Agenda Item # 3.1 - Carla Ruigh | Received 09/18/2023Speaker: Carla Ruigh
Subject:
Gilroy City Council Regular Meeting
Monday September 18, 2023
Agenda Item #13.1
Report on Measures taken to Improve Conditions at Las Animas Park
My name is Carla Ruigh, I'm a tennis player, and former Operations Manager here at the City of
Gilroy. In my 35 years in the field of Parks and Recreation I held positions as a Park Ranger, Park
Manager, and Park Planning Manager overseeing 100 million dollars of park planning and
development projects. As a Park Ranger, Senior Park Ranger, and reserve deputy sheriff — I have
had significant law enforcement training including both the reserve and basic policy academy. I
understand the complexity of these kinds of parks management issues.
While the staff may perceive that this closure has improved security in the park, it certainly does
not make us feel any safer, in fact, just the opposite. You have now made this area of the park
more secluded and isolated, less visible, more difficult for the good guys to access, and
ultimately more attractive to criminals. If a designer were hand me plans for a park with an
isolated and inaccessible area like this, I would have rejected them, full stop. While the current
design of the park in this area is far from ideal, gating the parking lot only makes things worse.
You haven't solved the problem, you have only moved it to another area of the park and created
a new safety problem for park users.
Police, fire and ambulance must now either stop and unlock the gate or take a longer and
slower route from the other side of the park. This exact situation occurred a few weeks ago.
When one officer responding to an aggressive person harassing tennis players had to unlock and
open the gate and the other officers had to drive in on park pathways from the other side.
Responding to an emergency via park pathways is a safety hazard for park users who are not
expecting cars driving through the park. Creating a situation where emergency response is
impeded based solely on subjective analysis not supported by data, and without trying less
drastic measures is not wise or well considered public policy.
One of the most troubling assertions of this report is that it is better to restrict access of
legitimate public users rather than taking direct law enforcement action targeting the unwanted
behavior. If you extend this logic, we should close roads to stop speeding and side shows, shut
down public transit to prevent loitering and crime in transit facilities, and close the sidewalks to
stop kids on bikes from disrupting legitimate use. But,do we do this? No of course not, we step
up enforcement.
The staff report acknowledges this was a subjective, not a data -driven decision. The report
states that staff thinks things have improved, but offer no data to support this subjective
conclusion. The report also states that the original intent was to close the lots at night. But
instead, the City chose to close the lots permanently without even trying other options.
The closure of the parking lot is not simply a minor inconvenience of 12'. First, the distances
shown in the staff report are misleading at best. Depending on which space, it's 35 to 70
meters to the 4 southernmost courts from the Wayland lot. The distance from the closest
parking space in the Mantelli parking lot to those same courts is 150 meters!
The report justifies the full closure of the lot without trying less disruptive measures because a
nighttime closure would require staff time and because cars might remain in the lot and need to
be impounded. Providing safe public facilities is a core function of government, and yes, it takes
staff resources to do this. County Parks closes many of their parking lots on a nightly basis, and
they don't have an unmanageable problem with vehicle impoundments. Given that closing park
parking lots is a common park management protocol with a history of successful use, rejecting
this approach out of hand shows deference for taking the easy way out without putting in the
effort to develop a more comprehensive plan.
Lastly, we did not receive notice of this item being scheduled before Council tonight until
literally a few days before the meeting, including a weekend. Many people who want to speak
to this issue couldn't attend this meeting on such short notice. This does not, in my mind
constitute a good faith effort to achieve transparent government business that serves the
people.
Request
• Staff from Parks, Police and any other relevant City departments meet with
representatives of the Tennis club to review and discuss the parking lot closure and
consider other options to effectively address the problems.
• An action plan should be developed to address the issues while better preserving public
access and not creating a safety hazard for the tennis players.
• The action plan should include a monitoring and follow up plan to assess the
effectiveness of actions taken, supported by objective data, and to implement other
strategies if needed.
I believe that less drastic measures than closing the lot permanently should at least be tried and
that the decisions at the very least should have empirical data to validate and support the
actions taken.