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