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>> happy holidays, happy new year, that concludes the general manager's report. >> thank you very much. >> do we have any public under the general manager's report, not under -- come on up. >> bruce stone, president of the san francisco harbor association, we were hoping as part of the general manager's

report, he might mention that the harbor association had agreed to drop this lawsuit against you and against him and against the [inaudible]. >> i appreciate that. >> if we were able to sit down and talk, if we continue with our lawsuit, the courts will send it to adr anyway so why don't we have a mediation amongst ourselves. >> i can't hear you. >> okay. the harbor association is being to drop its lawsuit against the city and the officials personally if we could have a meeting without reservations, discuss all the points calmly, many of which would help the harbor and help rec and park a lot because the document has massive numbers of drafting errors, incon sis tense sis, undefined terms, and there are

other items that get trickier to look at, but they're important to the harbor holders, probably not to the park and rec department, they call them pebbles in your shoes, and there's some more larger fundamental issues which we think we didn't get adequate due process. we think the best way is to have a calm discussion with phil in his office, go over these items and see if we can't get a happier new year. >> thank you very much. >> just as a reminder, this is only on items that is upeder the general manager's report. we do have general comment right after this. >> good morning, commissioners, my name is [inaudible] hernandez gill, i'm the community organizer with the san francisco bicycle coalition, i would like to thank the commission for their support last year for the jfk driveway, the city has

ambitious goals with the yearly results we're seeing on jfk drive and with other projects, we're confident the goals will be met, although we at the bicycle coalition were very encouraged by the sfmta's preliminary evaluation as you heard, we at the bicycle coalition looks forward to seeing the final report to ensure the roadway is safe. i've heard many great stories of people feeling safer, especially from new riders and family, slower speeds in the sense of safety are very important factors in getting people to walk and bike and we're thrilled to see progress in these areas just a few weeks after the project went up. >> thank you. >> is there anyone else who would like to comment on the general manager's report? >> yes. >> please come forward.

>> merry christmas, commissioners, members of the public, interested individuals, listening to the manager's report, i found it hollow, empty and kind of disrespectful due to the fact that it just comes off like a dictatorship, you really have nothing as far as a relationship with the city and county of san francisco's residents, and that is so clear with the way you operate in this city. it's almost exclusively to the detriment of traditional san franciscans, and clearly it's a

sign that our community as a victorian community was much better equipped to preserve itself, its community and its culture and something happened after the victorian community whereby we started to divest interest in our culture in our community and you folks really manifest that by eroding our constitutional rights, violating our city and civic rights at every turn and you've done that in a very efficient and effective manner, master manipulators would be a good name to call you. i've never seen our parks and our city in such a depressing, dilapidated and disinterested condition as they are right now.

you might as well hang a sign saying don't come to san francisco, make a turn elsewhere because they're so pathetic when you see people driving atv's in a park that you're supposed to go to, to get away from traffic and you see the rec and park department driving around in cars and atv's in the very areas that we go to try to get away from that activity. you know that the rec and park system is being run by morons. it's being run by people that have absolutely no respect for the community. thank you. >> is there anyone else who would like to make public comment under the general manager's report? okay, seeing none, this item is closed. we are now on item 4 which is general public comment up to 15 minutes. at this time, members of the public may address the commission on ie steps of

interest to the public, i need all of you to please sit down. we have cards that we are going to go through first so if you could take a seat. >> thank you very much. >> at this time, members of the public may address the commission on items of interest to the public that are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the commission and that do not appear on the agenda with respect to agenda items, your opportunity to address the commission will be afforded when the item is reached in the meeting. i have two cards to start with, richard fong and then paul manning. there were cards on the table. if not,, if you just want to get in line as we have two cards. richard, come on up. >> good morning, commissioners, commissioner fong speaking

again, i had the pleasure of attending the palace of fine art community meeting on the 12th and i thought they were going to do pretty good work, so in retrospect, i look at it and i don't quite agree with the layout, so i don't know what that's going to do, so through the chair, commissioner, allan low, i think you're on the committee as such, i would like to see if i can bring in some recommendations that might enhance the development. we had a list of different people, jan was there, she's the executive director, there was a lot of people there, very high dignitary people, even jim lazarus was there, when i took a look at what they had planned

out, they had architects where the explore tor yum is going to leave, so the planning that would be looked at, they want to open up the middle of that building, it's like a part of a hanger, so they were thinking about opening it up in the middle and making a difference, right away, i wanted to [inaudible] to take a good look at what's being looked at there, there's the building on the outside which went through retrofit during 1993. the building structure, they want to possibly build the palace on the north end of the properties, that's something that might be later on used on the marina greens area, i'm not sure, and they can also look at that, but the building itself, it has retrofit and as they're

tearing at all the pieces, i would have liked to propose that there be external facade which mimics or by the columns, the external of the building where they want to open up that part would be pentagonal and you can build on top of it, an upper altar with that type of architect and you can have a walkway over the top, but the porn part -- important part is sto have the external structures stabilize to the seismic retrofit. if you look at it that way, you retain the elegance of the high [inaudible] and you also keep the work that's already in progress. i'd like to see it more incorporated into it and if they want to do a palace, that's what the marina green is for. >> thank you.

>> paul? >> good morning, my name is paul manning, i'm a vice chairman of the harbor tenant's association and i was also part of the advisory commitment with the early stages of getting the renovation completed or planned and moving forward, i'm happy to see it has come forward in quite a good way, i'm getting close to the point where it's almost done, we're about to declare it complete, however, there are a number of security issues that are not addressed in the internal plan allowing people to basically freely walk about the docks, tripping, getting in with a pocket knife, you can get in within the gates in five minutes, we have an asset that is not accurately protected, we have a building or a facility that's not adequately protected, it has the ability to have anyone walk in and do personal destruction as well as personal property

the depth, there are basically some issues with dredging, they had indication that were going to be a problem that was not addressed and those issues have renovation maybe being declared complete maybe in january that have three feet of water at low tide, that renders them inusable, the city will do a rent increase of 35% and essentially allow that facility to be useless to a majority of boat owners that would pay an excessive amount of rent, it's needed a lot of work, it's been modernized, that's an excessive amount of rent to be paying for something that effectively is unusable, there are a lot of berths at low tide, that needs

to be addressed and taken care of. the second item i'm going to bring is in regards to park and rec taking money and in some respects jumping the gun and not being good about returning money and specifically in moving boats out of berths out of renovation or the gas house cove, there was a decision made that those boats should not be playing the longer berth fee and that money should be returned to the berth holders, park and rec has not acknowledged credit for that or handled it, i sent a letter to you regarding the premature increase of rent for west space and berth holders dated august 1, park and rec is in violation of their own park code 12-20 in terms of how they applied cpi

without meeting the dead -- deadlines by your own code. i think a response needs to be made. would you like the letter? >> yes, i would. >> next. >> next speaker. >> testing, 1, 2, 3, testing, 1, 2, 3, thank you. frank, seiu1021 with members and staff here speaking in an official capacity before the commission, good morning and happy holidays. we rise today to inform the commission of some deep concerns regarding fiscal matters, the lack of fiscal accountability, it's one thing to raise funds, it's quite another question to be

accountable and responsible with those funds, that's the subject we're raising, and we prior to coming here, we filed grievances, we spoke to the department, we met with h.r., we left many messages with mr. ginsburg, the h.r. replied in letters, we received no response to date from mr. ginsburg, we regret that but that's why we're here. when the department doesn't want to work with the union and its members, we know what we have to do. what i would like to submit to the commission, what i would like to submit to the commission are documents and then walk right through them, they're important documents, we think they're self-explanatory, they don't need to be characterized by the union but we think those who are familiar with the labor liabilities, these are -- we are having

grievances that have quite a bit of financial claims against this department and the city, so if we go through the package, the first item is a grievance sent by the union, it is a settlement by the rec and park back in the summer, i believe, this was due to problems to settle an eeoc lawsuit emanating from the rangers trailer of overtime, the document behind that is the overtime report, we ask you to take a close look, especially the labor representatives, we're informing you that our contract provides mandatory, that it must be distributed evenly, equally to all employees

. do representatives have the same limit as evils -- individuals on the public comment? >> that is a warning. >> thank you so much. alright. now, the last document is the employer's response. department response to this information, if you take a look at this, they say that the union mentions the 250 thousand dollar settlement comes out of the same section, that's not correct. we submitted the document so they're mischaracterizing this document and essentially enabling and condoning the misuse of public funds. these funds are being distributed in such a way. the union has not seen any

effort whatsoever, any concern whatsoever on the part of the department's h.r. or the department. we've raised all of these issues to the general manager, nothing going on. we're asking you to exercise your proper fiscal responsibilities and oversight and to look into these matters, we also have targeted employees with excessive discipline who are also more legal liabilities to the department and to the city, we ask you to exercise your proper duties and we respectfully believe that you will be able to do so and we can get back in track. now, if that doesn't happen, -- >> let's take it from there, thank you, your time is up but we will look at them and we'll -- >> [inaudible] focus groups are also available and we hope to resolve it within the department. thank you very much. >> thank you very much. >> next speaker, please.

>> good morning, my name is richard rothmans and i'm back again talking about the mother's building at the zoo and i think since last time i've been here, i've been hearing that things have been move ining the right direction and i want to thank everybody. i did get a chance to go into the building the end of november and i was really in a state of shock. while i know it's going to take a long time to come up with a plan, i think while i'm not an architect or a professional preservationist, i think we need between rec and park and the art commission needs to go in and look at the west wall to make sure there's no more damage, it's really -- it really upset me when i saw the damage to the west wall of the

mural there, so while the city's developing a long-term plan, i think there needs to be a short-term plan to make sure that there's no more damage to the murals, and also that rec and park will support the landmarks stat to make the mother's building a city landmark, although it was a national landmark, and we also need to look at the long-term goals so we make sure that what happens at the mother's building in coy tower doesn't have again and that we set up -- i've been talking to david chu's office for setting up a citizen's advisory committee or some type of committee that can work with the art commission at rec and park to help manage these issues so that there is

communications between the two departments and that we don't let our heritage fall in disrepair like what has happened, and since i've been talking to a lot of people, not many people have been inside the building and want to see inside the building, so maybe either rec and park or the zoo can have a little mini open house so that people can go in and see for themselves the current condition of the mother's building, and i think it's all more important to what happened to the zoo house, and thank you for your consideration. >> thank you. >> okay, we have time for one more under this part of the general public comment, it will be continued again near the end of the calendar, so this is our last speaker. >> how many speakers do we have. we're going to extend it, we have one more person at this. >> are you going to be speaking? >> then let's wait, there's

only two items on the agenda so hopefully we'll get to it. >> these are basically things we're not getting a department response on. we have to come down here. when oracle staged their acclaimed event on the city front, they gave rec and park money to repair the damage to little marina green, but the repair is terrible. we have a concave marina green flood and it is not going to be ready for the springtime volleyball, we asked them to take a look at that because they didn't spend the money they got, it's a mess, it's just not appropriate and we hope you will take a close look at that. >> thank you. >> okay. so, for now, that is the end of general public comment. item number 4. we're on item number 5 which is the consent calendar. is there any public comment on

the consent calendar? seeing none, public comment is closed. commissioners? >> mows on the consent calendar? >> moved and seconded. all those in favor? >> aye. >> thank you. >> we are now on item 6, the san francisco zoo. >> good morning, tanya peterson with the san francisco zoo, i'm sorry i'm so casual but we're hanging light this morning, and we'll start with november attendance, as you saw in the report, we had 45 thousand 680 visitors during the month of november versus our 41 thousand budget so we had a positive increase by over 4600 visitors, that's the good news because this december thus far, rain seems to have come on every weekend day which is with we have our highest periods of attendance and it looks like it's going to rain this

weekend, december is running behind budget by about 17%, thankfully year to date balances 4% ahead, but we're hoping with some holiday programming, we will make up the delta these next two week, as you know, four reindeer came in to visit us for the holiday period, you can also adopt a reindeer and adopt and conserve north american species and also we're doing something very new for us, we're keeping the zoo open until 8:00 through the holidays and we are going to have some zoo life thanks to pg and e and our sponsors and we thought we could do a little preview of that if we could move to the video, please. (music playing).

>> thanks to the ad agencies for doing that pro bono add for us, like i mentioned, we will be open until 8:00 through the holiday period except for the 24th and 25th, this is free for our members, it's reduced admission, otherwise 5 dollars, we also have a 520 foot tree that we will light tomorrow, we have various vip's, they include nula and sumba from the lion king, from the grateful dead and more, each night, a

vip, we have a sneak preview night for our members as well, please, i hope you can join us and then lastly, i wanted to announce that our bat exhibit will be closing on january 6, this is in the interior of the pachyderm building and was highlighted some of the conservation crisis facing our bats but that will be replaced by a dinosaur exhibit on valentine's day, so treat your sweetheart with a dinosaur or two on february 14th and that will be running until the summer, and with that, i finish my report. >> thank you. >> is there any public comment on this item? seeing none, public comment is closed. commissioners, this was discussion only. >> thank you. >> we are now on item 7, a gift acceptance from the san francisco parks alliance.

>> good morning, commissioners and happy holidays, bob palacio, san francisco recreation services. the item before you is a possible action item to retroactively accept a gift from the san francisco parks alliance in the amount of 65 thousand 205 dollars and 36 cents for the basketball program, just some background on the program, the association of basketball programs, anblp serves character treats ages 18 to 30, organized athletic activities, in this case basketball, educational and employment workshops and ancillary services and they work community responsibility and redirect energies towards positive goal setting and

social goals, realization of these goals have stronger communities, they were led by the san francisco park and rec department, there were four divisions that were held this summer, we had a jr. division which is basically made up of teens and we have a young adults division and those both took place at both sites, we have a championship game as well, this is the current funder of this program or main funder of the program, that's how the 65 thousand dollars basically got to parks alliance so we want to make we understand their financial support is crucial to the program, not only now but