The Sunnyvale Sun
News
Council to decide priority of Baylands Park study
By Cody Kraatz
The Sunnyvale City Council will consider on Jan. 25 how highly to rank a "study issue" focused on Sunnyvale Baylands Park.
Study issues are ranked in terms of their importance and the staff and consultant costs they will require to allocate limited staff resources, thus setting the agenda for 2008.
The Jan. 25 council meeting will be a workshop to look at many study issues from all of the city's departments, as well as those sponsored by council members.
The Baylands study issuewas partially completed on Dec. 4 when the council gave the go-ahead to negotiate a minimum 20-year extension of a 25-year agreement with the Santa Clara County under which the city operates the county-owned park. The current lease expires in 2011.
"I do expect they will be calling pretty soon," said Lisa Killough, county parks and recreation director, who had not yet heard from the city at the end of December.
"We obviously have a little bit of time to negotiate," she said, estimating there should be results by the end of 2008 with good progress. "We've had very cordial relations with the city in the past, and I don't expect it will be complicated."
Where it might get complicated is with the possible sports programming the study will consider, including baseball, cricket or soccer fields that leagues could reserve, generating a revenue stream that the city seems to be seeking.
Killough said the county is looking to maintain the regional quality of the park, and such activities as organized soccer could be a concern because they would threaten the free-form use pattern the county seeks and make Baylands look more like a city park.
Proposed uses must also be considered in terms of environmental sensitivity to the tidal wetlands next to the park, she added.
What's more, who pays for the possible playing fields or other improvements, including $197,500 in playground and irrigation upgrades, remains in question and could play into the negotiations.
"If we're going to invest a lot of money into this, I want to make sure we're going to get as much of our money out of this as there is," said Councilwoman Melinda Hamilton before the Dec. 4 decision.
Rainy day
A rain-soaked cloudy afternoon in early December illustrated the park's popularity with a variety of users.
Local tech workers walked during their lunch breaks, while a group on the Great Meadow was wrapping up a soccer match.
"We like this park," said Khalil Azizpor, a local technology worker, changing into work clothes at his trunk after the match. The group organizes pickup games on Tuesdays and Thursdays by e-mail.
"They keep it up, and during the winter when the weather's bad, they close it so nobody damages it."
He said he doesn't mind the parking fee, $5 per car per day or $22 for a whole season, because it ensures that only people with serious intentions enter the park.
Remote-controlled airplane flyers took to the field next.
The Wildlife Center of Silicon Valley had released a female red-tailed hawk only a half-hour earlier. She was entangled and pinned to a eucalyptus tree branch by thin string that flyers use to retrieve their planes from trees.
The center and Sunnyvale Animal Control took the hawk to the center for observation on Nov. 17 and released her when she showed no signs of injury.
Meanwhile, a hawk sat in the same tree, calmly scanning the ground for prey, as another raptor glided overhead.
Visit parks.insunnyvale.com for more information about Sunnyvale Baylands Park.