No Bookmarks Exist.
OK, well, welcome everyone. | 00:00:00 | |
This is the final meeting of the year. | 00:00:05 | |
And if we can have a motion to approve the agenda? | 00:00:08 | |
So moved. | 00:00:15 | |
All in favor. | 00:00:18 | |
Aye opposed. | 00:00:19 | |
OK. Does anybody have any announcements? | 00:00:26 | |
I should you want to start first. | 00:00:32 | |
I'd be happy to chair Myers, but maybe we could start with A roll call vote and then we'll move into the announcement, if you | 00:00:34 | |
don't mind. | 00:00:38 | |
Commissioner. | 00:00:44 | |
Here, Commissioner. | 00:00:46 | |
Commissioner walking stick. | 00:00:49 | |
Secretary. | 00:00:52 | |
Present, Commissioner. | 00:00:53 | |
Vice Chair Dunn. | 00:00:57 | |
Chair Myers. | 00:01:00 | |
Here. | 00:01:02 | |
And now I'll launch into the staff. | 00:01:14 | |
Starting. | 00:01:18 | |
My staff is happy to announce the dissemination of the proposed. | 00:01:20 | |
Revisions to Title 12, Trees and the Urban Forest. | 00:01:25 | |
This is available to all the NRC members and the public. The easiest way to find it is to go to cityofpg.org/news. | 00:01:28 | |
Or search board on the city's. | 00:01:37 | |
And there are There's a tracked changes copy and a clean copy of the proposed revisions to the tree ordinance. | 00:01:40 | |
And this was part of the larger effort that is in line with the City Council. | 00:01:47 | |
Goals Work plan for 2324 to initiate and complete a Citywide tree Improvement and Management plan and this is the first milestone | 00:01:53 | |
to complete. | 00:01:58 | |
Comprehensive Title 12 revisions and to ultimately have those revisions reviewed by the BNRC, so we're hoping that this will be | 00:02:04 | |
the main agenda item for the January meeting. | 00:02:09 | |
And the religion see. | 00:02:15 | |
Clarify findings for tree removal and trimming to create a more transparent decision making process. | 00:02:18 | |
Enhance the replanting. | 00:02:26 | |
Update the fee. | 00:02:28 | |
Leave AMP the floor process and hopefully streamline and depoliticize the appeal process and make the code more accessible and | 00:02:31 | |
navigatable for the public. | 00:02:36 | |
So that is all available online for everyone's review between now. | 00:02:42 | |
The January meeting and we hope that any public members with input can submit that to by January 19th. | 00:02:47 | |
To be included. | 00:02:55 | |
January BNRC. | 00:02:57 | |
And then kind of along the same lines in the topic of trees, if you want to give a quick update of the monarch sanctuary. | 00:02:59 | |
The numbers with from the weekly counts from the museum staff have hovered around 6000 between 5 and 7000. | 00:03:06 | |
For the last few weeks, and the Public Works did make the decision to shut the lower section of The Walking path to the public. | 00:03:15 | |
There's a large pine tree. | 00:03:20 | |
That was known to suffer from Pitch Canker. It's kind of one of a pair of trees that the other of the pair was removed ahead of | 00:03:26 | |
the 22 season. | 00:03:30 | |
And we kind of watched this tree decline and just in the last couple months rapidly decline where there's. | 00:03:34 | |
No visible green foliage in the crown and the tree is just immediately adjacent to the path as large branches that hangover the | 00:03:42 | |
path and has a tilt towards the path. So just in an abundance of caution. | 00:03:48 | |
For the visiting public, we have shut that section of the path down South, starting at the lower entrance on Grove Anchor up to | 00:03:55 | |
the kind of right where the the kind of open bulb of benches and the beginning of the nectar beds. It's shut to public access. | 00:04:03 | |
But you can still access from Ridge Rd. At the upper entrance. The bathrooms are still open and where the bulk of the monarchs are | 00:04:12 | |
overwintering. | 00:04:15 | |
Is a wide open. | 00:04:20 | |
That's that. Thank you. | 00:04:22 | |
What's the? What's the count? | 00:04:24 | |
I believe. | 00:04:27 | |
Close to 6000 And if you hold on one second, I'll give you an exact. | 00:04:28 | |
As of December 15th, the last count was 5900 and. | 00:04:52 | |
And I think 95% of those are on One Pine Tree. | 00:04:58 | |
Very close to the path, so if you haven't had a chance. | 00:05:02 | |
Highly recommended. | 00:05:05 | |
That's good. | 00:05:06 | |
Thank you. Do any commissioners have any comments? | 00:05:09 | |
Marty Mythologies Excuse me in advance to Mr. Go. I'm going to bring up a subject that he and I have talked about before. It has | 00:05:14 | |
to do with St. sweeping. | 00:05:19 | |
I continue to be concerned about the. | 00:05:26 | |
What I see is the inadequacy of the number of times our streets are getting cleaned. We are blessed to be a tree city. | 00:05:31 | |
The downside of that is that we have a lot of needles and leaves in the gutters. | 00:05:40 | |
And a lot of that. | 00:05:46 | |
Snagging the. | 00:05:48 | |
The the sewer drains. | 00:05:52 | |
Some of it ends up in the Bay. You can see a clumped at lovers point and then plastic residue catches in it. | 00:05:55 | |
And it all ends up in the ocean. And I went by today one of my favorite watering holes. | 00:06:02 | |
At the corner of 17 Mile Drive and. | 00:06:09 | |
And somebody continues to scoop that out by hand. | 00:06:13 | |
Otherwise it would be incredibly backed up. As it was last year. I took a picture. | 00:06:18 | |
But as I understand it, we have a the city does not own the street cleaning equipment. It's a contract job out. | 00:06:23 | |
But I I really believe that if we were able. | 00:06:31 | |
The same old story. Find some. | 00:06:36 | |
To increase the number of the sweeps this our streets get that it would improve the the health of the Bay. Thank you. | 00:06:38 | |
A few critics? Anyone else? | 00:06:49 | |
Yeah, we just wrapped up the Sea Watch Seabird Census and now we're upon Audubon Christmas bird count reminder, I don't know if | 00:06:56 | |
you all. | 00:07:01 | |
Know about that, but it is a bird census across the country. | 00:07:07 | |
In this area we have a few. The one closest is. | 00:07:12 | |
The Monterey Bay on December 27th, and for new birders, Amanda Priest will be doing. | 00:07:18 | |
Beginners. | 00:07:25 | |
Christmas bird count at a sale, Lamar. That morning. So good citizen science. | 00:07:27 | |
I'm sorry, what was the second one? | 00:07:34 | |
The the Audubon. | 00:07:36 | |
Audubon Christmas Bird. | 00:07:38 | |
27th of December. | 00:07:41 | |
Yeah. | 00:07:43 | |
OK, moving on. | 00:07:51 | |
This Council. | 00:07:54 | |
Yeah. Thank you. | 00:07:59 | |
I want to look so forget about. | 00:08:00 | |
I don't know if it's appropriate, but I wanted to invite Jennifer Gorman to be on the Tree subcommittee. | 00:08:03 | |
We're going to be talking about that later. This is the end because this is the end of the year. We're going to be re establishing | 00:08:12 | |
the subcommittees. In fact, I I wanted to say a few words about that so we can get a jump on it. | 00:08:19 | |
And then I attended a online relief RLRELEAF meeting. | 00:08:28 | |
And the topic was. | 00:08:36 | |
Schools being involved and I thought that was so appropriate because the city manager at the last council meeting. | 00:08:38 | |
Said he was reaching out to the schools to establish a relationship. | 00:08:46 | |
The city and and the school district and the first part of the meeting I'm happy to forward to anyone who's interested was. | 00:08:51 | |
Videotape for the first time. And that was an excellent presentation, but it was that was a presentation. And when you got down to | 00:08:59 | |
the nitty gritty of what's it like to go before a school board, well, what's it like to go into a teacher's classroom? And how do | 00:09:05 | |
you advocate for funding? | 00:09:10 | |
And. | 00:09:16 | |
Each specific games and things you can do with the children. | 00:09:20 | |
All that part they didn't want to intimidate people from discussing, so they didn't record it, but hopefully they will next time. | 00:09:26 | |
Really, really good ideas I took. | 00:09:30 | |
Really good notes and it was for all ages, everything from first grade through high school and there are so many resources out | 00:09:35 | |
there. | 00:09:41 | |
It would be such a wonderful thing to invol. | 00:09:47 | |
Our school children in what we. | 00:09:51 | |
And like I noticed that our arborists involved Trinity High School recently in a tree planting and that would be so excellent to | 00:09:54 | |
actually involve our. | 00:09:59 | |
Our residents. | 00:10:05 | |
And then the second announcement I had was. | 00:10:07 | |
About it issues here. | 00:10:13 | |
I had a. | 00:10:16 | |
First, I noticed it was just getting more and more difficult to access like our videos on our page. Like you had to go through. I | 00:10:19 | |
wouldn't say difficult, but more steps to get there. And so I had a discussion with Dara Sanders and she said, Oh yeah, a lot of | 00:10:24 | |
the cities that I work. | 00:10:29 | |
With when they start expanding their IT program and trying to to to. | 00:10:35 | |
Better their. | 00:10:42 | |
They layer it and I wasn't familiar with this concept of layering and when you layer it to make it effective for the the | 00:10:45 | |
programmers and the people during the work, a lot of times that public access aspect is made a little more challenging and so I | 00:10:51 | |
just wanted to put it out there. | 00:10:57 | |
Maybe as a potential agenda item to recommend to council to. | 00:11:04 | |
Ask the IT people to. | 00:11:11 | |
Make it. | 00:11:14 | |
For the public, because we want to encourage people to get involved, we want to encourage people to become part of the city | 00:11:16 | |
government. We don't want to do anything to discourage that and. | 00:11:21 | |
I'm not sure I'd be able to really readily figure out how to go listen to a video of our meeting today. | 00:11:27 | |
If I if I if I started with how it is? | 00:11:34 | |
OK. And then. | 00:11:39 | |
I did. I did want to see. George, thank you so much for that announcement about the. | 00:11:42 | |
Title 12 revisions. Those revisions sound excellent. I haven't had time to look at them yet, but. | 00:11:47 | |
What you said sounds spot on to me about what needs to be revised and. | 00:11:52 | |
You know, with that in mind, I did want to announce that. | 00:12:03 | |
At 675 pine, there are three trees being taken. | 00:12:08 | |
Or. | 00:12:12 | |
And with regards to the revisions of the Title 12, I think they provide a lot of food. | 00:12:17 | |
For thought about those revisions. So one thing is that the money's coming from the owner. | 00:12:26 | |
Another thing is just native versus non-native. | 00:12:34 | |
Supposedly they're given the OK to come down because they're non-native, but they're also over 6 inches and that's protected by | 00:12:38 | |
Muni code. | 00:12:42 | |
There's the issue of what do you do when a sidewalk cracks? How do you prevent sidewalks from cracking? | 00:12:48 | |
There's so much here additionally. | 00:12:55 | |
Again, this going back to this IT issue of public access to information. | 00:13:02 | |
How do we, how how could we have accessed online immediately the Arborist report? So all of this I I hope we will certainly be | 00:13:10 | |
recommending using this as an example to recommend for the title 12 revisions, but. | 00:13:17 | |
I I hope people will start thinking about it now. | 00:13:25 | |
Because that's in January and it's only one meeting, Secretary Lee. Perhaps these thoughts are best held and kind of pondered by | 00:13:28 | |
everyone and then on a discussed as an agendaized item in January as opposed to at this venue as an announcement. | 00:13:37 | |
Is that the January meeting is really going to get in depth with with the the report that's coming, the changes that are being | 00:13:46 | |
made. | 00:13:49 | |
And I would suggest that we talk about it. OK, just one more sentence. And that sentence is? | 00:13:53 | |
I'd like you to walk through the streets and encourage envisioning how you want it to look. Because when you start looking at the | 00:14:00 | |
Title 12 for Visions, you get in your head, you get intellectual, you start. You know all that. And just to like, what do I want | 00:14:05 | |
my town to look like as best? | 00:14:10 | |
Thank you. | 00:14:18 | |
Wonderful. | 00:14:21 | |
I just wanted to, I kind of made a reference to it. So this is the final meeting of the year at the beginning. Next month we will | 00:14:23 | |
be starting all over with 2024 goals. | 00:14:30 | |
New subcommittees, new subcommittee assignments. | 00:14:37 | |
So if everybody can be thinking about how they'd like to change the goals, add, add some goals, delete some goals, modify them. | 00:14:41 | |
And and same with the subcommittees. Do we want to increase the number of subcommittees? Do we want to change, you know, change | 00:14:50 | |
them, delete them? | 00:14:55 | |
If you. | 00:15:02 | |
Send your thoughts and preferences as to also to which subcommittees you'd like to be on. | 00:15:03 | |
To me in the next month. | 00:15:10 | |
Then we'll get a, we'll get a head start and hopefully we can get those wrapped up and finalized in the January meeting. | 00:15:12 | |
So it may take a little bit longer, but hopefully not like to hit the ground running. | 00:15:21 | |
OK, council liaison announce. | 00:15:27 | |
Council Member Co. | 00:15:32 | |
Good afternoon, Chair Myers and members of the BNRC. | 00:15:34 | |
I like you. | 00:15:38 | |
We're kind of at our last meeting, which will be tomorrow. | 00:15:41 | |
But things are winding down. | 00:15:45 | |
But there are a couple of things worth mentioning on tomorrow night's agenda. | 00:15:47 | |
One of them being consideration of the proposed Chinese pavilion project in Elmira **** Park. | 00:15:52 | |
And then also. | 00:16:00 | |
A special shout out regarding Rocky Pinero's retirement The mayor will be having a proclamation honoring Rocky. | 00:16:02 | |
And as many contributions to the city. | 00:16:13 | |
He certainly participated in a supporting local events. | 00:16:15 | |
Keeping our downtown and the rest of the. | 00:16:21 | |
In shape and he will be sorely missed. I've known him since I was a child, so. | 00:16:24 | |
Goodman and he will be missed. | 00:16:30 | |
Also, just a reminder that the Mayor and the City Clerk are accepting applications for our city boards, committees and | 00:16:33 | |
commissions. | 00:16:37 | |
So if you have anyone or know of anyone that might be interested. | 00:16:42 | |
Please direct them to the city. | 00:16:46 | |
For the mayor, have a good meeting. Thank you. | 00:16:48 | |
Thank you. | 00:16:52 | |
OK, now we'll open it up to general public. | 00:16:55 | |
We have two hands raised in the virtual audience. | 00:17:05 | |
We'll start with Inga, Lawrence and D. | 00:17:09 | |
Thank you. I'm going to first say Chair Myers, if you turn your head and don't speak directly into your mic, I really can't hear | 00:17:14 | |
you. So I would appreciate it because they are unidirectional mics. Thank you. And then I wanted to speak to Commissioner Dunn's. | 00:17:24 | |
Comment about the street sweeping because I find it incredibly useless. | 00:17:34 | |
And what it actually does is they go barreling down the middle of the street in our narrow streets and cars of course there, but | 00:17:42 | |
they don't ever clean the gutters. They just push anything that might be leftover from the wind in the middle of the street into | 00:17:50 | |
the gutters and yes, into our storm drains. And I don't think it's really a matter of. | 00:17:58 | |
Pushing more money at them because their contract is huge already. | 00:18:06 | |
It's just the way they go about it and what seems to be considered OK and I don't think it's OK. | 00:18:11 | |
So thank you very much. | 00:18:20 | |
Thank you. | 00:18:24 | |
And we also have a hand raised from Lisa. | 00:18:27 | |
Thank you. I wrote to you a few hours ago about lack of transparency and neglect of stewardship regarding PG's natural resources, | 00:18:32 | |
specifically regarding tree removal. The plan to remove three city trees, including beautiful red flowering eucalyptus on Pine | 00:18:40 | |
Ave. at Congress is a huge concern. This species can bloom profusely throughout the year. It's not native, but a marvelous | 00:18:47 | |
pollinator species that's planted on both sides of the street along pine. | 00:18:55 | |
We need more of them, not fewer. We need increased canopy, not reduced canopy. | 00:19:03 | |
I don't live on pine and I didn't see the notice driving by. It would have cost a citizen $225.00 to appeal Public Works plan. | 00:19:09 | |
Checking Public Works free permit website, I learned that Public Works didn't provide a permit application documenting any | 00:19:16 | |
justification for removing the trees. Posting the permit application has been standard practice. Proper notice was not provided. | 00:19:24 | |
Apparently the trees are being removed due to damage to the sidewalk. | 00:19:31 | |
There appear to be far better alternatives than removing 3 trees. | 00:19:39 | |
I've only just had a chance to read quickly the arborist report. It does not address potential alternatives. | 00:19:43 | |
Did Public Works or the Arborist read the city's 2012 Urban Forestry Standards document? It can be found on the Public Works | 00:19:50 | |
website, although it requires A convoluted series of steps for the public to find it. The document explains how to deal with | 00:19:56 | |
sidewalk damage without removing trees. | 00:20:02 | |
Rebecca Lee provided additional recommendations from experts for responding to tree root conflicts with sidewalks when the Elm | 00:20:08 | |
Tree and Jewell Park was under discussion. | 00:20:12 | |
Preserving our tree canopy is more important than ever as we experience the impacts of climate change. I request that you consider | 00:20:17 | |
a policy or ordinance that adds a step in the tree permit process for Public Works to submit to the BNRC all tree removal permits, | 00:20:25 | |
including supporting information prior to public posting, giving BNRC the authority to call up permits that raise concerns. Any | 00:20:33 | |
BNRC member or subcommittee could place the item on the BNRC agenda following public posting. | 00:20:41 | |
Or there should be a requirement that the posted notice provide electronic access information to the permit application and any | 00:20:50 | |
supporting documents about the permit. The notice in question refers a person to call or e-mail Albert Weisface, the very busy | 00:20:57 | |
City Arborist. An appeal fee should be eliminated for public trees and for any tree removal called up by BNRC. My suggestion is | 00:21:04 | |
conceptual and details would need to be worked out of course. | 00:21:11 | |
And I assume you will. | 00:21:19 | |
But well, you'll be obviously talking about the tree. | 00:21:21 | |
I'm sorry, ordinance updates. | 00:21:28 | |
Next month, but please agenda, Agenda is this topic. | 00:21:31 | |
Thank you. | 00:21:36 | |
We have no further int. | 00:21:40 | |
Thank you. | 00:21:45 | |
OK, so we have a motion to approve the minutes. | 00:21:49 | |
2nd. | 00:21:59 | |
All in favor. | 00:22:01 | |
Any opposed? | 00:22:03 | |
Motion passes. | 00:22:06 | |
OK, next for our regular agenda. | 00:22:16 | |
The BNRC has representatives on the Climate Action Adaptation Planning Subcommittee. | 00:22:20 | |
We have three slots, two of which now are vacant with the departure of Megan McKenna and Claudia Tibbs. | 00:22:28 | |
So I. | 00:22:37 | |
We need, we need to nominate. | 00:22:40 | |
Did you? I don't know if you had anything that you wanted. | 00:22:42 | |
Chair Myers I do not have a presentation. | 00:22:47 | |
That sums it up nicely. | 00:22:51 | |
This meeting is scheduled for the middle of February. | 00:22:55 | |
It meets. | 00:22:59 | |
Generally. | 00:23:00 | |
I would. | 00:23:03 | |
To nom. | 00:23:06 | |
Kathy Wooten, because this is an agenda as item, perhaps we could open it to public comment. OK, before we move to that set. | 00:23:08 | |
That's good. | 00:23:12 | |
We had a one hand raised, Miss Lisa. Johnny. | 00:23:22 | |
Thank you. So I'm really glad to see this agenda item and I don't know if this is what's been holding things up so that we haven't | 00:23:26 | |
had as many meetings as you know the very. | 00:23:33 | |
Charged up. | 00:23:41 | |
Subcommittee or committee? | 00:23:45 | |
Is ready for it. They really wanted to move along and there have been very few meetings so. | 00:23:49 | |
I I, I look forward to having new members. | 00:23:59 | |
New enthusiastic members on that wonderful sub sub. | 00:24:04 | |
Thank you. | 00:24:09 | |
No further hands raised. | 00:24:12 | |
Thank you. | 00:24:14 | |
Does anyone does anyone have anything that they? | 00:24:17 | |
ADD I just wanted to say I really appreciated Colleen Ingram's letter and her suggestion to do this like. | 00:24:21 | |
Like the wildlife subcommittee was done so that it it is a term and it goes fast and so you you can achieve more in a shorter | 00:24:30 | |
period of time. | 00:24:35 | |
So, but I'm not going to be on the subcommittee, so someone else is going to have to take that idea up. | 00:24:43 | |
So I I. | 00:24:56 | |
To recommend. | 00:24:58 | |
Jennifer Gordon Foreman and Kathy. | 00:25:01 | |
But I'm certainly we can certainly talk about anybody that wants to be on. | 00:25:06 | |
Sub. | 00:25:13 | |
Be great. | 00:25:15 | |
Marty's interested. | 00:25:18 | |
We have two two openings. | 00:25:25 | |
So. | 00:25:27 | |
Well, you nobody's voted on anything, so I just would like to know who's, who's interested. I talked to you. You're not so. | 00:25:30 | |
So let's do it. I would move that Kathy wouldn't be. | 00:25:42 | |
Nominated to be on the climate action. | 00:25:48 | |
Plan. | 00:25:51 | |
All in favor. | 00:25:55 | |
Any. | 00:25:58 | |
Motion passes. | 00:26:00 | |
OK, Next I would recommend that Jennifer Gorman be. | 00:26:03 | |
Nominated to be on the Climate Action Subcommittee. | 00:26:11 | |
All in favor. | 00:26:20 | |
Aye, aye. | 00:26:21 | |
Any. | 00:26:23 | |
Motion passes. | 00:26:27 | |
Thank you. | 00:26:29 | |
Hey. | 00:26:37 | |
Really the last thing to that we have on the agenda tonight is the coastal wildlife protection measures. This is in follow up to. | 00:26:39 | |
The presentations that we had last month which were fabulous. | 00:26:51 | |
I know. I think, George, you have a PowerPoint and Andre. | 00:26:57 | |
A submitted 1. | 00:27:01 | |
Yes, if you can bear with me while I. | 00:27:06 | |
So a very brief slideshow just to lay out the kind of groundwork of where we're at now as far as coastal signage near Hopkins | 00:27:33 | |
Beach. And I know that this agenda item covers a lot more. | 00:27:39 | |
Coastal signage at Hopkins Beach, but I know that, but I understand this to be the focus. So I just wanted to kind of get us all | 00:27:46 | |
on the same page on where we are now as far as coastal signage and I know that. | 00:27:51 | |
Commissioner Person also has prepared a presentation, so I don't know if we want to have a discussion following this or go right | 00:27:58 | |
into her presentation, but I'll start with this. | 00:28:01 | |
The area in question. | 00:28:07 | |
Here is an aerial view Hopkins Beach next to the Hopkins Marine Station. | 00:28:10 | |
And kind of working its way over to about 8th St. and Berwick Park. | 00:28:14 | |
The semi currently I think that's about 2014 A rec Rex the following signs. | 00:28:24 | |
Of two varieties, about 30 signs. | 00:28:32 | |
And they go up seasonally. | 00:28:34 | |
With the Lattice Fencing. | 00:28:36 | |
And so they're installed with approximately 270 feet of temporary lattice fencing. They're erected at the beginning of pumping | 00:28:43 | |
season, approximately March, but very varying year to year and they up. | 00:28:49 | |
Until May 31st. | 00:28:55 | |
And with the 30 signs just under 300 feet, that's about a sign every 10 feet. | 00:28:57 | |
A permanent sign that we have. It can be seen right here. | 00:29:07 | |
And if you kind of follow the arrow. | 00:29:10 | |
Just asked Berwick. So very close to 8th St. at a little turn out to anybody walking on a path could just step aside from the path | 00:29:13 | |
and take a look at that sign right there and you can see that sign is all about. | 00:29:20 | |
Rubber seals. There's quite a bit of information, very nice interpretive pictures. | 00:29:26 | |
Shows kind of their. | 00:29:31 | |
And also. | 00:29:33 | |
Information on what to do. | 00:29:35 | |
Wildlife disturbances or abandoned or sick wildlife and also includes. | 00:29:38 | |
Warnings against drone use and. | 00:29:43 | |
And here's a view of that same sign from the path, so you can see Hopkins in the distance. | 00:29:48 | |
And there's. | 00:29:53 | |
All right, walking down the path, here's a smaller sign that is just. | 00:29:56 | |
I don't know, 30 or 40 feet down the way and this includes a QR code that links to the cities. | 00:30:01 | |
Phone based app. | 00:30:08 | |
Walking. | 00:30:10 | |
And that walking tour includes a stop all about Hopkins Beach, so it has information about the harbor seals. | 00:30:12 | |
And information on what tourists can do to help the harbor. | 00:30:17 | |
And here's a view of that. | 00:30:23 | |
From the bath, you can see it's right. It's a smaller sign. It's on a post. I think it's one of the whole series of these walking | 00:30:25 | |
tour prompts that suggest people scan QR code, bring up The Walking tour on their phones, and then. | 00:30:32 | |
Learn about our. | 00:30:39 | |
Walking further along towards Hopkins. | 00:30:41 | |
Here's another kind of a larger maybe. | 00:30:44 | |
The size of four of these approximately. | 00:30:47 | |
Sign titled Conserving California's Coastal Treasures. You can see it includes some information on harbor seals. | 00:30:50 | |
And also there's mostly focused on the different protected areas. | 00:30:57 | |
Of the. | 00:31:00 | |
And you can see the arrow, that sign is just a little further down on another turn out with a bench right there near the beginning | 00:31:03 | |
of the gated area of Hopkins. | 00:31:08 | |
And then just just past that sign you. | 00:31:14 | |
Hopkins pronunciation signs to stay off their property and then just a little further down from there. | 00:31:18 | |
You have the kind of generic warning that. | 00:31:24 | |
Climbing on the rocks and swimming is not safe. | 00:31:27 | |
And then looking. This is a ways down, walking towards the aquarium and looking back. | 00:31:31 | |
You can see there's not a lot of sign there's not signage up on for the most of the fence line. | 00:31:37 | |
Immediately adjacent to the. | 00:31:42 | |
Bing Beach and then you can see the Welcome to Pacific Grove sign on the left there. | 00:31:46 | |
So that is kind of the summary of signs in this general area. | 00:31:54 | |
Thank you. That was. | 00:32:00 | |
Do you want to have a? Do you want to have any discussion on that? Or I think maybe we have Andre's presentation 1st and then we | 00:32:05 | |
can discuss it all? | 00:32:09 | |
Would you like Andres presentation? | 00:32:17 | |
Thank you. | 00:32:21 | |
That was super. | 00:32:23 | |
And much nicer photos on PowerPoint than mine. | 00:32:26 | |
I don't know. | 00:33:16 | |
That in presentation screen. Oh, maybe it is OK. Thank you so much. OK, so. | 00:33:19 | |
We're going to speak about the harbor seal Rookery primarily at Hopkins Beach tonight. I really wanted to. | 00:33:27 | |
Kind of summarize what we've heard I think at BNRC for the last year, speakers coming in with concerns, people sending in letters | 00:33:35 | |
and summarize that especially for our new people. | 00:33:42 | |
At BNRC. | 00:33:48 | |
Next slide please. Thank you. | 00:33:50 | |
OK, so a bit about our harbor seals. They are resident icons. | 00:33:52 | |
They do promote ecotourism. People come from all around the world, all around the country to see these animals. | 00:33:57 | |
They bring in a lot of tourist dollars because people do come to the fence to see them. Some have never seen harbor seals. | 00:34:07 | |
Some have never seen the Pacific Ocean. | 00:34:14 | |
And after watching these sales for hours and learning about them, they do get hungry. And so we do send them off seal monitors and | 00:34:17 | |
Bay net over downtown to the restaurants and shops. | 00:34:23 | |
So again, they do bring in a lot of tourist dollars. | 00:34:30 | |
I would say they are highly educational on. | 00:34:34 | |
You can see their annual life cycle. | 00:34:38 | |
Right there, which I cannot tell you as a biologist how amazing that is to have this Rookery. So I'm going to go through that a | 00:34:41 | |
little bit on the next slide, but I will also say that they're scenic. | 00:34:47 | |
We can go back to that side scenic and also very charismatic. I think it would be a very different beach without. | 00:34:54 | |
These seals on it. | 00:35:01 | |
OK. So we're going to talk a bit about annual energetic demands and their annual cycle. So effectively we're going to talk about a | 00:35:06 | |
female harbor. | 00:35:11 | |
So right now we're in December, getting into January. Our females are in their last trimester, so a really critical time for them. | 00:35:16 | |
They will begin popping. Peak is April, primarily from February, end of February into May, another critical time for them. | 00:35:25 | |
There's a lot of maternal care that goes into these pups. Those females stay with them. | 00:35:38 | |
Four to six weeks, they. | 00:35:44 | |
They're lactating. They're they're feeding these pups four to six weeks. And the pups get bigger, the females get smaller. The | 00:35:48 | |
females are basically not eating. | 00:35:53 | |
They are out teaching these pups to. | 00:35:58 | |
At about four to six weeks, weaning takes place where the. | 00:36:02 | |
Uh, moms effectively have to go back to the sea. They need to start eating again. So it's a, it's a it's really survival for them. | 00:36:07 | |
So they will wean the pups at that time. | 00:36:12 | |
Effectively when they when they wean and go back into the ocean to feed they made. | 00:36:19 | |
They have a nine month gestation, but we could say maybe a 10 month gestation period because of delayed implantation and that is | 00:36:26 | |
where the egg will be fertilized, but it'll float around and it will not attach. | 00:36:33 | |
To the uterine wall. And so basically that gives this female about a month's time to kind of regroup. | 00:36:41 | |
And put her fat back on before she starts the process all over again. | 00:36:49 | |
So while she is pregnant, she then will molt on the beaches on Hopkins Beach in the summertime. So if you look at these this | 00:36:55 | |
photo. | 00:36:59 | |
You'll see a pup and you'll see a mom next to it. The mom, of course, being the larger animal on that code, is kind of dingy. | 00:37:06 | |
She's been wearing that coat for a year. She is going to have a sparkling, silvery pellage just like that pop next to her, but | 00:37:11 | |
that will take. | 00:37:17 | |
Energetic demands and she will be on the beach shedding that skin and creating this beautiful. | 00:37:24 | |
Silvery. | 00:37:32 | |
Next slide please. | 00:37:34 | |
So annual energetic needs are really pretty basic. They need food, they need a safe, quiet habitat and they need sleep. So the | 00:37:37 | |
seals really must haul out on land to ensure survival and reproduction. | 00:37:44 | |
Next slide. | 00:37:51 | |
So threats will go through them rather quickly. I've highlighted disturbance and harassment because I think that's really | 00:37:55 | |
something that we have some control over in Pacific Grove. | 00:38:00 | |
So threats, disturbance, harassment, declining beach sites. So habitat loss. | 00:38:06 | |
And they have R1 Beach, Hopkins Beach and Pacific. | 00:38:13 | |
Declining fish stocks? That's happening all over the planet. Declining fish stocks, disease, predation are natural threats to | 00:38:17 | |
these animals, but threats nonetheless. | 00:38:24 | |
Fishing gear. These animals can get caught in fishing gear and drown. | 00:38:31 | |
We have seen them at Hopkins with Hook. | 00:38:36 | |
In their mouths. Hooks on their faces, hooks on their. | 00:38:39 | |
Dragging fishing line climate change of course a global threat to these animals and that will. | 00:38:44 | |
Again. | 00:38:53 | |
Further decline beach sites and fisheries. | 00:38:54 | |
Next slide please. | 00:38:59 | |
So disturbance and harassment. Disturbance is direct or indirect. It can come from land, air and sea. It does include noise, | 00:39:03 | |
motion and approach. I will say these animals are very skittish, unlike our sea lions. | 00:39:10 | |
Our sea lions, you can make noise around them. These animals will flush, They will abandoned sites. They will abandoned pups with | 00:39:18 | |
noise. | 00:39:23 | |
Also a reminder, seals are protected under the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act. So I do think it is incumbent upon us to be | 00:39:29 | |
doing all that we can for these animals And again, disturbance is a threat we have some control over. | 00:39:37 | |
OK, so here's our coastal. | 00:39:49 | |
I'm beyond recognition in some spots, so on the left, as George mentioned before, you can see Hopkins there and really no signs. | 00:39:51 | |
Along the. | 00:40:02 | |
Or really along the path on the right you see. | 00:40:04 | |
Probably popping season crowds, heavy crowds. I see blue bayonet jackets in there, which would be. | 00:40:09 | |
UMM volunteers advising, educating the public and probably doing some cloud control. | 00:40:19 | |
Keeping people quiet. | 00:40:25 | |
Again, we really don't have any permanent signs. | 00:40:29 | |
Coastal Trail. | 00:40:33 | |
Next slide. | 00:40:34 | |
OK. So briefly some recent studies of Hopkins that have. | 00:40:37 | |
Brought to our attention this year from some grad students, noise does alter seal behavior, increases risk of miscarriage. | 00:40:41 | |
Six fold and results in significant reproductive decline. | 00:40:50 | |
We did. | 00:40:56 | |
Reproductive success rates fall in from 2021 to 2022. | 00:40:58 | |
That was attributed to some road construction during puffing season. | 00:41:06 | |
And then Ryan, last month, Ryan O'Connor gave a wonderful presentation showing an overall decline in our Rookery. | 00:41:11 | |
Next slide please. | 00:41:22 | |
OK, so some city responses to students to seal disturbance I think have been really positive. Public Works does put up fencing and | 00:41:25 | |
signs at that 5th St. overflow during pupping season and City Council unanimously passed. | 00:41:32 | |
Road work restrictions during harbor seal pumping Season following. | 00:41:41 | |
The road construction in spring of 2022. | 00:41:45 | |
Next slide. | 00:41:51 | |
OK, so some recommendations. I would recommend year round signs for a year round Rookery in addition to signs during the pupping | 00:41:54 | |
season. I really liked this sign that I found. It is for endangered lung seals in Hawaii. | 00:42:02 | |
And I really liked it because it is a nice silhouette. I think especially for bike riders coming down the trail who are passing | 00:42:11 | |
very quickly, this kind of gives the brain. | 00:42:17 | |
An image and a quiet place, so I think it's a really nice sign that I think we could maybe work from. | 00:42:23 | |
Next slide. | 00:42:31 | |
OK, so some placement recommendations would be Hopkins area year round? | 00:42:32 | |
2 quiet sales signs along the bike path from both directions I think would be ideal. They could be somewhat low to the ground. | 00:42:38 | |
They don't have to be tall. | 00:42:43 | |
Maybe two to three signs on the fence, or potentially 2 signs lower to the ground. | 00:42:49 | |
In that vicinity, but a little bit away from the fence, so people are not climbing on the signs onto the fence. | 00:42:57 | |
5th St. during pupping season. I also think it'd be great to have some of these quiet still signs along the bike path from both | 00:43:04 | |
directions and some on the fence. | 00:43:08 | |
Next slide. | 00:43:13 | |
OK, so recommendations would be recommending the city place permanent year round signs in the Hopkins Coastal Trail area. Consider | 00:43:16 | |
additional signage of Hopkins and 5th St. during popping season and consult with Nic for final style and placement of signs. | 00:43:25 | |
Next slide please. I think with that we. | 00:43:34 | |
Wrapped up for potential. | 00:43:37 | |
Thank you. | 00:43:40 | |
That was great. I mean, I agree with everything. | 00:43:56 | |
The only thing I would say is, if you don't mind a suggestion to open up, open up the floor for public comment. We have some hands | 00:43:59 | |
raised. Sorry. | 00:44:04 | |
And also just a gentle reminder to everybody in the public end on the Dyess just to speak directly into the microphone for the | 00:44:12 | |
benefit of the virtual audience and the recording. Thank you. | 00:44:17 | |
Part of the SEAL team, so I want to thank you for bringing this forward. It is so needed and long overdue. | 00:44:33 | |
You know, I've been watching the Seals really since 2010 and my husband for about 20 years, and it didn't used to be such a big | 00:44:42 | |
deal in the past. I mean, we did have disturbances here and there and things would happen. And then there's the general. | 00:44:50 | |
Construction, which is one of the highest, but we didn't really have the kind of noise that we now have that came during the | 00:44:58 | |
pandemic and it never stopped. | 00:45:04 | |
And the wreck trail got a lot more rowdy. | 00:45:10 | |
And the noise, the sounds of radios just went way up. And that has become a huge problem for the harbor seals. | 00:45:12 | |
The racing cars that go up and down that street and revving motorcycles have also caused a huge disturbance. It was the number one | 00:45:21 | |
disturbance in November. | 00:45:26 | |
We saw 139 disturbances and number one were the cars that were revving their engines going by. | 00:45:32 | |
Number two were the human disturbances, So people at the fence line may be talking loud on their cell phones using the speaker | 00:45:40 | |
versus putting it to their head. | 00:45:45 | |
Or making noises, or ringing the bells from the bikes. Or just screaming at the side of Scene Harbor seals. You know kids can't | 00:45:50 | |
control themselves. | 00:45:54 | |
Maybe they're climbing the fence, but all of these things have dramatically increased since the pandemic, and it's become a real | 00:45:59 | |
problem. | 00:46:03 | |
So thank you for bringing this forward. Yes, our harbor seals need to sleep. They are nocturnal. And you know, as docents were out | 00:46:08 | |
there telling people this all the time, we do all the educating we can and at some point that is not enough. We need signage. So | 00:46:16 | |
people who have told us repeatedly come here to visit or why are there no signs here telling us to be quiet? | 00:46:25 | |
Then we can at least point to the. | 00:46:33 | |
Doesn't mean they're going to listen to it, but at least it's there and a lot of people will. A lot of people. | 00:46:36 | |
You don't want to know that they're not harming the seals, so let's give them that opportunity. | 00:46:42 | |
These guys, you know are known worldwide now. We should be proud to have a colony of seals that have a lot of fans. They're over | 00:46:48 | |
14,000. On their Facebook page we have people traveling from England, Ireland, Scotland. We've even had people from Russia. People | 00:46:55 | |
in England come regularly and we're in contact with them. That's the Cornwall seal people. So we do meet with them online and have | 00:47:03 | |
meetings back and forth with England. | 00:47:10 | |
So our seals are very popular. We are one of the few places in the Monterey Bay that have this large of a colony that's in a | 00:47:19 | |
location that people can see and not disturb. We just need to help them know how not to do that. | 00:47:26 | |
I think we owe it to the Seals. They give us a lot. So thank you for bringing this forward. | 00:47:35 | |
And any help you need were there to help you guys. | 00:47:40 | |
Thank you. | 00:47:45 | |
Hello, my name is Tricia Bennett. | 00:47:52 | |
Kim asked me to speak today because I'm a docent at Point Lopez. | 00:47:56 | |
And I'm the Harbour Seal Pup Watch Advocate at Point Lobos. | 00:48:00 | |
Our problems are not nearly as severe as yours, are disturbance problems simply because we are a reserve, a nature reserve, and | 00:48:08 | |
there's a certain. | 00:48:12 | |
Behaviour that's expected in the reserve and we have a lot of docents out and about keeping an eye on things. | 00:48:17 | |
We have 4 rookeries, harbour seal rookeries at Point Lobos. We don't have any signage up. | 00:48:24 | |
During the year, except during popping season from mid March to the end of May. | 00:48:33 | |
We don't really need signage, as I say, because we have a lot of docents out and about, keeping an eye on things, but the critical | 00:48:39 | |
time, as everybody knows, is popping season. | 00:48:44 | |
So Kim asked me to just talk about the science that we use during popping season. | 00:48:49 | |
In front of the rookeries themselves. I don't know if I should just hold this up or pass it around. | 00:48:55 | |
We have eye level signs that say quiet please and with a little bit of exclamation explanation as to why it's important to keep | 00:49:01 | |
quiet. | 00:49:06 | |
There's fairly effective, not 100% effective, but they do help. | 00:49:12 | |
I personally think we should actually reduce the wording on this sign because people don't really stop to read. The whole thing is | 00:49:17 | |
the quiet please one. That's the really important and the reason why. | 00:49:23 | |
Last popping season, so we introduced some other. | 00:49:29 | |
And this really made a huge. | 00:49:34 | |
This one right here. | 00:49:37 | |
First of all, the color. | 00:49:39 | |
Is quite striking. They're not State parks colours, but I got away with this somehow. | 00:49:42 | |
And there's a camera from the back of the room, if you don't mind showing the virtual audience. That's that's perfect. Thank you. | 00:49:48 | |
That's OK. Yeah. | 00:49:52 | |
So as you can see the lettering is an orange and it contrasts with the with the blue and it says you are approaching a harbor seal | 00:49:55 | |
birthing site. | 00:50:00 | |
And we found this made a huge difference. It really attracted people's attention. | 00:50:05 | |
And then by the time they got to the birthing site, they were they understood it was important to keep quiet. | 00:50:10 | |
Just a word on education. I do find I do a lot of training and a lot of explaining to the public. We do find that once people | 00:50:18 | |
understand why it's so important to keep quiet around the babies. | 00:50:24 | |
They really are on your side. | 00:50:30 | |
And they have, honestly, whisper quiet. It's absolutely fantastic. | 00:50:32 | |
So the signs do work. | 00:50:37 | |
Thank you. | 00:50:39 | |
Thank you. | 00:50:41 | |
Hi, I'm Tom Aikman, as I think most of you know. Andre, thank you. I'll not argue with the thing you said, but I'll. | 00:50:47 | |
Try to put a little depth into it. I've been a dozen down at the shoreline for 20 years. | 00:50:57 | |
And in that. | 00:51:02 | |
And put in a lot of hours. | 00:51:04 | |
But I've talked to more than 60,000 people face to. | 00:51:06 | |
The conversation has changed dramatically over 20 years. | 00:51:10 | |
In the beginning, 20 years ago, I would go down to do a bayonet shift. | 00:51:15 | |
And it was fairly slow. | 00:51:19 | |
And I would make myself stay until I talked to at least 20 people, and that would be two or three hours usually. And by then I | 00:51:22 | |
heard that's enough. | 00:51:26 | |
Report on SO I. | 00:51:31 | |
These days there will be 3 or 4 docents at the same. | 00:51:34 | |
And we'll all click 80 to 100 folks before our legs get out and we go. | 00:51:38 | |
It's a mob scene now. It has been growing over the years for a lot of reasons. One of the reasons is M started the Facebook page. | 00:51:43 | |
13 years. | 00:51:54 | |
And it has 14,000 followers. A lot of them are local, a lot of them are tourists, but it draws a lot of attention and clowns | 00:51:56 | |
always draw crowns. | 00:52:00 | |
But with the pandemic, we got mobs, we got a different kind of tourist, and we've always had, and we get rowdier and it's noisier, | 00:52:04 | |
and the electric bikes zipping down the path and trying to bowl people over haven't added to it. So my conversations these days | 00:52:11 | |
usually start off in some way to try to quiet things. | 00:52:18 | |
One of the first things I usually say to people that if you don't know, they're sleeping in the daytime and that's why they're not | 00:52:26 | |
sick, they're not dead, they're resting and we need to be quiet about. | 00:52:32 | |
I would welcome sign. | 00:52:39 | |
Over the years I like everybody else. I don't want to over sign the shoreline. I don't want to ruin the view. | 00:52:41 | |
But as time has gone by, I. | 00:52:48 | |
The text on the signs that the studio uses, we did that, I wrote that some years ago and the Coast Commission approved them and | 00:52:51 | |
blah blah blah, but. | 00:52:56 | |
We have, I will not divide signs now because when we had a few people going by, they may or may not have been that important when | 00:53:01 | |
you have the mobs we have now going. | 00:53:07 | |
If 20% of the books passing or approaching, see the signs and follow them. | 00:53:13 | |
That's a big. | 00:53:20 | |
And I would. I don't want to over. | 00:53:22 | |
Overlook the need for assigned to point Pinos or lovers Point, but in the Hopkins area I know and you know. | 00:53:25 | |
That we have thousands of people at a time down there during the pumping season. | 00:53:32 | |
And anything we can do to help draw attention to the need to be quiet. And it isn't just I don't want a complex sign. I want the | 00:53:37 | |
fewest words we can have and maybe just a sign to say quiet please or a quiet zone or, you know. | 00:53:45 | |
Sealed, sleeping up, sleeping, whatever, be fine, thank you. | 00:53:53 | |
Thank you. | 00:53:59 | |
Thank you Day and our three speakers. And we do have 3 Sandra's in the virtual audience. Sorry I gotta look. | 00:54:08 | |
True. | 00:54:16 | |
Let's start with Miss Ingle Lawrence Dah. | 00:54:20 | |
Thank you very much. | 00:54:23 | |
I love the signs idea. I like the ones in the letter that was sent to you too. I think it was either Tom or Kim, but the the more. | 00:54:26 | |
The. | 00:54:36 | |
And big enough and low enough to the ground. I love the seal. Just that seal with a monk seal. And possibly even, you know how you | 00:54:37 | |
have a daytime day headlight test section. Let's put daytime quiet zone, because this is the most important thing and they don't | 00:54:44 | |
seem to get that. | 00:54:51 | |
And then? | 00:54:59 | |
The no drones with our code. Those big signs need to be up to and interspaced along with the quiet. | 00:55:01 | |
And I agree that it doesn't need a lot and I'm talking about on the way to Hopkins and along there. | 00:55:12 | |
Because that really. | 00:55:20 | |
Need. | 00:55:22 | |
Effective sign. | 00:55:25 | |
That nobody has to stop and read a bunch or anything else because they're not going to. | 00:55:28 | |
And I don't know what you can do except for more enforcement on the revving their engines and the motorcycles. They'll wake me up | 00:55:33 | |
in the middle of the night, even. | 00:55:38 | |
But. | 00:55:44 | |
Simple. Effective. Large enough. | 00:55:46 | |
And definitely the drones. | 00:55:50 | |
Thank you very. | 00:55:54 | |
And we have a hand raised from Lisa. | 00:55:58 | |
Thank you. | 00:56:02 | |
We are so fortunate to have this Rookery protected by fencing and. | 00:56:05 | |
Amazing dedicated docents. | 00:56:12 | |
It's a. | 00:56:17 | |
Tony and I moved here from La Jolla. | 00:56:18 | |
There is a Rookery on the Coastal Trail, you could say, but it's just continual. | 00:56:22 | |
Aggravation. It's really difficult to to manage the people. | 00:56:33 | |
The signs are so important because they can be pointed to, whether it's by docents or by by residents or anybody who knows what's | 00:56:39 | |
going on, people get it. | 00:56:45 | |
Some people need signs they. | 00:56:52 | |
Really, pay attention to people. But signs. So the signs, especially the simple ones, The quiet, please. | 00:56:56 | |
And maybe a little detail, but not a lot. | 00:57:04 | |
Umm, the last. Oh my heavens, last year there were these. Pathetic. | 00:57:08 | |
Laminated signs on sandwich boards, you, some people or a frames. | 00:57:14 | |
That were there. We had lots of rain right? And and there was so much condensation inside you couldn't even read the signs. | 00:57:20 | |
So I there I hadn't thought about the issue. | 00:57:29 | |
People can climb on signs, so that would be tricky as far as spacing them, but the lower. | 00:57:34 | |
Ones that maybe come up to your thigh somewhere. They have some very nice ones at Moss Landing Marine Labs. | 00:57:41 | |
Anyway, that's a nice size where your height where you see them. | 00:57:51 | |
But they're not in your view. | 00:57:58 | |
So yes, people are more compliant when there's signs, OK, And just so important for our seals, but. | 00:58:01 | |
I would just like to add two things that we need signs on the streets. | 00:58:11 | |
Coming in to PG, I don't know if that was mentioned here, I didn't hear that and and the street obviously is is a real concern | 00:58:16 | |
and. | 00:58:22 | |
A neighbor, a wonderful young father on our street, walks his little girl in a stroller. | 00:58:29 | |
Almost every morning along the stretch West of Lovers Point, and there's two sets of rocks there on either side of what we call | 00:58:36 | |
Oak Rock. The the big one where the egret. | 00:58:43 | |
Stands and sometimes and it's covered with cormorants. | 00:58:50 | |
Sometimes black oyster catchers nest there. He's so distressed by people who taunt the seals trying to get a response to from | 00:58:55 | |
them. | 00:58:59 | |
So if there's any way to provide signs there too, that's not. | 00:59:04 | |
The huge priority that the Rookery is but but it is. People need to be educated, thank you very much. | 00:59:09 | |
Next we have Miss Carmelita Gar. | 00:59:21 | |
Thank you very much Andrew. The BNRC Commissioners, I want to thank you for your vacation and your work towards. | 00:59:26 | |
Our wildlife and trees. | 00:59:35 | |
What have you that make us such a great community? So, so I I agree with signage and I agree with Mr. Aikman's suggestion to keep | 00:59:38 | |
it simple. Quiet please. | 00:59:44 | |
You know, I've been in a number of campaigns and people spend all this money on Flyers and stuff and. | 00:59:50 | |
It's been proven that you have 3 seconds to sell yourself, so signage with a lot of verbiage probably won't fly. People will get | 00:59:57 | |
quiet please, 'cause they can do that within 3 three seconds. | 01:00:02 | |
So, you know, I'm part of PG deer awareness and some of the stuff that we've done as far as outreach to educate people about our | 01:00:09 | |
deer. | 01:00:13 | |
You know, except for the past few months, we've been down to the farmers market every Monday. We have a table there. It's free. | 01:00:18 | |
You just have to fill out the application. | 01:00:22 | |
We're members of the Chamber of Commerce who does e-mail blasts when we need them to be done. | 01:00:26 | |
And also you know the other special events that they have we we get to have a table at the good old days and and pass out. | 01:00:33 | |
Information and have kids draw pictures of deer and what? | 01:00:41 | |
Umm, I think if you know reaching out to folks like Adventures by the Sea and and that company that. | 01:00:47 | |
Does the tours. | 01:00:53 | |
Two Wheeler things, whatever they're called, you know, would be a good idea. And then also you know. So this is the first year, | 01:00:56 | |
thanks to Kim and Tom that Renee and I went down for the half marathon and and we made signs that said watch for the deer. | 01:01:03 | |
And actually, the renters got a big kick out of it And some of them even asked where is the beer? So, you know, it's kind of a | 01:01:10 | |
sense of humor on their part. Is pretty cute. But you know, So what I thought about with that half marathon is if the harbor seal, | 01:01:16 | |
folks. | 01:01:21 | |
And the PGDR awareness with the collaboration of the city, if we could write a letter or do a flyer to be included in the packets | 01:01:27 | |
for the half marathon folks, that would give them a heads up of what they're going to encounter as they approach that particular | 01:01:34 | |
area. And you know, to advocate, be proactive instead of reactive. | 01:01:42 | |
And you know, I want to give a shout out to the city. They've been very supportive in my opinion. | 01:01:50 | |
You know, with protecting the harbor seals, good, bad and indifferent, you know, getting this, the fancy nap and what have you. | 01:01:55 | |
And I know initially it was kind of a mess years back, but I think they've improved on that and I know they've been very proactive | 01:02:02 | |
with the deer in helping us to get the word out. | 01:02:09 | |
To help protect them more so than what they've been before, and to give them a voice. | 01:02:16 | |
Anyway, so those are just my comments. Thank you. | 01:02:21 | |
No further hands raised on the virtual audience. | 01:02:29 | |
Thank you. | 01:02:33 | |
Now it's OK. | 01:02:36 | |
I can't resist, but I want to give a huge seal of approval. | 01:02:39 | |
To Dre and to our three speaker. Tom, I see you frowning. | 01:02:44 | |
To everyone. | 01:02:50 | |
A couple comments. I completely support the idea of science. Simple, and as Lisa demonstrated that very. | 01:02:52 | |
Visible orange on blue. I would suggest though that we do not put any on the fence itself. | 01:03:02 | |
I see in the slides and from walking out there that ice plant. | 01:03:10 | |
Is just below the fence. | 01:03:14 | |
And we could. | 01:03:17 | |
Signs at either end of that ice plant that it's the beginning and the end of the fencing there. | 01:03:18 | |
On both sides of the wreck trail. And I also wonder. | 01:03:25 | |
If we could put. | 01:03:29 | |
Up on the top of the ice plant, where it faces the street. | 01:03:31 | |
Cars can see in both directions, can see these signs, and maybe not. | 01:03:36 | |
Decide to honk their horns. | 01:03:43 | |
So otherwise, I think it's a great idea. And I just have one question and I think Kim and Tom are perhaps the best to answer this. | 01:03:47 | |
Are you finding that drones are? | 01:03:51 | |
A notable issue. | 01:03:57 | |
And if so, what can we do? | 01:04:00 | |
An issue, not necessarily number one, but a problem at Hopkins. In the Hopkins area, right there, there are no. | 01:04:13 | |
Even the green signs that have the little no think there are none in that area. So we have no no drone sign there. And we could | 01:04:22 | |
use it because if somebody's going to fly a drone, it's there. | 01:04:28 | |
Or it's point pin. | 01:04:35 | |
Or Lovers Point. That's where we see them flying, usually Thrones. And so they usually say, well, where's the sign? And we can't | 01:04:37 | |
point to anything. We just always tell people that wherever they go, they need to check with the local police because every city | 01:04:42 | |
has their own ordinances now. | 01:04:48 | |
So a small one that said, no drones with our ordinance on it would be ideal. I know that there's possibly a new. | 01:04:54 | |
I mean, so I wouldn't get too elaborate on it because it might change, but if you put no drones, they can't fly over the harbor | 01:05:03 | |
seals and disturb them by federal law. | 01:05:08 | |
But if we put our PG ordinance on it, that would help. | 01:05:14 | |
Yeah. | 01:05:19 | |
I just. | 01:05:22 | |
What's the status of that? I was thinking it was. | 01:05:27 | |
It was almost done. | 01:05:31 | |
Finalized. | 01:05:34 | |
That he would know. | 01:05:43 | |
Where it is? | 01:05:45 | |
Dan and George, do you know what the status of the drone ordinance is? | 01:05:47 | |
Chair Myers I do not, but we do have a current ordinance that prohibits the flight of drones. So I mean, we have. | 01:05:52 | |
Some legal standing. | 01:05:59 | |
To prevent it, I think that they're tightening it up to some extent. | 01:06:01 | |
But we have signs that show that ordinance around town already that can be easily pointed to, to prohibit the flight. | 01:06:06 | |
I think the closest to this area would be at Berwick Park, and I'm certain we have no drone signs installed there. | 01:06:14 | |
And the general plays are discussed in previous meetings, especially when we've been talking about black oyster catchers. | 01:06:21 | |
The City of Pacific Grove has. | 01:06:26 | |
Permit only drone policy, and the only way to get a permit is to pay a fee and show that you're an FAA licensed drone operator. So | 01:06:28 | |
that effectively limits almost all recreational drone use because most people the flying recreational drones that tend to be the | 01:06:34 | |
problems. | 01:06:39 | |
So then that's the new ordinance, right, that's coming. No, that's the in place enforceable ordinance that's been the. | 01:06:45 | |
And George, when you say they need to have a permit, would that be a permit that they could take anywhere or would it be a | 01:06:53 | |
specific permit for this area? | 01:06:58 | |
Specific permit from the Pacific Grove Police Department. OK, for a specified time, purpose and location. So they couldn't have | 01:07:05 | |
one in in San Francisco, say and say hey, I've got it. They could fly it in San Francisco, but not in Pacific Road and. | 01:07:12 | |
That process of applying for a permit, I think, I think it really does weed out all of the people. | 01:07:19 | |
I think all of the nuisance drone operators are not. | 01:07:27 | |
Permitted, you know, I think across the board that's safe to. | 01:07:30 | |
And the people that are the nuisance drone operators are flying in, you know, contrary to the current ordinance. | 01:07:34 | |
But it's in the books right now. | 01:07:41 | |
What would be? | 01:07:43 | |
There have been cases when a permitted researcher has flown a drone and disturbed the seals, and I'm wondering what your | 01:07:54 | |
recommendation would be for. | 01:07:59 | |
Getting a communication channel open so like when that. | 01:08:06 | |
Permit is issued. | 01:08:10 | |
Perhaps bayonet could be contacted or I'm not sure how that. | 01:08:12 | |
Could work, but it seems like it's necessary. | 01:08:16 | |
Ordinance that's being worked on would probably address that. | 01:08:27 | |
And I'm sorry, I just don't know. | 01:08:32 | |
Ordinances. At this point, I kind of lost ark of it too, Kim. | 01:08:34 | |
Yes, that. | 01:08:39 | |
Veterans loan. | 01:08:41 | |
Handle research and some commer. | 01:08:43 | |
Flights which? | 01:08:47 | |
Be somewhere along the lines of having monitors to watch for distur. | 01:08:49 | |
Usually Noah contacts us to go down for the research. It doesn't always mean the animals aren't gonna be disturbed, but at least | 01:08:55 | |
we're there to monitor and give them back feedback. So we're mostly talking about like. | 01:09:02 | |
What he said that these these drone operators that don't have any permits at all and sometimes not even FAA which they need to | 01:09:10 | |
have. | 01:09:14 | |
And they're clueless as to having to have a PG police permit. | 01:09:20 | |
That's required. | 01:09:25 | |
And they just look at their their apps on the phone and the apps tell them they can fly there. | 01:09:28 | |
And so I always tell them you need to check with the local cities because everything's changing so fast. | 01:09:34 | |
That the apps don't stay up with that. | 01:09:39 | |
So this way if there's a little sign there, we can just point and say. | 01:09:42 | |
Little drones, so. | 01:09:46 | |
They know. They always just say, well, I didn't see. | 01:09:48 | |
Anywhere, yeah. | 01:09:51 | |
I have a question, I'm sorry. | 01:09:54 | |
No, go ahead. | 01:09:56 | |
OK. I just have a quick question about the municipal code ordinance number. If we were to print up or have these signs made for a | 01:10:00 | |
no drone zone, would it be the updated ordinance be the same number that would be on that or would we be making up new signs if | 01:10:06 | |
we? | 01:10:11 | |
Proceeded. | 01:10:18 | |
Commissioner walking stick, I think it's usually the municipal code numbers stay the same as far if it's just a simple revision. | 01:10:20 | |
And I think if it if they add a whole new section, you know, I'm not. I wouldn't rule out a change in code number, but I think for | 01:10:25 | |
the most part if it's just a revision, it'll be the same number. | 01:10:31 | |
Gabby, I just have a couple questions. | 01:10:39 | |
So who owns the fencing? | 01:10:45 | |
At Hopkins, is that a? | 01:10:49 | |
Owned fence, so we'd have to get permission from them were we to mount signs on that. | 01:10:52 | |
Perhaps Miss Akin would like to address them? | 01:10:57 | |
It's just a yes or no. It's my stand up there. | 01:11:01 | |
But we do have to get approval from them. So whatever they come up with, they can contact Chris at Stanford. | 01:11:08 | |
And everything would be worked through them. All the signs that we put up on the fence during the pumping season were approved by | 01:11:17 | |
Stanford, OK? | 01:11:21 | |
Great. Thank you. I'd like to comment on that. Can I further comment on that? I did receive actually an e-mail from Chris, the | 01:11:26 | |
Hopkins station Manager and they seem quite amenable to. | 01:11:33 | |
Putting up the signs, they basically said, you know, check with the city because. | 01:11:41 | |
You know, those signs will be facing out, so I think they're going to be. | 01:11:46 | |
Working with us, I think. I think they really are behind this SO and I. | 01:11:50 | |
Just to follow up on that, I thought I think it was Marty that mentioned that we don't want to obscure the. | 01:11:56 | |
View. | 01:12:02 | |
I was wondering, I had another question about the harbor. | 01:12:05 | |
In general, and that is, do we? | 01:12:09 | |
What the reproductive success was for other rookeries compared to PG. | 01:12:14 | |
During the same time period. | 01:12:20 | |
Last year when? | 01:12:23 | |
Reproductive success declined. | 01:12:25 | |
Now we don't have to answer that right now. | 01:12:28 | |
But that would be something I would be interested in knowing. | 01:12:31 | |
And another question I had was. | 01:12:37 | |
I know that the presentation. | 01:12:41 | |
At our last meeting. | 01:12:44 | |
Was excellent and talked about the spec. | 01:12:46 | |
Noise disturbance that we had here and I was wondering if we know there's, if there's research in other areas where there may have | 01:12:52 | |
been. | 01:12:56 | |
Noise, disturbance and to. | 01:13:02 | |
And the other question I had is how would we measure whether signage is successful in? | 01:13:07 | |
Controlling the disturbances. | 01:13:14 | |
Is there, you know? | 01:13:16 | |
Objective way to measure. | 01:13:19 | |
And then the other question I had. | 01:13:22 | |
Do we need Coastal Commission approval for all this signage? | 01:13:25 | |
Or do we as as the city? | 01:13:29 | |
Have the ability to. | 01:13:32 | |
Put up all these signs. | 01:13:36 | |
Coastal. | 01:13:38 | |
Permission. | 01:13:39 | |
I don't have an answer for your first questions about comparables or measurables, but it is our interpretation that this level of | 01:13:41 | |
signage would not require a permit and we could move ahead. | 01:13:45 | |
So the only approval that would be needed would be Hopkins and that's that's only if we put it on the signs on the fence. | 01:13:53 | |
I believe so, yes. OK. | 01:14:02 | |
And may I ask a question, Marty, you suggested that we not put it on the fence. Why? | 01:14:06 | |
Well going. | 01:14:14 | |
Kim's listing of Excuse me for days listing. | 01:14:15 | |
How important? | 01:14:20 | |
The viewing of the seals is to the local economy. That's why they come and if and if the view and and think that. | 01:14:22 | |
You've got not. | 01:14:30 | |
3 foot high children, but you've got 5 foot people and you've got 6 foot people. And if you put up signs, it's counterintuitive if | 01:14:32 | |
they if the sign is telling you to be quiet, that you can't see what you're trying to look at. | 01:14:39 | |
So you don't want, you want to make sure they're not block of block the view. Absolutely, absolutely. And I think there's 100% and | 01:14:48 | |
I think there's plenty of. | 01:14:52 | |
Leeway, given that it you know that you have to walk up that little bank. | 01:14:58 | |
On both sides of the I was envisioning. | 01:15:05 | |
That the signs would not be right right in front of the beach. It would be kind of more towards the, you know, on each side of it. | 01:15:09 | |
As people are coming towards it so that they start being quiet before they reach it. | 01:15:19 | |
But regardless, I mean, I think that the details of whether we put the signs on this on the fence or we erect something from the | 01:15:26 | |
ground. | 01:15:31 | |
I think the city could decide that what whatever's is. | 01:15:37 | |
Andre, do you have an opinion? Yeah, my opinion was that being RC, work with the city on that for both design and placement. | 01:15:43 | |
And I think. | 01:15:52 | |
Your motion was, was, was, was perfect and your recommendations of two to three signs. | 01:15:56 | |
And the general location. | 01:16:04 | |
I think after that, typically when we make recommendations, then the details for the most part. | 01:16:07 | |
Are are finalized by. | 01:16:16 | |
Again, I think we, the NRC can work on design and placement with the city. I think it behooves all of us to to do that. | 01:16:22 | |
I see a motion here. I'd also like to add when. | 01:16:33 | |
Did have Hopkins Coastal trail area that we do? | 01:16:37 | |
Add Ocean View Ave. to that as well like the bicycles coming in from either side so. | 01:16:41 | |
So I'd like to add that in there. | 01:16:52 | |
I have a question. | 01:16:59 | |
Would it? I guess just the editor in me, But it wouldn't make any sense to stay say, in the last part of that last sentence. | 01:17:01 | |
For final style, placement and wording of signs. | 01:17:10 | |
I like the editor in you. | 01:17:17 | |
I like the editor in you. | 01:17:22 | |
I do as well, especially because we keep hearing about the simplicity of the signs, and I really like the silhouette of the seal. | 01:17:28 | |
I think that's genius. It's going to be extremely noticeable whether you're on. | 01:17:33 | |
Am I? | 01:17:42 | |
Yep. OK. | 01:17:45 | |
You know because again whether you're on a bicycle even the car if we were to make anything visible, I just think that's super | 01:17:48 | |
important simple is better for sure whether it's quiet please daytime quiet you know they're sleeping whatever. But minimum you | 01:17:54 | |
know wordage as we know. Thank you for your example as well I know that's extremely important and then I know we had and then the | 01:18:00 | |
no drone. I know we don't I don't know if that's explicit in this motion so and I know too whether they say just per no per city | 01:18:06 | |
ordinance or per permit. | 01:18:12 | |
PG police permit whatever so that they so it was clear, maybe not even listing the ordinance per SE and putting all that fine | 01:18:19 | |
print writing, which is something very simple so they know wow, I need a permit from the Police Department. | 01:18:25 | |
That might be just. | 01:18:32 | |
I don't know if that's a nice add-on or not. And then I know with the two interpretive signs that Mister First shared in the | 01:18:33 | |
presentation where there are already along the trail and I want to say it may have been. | 01:18:39 | |
In a public comment. | 01:18:45 | |
About relocating one of them. | 01:18:47 | |
Umm, maybe. And I don't know, I would need to look at it again in person myself as well. Or or all of us. But maybe it's reversing | 01:18:50 | |
the two signs, the two newer ones that appear to be there. Maybe it's just shifting. | 01:18:56 | |
The signs replacement. | 01:19:03 | |
OK. Well, I think, I think the motion that you have here, do you want to to restate it with the additions? | 01:19:11 | |
And yeah, the edits as well. | 01:19:22 | |
So a motion then recommending the city place permanent year round signs on the Hopkins Coastal Trail area. I'm adding this, | 01:19:26 | |
including Ocean View. | 01:19:31 | |
Consider additional signage at Hopkins and 5th St. during popping season and finally consult with BNRC. | 01:19:37 | |
For style, placement and wording of. | 01:19:45 | |
Roll calls out for this. | 01:19:58 | |
Commissioner Rubin. | 01:20:02 | |
Yes, Commissioner. | 01:20:05 | |
Yes, Secretary Lee. | 01:20:07 | |
Chair Myers. | 01:20:10 | |
Yes, Commissioner, walking stick. | 01:20:11 | |
Commissioner Wilson. Yes, Commissioner Gorman. | 01:20:14 | |
All in. | 01:20:18 | |
We all did. | 01:20:21 | |
The the other thing I don't. I think maybe we. | 01:20:24 | |
Should talk about the no. | 01:20:28 | |
Separately. | 01:20:31 | |
And make a separate motion for that. | 01:20:32 | |
Along the same lines. | 01:20:37 | |
Which would be the addition. | 01:20:40 | |
Of a no drone sign, similar to what you have at Berwick Park. | 01:20:42 | |
And lovers. | 01:20:47 | |
Be installed. | 01:20:48 | |
Close to. | 01:20:51 | |
OK. And I think the one thing to add to that is that we kind of have a standard. | 01:20:57 | |
The park sign that includes no drones, I think no dogs. It has a five I believe different icons that it has so there that we would | 01:21:01 | |
probably need to take that sign that is the generic kind of public turn out that we use along ocean view and then park no whatever | 01:21:08 | |
signage and modify it to match what the rules are for The Walking path. | 01:21:16 | |
But I think that's very doable. | 01:21:24 | |
Can you repeat? | 01:21:28 | |
I don't know drones, I just the location. | 01:21:31 | |
Add a No drone sign consistent with what the city has. | 01:21:34 | |
At Berwick Park in Lovers Point Mod. | 01:21:40 | |
Appropriately for the rec. | 01:21:45 | |
Rules. | 01:21:49 | |
At. | 01:21:51 | |
Is my. | 01:21:54 | |
2nd That a motion all in favor. | 01:21:56 | |
Any. | 01:22:00 | |
Motion carries unanimously. | 01:22:02 | |
Chair Myers, May I ask a clarifying question? | 01:22:05 | |
Pardon me, May I ask a clarifying question? Of course. So you requested that we work with the BNRC. Would you like us to just make | 01:22:08 | |
some mock ups and bring them forward for the January meeting? | 01:22:12 | |
That'd be great. Thank. | 01:22:18 | |
Thank you. | 01:22:20 | |
And then I think that is it. | 01:22:31 | |
We are adjourned. Does any we're getting ready to be. The next meeting is January 16th. | 01:22:34 | |
And again, if if I could ask everyone to review the the goals and the subcommittees. | 01:22:40 | |
And get to me the subcommittees that you'd most like to be on. | 01:22:48 | |
Also we can. | 01:22:54 | |
Add we can delete, we can modify. So just if you can, you know, send to me anything that you're any of your thoughts. | 01:22:56 | |
Any modifications to the goals? | 01:23:06 | |
Prior to the January meeting, I'll try to put something together that we can actually discuss and and move forward with. | 01:23:09 | |
OK, the next meeting is January 16th and meeting adjourned. | 01:23:20 |
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OK, well, welcome everyone. | 00:00:00 | |
This is the final meeting of the year. | 00:00:05 | |
And if we can have a motion to approve the agenda? | 00:00:08 | |
So moved. | 00:00:15 | |
All in favor. | 00:00:18 | |
Aye opposed. | 00:00:19 | |
OK. Does anybody have any announcements? | 00:00:26 | |
I should you want to start first. | 00:00:32 | |
I'd be happy to chair Myers, but maybe we could start with A roll call vote and then we'll move into the announcement, if you | 00:00:34 | |
don't mind. | 00:00:38 | |
Commissioner. | 00:00:44 | |
Here, Commissioner. | 00:00:46 | |
Commissioner walking stick. | 00:00:49 | |
Secretary. | 00:00:52 | |
Present, Commissioner. | 00:00:53 | |
Vice Chair Dunn. | 00:00:57 | |
Chair Myers. | 00:01:00 | |
Here. | 00:01:02 | |
And now I'll launch into the staff. | 00:01:14 | |
Starting. | 00:01:18 | |
My staff is happy to announce the dissemination of the proposed. | 00:01:20 | |
Revisions to Title 12, Trees and the Urban Forest. | 00:01:25 | |
This is available to all the NRC members and the public. The easiest way to find it is to go to cityofpg.org/news. | 00:01:28 | |
Or search board on the city's. | 00:01:37 | |
And there are There's a tracked changes copy and a clean copy of the proposed revisions to the tree ordinance. | 00:01:40 | |
And this was part of the larger effort that is in line with the City Council. | 00:01:47 | |
Goals Work plan for 2324 to initiate and complete a Citywide tree Improvement and Management plan and this is the first milestone | 00:01:53 | |
to complete. | 00:01:58 | |
Comprehensive Title 12 revisions and to ultimately have those revisions reviewed by the BNRC, so we're hoping that this will be | 00:02:04 | |
the main agenda item for the January meeting. | 00:02:09 | |
And the religion see. | 00:02:15 | |
Clarify findings for tree removal and trimming to create a more transparent decision making process. | 00:02:18 | |
Enhance the replanting. | 00:02:26 | |
Update the fee. | 00:02:28 | |
Leave AMP the floor process and hopefully streamline and depoliticize the appeal process and make the code more accessible and | 00:02:31 | |
navigatable for the public. | 00:02:36 | |
So that is all available online for everyone's review between now. | 00:02:42 | |
The January meeting and we hope that any public members with input can submit that to by January 19th. | 00:02:47 | |
To be included. | 00:02:55 | |
January BNRC. | 00:02:57 | |
And then kind of along the same lines in the topic of trees, if you want to give a quick update of the monarch sanctuary. | 00:02:59 | |
The numbers with from the weekly counts from the museum staff have hovered around 6000 between 5 and 7000. | 00:03:06 | |
For the last few weeks, and the Public Works did make the decision to shut the lower section of The Walking path to the public. | 00:03:15 | |
There's a large pine tree. | 00:03:20 | |
That was known to suffer from Pitch Canker. It's kind of one of a pair of trees that the other of the pair was removed ahead of | 00:03:26 | |
the 22 season. | 00:03:30 | |
And we kind of watched this tree decline and just in the last couple months rapidly decline where there's. | 00:03:34 | |
No visible green foliage in the crown and the tree is just immediately adjacent to the path as large branches that hangover the | 00:03:42 | |
path and has a tilt towards the path. So just in an abundance of caution. | 00:03:48 | |
For the visiting public, we have shut that section of the path down South, starting at the lower entrance on Grove Anchor up to | 00:03:55 | |
the kind of right where the the kind of open bulb of benches and the beginning of the nectar beds. It's shut to public access. | 00:04:03 | |
But you can still access from Ridge Rd. At the upper entrance. The bathrooms are still open and where the bulk of the monarchs are | 00:04:12 | |
overwintering. | 00:04:15 | |
Is a wide open. | 00:04:20 | |
That's that. Thank you. | 00:04:22 | |
What's the? What's the count? | 00:04:24 | |
I believe. | 00:04:27 | |
Close to 6000 And if you hold on one second, I'll give you an exact. | 00:04:28 | |
As of December 15th, the last count was 5900 and. | 00:04:52 | |
And I think 95% of those are on One Pine Tree. | 00:04:58 | |
Very close to the path, so if you haven't had a chance. | 00:05:02 | |
Highly recommended. | 00:05:05 | |
That's good. | 00:05:06 | |
Thank you. Do any commissioners have any comments? | 00:05:09 | |
Marty Mythologies Excuse me in advance to Mr. Go. I'm going to bring up a subject that he and I have talked about before. It has | 00:05:14 | |
to do with St. sweeping. | 00:05:19 | |
I continue to be concerned about the. | 00:05:26 | |
What I see is the inadequacy of the number of times our streets are getting cleaned. We are blessed to be a tree city. | 00:05:31 | |
The downside of that is that we have a lot of needles and leaves in the gutters. | 00:05:40 | |
And a lot of that. | 00:05:46 | |
Snagging the. | 00:05:48 | |
The the sewer drains. | 00:05:52 | |
Some of it ends up in the Bay. You can see a clumped at lovers point and then plastic residue catches in it. | 00:05:55 | |
And it all ends up in the ocean. And I went by today one of my favorite watering holes. | 00:06:02 | |
At the corner of 17 Mile Drive and. | 00:06:09 | |
And somebody continues to scoop that out by hand. | 00:06:13 | |
Otherwise it would be incredibly backed up. As it was last year. I took a picture. | 00:06:18 | |
But as I understand it, we have a the city does not own the street cleaning equipment. It's a contract job out. | 00:06:23 | |
But I I really believe that if we were able. | 00:06:31 | |
The same old story. Find some. | 00:06:36 | |
To increase the number of the sweeps this our streets get that it would improve the the health of the Bay. Thank you. | 00:06:38 | |
A few critics? Anyone else? | 00:06:49 | |
Yeah, we just wrapped up the Sea Watch Seabird Census and now we're upon Audubon Christmas bird count reminder, I don't know if | 00:06:56 | |
you all. | 00:07:01 | |
Know about that, but it is a bird census across the country. | 00:07:07 | |
In this area we have a few. The one closest is. | 00:07:12 | |
The Monterey Bay on December 27th, and for new birders, Amanda Priest will be doing. | 00:07:18 | |
Beginners. | 00:07:25 | |
Christmas bird count at a sale, Lamar. That morning. So good citizen science. | 00:07:27 | |
I'm sorry, what was the second one? | 00:07:34 | |
The the Audubon. | 00:07:36 | |
Audubon Christmas Bird. | 00:07:38 | |
27th of December. | 00:07:41 | |
Yeah. | 00:07:43 | |
OK, moving on. | 00:07:51 | |
This Council. | 00:07:54 | |
Yeah. Thank you. | 00:07:59 | |
I want to look so forget about. | 00:08:00 | |
I don't know if it's appropriate, but I wanted to invite Jennifer Gorman to be on the Tree subcommittee. | 00:08:03 | |
We're going to be talking about that later. This is the end because this is the end of the year. We're going to be re establishing | 00:08:12 | |
the subcommittees. In fact, I I wanted to say a few words about that so we can get a jump on it. | 00:08:19 | |
And then I attended a online relief RLRELEAF meeting. | 00:08:28 | |
And the topic was. | 00:08:36 | |
Schools being involved and I thought that was so appropriate because the city manager at the last council meeting. | 00:08:38 | |
Said he was reaching out to the schools to establish a relationship. | 00:08:46 | |
The city and and the school district and the first part of the meeting I'm happy to forward to anyone who's interested was. | 00:08:51 | |
Videotape for the first time. And that was an excellent presentation, but it was that was a presentation. And when you got down to | 00:08:59 | |
the nitty gritty of what's it like to go before a school board, well, what's it like to go into a teacher's classroom? And how do | 00:09:05 | |
you advocate for funding? | 00:09:10 | |
And. | 00:09:16 | |
Each specific games and things you can do with the children. | 00:09:20 | |
All that part they didn't want to intimidate people from discussing, so they didn't record it, but hopefully they will next time. | 00:09:26 | |
Really, really good ideas I took. | 00:09:30 | |
Really good notes and it was for all ages, everything from first grade through high school and there are so many resources out | 00:09:35 | |
there. | 00:09:41 | |
It would be such a wonderful thing to invol. | 00:09:47 | |
Our school children in what we. | 00:09:51 | |
And like I noticed that our arborists involved Trinity High School recently in a tree planting and that would be so excellent to | 00:09:54 | |
actually involve our. | 00:09:59 | |
Our residents. | 00:10:05 | |
And then the second announcement I had was. | 00:10:07 | |
About it issues here. | 00:10:13 | |
I had a. | 00:10:16 | |
First, I noticed it was just getting more and more difficult to access like our videos on our page. Like you had to go through. I | 00:10:19 | |
wouldn't say difficult, but more steps to get there. And so I had a discussion with Dara Sanders and she said, Oh yeah, a lot of | 00:10:24 | |
the cities that I work. | 00:10:29 | |
With when they start expanding their IT program and trying to to to. | 00:10:35 | |
Better their. | 00:10:42 | |
They layer it and I wasn't familiar with this concept of layering and when you layer it to make it effective for the the | 00:10:45 | |
programmers and the people during the work, a lot of times that public access aspect is made a little more challenging and so I | 00:10:51 | |
just wanted to put it out there. | 00:10:57 | |
Maybe as a potential agenda item to recommend to council to. | 00:11:04 | |
Ask the IT people to. | 00:11:11 | |
Make it. | 00:11:14 | |
For the public, because we want to encourage people to get involved, we want to encourage people to become part of the city | 00:11:16 | |
government. We don't want to do anything to discourage that and. | 00:11:21 | |
I'm not sure I'd be able to really readily figure out how to go listen to a video of our meeting today. | 00:11:27 | |
If I if I if I started with how it is? | 00:11:34 | |
OK. And then. | 00:11:39 | |
I did. I did want to see. George, thank you so much for that announcement about the. | 00:11:42 | |
Title 12 revisions. Those revisions sound excellent. I haven't had time to look at them yet, but. | 00:11:47 | |
What you said sounds spot on to me about what needs to be revised and. | 00:11:52 | |
You know, with that in mind, I did want to announce that. | 00:12:03 | |
At 675 pine, there are three trees being taken. | 00:12:08 | |
Or. | 00:12:12 | |
And with regards to the revisions of the Title 12, I think they provide a lot of food. | 00:12:17 | |
For thought about those revisions. So one thing is that the money's coming from the owner. | 00:12:26 | |
Another thing is just native versus non-native. | 00:12:34 | |
Supposedly they're given the OK to come down because they're non-native, but they're also over 6 inches and that's protected by | 00:12:38 | |
Muni code. | 00:12:42 | |
There's the issue of what do you do when a sidewalk cracks? How do you prevent sidewalks from cracking? | 00:12:48 | |
There's so much here additionally. | 00:12:55 | |
Again, this going back to this IT issue of public access to information. | 00:13:02 | |
How do we, how how could we have accessed online immediately the Arborist report? So all of this I I hope we will certainly be | 00:13:10 | |
recommending using this as an example to recommend for the title 12 revisions, but. | 00:13:17 | |
I I hope people will start thinking about it now. | 00:13:25 | |
Because that's in January and it's only one meeting, Secretary Lee. Perhaps these thoughts are best held and kind of pondered by | 00:13:28 | |
everyone and then on a discussed as an agendaized item in January as opposed to at this venue as an announcement. | 00:13:37 | |
Is that the January meeting is really going to get in depth with with the the report that's coming, the changes that are being | 00:13:46 | |
made. | 00:13:49 | |
And I would suggest that we talk about it. OK, just one more sentence. And that sentence is? | 00:13:53 | |
I'd like you to walk through the streets and encourage envisioning how you want it to look. Because when you start looking at the | 00:14:00 | |
Title 12 for Visions, you get in your head, you get intellectual, you start. You know all that. And just to like, what do I want | 00:14:05 | |
my town to look like as best? | 00:14:10 | |
Thank you. | 00:14:18 | |
Wonderful. | 00:14:21 | |
I just wanted to, I kind of made a reference to it. So this is the final meeting of the year at the beginning. Next month we will | 00:14:23 | |
be starting all over with 2024 goals. | 00:14:30 | |
New subcommittees, new subcommittee assignments. | 00:14:37 | |
So if everybody can be thinking about how they'd like to change the goals, add, add some goals, delete some goals, modify them. | 00:14:41 | |
And and same with the subcommittees. Do we want to increase the number of subcommittees? Do we want to change, you know, change | 00:14:50 | |
them, delete them? | 00:14:55 | |
If you. | 00:15:02 | |
Send your thoughts and preferences as to also to which subcommittees you'd like to be on. | 00:15:03 | |
To me in the next month. | 00:15:10 | |
Then we'll get a, we'll get a head start and hopefully we can get those wrapped up and finalized in the January meeting. | 00:15:12 | |
So it may take a little bit longer, but hopefully not like to hit the ground running. | 00:15:21 | |
OK, council liaison announce. | 00:15:27 | |
Council Member Co. | 00:15:32 | |
Good afternoon, Chair Myers and members of the BNRC. | 00:15:34 | |
I like you. | 00:15:38 | |
We're kind of at our last meeting, which will be tomorrow. | 00:15:41 | |
But things are winding down. | 00:15:45 | |
But there are a couple of things worth mentioning on tomorrow night's agenda. | 00:15:47 | |
One of them being consideration of the proposed Chinese pavilion project in Elmira **** Park. | 00:15:52 | |
And then also. | 00:16:00 | |
A special shout out regarding Rocky Pinero's retirement The mayor will be having a proclamation honoring Rocky. | 00:16:02 | |
And as many contributions to the city. | 00:16:13 | |
He certainly participated in a supporting local events. | 00:16:15 | |
Keeping our downtown and the rest of the. | 00:16:21 | |
In shape and he will be sorely missed. I've known him since I was a child, so. | 00:16:24 | |
Goodman and he will be missed. | 00:16:30 | |
Also, just a reminder that the Mayor and the City Clerk are accepting applications for our city boards, committees and | 00:16:33 | |
commissions. | 00:16:37 | |
So if you have anyone or know of anyone that might be interested. | 00:16:42 | |
Please direct them to the city. | 00:16:46 | |
For the mayor, have a good meeting. Thank you. | 00:16:48 | |
Thank you. | 00:16:52 | |
OK, now we'll open it up to general public. | 00:16:55 | |
We have two hands raised in the virtual audience. | 00:17:05 | |
We'll start with Inga, Lawrence and D. | 00:17:09 | |
Thank you. I'm going to first say Chair Myers, if you turn your head and don't speak directly into your mic, I really can't hear | 00:17:14 | |
you. So I would appreciate it because they are unidirectional mics. Thank you. And then I wanted to speak to Commissioner Dunn's. | 00:17:24 | |
Comment about the street sweeping because I find it incredibly useless. | 00:17:34 | |
And what it actually does is they go barreling down the middle of the street in our narrow streets and cars of course there, but | 00:17:42 | |
they don't ever clean the gutters. They just push anything that might be leftover from the wind in the middle of the street into | 00:17:50 | |
the gutters and yes, into our storm drains. And I don't think it's really a matter of. | 00:17:58 | |
Pushing more money at them because their contract is huge already. | 00:18:06 | |
It's just the way they go about it and what seems to be considered OK and I don't think it's OK. | 00:18:11 | |
So thank you very much. | 00:18:20 | |
Thank you. | 00:18:24 | |
And we also have a hand raised from Lisa. | 00:18:27 | |
Thank you. I wrote to you a few hours ago about lack of transparency and neglect of stewardship regarding PG's natural resources, | 00:18:32 | |
specifically regarding tree removal. The plan to remove three city trees, including beautiful red flowering eucalyptus on Pine | 00:18:40 | |
Ave. at Congress is a huge concern. This species can bloom profusely throughout the year. It's not native, but a marvelous | 00:18:47 | |
pollinator species that's planted on both sides of the street along pine. | 00:18:55 | |
We need more of them, not fewer. We need increased canopy, not reduced canopy. | 00:19:03 | |
I don't live on pine and I didn't see the notice driving by. It would have cost a citizen $225.00 to appeal Public Works plan. | 00:19:09 | |
Checking Public Works free permit website, I learned that Public Works didn't provide a permit application documenting any | 00:19:16 | |
justification for removing the trees. Posting the permit application has been standard practice. Proper notice was not provided. | 00:19:24 | |
Apparently the trees are being removed due to damage to the sidewalk. | 00:19:31 | |
There appear to be far better alternatives than removing 3 trees. | 00:19:39 | |
I've only just had a chance to read quickly the arborist report. It does not address potential alternatives. | 00:19:43 | |
Did Public Works or the Arborist read the city's 2012 Urban Forestry Standards document? It can be found on the Public Works | 00:19:50 | |
website, although it requires A convoluted series of steps for the public to find it. The document explains how to deal with | 00:19:56 | |
sidewalk damage without removing trees. | 00:20:02 | |
Rebecca Lee provided additional recommendations from experts for responding to tree root conflicts with sidewalks when the Elm | 00:20:08 | |
Tree and Jewell Park was under discussion. | 00:20:12 | |
Preserving our tree canopy is more important than ever as we experience the impacts of climate change. I request that you consider | 00:20:17 | |
a policy or ordinance that adds a step in the tree permit process for Public Works to submit to the BNRC all tree removal permits, | 00:20:25 | |
including supporting information prior to public posting, giving BNRC the authority to call up permits that raise concerns. Any | 00:20:33 | |
BNRC member or subcommittee could place the item on the BNRC agenda following public posting. | 00:20:41 | |
Or there should be a requirement that the posted notice provide electronic access information to the permit application and any | 00:20:50 | |
supporting documents about the permit. The notice in question refers a person to call or e-mail Albert Weisface, the very busy | 00:20:57 | |
City Arborist. An appeal fee should be eliminated for public trees and for any tree removal called up by BNRC. My suggestion is | 00:21:04 | |
conceptual and details would need to be worked out of course. | 00:21:11 | |
And I assume you will. | 00:21:19 | |
But well, you'll be obviously talking about the tree. | 00:21:21 | |
I'm sorry, ordinance updates. | 00:21:28 | |
Next month, but please agenda, Agenda is this topic. | 00:21:31 | |
Thank you. | 00:21:36 | |
We have no further int. | 00:21:40 | |
Thank you. | 00:21:45 | |
OK, so we have a motion to approve the minutes. | 00:21:49 | |
2nd. | 00:21:59 | |
All in favor. | 00:22:01 | |
Any opposed? | 00:22:03 | |
Motion passes. | 00:22:06 | |
OK, next for our regular agenda. | 00:22:16 | |
The BNRC has representatives on the Climate Action Adaptation Planning Subcommittee. | 00:22:20 | |
We have three slots, two of which now are vacant with the departure of Megan McKenna and Claudia Tibbs. | 00:22:28 | |
So I. | 00:22:37 | |
We need, we need to nominate. | 00:22:40 | |
Did you? I don't know if you had anything that you wanted. | 00:22:42 | |
Chair Myers I do not have a presentation. | 00:22:47 | |
That sums it up nicely. | 00:22:51 | |
This meeting is scheduled for the middle of February. | 00:22:55 | |
It meets. | 00:22:59 | |
Generally. | 00:23:00 | |
I would. | 00:23:03 | |
To nom. | 00:23:06 | |
Kathy Wooten, because this is an agenda as item, perhaps we could open it to public comment. OK, before we move to that set. | 00:23:08 | |
That's good. | 00:23:12 | |
We had a one hand raised, Miss Lisa. Johnny. | 00:23:22 | |
Thank you. So I'm really glad to see this agenda item and I don't know if this is what's been holding things up so that we haven't | 00:23:26 | |
had as many meetings as you know the very. | 00:23:33 | |
Charged up. | 00:23:41 | |
Subcommittee or committee? | 00:23:45 | |
Is ready for it. They really wanted to move along and there have been very few meetings so. | 00:23:49 | |
I I, I look forward to having new members. | 00:23:59 | |
New enthusiastic members on that wonderful sub sub. | 00:24:04 | |
Thank you. | 00:24:09 | |
No further hands raised. | 00:24:12 | |
Thank you. | 00:24:14 | |
Does anyone does anyone have anything that they? | 00:24:17 | |
ADD I just wanted to say I really appreciated Colleen Ingram's letter and her suggestion to do this like. | 00:24:21 | |
Like the wildlife subcommittee was done so that it it is a term and it goes fast and so you you can achieve more in a shorter | 00:24:30 | |
period of time. | 00:24:35 | |
So, but I'm not going to be on the subcommittee, so someone else is going to have to take that idea up. | 00:24:43 | |
So I I. | 00:24:56 | |
To recommend. | 00:24:58 | |
Jennifer Gordon Foreman and Kathy. | 00:25:01 | |
But I'm certainly we can certainly talk about anybody that wants to be on. | 00:25:06 | |
Sub. | 00:25:13 | |
Be great. | 00:25:15 | |
Marty's interested. | 00:25:18 | |
We have two two openings. | 00:25:25 | |
So. | 00:25:27 | |
Well, you nobody's voted on anything, so I just would like to know who's, who's interested. I talked to you. You're not so. | 00:25:30 | |
So let's do it. I would move that Kathy wouldn't be. | 00:25:42 | |
Nominated to be on the climate action. | 00:25:48 | |
Plan. | 00:25:51 | |
All in favor. | 00:25:55 | |
Any. | 00:25:58 | |
Motion passes. | 00:26:00 | |
OK, Next I would recommend that Jennifer Gorman be. | 00:26:03 | |
Nominated to be on the Climate Action Subcommittee. | 00:26:11 | |
All in favor. | 00:26:20 | |
Aye, aye. | 00:26:21 | |
Any. | 00:26:23 | |
Motion passes. | 00:26:27 | |
Thank you. | 00:26:29 | |
Hey. | 00:26:37 | |
Really the last thing to that we have on the agenda tonight is the coastal wildlife protection measures. This is in follow up to. | 00:26:39 | |
The presentations that we had last month which were fabulous. | 00:26:51 | |
I know. I think, George, you have a PowerPoint and Andre. | 00:26:57 | |
A submitted 1. | 00:27:01 | |
Yes, if you can bear with me while I. | 00:27:06 | |
So a very brief slideshow just to lay out the kind of groundwork of where we're at now as far as coastal signage near Hopkins | 00:27:33 | |
Beach. And I know that this agenda item covers a lot more. | 00:27:39 | |
Coastal signage at Hopkins Beach, but I know that, but I understand this to be the focus. So I just wanted to kind of get us all | 00:27:46 | |
on the same page on where we are now as far as coastal signage and I know that. | 00:27:51 | |
Commissioner Person also has prepared a presentation, so I don't know if we want to have a discussion following this or go right | 00:27:58 | |
into her presentation, but I'll start with this. | 00:28:01 | |
The area in question. | 00:28:07 | |
Here is an aerial view Hopkins Beach next to the Hopkins Marine Station. | 00:28:10 | |
And kind of working its way over to about 8th St. and Berwick Park. | 00:28:14 | |
The semi currently I think that's about 2014 A rec Rex the following signs. | 00:28:24 | |
Of two varieties, about 30 signs. | 00:28:32 | |
And they go up seasonally. | 00:28:34 | |
With the Lattice Fencing. | 00:28:36 | |
And so they're installed with approximately 270 feet of temporary lattice fencing. They're erected at the beginning of pumping | 00:28:43 | |
season, approximately March, but very varying year to year and they up. | 00:28:49 | |
Until May 31st. | 00:28:55 | |
And with the 30 signs just under 300 feet, that's about a sign every 10 feet. | 00:28:57 | |
A permanent sign that we have. It can be seen right here. | 00:29:07 | |
And if you kind of follow the arrow. | 00:29:10 | |
Just asked Berwick. So very close to 8th St. at a little turn out to anybody walking on a path could just step aside from the path | 00:29:13 | |
and take a look at that sign right there and you can see that sign is all about. | 00:29:20 | |
Rubber seals. There's quite a bit of information, very nice interpretive pictures. | 00:29:26 | |
Shows kind of their. | 00:29:31 | |
And also. | 00:29:33 | |
Information on what to do. | 00:29:35 | |
Wildlife disturbances or abandoned or sick wildlife and also includes. | 00:29:38 | |
Warnings against drone use and. | 00:29:43 | |
And here's a view of that same sign from the path, so you can see Hopkins in the distance. | 00:29:48 | |
And there's. | 00:29:53 | |
All right, walking down the path, here's a smaller sign that is just. | 00:29:56 | |
I don't know, 30 or 40 feet down the way and this includes a QR code that links to the cities. | 00:30:01 | |
Phone based app. | 00:30:08 | |
Walking. | 00:30:10 | |
And that walking tour includes a stop all about Hopkins Beach, so it has information about the harbor seals. | 00:30:12 | |
And information on what tourists can do to help the harbor. | 00:30:17 | |
And here's a view of that. | 00:30:23 | |
From the bath, you can see it's right. It's a smaller sign. It's on a post. I think it's one of the whole series of these walking | 00:30:25 | |
tour prompts that suggest people scan QR code, bring up The Walking tour on their phones, and then. | 00:30:32 | |
Learn about our. | 00:30:39 | |
Walking further along towards Hopkins. | 00:30:41 | |
Here's another kind of a larger maybe. | 00:30:44 | |
The size of four of these approximately. | 00:30:47 | |
Sign titled Conserving California's Coastal Treasures. You can see it includes some information on harbor seals. | 00:30:50 | |
And also there's mostly focused on the different protected areas. | 00:30:57 | |
Of the. | 00:31:00 | |
And you can see the arrow, that sign is just a little further down on another turn out with a bench right there near the beginning | 00:31:03 | |
of the gated area of Hopkins. | 00:31:08 | |
And then just just past that sign you. | 00:31:14 | |
Hopkins pronunciation signs to stay off their property and then just a little further down from there. | 00:31:18 | |
You have the kind of generic warning that. | 00:31:24 | |
Climbing on the rocks and swimming is not safe. | 00:31:27 | |
And then looking. This is a ways down, walking towards the aquarium and looking back. | 00:31:31 | |
You can see there's not a lot of sign there's not signage up on for the most of the fence line. | 00:31:37 | |
Immediately adjacent to the. | 00:31:42 | |
Bing Beach and then you can see the Welcome to Pacific Grove sign on the left there. | 00:31:46 | |
So that is kind of the summary of signs in this general area. | 00:31:54 | |
Thank you. That was. | 00:32:00 | |
Do you want to have a? Do you want to have any discussion on that? Or I think maybe we have Andre's presentation 1st and then we | 00:32:05 | |
can discuss it all? | 00:32:09 | |
Would you like Andres presentation? | 00:32:17 | |
Thank you. | 00:32:21 | |
That was super. | 00:32:23 | |
And much nicer photos on PowerPoint than mine. | 00:32:26 | |
I don't know. | 00:33:16 | |
That in presentation screen. Oh, maybe it is OK. Thank you so much. OK, so. | 00:33:19 | |
We're going to speak about the harbor seal Rookery primarily at Hopkins Beach tonight. I really wanted to. | 00:33:27 | |
Kind of summarize what we've heard I think at BNRC for the last year, speakers coming in with concerns, people sending in letters | 00:33:35 | |
and summarize that especially for our new people. | 00:33:42 | |
At BNRC. | 00:33:48 | |
Next slide please. Thank you. | 00:33:50 | |
OK, so a bit about our harbor seals. They are resident icons. | 00:33:52 | |
They do promote ecotourism. People come from all around the world, all around the country to see these animals. | 00:33:57 | |
They bring in a lot of tourist dollars because people do come to the fence to see them. Some have never seen harbor seals. | 00:34:07 | |
Some have never seen the Pacific Ocean. | 00:34:14 | |
And after watching these sales for hours and learning about them, they do get hungry. And so we do send them off seal monitors and | 00:34:17 | |
Bay net over downtown to the restaurants and shops. | 00:34:23 | |
So again, they do bring in a lot of tourist dollars. | 00:34:30 | |
I would say they are highly educational on. | 00:34:34 | |
You can see their annual life cycle. | 00:34:38 | |
Right there, which I cannot tell you as a biologist how amazing that is to have this Rookery. So I'm going to go through that a | 00:34:41 | |
little bit on the next slide, but I will also say that they're scenic. | 00:34:47 | |
We can go back to that side scenic and also very charismatic. I think it would be a very different beach without. | 00:34:54 | |
These seals on it. | 00:35:01 | |
OK. So we're going to talk a bit about annual energetic demands and their annual cycle. So effectively we're going to talk about a | 00:35:06 | |
female harbor. | 00:35:11 | |
So right now we're in December, getting into January. Our females are in their last trimester, so a really critical time for them. | 00:35:16 | |
They will begin popping. Peak is April, primarily from February, end of February into May, another critical time for them. | 00:35:25 | |
There's a lot of maternal care that goes into these pups. Those females stay with them. | 00:35:38 | |
Four to six weeks, they. | 00:35:44 | |
They're lactating. They're they're feeding these pups four to six weeks. And the pups get bigger, the females get smaller. The | 00:35:48 | |
females are basically not eating. | 00:35:53 | |
They are out teaching these pups to. | 00:35:58 | |
At about four to six weeks, weaning takes place where the. | 00:36:02 | |
Uh, moms effectively have to go back to the sea. They need to start eating again. So it's a, it's a it's really survival for them. | 00:36:07 | |
So they will wean the pups at that time. | 00:36:12 | |
Effectively when they when they wean and go back into the ocean to feed they made. | 00:36:19 | |
They have a nine month gestation, but we could say maybe a 10 month gestation period because of delayed implantation and that is | 00:36:26 | |
where the egg will be fertilized, but it'll float around and it will not attach. | 00:36:33 | |
To the uterine wall. And so basically that gives this female about a month's time to kind of regroup. | 00:36:41 | |
And put her fat back on before she starts the process all over again. | 00:36:49 | |
So while she is pregnant, she then will molt on the beaches on Hopkins Beach in the summertime. So if you look at these this | 00:36:55 | |
photo. | 00:36:59 | |
You'll see a pup and you'll see a mom next to it. The mom, of course, being the larger animal on that code, is kind of dingy. | 00:37:06 | |
She's been wearing that coat for a year. She is going to have a sparkling, silvery pellage just like that pop next to her, but | 00:37:11 | |
that will take. | 00:37:17 | |
Energetic demands and she will be on the beach shedding that skin and creating this beautiful. | 00:37:24 | |
Silvery. | 00:37:32 | |
Next slide please. | 00:37:34 | |
So annual energetic needs are really pretty basic. They need food, they need a safe, quiet habitat and they need sleep. So the | 00:37:37 | |
seals really must haul out on land to ensure survival and reproduction. | 00:37:44 | |
Next slide. | 00:37:51 | |
So threats will go through them rather quickly. I've highlighted disturbance and harassment because I think that's really | 00:37:55 | |
something that we have some control over in Pacific Grove. | 00:38:00 | |
So threats, disturbance, harassment, declining beach sites. So habitat loss. | 00:38:06 | |
And they have R1 Beach, Hopkins Beach and Pacific. | 00:38:13 | |
Declining fish stocks? That's happening all over the planet. Declining fish stocks, disease, predation are natural threats to | 00:38:17 | |
these animals, but threats nonetheless. | 00:38:24 | |
Fishing gear. These animals can get caught in fishing gear and drown. | 00:38:31 | |
We have seen them at Hopkins with Hook. | 00:38:36 | |
In their mouths. Hooks on their faces, hooks on their. | 00:38:39 | |
Dragging fishing line climate change of course a global threat to these animals and that will. | 00:38:44 | |
Again. | 00:38:53 | |
Further decline beach sites and fisheries. | 00:38:54 | |
Next slide please. | 00:38:59 | |
So disturbance and harassment. Disturbance is direct or indirect. It can come from land, air and sea. It does include noise, | 00:39:03 | |
motion and approach. I will say these animals are very skittish, unlike our sea lions. | 00:39:10 | |
Our sea lions, you can make noise around them. These animals will flush, They will abandoned sites. They will abandoned pups with | 00:39:18 | |
noise. | 00:39:23 | |
Also a reminder, seals are protected under the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act. So I do think it is incumbent upon us to be | 00:39:29 | |
doing all that we can for these animals And again, disturbance is a threat we have some control over. | 00:39:37 | |
OK, so here's our coastal. | 00:39:49 | |
I'm beyond recognition in some spots, so on the left, as George mentioned before, you can see Hopkins there and really no signs. | 00:39:51 | |
Along the. | 00:40:02 | |
Or really along the path on the right you see. | 00:40:04 | |
Probably popping season crowds, heavy crowds. I see blue bayonet jackets in there, which would be. | 00:40:09 | |
UMM volunteers advising, educating the public and probably doing some cloud control. | 00:40:19 | |
Keeping people quiet. | 00:40:25 | |
Again, we really don't have any permanent signs. | 00:40:29 | |
Coastal Trail. | 00:40:33 | |
Next slide. | 00:40:34 | |
OK. So briefly some recent studies of Hopkins that have. | 00:40:37 | |
Brought to our attention this year from some grad students, noise does alter seal behavior, increases risk of miscarriage. | 00:40:41 | |
Six fold and results in significant reproductive decline. | 00:40:50 | |
We did. | 00:40:56 | |
Reproductive success rates fall in from 2021 to 2022. | 00:40:58 | |
That was attributed to some road construction during puffing season. | 00:41:06 | |
And then Ryan, last month, Ryan O'Connor gave a wonderful presentation showing an overall decline in our Rookery. | 00:41:11 | |
Next slide please. | 00:41:22 | |
OK, so some city responses to students to seal disturbance I think have been really positive. Public Works does put up fencing and | 00:41:25 | |
signs at that 5th St. overflow during pupping season and City Council unanimously passed. | 00:41:32 | |
Road work restrictions during harbor seal pumping Season following. | 00:41:41 | |
The road construction in spring of 2022. | 00:41:45 | |
Next slide. | 00:41:51 | |
OK, so some recommendations. I would recommend year round signs for a year round Rookery in addition to signs during the pupping | 00:41:54 | |
season. I really liked this sign that I found. It is for endangered lung seals in Hawaii. | 00:42:02 | |
And I really liked it because it is a nice silhouette. I think especially for bike riders coming down the trail who are passing | 00:42:11 | |
very quickly, this kind of gives the brain. | 00:42:17 | |
An image and a quiet place, so I think it's a really nice sign that I think we could maybe work from. | 00:42:23 | |
Next slide. | 00:42:31 | |
OK, so some placement recommendations would be Hopkins area year round? | 00:42:32 | |
2 quiet sales signs along the bike path from both directions I think would be ideal. They could be somewhat low to the ground. | 00:42:38 | |
They don't have to be tall. | 00:42:43 | |
Maybe two to three signs on the fence, or potentially 2 signs lower to the ground. | 00:42:49 | |
In that vicinity, but a little bit away from the fence, so people are not climbing on the signs onto the fence. | 00:42:57 | |
5th St. during pupping season. I also think it'd be great to have some of these quiet still signs along the bike path from both | 00:43:04 | |
directions and some on the fence. | 00:43:08 | |
Next slide. | 00:43:13 | |
OK, so recommendations would be recommending the city place permanent year round signs in the Hopkins Coastal Trail area. Consider | 00:43:16 | |
additional signage of Hopkins and 5th St. during popping season and consult with Nic for final style and placement of signs. | 00:43:25 | |
Next slide please. I think with that we. | 00:43:34 | |
Wrapped up for potential. | 00:43:37 | |
Thank you. | 00:43:40 | |
That was great. I mean, I agree with everything. | 00:43:56 | |
The only thing I would say is, if you don't mind a suggestion to open up, open up the floor for public comment. We have some hands | 00:43:59 | |
raised. Sorry. | 00:44:04 | |
And also just a gentle reminder to everybody in the public end on the Dyess just to speak directly into the microphone for the | 00:44:12 | |
benefit of the virtual audience and the recording. Thank you. | 00:44:17 | |
Part of the SEAL team, so I want to thank you for bringing this forward. It is so needed and long overdue. | 00:44:33 | |
You know, I've been watching the Seals really since 2010 and my husband for about 20 years, and it didn't used to be such a big | 00:44:42 | |
deal in the past. I mean, we did have disturbances here and there and things would happen. And then there's the general. | 00:44:50 | |
Construction, which is one of the highest, but we didn't really have the kind of noise that we now have that came during the | 00:44:58 | |
pandemic and it never stopped. | 00:45:04 | |
And the wreck trail got a lot more rowdy. | 00:45:10 | |
And the noise, the sounds of radios just went way up. And that has become a huge problem for the harbor seals. | 00:45:12 | |
The racing cars that go up and down that street and revving motorcycles have also caused a huge disturbance. It was the number one | 00:45:21 | |
disturbance in November. | 00:45:26 | |
We saw 139 disturbances and number one were the cars that were revving their engines going by. | 00:45:32 | |
Number two were the human disturbances, So people at the fence line may be talking loud on their cell phones using the speaker | 00:45:40 | |
versus putting it to their head. | 00:45:45 | |
Or making noises, or ringing the bells from the bikes. Or just screaming at the side of Scene Harbor seals. You know kids can't | 00:45:50 | |
control themselves. | 00:45:54 | |
Maybe they're climbing the fence, but all of these things have dramatically increased since the pandemic, and it's become a real | 00:45:59 | |
problem. | 00:46:03 | |
So thank you for bringing this forward. Yes, our harbor seals need to sleep. They are nocturnal. And you know, as docents were out | 00:46:08 | |
there telling people this all the time, we do all the educating we can and at some point that is not enough. We need signage. So | 00:46:16 | |
people who have told us repeatedly come here to visit or why are there no signs here telling us to be quiet? | 00:46:25 | |
Then we can at least point to the. | 00:46:33 | |
Doesn't mean they're going to listen to it, but at least it's there and a lot of people will. A lot of people. | 00:46:36 | |
You don't want to know that they're not harming the seals, so let's give them that opportunity. | 00:46:42 | |
These guys, you know are known worldwide now. We should be proud to have a colony of seals that have a lot of fans. They're over | 00:46:48 | |
14,000. On their Facebook page we have people traveling from England, Ireland, Scotland. We've even had people from Russia. People | 00:46:55 | |
in England come regularly and we're in contact with them. That's the Cornwall seal people. So we do meet with them online and have | 00:47:03 | |
meetings back and forth with England. | 00:47:10 | |
So our seals are very popular. We are one of the few places in the Monterey Bay that have this large of a colony that's in a | 00:47:19 | |
location that people can see and not disturb. We just need to help them know how not to do that. | 00:47:26 | |
I think we owe it to the Seals. They give us a lot. So thank you for bringing this forward. | 00:47:35 | |
And any help you need were there to help you guys. | 00:47:40 | |
Thank you. | 00:47:45 | |
Hello, my name is Tricia Bennett. | 00:47:52 | |
Kim asked me to speak today because I'm a docent at Point Lopez. | 00:47:56 | |
And I'm the Harbour Seal Pup Watch Advocate at Point Lobos. | 00:48:00 | |
Our problems are not nearly as severe as yours, are disturbance problems simply because we are a reserve, a nature reserve, and | 00:48:08 | |
there's a certain. | 00:48:12 | |
Behaviour that's expected in the reserve and we have a lot of docents out and about keeping an eye on things. | 00:48:17 | |
We have 4 rookeries, harbour seal rookeries at Point Lobos. We don't have any signage up. | 00:48:24 | |
During the year, except during popping season from mid March to the end of May. | 00:48:33 | |
We don't really need signage, as I say, because we have a lot of docents out and about, keeping an eye on things, but the critical | 00:48:39 | |
time, as everybody knows, is popping season. | 00:48:44 | |
So Kim asked me to just talk about the science that we use during popping season. | 00:48:49 | |
In front of the rookeries themselves. I don't know if I should just hold this up or pass it around. | 00:48:55 | |
We have eye level signs that say quiet please and with a little bit of exclamation explanation as to why it's important to keep | 00:49:01 | |
quiet. | 00:49:06 | |
There's fairly effective, not 100% effective, but they do help. | 00:49:12 | |
I personally think we should actually reduce the wording on this sign because people don't really stop to read. The whole thing is | 00:49:17 | |
the quiet please one. That's the really important and the reason why. | 00:49:23 | |
Last popping season, so we introduced some other. | 00:49:29 | |
And this really made a huge. | 00:49:34 | |
This one right here. | 00:49:37 | |
First of all, the color. | 00:49:39 | |
Is quite striking. They're not State parks colours, but I got away with this somehow. | 00:49:42 | |
And there's a camera from the back of the room, if you don't mind showing the virtual audience. That's that's perfect. Thank you. | 00:49:48 | |
That's OK. Yeah. | 00:49:52 | |
So as you can see the lettering is an orange and it contrasts with the with the blue and it says you are approaching a harbor seal | 00:49:55 | |
birthing site. | 00:50:00 | |
And we found this made a huge difference. It really attracted people's attention. | 00:50:05 | |
And then by the time they got to the birthing site, they were they understood it was important to keep quiet. | 00:50:10 | |
Just a word on education. I do find I do a lot of training and a lot of explaining to the public. We do find that once people | 00:50:18 | |
understand why it's so important to keep quiet around the babies. | 00:50:24 | |
They really are on your side. | 00:50:30 | |
And they have, honestly, whisper quiet. It's absolutely fantastic. | 00:50:32 | |
So the signs do work. | 00:50:37 | |
Thank you. | 00:50:39 | |
Thank you. | 00:50:41 | |
Hi, I'm Tom Aikman, as I think most of you know. Andre, thank you. I'll not argue with the thing you said, but I'll. | 00:50:47 | |
Try to put a little depth into it. I've been a dozen down at the shoreline for 20 years. | 00:50:57 | |
And in that. | 00:51:02 | |
And put in a lot of hours. | 00:51:04 | |
But I've talked to more than 60,000 people face to. | 00:51:06 | |
The conversation has changed dramatically over 20 years. | 00:51:10 | |
In the beginning, 20 years ago, I would go down to do a bayonet shift. | 00:51:15 | |
And it was fairly slow. | 00:51:19 | |
And I would make myself stay until I talked to at least 20 people, and that would be two or three hours usually. And by then I | 00:51:22 | |
heard that's enough. | 00:51:26 | |
Report on SO I. | 00:51:31 | |
These days there will be 3 or 4 docents at the same. | 00:51:34 | |
And we'll all click 80 to 100 folks before our legs get out and we go. | 00:51:38 | |
It's a mob scene now. It has been growing over the years for a lot of reasons. One of the reasons is M started the Facebook page. | 00:51:43 | |
13 years. | 00:51:54 | |
And it has 14,000 followers. A lot of them are local, a lot of them are tourists, but it draws a lot of attention and clowns | 00:51:56 | |
always draw crowns. | 00:52:00 | |
But with the pandemic, we got mobs, we got a different kind of tourist, and we've always had, and we get rowdier and it's noisier, | 00:52:04 | |
and the electric bikes zipping down the path and trying to bowl people over haven't added to it. So my conversations these days | 00:52:11 | |
usually start off in some way to try to quiet things. | 00:52:18 | |
One of the first things I usually say to people that if you don't know, they're sleeping in the daytime and that's why they're not | 00:52:26 | |
sick, they're not dead, they're resting and we need to be quiet about. | 00:52:32 | |
I would welcome sign. | 00:52:39 | |
Over the years I like everybody else. I don't want to over sign the shoreline. I don't want to ruin the view. | 00:52:41 | |
But as time has gone by, I. | 00:52:48 | |
The text on the signs that the studio uses, we did that, I wrote that some years ago and the Coast Commission approved them and | 00:52:51 | |
blah blah blah, but. | 00:52:56 | |
We have, I will not divide signs now because when we had a few people going by, they may or may not have been that important when | 00:53:01 | |
you have the mobs we have now going. | 00:53:07 | |
If 20% of the books passing or approaching, see the signs and follow them. | 00:53:13 | |
That's a big. | 00:53:20 | |
And I would. I don't want to over. | 00:53:22 | |
Overlook the need for assigned to point Pinos or lovers Point, but in the Hopkins area I know and you know. | 00:53:25 | |
That we have thousands of people at a time down there during the pumping season. | 00:53:32 | |
And anything we can do to help draw attention to the need to be quiet. And it isn't just I don't want a complex sign. I want the | 00:53:37 | |
fewest words we can have and maybe just a sign to say quiet please or a quiet zone or, you know. | 00:53:45 | |
Sealed, sleeping up, sleeping, whatever, be fine, thank you. | 00:53:53 | |
Thank you. | 00:53:59 | |
Thank you Day and our three speakers. And we do have 3 Sandra's in the virtual audience. Sorry I gotta look. | 00:54:08 | |
True. | 00:54:16 | |
Let's start with Miss Ingle Lawrence Dah. | 00:54:20 | |
Thank you very much. | 00:54:23 | |
I love the signs idea. I like the ones in the letter that was sent to you too. I think it was either Tom or Kim, but the the more. | 00:54:26 | |
The. | 00:54:36 | |
And big enough and low enough to the ground. I love the seal. Just that seal with a monk seal. And possibly even, you know how you | 00:54:37 | |
have a daytime day headlight test section. Let's put daytime quiet zone, because this is the most important thing and they don't | 00:54:44 | |
seem to get that. | 00:54:51 | |
And then? | 00:54:59 | |
The no drones with our code. Those big signs need to be up to and interspaced along with the quiet. | 00:55:01 | |
And I agree that it doesn't need a lot and I'm talking about on the way to Hopkins and along there. | 00:55:12 | |
Because that really. | 00:55:20 | |
Need. | 00:55:22 | |
Effective sign. | 00:55:25 | |
That nobody has to stop and read a bunch or anything else because they're not going to. | 00:55:28 | |
And I don't know what you can do except for more enforcement on the revving their engines and the motorcycles. They'll wake me up | 00:55:33 | |
in the middle of the night, even. | 00:55:38 | |
But. | 00:55:44 | |
Simple. Effective. Large enough. | 00:55:46 | |
And definitely the drones. | 00:55:50 | |
Thank you very. | 00:55:54 | |
And we have a hand raised from Lisa. | 00:55:58 | |
Thank you. | 00:56:02 | |
We are so fortunate to have this Rookery protected by fencing and. | 00:56:05 | |
Amazing dedicated docents. | 00:56:12 | |
It's a. | 00:56:17 | |
Tony and I moved here from La Jolla. | 00:56:18 | |
There is a Rookery on the Coastal Trail, you could say, but it's just continual. | 00:56:22 | |
Aggravation. It's really difficult to to manage the people. | 00:56:33 | |
The signs are so important because they can be pointed to, whether it's by docents or by by residents or anybody who knows what's | 00:56:39 | |
going on, people get it. | 00:56:45 | |
Some people need signs they. | 00:56:52 | |
Really, pay attention to people. But signs. So the signs, especially the simple ones, The quiet, please. | 00:56:56 | |
And maybe a little detail, but not a lot. | 00:57:04 | |
Umm, the last. Oh my heavens, last year there were these. Pathetic. | 00:57:08 | |
Laminated signs on sandwich boards, you, some people or a frames. | 00:57:14 | |
That were there. We had lots of rain right? And and there was so much condensation inside you couldn't even read the signs. | 00:57:20 | |
So I there I hadn't thought about the issue. | 00:57:29 | |
People can climb on signs, so that would be tricky as far as spacing them, but the lower. | 00:57:34 | |
Ones that maybe come up to your thigh somewhere. They have some very nice ones at Moss Landing Marine Labs. | 00:57:41 | |
Anyway, that's a nice size where your height where you see them. | 00:57:51 | |
But they're not in your view. | 00:57:58 | |
So yes, people are more compliant when there's signs, OK, And just so important for our seals, but. | 00:58:01 | |
I would just like to add two things that we need signs on the streets. | 00:58:11 | |
Coming in to PG, I don't know if that was mentioned here, I didn't hear that and and the street obviously is is a real concern | 00:58:16 | |
and. | 00:58:22 | |
A neighbor, a wonderful young father on our street, walks his little girl in a stroller. | 00:58:29 | |
Almost every morning along the stretch West of Lovers Point, and there's two sets of rocks there on either side of what we call | 00:58:36 | |
Oak Rock. The the big one where the egret. | 00:58:43 | |
Stands and sometimes and it's covered with cormorants. | 00:58:50 | |
Sometimes black oyster catchers nest there. He's so distressed by people who taunt the seals trying to get a response to from | 00:58:55 | |
them. | 00:58:59 | |
So if there's any way to provide signs there too, that's not. | 00:59:04 | |
The huge priority that the Rookery is but but it is. People need to be educated, thank you very much. | 00:59:09 | |
Next we have Miss Carmelita Gar. | 00:59:21 | |
Thank you very much Andrew. The BNRC Commissioners, I want to thank you for your vacation and your work towards. | 00:59:26 | |
Our wildlife and trees. | 00:59:35 | |
What have you that make us such a great community? So, so I I agree with signage and I agree with Mr. Aikman's suggestion to keep | 00:59:38 | |
it simple. Quiet please. | 00:59:44 | |