we pay now for hetch hetchy water, but if you consider the environmental cost of continuing to extract water, stealing the water from the fish and the other creatures that depend on a healthy watershed, if you factor those costs in, i do not think we can any longer say that costs should be a determining factor not to do recycled water. i'm very glad that the puc is setting alternative sites and holding more meetings, and i'm hopeful that we can soon realize that our waste water should not be regarded as something that we just throw away, but that it can be a valuable resource, and we need to start treating it, along with our storm water and gray water. thank you. >> good afternoon. in the bay area program director

for the ptolemy river trout. we were founded in 1981 with the purpose of protecting and restoring the tuolome river. in 1984, we convinced congress to designate the upper part of the river. a few years ago, when the sfpuc proposed the water system improvement program, we were very supportive of the seismic upgrades, but we were concerned about a provision that would increase diversions by 25 million gallons per day by 2013 to meet future demand. already, 60% is diverted. what we have seen is a dramatic decline in fish. before there were any dams, there were 100,000 salmon spawning in the air every year. the situation is very dire. we were very pleased a couple of years ago when the sfpuc came forward with a compromise that

the seismic upgrades would move forward, but we would cap water sales at current levels until at least 2018, and that would give us a chance to look into demand, conservation, recycled water, understand climate change and how that is going to affect the water supply better, but to do that, the wholesale customers have to really ramp up their conversation -- conservation programs. puc committed to conserve and recycle 10 million gallons per day, and 4 million of that is going to come from recycled water, so we applaud that decision and that commitment. we're glad to see them moving forward with recycled water. thank you very much. >> good afternoon, commissioners.

www.goldengateparkpreserva tion.org. i believe this project demonstrates an unfortunate attitude. billings are 40,000 square feet, 30 feet high. they would take a lot more land, and what happens when you do have a homeland security scene? what is going to happen when the puc decides they have to expand? in 1998, golden gate park master plan, after 10 years of discussion among the community and all city departments, decided that the east end of golden gate park would be developed and the west and would be wild. there is no way that this project, which has very pretty pictures but is a building -- i just want to say it is a building -- is considered wild. the golden gate park master plan know about this possibility, and it agreed that it would not go into golden gate park, and if it

did, it would be completely underground with landscaping on top. golden gate park has water. land is being taken, and is being justified by the fact of the water in golden gate park. the construction yard could be cleaned up. if you do not need it, take the stuff out. nature will take over. let's have a vision for the area. the netherlands had two of stories that preserve the dna of tulips that are being lost. windmills' at a mill house right next door. let's envision that as park land that everyone can use. san francisco is going to become more and more dense. we need our park land. please, take golden gate park off the list of open land for development projects. we have done a scoping letter, which is available on our website. i believe it is available in your package, and we have copies today for anyone who is interested. >> is there any other public

comment on this item? seeing none, public comment is closed. >> commissioners, this was an information-only item. are there any questions at this stage? hearing none -- oh, commissioner harrison. commissioner harrison: if i could ask the folks from puc, you mentioned you're going to have some workshops in november, december, january. will they include potential alternative sites? >> yes, the main purpose of the workshop is to get interested members of the public together. we will have roundtable discussions, and as an outcome of those round tables, we are hoping the public can provide input as to what alternatives they would like to see carried forward. commissioner bonilla: because

this is so down the road, i have not read all the information yet, and i hope to get some briefings on just what the whole project would entail, but what i did want to ask was is it an absolute certainty, and it is it entirely unfeasible for us to continue to look at the oceanside and the facilities as opportunities for this treatment plant? could you explain to me what the negatives are? i hope i'm not putting you through this needlessly because there will be opportunity to discuss this a little bit more,

by that is of major interest to me, why we would, at this point in time, be saying that these areas are not, at least at this point, open for consideration and that we are really looking at this other alternative proposal. if you could just shed a little light there, that would be great. >> i invite you to attend our workshop if possible because that is going to be the focus of those workshops. if other areas come up, they will be considered, and we will have an engineering team that will help further develop the alternatives that come out of the workshop from the public input and will determine if they are still feasible. that is going to be part of that process, and if you are available, we would welcome your participation. >> so they are still on the table? these areas? it is not like an absolute

rejection at this point in time, and we still have an opportunity to comment on those areas as well as considering this other alternative? and then, entertaining other options that may come up through the hearings -- is that correct? >> that is correct. commissioner levitan: i know you're not the architect, but do you know what percentage of the overall square footage is designated for the visitor center? >> about 2500 square feet. buildings are 45,000 square feet. the buildings and the driveway in between the two buildings. >> are you aware that -- commissioner levitan: are you aware if they have considered putting all of it underground, if that is even a feasibility? >> it has been considered at a

high level concept, but the installation starts to become an issue. right now, the building is ventilated from vents along the two walls, so if the whole building were to be covered, those ventilation structures would go on the roof, and at that point, we have a bunch of structures on the roof that you would more than likely need to ensure the security of the site, and people we would fence off the facility. commissioner levitan: ok, thanks. >> do you know the square footage or footprint of the former plant that was taken down in 1996? >> it was about four and a half acres. >> that would be 160,000 square feet. wow. a little over that. probably 175,000 square feet. thank you very much. ok. >> would you like to go to the general manager?

commissioner buell: i would like to. let's hear from the general manager. >> thank you, commissioners. a few short items. obviously, this was and is a great week for us. your recreation and park department has had a small hand in. on monday night, i think, as you know, we broadcast game 5, and we had somewhere between 10,000 or 15,000 people, and we have many of our mobile food vendors out there. but it was a great event, a great atmosphere out there, and this was a follow-up to some of the work we did this summer with the world cup. again, another example of attending to activate civic center plaza for positive reasons. yesterday, obviously, we had a grand civic event.

you should know that the capacity for civic center is around 25,000, so we tested the limits of that capacity yesterday. we had literally hundreds of thousands of folks out there, and the reason i mention this is i want to thank our staff. it worked for several hours. this was all done on very short notice, as you know. they were part of a big, citywide team. we were not the only city agency or department involved in the planning of the event, but our staff work for several hours both setting up and now cleaning up nine truck loads of garbage and debris, plus an additional 100 bags of garbage hauled out yesterday and this morning. staff out there literally right now continuing to break down the event, clean the plaza. they will be a reading -- they will be aerating the lawn. we had a little bit of damage in a couple of different places, probably to be expected, given

the size. the floral plaque on the south side of civic center plaza across from phil gramm experienced some damage from, i think, folks traveling through it, but i really want to thank jimmy kern for his leadership and supporting a very ambitious undertaking. eric hill, jackie robinson, stephen yet, and marcus santiago and our park patrol unit for really what was some tireless work between monday and the parade on wednesday in supporting this great celebration at civic center plaza. president buell and commissioner harrison touched upon events yesterday out at harding that are going on all weekend, but just when you thought it was safe to take a breath, we actually happen to have the

senior golf championship this weekend, which is a terrific event. we have some very famous golfers out there like tom watson and fred couples, some early world- class champs out there competing for the senior cup championship, and it does coincide with the fruits of this commission's labor in having the pga tour take over the management and marketing of the golf course. you can already start to see the strength of the decision. during the world series, the pga did a marketing campaign that look at golf courses in arlington and san francisco that went all over the country. for all the baseball fanatics that were out there that wanted to play around a golf, the pga was already promoting our spectacular golf course. the reports we are getting about the condition of the course.

commissioner buell noted, and he might be the best to speak on it because he played there yesterday. the reports we are getting are that the greens are in a world class, terrific shape. i'm also very proud of steve and kevin and the entire staff out there. this is yet another example of the behind-the-scenes work. they are working very long days, the entire gardening and maintenance staff, to meet the world's very high expectations for the course. victoria mentioned the mtc park users survey. i think it will be a valuable tool in helping shape budget priorities and helping get some sense of community feedback on a variety of opportunities to preserve, protect, enhance, help our park system survive, so we are featuring the mtc survey on

our own website and trying to communicate, and i want to thank them for conducting a town hall meeting last saturday and for their ongoing partnership and support for our parts. on november 8, we have the second of two public meetings to brief the public on the contract negotiation for the boat house, and it comes back before the commission at the next meeting in november. the next meeting is on november 8 between 1:00 and 2:00 p.m., and there will be public discussion of contract terms and concession and an opportunity for the public to actually meet the ortega family. we have a ribbon-cutting ceremony on october 12 at 4:00 p.m., and this is a really exciting project, and it is the second part to the renovation of the lincoln park playgrounds, which happened probably eight months ago now. november 13, fall one day at the

golden gate park tennis complex, celebrating the recent resurfacing improvements to the course between 2:00 and 5:00. if you have not been out there, all but three of the courts out there have been resurfaced with a surface that even makes, you know, 45-year-old guys like me feel young out there. it is a great service and pretty bouncy. on november 27, very exciting event. pianist is going to give a program. he is a world-class pianist and the father of a child with autism, with home we are partnering closely in an opportunity to provide more summer opportunities and more programs for kids on the autism spectrum. he will be doing a benefit concert on november 27 from 8:00 to 11:00. tickets can be purchased online as cityboxoffice.com.

and lastly, the annual holiday tree lighting festivities at mclaren lot. baseball season just ended, and already, we are right around the corner. last week, the city comptroller released the standards report, which showed that despite our department's continuing staffing and resource challenges, our average scores continue to improve. i'm very proud of the fact that 2009/2010 scores improved over 2008/2009. do not kid yourselves -- this is not because of an abundance of staffing. this is the direct reflection of very hard work that our gardening staff and maintenance staff and management team has been doing in our parks. there are districts where we still have challenges, and this is the district report you are about to hear a short presentation on. it is a great tool for us to understand what we're doing well, where we need to pay more attention, where we need to direct resources in all our

neighborhood parts and all of our super majority districts. we know that districts 10 and 11 continue to need our love and support and attention, but even in those districts,;;gó cleanlis stores have increased at least 9% since the program's inception, so it is really an effective tool for us. i'm going to let the comptroller's office -- the controller's office this presentation, and want to thank them for their support in this program. i think, as you know, our entire staff or a big chunk of our staff goes out quarterly and evaluates parks. we do it four times a year. this is -- we invest a lot of resources in monitoring our parks, and you are going to hear a little bit about the annual report.

>> thank you. i am joined today in the presentation by my counterpart in the controller's office. i'm going to take you through -- this is an old tag line of mine -- this is a good news story. this is the fifth consecutive year where scores have gone in. we have seen a trend in the scores increasing. briefly, legislation was passed in 2003. we perform these evaluations on a quarterly basis. we actually have over 100 people on staff now trained to do the evaluations. they go out and evaluate 14 features like trees, lawns, a children's play areas, and they evaluate qualities of those features. they look at the green color of the lawns, the height that it has been mode, etc., and the answer yes or no. you either passed the standard as described in front of you in the document, or you fail.

it is a very objective evaluation. we post the results on a quarterly basis. what is really exciting for us right now is we now have five years of data. we will talk about some of the trends you could see in some of the other slides, but we have a really great body of data. i'm going to turn it over to talk about the controller's office's role in this process. >> good afternoon. as lydia said, we work together on managing the analytic portion of the park maintenance project. we have to basically develop and refine the valuation methodology as well as help coordinate joint training and time our quarterly evaluations. the controller's office

staff and that's one of valuation for every part by the end of the fiscal year. the fiscal year and, we published the park maintenance standards annual report, which we will be discussing further in our presentation. at mid-year, we publish a six- month report. >> just to follow-up on one item that we consider very important for the department -- beat office really performs as an audit function. there are neutral search parties. it gives us our credibility in terms of the scores, especially with some of our park advocacy groups that are highly critical of some of the things we do. we rely on them to continue to perform these evaluations and be that check and balance to the activities of the department in this process. onward to results. this bar graph is basically illustrating the fact that we have five years in a row of increase. we started in 2005-2006 with

just over 81% as our rating, and we are up to 89.7%. that is the overall score for the fiscal year closing for 2009-2010. again, the other things that we see in a lot of the scores, and you will see it in detail later, is that also in terms of increasing scores, the controller's office and recreation and park department tends to score together. and this is a slide that comes directly from the report as well, and i have not presented information like this to you before, but it is really interesting. basically, this is illustrating the fact that we have more parts doing better. back when this started in 2005- 2006, we have 43 parks scoring above 90%, and we had any number in the red zone that were scoring below 80%. as you see each bar, each year,

we have an increase in the green section and a decrease in the red section. for the fiscal year that just close, we have only 14 parks scoring below 80%, and we have 90 about 90%, which is more than half of our parks showing a significant increase like this in scores. this is the last time you will see nsa results, but our neighborhood service areas -- again, they are showing an overall trend up. when we took a look at this, the only thing we noticed that was of some concern was basically nsa 6 and nsa 9. let's not confuse these with the districts, by the way. we did show a decrease from last year to this year, and that is really primarily due to the lower great highways, which often actually gets lower scores.

it has an infrastructure problem in terms of some of the aesthetic features there, such as the fences that are not fully functioning well, etc. if you are familiar with it, you know. particularly from the third to fourth quarter this year, it drops primarily because of low scores for lawns and restaurants. again, a snapshot in time that it did not do well. then, in nsa 6, we attribute that drop, which is just 1%, but we attributed to the fact that we had a staff member functioning in 3 management roles for most of last year. and he really had his attention spread in many different directions, and when i talk to him about an example, he is solely focused on the management. he would do drive buys to the facility and often proactively be able to identify a problem,

and colorado staff, and have them react to it. feature ratings. i talked about the 14 features enumerated here. overall from last year to this year, we see a majority of increases. certainly from the right most column to this current fiscal year. we see nothing but increases, again, reflecting the overall trend upward. looking in the right most column under or mental garden shrubs and ground covers, a horticultural feature that the department is really proud of, it actually outpaced all of the other features increases. it went up more than 14%. if you recall from my presentation before you previously, we kind of lamented the fact that ornamental gardens were not going as high as we all want to, but i think staff paid attention, and we are happy to see this feature increase so much over the program. the decreases we have seen from

last year to this year are actually pretty small. we are not going to ignore them, but we are glad to see these are not significant, strong, large decreases. if your call, the neighborhood parks council also does its own evaluation of children's play areas every two years, said they completed the evaluation in february of this year. both organizations agree that overall trends are up for children's play areas. there is some disparity there. evaluation is a bit more technical, much more like an inspection, and ours are evaluations, but we confirm that there is a trend of with another outside organization taking a look at our facility. district results -- typically, we have only concentrated on nsa's but because there were reports of concerns, we did want to take a look at this issue. this is again from the report,

and it illustrates an upward trend over the five years. but it also illustrates the problem we are seeing where we need to pay attention to what is going on to district 10 and 11. they continue to lag other districts in the city. i want to put a little perspective on this, however. if you look at district 10 for the last fiscal year, it scored 83.4%. that is in the right most bar in the middle there. it scored lowest of all the districts, but that is still a b. but we are not going to be happy with that. we want to see the differences between those districts decrease even more. again, if you look at the first year, that spread between district 1 and district 11 was just over 18 points, and we have actually reduced the spread down to about 12 points this fiscal year, and ideally in a perfect world, which we will strive for, is to see no difference in the scores between districts. we want to see equity and

reasonable scores. the one thing you do not see on this bar graph actually is we did have one district decrease, district 6, and we look at why that might be. it actually decreased 2.8% this last fiscal year, and really, that turned out to be staffing issues. we talked quite often about the importance of our staff. they have vacancies in both of the supervisors for the custodial staff and 40 horticulturalist that -- and for the horticultural staff. i'm going to turn it over for other perspectives in terms of district results. >> as you can see, the lower scoring districts are in the southeast portion, so we have district 10 and district 11, and both are averaging 83.4% for

district 10 and 84.7% for district 11. you can also see that district 10 has seven of the lowest scoring parks out of the bottom 10, and district 11 has two of them. ultimately, the northeast part of the city districts have the highest scoring parks, averaging 95.6% and 93.8% respectively. district two actually improved 4.8% over fiscal year 2008-2009 scores, and have two of the highest scoring parks, while district 3 improve 1.1% and have three of the highest scoring parks. just to delve a little deeper again into the issues around district 10 and 11, one of the things cited in the report when you get a chance to look at it, is really the trash and dumping problems experienced sometime in districts 10 and 11.