Recommendation to adopt resolution authorizing City Manager, or designee, to submit a grant application to the California Department of Parks and Recreation, Outdoor Environmental Education Facilities Grant Program; accept said grant, if awarded, in an amount up to $500,000, for completion of the Willow Springs Outdoor Education Trailhead and Trail Network; and, execute all documents necessary to accept the funds and implement the project.  (District 7)
Motion case. Item to maintain. Report from Parks, Recreation and Marine. Recommendation to adopt resolution authorizing the City Manager to submit a grant application to the California Department of Parks and Recreation. Outdoor Environmental Education Facilities Grant Program. Kit is in motion in a second. Councilmember. I believe this could be a short staff report that has a comments afterwards. Is there a short staff report? Steve Scott and Meredith Reynolds, Mayor and members of the City Council. We're really excited to provide you tonight with a brief presentation on a $500,000 grant application to the California Department of Parks and Recreation, Outdoor Environment Education Grant Program for the completion of the Willow Springs Outdoor Education, Trailhead and Trail Network. The Willow Springs Outdoor Education Trailhead Project and Grant Application was developed in partnership with the Office of Sustainability and will help serve as a center of sustainability operations, enabling them to provide programs, host events, and create educational opportunities that promote environmental stewardship, sustainable practices, and hands on sustainability. Focused training for at risk youth. The project will recreate the Environmental Visitors Plaza and California Avenue Trailhead Project originally envisioned for the 1907 Southern Pacific Depot building, which was unfortunately destroyed by fire last year. This Re-Envisioned project will serve as an outdoor environmental classroom and shaded gathering area that connects to the various park amenities, while maintaining the original Environmental Visitor Center and Trailhead concept of communicating and educating visitors about native habitat in the history of the land. The project will include a large shade structure and interpretive signs in an open outdoor gathering area and will provide an introduction to local habitat. Habitat Insight, Sustainability features history and direction to the park's trail network. It will also include additional wayfinding and several adventure planer nodes with logs and boulders. An educational signage focus on sustainability and environmental stewardship. So we're excited that this project will help further implement the Willow Springs Master Plan, which was adopted by the City Council back in 2013. This grant. Opportunity. Is going to help supplement the existing city funding that we have for this project, which in total would be close to $1,000,000. We look forward to breaking ground on this project a little bit later this year and expect to hear on notification of the Grant Award in April of 2018 by the leader at the latest. That concludes our staff report. Happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Okay. We have a motion in a second. Yeah, I'm a transformative customer. We were in the. Thank you, Mayor. As was stated by a by Mr. Scott, it was a project that was in the making and unfortunately got sidetracked by the fire of the depot last year. But I'm very happy to see that we have the almost now close to $1,000,000,000 to be able to develop this Little Springs Park area and looking forward to having it activated and having people being able to enjoy some more open space that is very much needed in the seventh District. So I want to thank Mary Knight and her team for searching this out. And I wish them very much success in being able to get that grant and get em looking forward to a ribbon cutting, hopefully very soon. Thank you. Councilman Gonzalez. Just congratulations to our parks team as well as to Councilmember Wodonga. This is a great plan. Thank you. And public comment on this. Seeing none members, please go out and cast your votes.