our project manager so thank you to the dpw team and our planning department, our director of planning director ram and rick that helped to bring this and the mta we had to move the overhead wires but edward reiskin from the mta made that happen and the contractor we're appreciative for the work that the dba lot brothers did and finally before i bring up the next speaker i want to acknowledge several of my colleagues are here the folks that funded the project but the board of supervisors appropriated the money to make this project happen so two of my colleagues are here the president of the board of supervisors david chiu and my

colleague supervisor campos so thank you, colleagues for being here tonight. >> so with that, we're at mayor ed lee will be here support shortly i want to thank when i pass the bond i went into the mayor's office i want our support and he immediately said, yes so i want to thank mayor ed lee for emphasis support he'll be here shortly i want to bring up two amazing people the director of public works mohammed nuru and one of any predecessors the great mark len so no come on up mohammed. >> good evening are you all excited as i am. >> yes. >> i'm excited i remember many, many years ago all the discussions that we were having

and what we could do for the castro and year and a half ago we went to many meetings down the street do you remember that all your idea and all that was brought into the plan that made today happen both situations you remember what they used to feel like how do you like them now? all right. we have trees out there and plays and nice lights all a the overhead lights have been changed this is the first of many projects that will be done around the city we started here because this is the area that was the most important i'm very, very very happy and excited to be part of this project there are also many things that are happening within city

government under the leadership of our mayor we're going to make sure we get the projects and we've heard from the supervisor wiener and the planning commission and public works and puc and rec and park we all work together to make sure we can deliver those amenities to you a few people i want to thank very special people that worked on the project our contractor railings who worked all the way to get us to this point and we still have further to go but i want to thank the businesses themselves just being patient with the construction happening and a lot of the impacts that effect all the businesses so you know please a big hand to all did businesses for the patience with us (clapping) for the project team our city engineering is here under

foreclosed and john thomas they lead the implementation of the project we also have john dennis and everybody know john dennis he was here everyday making sure we put our heads together to get this implemented and michelle and ashley i saw ashley just making sure things were happening and dean smith and alex part of the public works team that made this happen and finally i'm excited as well let's get the rest of our citywideer sidewalks and easier to walk around san francisco thank you very much thank you, thank you (clapping) >> hey one more time let's hear it for mohammed nuru the department of public works and the planning department, (clapping.) mayor ed lee who is behind this

from day one and, of course, this wouldn't have happened without supervisor scott wiener thank you scott (clapping.) and let me i'd like to take full credit but all those other folks we're here to say thank you and say on a extra special thank you to those who put out the most and surviving the most this is the merchant of the streets they were lost a lot of business and foot traffic and not easy on the neighbors but thank you merchants for opening your doors every day you know each day you have to start up again and it can be interpreting to see how difficult it is getting the customers in the doors while construction is going on things

are looking brighter and let finish i'm sure you've been to the jewish wedding there's breathing breaking of glasses but in times of joyfully celebration we break the glass to remind ourselves the word is broken and suffering i know that supervisor wiener knows this our job is not complete until we found a way to make sure the castro is affordable for as many people as possible thank you for coming out tonight and supervisor wiener our dedication and tenacity and to the beautiful, beautiful community tonight thank you (clapping). >> thank you senator mark leno and now the mayor has arrived and mr. mayor i told the crowd

before, after, the bond passed i came to our office and said i want to fund the bond and we're deeply appreciative let's hear it for our mayor, mayor ed lee. >> i want to thank you you 0 hours everybody hostiles the world series? >> all right. well i want to just say introduce you to another lee name lee is final lee final lee we got this done and there's a lot of thanks to go around you've heard in mohammed at dpw and now from the puc and the mta and certainly supervisor wiener advocacy is very, very strong and senator mark leno said it right this is an historic street we've got to take care of it and improved it and find the street

to be one of the most beautiful streets in san francisco as it deserves yes (clapping) i just saw keith jones thank you, thank you very much for your historic lifetime leadership lee jones thank you, very much. he's getting the scissors ready (clapping.) you know supervisor wiener and i have been working a lot and i want to make sure you know that 8 point that $3 million that we just spent while we can do things faster we wouldn't be able to do my of it without your help those bonds are available to the city we need to pass those bonds and the honor that we will place to you ever we get those bonds transportation bonds our responsibility is to spend

it ate and get it done to go on to the next thing; right? and yeah. >> our beautiful street and invest in our city and in castro it's about our history you'll have great fun not only tomorrow but every day of every year we get to celebrate you'll find me down here bye my hot cookies and doing my breakfasts detain here this is one of the most wonderful neighborhood investments we could make all over the city we're investing in our neighborhoods making the city stronger and bringing people cogent and conquer the need for more affordable housing and better transportation and stop evictions and slow down the eviction and build for 55 laguna how about that more housing for our residents thank you to the

cd and the castro merchants association they're so painter and you'll see my dollars spent down here i join i all to great city this world-class neighborhood of castro street thank you very much let's all celebrate (clapping.) yeah. >> okay. now we're going to cut gilbert bakers beautiful ribbon i want to welcome a few additional people lee jones, of course, and the city fester naomi keeling and john ram and this is the guy i've talked about nick who helped us to the design process and john dennis our dpw project manager and thank you, welcome to the neighborhood those are part of our community so lee i want to

cut the ribbon. >> i want to send love from gilbert baker he lives in new york i called him and said we need a ribbon she got out her ribbon and sued all weekend long and get it to use it was gilbert's idea to make the robin rainbow the symbol of our movement so he's in new york and as the supervisor do the honors and cut it on the seam (laughter.) >> (clapping)

>> yeah. (clapping) yeah. (clapping) well, i live in n this neighborhood i'm so glad this is over oh, my god what a mess okay folks get off my stage matt are you ready now okay. we're going to have wonderful music please welcome matt

(clapping.) >> hello people ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ what's going on san francisco hey, i'm here are you ready to distance with me i like or romantic songs now here you go again, you say you need a friend well, who am i to keep you down it's only- to wrap around our finger have you any dreams you'd like to sell dreams of loneliness heart beats and still

it's rumbling oh, what you are and what you have oh, what you love come on you guys want to sing oh, thunder only

>> instructor: commissioner buell? >> here. >> commissioner low? >> here. >> commissioner bonilla? >> here. >> commissioner harrison? >> here. >> commissioner mcgoldrick donnell? >> here. >> commissioner levitan will be here in a minute and commissioner wei has an excuse the absence today. >> thank you. >> just a couple of quick things before we get started. this is the recreation and park commission meeting of october 16th. if each person could fill out a blue card, that would be great.

you do not have to fill out a blue card to speak. at the end of us calling all of the blue cards we will ask if anyone else would like to speak and if you would like to, you can come up then. so don't get worried if you haven't filled out a blue card and you would like to speak. we would ask when you make public comment, you do make it to the commission. our policy is to let you go ahead and make all public comment. the commission will not answer questions during public comment, but once your public comment is closed they may ask questions of staff or ask further questions of the speaker. so with that, the only other thing if you could turn off any electronic sounding devices that could go off during the meeting, we'll go ahead and get started. commissioner buell. >> thank you. let me say at the outset i'm going to call general public comment out of order, so people

can speak now and i know there are a lot of people who want to speak on this issue. and we want to hear what you have to say. can i have a show of hands of people who intend to speak. seeing that number of people i'm going to allow two minutes per person. it's going to be a long day, but we want to hear you. there is an overflow room downstairs and there are cards there and when people are ready to speak and coming up we'll allow them plenty of time and call them in groups, so they can come up. i would ask the audience when you give public comment to try and keep it as direct and relevant to the subject-matter. we would have put this on the agenda, but it came up too late legally to put it on the agenda and that is why i'm providing this public comment period now in order to hear it. and i would ask that you be respectful of all points of views, and we can get through

this as fast as possible. but we're very interested to hear the comments. with that i know there was a meeting yesterday and i'm going to ask the general manager to update us on that, and then open it to public testimony. >> thank you, commissioners and welcome everybody. thank you for giving me just a second to update you on incident that happened at the facility. at the crux of the issue is the lack of the space and concerning gentfication and certainly underscores the need for better resourced open space as the density of our city continues to increase. we appreciate and celebrate the passion and care that people are expressed about our parks and this issue in particular. but i want to take an opportunity to clarify a few

points regarding our field policies, particularly at mission playground and the steps we're ensuing our city's youth have every opportunity to play. part of the renovation converted an asphalt play area into an synthetic play area. historickally the asphalt area at mission playground was never permitted as an athletic field and only utilized for open, drop-in play and distinguishing this site from other athletic fields that were customarly for play due to high demand. the rec and park park conducted

extensive community outreach and residents were notified in english and spanish. three well-attended community meetings took place in june and july of 2009. recreation and park staff also met on several occasions with pickup soccer players on-site and with spanish translation to discuss the project and their desires. based on community input and recommendations from pickup soccer players it was determined that adults would be able to obtain a permit to play from 7-9 p.m. on tuesday and thursday evenings and sunday unless that space was presley booked by youth play. all other times would be reserved for youth leagues or open play.

open play was expressly reserved on monday, wednesday and friday from 6:30 p.m. to close and sunday 1-5. that schedule has been posted and in effect since the field opened in may of 2012. over the last year that schedule allowed for free or open play 96% of the time. adults permitted or reserved the space for league or unstructured play 4% of the time at that location. adults can permit or reserve a field for $27 an hour, but depending on availability. permits can be obtained quite easily by calling 311 or our office directly or by email or by visiting our office. and while we strive to make the permitting process as easy as possible, the reality is there is no existing current mobile app that offers permitting of

our fields. like many people in this room, the department recently became aware of a highly publicized confrontation that occurred between adult permit holders and youth requiring more players. the confrontation was posted op eau tub uniwidely covered in the media and triggered questions and concerns about the schedule at mission playground in place since 2012. the department has long recognized that our city has limited open space for recreation. and we definitely lack play fields for both young and adults to play. this city's shortage of fields speaks to the importance of our efforts in recent years to renovate our athletic fields with turf and lights. by doing so we added nearly 80,000 hours of available play for everyone, but yet, clearly it's still not enough. department has recently heard from several youth-serving organizations in the mission, many of whom i am sure are

represented today, but also organized youth soccer communities requesting additional hours for youth and for open play at mission playground. yesterday department staff along with commissioners mcdonnell and bonilla, who i think very much for participating in the conversation met at mission playground with representatives from some of community-based organizations and specifically four of the youth involved in the mission playground confrontation. these youth i think i see them in the room were extremely articulate and underscored our need to continue to fight for fields and for resources that will help ensure our park system can continue to provide them with welcoming, safe places to play. our department policies and our permit system has always

prioritized youth access to parks and fields, and as much time existed for youth and open play under the schedule agreed upon and in place and as much time existed for youth and open play under the schedule agreed upon in 2012, times change. and these youth convinced me and convinced my staff of the need for even more hours for youth and for open play at mission playground. so effective immediately, and through a general manager's directive, that is being posted this morning, i think we have some copies -- we have made the following changes to the schedule at that field: there will no longer be adult permits issued for use of the field. three youth league permits shall continue to be available until 7:00 in the evening, every day. the field will be available for open community play from 7:00

p.m. until 10:00 p.m. every day including sunday evenings which was a change specifically requested by these four articulate individuals. and as soon as we can do it, there will be signage placed at the park clearly reflecting this schedule. so that we have better communication and better awareness for different types of users at the field. our engagement yesterday, particularly with the four young individuals who spoke, was actually incredibly affirming. it speaks to the passionate importance of our park and our open space, particularly as this city continues to grow in its density. and so together i'm hoping that we will all unite around that concept and continue to advocate for more fields and more resources for more

programs for the city's children. thank you, commissioner. >> thank you very much, let's proceed to public comment and calling of the names. is supervisor campos here? supervisor campos has the floor. elthank you very much, mr. president, commissioners, mr. general manager, i want to thank the recreation and park commission for allowing me to speak and thank the community members who took time out of their busy schedules to be here today. i am here to speak about the issue that the general manager just discussed, and i want to say that watching the youth in that video was for me quite a learning experience. i actually think that the adults who live in the city have a lot to learn from those young people. the way that they carried themselves, and the way they got to the very core of the issue by suggesting, you know,

why don't we just play together? i think that is what we have a responsibility to do. how do we find it so that open space and recreational space is available to everyone? let me say that i appreciate the efforts of the rec and park department and i'm grateful to the general manager and his staff for the fact that they met with these young people and that there are changes instituted that the playground. this playground is not in my district, but the vast majority of people who use this playground are from my district. i also believe that this issue goes beyond mission playground. and that is why i urge this commission to actually look specifically at the policy that you are following when it comes to the use of recreational space. i think that when it comes to reserving fields and playgrounds for purposes of league play, i think that is appropriate and i think that makes sense, but i think that when we are talking about privatizing the use of

recreational space, even if it's limited, i think that is problematic on a number of fronts. one, the fact is that if you are from a low-income family, that necessary -- that prioritization even if it's for a small percentage of the time does limit your access to recreational space. and i can tell you from my own experience having grown up in south-central l.a., where we live in a one room for five people in my family, we did not have a backyard. the park was the only available space we can go as kids and play and that is true for so many people in these neighborhoods. [ applause ] i know there is also a debate that is going on as to whether or not we should have artificial turf or grass and i respect that there are different positions on that. but i think that irrespective of where you are on that issue,

the question before you is what do we do when we have a limited resource? because it's clear that we need more fields. should they be grass? should they be artificial turf? whatever your view is, we clearly need more fields, but i don't believe that the answer when you have a shortage of fields is to actually allow for privatization. i actually think prioritization makes it worse. and so i think that this is an opportunity for us to come together and i want to take a lesson from these kids and use this incident as a positive way for the city to come together without vilifying anyone, because even though the adults in that video did not behave the way that i would have liked, i also know that there are many people in that industry who believe that they have to do better. and so i think that is there an opportunity for us to come together as a city, and in the midst of this affordability

crisis for families are struggling, the least we can do is irrespective of income that they have access to public space. thank you very much. >> thank you, supervisor. [ applause ] >> [ reading speakers' names ] >> the new york city parks department and school system no