PSFSS COMMITTEE: 3/16/17 ITEM: (d) 3

CITY OF SAN IPSE Memorandum CAPITAL OF

TO: PUBLIC SAFETY, FINANCE, AND FROM: Angel Rios, Jr. STRATEGIC SUPPORT COMMITTEE

SUBJECT: PARK RANGER PROGRAM DATE: March 8, 2017 ANNUAL REPORT Approved Date .5 A - n

RECOMMENDATION

Accept the 2016 Annual Report on the Park Ranger Program.

BACKGROUND

The City of San Jose's Park Ranger Program is an integral part of the Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Services Department (PRNS). Its mission is to provide a safe, enjoyable park experience by protecting and educating the public, providing recreational opportunities, and protecting, preserving, and enhancing the natural and cultural resources of the City's parks, trails and open spaces.

The Park Ranger Program has its roots in resource and visitor protection. The City established the Park Ranger Unit in 1972 after a period in the 1960's and early 1970's when San Jose's park system expanded rapidly and crime and vandalism were deterring residents from using parks. A community task force convened to address crime issues at and other neighborhood parks and recommended adding Park Rangers.

Originally, Park Rangers were Auxiliary Police Officers, appointed by the Chief of Police and granted Peace Officer powers while on duty. The Park Ranger Unit provided law enforcement services along with land management and visitor services. Park Rangers underwent police academy training, and the Police Department provided them with equipment and vehicles for their work.

By the late 1970's, the San Jose Police Department created a Parks Enforcement Unit to provide a higher level of enforcement (rather than arming San Jose's Park Rangers). In 1983, state law changed, granting Park Rangers independent Peace Officer status under section 830.31(b) of the Penal Code, which provides Peace Officer powers to regularly employed Park Rangers for the protection of park property and the preservation of peace. As time passed, the PUBLIC SAFETY, FINANCE & STRATEGIC SUPPORT COMMITTEE March 8, 2017 Subject: Park Ranger Program Annual Report Page 2 of 8

Police Department dissolved its dedicated Parks Enforcement Unit, and the Park Rangers' law enforcement role increased.

Over the course of the program's 44-year history, San Jose Park Rangers have worked to ensure a safe and enjoyable atmosphere in City parks. Park Rangers assist park users, provide information on appropriate park use, and educate visitors on park rules and procedures. As public safety officers, Park Rangers also render emergency medical care, conduct search and rescue operations, and perform wildland fire prevention patrols as well as provide initial wildland fire suppression. As stewards of the City's natural and cultural resources, Park Rangers work to protect and monitor park lands, restore native vegetation, maintain rustic hiking trails, and educate the public on the cultural and natural history of San Jose. Park Rangers also maintain safety and security in our neighborhood parks and along trails.

ANALYSIS

The City of San Jose Park Ranger Program has provided outstanding public service in San Jose's regional parks since its founding in 1972. Regional parks that were becoming overburdened with resource damage and criminal activity, such as Alum Rock Park, are now enjoyed daily by walkers, joggers, and picnicking families. New efforts by Park Rangers are addressing quality- of-life issues in areas not previously served, such as neighborhood parks and watershed corridors. The Park Ranger Program has also forged a successful partnership with the Water District to create a Watershed Protection Team.

In addition, the City's regional parks are growing in popularity, new neighborhood parks are being added, and the trail network is in the process of expansion from the current 57 miles of trails to a total of 100 miles. This creates opportunities to further expand Park Ranger presence and services to the community. Over the long-term, combined with added General Fund resources, PRNS will continue to explore public and private partnership opportunities in an effort to generate funds that can be used to expand the Park Ranger Program and, more importantly, to ensure the City's urban park and trail systems are safe and enjoyable.

2016 Program Highlights

During the last year, the Park Ranger Program has achieved the following:

• Two Park Ranger program recruits graduated from the Park Ranger Academy and Field Training Program and were assigned to and Regional Park. • In fall 2016, the Park Ranger Program created a recruiting team of Park Rangers on overtime or modified duty to target college job fairs and statewide professional trainings. • Park Rangers hosted special events for the community, including Japanese Friendship Garden walks and night photography, and Bollywood dance classes at Kelley Park. PUBLIC SAFETY, FINANCE & STRATEGIC SUPPORT COMMITTEE March 8, 2017 Subject: Park Ranger Program Annual Report Page 3 of 8

• In late November 2016, after being notified by park visitors, Park Rangers initiated a medical response and, alongside San Jose Firefighters, extricated a young man who had suffered head, neck, and back injuries at Alum Rock Park. • The Program purchased and deployed a mobile fingerprint unit for the Watershed Protection Team, shared with wardens from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, to identify persons without a valid identification. Park Rangers have already used the unit several times to identify chronic violators providing false identification to avoid arrest for outstanding felony and misdemeanor warrants. • The program piloted mobile data terminals in two patrol vehicles assigned to the Watershed Protection Team to facilitate documentation of enforcement related contacts and reports. The program will assess their cost-benefit in decreasing time spent on report writing, which is normally done at desktop work stations. The terminals also allow access to the San Jose Police Department's report writing software and improve processing time for Park Ranger reports, which usually must be hand processed.

Park Rangers by the Numbers

Park Rangers play a number of roles while stewarding the City's natural resources, and educating and protecting visitors. One role is coordinating volunteers, community groups, and educational institutions who donate their time and resources to improve the park system, including conducting trail work at Alum Rock Park, providing interpretive programs and docent services, building and donating benches, installing and maintaining a native plant garden for the Alum Rock Visitor Center and Lake Cunningham Regional Park, and mapping mountain lion sightings at Alum Rock Park. The table below summarizes volunteer activities coordinated by Park Rangers.

Park Number of Volunteers Number of Hours Value* Almaden Lake 25 300 $16,554 Alum Rock 193 5,230 $144,296 Kelley 13 39 $1,076 Emma Prusch Farm 176 528 $14,568 Lake Cunningham 110 330 $9,105 308 924 $25,493 Watersheds 687 2,796 $77,142 Total 1,512 10,147 $288,234 * The value of these volunteer hours is calculated at $27.59 per hour by the Independent Sector, a national non­ profit policy and advocacy organization for volunteer activities.

Park Rangers also have a key role in emergency response, providing medical aid, suppressing wildland fires, and responding to search and rescue events within the park system. These events can vary from a missing child at Kelley Park to overdue hikers in the back country of Alum Rock Park. The Park Ranger Program operates four Type 6 Wildland Fire Engines for initial response to suppress wildland fires in their incipient stage to prevent these fires from becoming major events. All full-time, peace officer Park Rangers are required to complete a National Wildfire PUBLIC SAFETY, FINANCE & STRATEGIC SUPPORT COMMITTEE March 8, 2017 Subject: Park Ranger Program Annual Report Page 4 of 8

Coordinating Group-approved training program for wildland fire suppression, and many seasonal Park Rangers also complete it. The table below summarizes 2016 emergency response.

Search/Missing Park Fire Responses Medical Events Person Almaden Lake 2 6 1 Alum Rock 5 30 1 Guadalupe River / Downtown Core 0 8 0 Emma Prusch Farm / Overfelt Gardens • 2 2 0 Kelley 14 62 2 Lake Cunningham 1 14 1 TOTALS 24 122 5

Another key role of Park Rangers is to ensure a safe and enjoyable park system through education and enforcement, which is summarized in the table below for 2016. As these statistics indicate, the City's watersheds have received an enhanced level of enforcement because of the unique challenges they have presented.

Parking Criminal Crime Park Warnings Citations Citations Reports Arrests Almaden Lake 751 20 0 1 0 Alum Rock 816 117 10 13 1 Guadalupe River / Downtown Core 524 0 98 10 12 Emma Prusch Farm / Overfelt Gardens 588 13 0 1 0 Kelley , 1,403 412 ' 27 24 3 Lake Cunningham 1,554 327 0 1 3 Watersheds 533 0 466 226 46 Total 6,169 889 601 276 65

Watershed Protection Team

In recognition of the unique challenges watersheds have presented, in 2013, the City entered into a funding partnership with the Santa Clara Valley Water District (Water District). The partnership is for five years with a one-year option for renewal, dependent upon the Water District and City budget approvals and the success of the Watershed Protection Team, to patrol and enforce regulations in targeted watersheds along the Guadalupe River, and Los Gatos and Coyote Creeks.

The Watershed Protection Team is a specialized unit of four Park Rangers who work with multiple agencies, including the City's Housing and Environmental Services departments and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, to prevent the return of homeless encampments in designated areas and to remove trash and other debris from City watersheds and public lands. Under the multiyear agreement, the Water District provides funding for two limit-dated Park Rangers and the City funds two additional Park Ranger positions and one Senior Park Ranger. PUBLIC SAFETY, FINANCE & STRATEGIC SUPPORT COMMITTEE March 8, 2017 Subject: Park Ranger Program Annual Report Page 5 of 8

The funding agreement between the City and Water District put in place performance measures for the Watershed Protection Team program, with a focus on litter clean-up and the removal and prevention of homeless encampments along the shared waterways in San Jose. Clean-up activities are typically conducted weekly, with an expectation that the Water District and the City will conduct a minimum of 48 clean-ups per year. Performance measures for the team include:

1. Patrol and enforce rules and regulations along the watersheds; 2. Post encampments for clean-up; 3. Conduct clean-up of posted encampments; 4. Patrol creek areas to suppress encampments, dumping, and prevention of re-encampment; 5. Prepare daily reports; 6. Issue citations or arrest and prosecute repeat offenders; 7. Provide referrals for supportive services to vulnerable individuals to non-profit partner agencies; and 8. Attempt to identify the highly vulnerable populations, including veterans, youth, and chronically homeless individuals, and work with partner agencies to place clients into shelter or housing.

The team's desired outcomes are to:

1. Address public safety and criminal activity along the watersheds; 2. Reduce and suppress encampments, dumping and prevent re-encampment; 3. Reduce stream pollution and litter in the riparian corridor; and 4. Protect water quality, fish and wildlife and provide flood protection along the watersheds.

The Watershed Protection Team's daily patrols and enforcement have mitigated unwanted behaviors and helped to restore natural resources to their native condition in the designated areas. In 2016, the team made 789 encampment deterrence patrols, with most in Coyote Creek (437) and Guadalupe River (266). These patrols resulted in 975 referrals to service providers, with the vast majority (710) of these referrals made in Coyote Creek. Park Ranger efforts led to the removal of an estimated 1,324 cubic yards of trash from the watersheds, with the vast majority (1,043) coming from Coyote Creek.

Additionally, the Watershed Protection Team works with the City Attorney's Office to prosecute resource violators, most of whom have been chronic violators. The City Attorney's Office has also taken a strong role in working with the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office to assure that cases submitted by the Watershed Protection Team are moved forward.

In addition to the trash and debris removed by Park Ranger clean-ups, the Watershed Protection Team partners with numerous volunteer groups such as Keep Coyote Creek Beautiful, Friends of Los Gatos Creek and the Guadalupe River Park Conservancy to conduct extensive volunteer clean-ups targeting legacy trash and illegal dumping, as well as other volunteer clean-up events. As noted above, in 2016, Watershed Protection Team Park Rangers supported 687 volunteers who donated 2,796 hours of service valued at $77,142, while removing 31.5 tons of trash from the Coyote Creek. In collaboration with the Environmental Services Department and the San PUBLIC SAFETY, FINANCE & STRATEGIC SUPPORT COMMITTEE March 8, 2017 Subject: Park Ranger Program Annual Report , Page 6 of 8

Jose Conservation Corps, the Watershed Protection Team conducted 62 encampment clean-ups and removed approximately 144 tons of material from City waterways.

Recently, there have been concerns raised by the Operating Engineers Local No. 3 (OE#3) regarding the Park Rangers and their duties regarding the Watershed Protection Team. The City is continuing to examine the duties and expectations regarding the Park Rangers in light of the concerns raised by OE#3 and will continue to engage OE#3 in conversations and work with them to address these concerns.

Staffing and Resource Challenges

The Park Ranger Program includes 26.79 full-time equivalent (FTE) positions in the 2016-2017 Adopted Operating Budget. With positions restored from previous reductions in the past few budget cycles, additional duties were added to the Park Rangers, including patrolling the parks in the downtown core, such as Guadalupe River Park, St. James Park, and Plaza de Cesar Chavez; watersheds along the Guadalupe River, Los Gatos Creek, and Coyote Creek; and other trails and parks such as Communications Hill Staircase and the Vietnamese Cultural Heritage Garden. Additional staffing was also approved so that patrol of the City's skate parks and neighborhood parks could be achieved.

The Park Ranger Program's success, however, continues to be tempered with ongoing staffing challenges, as in other areas of the City. At this time, there is a 39 percent vacancy rate for full­ time Park Ranger positions with Peace Officer status (7 of 18). PRNS has been in an aggressive recruitment cycle for the last four years, working to attract quality candidates for the role of Park Ranger. PRNS is also working to improve outreach to appropriate online job posting services and to advertise via social media. Nonetheless, staffing in the regional parks remains below historic norms, leaving a reduced capacity to respond to public safety needs or fully address threats to wildlife and habitat at these major facilities. To assist in providing coverage at the regional parks, PRNS has shifted non-sworn seasonal Park Rangers from fixed-post assignments to a fluid staffing model focused on regional parks. Even with these changes, staffing has been insufficient to ensure coverage seven days per week during all operating hours.

Retaining qualified Park Rangers is also a continuing challenge. Despite a 10.41% increase to their pay in October 2015, Park Rangers are still being recruited by and leaving for agencies such as the National Park Service, and the County of Santa Clara, and recent recruitments have attracted an insufficient amount of candidates to fill vacancies. Additionally, five Park Rangers are approaching retirement eligibility, which may lead to additional vacancies in the next several years.

To address staffing shortages, the program rotates Park Rangers on a more frequent basis than historical norms and has implemented a flexible scheduling plan. Rangers may work at one facility one day and a different facility the next day.

One possible step towards improving this dynamic would be revisiting the Park Ranger series to provide development and growth opportunities for employees and to improve employee PUBLIC SAFETY, FINANCE & STRATEGIC SUPPORT COMMITTEE March 8, 2017 Subject: Park Ranger Program Annual Report Page 7 of 8 retention. PRNS and the Human Resources Department are exploring this possibility as a potential solution with a focus on:

• Compensation relative to the local market; and , • Professional growth and development opportunities.

Park Ranger vehicle reliability is another challenge. Park Rangers operate specially equipped 4- wheel drive vehicles, about half of which are 10-18 years old and experiencing reliability issues. Park Ranger vehicles operate under severe environmental conditions, which often leads to a shorter service life than vehicles operated under normal conditions experienced by the non­ public safety fleet. The Park Ranger Program also operates two patrol boats, located at Lake Cunningham and Almaden Lake, for aquatic rescue, lake patrol, and resource management operations. The boats have been unreliable and were not designed for the needs of Park Ranger patrols. PRNS and the Public Works Department are actively working together to evaluate options to improve vehicle reliability for Park Rangers.

Next Steps

To meet existing obligations at regional parks, the Watershed Protection Team areas, and the growing need in neighborhood parks in the year ahead, the Park Ranger Program will continue to emphasize:

• Protecting the City's watersheds and actively participating with the City's Homeless Response Team; • Patrolling regional and neighborhood parks; and • Maintaining and growing partnerships with stakeholders such as: the Water District, California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the San Jose Police Department, County of Santa Clara Park Rangers, neighboring cities, and various volunteer organizations.

Over the next year, the Park Ranger Program will focus on best practices to attract, recruit, and retain qualified candidates for all vacancies and to retain existing employees. This work plan minimally includes the following:

• Recruiting and Hiring - PRNS will continue to prioritize the recruitment and hiring of qualified Park Ranger candidates. • Park Ranger Series - One of the impediments to recruiting new Park Rangers is the lack of a career ladder. At this time, the City has only a single classification for Park Ranger and has one Senior Park Ranger position, limiting the opportunity for Park Rangers to advance without leaving PRNS or the City. Further expanding and developing the Park Ranger series could provide development and growth opportunities for employees within in the Department, and improve employee retention. • Completion of the Park Ranger Duty Manual - The existing duty manual, which describes standard operating procedures and law enforcement protocols, was created in the 1980's and was last updated in the mid-1990's. PRNS has contracted with a PUBLIC SAFETY, FINANCE & STRATEGIC SUPPORT COMMITTEE March 8, 2017 Subject: Park Ranger Program Annual Report Page 8 of 8

recognized risk management firm to develop a modern and comprehensive manual for the program, and the draft is under final review. When ready, PRNS will distribute the revised duty manual and train all Park Rangers on it. • Public Safety Vehicles - Park Ranger vehicles operate under severe environmental conditions, often driving off-road and in dirty and dusty conditions, which can lead to a shorter service life than vehicles operated under normal conditions experienced by the non-public safety fleet. PRNS is actively working with Public Works to evaluate options to ensure vehicle reliability for staff.

COORDINATION

This memorandum has been coordinated with the Housing, Human Resources, Public Works Departments, the City Attorney's Office, the Office of Employee Relations, and the City Manager's Budget Office.

COMMISION RECOMMENDATION/INPUT

Information about the Park Ranger Program was presented to the Parks and Recreation Commission on February 1, 2017. The Commission accepted the report.

/s/ ANGEL RIOS, JR. Director, Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Services

For questions please contact Justin Long, Deputy Director, at (408) 793-5579.