station and look forward to the new ideas that captain feeney has. we are excited to be here as well. thank you. >> chief, commissioners. my reason for speaking this evening is that i am someone that has all the budgetary problems in the city of san francisco for the past 30 years. in the last two to three years, particularly in the last 12 months, part of the campaign was to get the police commission to get here and understand the city has a problem. it is not just in the school district. it is in places like city college, which may be going bankrupt next year based on their lack of funds.

also coming back to captain feeney's speech -- i have two daughters born and raised in san francisco. one was an equestrian rider who spoke years ago to save the stables. captain feeney did not talk about the stables or the mounted police. 17 saddles were bought for $10,000 apiece. brand new saddles. i looked in catalogs, particularly for saddles for writing, there were none over $3,000. we have a budgetary problem here. does not just applied to the county out large. it is the teachers in the schools, school supplies, police

officers and their salaries, and pensions. it all comes into one bundle. i would like to see things in the paper, like today -- [inaudible] prime must go down. the city college district is going bankrupt, and it is due to salaries. -- crime must go down. i think the commission here, in the next six, 12 months, with community support, should pay more attention to finances, less attention to rhetoric and patronizing certain police officers and talk about the real problem we have. we may go bankrupt in five years. we cannot print money like the federal government. i will leave you that to ponder as i leave you commissioner is a

copy of the latest cuts coming at city college. thank you for your time. >> good evening. i have lived on ellis street in the western addition since 1974. almost every day i walked her kimball park. a couple of weeks ago, i walked through noon time and i saw there were kids from various schools eating their lunches. there are people playing on the playground, the playing field we have, which is wonderful. there were kids going to the day care centers. right in the middle of it all, steps away from the school's most --was a group of vagrants

rampaging, fighting, throwing shopping carts that each other, swearing. i got half a block away and i called on my cell phone. when i turned around, when they asked me how many people were involved, i turned around to count, and that is when they saw me and somebody screamed, she is calling 911. they came rampaging towards me and punched me. i am 65 years old, i do not need that. the police officers were there immediately. they tried to find this person named paul who punched me, of course did not. they came back and their attitude was, this is the way it is. the people are here and we just have to be careful to go around them. the other thing that bothered me, i got punched and i was screaming try to get someone's attention. everyone playing on the

playground or feel that did not look around because the sort of activity is so common in our parks. why look around? so i am asking for a change in attitude. the police need to know this is not ok in our neighborhood. i do not even see it going on in pacific heights. it is not ok in our neighborhood. in the future, i will be gathering with neighbors and representatives from all of the schools are run the park and we are going to try to get rid of them methadone clinic. it is one of the worst a magnet for the worst kind of people. we should not be victims of them. i appreciate the capt. paying more attention, which she has done in the past few days, but we are asking that the police department's add to be changed.

this is not ok. thank you. >> thank you. captain feeney will be speaking to you. that is not what the commission supports. >> good evening. my name is peggy royster. i also live on a list street. i have been living there for over 35 years. i raised my son there, put him through san francisco state. he came out of san francisco state in 1999. i will get right to the point. i walk down through campbell park -- campbell park -- kimbell park. the homeless, the druggies, there were taking over the park

to the point that i walked all the way down to the police station on fillmore to complain. by the time i got back from safeway, the police did a clean sweep of the park. just in january, a teacher had to call the police department, fire department, because there was a druggie that was od'ing. we have a school here, day care center here, and a druggie methadone clinic down the street around all of this. not only is it drugs, fighting, also, sexual activity. this is what we want our youths,

the future generation to see? i do not feel sorry for these people. why should i? i raised my son to be a better person, and each generation should be better than the last generation. they spent millions of dollars to redo this park, but the homeless have taken over the park. if you feed a cat, it will keep coming, be it good or bad. they are feeding them that the down and they go in the park, and they still shoot up heroin. it is a vicious circle. it needs to stop. i came to san francisco from the east coast in 1974, and i have

never seen a park in the condition that is in doubt. and it is a new part, and we have people coming in from all over. -- that it is in now. this has to stop. i might not speak properly, but i just say it as it is. >> thank you. you spoke strongly. >> that is a hard act to follow. commissioners, good evening. chief, sir, captain feeney. my name is karen, i am the president of the coal valley improvement association. i want to thank captain feeney for his presentation tonight, but particularly for his list of problems. his list is my list. he has only been here a few weeks but has already gotten the message. the first week he was in the

station, i saw him at three meetings in one week. i am sure he went to many more than that. i want to say something about the park station. it has an excellent record, as far as i know, and call- generated responses. in other words, they come quickly. two, three minutes. i saw one of our convenience store officers shoot a customer. i saw the customer come out bleeding. there happen to be a couple of police there. in 1 minutes they have apprehended the shooter, had him in a car. three other cars came up almost immediately. i think that is wonderful. what we have as the problem, as

captain feeney said, we have albert like, the civil side box, which have to be reinforced all the time. the streets were clean but they are now coming back. i spoke to deputy about that. he has been responsive. the reason we have these problems is because we have so much transient use. young people, and they have their problems. they bring them with them. they have needs for community, which is why they all connor did by the lake, at the end of stanyan street. the other thing we have is mentally ill people in our neighborhood who are wondering around the street. i do not know if they are homeless or if they are in care, but they are on the streets in the morning and stay all day. it is just criminal that we fight to have them have the right to die on the streets.

it is the cause of so many things in this city. for instance, in the muni escalators, what are the always broken? because people p in them. why do they do that? either because they are inebriated -- i think the idea about the what shelters would be good. the two points i want to make, we have these problems because we have so much transient use in the neighborhood, and the other city-wide problem of dealing with the mentally ill. i know that is not the police's fault, but somehow the police and of having to take them in. that is not fair for the police. thank you. >> hello, commissioners. welcome to the park station.

my name is brandon mckenna. i have been a resident of the haight/ashbury. that seems to be a good year for the arrival of some good neighbors. i am a member of the volunteer bargaining group that works with -- bargaining group that works with san francisco parks -- gardening group that works with san francisco parks to cleanup and keep albert lake in beautiful, as it was envisioned as many years ago. when we started, the lake was overrun by transients. we made some progress. it is always one step or, one step back. the gardeneres and other people

are extremely upset by the damage that is done by people encamped in the park. i and several of other volunteers have cleaned out camps, shopping carts, sleeping bags, fecal material, food, the job they leave behind. we planted an entire hillside that is just to the left as you enter the park by the east had entrance of the park. within a couple of months, the transit population had completely destroyed hundreds of plants. i believe we have something like 25 volunteers that day and that put in hours of work. about 100 man hours put in by caring citizens of san francisco. to allow it to be destroyed is a

crime. i brought some pictures of last saturday's the group. we met and did our weekly cleaning, weeding, working with the park staff, and we were literally surrounded by homeless. mccann that camp at that end of the lake, but everywhere else, we were surrounded by in canada of homeless people, shopping carts, tents. several people were sleeping in their sleeping bags. this was an 11:00. i could not get any closer to take the pictures, and i dare not approached any closer. as soon as they saw was taking pictures, they tore into verbal abuse, came to me. i district may move on. -- discreetly moved on.

every time people enter the park, they have to pass a parade of people sitting, hanging out, sleeping. everyone knows that they are either selling or using drugs, and they are increasing. i just wanted to give these pictures to the commissioners and make you aware that albert blake needs attention. there is a community group that has been supporting the parks and police at albert like, for years, and we need to continue the partnership, but something has to be done about the shopping carts, intense, the people who are clearly living in the park and selling and using drugs and engaging in all sorts of other criminal activity. thank you. our group meets on the last saturday of every month at 9:00. everyone is welcome to come.

even if you can only put in one hour of gardening, that is one hour that our cash-poor city can desperately use. thank you. >> evening, commissioners. i am the president of the haight/ashbury improvement association. we are delighted that we have had a change in leadership at park station. it does keeping a vital and moving and allows new perspectives to constantly be injected into the discussion so that we keep ideas fresh. that said, the situation in albert lake is a disaster. in the past, we had three homicides coming out of this

transient population that hangs around haight street. we have been working for years to restructure haight street so that it is more friendly to the neighbors and not as welcoming to the transients that populate the street. the civil side was ordinance was part of that, getting wholefoods established at the end of the street has been helpful in that regard. the calls for service at mcdonald has continued to rise recently. it will be a matter of time before these people start attacking each other again and end up with another homicide in park district. as the captain pointed out, this problem has been festering for a long time. the last significant change came under frank jordan's administration when albert lake area was shut down and rehab. that is to be done again the.

working with rec and park, the police need developed -- need to develop the long term plan. short-term, one needs to be done is quick, consistent, several times a day enforcement measures, and in these to be aggressive. check people. their dogs are not registered. if their pets are not vaccinated or registered, take them and sees them. you can check people's papers for probation violations, parole violations. you need to do this several times a day. early in the morning, as is currently being done at midnight, he need to go in and get these people out of their sleeping bags and cite them for being in the part when it is closed. the need to do this several times a day and this program needs to last four years.

that will send a message that we will not tolerate that kind of behavior in this neighborhood, in our neighborhood. we need your help with that, we need your direction to get the police department dealing with this problem so that we can fix it short-term and come up with a long-term solution. thank you. >> hello, my name is kristin evans. i am the owner of book smith, a bookstore on haight street. i am also a member of the merchants association. i briefly wanted to make a few comments. i believe there has been some recent attention focused on mcdonald's, which is not a member of the merchants association. our organization represents 75

dues-paying members, and we have about 120 in the era that we could represent. in the past year we have recruited 75 members to participate. one of the things that makes us unique as an organization is that, of the nine board members, five of us live in the neighborhood as well. i live on ashbury between haight and waller. we all represent businesses that are community-oriented, serving the community, and welcome visitors from around the world to the neighborhood. i think we all share a concern for enhancing the experience of visiting haight street, whether you are a president or are from far away. i would like to simply say, we have a commitment as an

organization to work openly and transparently with other neighborhood associations, including the haight-ashbury improvement association, beuna vista park improvement association, to work on some of these challenges. we have drafted an improvement plan for this street with encouragement from supervisor mirkarimi, and since, supervisor olague taking office, i have met with her a couple of times briefing her on the planned including public space. we had our first parklet go up as an experiment. we will be looking at other locations. we are committed to making sure those public spaces we are creating will not be abused.

the we know this could be an ongoing problem. in any case, i wanted to say, as a group, we are very committed to working on some of these challenges, whether it is coming up with creative solutions for the short-term improvement, as well as longer term solutions for the street. thank you. >> good evening. my name is lea harper. i move to the haight-ashbury years ago. i would often walk through the park and become familiar with the gardeners there. i would speak to the one at albert lake in the morning and i said, i do not know how you can come here every morning and clean this up. you ever get time to garden? he said, if my mother said -- my mother said that if i paid attention to everything at

school, i would be working in a dump, and that is what it is today. i walked through the park the other day. there were peaches -- pieces of furniture. there were things out there that i could not even give a name to. i see people get out of taxis to go into the entrance of golden gate with a look of horror on their face. they walked young children through this area where there are drug dealers, drug addicts -- and when san francisco depends on tourism as a major industry -- it is not just a place for us as residents to play. i hope that you and our new captain can do something about this. thank you.

>> my name is alana minkoff. i live at the corner of stanyon and parnassas. i work from home. i have a little dog and like to go out for a walk. this is my corner of the world. on average, four to five times a week we get nearly taken out. i wrap up my dog in a white jacket and put reflectors on her. i have my unreflecting jacket and sometimes i bring a flashlight to flash at cars. without fail, when the light changes coming down from stanyan, the light turns red and the next three cars go. even if i am walking on green, there are cars turning left colon up the hill down from stanyan. i would like to stay alive.

i am wondering, like i'm 17, if you could put a cop in the walgren parking lot and get them. there is a whole lot of money to be made from people running that corner. it would be great if somebody to pay attention to that. >> any further public comment? public comment is now closed. this is an opportunity for the cheap and capt. to respond to albert lake, kimball playground. >> that will be taken care of before the end of the week. >> park and ride will need to be involved, too. >> we will go out with dph, dpw, we will do the average necessary, get people the services they need, and we will clean up those areas. we have already started to address that issue. >> do it again. >> the dog issue, it will be

done by the end of the week. >> i hope you like hearing that. >> thank you, chief. >> i think captain feeney has a new assignment. commissioners, anything that you want to share with the capt. base and what we heard from public comment? >> does the capt. have any response? there was a lot of public comment. >> albert lake will be done by the end of the week. >> that is the right answer, sir. >> how about traffic enforcement? we have heard a lot about traffic enforcement. i know this was an innovative idea brought up by chief sur, where motorbikes have now been assigned to your station to increase the presence. do you have motorcycles assigned

to your station? >> i have one motorcycle and another traffic officer that directs cars. they are both trained, one is radar trained. i have had one of them on stanyan regarding the traffic coming down the hill, as well as the wiggle regarding pedestrian safety. 17th street, we are redeploying the radar speed trailer. it battery had to be replaced, but that will be going back out there tomorrow. the left turns on parnassas and stanyan, we have been dealing with that and will continue to. we have seen that our cells. traffic turning left going into the crosswalk.

we have our work cut out for us, but as i said, i tried to be responsive to your needs. as well as having our officers respond to those needs as well. >> commissioners? >> are we opening up to questions? thank you. before asking the captain and a couple of questions, i just wanted to comment on the engagement of this community tonight, making your voices heard tonight, and how much we appreciate that. commissioners as well as the department, obviously, from the department's reaction, but from the commissioners. i want to thank you very much for taking the time to come out tonight and voice your concerns. a couple of questions on the presentation, capt.. i