From: Miranda Ramos
To: City Clerk
Subject: Public Comment on Items 5E, 5F and 8A of 3/11/2025 Agenda Date: Tuesday, March 11, 2025 11:35:24 AM
City Council & Staff,
I write today to express my support for the adoption of items 5E and 5F on the Consent Calendar and item 8A under Conduct of Business. The long-awaited and advocated for installation of artificial turf sport courts and other Bainbridge Park Enhancements will provide residents of Fort Bragg with more access to a "third space" where community can be strengthened through shared activities.
Thank you,
Miranda Ramos
From: Jacob Patterson
To: City Clerk
Subject: Public Comment -- 3/11/25 CC Mtg., Item Nos. 5E & 5G, Bainbridge Park Sports Court Date: Thursday, March 6, 2025 4:05:41 PM
City Council & Staff,
I am dismayed by the consent calendar for Tuesday's special council meeting because of the two items concerning the proposed sports court component of the Bainbridge Park enhancement project. Items 5E and 5G concern the purchase of materials for the eventual sports court, but this component's design characteristics have yet to be fully approved even if the overall concept received City Council support. Numerous design issues concerning the sports court surround and artificial turf were discussed at the meeting when the Council reviewed the preliminary designs. These concerns appear to have been ignored since that meeting based on the proposed equipment that is shown in the vendors attached proposals.
These outstanding design detail issues have not been resolved or approved and yet we have consent calendar items rather than a conduct of business item that will determine those outstanding details without any discussion or approval of the details themselves. This should not occur. In the least, the Council should be presented with the options being proposed (and their alternatives) to make the ultimate decision about the as-of-yet undetermined specific design aspects of sports court.
For example, what kind of fence barrier and gate designs are involved? We discussed use and access concerns regarding the gates to the sports court but without evaluating the alternatives, how can we collectively know the selected vendor and product best addresses those concerns? Staff shouldn't be making that determination on their own outside the public process yet that is what is effectively happening through this consent calendar items that don't even have explanatory staff reports presenting the options for public scrutiny and Council decision. The choice has been made for you (and for all of us) by these items being presented as they are. In fact, if you look at the single included proposal, it doesn't resemble what was discussed before and clearly precludes use of the sports court for anything other than sports and we couldn't use them as part of a community event in the park. There are even two fields rather than one, which was proposed previously, and the courts have permanent internal dividers that break up the overall space. There are no double gates to allow for event flow, etc. This will clearly interfere with the mix of likely uses for this areas of the park but that is being ignored despite it being discussed as a concern to address during previous agenda items.
Moreover, the suggested CEQA categorical exemptions don't clearly apply to this overall project because the sports court involves artificial turf and thus the likely exposure of court users, particularly children, to turf chemicals needs to be evaluated regarding health and safety concerns due to that exposure. Instead, the City is claiming arguably inapplicable CEQA exemptions that can't apply (even if they superficially appear to relate to the project) because there are actual health and safety concerns that may very well lead to unmitigatable significant environmental impacts. (Please see prior-submitted documentation at relevant agenda items of the known health and safety risks from exposure to artificial turf.) The point isn't that we definitely have a stumbling block and concern to proceeding as proposed, the issue is that we haven't properly evaluated that concern by doing an end-run around environmental review of this City project through these categorical exemptions that only apply in general but don't apply to projects that present actual issues. (Note that the exemptions, other than existing facilities, would likely apply to a sports court with natural turf.).
Because the City is not seeking normal planning review of this construction project, we are not even trying to address the CEQA issues that would normally be addressed through that process. Instead, we are potentially entering into contracts for project components and asserting, likely falsely, that those contracts are exempt when their review and approval has been separated from the overall project in a piecemeal fashion. You could be wasting our money and time by agreeing to buy materials that we might be required to swap out for something else as mitigation for the potentially significant impacts due to exposure to the chemicals in the specific turf that is proposed once sufficient review is complete. In short, this overall project has been troubled by procedural issues and mistakes and it appears we haven't learned anything from our earlier missteps in an apparent rush to try to get this project built this summer because staff didn't undertake a timely review of the proposed turf.
I recommend pulling the three Banbridge Park agenda items and holding an de facto conduct of business review or postponing these items to the next meeting where we can properly address the various issues through an open and transparent public process, which the community deserves.
Regards,
--Jacob
From: Jacob Patterson
To: City Clerk
Subject: Re: Public Comment -- 3/11/25 CC Mtg., Item Nos. 5E & 5G, Bainbridge Park Sports Court Date: Thursday, March 6, 2025 4:21:13 PM
City Council & Staff,
As a follow-up to my comments about artificial turf, please review and consider the studies and concerns about the health and safety issues at the following links to the specific documents:
https://cleanwater.org/2024/09/16/turf-artificial-harm-very-real https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10262297/ [Note: this article is from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) so not some crackpot theory.] https://www.beyondplastics.org/fact-sheets/synthetic-turf https://www.safehealthyplayingfields.org/
The studies describe in the above-linked documents clearly document the health and safety concerns due to exposure to the chemicals in artificial turf, including turf made from polyethylene, the material used in the "grass" yarn for the proposed turf (see https://polyturf.com/champion-sport).
Staff was made aware of these issues quite a while ago and had plenty of time to undertake an analysis of the health and safety impacts of exposure to polyethylene but chose not to do that and are now trying to rush you into purchasing this particular product for our new youth sports fields without adequate review and consideration of the safer alternatives. This is shameful and unacceptable, IMO.
Regards,
--Jacob
On Thu, Mar 6, 2025 at 4:05 PM Jacob Patterson <[email protected]> wrote:
City Council & Staff,
I am dismayed by the consent calendar for Tuesday's special council meeting because of the two items concerning the proposed sports court component of the Bainbridge Park enhancement project. Items 5E and 5G concern the purchase of materials for the eventual sports court, but this component's design characteristics have yet to be fully approved even if the overall concept received City Council support. Numerous design issues concerning the sports court surround and artificial turf were discussed at the meeting when the Council reviewed the preliminary designs. These concerns appear to have been ignored since that meeting based on the proposed equipment that is shown in the vendors attached proposals.
These outstanding design detail issues have not been resolved or approved and yet we have consent calendar items rather than a conduct of business item that will determine those outstanding details without any discussion or approval of the details themselves. This should not occur. In the least, the Council should be presented with the options being proposed (and their alternatives) to make the ultimate decision about the as-of-yet undetermined specific design aspects of sports court.
For example, what kind of fence barrier and gate designs are involved? We discussed use and access concerns regarding the gates to the sports court but without evaluating the alternatives, how can we collectively know the selected vendor and product best addresses those concerns? Staff shouldn't be making that determination on their own outside the public process yet that is what is effectively happening through this consent calendar items that don't even have explanatory staff reports presenting the options for public scrutiny and Council decision. The choice has been made for you (and for all of us) by these items being presented as they are. In fact, if you look at the single included proposal, it doesn't resemble what was discussed before and clearly precludes use of the sports court for anything other than sports and we couldn't use them as part of a community event in the park. There are even two fields rather than one, which was proposed previously, and the courts have permanent internal dividers that break up the overall space. There are no double gates to allow for event flow, etc. This will clearly interfere with the mix of likely uses for this areas of the park but that is being ignored despite it being discussed as a concern to address during previous agenda items.
Moreover, the suggested CEQA categorical exemptions don't clearly apply to this overall project because the sports court involves artificial turf and thus the likely exposure of court users, particularly children, to turf chemicals needs to be evaluated regarding health and safety concerns due to that exposure. Instead, the City is claiming arguably inapplicable CEQA exemptions that can't apply (even if they superficially appear to relate to the project) because there are actual health and safety concerns that may very well lead to unmitigatable significant environmental impacts. (Please see prior-submitted documentation at relevant agenda items of the known health and safety risks from exposure to artificial turf.) The point isn't that we definitely have a stumbling block and concern to proceeding as proposed, the issue is that we haven't properly evaluated that concern by doing an end-run around environmental review of this City project through these categorical exemptions that only apply in general but don't apply to projects that present actual issues. (Note that the exemptions, other than existing facilities, would likely apply to a sports court with natural turf.).
Because the City is not seeking normal planning review of this construction project, we are not even trying to address the CEQA issues that would normally be addressed through that process. Instead, we are potentially entering into contracts for project components and asserting, likely falsely, that those contracts are exempt when their review and approval has been separated from the overall project in a piecemeal fashion. You could be wasting our money and time by agreeing to buy materials that we might be required to swap out for something else as mitigation for the potentially significant impacts due to exposure to the chemicals in the specific turf that is proposed once sufficient review is complete. In short, this overall project has been troubled by procedural issues and mistakes and it appears we haven't learned anything from our earlier missteps in an apparent rush to try to get this project built this summer because staff didn't undertake a timely review of the proposed turf.
I recommend pulling the three Banbridge Park agenda items and holding an de facto conduct of business review or postponing these items to the next meeting where we can properly address the various issues through an open and transparent public process, which the community deserves.
Regards,
--Jacob