>> commissioner low -here. >> commissioner harrison? >> >> here. >> commissioner levitan has an excused absence. just real quickly a reminder, we would welcome everyone, but ask that you turn off any electronic-sounding devices that could go off during the proceedings. if you are having secondary conversations, we would ask that you take them outside to allow the meeting to run as efficiently as possible. if you would like to speak on any item, we request that you complete a blue card. you do not have to fill out a

blue card, but we go through these cards first and will call for additional public comment after we go through the cards. each person -- commissioner, three minutes? >> three minutes. >> on each item under "public comment." if you would like to address the commission on an item that is not on the calendar, but is under the jurisdiction of this commission, you may speak on item 4, and then that will be heard for 15 minutes. and if you are unable to get in during that time, we will continue that item to item 10. last, just a reminder, when you do speak to the commission, please address your comments to the commission, and neither the commission, nor staff will answer questions during public comment. but they may ask staff to respond after public comment is done. with that, we are on item 2.

the president's report. >> the president is going to ask a question before we formalize how many minutes we are going to speak. quite a few people entered the room since i made that just decision. how many people are anticipating testifying before the commission today? we'll keep it at 3 minutes. thank you very much. i will be very brief. first as it relates to the agenda, because we are missing commissioner levitan and commissioner bonilla is being excused at noon. i would like to take items 4, 5 and 7, so we get full votes before we go to other administrative items that are information-only. having said that, i just wanted to comment that the chamber of commerce did a public opinion survey about local government, and a variety of issues, and the san francisco recreation and park department had the

secondest highest favorable rating of any city department at 71%. while i would love to congratulate everybody for a very well done, we had the lowest unfavorable rating at 13%. that may come as a disappointment to some people that came to testify, but the reality is that i think the staff is doing a super job and i wanted to point out that the public agrees with you. thank you, that concludes my report. what else am i supposed to say? nothing. thank you. [laughter ] >> is there any public comment on this item? okay. being none, public comment is closed. we are now going to go to item 4, general public comment up to 15 minutes. and this item will be continued to item 10, if we do not get through all the card right now. at this time members of public may address the commission on items of interest to the public that are within the subject-matter jurisdiction of the commission and that do note

appear on the agenda. with respect to the agenda items your opportunity to address the community will be afforded when the item is reached in meeting. before we get started, i would ask folks, we have a few seats left, if you could please, go ahead and fill the seats. and we can pull a few more chairs out from the back. but if we could get everyone to take a seat, that would be wonderful. there are a few over here. folks we need you to get away from the door. if there is staff here, staff, can come on up and sit up here, which would allow more room for the public. and again, once we get started we'll go ahead and -- thank you, denny. we'll go ahead and pull some chairs from the back. okay. so general public comment.

we have kevin donnaherr, stefand maggie. >> i am aco founder of global exchange at 16th and mission a hume rights organization. i'm a co-founder of the green festival and sociology staff at san francisco state. i volunteer on a program in mission high school called green guardians with the help of puc we took out a parking lot and a whole bunch of sidewalk cement and we have a great gardening program going on. the kids are learning how to grow food and take it to the commercial kitchen we set up and learn how to cook the food. the urban agriculture program and its recent expansion last year has really benefited us in a number of ways and the san francisco urban agricultural alliance has been a big part of that. so i just want to bring sort of an emotional thank you, because when i see these kids pick a strawberry off the vine and put in their mouths and light up, it's a great

educational experience. it's been my entire life has been committed to education of youth with. so i want to thank you folks and you are doing a great job on urban agriculture. and i would like to see more of it. i would like to see an expansion of the program. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> did the secretary get that or do we need to hear that again? thank you. >> okay. next speaker stef. >> can you hear me now? >> yes. >> my name is stef, and i do with the san francisco agricultural alliance. we're an all-volunteer community group. we have about 50 different urban gardening organizations and about 300 individual members who work in urban ag or do things with schools. all across the city of san francisco. a number of our

members are here today and i would like to ask them to stand, because most of them won't have a chance to comment. if you could please stand. and there are a lot more that come to the meetings as well. we have six different policy things that we would like to tell the commission. i'm going to give you three of them and another leader of the sf uaa will come up, greg richardson. we would like to say and echo what kevin just said that we are incredibly pleased and commend the department and the urban ag program. we think that they have made significant and meaningful progress in this first year; which we're really happy about it. we would also like to see an annual report and having recognized that, we would like to see updates on the work plan, the goals and the budget for the coming year. and we would like to see that, if possible, at one of the rpd

commission hearings. and we feel like this could be tool to promote the good work that the rec and park is doing. my last point, we understand that the coordinator position is fully funded for the coming year. and we would like to thank the department officially for incorporating this position into its budget. thank you very much. >> thank you very much. >> if we could get everyone to turn off their electronic-sounding devices, please. [ reading speakers' names ] come on up. >> hello. my name is maggie. and i am the program manager at garden for the environment, san francisco's public teaching garden. for 25 years we have served the public, educating 800 san francisco unified school district students and over 500

adults each year. i am here to express support for the rec and park department urban agriculture program, and i have been so pleased to see such increased access for the public to information, supplies and further garden education. so thank you very much. >> thank you. >> next speaker. greg matthew, deanthony jones and i have eli. go ahead. >> okay. thank you for giving us the opportunity to speak this morning, and i am also here with the san francisco urban agricultural alliance which stefjust discussed. and i wanted to reiterate our interest in seeing an annual report, particularly as it is required as part of the -- or see it within the legislation that is created for the urban agriculture program. we are really excited about the

additional $50,000 for community gardens, but we would like to clarify that kind -- we would like more clarity on how this money is being spent in terms of maintenance, infrastructure and staff time? one of the things that we did note was that if the community garden coordinator, that is currently at .25 full-time equivalent for the fiscal year of 2013-2014, we're not clear exactly on how that matches with the $120,000 that appears to have been spent on staff time according to the program spending page of the community garden program report. so we would like some clarity on sort of how that money is being spent? but we are really happy with how things are going so far and hope that the information we're receiving can be provided promptly, so we can continue to engage in an informed way. thank you. >> thank you.

>> okay, we do need folks to move away from the door, please. next speaker, come on up. as people leave, if we can get folks to take a seat, we would really appreciate it. go ahead. >> hi. my name is deanthony jones and i'm one the project coordinators at more magic which is a collaborative program serving the needs of at-risk youth, kindergarten, et cetera and we have our summer of magic happening and excuse me -- i haven't had any coffee, but we have our annual summer of magic which aims to engage youth from kindergarten or age range through transitional age and comprehensive programing this summer. and particularly we're working with rec and park in june we have wednesdays in june that we're at hamilton playground, jackson playground and throughout july as well. we're doing trip s around the

city and parks, some facilities which are oursing and we're excited to renew that relationship every year and work you guys and, in fact, we have a direct relate with hamilton rec and margaret park. we are excited to roll the programs out and think that the summer is a key time to keep youth engaged as they lose a lot of learning during the summer. that is why we're also having our summer learning day at civic center plaza on june 12th and hydra menendez is working with us at mayor's office of education with that. so we would definitely like to invite you there. it's not enough to make the programs possible, we need money that. is why on may 6th we're having our annual fundraisers, our 5th annual

more than magic fundraiser. help the people who helped us do and board of supervisors, president london breed and supervisor mark farrell in collaboration with collective impact our parent organization. this will be on wednesday, may 6th, 2015. 6:30 to 9:30 p.m., 888 brandon street in san francisco. i will leave you all a program brochure of what we're doing this whole summer and we invite members of public, if you have any children to definitely bring them over to moe magic. there is information about the fundraiser, as well as the summer program that we are offering. we also have the invitations -- i'm sorry -- like i said, i haven't had any coffee. thank you so much >> thank you. >> matthew, and eli. and then we'll see how we're doing on time. >> hi, can you hear me? >> yes.

>> hi i'm matthew blaine, a resident of san francisco, cyclist and members of sf urban riders. in the cycling community we have been volunteering for many years work on habitat restoration and trail-building in san francisco and a variety of places putting many projects under the direction of sf rec and parks. we put in more than 1600 hours last year and about 10,000 hours since 2008 on these projects. these are both sort of to give back to the land and community and also with the understanding that rec and parks wanted to direct cycling towards trails which are well-built and well-maintained. so why i am here today? because a month ago we saw a number of signs appearing in many natural areas, describing a number of rule and regulations and one of which was a real surprise saying "no bikes." some were on trails that we worked with rec

and park. we brought over 40 people to the recent prosac meeting in march. phil ginsburg let us know that the signs of the greenbelt for -- and will be fixed soon and hopefully they have been fixed by now. he also said that the other regulations were due to longstanding policy on longstanding regulations prohibiting bicycles on most urban trails. we have been unable to find such policies and regulations and asking rec and park clarify what the regulations are and the scope? more broadly we're asking the commission to let you know that we're willing to work with rec and park and to meet soon to work this out. and continue to let this growing activity work well in our park system in san francisco. thank you. >> thank you.

>> eli, i have three more cards and commissioner buell has instructed me just to call them out and finish with, that even though if will be over 15 minutes. linda tom borden and karen phillips. >> good morning, commissioners, i'm wearing two hot hatts one as the food and agriculture director at spur and the other is as coordinator for clipper community gardens. i want to echo what was said about the urban agricultural program. super excited and has done a number of very clear advances. we have resource centers which we didn't have before. there is a website with a lot more information and there is clearly more coordination among city agencies. so i would say that a lot of things that we are hoping to see in the first year, which we have seen, which is fantastic. we're excited that the department has put money so that the position can continue as part of the normal budget

and increase for funding for the community gardens. those are all fantastic things. there are hundreds of people using the gardens and it's hard for one person working quarter time to keep up with the requests and demands. as we look at increased funding for the community garden program, both looking at existing funding and what could come forward to encourage the commission to put more staff time to respond to the question. we have green bags and going back and forth and i think the request is in, but it's taking a lot longer than if there was someone able to keep on top of all of the requests. also the annual report mentioned what greg was saying, in the legislation that created the urban agriculture program said there should be an annual report every year on progress. and my understanding is there is a draft and we would just love to have that come out as

soon as possible. and then also looking ahead we have a lot of questions about what is coming up? what is coming next? we know the past year has been good and think more could be done and seeing a work plan and budget for the coming year in the next month or two would be really helpful, so we can continue to engage and figure out what would be best? thank you for hear meg hearing me out. >> thank you. [ reading speakers' names ]. >> good morning commissioners and general manager ginsburg. i'm here to give you a report for the season of camp mather. we have been having meetings preparing for the upcoming camping season. we have been meeting with staff in very productive meetings. we're training our volunteer leaders and volunteer naturalists are all ready to go. so we'll be going up to camp in early may to set up the

general store and get that ready. then many of us will be returning in late may to help with the general store as it gets ready for the campers, and for any assistance that we can offer to the camp staff to get through these last little things that need to be put together before the campers arrive. we're also applying for community opportunity fund. we're very excited about it and we're working very hard on it and hope if we are successful, that we'll be able to create a multi-use sports court where the current badminton court and make changes to the basketball court that have been on the wish-list for many, many years. so wish us on that opportunity and we'll be back to report more in the coming months. thank you. >> thank you. >> next speaker. >> hi. i'm tom borden and i'm not here

with any particular group. i support what matthew said a few minutes ago, but i'm here as an individual park user and supporter of parks and pardon me more reading, but i don't rant to mess it up. i have sent you letters about the rpd citywide bike ban, but speaking to mclaren park, the natural area has posted signs prohibiting people from bringing bicycles into half of the park. they did this with no public input, no public discussion, and no warning. they did this after inviting cyclists to volunteer thousands of hours to help them build multi-use trails on the lands that they are now closing to those very same volunteers. they did this in spite of the fact that the surrounding communities have the highest concentration of children in the city who need expanded

opportunities and not less parkland. they did this without the approval of the environmental impact report for their management plan. the most recent draft of the eir states that the best thing for the environment would be a scaled-back map under which recreational use of parkland would be maintained or expanded. rpds had issued a statement there are longstanding regulations that bikes are not allowed on urban trails in our parks. this is a false claim. i hope you have read the letter sent you last night or will read the letter where i support all of these statements. i would really request this issue be resolved by a transparent public process. again, cyclists are eager to welcome with rec and park and eager to be stewards the parks. we would like to have a chance. thank you. >> thank you. >> and last speaker, carol

phillips. >> hello. my name is carol phillips and i'm a proud member of the urban agricultural alliance. i'm here to speak about the importance of green space on octavia boulevard. i have been involved in the project that was started by the homeless connect, and now we are locked out and we have given up the garden space, but the idea remains that we need green space along that avenue. and i would hope that you folks would understand that and stand with us, and we could make that happen. that is all. i want to see those two little parcels r & s saved if it is at all possible. here i have a letter, too, explaining a little bit more. that is all. thank you. >> thank you very much.

>> commissioners we're now done with general public comment and we're on the consent calendar. is there anyone who would like to make public comment on the consent calendar? that is item 5. being none public comment is closed, commissioners. >> entertain a motion. >> is moved. >> second. >> all those in favor, say aye? >> aye. >> so moved. >> we're now on item 7, job-training academy at gleneagles golf course and commissioner harrison will be making the presentation. >> pleas please. >> yes thank you, margaret. commissioners, i am honored to present -- i'm going read this so i don't make any mistake. i am honored to present this item to you today, the resolution you are being asked to adopt simply reaffirms our support of the job-training academy and pays homage to a man who so justly deserved to be recognized by naming the academy the mario de la torre

academy at gleneagles golf course. this commission unanimously voted to approve the extension of the gleneagles golf course last year and in doing so recognized the needed to implement pre-apprenticeship job-training program at the course. as you know from your staff report, the academy to start will offer 6-week job readiness program for public service training, workers assigned to various departments in the city. the goal is to increase and improve job-readiness and prepare these workers for future employment opportunities in both the public and private sectors. we need to help communities that are underserved and in need of job-training. you know, when i first started working for the city as an assistant gardener, i knew little or nothing about gardening. i was fortunate that the city at the time offered in-service training in various aspects of

gardening. i took opportunities and was able to further my career. i know from personal experience how valuable a mentor is. mario de la torre guided me on how to best perform the responsibilities of this job. he continued to mentor and guide the me through my career as a union officer. not everyone has been fortunate as i have in having such a wonderful mentor. this job-training academy is a foundation to creating new career pathways and building confidence for successful career. it's a very important thing to myself, i am very interested in seeing the success of this program. i think it's important for these young people to be given the right direction in a career path offered career path. mr. president, i know that we

have public comment and after at the appropriate time, i would like to make this motion. >> thank you, commissioner. let's move to public comment. >> okay. dan dillon, chris, joan valentine and linda. >> i am here on behalf of the pga tour an tpc manages harden park and we're about what? six weeks away from harden park being showcased to the entire world when the top 64 golfers in the world come to play in the cadillac match play championship for $10 million in purse. more than 200 countries will be able to view the tournament on television. the course right now is in magnificent shape. i hope you will all come out and see it and the place has never been better and part of that is because of our

partnership with the rec and park department and the laborers and teamsters who do the work on the course. so we're here today to fully endorse this resolution, we think this is a great opportunity for people to enter into programs that would teach them perhaps the skills necessary to have a career in golf course maintenance and golf course management. so we think it's a fantastic program and urge you to endorse and supportle program. thank you. >> thank you. >> chris. >> good morning president buell and commissioners, phil ginsburg, i'm one of the trustees for the laborer's community training foundation and here on behalf of several private employers, such as webcor, and others. these type of workforce opportunities for training really are what the private employer needs to create the workforce of the future. these are our harvards and our stanfords and the young men and

women who will come and take part in the training process at gleneagles will one day, if we are lucky and the golf course doesn't take them will be working on the buildings that we're looking to build around the city and around the region. they will be strongly advocate that you support this and we're very touched by the partnerships that come out of this process and really feel that every step of the way the private employers are working with the city and the union to make sure that their future workforce has great opportunities like this to find a healthy way to get into our industry. thank you. >> thank you. >> joan, then linda and i have david de la torre, jeff armstrong and michael karlin go ahead. >> i'm joan and i'm a retired gardener from the recreation and park department and also a co-founder of the assistant

gardener apprentice program. that program is partnered with the department of public works and recreation and park department, along with local 261, it's a program that has helped to lay a foundation form foryoung men and women on a career path, but we need to do more and the pre-apprenticeship program that we have the resolution before you is important to continue to bridge that socioeconomic gap that seems to be widening over the years. the foundiation has been laid, but we need to keep it going. i urge the commissioners to adopt the resolution to reaffirm the support of the job-training academy gleneagles training and please name it mario de la torre. when i came into the rec and

park in the 1970s, we were the first women to take the test. it was through a mentoring program and tom harrison was one of them at harden golf course and able to explain to small group of newly-hired gardeners how to run a lot of equipment out there. it was through his wonderful patience and support, kindness, that i learned a lot at that time at a very young age of 24. i would like to see that kind of mentoring continue. i think this resolution, this job-training program is really a wonderful thing and we should really support it. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> next speaker, please. >> good morning again. linda. this time i would like to speak in favor of support of the academy, job-training academy. as a long time volunteer in mclaren park we know the value of gardening and the training that is