s. so the idea was to try and improve on the situation and through many meetings and i want to thank cassandra, because i probably create ed more problems than i solved in this matter to let the community weigh in on the best solution. the preponderant number of comments that we got and people that we talked to wanted to see ticketing and limited foodservice away from the tower itself. and so we looked -- we didn't look, but it was proposed to us, east and west. i appreciate all of the neighbors showing up. i think that is very informative for us to come to conclusion, but the genesis of the debate before us, it would have been easy to approve the

temporary food cart and see it hauled in and out and the related problems connected to it, but at the request of the community we didn't do that. so with that, commissioner levitan. >> when an item come before us at the commission, it's our job to be objective and not have an opinion going into that item. and so really weigh the public's concerns, the demands of the department, what is best for the city? so with this, i really kept a completely open mind, a blank slate of opinion, and i won't speak for my colleagues, but i know us on the operations committee did individually go up to look at the story boards. and you know, at operations we decided to move this forward to today with no recommendation because again we wanted the community to weigh-in and our entire commission to hear the weight of those opinions. and it's very clear from today and a lot of other feedback i

have gotten in previous week es how people feel and that is that the west side is preferred and keep hearing about the public safety and the traffic issues and i have to be honest that was something that really resonated with me when i went up to look at the story poles. there are people far smarter than i who could tell you exactly what the likelihood of impacts will be and what the traffic patterns are up there. but you see our tourists in san francisco, they don't watch where they are going and i can't imagine what would be there to have somebody who draws people's attention to want to go over to the eastside, if there is a line of cars and they are not watching where they are going. that is just to say, that to me sort of tips it in the favor of prefering west side. obviously the public comments

had been considerable today and i thank you for, that because that informs my opinion for today. so at the appropriate time i will be recommending that we support the west side. >> commissioner low. >> well, i will have to confess that i came into this hearing as an eastsider after reading lizzy hirsch's memo, the persuading factor for me initially was the cost structure of building on west side versus eastside, but what resonates with me in switching to the west side is pedestrian safety. i think pedestrian safety is an important factor where i think if there was a sidewalk, where you didn't have to cross in front of cars is probably paramount in considering the west side. i understand lizzy hirsch's

memo saying there could be better lighting and painting of a crosswalk. i crossed the crosswalk to city hall frequently and always do so at my own risk. so i think pedestrian safety should be the overall factor in our decision. >> commissioner harrison. >> i did take the opportunity to go up and look at the story boards and luckily, i ran into cassandra up there, who gave me a very nice briefing of what was going on; i too, like my fellow commissioners, had no opinion one way or the other. the only two negatives was the traffic situation and the other side that concerned me was having to remove a piece of that old wall that was up there. other than that, it didn't matter which side to me, which side they were on. listening to public comment today, who had similar concerns of mine on the eastside with the public safety is sort of swaying my opinion here towards

favoring the west side. thank you. >> commissioner bonilla. >> yes, for better or worse, we need to have a kiosk working in conjunction with the mural project. and that being said, if we are going to have a kiosk, i think it needs to be accessible. it needs to be accessible to all visitors alike. one of the hallmarks of the recreation and park department is that all our venues are -- or to the extent that we can make them such -- all of our venues are accessible to everyone. meaning our parks and our rec centers.

and so i would -- since we have to do this project i would not appreciate doing a project where it would not be accessible to some of the visitors. the handicapped, the wheelchairs and so on and what really swayed me to the west side is the ada access. i mean it's very obvious, just looking at some of the pictures here; that it's much more amenable to accessibility to everyone and that is why i will be supporting the west side. >> commissioner mcdonnell. >> thank you, president buell. since the question before us is east or west, versus whether -- i think we're pass the whether to. i might have a different point

of view if we are still in that space. that said for reasons of both the pedestrian safety, the adade as commissioner bonilla pointed out, but the also i'm candidly influenced by the fact that all we heard from residents was west side. we did not hear west side residents opposing or proposing rather eastside. thank you. >> thank you. on that commissioner levitan you indicated you wanted to make a motion. >> endorse the west side location. >> second. >> all those in favor? >> aye. >> unanimously. thank you. [ gavel ] thank you all for showing and taking the time to express your opinions. >> we're now on item 10, the recreation and park budget for fiscal years 2015, 2016 and

2016-2017. >> good morning, commissions, katie petrucione. before i launch in my presentation, i do want to note that while today's presentation is focused on the general fund, you do have information about the open space fund in budget in your packets, as well as the charter-required general plan referral for the open space budget, which arrived at about 4:00 yesterday afternoon. so i am so pleased to be here today

with good budget news for you and for the department. as i mentioned in my january presentation, the city's overall budget picture is remarkably positive, and the recreatioabsolutely the beneficiary of that prosperity. i'm going start with an update on the numbers that we are balancing to. in next two years, the revenue corrections on this slide include some changes to golden gate park concessions, such as the carousel and tennis and gleneagles golf course and coit tower concession, as well as the elimination of the straw berry festival at camp mather. the numbers increase in fiscal 2016-2017 as we are assuming some loss at the palace of fine art as we work to find a new long-term tenant.

the cost increases included increase to our garage rates and small increases to work orders to the department of public health and the department of environment, increases for costs of software licensing, as we are implementing both a new website in the current fiscal year, as well as new lease management software that we'll need to start paying for next year. as well as some increases to the costs of running the harden park clubhouse, which are for the most part offset by increased concession revenue at harden. and then would i note in year 2 we also must meet a 1% base reduction target, equal to $473,000. while the budget news is very good for the next two years i do just want to remind folks that things may change. we are very fortunate to have some resources to invest in our

operations in fiscal year 15-16 and 16-17. the challenges remain for the department. as you know, in 2011, spur reported that the recreation and park department needed an estimated $30 million in additional funding to meet our annual operating needs. the city's population is growing, density is increasing, and that means that our parks are being used at an increasing rate. and we are actually adding new parks in order to meet that increased population growth and density. we acquired three new properties in calendar year 2013 and expect to add more parks over the next ten years. as we do so, we'll need additional gardening, could you have had ,

we have been able to generate $4.7 million and $.8 million in each of next with years and leaves wuss approximately $2.4 million to invest. our ability to make these investments stems from growth and revenue, as well as ongoing growth in the open space fund. you will note that the general fund, which is the red line on the chart, in most years is higher than the fund and has led us to cultivate various earned revenue sources. this is a slide with an

overview of our revenue budget in the current fiscal year. it shows the base budget for 15-16, which is the amount that we budgeted last year for 15-16. and then it shows the proposed amounts that we're budgeting for 15-16 and 16-17. you will see that we are expecting revenue growth in our garages primarily from civic center garage. in program fees, concessions and citywide rentals, permits and facility rentals, as well as growth in the open space fund; there is a revenue correction in the marina fund, which is really just a result of us truing up, now that the west harbor project is complete and we have more or less allocated all of the berths in the west harbor. i do want to note these open space fund numbers are very preliminary. they absolutely will change in the next three months or so as

the controller's office gets final property tax numbers in the current year. so details of the revenue growth that we are using to balance the budget are on the next two slides. and they come again from across our earned revenue sources in the general fund. the japanese tea gardens continue to grow at a very steady space. a little bit of many from miscellaneous citywide concessions, et cetera. significant additional revenue from park garages really this is civic center garage.

additional revenue from the programs in aquatics and assumption we'll raise money to support our scholarship program in parks. that is assumed in the base budget for fiscal year 15-16, but we're assuming that next year as well. and then growth in revenue from our golf courses, primarily from harden and golden gate park. this is going to allow us to make investments in the operations over the next two fiscal years. we identified four strategic budget priorities to enhance park safety, advance environmental sustainability, support active living and strengthen our delivery of customer service. we once again used these priorities as a guide in how to investment in the next two

fiscal years, first and foremost making an investment in parkway safety, with park staff and materials and supplies funding of the staff. we have added funding to repair potholed, asbestos and lead. we added an electrician and project manager to oversee deferred maintenance projects at the structural maintenance yard. our next priority is environmental sustainability. we're making investments in materials and supplies in our parks that would cover items such as plant materials, sand and fertilizer, we're creating a nursery specialist and a truck driver to enhance our capacity to maintain our athletic fields and new

gardener to support maintenance at the beach chalet fields once they re-open. we're also investing in urban agriculture next year as well as our green agers and youth stewardship programs. our investment in activity living comes primarily in the form of the creation of new, permanent recreation and aquatics positions. under terms of mediation with seiu, the union that represents our recreation staff we're converting six lifeguard positions and 13.5 recreation leader positions from "temporary" to "permanent part-time positions." this change is going to create more stability in our staffing of our pools and our recreation centers. we are also adding funding to the materials and supplies budget of our recreation competencies, as well as increasing the funding that is

budgeted for special events such as scare grove, the tree lighting and ribbon cutting. in the category of customer service, the single biggest thing we're planning to do next year is implement the next generation of our recreation registration and permitting software, which is known as "class." the vendor active network is phasing out the software we currently use. they are changing their pricing structure and they are moving from a licensing fee to a per transaction fee, which unfortunately will increase the cost of the software for us. we're scheduled to implement the new software in january of 2016. and this change will be very positive for our users. in particular, it's going to significantly increase the number of concurrent registrations on the days when

people are registering for day camps, for after-school programming, or for a quarterly recreation sessions online. right now we're limited in the number of people who can register at one time, and this new software will significantly increase those numbers. hopefully reducing people's frustration. the property management division next year is proposing to implement a new golf reservation system, which is going to change how we issue resident golf cards. this will have savings and we're also proposeding to continue to fund improvements to internet connectivity at our rec facilities, which helps with program registration, as well as improves staff accountability. and then we're proposing to fund - to help to fund the 76th

anniversary celebration for the botanical gardens this year. as you will recall, when i was here in january, i talked to you about the fact that the mayor's office is proposing a new innovation grant program in the budget. we have surveyed our staff and are planning to submit six grant proposals with the budget on monday. we're proposing to request funding to implement a park patrol cadet program. to basically recruit people and introduce them into the permanent park patrol staffing. we think there this will support fiscal responsibility and government responsiveness and job development. we're proposing to establish a restroom attendant, a group of people to keep an eye on our restrooms and prevent vandalism

and supporting fiscal sustainability, government responsiveness and workforce development. we would very much like the funding to create a swing shift at the golden gate park auto shop. we would hope that in doing this, we would have the additional staff to work through a very significant backlog of repairs on our vehicles and equipment. the backlog has a very strong effect on our field staff's ability to do their jobs. and we would hope that with this additional funding, we would be able to have our mowers, our trucks our cushman back in the field. we're proposing to translate our recreation activity glide guide into spanish and chinese, supporting equity and program

access. we're proposing to lease our light vehicles, including sedans and trucks and we would do this to more and more modernize and improve the quality of our fleet. the idea that that we would swap that vehicle out for a new one, which would greatly reduce amount of money that we're spending on maintenance, the vehicles would be under warranty at the very least for the first three years of their lives and would again, just really increase our efficiency. and then finally, we're proposing to expand the greenagers program supporting equity and access. the budget is due to the mayor's office on monday. we are feverishly working on forms at this point. i have been out in the community. i have been to prosac, we have

for the first time this year our budget presentation to staff was done via a video. and with all of that feedback, and hopefully your approval today, we will submit our budget to the mayor's office on monday. the mayor then will spend the next three or four months negotiating with us about additional changes to the budget >> i do expect that the board of supervisors will have a preliminary hearing on our budget this spring, probably in march or april. and then the mayor will submit his budget to the board on june 1st, as always. i am happy to answer questions. >> thank you, katie, commissioner harrison? >> i don't know who came up with the idea for the second shift for the auto shop, but it is a long time coming. [laughter ].

>> we were backlogged like you wouldn't believe the dead mower shop. thank you very much and the leasing of the light trucks, i think that is a very good move. thank you for that. >> mr. ginsburg. >> commissioners, i think your colleague likes to say victory has many parents and that idea has many parents and one is denny kern, who needless to say got plenty of feedback about the need and suggested it. so my comments are this project has nothing, but gratitude in it for us, starting with frankly the mayor and his leadership of our city in making sure that our city is fiscally sound and giving us the opportunity to be where we are today. i really want to thank all of you, when you see that earned revenue number and what we were able to do, we really did navigate some very, very, very

treacherous times for this department and i don't think people realize that. and it was really -- we could not have done that without your leadership and your willingness to listen and to take some tough votes. so we really want to thank you for that. i want to thank our best budget director that ever did work in municipal government, katie petrucione. it's a classic relationship between the cfo and the ceo and i want to spend -- and she says no. [laughter ] we end up someplace in the middle that works for all of us. it really does work great and katie has done a really wonderful job of understanding the nuance of the need. there is -- there is a lot of need still out there and katie's slide about the fact that we have a long way to go, should be on your minds.

we have 10,000 people a weekend at dolores -- weekend day at dolores park. we didn't have that ten years ago. you can't take care of dolores park the same way today with the same number of staff we did ten years ago. you just can't and that is true for blessedly so for our parks that are being used more and more and welcoming 10,000 new san franciscans to our city, they are all multi-city multi-unit buildings and that means no backyards and that means parks matter. we really need to plan for the increased density in the city and to make sure our new and emerging neighborhoods have open space and have clean and safe places to play. i also want to thank our staff, starting with our executive staff. our budget is really a collaborative process. you know, we actually all put in our wish-list and talk about them and we identify what our strategic priorities are, and we come up with an answer that

gives everybody what they need if not what they want and that goes for field staff, too. who have been thirsting a long, long time for relief and they have been working optimally and hard to do more with less over a number of years. we're very pleased -- again, we do have a long way to go, but we're very pleased to be able to add to our materials and supplies budgets so our staff doesn't run out of screws -- which literally happens so there is the basic necessitis to keep our parks healthy. so it's a happy budget and i'm filled with gratitude. thank you. >> thank you. commissioner low. >> i think the saying goes -- victory has many parents and now commissioner harrison, dead mowers have two sets of parents. i want to highlight the general manager's comments and katie's comments on the additional

costs created by an increased population in san francisco, something that is often overlooked by our colleagues on in the planning department and should be considered in the future. if there is any way that we could communicate this information to the department in doing its ceqa analysis, i think we should forward that to them. just one quick question on -- as we watched candlestick implode and the revenues associated with that, how is that addressed in our revenue projections? >> in fiscal year 15-16, the 49ers are under our contract with them are paying us $522,000. and that is assumed in our base budget and then in next year, there will be zero budgeted form the stadium. >> if i could just add to that a little bit, we have been planning for it for some time and restructured -- as you

remember the 49ers got out of their lease a little early and payouts that were smoothed out and it's true next year is the last year. we never had the cliff, but we kind of weaned officials ourselves over the revenue from candlestick. we have so many other revenue strategies that have allowed us to really absorb that hit and the mayor's office, i think it's really important to note that the mayor's office was very helpful in allowing us to absorb staff at candlestick so we don't have layoffs. >> we're addressing that lost revenue? >> i think you saw that in katie's presentation and i

think a lot of it has been through more people using our parks, but we continue to focus on keeping our earned revenues strong. so that curve, that number that you see that upward trend includes historically included candlestick. so you didn't see a big dip and candlesticks had been closed for about a year now and we're still on an upward trajectory with respected to earned revenue. >> commissioner bonilla. >> what a fantastic job and i'm very excited about the new budget. it has so many innovative approaches to addressing major problems or issues that we have had to face over the last 15 years. so i wanted to specifically state that i'm