Portola Valley City Council
November 13, 2024

 











 

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To: Mayor and Members of the Town Council
From: Joint subcommittee appointed by Conservation and Open Space Date: November 11, 2024
Subject: Recommendations on open space maintenance and funding We are a joint subcommittee appointed by the Open Space Committee and the Conservation Committee to re-examine maintenance needs of town-owned open spaces and to consider the appropriate use of the 2% Utility Users Tax (UUT) in light of the town’s financial challenges.

Keeping in mind that the 2% UUT is restricted to “open space purposes only”1 and that those purposes include maintenance of open space,
2 we offer four recommendations. To meet the
Council’s decision schedule, we submit our recommendations prior to committee review. 3 1. We recommend allocating $65,000 from the 2% UUT this year to maintain the primary town-owned open spaces4 and areas that have been designated for “open space purposes” by the Town Council.
5 We recommend this amount in order to provide for the
following routine maintenance6 this year:
a. four mowings at Spring Down
b. two mowings at Ford Field, Frog Pond, and Frog Pond/Alpine Road Remnant c. 5 - 6 days of weeding at Spring Down by a contractor such as Go Native, Inc. d. routine maintenance at Shady Trail and Triangle Park e. maintenance of trails within town-owned open space parcels (~4 miles of trails)

2. We recommend against applying the 2% UUT to trail maintenance outside town-owned open spaces without first completing a comprehensive discussion that involves the Trails and Paths Committee, Town staff, and neighborhood groups that already work together on trail maintenance.7 We note that:
a. About 22 miles of trails, or roughly half the total length of trails8 in Portola Valley (not including Windy Hill trails) are in road rights-of-way. The rights-of-way are managed for multiple goals such as safe transit, utility corridors, evacuation 1 https://ballotpedia.org/Town_of_Portola_Valley_Open_Space_Appropriations,_Measure_R_(November_2009) 2 https://www.portolavalley.net/home/showpublisheddocument/13036/637045996424270000 red pages 53-67 3 Review by the Open Space Committee will be on Nov. 12, and by the Conservation Committee on Nov. 26. 4 Map of open spaces in Portola Valley, including the principal town-owned parcels: Ford Field, Frog Pond, Shady Trail, Spring Down, Triangle Park https://www.portolavalley.net/home/showdocument?id=2747 5 This includes the Alpine Road Remnant, which was designated for open space purposes by the Council in 2021:
https://www.portolavalley.net/home/showpublisheddocument/14723/637611825576800000 pages 2948-49. 6 We thank Recreational Facilities Coordinator Justin Bixby for providing a breakdown of mowing costs and weeding costs. Justin has managed mowing and weeding for years in a cost-conscious way. He hires contractors who know the Town’s parcels and priorities. Against the exodus of many town staff, Justin Bixby and Scott Weber stand out as staff members who have remained and whose experience and institutional memory are vital to the Town and provide significant cost-savings. 7 We thank Gary Hanning of the Trails and Paths Committee for an overview of seasonal trail maintenance, trail repairs, capital improvements, and trail work by Town staff and volunteers. 8 We thank Dave Evans for sharing detailed data on trail segment lengths, which we used together with his trail map (https://www.portolavalley.net/home/showpublisheddocument/18321/638494781326030000 ) to categorize ~44 miles of unpaved trails in Portola Valley (not including those in Windy Hill). safety, and recreation. Open space considerations are primarily about views to adjoining land and scenic horizons.
b. Roughly two fifths (~18 miles) of trails are easements to the town on private property or informal neighborhood trails. Multiple groups are already involved in maintenance of these trails.
9 3. We recommend stronger partnerships, coordination, and outreach in order to make the best use of maintenance dollars, specifically:
a. Creating a standing joint subcommittee from Open Space and Conservation to help ensure that maintenance priorities are identified by Conservation and evaluated by Open Space, providing checks and balances. b. Closer coordination between the joint subcommittee and Justin Bixby to aid the success of weeding and mowing—where timing is everything!—and extend opportunities for checks and balances.
c. Outreach to neighbor groups of each open space to provide additional volunteer contributions, similar to the efforts at Frog Pond organized by PV Ranch. Examples include: horse-grazing days at Spring Down; student weeders at “poppy corner” in Triangle Park; an adopt-a-trail program.

4. We recommend a return to annual reports to the Town Council by town committees so as to increase awareness of on-the-ground committee work that serves the Town and saves it money. Examples of projects and workdays by the Conservation Committee include:
a. For >20 years,
10 an annual town-wide “Broom pull” in the road rights-of-way11 b. Removal of Dittrichia (stinkwort) from all principal open space areas12 c. Spring Down weeding and seeding13
d. Surveys by botanists to compile plant lists for Spring Down14 and Frog Pond15 e. Eradication of an invasive tree, Ailanthus altissima, on Ford Field, Spring Down We hope these recommendations help the Council create a budget that sustains the Town’s core open spaces, honors the will of voters, and is sound and balanced.

Respectfully,
Joint Subcommittee from the Conservation Committee and Open Space Committee:

Nona Chiariello
Nancy Freire
Judith Murphy
Gary Nielsen
9 For example, Trails and Paths Committee members on horseback prune trees to ensure clearance for horses. 10 https://www.almanacnews.com/morgue/2004/2004_04_07.zbroom.shtml 11 https://www.portolavalley.net/Home/Components/Calendar/Event/32560/20?curm=3&cury=2024 12 https://www.portolavalley.net/home/showpublisheddocument/18786/638646903250200000 pages 9-12 13 For example: https://pvforum.us/g/main/topic/105757341#msg190715 14 https://www.portolavalley.net/home/showpublisheddocument/18786/638646903250200000 pages 5-8 15 https://www.calflora.org/app/ipl?bloom=t&vrid=svy3632 












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