historian for the city and county of san francisco. what i wanted to convey to you and i have submitted written comments as well, my friend and colleague will speak later on behalf of the san francisco public gulf alliance which we co-founded, but i wanted to add some historical words, specifically to say the staff guided 100% correct in the draft eir. this is the legacy of john mclaren. this was his vision and he brought in one of the greatest architects of the history of the world to create this very special asset for the city and county of san francisco, even though it is on property in pacifica. it is the equivalent of a rembrandt that would hang in a museum and the fact that it is old and a little faded does not take away its luster. people come from all over the

world to walk it, play it, see it, admire it and understand it. it is a symbol of golf possible and asian part of our historic legacy just the way the cable cars are. the habitat restoration in the works and subject to this eir is in no way incompatible with maintaining the golf course. the series in question are freshwater species. this property was a salt marsh before it was transformed into the oasis it is today. it is going to celebrate its 80th anniversary next year. the process under way in this draft should continue without interruption so the city can move forward into what is needed to do and is to implement irresponsible habitat recreation protocol. this is one of the biggest birth

years for the frogs in recent memory. that evidence is on the record. what the city plans to do, we support. it's consistent with maintaining the property in a way that serves a variety of interests. thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak with you. thank you very much. >> good afternoon, commissioners. the hypocritical oath says first, do no harm. this seems to be a good approach for any person, and especially for government. i do not think this applies to the natural areas program. as a senior whose only exercise is walking with my dog, i fear that increased removal of our shared open space is by the

natural areas program, which is a single purpose and exclusionary program and it will drive more and more local residents into an increasingly smaller area for exercise, access, and enjoyment of our san francisco landscape. i live near glen canyon. too many times i have not been able to walk there because the natural areas program was engaging in another round of toxic warfare, laying waste to new generations of hapless and helpless flora and fauna and exposing local neighborhoods and everyone moving through the neighborhood to these poisons. i oppose this unfettered increase of the natural areas program into more and more of san francisco's park land and open space. i ask that you all as members of the planning commission recognizes program removes shared space from the community

on the basis of sharply and scientifically contested assumptions about what is needed for natural pant and makes equally unfounded assumptions about what actions, such as walking with one's pooch can or cannot occur in our shared and all too limited and san francisco open spaces. please oppose any expansion of this program. thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners. my name is linda shaffer. i'm currently the vice-president of the local chapter of the california native plant society. i would like to thank you for this opportunity to address you. i have three points i would like to try to make in this limited time.

the first one as i have to admit i was very curious to see what an environmental impact analysis would look like given it is of a program that is environmental in nature. in the time i have had to read it so far, i have been very impressed. i think those involved have done a good job, a wonderful job, particularly with respect to the 31 natural areas located within the city of san francisco. i would like to commend those involved and i would also like to add the native plant society is in the process of having people who have volunteered in a lot of these natural areas for many years read over the section's that pertain specifically to the projects proposed for this natural area and make sure based on their knowledge of the area, that the

report is accurate and complete. i am delighted to hear there will be an extension to the public comment because it has been very difficult. the same group of people who have been involved in commenting on this has been involved in commenting on the recreation and open space element. this overlap with the last 30 days of that, so it has been kind of crazy. thank you for that. that was the second point i wanted to make. the third point i would like to make is that i'm still in the process of reading this. the complexity in this document has to 2 with bashar park. this is a controversial program. i have so far identified one factual error in the portion of the document that deals with sharp park.

i will be submitted comments -- i will be submitting comments in writing but i do not have ms finished yet. i do not want to receive a copy of the comments and responses. i had that happen to me once when i was not expecting it, said no, thank you. thank you very much for your attention. >> thank you. -- thank you. >> i know that there has been comments about the golf course as whether or not the golf course is going to be preserved.

i would like to say i am speaking highly in favor of the golf course being preserved. it seems as though mr. antonini and perhaps the rest of this board has been okaying any request that has to do with children, such as in our beautiful park being defaced for this child sparked. it is very important a place like this golf course, which is for teenagers and elderly and older people to get exercise and enjoy the environment, that this be maintained for san francisco residence. thank you very much. >>president olague: if i did cal your name, please come up to the microphone. >> good afternoon. i'm a resident of the city and

county of san francisco and an employee of the county of san mateo. our counties have worked clarity and cooperatively to come up with a plan that does address the issues of habitat preservation and to protect the species enumerated in the of the draft. specifically the red legged frog, the garter snake and others. those are freshwater species. the original geography was called away the colonial time meaning a still body of water that is salty. those frogs do not exist in those environments. this is a construction. it's a historical construction by one of the great architects of golf courses ever.

it is also a cultural value. if you were to go there on any day, you'd find old people, young people, students and people from every group and nation playing and as individuals. it is also affordable relative to other golf courses in that area. in the county, we do not have a lot of inexpensive golf courses. in the city and county, we have even fewer. this is an opportunity for people of limited income to play in an area that is stunningly beautiful and aching to be restored. this plan will protect those species. without it, it will become a rather dry and difficult place for the species to exist. particularly creating the condors for the snakes to exist where they can go down and feed

on the frogs is nothing short of engineering brilliance on the part of the park groups. finally, it is a recreational. even for those like myself who do not gulf, it is a wonderful place to go walk. president olague: i would like those of you standing in front of the door to either take a seat or move aside because it is creating a fire hazard. if you have heard your name called, please come up to the microphone. [reading names] >> it good afternoon, commissioners. i was a member of the citizens advisory committee in the natural areas program. i see this draft environmental impact report as a continuance of the efforts in past years. we need to move ahead with this

study itself to define and give the park and recreation staff the wherewithal to begin to improve our ruler -- are recreational facilities and petrol areas in san francisco. i want to comment on the great work skit -- the great works staff did. we are never going to be 100% happy. there are some elements of the city you want to occupy everything. there are places that have impact on every area of our facilities. exponential growth and requests for a soccer fields and what not. these are 32 areas. it was called down and those areas have been looked into significantly. it's important to move this

forward. it is a 20-year project and i'm sure it will be tweaked in the course of the next 20 years. it's an important opportunity to see what san francisco can be and how good our facilities can become. >> good afternoon, commissioners. i'm a resident of san francisco and a project of its streets and environments, and i'm also a golfer. i'm not sure what the protocol is for this hearing, but i would like to read into the record a copy of a letter the bay area golf association has submitted to the board of supervisors in

san francisco and san mateo. it says -- dear congressman spire. sharp part is well known as the people's golf course. it's a public course where racial minority as a retired dehere seniors, working men and women, school children, and these days, even the unemployed can play golf. because of its modest fees, all of these groups play golf in sharp part. the bay area club represents such golfers. we are a mostly african-american club formed in 1954 and based in san francisco. we are a founding member of the western state golf association, one of america's oldest african- american golfing associations. we were the host club for the

western state inaugural championship and tournament in 1955 where founding members of the club med and played golf together for the first time. the tournament was held at sharp park. it's significant sharp park was built by history's greatest golf architect, alistair mackenzie. most of his courses include the most famous ones like augusta national here, the side of the annual masters tournament and cypress point. these are private and inaccessible to common people. sharp park as part of san francisco's elegant carian -- this is the spirit of san francisco. is that my donna?

-- [tone] i would like to submit this into the record. thank you very much for your time. >> if i called your name, please feel free to come to the microphone. i called a few other names. please feel free to come up. faugdeath >> commissioners, i aa resident of san francisco. this program is offering the city a major expansion into maintenance area 3. the statement on page 2 says the

eir considers the maximum restoration alternative as environmentally superior. however, if you weighed the do it back to page 5, it says the maximum recreation and maintenance alternatives are at the environmentally superior alternatives. it ends with the statement that the maintenance alternative, on the other hand, would preserve the existing place for biological resource, including existing habitats. for this reason, the maintenance alternative is the environmentally superior alternative. that is not what is being proposed. uthe eir is proposing a program that is environmentally least good. this proposal is a violation of sequence. sequence as the public agency --

cequa says this should not be proposed if there are the alternatives available. there is the maintenance intervention into the environment and it says so. this eir is not a good one and it's a bad policy for the city. with the environmental destruction, the use of toxic spray, i walk on 20 almost every day more morning and i do the sprain of -- them there -- the members that should be wearing respirators. what i point this out to them, they say it's not of your business. it is important that you realize this eir is not the direction we should be going into. we should be going into maximum

eight months. it also decides the number of trees is a gross violation and a san francisco has barely 13 per citizen in this city. this proposes to turn down a large percentage of that. thank you very much. president olague: any additional public comment on this item? >> i agree with my husband that the maintenance alternative would be the best way for san francisco to go. [tone] >> i am a user of these parks and i feel recreational funding and open space for people is being hijacked by this plan. san francisco has taken extreme positions of excluding people

from the san francisco watershed. it is surrounded by 7 foot chain-link fence and this plan ignores that has already been allocated to natural areas. the san francisco park sites are only one-tenth of the size of the single refuge. this extreme plan takes 40% of that space for more native plant projects. for me, the gardening project will provide little benefit and destroy the do ecosystems that have been developed over the past 400 years. and it will destroy this treasured san francisco landscape that is part of our future. this costly plan is not even the environmentally superior plan as has been mentioned and it's not even improves the beauty of the park or quality of life for residents. introducing new and expanding habitats will personally highjack the small but precious recreational areas. for example, the historic sharp park recreation area is under attack even though manmade the

freshwater habitats that was not previously used there. neither the endangered snakes or endangered frogs would live there of the salt water habitat was restored. this plan does not take into consideration these plans. people with dogs are only allocated freedom in 3% of the city park areas and the plant treats us like a nuisance and takes away an additional 20%. the monitoring plan will probably eliminate the rest. i resent being treated like an invasive part of the comedian and art treasured city parks. -- part of that community in our treasured city parks. thank you very much. >> good afternoon, commissioners. i have lived in san francisco

all my life and i volunteered with the natural areas program and the natural park -- national parks service is doing habitat restoration. i started a san francisco native plant nursery in golden gate park because i want to propagate san francisco native plants that can be used for habitat restoration throughout the city and would complement the natural areas program. i sent my written comment into the environmental review of a serb. that will be on the record. but some of the criticisms i have of the draft -- although i support the plan, the natural areas management plan, there are a few flaws i would like to tweet in the draft e.i.r. first, what is recreation?

in the draft e.i.r., it is a traditional recreation like bicycle riding, a dog walking, etc. but for a lot of us who are naturalists, we do a lot of vigorous habitat restoration which is hard physical labor, controlling the weeds from overrunning the made -- a native plant communities. that is very invigorating recreation. you also get to work with other city workers and work with your community. it is unfortunate that draft e.i.r. does not talk about the environmental benefits of restoring san francisco's natural heritage. the 31 natural areas in san francisco are natural areas because there are remnants of the original landscape containing flora and fauna that were here when the spaniards arrived in 1769.

the goal is to try to protect what remains of the san francisco's natural heritage. it has been a long time coming trying to get this e.i.r. adopted and i think we're getting very close now. we can start implementing some of the action items in the management plan. i'm very excited about that. i hope we have your support. thank you. >> a good afternoon, commissioners. i'm director of nature in the city and i want to make a few comments about the planned e.i.r. today. i want to commend the goals and the plan. these are the goals, should be the goals of the puc, dpw and

the rest of recreation and parks when managing their lands. i think it has done a good job of analyzing the environmental impacts of the proposed project. the plan is not radical at all. it was a pretty serious compromise that was negotiated with the working group several years ago, chaired by the general manager at time. all of the myths i hear perpetuated about weeds and lagoons, i don't want to take all my time dispelling those myths, but you are hearing a lot of mythology today. i would like to see the plan go forward and i hope we have your support. i also have some constructive criticism i would like to offer. that is to say it is ironic that the recreation and maintenance,

the true environmental alternatives are the maintenance alternatives, which i find to be ironic, considering we are trying to restore the environment. neither the project plan are the natural restoration alternatives are the environmentally superior alternatives. i would like to ask the questions, what are the assumptions behind those alternatives becoming the environment we superior alternative? which human environment are we trying to create is the alternative is not the environmentally superior alternative? what is environmental sustainability without the actual conservation of our indigenous biodiversity? that should be the underlying fabric of sustainability. thank you for extending comments because i need more time to help you add to these questions. i am afraid the true impact of the restoration alternatives are

hard to evaluate because the description is only two pages long. then it goes into the impact which is a few pages. but there are no specifics, nothing about how the maximum restoration alternative varies from the project plan at the remainder at all of the sites. i find it hard for the public to say this is what the maximum restoration alternative is going to do or this is what the maintenance alternative is going to do it any given site. finally, we like to have more specifics and included in the other alternatives, including at sharp park, given that the proposed project includes the 18-hole golf alternative. [tone] the alternative should include restoring all of sharp park golf course. president olague: [reading

names] >> good afternoon. thank you for your public service. i am a native and resident and curiously, i realize my first house is right across from the speaker. i appreciate the ardent advocacy as it doesn't comment on all sides of this issue. i think your highest duty and your highest that if you can provide to society is making sure that staff reports you are getting and the environmental impact reports are straight up. that is all i think you can really do. you have to rely on those reports, but make sure they are straight up. i don't know the answer to that. i've heard a lot of things both ways. what i suggest generally is the two easiest ways to find out whether you are getting good,

impartial analysis. one, what are the presumptions being made? everyone always makes unfounded presumptions. to find out whether it is bias or not, find out if they are all of one favor. do they make presumptions that always go in one favor or are the presumptions balance? in valuing recreation verses restoration. in valuing whether there will be adverse short-term impacts regardless of the long-term impact. you look at whether they presumptions all go one way. the second thing you look at is what is being considered and what is not being considered. are they looking at the relevant issues? we have maybe 150 years of managing these parts in our city balancing these issues.