Parks and Recreation Commission Agenda Packet - March 13, 2025

Page 2 of 4 onboarding but are tracked by a single email address and park location. There are twelve parks that were selected by the Ambassadors, with one member deciding to float from park to park. The parks in the program consist of: • Amador Valley Community Park • Del Prado Park • Hansen Park • Harvest Park • Ken Mercer Sports Park, Phase 1 • Kottinger Community Park • Kottinger Village Park • Neilsen Park • Orloff Park • Valley Trails Park • Walnut Grove Park • Woodthrush Park. To gauge continuing participation in the program, a Survey Monkey survey was emailed to all participants in mid-December. Of the thirteen survey emails used to distribute the survey, eight responses were received. All of the respondents were still active in the program, with five visiting their parks daily, two visiting weekly, and one visiting two times per month. Most respondents spent less than one hour per week in their parks, with the highest being three hours. Most respondents noticed no difference in their park or personal life since becoming an Ambassador. However, there were several survey responses in which Ambassadors noticed less litter and also became more aware of the litter present. One respondent stated that they regularly report park issues to the Public Works Department. All eight respondents were interested in continuing with the program, and seven still use the tools provided. Those tracking their volunteer hours in Better Impact were split fifty-fifty. Multiple respondents noted that the few minutes per day spent picking up litter was not worth the effort to track formally, and one respondent still had issues accessing the app. Please see Attachment 1 for the survey results. In total,113 hours of volunteer time were reported in the Better Impact app since the inception of the program in April 2024. Based on the survey results, it’s safe to say that more time is actually being spent out in the parks by Ambassadors. Eleven work requests were received from Park Ambassadors through the designated MaintStar portal. Not all the work requests pertained to park-related issues. Currently, there is little staff time associated with managing the program since the as-needed onboarding meetings have stopped for several months. The program is largely managed by the Parks Division Manager with the assistance of a Recreation Coordinator. Should interest in the program increase substantially, then general program management will have a larger impact on staff time and may need to be delegated to additional staff members. There are opportunities for improvement in the administration of the program that may require more staff time and involvement. For example, there are more volunteers signed up in Better Impact than have been onboarded. This means that members of the community can enroll Page 7 of 48