The current round 4 has $395,302,155 to be awarded.
In 2019, during the Statewide Park Grant Program Round 3 the City submitted three applications for three new park sites in North Merced. The City received site visits for all three sites, but ultimately, none of the sites were selected for funding at that time. In this process, grantees are selected by how closely they meet a range of criteria in a ranked list amongst all applicants. Because of this, the competitiveness of each application during each round will vary depending on the other applications in the pool. Round 3 had a total of 478 applications submitted from across the state, out of which 62 grants to 52 recipients were funded.
The major lesson learned from the last round is how critical the site selection process is to the overall success of the grant. In the last round staff focused on choosing new park sites that had been planned but unfunded for 15 years, presuming a strong narrative section could overcome not meeting one of the optional criteria for low income, since the criteria for low access to parklands was met. However, the unique need within our community itself was not enough to compete against other applications from across the entire state whose needs for parks included municipalities with both low income and low access to parkland at the same site.
For this round, staff hopes to overcome this deficiency by choosing the most competitive sites possible within the City, focusing as much as possible on sites that have both low access to parkland and low-income residents. In addition, the Parks and Recreation Department will resubmit the initial 3 applications for new parks in North Merced because there will be minimal changes needed to each application to resubmit. The original park sites are:
1. Charles Ogletree Site - 250 Mandeville Ln (at Hutchinson Ln)
2. Fahrens Creek Site - 4325 Freemark Ave (at Heitz Way)
3. Lester K. Yoshida Site - 4355 Bixby Way (at Revelle Dr)
Staff has determined the department is able to write an additional three new applications as well for this next round, incorporating lessons learned from the last round. There are several main criteria that need to be met within a half-mile radius from the project site. These criteria are: having a median household income below $56,982, having a high amount of people living in poverty, and having less than 3 acres of parkland per 1,000 residents.
Staff selected several potential sites that met, in varying degrees, these criteria, and scored them against each other, similarly to how they will be scored by the granting agency across all state applications. These potential sites were brought before the Recreation and Parks Commission at the August 24 meeting listed in order of competitiveness. Staff also discussed some unknowns with a few of the sites that might take them out of the running for submitting an application, or the possibility of adding others in as a better match as the process progressed if sites were eliminated (renovating Charles Richard Drew Park, Harriet Tubman Park, or Circle Drive Park).
Due to these factors, Commission decided rather than to select 3 sites to submit an application for, to rank them all in order of preference, and to form an ad hoc committee to continue to work with staff and City Council during the progression of the grant process. The motion was made by Commissioner Moore, and seconded by Vice Chair Piuser to rank the sites for submitting an application in order of their preference from highest choice to least. The order was: I St. and 18th, Alfarata Ranch, CP-42, William Lloyd Garrison, Bob Hart Square, Rascal Creek Path, Santa Fe & G. St. The motion passed 4-1 with Commissioner Anderson casting the dissenting vote due to the I St. site being a high crime/violent area. Commissioner Morris and Commissioner Huitron were not present.
After the Recreation Commission meeting, staff had additional discussions on other park site options and decided to take the 3 renovation options mentioned earlier (Charles Richard Drew, Harriet Tubman, and Circle Drive Park) to the Ad Hoc Committee for ranking due to them being more competitive than even some of the new park builds. The ad hoc committee decided that Harriet Tubman Park or Circle Drive Park would be desirable options, but that Charles Richard Drew Park would be too close to McNamara Park to consider for renovation and thus should be removed or put last. The new ranking from the Commission via the Ad Hoc committee of all of the most competitive options for application sites in the City are as follows:
Staff is seeking direction from the City Council on which 3 parks to select for the grant applications. Staff will then complete the grant applications in time to meet the December 14, 2020 deadline.
ATTACHMENTS
1. Potential Park Sites with Ranking
2. Presentation