we're, you know, as a commissioner sitting here, listening to what the community has been saying, i find -- i find it difficult. one speaker, for instance, said that perhaps we could separate out and have one vendor over another. you know, i think that brings us down a slippery road. once we start choosing one vendor over another, you know, where does it end? we as a commission, it's our responsibility to set the policies, the route that the staff and department needs to take. i would say that you know, regardless of what we do on this issue in a few minutes, that we

look seriously at the outreach, the process, and make sure that this moving forward, we're talking about more and more of these permits, does not happen again. so outside of what we do on this particular permit, this is a lesson for us as a commission, moving forward, that we have to do the outreach before we get to where we find ourselves now. president buell: commissioner bonilla. commissioner bonilla: i attended this meeting, there were some very consistent themes throughout the meeting. one was that -- and i agree with the community that there was not as much opportunity allowed for them to make input as should have been allowed, thus setting

a more positive tone and setting the tone that we were there, the department was there, to get more input from the community on this project. the other -- i'll list a few of the consistent themes as quickly as i possibly can, the other is that the park is truly overburdened with use. trash, inadequate restroom facilities, and that -- that adding these new revenue-generating solutions will generate more -- even more

impacts that would create, perhaps, more problems than we know -- than we know of at this time. the other consistent theme is that there was definitely a preference for having a -- having la cocina there, be a -- you know, allow la koci in a project -- la cocina to go in over blue bottle, that was clear. the other -- in addition to that, there was a very, very clear sense that the community

was being asked to make input about the project -- on a project after the fact, that they didn't -- they weren't -- that we -- that the department wasn't there at the onset in terms of stating to the community what the problem was and soliciting their input in terms of what some potential solutions could be for the problem. in fact, i, myself, only heard at the meeting that our problems at do lohrs repark was a $70 -- at dolores park was a $70,000 problem. so we have a problem of $70,000, you know, why not go to the community and say, we've got this problem, what are your ideas for how to solve this

problem? maybe that's what the community was hoping they would have gotten, and now, they were pretty much -- i mean, they didn't, and now they're pretty much stuck with an idea that was generated top down from the department down to the community. so it puts us in a very difficult -- it actually puts us between a rock and a hard place because we are at the 11th hour having to deal with how do we meet the $70,000 deficit, how do we address it? and at the same time, we're in a situation where within the next month or two, we have to look at how do we address perhaps additional deficits with the --

within the next fiscal year, so it's -- it's a very difficult place for all of us to be in. and i think what we're going to have to do is for -- i think we're going to have to take a step back and we're going to have to explore together how we generate, how we meet this deficit, current deficit of $70,000, and on top of that, how we explore -- i mean, we'll pratches be in the situation of exploring how we deal with a potential budget deficit that may be on us for next year. so these are comments from attending the meeting. i really wish i would have had

more time to hear -- i mean, that there would have been more time to hear more from the community and get their input and perhaps for future meetings, we might look at first off hearing from the community and then framing our responses to what the community has to say. thank you. president buell: maybe i'll make a comment before the general manager weighs in on this. for those of you who saw the agenda, this is discussion only, there's no action before us. for those disappointed we won't come to any conclusion, we approved the permits, and this

has nothing to do with la cocina, it's really siting the vendor, it's trying to put it away from other businesses. we've heard about the size of it and that it would be on and offsite each day. we limited the lease to two years as an experiment to see how it works. having said that, that's what we have done. having heard you today that informs the staff. i think everybody would agree including the staff that we haven't had the luxury of the kind of outreach we'd like to do on any of these things. we've had a gun to our head on finances, always behind the eight-ball, we have limited resources and so i think it's fair to say we haven't done the kind of job that would be perfect. but i don't think anybody should characterize any wrong intent or evil intent around here or any collaboration to get something done that shouldn't be done.

everybody is working pretty hard at this, and everybody is voicing honest opinions. it would be hard to disagree with 90% of what was said here today by all parties. i think the best i can tell you at this point is that you've been heard and we'll continue this discussion at a staff level and it's@appropriate to bring it back for further discussion, i think there has to be more communication with the community about it, that's clear. no one -- i said this last time. no one is trying to run honest business people out of business because that isn't the intent. but i assure you that around the country, some of the best practices in urban parks are to provide a variety of services, many of them including food services. the debate as to whether food should or shouldn't be in the park, i find less legitimate, even though it may be a big concern of coming in after the fact when there are no food

services now, i can understand that concern, but it should be framed with where we are and what we're trying to accomplish. so i'm afraid there isn't a satisfactory answer to your concerns today because there's no action before us of up or down, yes or no. now i'm going to put the burden on the general manager to make any comments about where you see this going from here. excuse me, commissioner martin wanted to weigh in, i apologize. commissioner martin: i was listening to everyone on this situation, it is really a situation in this city that we have a lot of concerns about and i hope that we get a chance to get our stuff together again to try to come up with a real answer to it and you know -- so we can try to come up with an answer because it's really a lot of concerns everybody is talking about, but so much of it sounds so real and so much stuff in it

so it's a lot of things we need to do together to get this city rolling. >> thank you, commissioner. mr. ginsburg. >> thank you, commissioners. my thanks to -- there has been some healthy and passionate dialogue about the issue and that's a good thing. i think it's brought more intention to both the challenges and opportunities at dolores park, we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that we're on the verge of $15 million in capital investment in this beautiful jewel. i think we try not to get too defensive about sort of process and outreach issues because, you know, i can assure you the staff is working as hard as we can and we're in the business of trying to provide clean, safe, fun parks for everyone. we're -- we value community input and want community input. if there were certain missteps, which it sounds like primarily,

a couple of neighborhoods, a couple of communities around the park, that's a learning experience for us. i think since that initial outset, however, and one of the reasons we chose to calendar this as a separate agenda item and have an extensive discussion here was to continue the dialogue and out of respect for the people here. i think we, at a staff level, learned a lot about some on the ground concerns and frustrations around the neighborhood that i think will be valuable. my personal opinion is that the worldy not come to an end here. and that we will, like what we're doing throughout our system, we're going to try new ideas. i want to emphasize, this is not all about just dollars. raising revenue is an important part of our overall economic strategy so we can provide clean, safe, fun parks, so that we continue to provide recreational opportunities, because during the budget process, i used to say, it was

either a dollar raised or a dollar cut. we are beyond that and we as a community, a parks community chose to minimize the impact of service cuts on the public through -- you know, through increasing services and amenities in our park. that's what this is a strategy at the macro level. we do not budget parks on a park-by-park basis. and what i was trying to illuminate at that meeting, commissioner, was a frame of our operational expenses that doesn't even reflect the true overall expense once you factor in, you know, overhead and h.r. and accounting and park patrol and some of the other tangential services that go into supporting a particular park. i was trying to kind of articulate, if you were to look at the cost of operating that park would be, what would have happened had this commission not pursued a strategy of raising

revenue rather than cutting service? it would have been potentially another -- one less gardener in the park or one less custodian in the park. that was the point i was trying to make in that meeting. in a nutshell, this is always helpful, we're always looking to move the ball forward and we will continue our dialogue of -- i've actually invited someone to help with our technology, to push out information more quickly, more promptly and we try not to repeat our mistakes. i am very proud of our staff and frankly, our strategy here, which is through increased services and, you know, we have some people here we don't have everybody who has had a kid at the playground at dolores park, they want to get a cup of coffee

without walking 1,000 feet. respect is always -- in any event, we look forward to continuing to work with the dolores park organization, looking for strategies to continue to provide a sustainable park system. president buell: commissioners, other comments? commissioner bonilla. commissioner bonilla: i wanted to add, i was in mexico city several years ago when all the -- when the government of mexico decided to put a stop to all the vendors, all the street vendors who were totally monopolizing

all the open space because there was -- because, in fact, commercialization was running rampant and when i was there, the -- it was day one of the government eliminating all of that -- all of those individuals from setting up businesses, selling individually, without any permits and there was huge, huge protest. every street in mexico city was blocked. and the reason i'm bringing up this point, and that is, i think there is a role that we should play a role, in -- if we are going to allow ventures of this type, that they be -- that they

be licensed, that they be permitted. i think there's a greater role, at least from my perspective, in permitting vendors, rather than just allowing anyone who wants to sell in any place, especially in public places, so i think -- i think in our future, there should be some part of the work that we do to make sure that there are -- that we -- there are opportunities to have vendors in different facilities, that we do so but that we do so with -- buy-in, certainly, from the community and that these

operations be strategically placed. so i just want to be on record as saying that i'm not opposed to, you know, this project, per se. i just think that we just need to go about it in a different way. president buell: seeing no other commission questions, that concludes discussion on item six. we're going to move to item seven, thank you. >> we are on item seven, civic center community benefit district. >> that's my daughter right there. >> hey, hey.

president buell: item seven. >> good evening, commissioners, i'm the assistant director for strategic partners. i'm going to give a quick introduction and hand it off to lisa of the mayor's office. >> maybe we'll give everybody a chance to leave the room and then take this. >> we better get security.

>> ok, we're ready to move forward. >> good evening, commissioners, i'm les kushner, i'm going to give a brief introduction and pass this off to lisa kagan, who works in the mayor's office. this item proposes a community benefit district for the area around the civic center, civic center plaza. we have looked to formulate the boundaries of the district and what the services would be. lisa will get into this more, but it would include extensive security, street cleaning -- excuse me, sidewalk cleaning, graffiti removal, ambassadors, as well as a full-time staff to pursue grants on behalf of the district. staff feels this is a wonderful opportunity and with that, i'll pass it off to lisa and either

she or i will answer any questions you may have. >> good evening, commissioners, president buell. nice to see you all. my name is lisa pagan, i work in the office of economic and work force development, i'm here to present a proposal that's on the table that has been in the works for two years now and the mayor introduced resolution requesting that the board of supervisors authorize him to sign petitions in support of the proposed inclusion of city parcels in the civic center community benefit district, so i'm here today asking for your support but understanding that it is the board of supervisors who ultimately would vote or not on the petitions. i'm here to explain to you a little bit about what the civic center community benefit

district is aiming to do and take any questions that you may have. so the civic center community benefit district, and i manage a program in the office of economic dwoment in support of the formation of community benefit districts throughout san francisco where they are requested by community stake holders. what is being proposed for civic center is a 35-block area, 654 parcels, the stake holder group would like to raise $743,000 a year in the civic center to deliver services. and petitions were mailed out to all of the property owners in the district in september and they were also submitted to the board of supervisors in terms of the city parcels and divisions supervisors jurisdiction. the proposed term for the district is 10 years, they're allowed to go up to 15 years

under our local ordinance. the steering committee that's been meeting for two years on the civic center community benefit district concept is comprised of private property owners that own buildings in the district. the ones that are checked have signed petitions in support of the district, the a.a.a. building property owners, the offices, the company that owns those, mercy housing that owns affoable housing in the district and opera plaza, the commercial condominium entity that owns commercial portions of that plaza. those have submitted pe fissions -- petitions in supports. the arts organizations in the district have been a huge proponent of our district. the conservancy, the san francisco ballet school, the asian art museum, the s.s. jazz that is building a new center,

the symphony, opera and ballet all participated in the steering committee and the state government buildings as well as the san francisco -- the city and county of san francisco departments have participated in this process. so there's three zones in the proposed district and each zone as a different level of service. the zone where civic center plaza is, is one of the goals for that zone is increased foot patrol ambassador service. the idea is that patrons of the arts venues want to feel safe walking from bart, muni, also from the parking garage underneath the civic center plaza, they want to feel safe and utilize those opportunities more in the area. so the hope would be that community guides, folks that work for the district but can escort folks around and provide sort of an opportunity for people to ask questions and help

folks who need social services get linked with those in the city. the other thing going on in zone two, which the civic center plaza is located in, would be beautification services, public space and sidewalk activation opportunities, cleaning and maintenance on call and graffiti removal on call. there's also a proposal for the city and organization a coalition with both government and private sector involved and there would be staff who would advocate for the district who would communicate with all the members of the district and help coordinate when there's big events on the plaza, would help coordinate with the other stake holders in the district about what's going on and when there's desired events like the ice skating rink or other things they want to do, help be an advocate and help fundraise for those kinds of events that the community wants that bill when -- that will benefit the community.

once this organization is established, it can fundraise, it's a nonprofit so it could fundraise for projects that would benefit the community as a whole. this is a map of the proposed district, the three zones are in three different colors. one -- zone one in yellow, zone two in pink, and zone three in green. the plaza is block 788 right there. in the middle in pink. a big part of services to be provided are advocacy, fundraising and community building. projects that promote the district's health and vitality as a whole. it's not just city hall or government buildings, the district has a lot of privately owned buildings, a lot of residential apartments and condominiums and a lot of commercial office space and of course a large hub of government

buildings and arts organizations and arts institutions that serve the city and the region. so there's a sense that there's a need to bring the whole neighborhood together under a coalition like this so that fundraising and advocacy can happen for the whole area and build neighborhood pride and ownership and coordinate all the different events going on. safety services, i mentioned the ambassadors can help people find their ways around, escort, help kids of -- groups of kids coming to visit different places, do traffic and crowd control an help with special service need for folks in need of getting connected to social services that exist through the city or nonprofit. then there will be regular coordination of the security

company that works in the individual buildings that don't leave the buildings, there's a need for coordination. all these build vgs teams that could be better coordinated with our police and city police. it would make sure all these entities provide coordination amongst each other and work together to help make the area safer. and the other thing is activation of the public spaces. you, rec and park, has done an admirable job working with the park, those of us who work here appreciate that, but there's more that needs to be done. there's a feeling that when people, you know, in the morning and when they go home, there's nodes around the bart and muni station that need activation. if there was a better sense of

performers or other people it would feel safer for people coming in and out of the district at different times. this district would like to work with the park for events around the plaza and help with that. there's on-call graffiti removing and sidewalk sweeping and washing, dispatch service, so if any city or public or private building has problems, they can call the dispatch service as well. these are for services the city does not provide, it's above and beyond what u.p.w. provides that this district would provide and so close coordination with d.p.w. and their services would happen, there would be no duplication of services, this would be above and beyond that. beautification and greening, so fundraising could be focused on getting capital improvements in the area, street