TITLE
Recommendation to adopt resolution authorizing City Manager to apply for California Cultural and Historical Endowment (CCHE) grant funds, in the amount of $982,892, for construction of a Visitor Education Center at Rancho Los Cerritos Historic Site, and to execute any documents necessary for the implementation and administration of the project. (District 8)
DISCUSSION
The Department of Parks, Recreation and Marine proposes to apply for $982,892 in CCHE grant funds for the Cultural and Historical Endowment under the California Clean Water, Clean Air, Safe Neighborhood Parks, and Coastal Protection Act of 2002, for construction of a Visitor Education Center at Rancho Los Cerritos Historic Site. The Visitor Education Center is expected to cost $1,965,384, and the grant requires a one to one match. If the City's application is approved, the Rancho Los Cerritos Foundation will formalize an agreement with the City Council to provide matching funds up to $700,000 and apply $196,578 of an existing design contract towards the match, as permitted by the application guidelines; the remaining $100,000 needed will come from existing funds in the Rancho Los Cerritos Capital Improvement Project account.
The architectural firm, Heritage Architecture and Planning, is currently designing the Visitor Education Center for Rancho Los Cerritos in accordance with the Rancho Los Cerritos Master Plan, which was approved in concept by the City Council in November 2002. Designs will be completed in April 2006. The Visitor Education Center, representative of the Cota adobe built on Rancho lands in the 1830s, will enable the museum to expand and diversify its audience as it implements an exciting and unique "Visitors from the Past" interpretive tour program. Guided tours will begin in the new center, and will involve costumed living history characters who share specific stories of the Rancho and its history based upon their own lives and the site's main themes and educational objec...
Click here for full text