playing in arsenic and running in a dirty library? thank you. >> i'm a resident of north beach, ai am a library patron, k patron, and a teacher. this building does not meet the threshold of landmarkeing. one level, ample lighting. also, the building has already been modified. the out door reading area has been removed to a degree that no longer has the integrity of the original design. could this building be preserved through renovation? n3they take up too much of our precious open space, and they

are, frankly, disrespectful to the members of our community who are disabled or elderly. the best thing is to build a new library off of the triangle, upgrade the park and playground. this unified library and park will give us a beautiful, functional library and a safer, greener park. this is what we need. i live in a small apartment with no backyard. in this community, we use in treasure our open space. -- and treasurer our open space. this is a dream come true for our neighborhood. thi is why so many of us participated in the respect of, open, public process to create the public plan. -- participated in the respectful, open, public

process. please do not landmark this. [bell] supervisor chu: thank you. -- supervisor chiu: thank you. next speaker, please. like the boat -- >> like the previous speaker, we also live in an apartment. this is something that i would cherish.

i strongly oppose the landmarking of this building. thank you. >> hi, my name is michelle. i have been a north beach resident for many years. i live half of a block from the park, and i feel it is the single most important and used a neighborhood resource for us -- in used -- and used neighborhood resource for us. this is an issue of a landmark meeting to maintain its architectural integrity to be designated as such.

the applicant is supposed to have a seamless indoor/outdoor flow. it is supposed to have an entrance on columbus, but now, it is a holding been for trash and recycling. most importantly, it underscores that it is not working as intended and does not work for its users. as a graphic designer, i work mostly in two dimensions, but the user experience of the current library is intolerable for some and often just miserable for the worst of us. it does not work in terms of traffic flow, where things are located, restroom inadequacies, and more. this will help us to get the enjoyable anti-missile structure that we need.

notstructure that we need. and respect the resource, and we both feel hope for this neighborhoods brilliant future. we do we will feel hope. -- we will feel hope. supervisor chiu: thank you. next speaker. >> hi, my name is marissa, and i am here to talk on this. i am a third-generation san francisco. i have been in north beach for over 12 years. my parents wanted to have the amenities that the suburbs offer, and i decided to raise my children in san francisco, particularly north beach,

because we can walk to work, i can walk my kids to school, i can walk home to see them at lunch, and it has been a thriving community for us to raise our kids in. i am here to ask you to keep the four momentum and keeping families in north beach. -- ask you to keep the forward momentum and keep families in north beach. there is a lot of opportunity for revenue to be generated there. we want to make sure our tax dollars are being put to good use and that the government is providing services for our families, and we know that it is needed because right now, if you go to barnes & noble on any given day, there are senior citizens and people with disabilities hanging out in the café because barnes & noble has better amenities than our library does. it has wheelchair access and

clean restrooms. it is a shame that we cannot provide this for our local citizens. i believe in living in a community where i can hear fantastic stories about judge machima taking marilyn monroe on a date at a local restaurant -- where i can hear about jodie maggio -- joe dimaggio taking marilyn monroe on a date. >> i am here on behalf of my son. he is 15 months old. my husband and i are raising him in north beach. we love the public library. we do not use our branch.

we use the online catalog and pick them up, because there really is no reason for us to stay there. there is no quiet place. there is no quiet, safe place for him to sit with me and read books. there is no place for us to browse and enjoy being together. now, there was a program that brought us to the library every week. probably about 100 kids, nannies, moms. they would gather every thursday, we stories, plays the guitar in instruments until last december -- read stories, play the guitar and instruments until last december, but baby rhyme time ended. when they have to abandon the library and go down the street,

your library is not serving the community. we really need to have a community library that is going to serve my kids and all of the other kids and families that you see from north beach. historic preservation is a good thing, but it needs to have broad public support. landmarking this library will serve a narrow group of people. it will not serve these children who deserve to be able to come to their library and have programs. it is not a museum, north beach. it is a real neighborhood where real families are raising their families. -- raising their children. thank you. >> yes, i will do that. áwhjñis this working?

supervisor chiu: mm-hmm. >> it means that rec-park cannot do this for the children's programs. my name is -- it is a little hard how this is set up. this has a lot of the same problems that the library does. [laughter] and, yes, it is a crowded library and an over used library, and it has been

basically a piece of cement that has people par on it. -- park on it. what i understand is that the planning commission has not passed the eir. i am hoping that you make this not historic, and i hope you actually start tearing it down can finish. what willi their decision, and there will be a whole new board of supervisors, -- if they make their decision, there will be a whole new board of supervisors. it is really important to go ahead and move on this now, and not let that power play happen,

and i do not know. you must effort that people are angry out there. keeping and historic adds a lot of cost. taxpayers want it now, and we won games to stop. -- we want the games to stop. supervisor chiu: thank you. >> hello, supervisors. you have so many are to to the people here today, so i will be really quick. i am a former president of a group, a former a director of another, and i have been on a department committee. i have used this library in north beach for at least 45 years. i can no longer use it because of the inaccessibility of it.

i would like you to build a new library. i would like you to expand the playground on the current site. north beach deserves a larger and more accessible library. thank you. o my name is tina, and i am the president of a community organization of merchants and members. last month, we unanimously voted, our board of 27, it is very rare that we get unanimous, but we unanimously voted to oppose landmarking of the library, and on a lighter note, various members of our board volunteered themselves as candidates for landmarking because they thought they were older and better looking, and on that note, i urge you to please

not landmark this. [laughter] the children, reading is the key to knowledge, and knowledge is the key to success, and we need to deal with that and address that, and, like i said, we have people who are willing to be the and marked for you. thank you very much. -- to be landmarked for you. thank you very much. >> hello, supervisors. i am a doctor who has lived in north beach and have two children there. i want to reiterate that we love living in north beach, and we love our library. nothing against the library. trying to deal with a very difficult situation, but all you have to do is take a field trip to the library to look at the conditions we are looking at, and someone mentioned barnes & noble, because that has become the de facto library, and i

actually cried, because i do not feel it is a good library to go to anymore to sit there and read and think about what you are going to get. it is not serving that anymore, and i, too, where online and go to the desk and pick it up. -- and i, too, go on line and go to the desk and pick it up. i cannot afford to subsidize barnes & noble anymore. we have given them so much money, even in their café, sort of a penalty, to hang out here, because we bought a chocolate chip cookie. i want to go in my neighborhood and be a part of that, and the building, i actually thought it was part of a joke when someone mentioned landmark status, and ; i realized how contentios this is, and if you actually take a field trip in the

building, it is dark. it is dank. the bathroom area looks like a serial killer lives there. children do not like to go down there. i hope that you listen to the neighborhood on this and began making a living library. thank you. -- and again make a living library. thank you. supervisor chiu: thank you. >> my son has spent his whole life in life -- in north beach, and as a mother and working- class person, i urge you not to let market library. it is a lively, multi-cultural neighborhood, using the spaces in the public buildings, and in neighborhoods such as this deserves an up-to-date library hills the needs in the community. please do look to the

neighborhood. -- library that meets the needs of the community. >> thank you. i work for friends of the library, and i think everybody just about has been said i want to add a note of thanks to all of these moms today, because there is a school for low day, and i have got one of the children with me, so i have a little bit more of an understanding of what it takes to come up to a public meeting and wait with their kids, and these moms have done it a again and again and again. -- have done it again and again and again. they deserve it, and, again, i want to thank you for paying attention to all of the public comment and to think people for coming, especially the parents to have been magnificent coat -- and to thank people for coming. especially the parents, who have

been magnificent for coming. supervisor chiu: next speaker. >> my name is -- and i almost 10. >> my name is -- and i am 10. >> it is not good the way it is. i think there should be more space to have things organized. do you not want more space to look up when the giants won? do not let the library did landmarks. thank you. -- get landmarked. thank you. supervisor chiu: before more people come up, i want to read some names. [reading names]

if those individuals are still here, feel free to line up. >> thank you, supervisors. i am here as a mom and a former z pto. i have a daughter who graduated last year and is now in high school, and she has not been able to use the library because there isfor her. there is a small section for childreni for her. there is a small section for children. sadly to say, when she was very young, her best friend's father

was not able to take the child because he was disabled, and there were stairs. there was no one else to have -- nowhere else to have it. we need a library that is functional. you have heard this again and again, and i just hope that we can come together as a community and get the facilities that we really need. san francisco is not an easy place for family, but those of us who are here love it, and we feel we are giving our children the best possible upbringing that we can, and thank you for listening to our concerns. supervisor chiu: next speaker, please. >> walter. walter. ♪ when the lights go down in the city and the sun shines on the bay i hope you'll be there to build a new library in north

beach today oh, whwat would we do w ithout you? what would we do without you? so, you say you want big land i want land, too we need a gaint -- a giant a giant plan oh, what would we do without you? without your help, build a new library in north beach so today -- ♪ h >> hi, my name is melissa, and i

am speaking for the executive board of the library chapter of the union for the san francisco public. we have written a letter, which we tried to send you. i do not know if you have gotten that, but here are several copies. you can look get that as i speak, and we are opposed to the landmarking of the library. un as a librarian. i have worked in every single branch. there may be some that are knew that i have not worked in, but as of a few years ago, everyone, and this is the worst building, building, but all of them in the system. i ask you, what would you be

landmarking if you live and marked it? you would have to completely destroy the building -- if you landmarked it? you would have to completely destroy the building. that could not be used as a library? admittedly, it would be good if the new library, whatever form it took, could be much larger than the one that is planned. if that were going to happen, that is something that should have started a 0.5 years ago to landmark this building if they really thought it was beautiful and worthy of historical landmarking. that really would have been the time to start landmarked in it. to come in india and -- that really would have been the time to start landmarking it. to come in in the end -- please

let them have a try. supervisor chiu: 80. if we could have our next poet laureate -- thank you. >> supervisors, my name is jack. i am currently the poet in residence of the friends of the public library and also the member of a brigade. i have written a poem in support of the new library in north beach. i have been a resident of north beach for 35 years. how can there be a question of building a new north beach library? the mobilization of every scrap of are sold to the demilitarization of all the we

are composed of.-- every scrap of our soul to the demilitarization of all that we are composed of, more than the ñ or a museum, a public library is the most holy place of society that can be produced. a child entering the library with his mom or dad will 50 years later remember that event as one of the most important in his or her life, and a library unscrews the bolts in your brain and opens and unfolds the future for your note in the form of your own mind, -- unfolds the future for you in the form of your own mind. this is a space that only in

library provides with its special type of stillness, where one feels wow -- there is a space that only a library provides. [bell] i can look up a story, a figure, a batting average. what is anti-establishment backwards? what you cannot get on google, what you can only get when the silence of the library is in command, so we need another one in north beach for more kids and adults to have a sip of the silence, finding out that you are on the way. you always wanted to bury all lies and discover life's truths, and now, you have found you can do it in the new library.

[applause] >> wow. good afternoon, supervisors. i wish i could do poetry. i cannot sing, but i can shout. no landmarking the north beach library. and because i was a child when the library was brand-new, my brothers and sisters, my neighbors have lived in my small little street in north beach that is comprised of -- one block away. who was the other? oh, yeah, fred, the principal of the largest elementary school in san francisco, of their principleals -- other principal.

all of us were kids who lived on that one story. -- street. we all wanted to go to the north beach library, but it was too small already, in the 1950's, and there was not a children's section, nor was there a teenage section. in fact, some of the patrons were so concerned about it being a quiet library that they tried to shoo us away, so we never felt that even in the 1960's and 1950's that that library was welcoming. is it welcoming now? no.

not enough of the services are connected with the recreation and park department, which i think this new plan forms a wonderful collaboration so that children and their parents can use both. [bell] i also need to say that -- supervisor chiu: matter of principle, can you identify yourself? -- madam principal, can you identify myself? >> i am -- supervisor chiu: thank you, thank you, and i would just remind members of the public that we do have a two-minute rule that we need to adhere to. thank you. >> i am vice president of the library commission, and the library wants to do a good job for thco