bounced back with two wins. she will face off against a fighter from michigan tonight. we are all rooting for her. i am now pleased to recognize self help for the elderly. tomorrow, we will be celebrating the 20th anniversary of the program at the senior center at south sunset playground. in 1966, self-help provided hot meals to those in chinatown, but today it provides training and social activities to more than 35,000 seniors across the bay area. opened in 1992, our senior center serves an insult -- an important community hub for seniors. our ongoing partnership with self-help for the elderly is significant because of our commitment to provide quality

programs to the the elderly. the self-help director betty fung is here. i just wanted to congratulate her on 20 great years and present this certificates on behalf of staff. [applause] >> commissioners, on behalf of

self-help and the many seniors we serve, we thank you. thank you for your help for the past 20 years. we have been operating at the sunset playground, providing daily hot meals and activities for seniors in the sunset. for some of the scene is we serve, that is the only hot meal they will get during the day because of their financial situation, and also with activities and socialization opportunities we provide, it helps promote physical and mental health. we are thankful for the partnership that has been expanded to the chinatown portsmouth square where we run a center offering a variety of physical activities. we would like to invite all of you to our 20 anniversary celebration tomorrow at the self-help center.

we are very happy that supervisor carmen chu and capt. of long from the terror of a police station will be joining us. it would be a great honor to see all of you there. again, we think you for the support and hope that this partnership will go on for another 20 years. thank you. >> thank you. as we always do, i would like to conclude with a short the video that is aptly called, this month in parks. ♪

>> make sure we are working in concert with our government agency. that collaboration will be a constant theme, not only of how we do business in our neighborhood, but how we want to do the business of the city. i want you to know that from here on, the community will always be included in the way that we think and do our work in city hall. with this kickoff, i am excited to follow the team for the rest of the year. i will be part of this.

♪

>> and that was just february. happy valentine's day, happy february. that concludes the general manager's report. >> is there anyone that would like to make public comment on the general managers' report? seeing none, public comment is closed. item four. general public comment. members of the public may address the commission on items of interest to the public and are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the commission and do not appear on the agenda. >> good afternoon, commissioners. my name is mr. dillon. i live in the sunset area here in san francisco. it is a great managers over --

report we just heard from mr. ginsberg, and the audiovisual presentation was great. i noticed there was a cameo appearance of the newly elected mayor ed lee in there. i also heard he mentioned community would not always be involved in our parks. that comment hit me because, coming to san francisco for the past 35 years, the equestrian community has always been a part of san francisco, historically and culturally. ironically, they have been aborted out of san francisco. kind of the way it does

politics, if it is something that is not 100% politically correct, they just abort it. the politics of abortion. that is what we are experiencing here in san francisco. basically, we have run out of time listening to you folks dillydally around. 2012, we are going to impact the recreation and parks commission. we are going to impact your lives, just as you have impacted hours. we are going to reconnect you to nature and to what is important, which is this moment. not living in some historical fantasy about we want to change things 50 years after the fact. not going to happen. thank you very much for your

time. have a great day. >> thank you. >> is there anyone else that would like to make a general public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. item 5 is the consent calendar. do we have any public comment on the consent calendar? seeing none, public comment is closed. commissioners? >> entertain a motion. >> i wanted to offer some brief acknowledgment before you take a vote on the items in the consent calendar. we have some representatives present today from the usda norcal and we are pleased to be excepting a gift they are presenting involving tennis. this will encourage kids to stay involved in the sport. improvements will also allow

kids to engage in even more healthy activity. i know we have today in the audience the director of competitive play, usta norcal director, and president. thank you very much for your support, for our tennis programming, and most importantly, for our kids. >> thank you. would you like to say a few words? >> i am michael cook, and the president of the usta northern california. i want to thank you for allowing us to get on the court. a bit of a misnomer that it is just 10 and under. where we are finding when we put these courts down, we're introducing tennis back to some seniors, through their inability to move, are covering the court again, but grandparents playing with their grandchildren on and

of corporate court size. it became much more inclusive and inviting by these new rules put out by dennis for 10 and under. usta thanks you for accepting our gift and we look forward to working with the city as much as we can. >> thank you. thank you for your gift. motion. second? all those in favor? it is unanimous. >> we are now on items six, for san francisco zoo. >> good morning. executive director of the san francisco zoo. we closed in january on a high with visitor attendance over butted by 65%, 22,000 visitors. february has been doing well, in

large part, too many events. february 14, thousands of visitors came to the zoo which puts us at 30%. one of the reasons for the high attendance is the appearance jack hanna. he appeared to a sold-out, standing-room-only crowd. many had paid money to see and receive autographs from him. he focused on 20 animals from the children's zoo and call the san francisco zoo a diamond in the rough. we thank him for being here. we recently lost a male lion. the silver lining, he left behind a female companion that would have been by herself. we had the idea to copy a pride, which you often find in

the wild. we carefully introduced the female to the couple next door. it has turned out to be a wonderful trio and pride. they are now napping together and it is an incredible sight. i encourage you to come and see them. a squirrel monkey has been returned to his exhibit. with a few minor hiccups, he is acclimating well with his 17 companions. a visitor brought him a valentine's day card and receive $1 off. our annual zoo fest gala is underway. our chair would like to make this a black-tie affair. this will be interesting at the zoo. that is my report. >> hass is there any public

comment on this item? seeing none, public comment is closed. this was discussion only. item seven, golden gate concourse part garage. -- park garage. >> good morning, i chaired the board of the music community partnership. the garage was opened in 2005. construction was funded through a combination of $36.4 million in private philanthropy. $26.5 million in bond anticipatory notes. in december 2010, we refinanced with a big-qualified tax-exempt loan. debt is schedule to be retired 2039. at such time, the garage will be transferred to you.

use has steadily increased after the de jong opened in 2005, and that significantly when the academy opened in 2008. use has now leveled off and someone declined. it is a common pattern among new cultural institutions. peak use is in the spring and summer, when tourism is high. usage is also heavily dependent on events. maybe the weather. our revenue is way down for december and january. they were all at the zoo. expenses are very basic. we have debt service, staffing, city rent, utilities, and insurance. we are and non-profit with their responsibility to operate in the most prudent way possible for the visitors to the institutions in golden gate park. currently, we are not able to cover our expenses, even though

they are right on budget. we have a revenue problem. the rate increase is necessary to carry the garage in winter months and between special exhibits. rates. -- initially were said by ordinance in 2003. there have been two increases since then. a 25% colon increase in 2009 and a 75 cent increase approved in august of 2010. the proposal before you today is to increase the weekday rate by $1, up from $3.50 to $4.50 an hour, a dollar increase per hour on the weekend. from $4, to $5 per hour. after our even parking would increase to $15. that is pegged to the for the performing arts garage. the daily maximum rates are unchanged. that would remain at $25.20 $8.

monthly rates are also unchanged. -- $25 and $28. there were 20% fewer parkers in december 2011 than in 2010. the impressionist was at the de jong in 2010, not in 2011. december 2011 revenue was 36% below the revenue in 2010. january revenues were 27% below january of the preceding year. your to date, we are 17% behind on revenue. i will say there has been a little bit about take lightly.

-- a little bit of up to take lightly. the proposal is before you for your approval. >> maybe we will have public comment and then questions. >> it is there any public comment on this item? thank you. >> it good afternoon, commissioners and members of the public. golden gate park concourse. traditionally, the heart of the park. here we are, living in times of scarce resources and we have one of the greatest architectural examples of a non-motorized,

non-fossil fuel transportation concourse, the carriage concourse. that is what the music concourse is. it has been diluted down to a museums' car park or an academy of science car park, a drive in utopia when we're trying to get people out of their cars. we drive everywhere. we don't have to get out of our cars. we don't even have to look for a parking spot. we have a grosz built right into the carriage concourse -- we have a garage built right into the carriage concourse. yet we are getting run over and it should be non motorized. once again, 180 degrees from

where we should be. we drove carriages in that park and around the concourse for over 100 years, a perfect example of classical, non- motorized, non-fossil fuel dependent transportation. what do we see going around there now? zero of that type of activity. of that type of community. because we have had our community stolen and it has been occupied by you people, who really do not belong here. except politically, you belong here, because you are living in the past. retribution for a past you don't like. you don't like history. but i tell you what, it's coming

to bite you back. thank you very much. >> is there anyone else who would like -- richard? >> at the good morning commissioners. i was looking into this garage issue and what we could do to gain additional income. one thing i look at would be would we ever have a row tear off of people who go in and pay road tear off and this would have a bonus to it such as a lottery at the end of the month, maybe somebody would get free parking for a month. but i would not look so much on the prize of it, i would look to the legality of private alone

property and people going in and out of the park and people using the garages. another has to do with places like district 3, chinatown, around there, they have a lot of garages there and i thought it being that there are some there, there should be a consideration when it comes to budgeting. what i understand is when the budget comes out, we're going to have a lot of facilities, but not many people to manned the area. if we can look into something like that, if you have the financial area road tax and a prize, of more directly what

they could do to the department and not the general funding, that is what i want to bring in for future consideration and it might make a big difference in a lot of kids being able to play around chinatown and being able to participate in the available scholarship programs. >> is there anyone else who would like to make public comment on this item? public comment is closed. >> regarding the rate, we're getting up to $4.50 an hour. i gather one of the main problems is that at times there is plentiful street parking. people will at some price points, this side they will try

to find a free parking as opposed to parking in the brush. by raising it, you may end up pushing cars and out onto the streets. i am wondering -- i see that the rent is flat 15. have you thought about increasing that and perhaps increasing the weekday rates of little lower? >> my response to that is that it is for special events. when there are large events, we extend the hours and so it is not dollars captured every night by any stretch of the imagination. i cannot pull out and it varies by the month and the year. we have tried lots of different possibilities. in terms -- do you offer

overnight parking? >> you could leave your car there and it would be locked in and you could get it tomorrow morning. >> it is not serviced 24 hours? >> i don't know if i mentioned it or not, before we did the rate increase request, we went back to our expenses and i said there are very few and very limited. we have decreased the hours of operation and we did that in connection with the institutions. when they have a lecture, they are required and we work carefully to make sure of the garage and opens an hour past the end time of those events. we are trying to service the public and also trying to keep our costs as minimal as possible. >> it is hard to judge because

given the information we have, we do not know where your revenues come from in terms of events and weekdays and weekends. what we have in front of us is a proposed rate increase with out any kind of financial balance sheet to show what kind of revenues a 50 cent increase might bring. >> here is a couple of more details. it varies incredibly, not so much from day of the week. we have unbelievably detailed reports -- a it's a wonderful colored graphs -- there are a few facts i can give. the average ticket price is $12

and that means people are staying not quite three hours. part of the data that was generated by the new report allowed us to go to the institutions and say we have five cars that are staying later. can we work with your staff to figure out another way because there is an hourly cost in their garages that is difficult to rationalize, particularly when we are squeezing right now and we are in our readers to the people who operate the garage. >> i don't know if my fellow commissioners would see in the future, more financial information regarding -- >> you do get quarterly reports that are detailed. maybe they are not disseminated

to everybody, but i would appreciate a response to what additional detail and you would like. they are quite detailed. >> i would be interested in seeing be analysis on the price points and what the weekend brings in, the price increase and so forth -- that would have been helpful. >> thank you. >> how do the institutions that use the parking garage feel about the increase? >> nobody is happy about it. this is a job i would rather not have. there is a debt service and it's in all of our interest to make sure we make that and then we have to pay taxes for the

operation of the garage. we would all love to have that at $2 an hour. but the cfo who sits on my board for exactly this reason so that the communication is as open as it can be. >> i would like to thank you for being here because we did have a detailed presentation at the operations meeting and at that committee stage as well as along the way, we have tried to get our heads wrapped around how to get away from this. i just want to say there was a very detailed presentation made, but perhaps going forward, i would be interested to see how on a monthly basis -- is it wednesday or rainy days? >> if you guys can't