opening on july 11. i expect to come for recommendation of approval of contract, so we have lost six weeks, but we are confident we will hopefully get better abeyance -- better bids. >> thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. the trust for public land has been saving special places unbuilding parks and playgrounds -- and building parks and playgrounds around the country for 40 years, but we have been had courted -- headquartered in san francisco, and our first one was here. and the three parks we are here to celebrate represents six

years of collective hard work and is the jewel in the crown. we are proud of this partnership, and together, they are making the city of san francisco and even more remarkable place to live. this effort began with five lead donors, banana republic, levi strauss foundation, and wells fargo, and our partnership has turned back $5 million into over $16 million in three neighborhoods we are working in together. euathis is part of the initiatie with a club house we opened last summer, balboa park, which is under construction.

this has been a remarkable public-private partnership. it is evenly split between private and public funding. we raised nearly $8 million, and public funds included considerable funding from the city of san francisco including $500,000 in community improvement bonds and considerable funding from the state of california as well. i want to acknowledge the san francisco initiative represents only a fraction of our work together. we have been working to build this, and that work has led to the city earning the title of no. 1 park system, in the 40 biggest cities in the country thanks to our efforts that were announced a few weeks ago, and even as strong as our partnership has been in the

past, i want to acknowledge that our future looks even bigger still. we are eager to continue our work and a partnership, whether it be for a land acquisitions and continuing finance efforts, to raise support in san francisco or design and construction work. we continue to work to make sure there is a park or playground within walking distance of every san francisco ian, and i want to welcome our program director. >> thank you. i just wanted to take a quick moment to thank a lot of members of the apartment, because under all of those broad accomplishments, it takes a lot of people doing hard work to get these things done. go these projects have been in the works for at least six years, and there have been many

people involved, but a few stand out that have been on this trip with us. they really helped set the goals for this project and helped make sure they met or exceeded high standards and in some cases helped to set new standards. they provided sheehan political support for our program. tony was the key figure in providing funding. jake has provided management, supporting the unique nature of these projects and bringing in expertise of his other colleagues to make sure project delivery run smoothly. the project managers provided consistent impact from the

community outreach phase of the way through construction, attending numerous after hours of meetings to make sure the design improvements were something that could have a lasting impact for the rec and park department, and of course he has been really committed to this kind of creative partnership and an excellent from day one, and i think his confidence in his methods and relationship with his staff have provided transformational results on the ground. it helps to make sure these public and private partnerships can be acceptable and navigate through the details day-by-day, but i think we are building some great things together. thank you for your commitment. >> i am happy to answer any

questions. i do not see any. thank you very much. >> is there any public comment on this item? seeing none, public comment is closed. >> commissioners? moved and seconded. all those in favor? here it is unanimous. >> i do not think it should conclude without a big thank you. this is a two-part $7 million gift, and they were very kind in taking our staff for our commitment to the partnership, but as you all know, on the eve of more public investment, we have $1 billion, and we have been very blessed with a bond in 2000, of bonds in 2008, and hopefully another one in 2012, but that is not enough to

address the needs in our community, and without a partner, we would not be the no. 1 park system in america, so we are incredibly grateful for them to sing us and for their commitment to the things that matter. >> we are on items eight and nine. >> good morning. the item before you is for the discussion and possible action towards two job order contracts for services related to capital projects on various properties. each of these is up to $3 million. one of them is forme an a licene contractor, and the other was

for a b license. contractor's bid after to preset prices. work is accomplished by issuing task orders during three years. contracts are being used by the departments with the contract authority, including the airport, public works commo, th, as well as the recreational and parks department. the recreational and parks department is seeking to reassure three new contracts. one is a $3 million contract valued up to $3 million to an a

contractor. the other one would-be up to $3 million for a b contractor. each of them is limited, and any task force exceeding $14,000 may be issued with the approval of the general manager. they are expected to expedite a relatively small construction projects, particularly those under the city wide improvement program. the recreational and parks department advertised three contracts for competitive bidding in april. for the a license, six bids were received. for the license, eight bids were received. since this item was presented at the council committee, bidders

were evaluated, and h r c has recommended the a andb contractor. for a license contract, which is valued up to $3 million, and the recommendation is to award the contract you're a good -- the contract. i am available to answer any questions. >> as i mentioned the last time, i have a problem with this, item

eight, nine, and tan. they are similar deals. where is the money coming from? no. 2, it allows staff to award contracts, bypassing the commission. it just seems not very cautious, so can you address these issues? >> the funding is not identified because this is a mechanism for a particular contractor, so when there is a need to perform work, they would meet to scope out the work, so the project would have its own funding to bring to the

projects, so the funds that have been used in the past includes open space funds. it can even include the general fund. until the project is identified we do not know which funding is going to be used. >> let me alleviate some funds. this is a standard practice. there was a competitive practices to come up with a pool of job contractors triggered this allows us to move forward with large deferred management project and small capital projects beyond the scope of our own structural maintenance staff. good the scope of work is so

significant you're a good you go through a design process and would approve the design. it allows us to expedite the production and the cost associated with a more formal bid is not worth it. we make sure that we have a pool of contractors that were competitively selected that we are able to utilize. it is as much for large-scale deferred maine's programs as it is for capital. >> i do not have a problem with the idea of having a pool of contractors. it seems logical and expedient. what bothers me is being able to do these things without coming to the commission and at least informing us, having this openness.

>> again, there are a number of ways to address that. for some of the projects, they do come before you because you have probably selected them out of the 50% of the contingency reserve that you annually select that we are going to work on. those types are exactly the types of projects we would use for contracts in. you would have seen those and you would see all small capital projects because you -- you approve the concept design. if we had a project that involved -- give me an example of a deferred maintenance projects that we might not otherwise bring before the commission. >> i wanted to point to a couple of tangible projects that you are aware of.

the richmond basketball court, which was contingency funds from the open space. we use a contractor for that. to address the question about sunnyside, president buell approved funding for the kitchenette program which came before you for approval. the contractor that we will use for that project expires. other projects where we have used contrasting, for instance, campbell part -- kimball playground. i am breaking that into pieces, for instance, replacing sidewalks and street trees. the projects that we do execute through this program do come before you in different forms and fashions. there are small projects that we do on a routine basis.

for instance, the structural maintenance. and smaller, non-programmatic projects. this is another habit where we do that rather than go through a formal bid process. >> i would be more comfortable with this if there were some way of bringing this to the commission and letting us know about these things before they go. >> there are a number of different ways to address that. i think we could probably provide you with an annual report, and maybe we could go through and do it when we come back to you for the next round of deferred maintenance projects. every year, we come to you and

ask you for your suggestions. you asked for an update on those. when we come to you for 2012 profits, we will give you an update on the 2011 project. we could provide you a report on the job order contract that has happened. we could give you a report on it. it is all in there. that way, annually, you are getting to see which products are job order contracts and which are not. otherwise, we are bringing something to you multiple times. the whole point of this is trying to expedite things. projects take a long time and voters and park users have an expectation that these types of projects are going to move quickly. when we have to wait another month to bring them to the commission, there is a trade-off in terms of time for it i would

propose that, when we come to you annually with our request that you -- that you approve our list of maintenance products, we give you a look back into the previous year to show you what we have done. >> there is one other possibility. when we do bring capital projects, we can articulate that in the staff report and highlight that as part of the notification process. >> that would be good. commissioner low: there are also to safety valves on the dollar- size limitation and using existing labor resources. if you could just clarify that. >> most of our capital projects, we checked with our

structural maintenance yard to see whether or not they could handle that work. in some instances, they do not have the staff to execute so we checked with them first. once they denied the project, for whatever reason, that is one we move forward for the process. the limit is a threshold by which we have to fall under. >> if it goes over $400,000, it goes back to the general manager? >> yes. you have to have a notification on what you have exceeded $400,000. you have to have justification for that. >> are strung from maintenance yard is fundamentally worked on and they are an amazing group. but we are under-resource, some of the day-to-day maintenance requirements for the park's construction on the other side. we had a number of conversations about where our yard has the

capacity to do it. sometimes, we do not have the right traits or the right bodies. commissioner bonilla: i wanted to comment that this model of contracting has a lot of positives, especially with regard to not subjecting the department and the public's to lengthy -- lengthy rfp's and also it does not subject the department to dealing with an appeal process with regards to the decision made through an rfp by the commission. it has those positives that i really like about this. also, we have established

precedent for doing this type of contract in -- contracting. i have seen it on several occasions during my term here on the commission that we have done this. >> i have a question. looking at the job order reports, many of them are very low numbers. there is the occasional one that is $100,000-$200,000. only one was over $600,000. i wonder about the $3 million number. what is our practical experience there? >> for those projects that are in the higher range, we have

those four products that are time sensitive. >> i understand. maybe i am misreading this. >> i do not think you're misreading it. the contract allows us to have the ability to draw down on that contract. we are not awarding all $3 million worth of contracts at the same time. sometimes, we will find one contractor whose specialty for that year, the types of products they are doing, matches really well. we will spend up to $1 million there for a fall contract. another contractor, we might decide that the jobs do not line up as well or their availability conflicts. that is how it works. >> thank you. president moran: -- president buell: seeing no further

questions, shall we entertain public comment? >> is there any public comment on this item? at the very beginning, this was sold to us as an easy, fast, not inexpensive and cost- efficient, and ineffective process of doing smaller contracts. sunnyside park is a perfect example. ours was $150,000 plus renovation. before we knew it, we were down almost $69,000 and nobody could account for it. we were down to the current $81,000 and we have nothing to show for it. what we do have is such inferior work that it is going after be done again. i do not know how these contractors are qualified. i do not know how you become an a because our contractor was an

a and he did not get work going until the contract was due to expire. things undone, doors that do not have frames, things that now have to be done again. if you look at the chart that they gave you for this, the money is gone it i do not know where this money is coming from. they talked about our kitchenette that we got our money through the contingency. from what i am being told, that work is not done by the budget manager. they do not do the design work, the layout. they depend on the contractors to do it. contractors are not designers. they should not be doing this work. how do we know what things really cost? everything we know of is three or four times what we -- what we would consider a high, normal cost. the contractors are naming a price. i could go to home depot and get

a " for $200,000 max. it will cost me twice that to get it through this process. i think that you have reason to be concerned. there are a lot of holes in this. not a lot of accountability. no way of knowing that the product is being done. in the community, we do not know what is going into our project. we have to negotiate, negotiate, negotiate. this is completely and unacceptable process. where do we go now? what do we do now? you talk about single contract bidding. that is what this is. i approve you, i like you, and i will let you do this project. this is ridiculous. they want to give you a report. reports are what they want to tell you. if they are not telling us what is going on, then i do not expect there will tell you much more. if they do, why don't they just bring it out in the open from the very beginning and say, we

are going to do this for this amount of dollars. we want the commissioners and the community to know about it and we all want to agree with the contractor. >> is there any other public comment on this item? president buell: i would like to mention something you just mentioned, commissioner bonilla. about the lengthy rfp process. in terms of transparency, i think that -- and i hope to make later this point that the commission is isolated, that we need time to find out what would be a good fit. we need these lengthy processes. all a sudden, a 10-year lease? i do not think that is the way to do things. secondly, the appellate process,

not only is it constitutional but it is a little more human. we need a chance to say, i do not think him and his hot dogs belong. we need a chance to get in there and fight for it. remember, we are the ones bringing our children and our dogs to your parts. thank you. >> is there any other public comment on this item? seeing none, public comment is closed. >> i do have one observation. we are talking about construction contracts and expediting it to save taxpayer'' money. not rfp's for the use of facilities. we are mixing apples and oranges if we were to perceive it that way. seeing no other comments, i would like to entertain a momentary we opted to item eight and nine separately so we will go on item eight. >> moved and seconded.

all those in favor? opposed? hearing none, it is unanimous. item nine, can i entertain a motion? moved and seconded. all those in favor? opposed? none. it is unanimous. >> we are now on item 11. " our -- coit tower, selection of operator for concessions. >> good morning, commissioners. i am pleased to be before you to present the recommended selection of c theoit tower vendor. -- the coit tower vendor.

built in 1933, it is one of the city's most iconic and historic properties. the building and it's beautiful and unique wpa murals is san francisco landmark number 165 and is listed on the national register of historic places. together with the arts commission, the department is honored to preserve this beloved landmark. the department strives to offer a quality experience and looks forward to implementing changes in the concessions to reflect the dignity of this landmark. through its concessionaire, the department wishes to provide friendly and helpful service to the public, respect and honor the historic nature of the building and its murals, and respect and work with the surrounding community to be a good neighbor. i wanted to give you some background on history. since