>> it is 9:42 p.m. we are moving out of closed session and moving to item seven. i want to know for the record the presence of commissioners slaughter, marshall, dejesus, and kinglsey.

we can move to item seven with your indulgence, a vote to elect whether to disclose any or all of the discussion held in closed session. >> i move that we do not disclose. >> any public comment? >> lastly, moving to item 8, adjournment. >> so moved. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. thank you lieutenant riley. >> a good meeting, everybody. >> i have a feeling i will not be saying it for the last time.

i'm the president of friends of mclaren park. it is one of the oldest neighborhood community park groups in san francisco. i give a lot of tours through the park. during those tours, a lot of the folks in the group will think of the park as very scary. it has a lot of hills, there's a lot of dense groves. once you get towards the center of the park you really lose your orientation. you are very much in a remote area. there are a lot of trees that shield your view from the urban setting. you would simply see different groves that gives you a sense of freedom, of being outdoors, not being burdened by the worries of city life. john mclaren had said that golden gate park was too far away. he proposed that we have a park in the south end of the city. the campaign slogan was, people

need this open space. one of the things that had to open is there were a lot of people who did a homestead here, about 25 different families. their property had to be bought up. so it took from 1928 to 1957 to buy up all the parcels of land that ended up in this 317 acres. the park, as a general rule, is heavily used in the mornings and the evenings. one of the favorite places is up by the upper reservoir because dogs get to go swim. it's extremely popular. many fights in the city, as you know, about dogs in parks. we have 317 acres and god knows there's plenty of room for both of us. man and his best friend. early in the morning people before they go to work will walk their dogs or go on a jog

themselves with their dogs. joggers love the park, there's 7 miles of hiking trails and there's off trail paths that hikers can take. all the recreational areas are heavily used on weekends. we have the group picnic area which should accommodate 200 people, tennis courts are full. it also has 3 playground areas. the ampitheater was built in 1972. it was the home of the first blues festival. given the fact that jerry garcia used to play in this park, he was from this neighborhood, everybody knows his reputation. we thought what a great thing it would be to have an ampitheater named after jerry garcia. that is a name that has panache. it brings people from all over the bay area to the ampitheater. the calls that come in, we'd like to do a concert at the

jerry garcia ampitheater and we do everything we can to accommodate them and help them because it gets people into the park. people like a lot of color and that's what they call a park. other people don't. you have to try to reconcile all those different points of view. what should a park look like and what should it have? should it be manicured, should it be nice little cobblestones around all of the paths and like that. the biggest objective of course is getting people into the park to appreciate open space. whatever that's going to take to make them happy, to get them there, that's the main goal. if it takes a planter with flowers and stuff like that, fine. you know, so what? people need to get away from that urban rush and noise and this is a perfect place to do it. feedback is always amazement. they don't believe that it's in san francisco.

we have visitors who will say, i never knew this was here and i'm a native san franciscoan. they wonder how long it's been here. when i tell them next year we'll get to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the park,k, captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- >> let me make our traditional announcement. cell phone and pagers are forbidden during this meeting. in order to facilitate an orderly meeting, we ask you to fill out a blue card if you lik.

>> please address your comments to commissioners during public comment. staff will not respond to any questions under public comment. the commission may ask questions of staff after public comment. commissioner, did you want to announce that we're moving forward with the report? >> the general managers' report is being moved forward to the end of the agenda for the convenience of making the business come first. >> we are now on item number two, which is the president's report. >> it was a pleasure to see full page pictures of civic center plaza packed with thousands of people.

the chair acknowledges the phenomenal year of the giants and the phenomenal response of the public and the ability of the parks and recreation department to supply public space to celebrate that for a change. i want to congratulate the department as well. i was out at harding park participating in two of them. the first of them was an event that helps children from underserved neighborhoods to participate in an educational program around golf. i had a chance to be out there yesterday and i heard from professionals as well as their families as to how much they appreciate the condition of the course and the hospitality of the city.

that concludes my report. commissioner harris, i would like him to weigh in on an event yesterday. >> it is such a beautiful day out here for a press conference. it was a beautiful award from the pga for sandy, who was the spark plug--- that got the renovation of harding part going. he had laryngitis and could not speak. he would be talking about the benefits and how lucky it san francisco is to have a beautiful golf course and has come a long way. it is a beautiful day. they mentioned the great value from the program. thank you. >> before i conclude by report,

on saturday, the neighbor park council has the community of kent at the county building at golden gate park. the public was invited. we spent two hours listening to the public observations, concerns, complement's, criticisms, areas where we can improve, etc. it was an lightning and informative and the beginning of what will be four of those events per year. it is the attitude of the commission that we continue to try to extend the outreach project. the public is not always convinced that that is the case. i can assure you that we are trying to do that. >> we have somebody that would like to speak on this.

>> good afternoon, commissioners. i wanted to say thank-you to the president and the other commissioners that attended and make this town hall on the 30th of october. it was the day before halloween. a lot of people had activities that day. we want to extend our thanks to the it recreation and parks festival. we were overjoyed by the amount of response that we got. we want to thank the commission secretary for the comprehensive meeting. the town hall was well attended. we do know that not all community members could go to these meetings. we decided to continue our yearly tradition of having an

annual survey. the 2010 park survey, we decided to combine our yearly survey with the town halls. we hope to put together all of the comments from the public and extend that to the greater community of san francisco. we developed a very comprehensive surveys looking at the budgets to rec centers. we feel like this will cover everything that we feel needs to be responded to. we in college -- encourage all part users and residents to complete our online survey. we have both a web version as well as a downloadable pdf.

we could do some very specific about reach for those language groups. this will be compiled with the comments from town hall and given to the commission and the department as well. we look forward to presenting that report to the commission. >> thank you. >> is there any other public comment? the president's report? public comment is closed. we are now on item number four, which is public comment. members of the public may address the commission that are on -- under the jurisdiction of the commission, but do not appear on the agenda. we have ernestine, beula, and richard in that order.

>> good afternoon, everyone. what a day yesterday was for the giants. never at in my life have i seen a ticker tape. . -- ticker-tape parade. i bring before you that the electrical equipment is still sitting in the park. i know that megan's tried hard to get it done. nothing is moving. i urege you a -- urge you all to put your best foot forward and get this done. it has been there since september 5. please get the electrical generators out. i do not want to look out my window and see them there one

more day. thank you. >> i live inside the park. i am here to ask you -- this would suspend its three and a half million dollars to be part -- suspend $3.5 million to the park. with it gone, god sends us rain. i walked through the park this morning and it is perfectly beautiful and green. that's all it needs.

why would you want to throw away money on a park when there are so many parks in town that need to be fixed? the park does not need your help. it is the builders that want your money. i just think it's very wrong for you to do this. it has taken a lot of time and i have spent 20 years on this and here i am still talking about the park. you will not pay attention to what you ought to do. the money that the builder's found, which was downtown money that they were not supposed to use, for acquisition of a