a historic landmark. if you look around the city, i do not think that they're the ones to say anything about decorating historic landmarks. one neighborhood is allowed to decorate the path of gold, other neighborhoods might reasonably feel left out. there are about 10 neighborhoods, market street and the urban design census in the middle of the city, the grades change. that is why it is so important to maintain design continuity in the improvements that we fought so hard for without them being weakened by the clatter of permanent banners. thank you. supervisor chu: next speaker, please. >> ♪ glad you have a banner on the path of gold memories of a

dream that you hold and memories of what love would be if you were here with me you have the shelter of bay city home memories of the dream that you hold and the memories of what love would be if you were here with me. you took me from the shelter of a city i have always known and it was my happy home. and the memories of what love would be if you were here with me ♪ supervisor chu: thank you. any other members of the public

that wish to speak on this item? item number five? seeing no one, public comment is closed. any last comments? supervisor dufty: if we could incorporate the amendments, i would like to announce that there is a facebook page where i get contacted regularly from people that would like to see the banners maintained to the quality of 18th street. that is what we are looking to do. given the history of the rainbow flag to san francisco, it is appropriate in the context of the preservation for maintaining the historic context of what a neighborhood should be. supervisor chu: thank you. we have amendments to the legislation that are substantive in nature on pages 1, 4, and five. supervisor chu: move to accept and move forward. let's take that one at a time

to accept the amendment. without objection. from my understanding, we are not able to move this item forward with recommendation at this time, but it can be moved out of committee pending analysis, correct? all right. let's go ahead and move this out of committee. without objection. madam clerk, next item? >> resolution regarding the benefit district manual report to the city for fiscal year 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 as submitted pursuant to section -- resolution regarding castro/upper market community benefit district annual reports to the city: receiving and

approving the district's annual reports for fys 2006-2007, 2007-2008, and 2008-2009, as submitted pursuant to section 36650 of the business property and community benefit act of 1994 (california streets and highways code 36600 et seq.) and section 3.4 of the district's management contract with the city. >> good afternoon. thank you. before you today as the resolution to approve the annual report for the castro upper market community district covering fiscal years 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009. today i also wanted to introduce the executive director of the castro market presenting these services and highlights for you. i will be presenting the staff report that our office has prepared for your consideration that accompanied the financial statements, cpa reviews and annual reports as provided to

our office for review. the office of economic workforce development is charged with insuring that they all meet city contract requirements. we are in charge of reviewing these reports as well as helping and assisting with annual hearings. the resolution before you is to cover three fiscal years. previously we heard and voted on the annual report for 2005-2006. today we are hearing 2008-2009. this castro upper market community events district was established in 2005 and includes 275 parcels. intended to increase commerce and make the upper market a better place to shop and beautify the neighborhood while developing public spaces and allowing property owners and business owners to have input in

the revitalization of the district. with an average annual budget of $450,000 with various services. daily cleaning, graffiti removal, pressure washing, steam cleaning and general landscaping. they work with dpw on the pickup of items that are dumped. they do have a dispatch service in the area seven days per week for businesses, property owners, and residence where they can call services if they see something. from 2006 to 2007 -- excuse me, 2006 to 2009, also funded as the patrol special extra safety services in the district. they also do business attraction, an active campaign they have had for several years

for bringing new businesses to the area as well as helping existing businesses expand and grow in the district. they have marketing promotion programs with a neighborhood beautification safety plan. detail in the planning process with a plan on where to invest capital resources for improvement throughout the district. they have also participated in the payment to parks program and have been one of the main sponsors with the city on the castro plaza. activating it for community benefit. the office of economic and workplace development comptroller's office reviewed the market's reports and financial reviews. cbd has submitted all of the

required documents during these three fiscal years that we are reviewing. so, today i will be looking at and discussing with you the budget for 2006-2007. the budget amount for each of the service categories should be within 10 percentage points, from the management plan budget. the castro cbd met this for all years provided in the report. between 2007 and 2008 and 2008 and 2009, it produced more than 10 percentage points without allocating funds toward significant reserves in the budget because they allocated all of their funds directly to services. the charge before you as the comparison of the management

plan budget for each service category and subsequent years. the cast cbd met the requirement -- castro cbd met required funds with 3% on 2006 and 2007 and early on in the adoption. the actual expenses were proportional to actual revenues during the fiscal years of this report with the following explaining large differences that we noticed. in 2006 and 2007 the difference between what they actually spent and what they budgeted had to do with a shortened fiscal year. the approved budget was one year while the actual

represented six months of expenses. changing from a calendar to june of the fiscal year. in 2007-2008 they did not implement all of the streetscape improvements projects, spending more than budgeted on the cost. 2008-2009 they spent more than the original budget for administrative costs to allocate services. the carryover funds, every year there has been carryover funds the use of these funds for operations occurs within six months of the following year. like many of them, they must

carry over six months worth of operating expenses each year to cover july 1 to december 31. so, the board has recently approved spending plans to make sure that they spend down the current carryover funds. basically, i have included a detailed and updated page of the staff report, showing the details of how they spend down their contingency over the past years. basically this was originally in contingency for different service categories. this fiscal year they are

allocating 172,00340 to their various services. next year they want to have funding set aside for streetscape improvements in their plan. specifically there is an art history installment for public art projects in the area. they have funding for the installation of additional public art and other amenities. the budget included $827,000.900

-- $807,000 in revenue with expenses leading to the carry over recommendations on the annual budget include a detailed carry over revenue in the current and subsequent years and at the beginning of the year per the management plan allocated towards services throughout the year. with it that i would like to introduce andrea to talk about the highlights. >> good afternoon, supervisors. briefly i would like to highlight some of our achievements over the past couple of years. first, the mission statement is to provide services that improve quality of life in the

neighborhood, promoting the area's economic vitality and fostering a unique identity in the district. next we have a map. as you can see it is fairly long and not quite winding but it is a very large district. almost 25 blocks. the next slide shows about 25 blocks as well. for the last several years the budget assessment fees of 2007 and 2009 were or around $396,000. in 2008-2009. next is the core with most of our funding going to the planning and maintenance of the district.

including graffiti removal and daily sweeping 365 days per year. this is an example of the work that we do. before and after pictures of trash that was dumped. often it is people moving out of the neighborhood dumping household garbage outside. we do pick up a lot of meat -- needles and dispose of them safely. next we also alert 311 and the police of hazardous situations that we find on the street. for example we remove graffiti within 24 hours of being notified. a large portion of the budget goes towards graffiti removal. most of it is on public space.

green cabinets and mean the property, bus shelters. there are a couple of pictures and there are images of graffiti removal. after that it is just that over the past several years we have developed a good working relationships with city services and agencies. notably dtw, homeless outreach, the police department, and college. another large piece of our responsibility is on streetscape improvements. this is the first reiteration of the 17th street plaza. as you can see from this time, it is enjoyed by many people in the neighborhood. this is what is a new and improved plaza. there is a lot more tree an agreement. this is a major funding grant to

do that. here we have the old harvey milk plaza. this is what it used to look like before the beautification efforts. currently, this is what it looks like. just east of the flag are those retaining walls. the next picture, this is what the base of the flag used to look like. now we see what it currently looks like with our beautification efforts. similar to activation efforts. the idea is to green and make things look pretty. thank you. thank you. supervisor chu: thank you very much for your presentation. any question? supervisor dufty: briefly, i want to say how proud i am of the castro community benefit district. i was very involved as the quarterback for the effort to secure from property owners in

the castro. we have had an incredible contractor that has worked with us to provide cleaning services. i think that andrea and her board of directors and all of the leaders from the community that served in that role, individuals involved with businesses and property owners have really come together to be a force for good in the community. i am extremely proud and this is one of the things that will reflect on as one of the best things i was able to make happen in my eight years on board. extolling the virtues and good work in the community building. thank you. >> thank you very much -- supervisor chu: thank you very much. let's open this up to public comment. any members of the public democrats -- members of the public? >> ♪ good morning, yesterday.

you wake up and another report has come your way. the upper marketplace makes it better for growing. remember, will you remember. the laughter and tears. the seasons throughout the years. the good times and the bad are going to get better like a dream remember will you remember the upper marketplace that you love ♪ supervisor chu: thank you. next speaker, please. >> supervisor dufty, with all of your experience with neighborhoods services you were able to give your best to the

castro district. i have watched from afar and would like to thank you. i hope that the same happens to the mid market. so, i would say that other experiences like those in the upper market are more astute and should be applied to those mid market. talking to those businesses over there, they seem confused. planning is a little bit confused. when we talk about environmental impact reports and all of the plans, i am connecting it to mid market. if you can in some way " to do the out reach over there, if people have learned something

from the upper markets it should flow to a better place and help the businesses. thank you very much. supervisor dufty: thank you. supervisor chu: any other members of the public? seeing no one, public comment is closed. motion with recommendation and without wreck -- without objection. item number seven, please. >> item number 7. ordinance amending the san francisco environment code by amending sections 300, 301, 302, 303, 304, 305, 306, and 308, adding section 310, and repealing section 307, all to strengthen restrictions on the use of pesticides on city property, and making environmental findings. supervisor chu: thank you. good afternoon, supervisors. i am with the department of the environment and i will be briefly talking about what the

amendments before you are covering. so, first of all i just want to say that on behalf of many city departments how proud we are of the idea of integrated pest management programs. the program as being in place since 1996 and city agencies have worked hard to reduce the use of toxic chemicals on city property. before you are examples of creativity come up with by city staff as ways to greatly reduce pesticides. everything from the framers used in golden gate park to the compost on golf courses and airports. the list goes on and on. all of those are the results of city staff wishing, in their way, to make a statement that they do not believe those are

necessary in a good deal of city property. in the last 14 years we have managed to reduce pesticide use. we do not use pesticides on city playgrounds. every step person in the city thinks about them as a last resort. the department of the environment is not the one doing this work. it is our city partners, agencies, and notably here today we have record park areas here to look at these amendments in support of them today. so, what these amendments will do is strengthen the ordinance and bring it up to date. we really want to thank the mayor and the supervisor who are not here today for coming to us and saying -- great job, but how can we make it better? there were concerns about

accountability and transparency that we took to heart. therefore you have the amendment before you. falling into three categories. the first category is about improving transparency and accountability. we have added an annual public hearing where we will be discussing with the public any changes to our approved list of pesticides and talking about exemptions but city agencies might want to add to the list. those exemptions, if granted, will become public and on our web site as easily attainable by the public. the department will develop a formal complaint process. what i would like to say about those amendments, they are there as a way of being explicit and codifying many of the practices that we were doing anyways. because they were not stated i law, the community was not as confident that that would be done on an annual basis.

so, we have become explicit on the ones we think are important. secondly, we need to clarify standards of responsibility. many of these changes are simply bringing things up to speed. departments developing integrated pest management plans but they will maintain. 16 dates in 16 languages to clarify what we have been doing. most notable is the addition of the requirement that every pesticide applied when it is applied is done underwrite licensed adviser. this is a clarification of things that departments were doing anyways. but we are being explicit. finally, we wish to incentivize the use of the least toxic products. the way that we will do that is change posting requirements to make it easier on city staff. so, those are the categories of

the amendments before you. we are very proud of this ordinance and a crowd of the program that has been implemented as a result in and we welcome any questions you might have. supervisor chu: thank you for your presentation. could you please speak about the conversations you had within the department regarding who the users of pesticides parks. we just had an extensive hearing about how the parks department has very limited staff to accomplish the work they need to do. dpw is another department that comes to mind when it regards utilizing these materials. >> one of the most striking parts of the ordinance is that it was implemented with declining resources. there was great concern that we might see increased hazard as a result of not being able to use

the chemicals but we have found the opposite. departments that you mentioned have been very creative in finding alternatives to getting the job done. i am not sure when you call them high users, if you look at the use is dropping dramatically we have not heard from them that the lack of ability to use pesticides is a limiting factor. speaking to this better than i can, sarah can talk about the volunteer corporation. >> supervisors, a couple of things to add would be that we have been greatly helped by volunteers and philanthropy in this area. over 129,000 volunteer hours in the system. much of that is for

beautification. in addition we have had many philanthropic areas focusing on this day, allowing us to steam the weeds in the cracks and sidewalks and those types of things rather than using pesticides. as mentioned, under the leadership of the program we will continue to do so. chris geiger, as indicated, has shown that there is an inverse relationship between the number of gardner's and pesticide use. when we are under-resource, you do see that there is increased reliance on pesticides. that is the one thing i would flag. supervisor chu: is the

department supportive of this? is there any foreseen potential impact that would be negative? >> we have worked very closely with the department in addressing those concerns. supervisor chu: what was the conversation like with other departments that use those pesticides? >> rather than speak for them, bart, would you like to speak? dpw is not here but they were interested in not seeing additional burdens on them. >> we worked closely with