like and let you know the process that has taken place to get us to where we are today. if we could have the image back up, thank you. the arts commission is charged with reviewing the architectural designs for civic structures, and while our arts commission was approve -- reviewing and approving the design for the subway, the commissioners recommended that the glass that is included in this subway station be enhanced with a design treatment. so that was initiated through the civic design review process and approved by the arts commission and then it came ovto my program to initiate a process and so we issued a national call for artists. we included a member from the union square business

improvement district on our selection panel, as well as another community member, who is involved in the central subway citizens' advisory committee and representatives from the mta and from our arts commission, as well as arts professionals. and we received hundreds of applications, and the panel reviewed those applications and narrowed the finalists down to three finalists, and those artists submitted the proposals. we put them on display for public comment and we also sent them to the union square business improvement district and they could provide comment back to us before we had our second selection panel meeting. through that process the panel selected local artists jennifer

starkweather and amanda, the artist team and together they have produced this design, that features -- unfortunately the image is quite blown out. there is very fine line work that references maps and topographic imagery. can you see the line work? so it's very fine line work and it does show up over here on this computer screen. so if it's worth it to you, you are welcome to come down and take a look at it on the screen. and there are parts the map that are marked with red and orange dots that reference commute patterns and they worked with the mta to gather data on how people use public transit in san francisco, and also in the bay area. and so then they located some of the dots. this is not a map and it does not refer to any specific

geography. it is map and commute pattern-inspired artwork, that if someone were to look at it, they might be able to start to recognize forms that seem like the geography of the bay area, but they won't be able to navigate from union square or anywhere else using that as a map. so that is the visuals for it and i wanted to also explain to you physically where the artwork is going to exist. i know there was of concern when we were first discussing with rec and park staff would their maintenance folks be responsible for taking care of this? and i just wanted to pull up another image. so this a conceptual sketch that shows how the glass for

that glass deck is actually manufactured. so there is a top layer of glass that has a non-slip on it that people actually walk on and just a little bit of air and a center layer of glass and that is the layer that has the artwork. it's a digit image output on film and it's laminated between two pieces of glass and then it's slid in there and it is the central piece of glass. and then there is a bottom layer of glass, which is the ceiling for the station below. so if the surface of the deck is graffitied, the graffiti is not happening on the artwork layer, but the top layer that people are walk on and likewise, if people tried to graffiti from underneath, they would graffiti on the outer layer of glass.

i edto mention how this artwork would appear both during the day and at night. glass is a reflective tell and during the day, when the sun is shining on it, it's going to be quite subtle. however, from within the station, the imaginary will be very clear and back housing -lit and you can imagine a cathedral and at night mta plans to have the station illuminated and back-lit and be visible and more brilliant from the outside at night. i think i have covered all the details on this piecing and i am happy to answer any questions and i want to let you know about approval process.

we brought this proposal to union square business improvement district this week one more time just to check in with them and they appreciated it was the subtlist of all the three design and they didn't want anything garish and so they liked the design. and i bring it to you today and next stop in our approval process is to go to the committee level of the arts commission. it's the visual arts committee and they are meeting may 23rd, i think. if it's approved there, it would go to the full commission june 1st. so if you have any comments or concerns i would certainly be happy to bring those to the commission to share those. >> maybe before we get public comment, go ahead, commissioner bonilla. >> could you show that design again? i am going to go down, because i'm having difficulty conceptualizing this. >> maybe as commissioner bonilla is looking at, that i

can ask you, i have been told this is a little bit of a gray area about this commission's authority, but if we didn't like something, we actually would have the authority to kill something. and so it seems to me that asking a rec and park commission to weigh in on an art piece is maybe the inappropriate place and you are mentioned it's going to go to the commit tee and then the full arts commission and i would ask as an information item, that you come back after the next meeting of the art commissions and perhaps let us know what they thought. >> i would be happy to do that and i should mention that once the artist is placed under contract, it goes under three phases of design. so if there was something in this particular design that really didn't work for, we can work with the artist to try to minimize that. in terms of jurisdiction, the art commission strives to be a

good partner with all other city agencies and we certainly hope that you guys would support this design. >> right. you may have heard me mention in my own comments about the piece and still asking this commission to weigh in might be the wrong place to do it. thank you for your presentation. commissioner levitan, you had a question. >> it was very interesting to hear how the artwork is between two pieces of glass. that is the floor?

>> commissioner bonilla? >> i guess it's difficult to really conceptualize this, because we're not really looking at visual from the standpoint of how this design is viewed when we're seeing the reflections. you know, light changes and so on. so aesthetically, it's difficult to kind of wrap myself -- i can't wrap myself around it because i'm not really seeing the practicality, meaning how does it look when there is light reflecting on

it? and what are people seeing and will they comprehend what it means in terms of all -- the intent of the design. you know? >> i can speak to that a little and i would also be happy to bring a material sample when i come back and we could both hold it up to the window and then hold it on other side of the wall, so you can see differences. but with regard to the meaning of the artwork, the arts commission does install interpretative plaques for all of our installations that does give a brief explanation of the artwork. but then, also, this artwork at the end of the day is an abstract image. so it's going to be a pretty open-ended type of design for people. hopefully they will understand it's map-inspired, but beyond

that, it's kind of image color. >> thank you very much. >> is there any public comment on this item? being none, public comment is closed. this was discussion only. so we're on item 11, golden gate park san francisco botanical garden lease and management agreement >> good morning commissioners, nick kinsey >> speak into the mic. >> sorry >> you are too tall for the mic. >> every time, nick kinsey, director of property management for the rec and park department and happy to bring before the commission today a new lease and management agreement with one of our longest and

cherished partners the botanical garden society and since 1955 the botanical garden society has provided crucial support to the department as we have managed and operated a really living museum. the botanical gardens support for the garden has included building and operating the hellonen crocker library and funding the botanical garden master plan that was completed as a submaster plan to the golden gate park master plan and providing important educational programss for youth and outreach to visitors. also importantly paying for an 11th gardener each year at the gardens to help us maintain it in world-class condition. and then providing critical curatorial and plant collection development support to assist

the department in keeping that living museum thriving. most recently, the botanical garden support has included developing plans and beginning capital development program to build a new nursery at the site, which will be a shared-use nursery and will help us, again, keep that world-class living museum thriving for generations to come. that is approximately a $12 million capital campaign that the botanical garden society is completing and if all goes well with that, they are hoping to or we are hoping to begin construction on nursery in january of 2014. and the commission did approve those plans and the board of supervisors has approved the plans and gifts and we're waiting to finish up the capital campaign and break ground out there early next

year. since 2002, the botanical garden society has been leasing certain spaces at the county fair building from the department under a lease agreement. they have also for the last three fiscal years, administered the non-resident botanical garden for the department and they have done so under a grant agreement that the department signed with them in 2009. current lease and management agreement that is before you would bring all of these functions under one agreement between the city and our trusted partner. the initial lease term would be ten years. there would be two potential ten-year extensions. the use -- the permitted uses would be numerous, but they would include those elements that we spoke about before, outreach, operating the

library, operating the visitor center and bookstore, collecting on behalf of the department the admission fees, as well as the educational programs and the curatorial programs would all be permitted and required uses. the premises are a sort of a varied number of premises within both the county fair building and the botanical garden itself. they include space in the county fair building for offices, the library, the bookstore, and adjacent area to the bookstore for plant sales. and then once the nursery is completed, there would be shared use of that nursery in the botanical garden society would be permitted to a certain portion of that nursery with the remaining portion being

used by our gardening staff to develop the plant collections. there is a base rent of $100 per year as part of this lease and management agreement. and then as it relates to their management of non-resident botanical garden visitor fee, they will be collecting all of those fees on behalf of the city and the department. there is a reimbursement schedule outlined in the lease that would detail how those revenues are reimbursed to the various parties. the first expense would be repaying the society for their costs in implementing the fee. so the staffing costs, any infrastructure that they need, telephone lines to process credit card receipts, anything of like, those would be the first items paid, so to speak, with the admissions fees.

the next $250,000 would go to the department to support our activitis at the garden. there is a one-time cost of $75,000 to reimburse the botanical garden society for their first-year costs in implementing the fee, which we have not yet to-date be able to fully reimburse them for. and then as soon as that $75,000 were repaid, it would no longer be an obligation and we would go to the next expenditure or the next allocation, which is $250,000 to the society to support their operations, their educational and outreach operations at the department. again, the society is an organization with over a $2.5 million budget annually; that is spent solely supporting our

activities at the garden. they spend hundreds of thousands of hour each year on curatorial support and they spend hundreds of thousands of dollars each year on outreach and educational programs for visitors to the botanical garden and the department as part of this agreement wants to provide them support in these activitis that they are doing really on behalf and as a city operating if modern-day california we are not and to make as much an investment in this property as we would perhaps like to. the last allocation would be that all remaining funds are deposited into a botanical garden improvement fund. again, this idea of creating a dedicated maintenance account for our facilities, especially a world-class living museum

that is only going to stay thriving with continued investment. we think it's really important over the last six decades, we have working with the botanical garden society built a tremendous facility. we believe that with this agreement and also especially with this continued dedicated ongoing funding source for the garden, that we can actually improve and enhance it and only make it more of an asset for san francisco, and its visitors. i did want to discuss briefly the non-resident visitor fee. many of you may recall we proposed this in 2009 and it was approved by the board of supervisors and when it was originally proposed they included a sunset provision, such that it would sunset in 2013, if it were not approved or if it were not reauthorized by the board of supervisors as

part of our annual budget submission we have submitted legislation that would ask for that reauthorization and remove the sunset provision. and we are hopeful that the board should choose to continue to support this reauthorization, fee we think has proven to be very successful and providing revenue to support the botanical garden and our extensive maintenance needs out there. so with that i would be happy to answer any questions. >> let me ask one question, will that fee come before the board at the same time that they consider the lease? >> we are hoping to do that. >> thank you. let's get public comment. >> we have several cards and i'm going to call off a few names. earnest ames, laurie letterman. [ reading speakers' names ]

if you could please come up. >> good morning, my my name is ernest ing and i am here to voice my support for the lease management for the botanical garden society here. i have been a volunteer at golden gate park for 25 years and started as a volunteer for an organization, which is now called san francisco park alliance. i have been a dosant at the japanese tea garden and i'm currently a dosant at the botanical garden and the conservatory of flowers. i am on the board there. i think it doesn't take very long for anybody who does any work in the park or in the park to know that the park is a success, because of the non-profits and the caudry of

volunteers that they have here. one of the outstanding examples would be the botanical garden society, working in partnership with the botanical garden here. not only that we have the library, and the bookstore, but we have a very extensive dosant program, which i am involved in. and we'll come to a table and listen to some aspect of the park. this is very important work and not only is the society helping to maintain this beautiful

place, but to educate people and to help in the conservation of the work of the city and the rec and park department here. thank you. >> next speaker. >> my name is laurie, a 38-year resident of san francisco and i have a number of concerns about the lease with the san francisco botanical garden society and these were submitted to commission by letter yet yesterday. i recognize that they are deeply imbedded and whether there is a lease agreement for mou.

first and foremost the fee and id requirements continue to be a barrier to public access that i witness regularly. the issue of the fees will come under the purview of the befored board of supervisors. this builds in a class and income is to what should be a truly public place. it's, but one glaring aspect of the creeping prioritization that cumulative represents a dramatic loss to the general public of access to golden gate park and a number of neighborhood parks and facilities. the lease document refer to the san francisco botanical garden formerly known as the striding arboretum. this would be a significant break with history and disconnect the current facility from its on or before and special values a arboretum and even the botanical garden name-- in fact, it's the

striving arboretum that is being leased and should be noted that the extraordinary collection of trees is what makes the setting so very special and what sets it apart from many other botanical garden. i can only guess at the motivation for this conscious and deliberate break with history, but sadly i can only come up with bad reasons. i urge you to modify the document, so that it does not wipe out this piece of our history, preserve the name striving arboretum and retaining the name serves an educational purpose and historical connection with the facility. after seeing the fiasco of the city's agreement with america's cup, that thanks to sloppy, or perhaps deliberate drafting, leaves the city on the hook for $20 million; this document neat needs some careful review and editing. please do not approve it today until the editing happens. thank you.

>> mary. >> i have lived and worked in the golden gate park arboretum since 1969 and i also have problems with the language of the lease agreement. that it acknowledge explicitly that the san francisco botanical garden was built to serve in many ways.

the mission of the strybing arboretum and botanical garden is the california and san francisco bay area to provide educational and interpretative educations that promote public awareness of plants and environment and here is the crucial, offer a place of reflection, enjoyment and relaxation for the public. i also have read that -- [speaker not understood] to make it less accessible to is to further ereed what fredrick alstead felt was essential for democracy and

space available to all regardless of economic status. so acknowledging that the garden is a place for the public and fees are just completely damaging and contrary to that spirit. so first, to acknowledge that it is not a living museum. it is a place for public enjoyment, reflection and relaxation. >> thank you. >> dennis david and we have sue anne. [speaker [ reading speakers' names ] >> good morning, commissioners. i am a native san franciscan and today representing take back our park a coalition of advocates and a group that waged a partially successful battle to limit the fees or reduce the fees or wipe out the

fees at the arboretum. let me spell something that i think was not very clear about the name. the name of the garden should be -- and the name in the lease -- throughout the lease should be the san francisco botanical garden at strybing arboretum. that is the name of the society that you are about to lease to that is called the san francisco botanical garden society at strybing arboretum. that was the name as i understand was adopted by the parks department in 2004, from the original name. we have submitted the proposed changes we would like to see in the language of the draft lease agreement yesterday and i want to address a couple of points, but i want to say upfront, that we still are unambiguously

opposed to any fee to walk in our public fees and that is 55 acres at 5.5% of our largest crown park. there should be no fee to walk in that park. i want to also point out that in last two and a half years, you guys have given the san francisco botanical garden society $725,000 to help pay for the administering of the fee. so the fee itself and whether or not it really produces the kind of money that was suggested in the cover letter that nick kinsey said, $1.3 million, i'm not sure that is accurate , but i'm not going to challenge that today. i want to talk about on page 14 in section f, both single dot i and double dot i, i want the language and i think a lot of people including t bop and kaf want to see that it's explicit in this agreement that there