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good afternoon. welcome to the san francisco board of supervisors. november 5, 2013. happy election day. if you have not voted, you have 6 hours. madam clerk, please call the roll. >> yes, mr. president. supervisor avalos. present. supervisor breed, here, campos

present, president chiu, present, supervisor cohen, present, supervisor ferrel, present, supervisor kim, present, supervisor mar? mar present, supervisor tang, present, wiener, yee present. >> thank you, ladies and gentlemen, please join us in the pledge of allegiance. pledge of allegiance. >> colleagues we have or board minutes from october 1, 2013.

those meetings are approved. >> madam clerk initiation communications? >> there is no communications. >> items 1 through 11. they may heard separately if anyone questions. >> call the roll. >> [roll call vote taken] there are 11 ayes. >> those motions are passed.

item 12. >> the clerk: item 130940: [contract agreement - ips group, inc. - award of single-space parking meter procurement and support services - not to exceed $54,000,000] sponsor: avalos resolution authorizing the municipal transportation agency to enter into an agreement with ips group, inc., for the procurement of single-space parking meters and support services, for an amount not to exceed $54,000,000 and for a term of five years, to commence following board approval, with the option to extend the contract for up to two additional years>> the clerk: sf 1212341234 >> supervisor avalos? >> thank you, this item is still being baked. i would like to continue it to november 26th, i believe there is new rules that the mta board of directors would like to install new parking meetings and that will be discussed on november 26th. >> supervisor avalos has offered a motion of continuance. is there a second. any objection? without objection this item is continue to november 26th. >> item 13.

the clerk: item 130766:[park code - hours of operation for city parks] sponsors: wiener; farrell ordinance amending the park code to establish hours of operation for city parks from 5:00 a.m. to midnight, with certain exceptions; and making environmental findings.1234124 >> supervisor wiener? >> thank you, mr. president. before us we have established parking hours from 5:00 a.m. to midnight. the purpose is to address the significant problems of vandalism, dumping, metal theft in our park systems. this vandalism and dumping cost parks and recreation about a million dollars a year and almost exclusively happens in the middle of the night. we've heard from parks and recreation employees that they leave work and everything is fine and return at 6:00 a.m. and things are trashed. and it happens on a remember basis and it happens in the middle of the night.

right now, of the 30 largest american cities, san francisco is the only one without codified park openings and closing hours. this list of cities that have codified park hours include big cities like new york and chicago and philadelphia. smaller cities like seattle, portland and santa monica and berkeley. the hours are inconsistent, unclear and unenforceable. there is no mention of park hours in our municipal code. and about 20 years ago the parks and recreation commission passed a series of resolution establishing hours throughout some parks throughout the city. some parts of limited and some

are not. parks of golder gate park but not all of golden gate park are included. as noted because of the lack of codified park hours, these signs that are typically posted by parks and recreation in the park have all been impossible to enforce. the best course is to establish a clear baseline establishing basic opening and close ing hours of parks from 5:00 a.m. to midnight. these have significantly narrowed the cities. they are offered from 10-6. longer hours than what we are proposing here. colleagues,

we all work very hard and our constituents work very hard to have parks that are clean and assessment there is nothing more moralizing that a community ban together to improve a park whether it's through renovation or replacing a playground or any other things that the community does and the community members and parks and recreation work so hard to come in and see their work trashed. whe we opened the delores playground several years ago, the beautiful one of the best playground in the city, the very best night it was trashed and vandalized.

there are streets in the laegsz legislation that will allow streets to go through as well as linkin park and panhandle and there are additional plazas under parks and recreation jurisdiction, union square, herman plaza, these will have a partial exemption in terms of peopling passing through the plaza in the middle of the night t legislation also provides flexibility for the parks and recreation commission based on neighborhood feedback if neighborhoods decide that it would be appropriate to set different hours to those parks because of neighborhood needs and so forth. colleagues, i think these are very reasonable pieces of legislation. it deserves your support. it is supported by parks and recreation and police department and san francisco alliance and labor 261, and various neighborhood park

groups and advocates. i do want to address an issue that some have raised around homelessness where people use the park to sleep or to resides. there has been a lot of debate around this issue. i have indicated my purpose in introducing this legislation has always been to combat vandalism daunld ping in the park. it has already been illegal to sleep or camp in parks. we don't need more laws in terms of addressing from the law enforcement perspective sleeping or camping in our parks. it is already illegal to the extent if police want to remove people sleeping and camping in parks they already have the tool to be able to do that. this legislation does not give them additional tools

beyond frankly what they already have. this is about preventing vandalism. i know there are -- that our chief of mres is police is here. if he's not he's on his way to answer any questions that anyone may have and the general manager of parks is here. this deserves your support and i ask for it. i know that supervisor yee will be speaking on his amendments and i'm supportive of those amendments, thank you. >> supervisor yee? >> thank you, supervisor wiener for introducing this legislation. colleagues, today we'll be introducing amendments to this ordinance to clarify and focus both the intent and goals of this legislation. i believe that first and foremost we have a problem of enforcing

many of the conduct that i believe this ordinance will help address. activities that are already illegal. vandalism, disorderly conduct and graffiti. at it's current level of staffing, the department has 26 staff but only two are able to patrol the park at night. in terms of the park being safe is an increasing presence of park patrol during the evening hours. so, i have included in my amendment language that encourage the department to prioritize staffing at nighttime. i also know there are resources and want to be on record that i support additional resources to go to the parks and recreation to ensure this is an ordinance that can be implemented. i

believe where this legislation will have the biggest impact is in our small parks and playground including my district. i have included language in the findings to recommend that enforcement be prioritized for small neighborhoods parks and playgrounds. i also believe in having a clearer picture of the problem. my amendments include an annual report requirement to put a number of citations issued and what kind of sight citations and the cause of the vandalism issues. regardless of today's vote on the legislative itself, we must send a strong message that the city must keep our neighborhood parks clean and safe. so, i also want to

thank supervisor cohen for cosponsoring these amendments. colleagues i ask for your supports. >> supervisor yee has offered amendments. can we take the amendment without objection. without objection the amendments are included. supervisor cohen, you are next up on the roster. >> yes. i want to echo some of the comments that supervisor yee highlighted articulated some of my concerns to the legislation which is why i'm supporting this and to staff, thanks for being here. i appreciate your work that you have done thus far. so mr. gisberg. i have some questions for clarification, how many

officers do you have enforcing park rules as it relates to today? >> thank you. supervisor. general manager. we have about 18 or 19 full time park rangers. it is a 7 day a week -day a week 24-hour operation. >> is this number of personnel representative of the increased ability to hire more people in the last budget cycle. >> thanks to the support of this board we were able to hire 4-5 park patrol officers and as needed park patrol group that helps us fill in with folks on relief. our coverage is getting

better. we are resourced challenge given we have over 4,000 p acres of park. and over time that will change when we are no longer operating candle stick and those shifts will be incorporated back in our regular park system. >> just for clarification it's candle stick the stadium, not the park. >> correct. candle stick stadium. >> what will be the level of the park enforcement officers?

>> well, again, i think we have 4,000 acres, 220 parks and they are broken up into 6 or 7 park service areas. to put this in perspective, i think we would like to have a shift of park patrol officers in every park service area to assist park users and keep an eye on our neighborhood parks throughout our system and our largest regional park such as maclaren park and golden gate park are large enough, maclaren park is over 4 00 acres and golden gate park over a thousand acres to be broken up. it's important to mention what these officers do everyday. our park patrol

officers are not just about enforcement. they are ambassadors, about education, they are also keeping an eye on special events and answer questions to members of the public and lock and unlock bathrooms and they offer a pretty broad away of functions for park users. >> thank you. so, sit safe to say that you would enjoy say if we were to increase our budget in an allowing more park patrol officers we would have a better and more row best robust of patrol officers. >> yes. >> one of my concerns is that so parks aren't getting the

adequate level of patrol and it sounds like it's a capacity issue and maybe we can continue to have conversations for the next year's budget. i think where i'm still somewhat uncomfortable, where someone receives a citation. from an enforcement step, what happens next? >> what i think chief is sur and mr. lotey both agreed that public issues that happen in parks and some of the ambassadorial issues that happen in the parks, we are

working closely with sfpd and when you put this in perspective, we are charged with stewarding over 27 percent of the land. this is tough to do without the support of sfpd, but also without efforts to activate our parks and the volunteers and all the ingredients to keeping the safe parks. there is no question that with respect to vandalism and illegal dumping and the type of stuff that we are trying to correct a little bit through this ordinance, that in a sense this provides a little bit more of an efficient tool given the fact that we are resource challenged because it is impossible to keep our eyes, we enough staff to keep our eyes on all 4,000 acres. there is ths a tool that we ca