have to -- they say it's not used well. it is used. they can't be there 24/7 to see it. so, let's be fair. let's keep it open, because other people give -- give other peep a chance to use it. there's a crying need for soccer, for volleyball. now that we have a chance to have that for multiuse you're going to just rubberstamp this thing through because somebody's giving you a gift of money? that's a lovely gesture but not for this place. not for this location. that's highly discriminatory and it's not right to do that. as i said before, they played on the grass, let them play on it again. why not? and it's going to be messed up by other people, i guarantee it, because i know that area. i chased skateboarders, all kinds of people ripping up the other part of the park and i'm

glad to see they're going to sense off the park pretty soon after peter pan leaves so i'll have six months of peace in that regard. but i guarantee you they're going to come there and ruin that park because president just up for grabs for people like that. and the homeless are going to stay there in the afternoon. who's going to police them? there is no such thing. so i urge you to let public comment on this for the neighborhood groups, phil ryan, who's head of the golden gateway tennis, that's a small group of people. they do not represent all of us. and there are thousands of tell ants in that building where i live. so please defer this until the wider public has a chance. nobody knew about this, including myself. this comes as a great shock. and i'd urge you not to ok it at this meeting, to wait and see what other people have to say about it, to be fair and not to exclusively grant them this precious piece of land

that i fought so hard for over the years. thank you. president buell: thank you. >> david. >> good afternoon again. commissioners. david miles. you know, this saturday, you know, i do sunday streets, we close the streets off. a lot of parks in there, a good thing to demo bocce ball with that and get the public involved. but this saturday i'll be out in hunter's point. at the hunter's point youth community park. they came to sunday streets and they said, nobody comes out here and does anything for us. and so i'm bringing my 300 pair of skatings, my family, my friends, we're going to go out and do a free thing for these kids who have a fiscal responsibility, it seems like they don't want to work with them, the people that's trying to do things out there, they're not like college educated and smooth and suave. they don't go to these meetings. they just have a will to try to

do something. i showed them how they could get the wood to get their roller rink built. i didn't think they were going to make it but they did. so i'm out here now, i'm going to help them out and do my thing. do you know they probably have never heard of bocce ball? these are your underprivileged kids that we all stand up when we want something. i'm sure that bocce ball is a very exciting thing. but i bet you i couldn't find 100 people who know what bocce ball is and this is a city of 700,000 people. still, i've been around rned -- around this lot a long time. i know that $63,000 is a rare thing, not -- it's a rare thing when people come with a plan, they can pay for it. everybody else they want it. i just, you know, feel like, you know, had i had an opportunity to go before some foundations or maybe rollerblade or the roller hockey or other people who we've done several events, all

these other people, i could get the same type of support but that ain't how i figured it. i thought we were going to work together and make something happen. but that's not how it seems to work anymore. and it's not because i'm feeling anything about bocce ball, it's just because i'm sitting back here listening to the kind of questions that you want answered and, you know, you can do what you need to do. i still think that the bocce ball's not going to work, just like so many other ideas you have aren't going to work. it might work. it might be great. it deserves a chance. just like i think a lot of the other ideas deserve to be at least listened to. i brought all of these things here, showed you pictures of the roller rink and all. not once have they been mentioned. not once did i have a meeting to prevent it. not once did we -- i mean, i don't like loading hundreds of people in here to say the same thing. i don't like that. i think it's a waste. i'm not going to do that. i think that you should take a look at this and say, just hold

up a second, let's see what we're going to do. if this seems like the thing to do, do it. but i am not very happy about the process today. thank you. >> marlin. >> i live three blocks away from this location. this is the first i've heard about it. i live in a large building, we're just very easy to post -- where it's just very easy to post information for a local residents. nothing has been posted -- residence. knowing has been posted. there has been outrage -- nothing has been posted. there has been outrage on the management level. on the one hand we hear that the purpose of the people who are organizing this is to reach lower income people and on the other hand all the support is

from people who can afford rents at that neighborhood, who are not low income. so, this is talking out of two sides of your mouth. there is a major skateboarding problem down there and this will just add to it and there's no staffing, nobody to deal with it. i'm delighted that commissioner buhl has observed the -- buell has observed the charm of bocce in france, so have i, on small village squares. there are big traffic problems there. this is a totally ill-conceived idea and now we learn there's a facility of aquatic park which is a much more reasonable

location. >> jerry and then we have ramon hernandez. >> good afternoon again, jerry. i hate to spar with my friend, but we occasionally are on opposite sides. i just want to point out that this week was national night out and in north beach where i live and have lived for half a century we had a barbeque at the playground and the community center was involved, the police department was involved and bocce ball was involved. in fact, whenever there is a community event at the playground there is a lineup to play bocce ball. people in north beach and in the northern waterfront know about that game. it's an ease request game, it's for families, -- easy game, it's for families, it's very older italian gentlemen. it's part of our heritage. so i would certainly urge you

to move this forward. to my mind it's a great idea and it's a graeme that everyone can share. thank you -- game that everyone can share. thank you. president buell: thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners. ramon hernandez, one of the followers of the nonprofit, we are very excited to, commissioners, if you could move this project forward. a lot of the people have been saying it's an easy game to play, everybody can play. i'm very excited because we're going to use the community guide to do the work and we expect it to have the community to assist and attend the course and probably even more in there. i'm very excited to make the bocce ball go forward.

i hope you guys get your support. thank you. president buell: thank you. >> is there any other public comment on this item? please come forward. >> hello, again. just a couple quick comments. i like what, i forget who mentioned it earlier, about the outreach and children and stuff like that. i wanted to say that at the aquatic park we do kids camps every summer. we just did one last week with liegeen boys and girls club, all groups came in of all different income levels and the kids really enjoy this. we do this a few times a year with children. all year long we do clinics with adult groups and things like that. i know i would be more than willing to volunteer or help out down there, to reach out to people and teach them the sport.

as far as playing on the grass goes, it's not really a sport that's meant to be played on the grass. i don't know if a lot of people know this, but it's not -- grass isn't even legal to play on. it's usually dirt or a natural surface or asphalt or con veet -- concrete. also skateboarders, i don't think they'd skate on there. i'm a skater. not -- and it's natural surface skateboards won't go on that. it's not an easy place to go. i'm not concerned about skateboarders. and i live in oakland at the moment, i'm about to move back to the city, but no one told me about this either but i did read about it in the "san francisco examiner" which is how i knew to come here. that's it. thanks. president buell: thank you. >> is there anyone else who would like -- kathryn?

>> good afternoon, commissioners. i hesitate to come up here because it's not a part of the city i'm usually involved in but i'm here to talk about outreach. from what i'm hearing and i appreciate commissioner bonilla's effort to come to the root of this very closely, from what i can see, a private group decided they wanted a project, they offered the city money for it, the staff who are desperate for funding talked about it internally, they went out and talked to the neighbors and got powerful support for it. and i'm not in any way talking against the proposal itself. or the people many of whom are friends here and who have supported other causes i've been involved in. but i'm very, very concerned about this process. this is not outreach. this is purchase of public parkland. and if you think of it any other way, you're fooling yourselves.

i'm very sorry. what i'm hearing is, if you have a lot of money, you pick a piece of parkland and you offer the money and you get it. and you do it however you can. i do not believe that this item has been on your agendas, i believe that public parkland belongs to the entire city, not only to the people who live around it, if it belonged to the people who lived around it, we would not be having so much trouble with the other projects in golden gate park. if it belongs only to the people who lived around it, the boat house would not be planned to be given to a different contractor. i believe that also apply to things that have been done to the arboretum. i encourage you to think about this very carefully. i encourage you in the agendas to list every single project. i would like to know what other things are in the plans. i'd like to know, i'm sorry, i'm very upset about this and i really didn't want to talk about it, but the more i listened, the more i realized

that this is not outreach. this is not what you said you would do. you said you don't want surprises from people, here we have a surprise. please, stop doing this. get the department to list everything. every single thing that's being considered by people should be listed. we should know that ahead of time. we shouldn't find out about it in the newspaper three days ahead of time. this is our parkland, this is our commons. whatever decisions you make about it, everyone should know about it. david miles and the skaters have a right to be considered and he said he's introduced it, he didn't have the $70,000. why is that a deciding factor? please, please, please think about this. thank you. president buell: thank you. >> is there any other public comments on this item? seeing none, public comment is closed. president buell: commissioner lee. commissioner lee: i was wondering if nicole could speak to the issue of outreach. i know from staff and report that you guys did do outreach. you can tell us what the extent

that your outreach took? >> we've been working very closely with chris and his group. they're very connected with the community down there, very tapped into the interests of the various parties from residents to merchants to tourists. and they've been an active -- we've been actively partnering with them because they've really got their tentacles into the community and on the pulse of what folks want down there. and frankly are better equipped than we are to connect with that community and so they've been working with us very closely to make sure that folks know about the project and are in favor with the project and we've been very aware and participating in all of those conversations.

but it's been a partnership, very much a partnership. commissioner lee: in reading that, did you -- your staff did not do outreach itself? you relied on -- you worked with chris to -- >> that's correct. commissioner lee: thank you. vice president harrison: there were two things that i heard during public comment. one was that there were going to be some community folks that were working through this partnership program to build this. >> theak that's correct. vice president harrison: so, that's going to come from our southeast side of town, i would assume, those folks. secondly, the other thing that i heard is, this is not going to be reserved for any private group or people, this is going to open to everyone in the city. >> that's absolutely correct. vice president harrison: who wishes to go down there and stand in line and when it's their turn, they get a chance

to play. for free. >> for free. that's correct. vice president harrison: thank you. but you're not employing any staff to monitor or run the program, right? >>. no commissioner lee: it's going to be purely a volunteer user-driven activity. >> that's correct. president buell: thank you. gloo you're welcome. president buell: i want to comment on that as well. i think to characterize this as somehow a private group coming in for a private purpose is misrepresenting the facts. i think it's a piece of land that when the center was developed there were responsibilities assigned to developers to maintain the public spaces and i think this is a unique use that addresses some of the problems with a open piece of grass at that location. when i asked the leaders of the central park conservancy how they dealt with some of the problems in central park before it was renovated they said that

it really is important not to use police departments and forests, it's important to be innovative. i think this represents. that i think it's a mistake to try and pit ethnic sports groups against ethnic sports groups or types of users against other types of users. and we've heard that the bocce courlts at aquatic park are often sometimes filled to capacity and they can't provide space. we have a group that's come in, that's a joint venture with labor, and the public interest, to create a use there. if this turns out to be a disaster, which i don't think it will, it will certainly cost a lot less to restore it to its original condition. but the idea of trying to find unique uses for the public to enjoy and, as commissioner harrison asked, it's strictly 100% public, this is not private, and to have the groups

that went forward with this do the outreach into the community and we have lots of letters and lots of legitimate organizations, the fact that some people didn't hear about it may be construed to be unfortunate but it certainly had extensive exposure from the sponsors of this. so i think that it needs to be put in the proper context when we consider the issue. with that, if there are no other comments we should go c1 other comments we should go back to item six, the conceptual plan. >> we do need a motion. commissioner bonilla: is this the time for us -- i mean, do we need to make the motion first and then to make comment? president buell: not necessarily. if you'd like to make comments first, please go ahead. commissioner bonilla: i would. my in-laws live in belmont, california, and their nextdoor neighbors play bocce ball. they play bocce ball on a strip

of ground and i go there for sunday dinners every sunday. i've learned about the game and it certainly is -- seems to be a lot of fun and we just haven't had the time -- i haven't had the time to really partake in the game, but from watching it, it seems to be like a very fun activity and it's something that the family can get around. i support it because i have exposure to that game. but, i have to admit, i am very -- i'm -- the process leaves a lot to be desired for me.

i think that there always needs to be -- we always need to weigh every -- i think we need to get equal weight to competing ideas within the community. and i think the means test should be that whenever something is brought before us that there's a demonstration that different ideas coming from different diverse communities have been weighted, have been considered, have been talked about. i don't see that with this project. you know, and i just have to be absolutely honest about it. it's not that i don't want to

support it, because i would love to support it. and i'm disappointed that i'm going to have a hard time supporting it because the process was not the best. in all honesty it was not the best process. and it does smack of people with influence and money coming to the table and putting forth this project. so, i'm not, you know, i'm not comfortable with supporting this for this reason. it's not that i don't support the sport, because i think -- i think anybody can play it and should be able to play it, should have the opportunity to play it. i think it's a good thing. i just think we need to be -- i just -- i think we need to do our due diligence in anything

that we approve in the future in terms of making sure that we do every last bit of outreach that we can possibly do and that different communities have confidence, have confidence that we have listened to and have given equal weight to competing interests. because the interests are always going to be very competitive. so, i'm disappointed because this seems like a great project, but i'm disappointed that i'm not going to be able to support it because we didn't do our due diligence. buhl commissioner lee. -- president buell: commissioner lee. commissioner lee: i hear what my colleague is saying with regard to the process and i

know and i do distinctly recall david coming before us with the idea of the roller skating rink and, you know, there have been other ideas. with that said, i would like -- i'm prepared to support this project if we can provide the outreach component and the support that would be needed to make this sport accessible, the space accessible to diverse groups from all over the city. one recommendation i have in terms of conceptual plan is to have informational kiosk or some kind of kiosk at the entrance or some place on the course where a visitor or a group of children who come into the court can get information about the sport, the rules,

that equipment be provided for them, because obviously somebody coming in new would not know how to procure equipment, they don't know anything about the sport. and then perhaps some clinics that could be operated out of the6 c1 that could be operated out of the court to improve the outreach. so i would say in the conceptual design, perhaps a kiosk dedicated to information or outreach be placed in the conceptual design. president buell: thank you. i might go a step farther and ask the recreation department side of rec and park if they would look at ways for outreach for use of this site and find ways to incorporate the communities that were already heavily involved in, in making them aware of and have access

to this as well. and if you'd give us a little report back, i don't want to put a lot of pressure on, -- pressure on you, but maybe in the next 30 days, about how we would do that, it might give this commission some satisfaction. thank you. is there any other comment? i entertain a motion on item six. >> move to approve. president buell: is there a second? it's been moved and seconded. all those in favor. aye. opposed. commissioner bonilla: no. president buell: one know. thank you. >> the motion passes. president buell: the motion passes. and ite passes. and item seven, i'd entertain a motion for approval. >> so moved. president buell: it's been moved. moved and seconded. all those in favor. aye. opposed. commissioner bonilla: no. president buell: one opposition. thank you very much. >> we are now on item number eight which is corona heights park.

>> good afternoon, commissioners, and general manager. president buell: acting. >> acting only. >> my name is lisa wane. today's -- the item before you is to approve the use of the lawn at museum and roosevelt way for the staging and camping areas for the volunteers for outdoor california volunteer event to take place on august 20 to 22. >> could you hold that just a minute, please. if we're going to have a secondary conversations, could you please take those out of the meeting room? go ahead. >> this shows you an overview of the lawn area here is roosevelt way and this is museum way leading to the

randall, the dog play area and the corona heights natural area. vocal will be working to improve trails at corona heights. this is work to be performed as part of the trails program and an item that you approved previously on july 15. we hoped to bring out 160 volunteers to do this work over the weekend. and vocal's volunteer event includes overnight camping and a modest amount of beer provided for volunteers. before i turn it over to our partner from vocal, their executive director, i wanted to briefly go through the outreach that we have done on this. we have posted the entryways to all the entryways to the parks with flyers, we've conducted door to door outreach for all the homes adjacent to the park. we conducted a community

meeting at the randsle museum, did outreach to supervisor's office, several neighborhood groups, including the buena vista neighborhoods at corona heights neighborhood association, week of done up to date, about 24 hours of direct outreach to park users. so with that introduction, let me just turn it over briefly to kathy to explain the event. thank you. >> i'm the founder and executive director of volunteers for outdoor california. we conduct largescale weekend-long volunteer stewardship programs -- projects on public spaces throughout northern california, primarily the greater bay area. many of our projects are much more remote than corona heights park. but we have a commitment to urban parks as well and in recognition of that commitment, we've made a commitment to work

with san francisco rec and parks each year. this will be our third project with san francisco rec and parks. we've previously done a project at glen park. last year we did a project at mcclarne park. so this will be our third partnership with san francisco rec and parks. each in the prior -- of the prior experiences has been tremendous. we've gotten trems support and encouragement and involve from the neighbors. very multicultural involvement, in fact, at the other park project we had to do our project announcements in three languages to make sure that everyone there had a good, solid understanding of what we were trying to accomplish during the course of the day. the issue in front of you really is the camping and i wanted to provide youi wanted th some images typical of representatives can't environments. -- camp environment.