the swimming pool. i know it's general comment. it was it used before 7:30-11:00 a.m.. i know many people go there because it's the -- better hours. since i have a little bit of time, i would talk about recent renovations around the pool and was shocked to see the results. the area used to be lush and green before. the chain link fence which would have stand there for many years was replaced with another chain link fence without the ivy

around it. they spend an amount of money that is not necessary. the showers, need to be taken care of. i was asking if my brother-in-law can just switch them to be separate. >> is there any additional public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. >> commissioner, low? >> can you tell us something about the qualifications of els? have they done pool projects in the past? >> yes, they have actually, we did an extensive background check on them. we actually visited a couple of the pools of what they have done. they

worked on the east oakland new pool building that was just finished about 3 years ago. we visited it and we talked to a lot of the operations and managers that actually run the pool and they are quite satisfied. >> this contract is for full design services. did they talk about the landscaping and structural and mechanical? is that correct? >> that's correct. >> the 950 contract should catch much of the cost? >> it's going to catch most of the engineering and soft cost related to pm services, surveys and the work itself outside of that and that is contemplated in the budget itself which you

have in front of you. >> and to make the architects assignments efficient does it make programming for what this project is designed for? >> we intend to embark on an extensive public outreach for this in february. we are going to have a couple of community meetings that is going to refine some of the program needs for the building itself. we have done some prior to going out to for the services itself and we are going to refine that to solicit input from the operations staff and all the stake holders. >> we'll do that internally and not involve the architects.

>> right. >> are they putting in a wave for surfing. >> it's in community design. but definitely been a need for a little bit more varied recreational activity. >> all right. i'm in for it. i guess the one thing that kind of hit me when i read through this is our soft cost is almost half, more than half of our construction cost. is there any way we can control that to lower our soft cost? >> actually, the soft cost is only about 28 percent. >> does that normal? >> that is normal. it's usually between 25-30 percent. >> is it more than half than

our estimated construction cost? >> no. >> okay >> any other questions? entertain a motion? >> so moved. >> moved and seconded. all in favor say, "aye". >> aye. >> so moved. >> we are on item 9. 2012/2013 annual report by the controllers office. >> good afternoon, this is a joint report. i'm steve rock well, senior analyst in operations. >> hi, i'm natasha project manager of the controllers office. thank you for having us here this morning. this is the

results of our 7th annual report of the park standards. today we'll just go through a few of the results before handing it off to steve. as you know our staff go and do evaluations. we evaluate every park once a year. the parks and recreation staff go out four times a year so every park is rated. we should have up to five scores of each park every year. that's what makes the result of this report. as you can see on this chart, this is over all trend for the last 7 years. what you are seeing from light to dark green are within the quarter within that year and the diamond is giving you the over all score for that year. we are continuing the upward trend and this is the first time since there has been a little bit of movement. 87 percent of the park scores

above 85 percent. if a park is getting 85 percent it's in generally good condition. 69 percent have improved. if you compare this to last year, the numbers are different. steve will explain in a few minutes about the reweighting we did in the scores. we retroactively applied it to these scores. so the trend should remain the same. so what you are seeing here is a distribution of parks. in the green we have parks that are over 90 percent and yellow under and red under 80 percent. you can see the parks are still doing well. we had an increase this year for the parks scoring over 90 percent which is really good. there are still a few parks that are down there scoring less than 80 percent that i know the parks and

recreation is taking a look at to make sure those parks will be increasing in the future. in the in next slide we have a maep of the city. all districts are over 85 percent. district 9 is the highest and 10 is the lowest. the darker color being the distribution between 90-95 percent and the yellow between 85-95 percent. this chart here is the seven 7 years of the over all park scores. the big bar is part of what this over all score was and the diamond square was the highest district and the lowest district. you can see this year we had a narrowing of that gap which is great in district 9 and highest score and district 10 with the

lowest score. now i will hand it to steve. >> we are going to look at how we work internally, all of our areas scored above 85 percent. one showed an increase. it's almost a minor level kind of score. this screen, we present annually it shows all the various features that we rate throughout the park. they include general amenities, children's play areas, dog play areas, hard escapes, we look at lawns, ornamental plantings, restrooms, trees, fields for threat -- athletics and all of these areas are improving with

the scores and some have significantly improved since our evaluation process. what's interesting about this slide is that it does show the department's priorities. the things that are improving more are what we actively used. we have to be able to deal with them with open resources. the open space is a less maintained area and has had more available scores in the years and depends upon bond monies which are lagging a little bit. the best of all what you are thinking of an urban environment and the bay area and world visiting it, our scores have continued to hover and they hover well above that 80 percent line we are looking for. if you see a snapshot of the park in any individual evaluation that occurs and

those snapshots maybe different from day-to-day and month to month. they are in that target we want to be looking at. we are trying our best to make this whole system more valuable for the public and our front line staff so they can respond to what comes in the evaluations and make remedies that help the public and provide the best service we can. as natasha mentioned, we've gone from a left side of methodology used up to this year to a new methodology and it came out of a conversation we presented to the commission a year ago. before the scoring system that the department did and the scoring system that the controllers office did were given equal weight so we might go out to a park many more times during the year. the one

evaluation at the controllers office would have great impact. and given the fact that they can be out there in a day when it was just after a big park inventor some unusual social use occurred or where anything happened before a gardener arrived at a park, it was one further snapshot and we decided to equalize the snapshots and provide a more average score for you. so, along with that methodology change, we've made some further enhancements in our system so we can do better work. we are still in development on this first year of implementing a new way to track maintenance schedules at our parks. but 88 percent of our parks are now scheduled and 76 percent are compliant to the schedules and

we are hoping for more and as we get used to this system, they should go up. 66 percent more action plans are implemented this year. this is the first year from tracking and we went up to the level and speaks very well to how we are responding to evaluations. our largest trit erritories in the past were maclaren park and golden gate park took 6-9 hours to evaluate and you can imagine the results from that and what an evaluator can see in the process becomes very difficult to use on the back end. we've divide all of our parts into small areas so it's easier for the evaluator to do and we get easier results and we know where the problems like. finally last year we looked at 18 different parts from the beginning of our system and i'm

proud to say that two-thirds of those are scoring above the 85 percent mark. we see definite improvement on parks and we've given attention to the parks. so we continue to do little of these to help our forms used. we are changing the evaluation for so they are exactly what needs to be rated at a park and we are setting in motion performance standards so we are really looking at how evaluators are doing and how well they are applying the standards we set up. so the controllers office is making very nice recommendations for us each year. what is clear on the four recommendations given to us this year is that we are truly working with better

clooej alt and trust. we are such a team. i want to thank natasha and all the crew for the work they do for us. we want to continue to do the work and plan for fuller staff training and looking at revised standards we'll be adopting next year and looking for consistency and improvement in the maintenance schedule which is new this year and they ask us to strategically plan and continue to give resources to the parks. one thing i would bring to your attention to the scores they bring to the lowest. of last year, a year ago as report, the parks continue on this list this year. of the ones that are on this year's list, many of them are getting 2012 bond monies.

we are looking at cpa renovation, puc grant and we are already fully in the midst of bringing resources to these things. that's our report. >> thank you very much. we'll wait for public comment. >> robin? >> since i was able to come to the meeting today. one of the on going problems of the natural areas that we wish parks and recreation would address is trash dumping. nap natural areas program has exempted itself from the standards. the standards like nap is that of cleanliness. here is from a 10-foot distance. open space is met

with liter and debris. if more than 15 pieces of debris are visible. nap which controls the city parks does not have to main tain that very limited standard of cleanliness. the city controllers office does not inspect nap areas. as we all know one of the results is dumping and litering in the areas. the san francisco forest alliance has participated and in trash removal. we urge all of our supporters to volunteer in a moving trash. we really urge that the natural areas program land be held to at least the minimum cleanliness standard. thank you very much. happy holidays!. >> thank you. is there anyone

else who would like to make public comment on this item? being none. public comment is closed. >> commissioner low? >> i wonder steve, if you can just elaborate on the strategies that we are going to look at to improve the parks in district 1, 4, 10 and 11? >> so, commissioners, you know when you have a list of scores there is always a bottom 10. for us the most encouraging pieces of data on this report is twofold. one is the closing of the equity gap between five traditionally high performing districts and low performing. equity value is a large portion here and the fact that you are seeing between high and low

performing parks is a testament to staff and to our commission to close that equity gap. the other important piece of data is the fact that you are not seeing the same parks at the bottom 10 all the time. there is a variety of reasons why we have low performing scores in the parks and they range from sort of topography and climate. they range from the types of activity and intensity of use in a particular park. they have sometimes to do with the level of volunteer or community support that a particular park gets and it has to do with staff, personnel resources, etc. they are all variable factors in figuring out what park gets the lowest score. the controller has directed from staff as committed and it's why

we have staff working with the operation staff in supporting danny on his mission. we look at them quarterly. i know anna talks about our park scores in her weekly operations meetings with the managers. what the strategy is for the parks, i don't think there is a one size fits all solution. it depends on why the data is telling us the score is low. we are committed and we always look at the lowest performing and the highest performing to look at the practices that are keeping them there. we have 120 of them and each one is a unique creature. >> commissioner mcdonnell? >> thank you for the report and certainly encouraging to see both the closing of the gap as well as just the overall

improvement. a couple of questions in terms of detail, if you will. on the high, medium, low score distribution on fy 14, how those plot on the maps on the next side? >> on the citywide? i haven't done that plot. >> the high, medium, low bar chart, there is seven parks identified in red. i'm just curious how those plots by service area or the citywide map? >> what i can say is historically we've had lower scores in the southern eastern part of the city. this is the first year where we have seen in especially one of those areas in district 7, am i reading that right? really move up in score. so we've seen some of that really happen like

we'd like to plan it so the districts improve. >> steve, we actually have it. the distribution of the parks performing lower than 85 percent, there is more than 7 reflected here. in our different park service areas, i think it's slide, page, i don't know, in our commission handout packet it's page 191 of 285. and you will see that it says park service area performance. >> i do have the ten lowest rated parks. of those 7 we are talking about, we have two in district one, one in four and

one in 8 and one in 10. >> looking at the citywide map is there anything to -- i don't even know how to finish the question. interpret from read into concentration of the center of the city seems to do well and the topography type? >> this is a reoccurring story where generally historically some of our lowest performing parks have been in the southeastern sector of the city in districts 10 and 11. district nine also got a low scoring but now it has the highest score. it's a variety

of factors. one thing it's not is staff resources. we have often more in investment of more resources whether it's through the apprenticeship program in some of the areas that are most challenging for us. some of it is topography and some again is a lack of, we don't have quite the same level of volunteer infrastructure in some of our parks than others. but we have been aware and i think working pretty hard for the last several years to address what had been a historical trend of having when you look at that geography having some of our lowest scoring parks in really districts 10 and 11. you are seeing much of that this year. some of it has work to do. some by capital investment. it would

be interested to look at if commissioners are interested in doing a park evaluation. it's an eye opening look at our parks. some of them, you can attribute to well, we just didn't pick up that trash. some of them are capital issues. you have cracks in sidewalks and broken irrigation. there is a whole section on trees. so, there are really a lot of factors that go into why a park is scoring well. one of the reasons the gap is closing because of the policy choices the commission has made and a shift in bonds where we have put a significant amount of capital investment into parks in under served neighborhoods. >> commissioner low?

>> yes. i didn't press my button. steve did mention that 2012 bond, we are allocating bond proceeds and capital to these districts or the low performing parks. it's not if we are miss -- allocating. >> i think we've done a great job. we are balancing, there is a certain amount of investment. it's based on the condition of those parks. the truth of the matter is the 2012 bond is about $150 million of investment. as you know we have over a billion dollars worth of need. >> i just have one question probably for the general manager. in looking at the park

service area performance slide and service area 3, district 9, 10, 11, has the fewest number of higher scores and the most number of lower scores. i'm curious in general, to that realtor just in general, how does the department approach prioritization? because on the one hand, you have some equity challenges across the city, on the other hand you have some, glaring kind of need. how do you prioritize it? there is a capital piece of it but you also talk about, if not for want of distributing your team, does that mean your team is equally distributed and they do the best you can or are there moments where you reconsider redeploying your team? >> we deploy the staff and we

don't just divide it up evenly. it's a pretty complicated formula. we look at acres, topography and usage patterns. it's a mix of gardeners and custodians. these address touch on aging capital issues as well. it's a complex picture. i think we are very very sensitive of the need in our commitment to try to do the best job we can in parks that are not as supported. those parks actually tend to get more public capital investment and tend to get more resources in terms of hours. when we get, when we actually manage this, commissioners, when we get volunteers, larger corporations, united way that

wants to come in and do volunteer workday. everyone wants to volunteer in golden gate park. we often steer crews to maclaren park and bayview park to try to get more resources to those parks. it's a hard, there is no one simple answer here. i think more capital investment in those neighborhoods. i think we are seeing better trends of increased passion about stewardship in neighborhoods that where that typically hadn't been there. friends of playground. all the maclaren park advocacy groups. we are seeing more stewardship and advocacy and i think that's a good trend. but we are always shifting resources to the places that need it the most.

>> thank you, seeing no other questions, i thank the controllers office and the auditors and that's a very fine report to end 2013 on for the last item on the agenda. i apologize, i have to go and now commissioner low will chair this meeting. >> thank you. we are now on item 10, general public comment continued. is there any member of public who did not comment on item 4 that would like to speak on item 10. is there any additional public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. we have commissioner matters. >> i have one on commissioner matters, in our january meeting and knocking off things that should come off the list or should have a hearing. i'm a big to do list person. if we can eliminate some of our to do list items,