-- [laughter] [applause] >> may the force be with you. [laughter] they the force be with you and with us -- may the force be with you and with us. >> a jedi warrior. now you know what was behind that mask darth vader was wearing. me. >> at this time, i want to acknowledge a couple of people outside of our committee.

>> meeting for march 17.

happy st. patrick's day. we welcome all of you today. as a reminder, please turn off all pagers, cell phones, or any electronic devices that may sound off during proceedings. we ask that you take any secondary conversations outside in order for the meeting to proceed as efficiently as possible. if you would like to speak on any item today, if you could please fill out a blue card. unless the commission announces otherwise, you will have three minutes to speak on each item. and please address your comments to the item that is being heard. it is general public, you want to speak on, those are items four and 19. and last, as a reminder, address your comments to the commission in order to allow equal time for all. staff will not respond to questions during public comment, but the commission may ask questions of staff after public

comment is closed. we are on item two, a president's report. >> i have some announcements to make, but i will make them as part of my report. happy thanksgiving -- happy thanksgiving? merry christmas. [laughter] happy st. patrick's day to all of you. let me make a formal announcement. we have a couple of changes in the order of business on the agenda. it has been told to me by the city attorney's office that we need to conclude an item before noon in order to get it properly noticed with the board of supervisors. so the commission will be going into closed session twice. 13, 14, 15b, 16, and 17, the closed session on the 49ers

proposed settlement agreement will be heard following items six. that will allow us to come to some conclusions and take an official action in time for it to be shipped over to the clerk's office and properly noticed that the board. we will then -- when we come out of executive session, we will hear item 18. after that, we will continue with our normal order of business, including closed session for a second time on items 13, 14, 15a, one in two, and 16 and 17. seems to be quite a bit of litigation these days. that is the reason for that. last night, i had a productive session speaking to the order of jamestown, that uses our parks in partnership during our program. it was very encouraging, very

well attended, and i think enthusiastically received. it was really a public/private partnership, and they were appealing to their constituents for support, and many city elected officials were there, and it was encouraging to see that people were recognizing that in these times of budget shortfall that public/private partnerships with a free park uses -- appropriate part uses seem very appropriate, at least in those quarters. i'm going to ask commissioner harris said in a minute to weigh in on the event last night which i could not attend, but i understand you were there, so i welcome that. notice we are meeting at 10:00 in the morning. that is not to be an inconvenience to the public. the fact is that the president of the board of supervisors restructured their committee hearing scheduled, and our

regularly scheduled to o'clock p.m. meetings conflicted with his new schedule, so therefore, we would not have been televised, and there has been a strong sentiment in the community that those who cannot come to the meeting, that being able to watch them on television is an important part of the public participation, and we support that as well. the only time slots we were left with were these 10:00 spots in the morning. so bear with us. we appreciate you coming out, and we will see how that works. with that, that concludes my report, and i'm going to ask commissioner harrison to tell us about last night. commissioner harrison: certainly. it was a very nice event, as it was last year. topics again were about the partnership that the rec and park and neighborhood park council enjoys to get there. as time goes on, it seems to be growing stronger, which i certainly appreciate. they were talking about some of the future things that they are

going to be involved in and some changes that are going to be made between himself and another organization to even strengthen our relationship with both these organizations. so, yes, it was a very nice event. i did not have any, but am sure the wine was tasty. >> thank you, commissioner. i think that concludes our report. >> is there any public comment on the president's report? and a scene? -- ernestine? >> yes, as for the time of the meeting, it is grossly unfair to ask people to come here at 10:00, as witnessed by the lack of attendance, and the excuse of not setting another time is ridiculous because we could go back to 4:00 p.m. what is wrong with that?

commissioner buell: it would not be on television. that is used to be. commissioner buell: there is only so much capacity to televise it. i am open to all suggestions, so you find a good time slot, you will get my support. >> what other time is available that can be televised? you need to find one. commissioner buell: we did, and this is what we were left with. >> not good. not democratic at all. commissioner buell: thank you. >> is there anyone else who would like to comment under the president's report? seeing none, public comment is closed. we are on item 3, the general managers report. >> good morning, commissioners. i'm sitting in for phil ginsberg -- ginsburg. he will be back in the city tomorrow evening. but for today, i have a couple

of things to report on his behalf. everybody, i'm sure, knows of the catastrophic earthquake that took place in japan late last week. the tsunami warning posted for california and sen for cisco, and the property at most risk for us was the marine a yacht harbor. we participated in a variety of city responses last friday. but for dissipating in the policy group that was activated from the department of emergency management, -- both for participating in the policy group that was activated from the department of emergency management, and i was part of the working team that was monitoring developments. we had a couple of swells that came through, but none of them work overly significant. there was no book damage, and appeared damage. we did lose two pilings due to one of the afternoon's wells, but the marine i got harbor's

south was right there, including the general manager, who jumped on the workboat and help them work on the filing that had just been cut loose -- the marina yacht harbor's staff was right there. we came through the entire morning with no other damage, and given some of the other reports you have seen around the state and around the west coast, we fare very well. that is how that went last week. in better and brighter news, our summer camp registration begins on saturday, and we are offering a lot of great programs for kids throughout the city, so parents or grandparents, of which i am one, if you are looking for things for your kids to do, you need look no further than recreation and parks. we have 67 different summer camp, offerings.

we're offering surf camp, shark fishing camps, improv for teens and camp azure for children. logging into our website and browsing our catalog will give you more information on how to register. april 9, the stanford game. they use our stadium for the second time at 2:00 p.m., so we encourage everyone to come out for the second year in a row and see the champion stanford football team. admission is free for all, and for more information, go to their web site for information on that. our spring extravaganza this year will be against sharon meadow by stern grove, and that is able 23 at 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.

cost is just $5 per person at the gate, and i think that includes everything in the event, and lastly, the rec and park acquisition policy, which was approved by the commission back in 2006 -- we have been discussing this with the parks and open space advisory committee, and we found that there was a need to review and update our current acquisition roster and review the 2006 policy. the goals of our acquisition policy whereby a large good, but the methods and scoring with the policy has been difficult to use consistently, and they are not easy to communicate to the public. members have been working since january on a review of priorities that are currently on the acquisition roster and some

proposed rescission -- proposed revision to the acquisition policy. we will continue to keep you apprised of that as it develops further, and we will bring you more information at future commission meetings. that concludes the general managers' report. commissioner buell: thank you very much. did you have a comment? >> adjusted of unquestioned. if i could request that when you are ready to have that before the capital committee, so we can kind of have a chance to look into and weigh in on that. commissioner buell: absolutely. that is our plan. >> the second question i have is that we saw that there were two stabbings in golden gate park this past week. i was wondering if you could elaborate a little bit. i read about them in the paper, and it seems like this was kind of an issue of concern to me, which is public safety in the park and what we can do to make the park as safe as possible.

can you tell us about those stabbings? >> we got this report early saturday morning, i believe it was, at approximately 4:30 a.m. the incident occurred out at the western end of golden gate park, and it was actually in the children's play area at 46 and lincoln. it was a group of underage use -- youth out there early in the morning. some type of conflict ensued, and two victims were stabbed. police responded, and victims were taken to sf general. all of them were non-fatal. there is the police report looking into who was involved. it was youth-related. that is all i can say for now. as we have discussed at previous commission meetings, one of the initiatives that the park would

like to pursue this some sort of legislative park hours so that the parks actually have a closing time. in my opinion, as the director of operations, nothing good happens during the late hours of darkness in a park. so we would like to have that particular tool to communicate and work with the public to prevent this type of late night early hours of darkness activity. >> i wanted to also make sure you were keeping a roster or list of these incidents so that the commission is aware of them and we can make the case of why we think it should be closed at night. we are having these types of incidents happened, and the frequency and where they are happening, and also, i think the

part controlled this informed of incidence said that they can respond and be on site and keep track of these incidents, so we can see what kind of things are happening to address this at a policy level. commissioner buell: we do maintain that particular file, so we have a robust database of incidents as they occur. the department and sfpd, in particular, apart from operations and richmond station, work very closely. >> if we could get a monthly report or something, telling us what happened. >> ok. >> is there any public comment on the general managers' report?

that if i could have the commission's permission, i will reopen the general managers' report simply to introduce that we have a group of interns, again working with us for the second year, from san francisco state. they just entered the chamber. if i could ask -- jennifer, could you come to the microphone and briefly introduced the intern's you brought to the commission meeting this morning? this is jennifer. she is our staff personal lodge, who works with all of our placement of staff and our temporary assignments. she is also handling all of the -- the intern program for us. >> good morning. actually, i brought all of the interns, but a couple of them are in the restroom right now.

christie and that is working out with steve. greg is helping out with the recreation and clubhouses. missy is going to be helping us with camp may said. karen anderson is helping out in parks and open space -- aaron anderson. jeremy is doing a basketball sports camp for the kids out in st. mary's district. jamie went to the bathroom, and she is helping us out in our public relations. >> thanks, jennifer. they are here with us for about three months. they are all seniors in the trouble, leisure, recreation department, recreationsf state. they do a three-month paid internship with us. they do actual, real work. we appreciate the contribution and value they bring to what we're doing here in the department, and they each have

an assigned project that they turn in at the end of their internship, and we incorporate and act on it, so it is a good relationship for us, and an excellent real world learning experience for the entrance. >> great. thank you all for coming. >> let me ask one more time if there's any public comment for the general managers' report. they're being none, public comment is closed. we are on item four, which is general public comment, but to 15 minutes. members of the public may address the commission on items of interest to the public that within the subject matter jurisdiction of the commission and did not appear on the agenda. with respect to agenda items, your opportunity to address the commission will be accorded when the item is reached in the meeting. i have three cards. [reading names] if you could come forward please. >> good early morning, commissioners. [laughter]

i have two reports today. one is that last month, we had a scoping session for the eir for the soccer field. over 50 people attended. 30 people spoke and expressed their concerns about this project. to detail for people who may not be familiar with the project, this is to install over 7 acres of artificial turf as well as 60-foot stadium lights and large parking, concrete paving, more lights, etc., in the western end of golden gate park, an area which the master plan says should remain wild and natural. of the people who spoke, over 30 people spoke and expressed their concerns about the project. i would say that sentiment was approximately 10-1 against the project. we have made a video of the highlights, and it is available on youtube. you can find a connection by going on to the sf ocean edge

web site, or you can google the video for the soccer field. the second announcement i have is that we have talked before about the water treatment factory which is planned for the western end of the park. this is a 40,000 square foot factory, taking up another acre of landscape. there will be up to 30-foot buildings. there will be a chemical building near the soccer field where the children play. this is also being built next to the historic murphy when bill -- windmill. there is a new eir starting for another related projects, the san francisco ground water supply project. the purpose of the project is to provide an average of 4 million gallons of ground water today for the municipal water supply. this water will be pumped from underneath the park and be blended with san francisco jose existing water supplies. the project will and have the golden gate park as well as many

other parts in the area where the pumping stations will be built, and many trees will also be cut down. i figured there is at least 250 trees. i want to reiterate that the water from the treatment plant is going to be used to irrigate golden gate park. this is the treatment that sewage water will be used to irrigate golden gate park. the offer from under the park is being pumped for drinking water. you can make comments on the eir by april 1, and on the other website, golden gate park preservation alliance, we have information on the water treatment project. thank you very much. >> next speaker please. >> good morning. first and foremost, i must tell you, the government owes a duty is to serve the public. on the accord, the name of their

part must be restored. you promised me that if i helped with the america's cup, you would take care of that, but you reneged. to capture your credibility and do that, the board of supervirs killed it, and you should follow suit. there is no question about that. second thing -- we are furious and outraged to learn that there is no money to finish very park. they are going to do half of it and not the other half? what kind of have vast operation are you running -- what kind of half-assed operation are you running? the parts produced a lot of money, and i understand it goes to the general fund. there should be an exemption for that in certain cases. all we are asking for is new irrigation because the manager has complained about that for years. that is a repair. that should be done.

and the l e d lighting. we do not want to be kept in the dark. we are not asking for frills. i do not have to tell you how to raise the money. you know how to do that. just do it. we demand that the park be finished at once. we will not be kept in the dark. let there be light, for god's sake. you can do the palace of fine arts and do it so well, and you cannot do a tiny part tinypark -- park and completed to the satisfaction of the people? so please, get on it. i do not want to come here and tell you at every meeting. you should know to do it. and you should look at it and see what has to be done. this is your operation, right? that is your job. so come down. i will be glad to take you around and show you. they took the currie and

monument down. the hole in the ground is still empty. there is no concrete down there. what is going on? there is no coordination. i'm not an engineer, but it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out you do one thing, you finish it. evidently, this is not being done, so come on down and get it done properly. thank you. commissioner buell: thank you. >> richard. >> good morning, commissioners. it was brought to my attention that they had a little problem at portsmouth square park on the president's day celebration, and there was an article in the newspaper that they had to operations, and there was questions about whether or not there was a permit for musicians to perform, of which they had a permit. they had a little complication with it. there was an activity on sunday,

and it would have assumed that on the holiday, monday, that they would be allowed to use the permit to perform. i've heard chants happen to be walking by that day -- i perchance happened to be walking by. i noticed that they wanted to continue playing is a, but they had packed up and left. they would be an appropriate candidate for many different offices. i had ever tried to get in touch with the operations director. i do not know if she did or not. my point is that our want to try to bring in cross edge. when there is a permit issued, and it is for a weekend, and there was an activity on sunday, why is monday not allowed for the presidents' day celebration? that is one part i wanted to add.

the other part has to do with when there is an arrest made, why would a person be cited and brought to the police precinct? wouldn't such person be issued a citation and brought to court that way? but they had taken the entertainer, and they took her away. that was another part. it had to do with what i noticed was the park employee who was with maintenance. he had all his markings. he was a recreation and park department person, then he was kind of civil, but they did not write him up very well, so that would have been in the "exam and a close " -- the "examiner" and i think he did not want to bring

about an altercation in public. he seemed very civil at the time, and i myself found him to be so. thank you. >> is there anyone else who would like to make general public comment? general public comment is closed. we are on item 5, which is the consent calendar. is there anyone who would like to make public comment on the consent calendar? seeing none, commissioners? public comment is closed. commissioner buell: entertain a motion. it has been moved and seconded. all those in favor? suppose? hearing none, it is unanimous. >> we are now on items 6, the san francisco zoo. >> good morning, commissioners. in the vice president of marketing relations at the zoo. our public director is busy this morning, as you all are as well. very quickly, attendance is

finally starting to come back. we had a very good january and an even better february, thanks to some really good weather. we have budgeted 39,000 visitors, and we came in at 46,000. this month, i cannot say it is going swimmingly because of all the rain, but we have a lot of activities coming up. i think we are on track to meet the goals. a couple of things -- briefly on the tsunami, as far as the zoo, i think next to the marina, the zoo is the next very vulnerable space in the city, and we do have an emergency plan that covers just about anything that could happen, including natural disasters, and we ended up on friday closing the zoo at 3:00, and that was really just a precaution to make sure we had enough time to get all of the animals into the night quarters just in case. as you know, it all ended well as far as we were concerned and the city was concerned, so that is good news.