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Parks commission narrows core values for capital projects, agrees to formalize review process
Summary
The Costa Mesa Parks and Community Services Commission discussed six draft core values to guide park capital improvements and voted to collect commissioner input and agendize a possible subcommittee to develop an implementation rubric.
The Costa Mesa Parks and Community Services Commission on May 8 continued work on a draft set of core values intended to guide park capital-improvement decisions and voted unanimously to ask commissioners to submit written feedback and to agendize formation of a subcommittee to finalize an implementation framework.
The discussion built on a March conversation and centered on six proposed values: equity and access; sustainability; community-centered planning; safety and maintenance; innovation and optimization; and economic and social benefit. Director Gruner, the department head, told the commission the next step is to convert those values into a rubric or matrix to help prioritize projects when the parks assessment is complete.
"The idea behind this is to formulate a... matrix that we can utilize, as we're doing the parks assessment study," Director Gruner said, describing staff plans to supply a draft framework for commission review. Commissioners debated whether some values should be foundational (woven through every decision) and whether other values should be weighted for prioritization when budgets are tight.
Vice Chair Wright called for short-term versus long-term priorities tied to funding availability, and several commissioners proposed a visual format—pyramid or matrix—so the council and public can see how values translate to ranked projects. Commissioner Kamala urged that "equity and access and community-centered planning" be treated as foundational lenses that inform other priorities.
Rather than finalize the structure immediately, the commission voted 6-0 to: (1) ask each commissioner to email comments and suggested edits to staff within the coming weeks and to indicate whether they would serve on a subcommittee; and (2) agendize the creation of a potential subcommittee at the next commission meeting for formal consideration. Staff said it will coordinate with the city clerk on subcommittee procedures and return a packaged recommendation that applies the commission's feedback to a draft rubric.
The commission emphasized that the document is a working tool to be revisited annually or when budgets change and said staff would aim to present a clearer visual and practical scoring method for the next meeting.
Ending
Commissioners agreed the next meeting will include a summary of emailed commissioner input and a staff-prepared draft that illustrates how the values could be scored against sample projects before any subcommittee is finalized.
