>> all right. my name is jarrod faulkner. my father was with the recreation and park kept for -- department for many years strit from world war ii through the year he retired. i was inculcated in a lot of this stuff in the traditions of rec and park. basically golden gate park was originally intended to be a very rural in character. it was an outgrowth of the teachings of frederick law ohmstead who -- olmstead who designed central park. the western side of the park particularly was supposed to be kept rural. what's been proposed in this case with the astroturf and everything else is turning everything on its head. i know my father wouldn't have approved of it. jack spring wouldn't have. virtually any of people --

people around rec and park over the years would disapprove of this. there are several issues involved. first of all as to endangered species, the san francisco garter snake which is very endangered and the red leg frog, another very indangered creature, they're particularly here for san francisco and the northern peninsula. golden gate park is one of the places where they still survive. also the bright lights that are being brought in are going to create a lot of problems on the pacific flyway. those 60-foot klieg lights are just what's needed to drive the birds off. the whole thing is frankly a monday atrocity. i -- monstrosity. i was a recreation director in the patcht before 1908 and i know a lot of the playground like mission, sunset, i was a director, i've seen what they've done. they've wrecked them with astroturf. frankly it's an abortion,

nothing else. i strongly urge you to disapprove of this. thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners, or nearly good evening. i wish -- i'm adrienne burger. i live here in the city and i read this letter for myself and for an organization i'm part of. action for nature say child-focused organization opposing recreation and parks department's proposal to introduce artificial turf parks into the golden gate park, replacing natural plantings with rubber and chrome material. it degrades the habitat, removes windbreaks, trees and decreases the darkness of the night sky and the wild nature of a -- an ocean beach.

it will require a major area of the park to be paved. it would change the overall character of the western edge of the park from a sylvan retreat to that of an adult complex for sports. action for nature encourages young people to better their environment and foster love and respect for nature. for 10 years action for nature has given awards to children around the world 8 to 16 who have done something wonderful to protect or improve the environment. one of last year's winners was clair drosske of san francisco. her research shows -- showed that runoff levels of be artificial turf had dangerous levels of heavy metals and would to -- potentially be dangerous to the health of humans and wild life. in addition because of the proximity of the artificial

turf to the ocean the runoff water could also endanger myron -- marine wild life. and synthetic turf does not biodegrade and would end up clogging land fills after 10 or 15 years of use. belinelli -- >> thank you. >> thank you very much. may i leave this with anybody? >> thank you. i'm going to call several names at a time and if you -- ok. are there any parents with children? ok. why not don't we do this. we're going to all night tonight line up on the left hand side of the room so if you need to depart early with kids, and young man in the blue, why don't you approach the podium? i will say tonight if we have an opportunity -- if you have an opportunity to get your point across in less than two

minutes, that would be great. if you find yourself with comments and positions that have been mentioned before, you are welcome to abbreviate your comments and if you are speaking from a groip, a team, an organization, maybe you want to have all your teammates and organization raise your hand in support, that might help us get through the evening as well. so thank you. the mike is yours. two minutes. >> and mr. president, all of you on this side, on my left, i need i to line up over here so you don't block the doorway. if you could just move to the other side of the room, we with would very much appreciate it. >> my name is kurt freudenberg and i play on a soccer team

called the sunset stars and i think we should change the beach chalet field into a turf field because last, like a few weeks ago when i played there i slipped and i hurt my back really badly, and usually when it rains, it usually makes a lot of mud and holes and a lot of kids slip there. and sometimes when i go to places like that or sometimes like the polo field, it's usually closed because they're making new grass. and when i want to go to south sunset soccer fields, it's turf so i usually want to go there but it's usually all filled up because everyone wants to play on the turf. so i think we should change the beach chalet fields into turf. >> thank you. ok. those who are organizing the kids coming in, if approximate you can stop bringing them in until some leave the room -- [laughter] >> we need to -- i mean, again, you create a fire hazard. you're standing in front of the

doors, there's no way to get out in the aisleways. this side of the room is obviously crowded. those who are not on that side if you can go back outside and just wait for somebody to leave and then come in so that we can get through this. reasonably. >> next speaker? >> i just want to -- >> soir the did as a parent when the grass fields are very, very often closed for rain and not necessarily because it's raining during the practice time but if it's rained the day before or sometimes even the day before that it's very frustrating for the kids to not be able to get out and have their practices and games. as a parent we've done a lot of research from the emails on the safety of the turf and as a parent who obviously has two children that play soccer and love them very much, i'm not at all concerned about their safety on the turf. the lighting is very important because in the winter as you know it starts to --

>> thank you. >> oh. ok. >> do you have a group here? a team that you are representing? >> a club. >> do you want to bring them all forward and kind of speak for them? >> most of you might know me as an author and journalist, but i am also a volunteer for kids and as of march i'm the president of vikings youth soccer league. vikings soccer programs have over 7,000 kids in the city and combined with police activities league, mission league, bay area scorers, many of the kids are here today, it adds up to 9,000 kids, which still does not include the other 3,000 kids playing c.y.o. and san francisco unified youth soxer.

we're spread out over the entire city, every zip code, every elementary school in thely -- city where the kids play soccer. the question everyone wants to know about the kids is do they play at beach chalet? the answer is that primarily from third grade on, all the leagues put their kids into each other's leagues and we do schedule them at beach chalet and all these kids are affected by beach chalet. the question about grass fields is will they suffice? and the grass fields unfortunately are locked. the better the field, the more it has to be locked. i know the concern here is will families be leaving and are families leave and is this one more thing? so our next speaker is a child who is moving to hills borrow in july over this kind of issue. ty swensson. >> yes, i am leaving to hills borough. it's because -- belinelli --

chime chime --ing [belinelli] >> it's because i really want beach chalet to become turf and there aren't that many turf fields so my family is moving so i can play socker for more time. of the year. >> my name is luke bronson and i support the turf. the reason is i live in the richmond neighborhood and i -- when i want to play on the school night when i have no homework and nothing to do, when i go out to beach chalet it's always locked to let the grass grow or something like that. if it's turf they don't have to let the grass grow, and kids will be able to play and it will triple the playing time. if you triple the playing time it results in more fun for the kids and i think that's better, as a child.

>> i'm shay coburn and i support the turf because a lot of the time when i'm at beach chalet on my team we -- when we're playing against tough teams which are every time, a lot of the time when we're running or getting a pass we either have our tracks are either missing the ball because it turns through holes in gaps or it bounces right over us, right over our foot [belinelli] because it's not a straight feel. it's bumpy and has holes in it and i've actually almost broken my ankle in one of the geoffer holes at this field and i definitely think it should become turf. >> hi, my name is jake mccambridge. kids and coaches support turf. it saves san francisco money and water. kids and coaches support turf

because it's more playing time and they can get better at their soccer. >> my name is benjamin and i also support the turf because i'm more of a passing player than a shooting and dribbling player. [laughter] so whenever i pass the ball on grass fields it usually always goes over a bump, which makes the pass uncomplete. [laughter] >> hi, that's my son. my name is steve. five years ago we came to supervisors, i have a picture because the fields of san francisco were still terrible back then and we asked supervisors if they could please make the fields better. we refused to play on the grass fields because they were so bad. buckets of dirt to fill the holes. the fields of san francisco, no

matter what you do -- i love grass, i love golden gate park. i probably spend more time in golden gate park than anyone else, ok, but the graves san francisco cannot be kept up how much work we need. crocker am adon, the person who said it's an aberation, if you want to see a great complex in this city, go to crocker amazon and see what they do there, 1,000 kids playing soccer all day. it's an amazing place and we can build another amazing place. it's a great thing for the city and a great thing for the park. >> thank you. next group of players or -- ok. >> one more announcement. for those of you who are taking pictures, i really hate doing this all the time but when you use your flash it really does irritate some of the commissioners so you can take all the pictures you want to take, just don't use flash,

please. thank you. i need some kids -- please stop bringing kids in. you keep doing that. please stop doing that. we're crowded. let some people leve and then bring some more in. thank you. >> i am an immigrant frp el salvador. i coach three-point different teams and this year, two of my teams were rained out in the first two weeks. i couldn't bring my team with me, but i'm bringing two of my sons. carlos and diego. and i just want to ask you to please on behalf of our children in san francisco do what's right for them. let's forget about the politics. let's forget about, you know, all this back and forth and do what's right for our children. let them play this beautiful game. my son is wearing a giants

t-shirt because we also support baseball even though we don't know how to play it. but we support it. please support us. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> hi, any -- my name is john and i'm a resident of sunset and p proud daved these two terrific soccer sons. nick i could say to you in favor of the renovation, you've heard it before, many, many times from many people over the last couple years. it's safe to saipe the quiet majority in this debate are in favor of the renovation project but here we are two years out and it's stalled because a very well organized, very vocal minority of people insist at looking at dedication -- dedicated soccer fields in a

man-made park and calling them sylvan meadows. well, they're not. tip point we really need to move forward with the conversation. we've spent the last two years great effort and over $1 million. i think it's time to say let's move forward and -- with the renovation and i very respectfully implore you to do so. thank you so much. >> thank you. next group? >> hello, my name is andrea negativelson. i'm a long-term resident of san francisco, long-term involved parent in youth sports and i'm give up my speaking time for america scores and all these wonderful children. i want to introduce marty, the

program director and colin, who is involved with this program. thank you very much. >> thank you. does this work? just put it right there and it will turn on. >> thanks. not all of us are going to speak, so we'll respect that. we'll just try to sum up our organization's concerns quickly with just a couple adult comments. but this is a group of children from america scores, from redding elementary school just down the street on the edge of the tenderloin. they're in after school program right now. they've walked over here and have to walk back by five or chris is going to get a call and get in trouble. which wanted them to be represented. all the scorers families, 600 families -- does this pick up? yeah. this will be a little bit inadequate. but what i, the point that i really wanted to make was that scores works with 600 families

at 15 low-income public school communities. moachtd of us are on the east side of the city -- most of us or -- are on the east side of the city, and for five days a week the kids at redding, at all these schools play on pave mint. [bell] >> so the issue for our league is not grass, turf, it's playing on something 0 other -- other than pavement. we are big fans of city field and all the work they've done on that side of the city with the other projects but it's not enough. we have the whole city competing for space there. so these kids when they do get to go to crocker or, from redding to crocker one day a week they don't get to go on the turf. it's not for ids under 8. not enough capacity. they get to play on the grease over there, which is fine but in a six-week season in the spring two of the games are

rained out. so it's unfortunate to say the least. we think the beach chalet will take pressure off the rest of the city and provide more access to children from low-income public school communities all over san francisco poem -- san francisco . shannon? we have two additional speakers. >> good afternoon. thank you for letting me have this opportunity to speak. my name is shannon burns and i've been a soccer and poetry coach for america scores for over five years ue -- now. i began coaching in oakland where i worked with four teams at different elementary schools all having a field at their school site or within walking distance. when i transitioned here to san francisco recently and started working with elementary schools including redding i was surprised to see every practice and game was played on blacktop that was painted green. the s.f. chronicle just announced that san francisco's

public parks are the best in the nation. i'd like to encourage us to maintain that status and to do even better at providing equal access, whether it's grass or turf fields for san francisco neighborhoods, schools, and children like those at redding. if oakland can do it, we can, too. can we do a power clap on three? ready? one, two, three. >> thank you. >> hi, my name is marty manion and i'm the education director with the america scores bay area. thank you for letting us present. i'm here to introduce one of my players, a third grader who i coached in first and second grained -- grade. unfortunately when they -- she was in first and second grade

her league was denied the chance to play on the turf field. they played on the grass and bay thirved their season was rained out and cancelled. that's a shame because that's a chance you don't get back in your first season as a child. one of those weekends her mom got a call from the land lord wanting to evict their family because of noise complaints. the noise was the sound of a soccer ball bouncing against the ball because her only other place to play was if she could break onto the school blacktop in her neighborhood. the ones a few blocks away were pretty much overrun by the pay to play leagues. she loves the field. she had her birthday party there a couple days ago and would like to share a poem she would -- wrote in our poetry and soccer program about playing. >> i'm not a scared girl, a

cry-baby girl, a mean or angry girl, i'm a pretty hot girl, lightning fast down the field girl, reading books, smarty pants loves to dance girl. ponytails and painted nails. soccer cleats and san francisco streets. that's what a cleveland girl is made of. >> i really home moving forward she will be able to play in her neighborhood park and so will all the students in the program. thank you. >> i just want to close briefly and thank you for letting all the children from my program step up. i'm the associate director for america scores bay area and for the past five years or so i've seen the changes that have happened at silver ter -- terrace, at western addition, at campbell and at crocker, and i think we all know there is an imbalance of this and by moving

forward with this project we'll find a balance where it's not lopside add cross the city. so please really consider to move forward with this project so far -- for all the kids and families here we can have a better quality of life in this great city. thank you very much. >> thank you. hi, name -- my name is george stabile. i'm a guardian and personally good friend of the person who just was here, leticia, and i want to say one thing about crocker am adon. i would like to invite every wunsch you on this panel to go out there some saturday and see the results. thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners. my name is brendan done igan. i'm -- dunnigan. i'm here today with my children, dylan and devin. dylan plays on the vikings

soccer league. you've heard from the vikings. he has a unique perspective because this season he's played on the artificial turf, of course and also on the natural turf. he can share with you his images and the things that he's experienced and the fact that that he feels it's much safer to be on an artificial turf surface and why he supports it. so i'll let him speak. >> i agree with my dad because i don't want my leg broken and artificial turf is safer than turf because you just don't want your legs broken. and when i have played before, the ball goes straighter on artificial turf than nonartificial. and on nonartificial the

geoffer holes have to make you weave out so you don't go as fast for the ball. it's different on the artificial. so i agree, let's make artificial turf. [belinelli] commissioner fong: next speaker, please? hi, my name is john manning and i'm a richmond district native and avid soccer fan and coach and i'd just like to reiterate what a few others have said. too many families have moved out of san francisco and there's lots of reasons for that, schools and such, but lack of playing fields is part of that reason. when i grew up playing the beach chalet it was the a -- it was a dump back then and it's a dump today. you guys have the opportunity to change that and appreciate all the work that all of you have done in terms of getting

crocker-am adon and sunset and the other fields renovated. there's hundreds of kids out there and out across the street at civic center playing soccer right now that support this. so thank you for your effort and please do this. >> thank you. hi, my name is edward. i'm here with my son who is 3 years old and he's going to start playing soccer this summer. i'm not opposed to soccer but to artificial turf. it has a lot of harmful chemicals in it. we got rid of toys that have these chemicals, carpets that have these chemicals, we shouldn't have structures that have these chemicals in this, he period. as far as someone aid -- said, upgrading the facility to be

a.d.a. compliant, if you talk to the manufacturers you can't have wheelchairs on the turf because it tears. you can't have walkers, strollers. people in wheelchairs should be allowed to play sports. i'm an architect and i advocate for everyone to have equal access. 9 ada as it stands does not cover the actual playing surface but i believe people in wheelchairs should have equal access. as far as the task force in 2008 that was supposedly exhaustive, the artificial task force in 2008, they were not allowed to compare artificial turf to grass so i'm not really sure how you can evaluate it if you don't compare the two. as far as saving water, it doesn't saves much as they say it does. artificial turf has to be cleaned. you you have to use soap, disinfectant and water. i live in silver terrace. it gets really hot there and sometimes you have to use water to cool it down. if you go to silver terrace,

look at the maintenance. people talk as if you're not getting any, not going to have to maintain these fields. there's a lot that goes into maintenance. overall it's a lot of privatization. i consider it privatization. thurgood marshall hoom near my house was promised a lot -- certain number of hours at the field and didn't get it. it was given up to leagues that pay for it. >> thank you very much. two minutes. thank you. next speaker, please? >> hello, my name is dave and thanks for having me. >> did you have a special accommodation, sir? we had called up folks who had -- >> i was at the end of the line. so -- >> i'm going to ask you to take a seat and thank you very much and we're going to try to get these kids through.

thank you. >> hi, thank you. my name is jana klein. only a not a soccer coach but i'm a parent and we're trying hard to raise our kids in the city and we've seen many, many of our friends leave in the 20 years that we have lived here after they have children of school age, and we're stake -- sticking with it and these are two of mine and other children who go to their school. we care about the environment. we walk to school and take muni to school. i drive a prius. so it's not that we don't care about the environment. we do. but it's really hard to be a parent in the city and we're trying really hard. i think it was fumped children left the school district last year. a large, large number of the we have the lowest child to adult ratio of any major