mentor. we look for her for guidance, help and clarity and she made things happen and always gave us so much pride in feeling like we were the soldiers out there in the field and we had the support of the commission and the department. and all of the other park advocates to work together as a real team. so i'm going to miss her terribly and i hold her as the person most responsible to getting to the point where we are now with the saturday in the park in mclaren and it's that kind of advocacy that has been so important. we miss her, but we're happy for her future, too. thank you. >> thank you.

>> my name is christina with the indian basin neighborhood association and i wanted to thank meredith thomas. as my fellow volunteers have said, it's so nice to work for parks after your day job to have somebody whose park advocacy is her day job and she was so effective and on behalf of the neighborhood association, for her tremendous advocacy of the blue-green way, particularly in indian basin and chair hammond couldn't be here, but expresses the same feelings. thank you so much for your support of parks. thank you. >> thank you. >> good morning commissioners. general manager ginsburg and i am going save some of my thunder for the beer bust that

we're throwing next friday afternoon on behalf of the meredith, you are all invited and everyone in the audience you are all invited as well. so we'll crack open a few beers and have a real celebration of meredith's contributions then. i wanted to take a moment to acknowledge a few key observations here. so as you all know the parks alliance was created out of the merger of neighborhood parks council and the parks trust, just shy of two years ago, time flis when you are having fun. meredith willingness stepped aside as executive director of the neighborhood parks council to become the stewardship for the parks alliance and successfully navigating that kind of transition in the non-profit sector is rare. and it is just one of many credits to go to meredith for her professionalism, her dedication to the parks system in san francisco and her talents. in my tenure in this position,

there is no way i could possibly imagine having been even remotely successful in this position without meredith at my side everyday and i mean that from the bottom of my heart. so thank you to meredith for that. i also want to acknowledge what you all have just done, the gesture that you have arranged directly from the mayor and from every member of the board of supervisors, is a very high accolade, fully deserved on behalf on everyone at the parks alliance thank you for acknowledging meredith's contributions. thank you. >> thank you. >> is there any other public comment? being none, public comment is closed. we're on item 5 the consent calendar. >> shall we see if there is any public comment? >> any public comment on the

consent calendar? being none, public comment is closed. >> entertain a motion. >> moved. >> seconded. >> everyone in favor? >> aye. >> so moved. >> item 6, san francisco zoo. >> good morning commissioners, general manager ginsburg, my name is joe fitting the vp of conservation and education at the san francisco zoo. tanya couldn't be here today, so i will be giving the may report, but if i can just sidestep for a moment and add my comments about meredith thomas, if you would? i just want to point out that i am a very lucky guy and i get the opportunity to work with some amazing people and meredith, of course, walked into my life when she was 12 years old and, in fact we worked with many of the meredith family.

but meredith roared through our learning ladder and became part of your career ladder and her legacy echoes to this day. she is one of our brightest and just really, my heart warms to think about how big of an impact the san francisco zoo has on our families and children, and meredith, again, you really made me a success, you really did. thank you. okay. as they say, let's go to the may report, let's do the numbers. the zoo is having an incredible year, and lots of people are coming now and that is great. may was overbudget by 5000 people and year-to-date

attendance, almost 100,000 people over our budget and that -- there are a couple of reasons to explain this. of course weather is one, but we also have some great opportunities. for example, in may we did have a mother's day event and every mom showed up with a kid and that means grandma too got into the zoo free. i want to point out that we are also doing -- we did the same thing for fathers in june, any father who showed up with a kid or grandfather, they also got in free. but some of the other reasons to this success, i think, are these guys. you know we had a very interesting birth recently. our sumatran tiger cub is doing well and everyone wants to see this amazing creature. what an opportunity to see this animal and see it grow and evolve and it's really an amazing thing to see such a rare animal and

people are coming to see it also. you are seeing our new giraffe, who is literally only a couple of months old. this animal is now able to go out into savannah everyday and people are thrilled to see this creature doing well and thriving. we have another animal, who is a very unique animal at the zoo. it's our peckory. this is a managed species and we collaborate with zoos and aquariums all over the world. this is a truly rare, rare animal found in the kind of mountainous regions of south america and you can see the baby there. it's a very unique animal. if you have never real seen

them up chose, come to the zoo and see the mom and the troup and the baby. here is another one. this is another reason i think the zoo has been very successful. tanya brought in a new kind of paradigm, bringing traveling exhibits to the zoo. this started a couple of years ago. you may remember our rainforest maze in the tropical building and soon after we brought in a fabulous tarantula traveling exhibit and that really thrilled everyone. recently we had a dinomaze in our new refurbished what we call ihop building, the old elephant house and that exhibit went away and we had the unique opportunity to work with the mexican government to bring a traveling exhibit in, talking about the gray whale and its migration along the western side of the pacific and really

talking about the natural history of the animal and all the other animals found within the gray whale migration pattern. it's a unique opportunity. we're partnering with the mexican government and the exhibit is in spanish and we're reaching into the latino community in a very successful way. i am very proud and i didn't think it would respond to kids because it's a really technical, but kids are really enjoying the videos attached to it and images and the human relationship with the whale and the whale history and environment. i reached out to noaa, the national oceanic and atmospheric administration and said hey, we have a unique opportunity to talk about the amazing oceans found right off san francisco. and they were delighted to partner with us. we have a beautiful graphic

talking about these really significant marine sanctuaries right off the golden gate bridge, the cordell banks, the gulf of the farallones and monterey bay aquarium and it's really a unique time to talk to our visitors about the oceans and how it influences us all. so traveling exhibits are really helping the zoo and people are really enjoying them. just to let you know, come september we have another traveling exhibit that is going to be called "bugs." and i will let you imagine what that is about. in january, 2014, we'll have another traveling exhibit called "the scoop on poop." i will let you think about that one, too. [ laughter ] i want to point out on july 4 we're going to have a special red white and zoo day and anybody showing up with a flag and i mean anybody, carrying a plastic flag and

you get a $2 discount and every day is a discount day for our military. you show up with your military id, you get a discount also. >> just a quick snapshot on our summer programs. there are interpreters that are using this living classroom to help people understand about the wild places and wild things and that is where meredith started. these are some of the programs that she started on and helped influence and again, her presence is still rippling to this day. 380 kids are learning about the wild places and helping to influence people. about a thousand kids will be going through this using the living classroom called the san

francisco zoo and our traveling zoo throughout the greater bay area. we did over 13,000 kids who saw these incredible animals and learned about the wild places and wild things. so i just want to close by thanking you all for your support and contributions to the san francisco zoo and the living classroom. we really couldn't do ited without you. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> any public comment on this item? being none, public comment is closed and we are on item 7. >> good morning commissioners mary hobson, project manager. the item before you is related to the mountain lake park playground renovation project. it is a four-part approval. we are bringing these to you together because they are

interrelated and rely upon each other for success. i will walk you through each of the four items will be presenting to you today and then i will handoff the presentation to our project ark architect. the four items first is approval of a conceptual plan for the renovation of mountain lake park playground. the second is to recommend to the board of supervisors that they accept and expend a gift from the friends of mountain lake park playground. next is to approve a memorandum of understanding between the recreation and park department and the san francisco parks alliance for the joint design and construction of the playground. and finally, four, to approve a donor recognition program for the project. mountain lake park is located in district 2 in the inner richmond and it's a 15.2-acre park, bond on the south by lake

street to the north by -- and east by the presidio and highway 101 to the left, it includes these structures. in 2012 a group of mothers joined together and created the friends of mountain lake playground with the goal of advancing family-related issues in the park and specifically the renovation of the playground in the park. they joined forces with the architecture firm and park as license and alliance and the architectural firm and mountain lake playground was the recipient of a $2 million budget from the 2012 clean and

safe neighborhood park. we believe this is a well-received and popular park renovation plan, which you will be happy to approve. >> thank you mary. commissioners, general manager, thank you. my name is aaron gomez, i am an architect here in san francisco. also a neighbor of the park. i live just two blocks away from the site. so it's something very important to me,

and basically well in my backyard. our main goal is the redesign of the mountain lake park playground was to make a playground that is fitting to the unique context of the site, and also as unique as the greater mountain lake park is to san francisco. our selection of materials, play equipment and the careful siting of the playground, we hope underscores this goal. the layout of the playground, if we can go to the -- thank you. is largely driven by the desire in the community to maintain the existing concrete slide. and also to utilize a lot of the existing topography or different levels of the playground, which you won't find at a lot of playgrounds today. the caveat to keeping a lot of

this topography was that you need to provide an accessible route, from the toddlers area in yellow, up to the light green area, which is the school-aged children's area. and then in the lower left-hand corner is the hill that has the existing concrete slide. we have chosen to embrace this ramp idea and use it more as a unifying thread, in the design of the playground, something that acts to link all of these different areas together and becomes more of a horizontal play space. alongside these ramps, we have created a low-meandering wall that acts to enclose the playground and limit the points of entry; that that is something that the community and us as well found was missing from the playground and made it very difficult for

classes and familis to visit the playground. at the same time, we thought it was important there was a balance, that this wall at once contained the playground, but also we wanted to keep in mind that we didn't want to close it off from the larger context of mountain lake park, something that was very important to us, kind of maintaining this link to the greater park around us. this balance is achieved through the selection of materials, but also the careful siting of this wall, to make it seem inevitably and it had always been on the site. there is some images of kind of the material character that we are looking for. the reed texture that you see in the upper left-hand corner, we're planning to use that as sort of an inspiration to create a reed pattern within

this concrete wall that encloses the playground and it's offset with the addition of wood benches and decking in the parents' areas and we think that will create some of the nice little pockets of warmth within the play area. we have strategically located these parents' areas to have the most opportunity to be able to survey the larger playground, to see the existing -- they are currently under renovation, but the bathrooms, which are to the left, in the image there. and also, to take advantage of the best views of the lake beyond. from this central parents' area, it's the only entry to

the toddlers' area here, which we have planned out as sort of an echo of the sand dunes that once existed on the site, molding these out of the safety surfacing. the sand dunes then have a backdrop of what we're calling like a column of -- a forest of columns, sorry. and the whole area is dotted with individual play equipment, that references the unique species that are found at the lake and also references the history of mountain lake park. going down towards the lake, you encounter the school-aged play area. this area we specifically choose the equipment to feel like it had always been on site or was potentially derived from the site. so you see the large structure to the right, which are is basically a large construction of tree trunks and

nets that could almost be like you just stumbled upon it within the park. you have the backdrop of these great, giant trees and in front of that, we have created this sort of ropes course. again, out of -- utilizing the tree trunk language and also looked very carefully for long-chain swings, which would match the swings that exist on site, in height. that is something that the community was really in favor of. the school-aged play area then extends up the hill to include the existing concrete slide, and we have created a scrambling area adjacent to that, that would create kind of this central core of intense

activity. and again, sort of caveat with keeping this existing concrete slide was to create a ramp to the top landing. so that anybody could go up and enjoy the slide, but also it was important as well to have the sense that you could get to the highest point within the playground. this ramp kind of gracefully cuts on the backside of this hill and along the way you encounter imprints and footprints of some of the native species from the lake. and then also a landing that has -- that functions as an overlook with telescopes and kaleidoscope you can look out and sort of reestablish the connection to your surroundings . a couple of renderings that give you a better feel than i

think the plans convey. this is entry from 12th avenue with the lake in the background. you can see that the landscape sort of step downs in front you. to the left there, you see the toddler's area and the overlook that has these toothpick columns or what we call "the forest of columns." and the overlook is at mid-height there. then the opposite view. this is from the lake, looking back up towards the playground. you can see the neighboring buildings in the background and this wonderful backdrop of trees that we have really tried to take advantage of. some of the climbing structures are visible in the foreground there, again, built out of these sort of tree trunks, almost looks like a logjam kind of and then the river and the concrete slide in the center of the frame.

thank you. >> hello, commissioners, my name is abigail maher and i am here to talk about the mou, and the donor recognition program and the grant acceptance. did you have questions for aaron? >> why don't you go ahead. >> great. so the mou that you have before you today for approval outlines the cooperative relationship between the department and the parks alliance, they are acting as a fiscal sponsors for the friends of mountain lake park playground. as you have just seen the proposed plan for the renovation is truly unique and like other community-driven projects like the most recent playground in lafayette park and mission dolores park. the estimated cost is $3.15 and

$2 million secured from the 2012 clean neighborhoods and parks bond and in order to bridge the estimated $1.15 million shortfall, the recommendation to enter into memorandum of understanding. as you will see in the mou it generally establishes the following: that rec and park and our partners agree to work together to deliver a renovation project as presented to you today. i would just like to say as mary hobson has mentioned, the friends of mountain lake park playground have been working with the department for a few years and they are extremely cooperative. not om do only working with our capital planning staff, but working with our operational staff to, from the folks who maintain the park and playground everyday to the structural maintenance as well.

that the parks alliance with the friends of mountain lake park playground will cover the estimated balance. the total gift, the $1.15 million is composed of two parts, one is the very generous in-kind support of aaron and his design firm valued at approximately $400,000 and the cash gift will be approximately $750,000 that will be gifted to rec and park and mary hobson will use that for her construction contract. rec and park will also provide management oversight and administration of the project, secure all necessary approvals, administer the construction contract and also provide the funding for that contract. both parties have agreed that the project must be delivered

no latter than the originally approved beyond schedule and both partis will try to deliver the project sooner. in the event that the bid exceeds the final budget, the park as license with the friends support shall bear the cost of redesign and support rec and park are readvertising the project and we feel confident that we'll be able to deliver a project that the community has asked for and seen in the community meetings. so in order to fundraise the friends of mountain lake park playground are requesting a donor recognition plan that will be a natural part of the playground. you do have this exhibit c in your packet.

how do i get this? great. it's a little hard to see over the monitor, but essentially the program includes three potential ways to recognize donors who contribute to the project and the donor recognition plans would be revised and refined based on the final fundraising campaign, but they would like to see approval three different ways. one is to have cast bronze donor recognition plaques and these plaques would be cast into the concrete wall that is around thennial of the playground. they are also proposing large granite pavers, salvaged from the site to be engraved with donors' names and also granite pavers set into the

amphitheater seating, can again would have the donor's names engraved in them and all of their plans will abide by the commission's gift policy. since this give is valued at $100,000 or more, then staff is required to seek board of supervisors' approval and said we are also requesting your recommendation to bring this project to the board of supervisors. the goal of the friends members, kate green, et cetera is to kickoff their fundraising campaign this month, working in parallel with the project team as we develop the design and construction documents. the goal is to be prepared to deliver an estimated $750,000 to rec and park to use towards the conception contract in about one year. that is my presentation. i am happy to answer any questions. thank you. >> thank you. >> that concludes our presentation, if you have any

questions, we would be happy to answer them. >> dawn, did you want to say something? >> i really wanted to compliment the friends of mountain lake playground and say you have been absolutely lovely to work with throughout this whole process. many community groups approach us and say how do we get our project done quickly? and i say you should be organized and collaborative and that is the sure path to victory and you took that advice to heart and set the standard for many of our project groups and i want to make you mentors for our other groups because you have done such an excellent job. you have been to proactive and thoughtful in your approach to the project and we're looking forward to working with you over next two years to deliver this project. so thank you very much. >> why don't we entertain public comment on that note? >> we do have a speaker card. [ reading speakers' names ]