Saratoga council updates Heritage Orchard contract terms

Saratoga City Council narrowly approved guidelines Feb. 9 for the Heritage Orchard’s maintenance contract, despite concerns from the council and the public about the health of the orchard and contention that the updated guidelines are too restrictive.

The city is set to start accepting applications in March for Requests for Proposals (RFP) to run the orchard. Council voted 3-2 to approve updates to the RFP to include sustainable fruit harvesting requirements and community engagement initiatives. Vice Mayor Kookie Fitzsimmons and Councilmember Rishi Kumar voting against the updates.

Fitzsimmons said the previous year’s RFP should be adopted instead of the new plan, which she said is too restrictive and threatens the health of the orchard.

“If you want to see a truly magnificent, majestic heritage orchard, you have to go to Sunnyvale’s orchard. You will see right away how frail, fragile, weak our orchard is at this moment,” Fitzsimmons said. “So, I’m so disappointed. It was the right answer for me to go to last year’s RFP, and I will leave it at that because I know I’m in the minority.”

Staff said the changes were proposed to reflect the recently updated Heritage Orchard Master Plan and the community harvest held last summer, when thousands of residents came out to pick fruit at the orchard.

Under the new RFP, the contractor is responsible for annually harvesting fruit and distributing it to the public through harvest events and local food banks. It also requires the contractor to participate in community activities like the annual Blossom Festival, Arbor Day celebration and monthly Heritage Commission meetings.

“The community engagement–the families that came last summer–was such a huge success, way beyond my imagination, and I would like to see that continue,” Mayor Tina Walia said. “The fact that the harvesting of the fruit was done by members of the community as well as volunteers from the food banks…I think that is just phenomenal.”

The city’s current contract with Orchard Keepers is set to expire in May. Orchard Keepers was awarded a one-year contract in both 2020 and 2021. Before that, Novakovich Orchards maintained the Heritage Orchard.

Former Saratoga resident Neal Casteel, who has advocated for Novakovich Orchards to regain the management contract for the Heritage Orchard, raised concerns at last week’s council meeting about the impartiality of the RFP.

“The RFP identifies requirements that I believe are excessively restrictive and would prevent any other prospective orchardists from interest in the care of the orchard,” Casteel said. “It shows a bias toward the existing contractor by setting out staffing requirements…that would prevent interest in bidding.”

Casteel said 408 trees are missing from the orchard, and that no new trees had been planted for the past two years.

Saratoga spokesperson Lauren Pettipiece said some trees were lost over several years due to oak root fungus, and the city “carefully considered” how they would replace the lost trees. Council approved a Capital Improvement Plan project to replace the trees later this year.

The Heritage Orchard was designated as a city park in 1984 to recognize the town’s agricultural heritage. It was designated a heritage landmark by the city in 1988, and it is now one of the few remaining orchards in the Bay Area, according to the city’s website .

In 2020, the city council adopted the Heritage Orchard Master Plan developed by the Heritage Preservation Commission.