to, quote, stay healthy. wash your hands and scrape after play. i have never seen that sign on any grass field. it seems ok for kids to play on fields that are not healthy. playing on these fields have been known to code shoes, pants, and even underwear with black soot and dust. we are not talking about dirt. this stuff has to be washed off because it is not safe. i understand we're talking about a gift of around $5 million, and the city has to come up with a similar amount or more. that amount could make many more beautiful playing fields. many times over. great for kids. safe fields. healthy fields.

the eir has not addressed that aspect. the lights. the whole neighborhood is going to whole neighborhood is going to remember the decision about these lights. we can even see the intrusion of the lights at west sunset. it has not addressed this. as you reflect back on your actions, i hope you find pride and satisfaction. >> thank you very much. thank you very much. thank you, sir. >> good afternoon or early

evening, supervisors. i am here today both as a concerned citizen and also as a board member of the organization. i am here to urge you most strongly to reject the certification and uphold the appeal before you. i have looked through a, i don't claim to have read it. no one could possibly have read all of those words. but i have looked at it and it is inadequate. this project is inconsistent with the master plan for golden gate park. rather than reiterate the things other people have said, i will take a different path here. i like to suggest a sort of

precedent for you to keep in mind when you are thinking about what decision you want to make on this issue. i serve on the city committee that is referred to as prozac. we have not had a hearing on this issue, so we don't have a recommendation. but we have a hearing about two years ago on the occasion when the public utilities commission proposed a waste water treatment facility in the west end of golden gate park. and to skip right to the punch line, we listened to everything they had to say and we went on record recommending against that. they listened and they changed their mind, they changed the location. this does not have to be the way it is. i urge you all to do the right thing. thank you.

>> next speaker. >> the project has one big problem. it has a master plan that it has to get by. the only way it can get by the master plan is to fake or falsify what the master plan is. it participates in that falsification of the park master plan, it is a fraudulent and corrupt report. if you approve this, they are participating in the corruption. on page 100, it says according to the master plan, the different areas will be lighted to different levels based on safety considerations. that sounds like a can be anywhere in the park for what we want to use it for. if you look on page 9 of the master plan, different areas of

the park will be lighted to different levels based on safety considerations. here is the second sentence. lighting is for safety purposes and is not intended to increase night use. that is the whole point of this project, to increase night use. the project is a complete violation of the master plan. it never mentions it. hot for hundred pages and never mentioned in. and on the next sentence, it says the layout listed in the master plan as an night use area. what is listed as a knight used area is the beach lay restaurant. if you go out there at night, it is dark. by saying it is a night used area, it is part of the fema.

i sent you an e-mail to a seat can see the links for the master plan, it is fraudulent and it knows it. >> san francisco prides itself in being the lead a green city in the country if not the world. it cares deeply and you have worked hard with multiple programs including a ban on plastic bags and a ban on plastic water bottles.

we are debating installing seven makers of plastic grass and the professional level of sports lighting. no plastic bag, no plastic bottles, but plastic grass, rubber tires, and sport sides. what kind of a topsy-turvy world are we living in? lots of families want soccer, but it is not an us versus them situation. a project does not need to be a golden gate park when there is a safer alternative a few blocks away that the planning department and staff have said is acceptable. it'll give kids the playtime they need and keep the western edge of the park the way it was meant to be. i urge you to do what is right in support that alternative. and don't approve one that fails to properly evaluate the impact of the lighting.

safer and non-toxic info with a hybrid alternative. uphold our appeal and do what is in the best interests of the city. don't paved paradise and put up a parking lot. >> i am a resident of the richmond district. so much has already been said about this. the elimination of darkness from fulton to gary and from ocean to forty third ave. i don't live in this part of the city, i live on 37 that avenue, but the light pollution will cause the residents' physical, unemotional, and psychological harm. it could potentially lead to a flood of lawsuits from affected property owners.

as someone has mentioned about the lights, the reality is that we don't need the lights for the kids. kids are not going to be playing under those lights. there is another issue that has been mentioned. the composition has a tendency to leached toxins and other contaminants into the water. part of our drinking water comes from an offer under the soccer field. it says, if and when there were to be leaching, it could cause a hazard to public health and at some time in the future, the commission would take some kind of action. this waiting until we get to that bridge approach is not acceptable for our water supply. last point, traffic. they say it won't create any extra traffic on the roadways. the report refers to four lanes

of ocean highway and makes no knowledge of the fact that this road is scheduled to be reduced to two lanes. don't let the family and are crazy commission shove this down our throats. and do what is right, send it back. >> good evening, my name is karen anderson and i am from district 5. i have lived in the city since 1968. so much has been said, but i can't think of any good reason that would justify putting artificial turf and extreme lighting anywhere in our beautiful and a magnificent golden gate park. william m. hall, the famous surveyor the plant apart design would roll over in his grave and cry.

do the right thing. >> my name is susie, i am from district 9. i am here as a soccer mom, a soccer player, a soccer trainer that is watching in trading on these fields every single day. with all of the talking points. my son who is 13 and plays every single day, he has played at franklin square, garfield, crocker, balboa, sacred heart, her and now we desperately need 14 more acres of synthetic turf?

what we have played on is a small sampling of the artificial surfaces that we have in the city already. i was hot and beautiful practice on grass and i want kids to play all the time, it is part of my business in training them. most of the fields were empty and i got to hear birds and snodgrass, it was a wonderful experience. has the fields get older, you see that the synthetic material gets trampled and the public and start flying in to your nose. i am sure he covered this, but games and practices, that is ridiculous. most played between 102 hundred practices a year and at least 30 games. thanks.

>> i am just a human being that lives in san francisco. i am asking you to appeal of the report. i was concerned because the western snelling clover is absent from the project area. it is a federally protected bird in this area starts at stairwell 21 and ocean beach, 1,000 feet away from the projected project. these birds need to rest. these areas go from stairwell 21 to slow boulevard. the birds need to conserve their energy so that they can migrate and greedy. the only place they can do this is ocean beach. the lighting is going to completely disturb their nighttime time.

i don't know if it was spoken about how loud soccer games are, because if you go on the weekend, you can hear one soccer game at the elementary school all through the neighborhood at that as elementary school. we have the possibility of six fields in action with people yelling and screaming. i don't know what that is going to do to the smelly clovers. it offered no mitigation because it said that they weren't in the area, which is not true. the pacific flyway is also right across the street. thousands of birds come through there and of the report stated that the stadium lighting confuses the birds, causes them to come down and get stuck. i don't know why we are considering that when our whole world has such ecological negative impact happening to it

right now. it is 2012, we need to start conserving what we have got. >> my name is mark gold, i live in district 5. i came here today to urge you to turn down this report. and from handing out literature to educate people about this, i found that overwhelmingly, people first of all, don't know about it. their reaction has what -- and has been what you're hearing in the next few hours. i urge you to think about what is happening here tonight. all these people came here, it is social capital and human capital. it is a valuable and hard to put together a thing. you heard from birds and babies and young people and residents, it should give you pause and any

rash decision based on the other end which is representing a more narrow spectrum of the city and other ideas such as the money that can be saved with the plan of bringing it back to nature, you can use some of that money to get people and other parts of the city into golden gate park to appreciate nature for example. i urge you to look at the value of our social and human capital because sometimes it is worth more than the fish or money. >> thank you for letting me speak. i am sad because we are changing a beautiful park that i have loved for almost 50 years have i have been here. i asked you to look into your heart to and see what you're doing. i reminded of the bumper sticker that said the, what would jesus do?

i would ask you what john mclaren would do. >> next speaker. >> thank you for this opportunity. i am a home owner on great highway and i have been sending e-mail's to you folks. i have never been involved in city politics and i have no idea how these decisions get made. i thought, surely, they will not allow this to happen. and it keeps on rolling and rolling. i don't know what anybody in this room can do to change the way it is moving or except in alternative, but i am a surfer, i have a financial planner. i think golden gate park is absolutely unique. this whole city is unique and every time my son comes to visit me, i'd taken to the academy of sciences and i show him the buffalo.

what ever you folks can do to stop this project, even if one of you is as motivated as we are, who this is a really divergent group tonight. he the other side, i don't think they are very diverse. i knew something was wrong in this picture. there has to be a lot of money involved, but how can you benefit one portion of society and ignore this incredibly divergent group that has presented an unbelievable arguments that i won't even try to duplicate. i hope you can do something about it. >> hold on one second and we will light of the microphone. we can hear you now.

>> my name is steve, is there any sound with this? >> is coming up right now. >> there was a little girl that spoke on this issue in december. she can't be here today, but here is a national video made about her story. >> please drop the microphone close to the computer. >> if you want to restart that again. i think the sound is still

deficient. sir, we're going to call media services if you can hold on a moment. we'll hear from other speakers and get back to you. >> i am here today as a representative of a brand-new organization brought into existence because of this project. we are called educators for photosynthesis. our name tells you who we are and what we want. we are all educators and for

present this as. -- photosynthesis. our membership includes a 100- year-old that worked all his life down the road and allan jacob, the former director of city planning for a san francisco. we strongly request you do not accept this flawed report. why should you not accept it? i have been a teacher the last 18 years. i recognize a battle lab right up what i see one. it has faulty assumptions, a circular logic, odd data collection procedures. if a student who turned his intimate, it would get it back with tons of notes and questions written on it. while teaching what of my own, i went through the draft riding those notes and questions pointing out inconsistencies, errors, and absent research. the result was that they made a few surface changes and ignored everything else. as a result, this will cause

irreparable damage. the details are easily available in public comments. in the hearing for the draft, i sent a less technical summary to all of you in 10 separate females over the last nine days. but the point of the organization is that the issue is very simple. destroying photosynthesis is bad. this project will result in a net loss over time, therefore, this project is bad. clyde wilson asked me to give you his comments, so i have got that. >> next speaker. >> good evening, and thank you for listening. i know that to a large extent, this project is about money.

the turf companies, it is about money for them. athletic organizations have rejected artificial turf. they need some place to push their project. to the city, it is about money, renting those fields at night, not to the youth that paraded through here last time. i know that it has been proposed that this will be less expensive to keep up. i think it is highly disputable. but even if the money came out on the side of the city, i think we have to stand out as adults and as citizens of this plan at

for what is more important. and i really-ha what is going to take, what is it going to take? the arguments i could come up with, i could repeat people about kids and scraping their knees, her about the rubber getting in scrapes, about animal feces, mucus, but sitting on that surface. but what i want to know is, what are we going to do and what is right for the kids the same way that we stand up and do what is right for the kids every time they want something that we know is not good for them. those soccer kids have things that are more important to them that how often they play. >> why don't we hear from the gentleman that was going to play

the video, can we do that? >> the city of san francisco was deliberating about the soccer fields and the golden gate park. the city was offered a substantial gift to change a large area to of artificial turf, but nobody had a thoroughly studied and the water runoff or accurately measure the effects on the environment until a 10-year-old soccer player came along. she had already used one at a science challenge award and she wanted the debate based not just on money but the health of the people that play there. her research revealed that the runoff from artificial turf

which contains round of tires harmed a tiny water creature that you can see here in the video that she shot. they die when exposed to of glue that -- as she what action for the 2011 young hero ward. sarah has gone on to her next project, to help the homeless by designing a solar charger for self loans so they have easier access to city services. visit us on facebook. >> the report would say that the water won't leach into the fields where the ocean or that it will be treated and save. this is some of the rubber tire

with water and i was going to offer it to you guys, but i thought i would get in trouble for supervisor endangerment or something. it is supposed to be safe. so you should say this would be fine. i will ask the kids if they want to drink it, but i would get child endangerment problems. keep that in mind, this is dangerous stuff. >> next speaker. >> ladies and gentlemen and commissioners. good afternoon, good evening. i have been a resident of the city and county of san francisco for 44 years. i have also been a soccer-. there used to be a memorial that was closed for about 15 years.

the park around it is hallowed ground. it doesn't need a carpet or more plastic. what you can use, probably at night, is more police to patrol the hang out around the park. that has been a major issue. but the grass has not. young soccer players needed natural turf. not plastic. this is not disneyland even though you're trying to create it here. golden gate park is a natural habitat. there is nothing i know of that a synthetic in it. yes, under a relic from the old gigolo in chief, and he wants to push this on the public. he don't have enough money, take it out of his salary.

$250,000 a year, he destroyed the civil service commission, and now he is destroying the park. just let anybody run it over and turn it into a mini golf course. why don't you put a synthetic grass out in front of city hall. address the issue to the public at large, see how they liked it. that is tantamount to what you're doing it golden gate park. it is sacred park, not just for veterans, but everybody that lives in this city. but don't go down that road. thank you. >> next speaker. >> good evening, i am with the lesbian, gay, transgendered and bisexual democratic club. people of many different stripes d