the only thing we do not rate for clear this is the condition of trees. for districts 10 and 11, they had trended upward. for district 10, we had trended upward nearly 9%, to actually over 9% for the last five years, and for district 11, the cleanliness score has trended up about 15%, but again, i want to emphasize the fact that the department will be taking a look -- it is actively looking at what changes we can make in this district. the manager there retired, so the recruitment will go on for a new manager. we're looking at how the mobile for the cultural crew can be deployed, how current custodian allocations are happening, so there is a lot of staffing review happening currently. we also look briefly at making sure the capital budget now is equitable, not the that area is ignored. planning division has spent about 30% of their hours their hoursmclaren -- looking at

mclaren park and the kinds of things that can happen there. the second-highest number is in district 10, so going back to the fact that we really want to look at how staffing is deployed in that area. one interesting thing that is mentioned in the report related to cleanliness, and she really did confirm i am looking at cleanliness gore's those features that are primarily managed -- solely managed by custodians such as restaurants consistently scored very high where we have direct control. occasionally, we have shared responsibilities for a cpa, and it works much better when the custodians are the primary responsibility in terms of those activities and they continue to score high. going back to the fact that they were added in 2007, we continue to see that reflected in our stores in terms of cleanliness. recommendations from the report,

right at the top of the list of concerns was again, as we just talked about district 10 and 11, the controller's office suggests we look at it, and we are actively going to. in terms of across divisions, it is how we are communicating with capital, how we communicate with the structural maintenance charge, making sure that is tighter with operations. what i was gratified to see in terms of the timely monitoring a body which and results, one of our new staff in the department, actually sent out an e-mail today to all of her managers also announcing the report and asking for a specific report in terms of, "look at your areas, tell us what you see, and give us concrete actions on how you plan to react in the report? that is very different and a great step forward. the last two points relate to staff schedule compliance primarily.

i'm going to take time to read this completely to you, which is to work with the public, to revise that schedules in order to reflect current best practices for staff and custodians while satisfying prop c require its. one of the desires of the public when the legislation was passed was to say they want to see staff schedules and know how often we are adhering to the schedules. the viewpoint of the department is that is not practical, and it does not reflect best practices. what is the concept of what used to be a garden with a specific individual predominantly in one location easily found is really changing. again, following best practices in new york city and central park, etc., we really look at crew work as the primary way to accomplish work. we respond to a lot of dynamic needs in the park, so staff may not be adhering to the schedule for primarily legitimate reasons. the way we post the schedule does not reflect legitimate

absences for training, doctors' appointments, travel time between parks, said that recommendation to change how we are looking at south schedules and our compliance to them is an absolutely correct recommendation. we love it, and we want to make it so that those schedules posted and the compliance rates of those schedules reflect reality because right now, it looks like a false perception of a lack of work ethic for our staff, and that is simply not true. i think, basically, i can close the presentation. just one small little fat here basically is the first quarter of the fiscal year closed about a month ago, and the preliminary result is that our overall score is 91%. i think that phil would like to make one small comment about holding the line at 91%. >> thank you. >> i have been asked to close this presentation with a

cautionary note, which is that we really think right now that our staff is operating pretty close to peak efficiency, given the resources we have, and i think that we have the data to back that up. last year, during our budget challenges, we focused on trying to draw more efficiency on the recreation side. we talked about the difference between fixed assets and flexible assets where we have a certain number of parks. we can scale up or down the amount of hours or services we do on the recreation side. we went through i think a really important and meaningful process in the last year on the recreation side to try to figure out how we can do business differently and more effectively, given the resources that we have. but if we are faced with yet another $10 million or $12 million challenge, there is no place to go on the recreation side.

and we need to look at other areas of our organization to achieve savings or continue to drive the revenue conversation. these are some of the difficult choices that we as a department and as a community of park advocates need to face. maintaining this level of maintenance, and as good as our scores are, i'm out in our parks every day, and i hear, "how come that bench is not fixed?" or, "how come that water fountain is not working?" there are all kinds of things people would still like to see, and i guess the cautionary note is while we celebrate really what is the talent and hard work and work ethic of our staff, we have reached pretty much the limit on where we can go, given the resources we have here with additional cuts, you saw that --

i think it was in district 64 nsa 3 where we had some staffing, where lidia pointed out that there are some vacancies. that really translates into lower scores. less resources, lower scores. that is something we need to keep in mind as we continue to grapple with the public policy debates about revenue generation versus service cuts. >> i just wanted to tell you that this is a great report, and something we do not here, but it was really great because i read through this myself, and i did not know all the stuff that was there. it was really great, and i enjoyed it. one of the things i missed was going out to the golf course. i love going out there, and i had my grandson out there for two years, but there was so much

stuff, and this was very intelligent today. commissioner buell: good. i might say there is no question that we are faced with cuts again next year, which means that everybody has to get on the same page of finding a sustainable funding mechanism for the parks, and there are ideas out there. there are proposals being floated, so i would encourage you all to sign up with us, and we are going to try to make that happen. with that, commissioner bonilla. commissioner bonilla: yes, i just wanted to congratulate staff for this accomplishments. i think we have, an awful long way from five years ago. i think it all has to stem with the fact that i think there is an improvement over all in terms of commitment, focus, and i

would also say morel -- morale in terms of all the work that needs to get done and i'm really glad to see that we are mindful of the fact that even though our resources are limited that there are certain areas where we have to continue to achieve some parity because we know that districts 10 and 11 historically have been areas where at least san franciscans have fewer resources, so i'm glad to see that one of the recommendations is to continue to work on the plan to improve services in the parks out there. so i'm very appreciative of the.

the other thing is i wanted to comment on an activity that i for dissipated in, which i thought was really great. you did not mention anything about the scare growth, and that was a terrific family event. i took my niece and relatives out there at sterngrove. it was held on october 22, on the occasion of halloween, but i really thought it was a family activity, and i think everyone for dissipated. i especially like the hayride. that was very popular. people waited for hours for the -- that. and the fact that kids had an opportunity to get onstage and the performers was terrific.

i just think it was a terrific event, and i want to thank staff for putting it on because i know there was a lot of hard work that went into it. i heard some staff commenting that they needed some time off after that event. they put a lot of energy into it, so i hope we continue to do more of those type of events, and i want to thank you for putting that on. >> i did actually forget to mention scare growth -- grove, so thank you for mentioning that. it seems like a long time ago. i also really want to thank our recreation staff. they poured their hearts and souls -- we now do a quarterly family event, so every fall, we have scare grove right around

halloween. we have our tree lighting in december, and in the spring, we have eggstravaganza, and in the summer, we have marina played on the green where we bring kids in the city for a day of rights and activities and conable fair, so that has become now a part of tradition to do these quarterly family events. i wanted to turn back to the prop c scores, and i want to thank the controller's office for their support. i really do want to extend our thanks to the staff for all their great work, and the last person down there i want to thank the deserves an incredible amount of credit is our director of operations. he has overseen the program since its inception, and this has really professionalized --

denny's involvement has professionalize our department and staff and made it more accountable and transparent, and it does not happen without a lot of work and great management, and i did want denny to be recognized for that. >> is there any public comment on the general managers' report? >> good afternoon, commissioners. i'm actually president of the outer mason merchants association but also a steward of programs on park, and i was pleased to hear that the numbers in district 11 have gone out, and i assume one of the parks is ocean view and the other is proper amazon. i have always said with all the successes we have had, especially in the southeast -- or we are actually in the south- central part of san francisco,

all the successes we have had over the years, it is a success for us. patrick is here from city fields where we had our beautiful soccer fields. because of that success, we have people playing and playing. the other day, it was raining, and we were driving by, and we thought nobody would be on the fields, but they are. i'm also on the community policing advisory board for ingle side district, and actually, i'm the chair of the subcommittee on the car, where we have eight presentation by robert watkins because of some of the issues like crime and trash, and i heard something earlier about the vendors in golden gate park that they have to clean up their trash, and i'm hoping that the vendors in crocker will do the same thing. i want to make one last point

about the ornamental gardens. when i was chair, there was a big issue with us because we wanted our part to look like golden gate park, and crocker is not golden gate park. it is an athletic field with many athletics going on. tennis, basketball, but she ball, football, soccer, but there are areas that could be beautified, and one of the things i would like to suggest, and i met with the general manager a few weeks ago, is that we need to be stewards. the general public needs to be stewards of their park if they want to see improvements and cleanliness in -- and a state park to go to. >> thank you very much. >> good afternoon. i would hope that the general manager would agendize this on the regular agenda next time.

i think it is an important report, and people do not know. it is buried without any notice under general managers' report. you have to be psychic to know this is coming, so when you have something as important as this public report card, may i please urge that it be agendized? and i want to bring up something i have mentioned for the full five years this report has been mentioned -- all the parks are not being evaluated because all the parks are not given standards. all the natural area do not have standards. they have no standards to meet. the only standard i would insist on is cleanliness. i realize that natural areas are special. but, my golly, we have a standard of cleanliness for open space as a unit, but not for natural areas, so there are no requirements for the honor to to go out, so when i see a natural

area and i see that it is not clean, i think it has something to do with other staff, and i will not be able to differentiate saying that i saw a natural area without standards, and it is not the same thing as the part that does have standards that were not being met. i would like to request that this year, we get standards for natural areas and we get work plans. we need to know what is the idea of where those people are. do these people go and attend a park once a year, twice a year? again, nothing fancy. i'm bringing this up because again, i'd love to tell you about this ad nauseam. i have to try every year to the best of my ability to bring this to your attention. this is something that needs to be done. was in the report for 2006. even he recommended, let's have standards. thank you.

>> commissioners, mr. ginsburg, i'm grateful for this opportunity to speak. my name is deborah benedict. i am a person that uses san francisco park. i come from a different area and i just moved in the last couple of years to san francisco. and in recognition of the troubles and difficulties that all city governments have with funding, i wanted to offer a possible suggestion that might facilitate the accommodation and needs of the parks and recreation department because quite frankly i think there's a lot of people that have great concern and affection to the city of san francisco that are wonderful gifts to the community. i was going make an offer and a suggestion because individuals in the community would like to contribute to the park but they don't know where the needs are.

the federal communications commission has low-level broadcast station availables, frequencies that are available for short-term broadcasting. if one of those would be taken and utilized by parks and rec to announce four contributors to the parks and rec for clean-up volunteers for equipment volunteers for the types of things that if the community knew about and had the opportunity to contribute money, time, or resources that they could possibly do. but part of the issue is they don't really know what's going on in parks and rec. a short-term broadcast station that was assigned to the needs of parks and reck that anyone could pick up on any radio that those who would like to make

contributions to the park to actually call a number that is listed and have an opportunity to distribute what's needed. thank you. president buell: thank you. good idea. >> is there any other comment under the general manager's report. seeing none, we are on item number nine. at this time members of the public may address the commission on things that are on the general public commission. is there anyone that would like to make comment. if so, please come forward. >> i have a procedural question. we had a number of letters that i know about -- there might have been more submitted about when the agenda was published and today's meetsing about the water treatment and golden gate park. i was wondering what is the

next procedure? will the public have access to these letters. and i have copies but i don't know if they're related to the other agenda. president buell: we'll take your question. >> thank you very much. >> steve courier from the resident's association. this is not a park thing but it is a park thing. one of the pictures came out and it was this structure. the structure was built in 1915. there were 10 of these little parks built around the city. and they were to showcase the

ex-position, the rebuilt of san francisco from the earthquake. on the corner you can't see it but it was vacant but it was built as the first safeway in san francisco. we've been begging for a park in this wide median. and ed ripken, the manager of -- director of d.p.w. at our holiday party two years ago. and we were joking about welcome to grandma's own park. since he started his pavement to park product we have now -- the dedication is on saturday at 11:00. and we've got the first permanent pavement to park in san francisco where the four other ones were temporary permit. so i'm inviting you -- and i know gloria, you live in the neighborhood and we would love to see you. but this is a dream come true of mine and i'm very proud of what we've done.

president buell: congratulations. >> is there any other general public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed and we are on item number 10, which is commissioner's matters. as reminder this item is allowed to have commissioners issues that should be raised at future meeting. >> can we put events like this pavement to parks item on our website on short notice so that people know about it? >> that what? >> we can have it up for tomorrow. >> great. thank you. >> is there any public comment on this item? seeing none, public comment is closed. number 11 is new business agenda setting. any public comments? public comment is closed. item 12 is communication. commissioners?

any public comment under communications? public comment is closed. we're on item 13 which is adjournment. are >> moved and seconded. >> all those in favor? >> aye. >> so moved. >> welcome to "culture wire." i'm your host meg. for years, free jazz concerts have been providing entertainment in downtown san francisco. people pay local musicians to perform for lunchtime crowds. the goal is not just entertainth. people in plazas are trying to create neighborhoods.

what began as a forum for performers who were paid by passing the hat has become a program that provides wide exposure and more than 500 paid gigs annually for local musicians. from july through september, people in plazas produces almost 300 free performances in the lunchtime hour. the mission of people in plazas generates social congregation. and by having these events, we encourage people to make these plazas everybody's neighborhood. >> recently, the san francisco arts commission was awarded a $

250,000 grant for the national endowment for the arts. to establish an arts district in the central market corridor between fifth and 10th street. throughout the yearing the arts commission will partner with people in plazas to activate the sidewalks along this stretch with art installation, opening events, live music, and new arts and antique markets at u.n. plaza. >> this area has been sleighted for many years, at least the past 25 years. i think that this redevelopment project and the n.e.a. grant are very positive signs that we have political will and a lot of momentum to really make the mid market area what it could be, which is a vibrant area where everybody is welcome and it's a place to be in san francisco. >> to get a feel for the future of the central market arts and culture district, be sure to catch out an upcoming concert.

for locations and times, visit peopleinplazas.org. to learn more about the central market revitalization initiative, visit sfartcommission.org. thank you for watching "culture wire."