A guide to the Bidwell Park & Playground Commission

Commissioners at an August 2003 meeting.

The Commission consists of seven members, appointed by the City Council. The term of office is four years. The duties include decisions about the operation and maintenance of all of the facilities managed by the Chico Park Department and decisions about city-owned trees. The Commission meets on the last Monday of each month at 7 pm in the City Council Chambers, Chico Municipal Building. All meetings are open to the public and are televised on the cable public access channel. Agendas and minutes are available on the Chico Web site. Meeting agendas are also posted outside the Municipal Building. Contact the Park Department if you want to be included on the agenda mailing list. All of the background information the Commission members receive in their monthly "agenda packet" is available for public viewing at the Park Department as soon as the agenda is posted. In addition, this same information is usually available in a binder on a table at the back of the Council Chambers on the evening of the meeting. Agendas for the meeting are available in a wall rack by the Chamber entrance doors.

• Tom Barrett — 1/09
• Michael Candela — 1/09
• Lisa Emmerich — 1/11
• Steve Lucas — 1/11
• Richard Ober — 1/11
• Jim Walker (Chair) — 1/11
• David Wood — 1/09

Committees of the Bidwell Park & Playground Commission

Specialized committees do much of the preliminary investigative work for items that later appear on Commission agendas. Each Committee has three Commissioners as members. Other Commissioners may attend these committee meetings, but are not allowed to participate in the discussion. Committee meetings are also held monthly, are open to the public and agendas are available as described above. The preliminary schedule for committee meetings is posted in our calendar. If there are no discussion items, the meeting is not held. Minutes are not taken at these committee meetings, so you may want to take notes of what was said and by whom. Generally, at the Park Commission meeting, the committee chairs only report on the votes that were taken, not the details of the discussion that preceded the voting, so be prepared to attend the next Commission meeting and repeat your comments. The only way to have your comments become part of the public record is to state them at the Commission meeting and/or write a letter to the Park Commission. If you speak at a Commission meeting, you should verify the following month that the minutes accurately reflect what you said.

• Art Ad Hoc — Richard Ober (chair), Lisa Emmerich, Steve Lucas
• Bike — Michael Candela (chair), Jim Walker, David Wood
• Master Management Plan — Jim Walker (Chair), Michael Candela, Steve Lucas
• Preservation & Stream — Tom Barrett (Chair), Richard Ober, David Wood
• Trail & Safety — David Wood (Chair), Tom Barrett, Jim Walker
• Tree & Finance — Steve Lucas (Chair), Tom Barrett, Lisa Emmerich
• Volunteer — Lisa Emmerich (Chair), Michael Candela, Richard Ober

How to get an item onto the agenda

At the end of each Commission and Committee meeting, there's an item called "Business from the Floor." At this time members of the public as well as Commissioners can bring up park-related items they want to have discussed at future commission or committee meetings. The commissioner or committee members should immediately decide whether to allow the item to be put on a later agenda. Generally, these items are referred to a specific committee first. If you make such a request, before you leave, you should ask which committee will hear the item. Follow up with a letter to that committee and the Park Director repeating your request, to make sure it's not inadvertently forgotten. You can also start by writing a letter to the Park Commission, but be prepared to also bring up the topic at the meeting, since letters (which appear at the back of the agenda packet) are sometimes overlooked. Items that are not on the posted agenda cannot be discussed at that meeting.

Bidwell Park and Playground Commission Members (since inception)

Compiled by Half a Bubble Out Communications
June 2005