>> thank you. i thought we were nervous doing 14 the of those. that concludes the general managers report. >> is there anyone who would like to make public comment on the general manager's report? being none, this item is closed. we are now on item 4. general public comment up to 15 minutes. this item will be continued to item 10 once those 15 minutes are up. at this time members of the public may address the commission on items of interest to the public within the subject matter jurisdiction of the

commission and that do not appear on the agenda. with to the agenda items you will have the opportunity to address the commission when the item is reached. if you would like to make comment please come up. we will take you in the order that you come up. >> we have overhead, please. >> commissioners, directo directorgensberg. the property owners have recently erected without permission wooden fencing around

and through adjourning parcel of land. this belongs to the san francisco recreation and parks department this is a part of the park. these two property owners encroached upon approximately 5,000 square feet of invaluable open space parkland for their exclusive use and enjoyment. it is wrong for anyone to think property belongs to in one. it is especially wrong to encroach on public park land. we do not wish to punish or fine or collect unpaid rents or fees. our goal is to help. we come to you as representatives of the public interest for that purpose. since last year rec park sent strongly worded notices to remove encroachments and restore the land. for over a year they resisted. they want the land.

they convinced themselves they have a right to the land and they are determined to keep it. they spread misinformation on social media, circulated petitions and offered to buy the land. public parkland can be be solved or leased or given away without a vote of the people to whom it belongs. recently for reasons we don't understand. rec park has granted th the encroaching property owners an easement. when we asked for a copy rec park said there was no need for a written agreement. it is clear the fence is still there. the gates, walls, stairs, pots, trash cans are there. their fence still discourages visitors and controls access to what they still consider to be their land. we believe there is a simple, fair and reasonable resolution

to this egregiously unfair situation and it is to do as rec park first demanded. the recently constructed fence must be immediately removed and the parcel restored to a park like condition. we believe the solution benefits everyone and does no harm. these two property owners can still use and recreate on the lanbut not control it. if they want a fence they can build that fence on the property line where it belongs. if rec park will not reconsider the decision to encumber thousands of square feet of public open space parkland we believe a hearing must be held to allow public input. we hope you agree and thank you for your attention. >> thank you. >> next speaker, please. >> hello everybody. i am happy to say i am not your neighbor. i didn't have anything to do

with that fence. good luck. i didn't know this about alice marble. i noticed all the new parks opening. none of them were south. i am back for district 10, jackson square, jackson park. in the last 10 years, $380 million of bond money was spent throughout the city and not one penny at jackson park. i said the clubhouse built in 1912 is the same it was when my daughter who is 28 years old. i misspoke. it is painted on the exterior. that is not really changing it. as i noticed the paint job then i noticed the crumbling cement wall and rusted chain-link fence. in spite of the unbelievable development in our neighborhood

and i encourage you to visit us the arena, giants park. ucfh, good lord all coming to our neighborhood we have not been granted the money. the friends of jackson park have done a good job to build up community support, raising money. i beg you last time i said throw us a bone. i want the whole prime rib. we have earned it, put up with a lot of construction all the time. i beg you for a change. thank you for your team. i want to applaud this gentleman. the person who was a volunteer. i will try more. one thing i notice is you work together with the commission and with the park as volunteers. we can never move forward. if the congress worked like this we might not be in the situation we will.

jackson park we beg for the money. >> next speaker, please. >> i am mary clip. i make this statement on behalf of my son, josh clip, who could not be here today because of illness. josh lives with his wife in patrero hill. he is a planting leader with friends of the urban forest. one year ago josh noticed several large trees in his neighborhood park of mckinley square were taken down or noticed for removal. because of his love for trees and his understanding of how trees are essential to our environment, he inquired with rec and park about this and

asked if rec and park had a reforestation plan. the director of operations stated they had no reforestation plan. having planted nearly 700 trees himself with the friends of the earth and forest, josh was familiar with the city's street plan database, but he saw no parallel for the trees in our city parks. he knew that rec and park had for the last 10 years submitted information to the urban forestry council regarding the number of trees that rec and park had removed and planted each year. josh made an information request on rec and park for the information on tree plantings

and removals for the last 10 years. the same number of years that rec and park had submitted this information to the urban forest council. when rec and park failed to adequately respond to josh's information request, josh filed a complaint with the sunshine ordinance task force. this month the task force held that rec and park violated the sunshine act by failing to provide documents to josh in a timely and complete manner. at the task force hearing dennis concern represented rec and park, the same dennis concern who told josh the deputy had no reforestation plan and stated at the hearing they kept no record of tree removals or plantings.

he said that in submitting information to the urban forest council. they are essentially just trying to recall what they did over the last year. >> thank you. >> it is inconceivable that is city. >> you are out of time. >> i am going to ask that i respectfully request this commission the other one went be through three of those. i am going through one. i respectfully request this commission hold a hearing or series of hearings and require the department to explain itself. >> thank you. >> you are at time. next speaker, please.

>> thank you commissioners. we appreciate your letting us come up. i am jane while. i represent prozac to district six. >> i and anna gee. >> we want to add congratulations and appreciation for stevan. he worked for untold hours. it has really meant a lot to us and other members of prozac a representative of one of the wealthiest districts in the city. he has went to work for one of the most poor areas of the area. what he has done for the park is out of the love of the city and he has got to bat for us for the small parks in district six. the spirit he has brought that phil talked about of working as a friend with the department.

we have such wonderful park employees that come to our meetings at night and stay until 9:30 p.m. when they started working at 7:00 a.m. thank you for your recognition of him. >> i want to add to his recognition. when he first came to prozac, he was one of the first to guide me to be a representative of my district. i appreciate the hours he dedicated to mentor me. we will miss him very, very much. >> thank you very much. >> next speaker. >> good morning, commissioners, ladies and gentlemen. i am robert ellis from the omi community action organization. i want to congratulate all of

the honorees today. the solution to my problem is simple. it concerns the merced heights renovation program. my situation is the clubhouse, the renovation of the clubhouse to make the park more for the aging and disability people who are not being provided for means renovation of the clubhouse. making the clubhouse more accessible for the aging and disability people so they can have programs of their own, which they do not have at all right now. one more item that i have. i don't know if it is on the agenda. the dog parks up there in the area. i think there is a rumor that they want to make the merced

heights part of the dog park. we have two dog parks in the area within a few blocks of each other. we don't need a dog park in with senior citizens with disabilities. my request more specifically is to make the clubhouse more accessible, the park more accessible to senior citizens and people with disabilities. we need a place to have our gatherings and relations, too. thank you very much for your time. >> we have time for one more speaker. >> good morning, commissioners. i am bud's wife who recently spoke about the encroachment on bruno hill. i wasn't going to speak today.

i don't have any speech prepared. there were some things i wanted to bring up. back in december -- this isn't going to work. back in december 2017 is when we initially wrote rec park either november or december of 2017 because of the encroachment, and i just want to show you a picture of the fence that these individuals built. it separate sepit is on -- it ic park property. that tree had sketching put on

by the property owners. we wrote and they were very gracious and understood the problem. i felt assured they were going to take action and they did communicate with the city attorney's office. they issued notices to the property owners, required the property owners to remove fencing. remove what they put on the tree. they did remove what they put on the tree, but what happened. they were to remove it by november. we were told to be patient. we were as patient as we could be. then all of a sudden -- sorry about this. all of a sudden we found out that the fence was reduced to 4.

the gate is still tall. you can see first down the gate. this is still someone's private backyard. they have, i believe, are in someone's private backyard. they are not the only ones who did this. there are other property owners. we had requests from public works and rec park and hillary row nan's office. they asked for support. there is an e-mail from rec park saying there are several property owners encroaching on to rec park property. this is public open space, you know. it is wrong. i just wanted to say this is wrong. >> thank you very much. >> we are at time for general public comment. this will be continued to item

10 if anyone else would like to make general public comment. we are now on item 5. the consent calendar. anyone with public comment on the consent calendar? if so please come up now. >> go ahead, ken. then we have someone else. >> overhead, please. >> i am here to make a couple comments, if i may, about item f on the concept calendar. i am with the centennial committee. we have over the past year organized several coul studies e end of the great war. that didn't come to pass. the committee then approached the department about establishing some signage for

hero's grove. it is ironic here we are at the weekend prior to the return in april 23rd of 1919 of the 363rd. it was a tremendous out pooring from the city that led to the bond that made possible the war memorial, veterans building and opera house. the committee found support for establishing signage at the hero's grove that was first proposed to this commission just after the arrival of the 363rd in 1919 that resulted in the first tree planted memorial day of 1919. our plan is to establish signage at the eastern end of hero's

grove, which was the first tree planted on memorial day. mr. mic chairren didn't like redwood trees. now we have a stand 100 years old. our committee proposed contributing two smaller boulders within the grove itself that are more interpretive the list it was dedicated in 1919. this year we plan to rededicate the grove and for the first time have signage to identify the park. a grove in the park that many, many people do not know even exists, and i'm hopeful from now on there will be some direction and interpretive signage. that is the plan from our committee.

>> speaking spanish.

speaking spanish.

>> good morning. i am the father of alex. this is my second visit with you here. i want to say i am thankful for you guys helping us. it is a long road. many times we didn't know where it would end. we finally see the light. this is finally happening. my son died in 2014 in march, and now five years later in march it has been five years later and a little bit after march. i still go the hill to pray and say our father for my son. there is a little dog that visits me. i go there every day. i will go there soon with a memorial there.

good morning again. i am alex's mom. usually i don't speak because i get emotional. today i am. i just am grateful that we are finally here after five years. i want to thank you guys so much. >> please express to them our gratitude for coming here today. thank you. >> if i could say a quick little thing. i want to say that, you know, it has been a long battle. i want to celebrate the rent -- relentlessness. it is a hard a long journey for them. wwe are the police and the criminal courts have failed them you helped to bring justice. i thank you guys for that. >> thank you. [applause.]

>> good morning. today is a historic day because today you are approving the first ever memorial, an international caliber memorial to be dedicated to a victim of a police killing. we thank you, the community thanks you and i thank you for these words that will be on the plaque against the violence and injustice of 59 bullets, family and grassroots community arose as a movement to promote the positive spirit and to defend the honor of a be loved young man who was killed by the police. i mourn for alex. this place will be a place of peace. it will be a place of

inspiration, educational field trips and love. thank you. >> thank you. [applause.] >> is there anyone else to comment on the consent calendar? seeing none. richard. come on up. >> good morning. i am looking at the balboa park renovation. i should be speaking about it in general public comment. there is something that they are working on the walkway to other parts around the area, i thought it would be of interest for me to bring in whether it be chain link around different corners so people would know there is a part that has to do with the

main entrance to the pool area, and i thought if people know ahead of time and see the corners like chain-link fences, corners of it, then everybody knows it is dog play area. i was standing there waiting around looking at the people looking at the soccer game. there wasn't too many people at the dog play area. this is not quite the right time to talk about it. there is something that might be able to be done considering there the other construction around thattic area. thank you. >> thank you. [please stand by]

(in progress). >> we are now on item six, the san francisco zoo. >> i'm going to give folks a mint t minute to exit the roo, and then we'll... >> okay -- oh, no, wait a minute. i thought they were -- okay, we're ready to move forward. >> okay. >> chairwoman: or not?

>> thank you, commissioners. we also have a power point accompanying this reporter. i'd like to start my report recapping our zoofest celebration, and thank you, commissioner harrison, for your comments about zoofest, and thank you commissioner minucommissionermcdonald for at. this was a great event. we particularly highlighted our 90th anniversary. we had 400 people in attendance. we celebrated our long time board member ted oaks and his wife, and we celebrated tonya peterson's 10 years at the zoo. and we had supervisor yee issue commendations, and mayor breed declared zoo day on april 12th, so it was a great event. one of the highlights in

the next slide was our live auction and our animal nameings. namings. they raised about $200,000 for animal care and conservation of the species in the wild. and we're hoping that the sumattran tiger will breed soon, since there are only about 400 left in the entire world. his new name is is princeton. in april, we are recognizing many spring breaks and families coming to the zoo, with a special discountediscount for family reunions, for anyone who books ahead of time to come to the zoo. we pride ourselves on being affordable and accessible, and this is another way to do that. we have our first orangutan coming in many, manys years many,

many years. this syears is anine-year-old m. and there are only about 50,000 lester in th,000 left in. we're hoping he will become the patriarch at the zoo himself. i was pleased to hear about general manager ginsburg comment about the support for families with disabilities. on march 30th, we welcome that same organization to the zoo for family access day. as i mentioned our joint zoo presentation earlier, we really pride ourselves in providing accessible facilities for people with special needs. and for the family's access day, we created an early opening to reduce sensory stimulation, for those with needs in that area, and our area designed for people with visual disabilities was

available to them. pomroy works with adults and children with disabilities. because of our next door neighbor, we invite pomroy participants to come to the zoo. it includes veterans, make a wish participants, first responders, as our zoo mobile, which goes out to many community groups. i wanted to finish up with "earth day." we will be celebrating earth day at the zoo this year. we have partners like ecology, muni, and others sharing what they're doing in that area. i'm hoping it is indeed a earth day celebration, and not a 4/20 celebration. i'm taking off my zoo hat and putting on my tennis coalition hat, and thanks to commissioner doll and aly andall of the other who's

made that work. >> chairwoman: is there anyone else who would like to be heard? >> good morning, again. last month tonya peterson, the executive director at the zoo, spoke about the breeding. the sumatra tiger, and the fellow who is going to be doing the breeding, his looks like a young, healthy animal. i think he'll be out of quarantine soon -- i'm not sure. but i had kind of second thoughts about it, and i couldn't help but recollect at a different time, they had all of the noise to attack, carbon dioxide gas going into the lockup and the breeding. i wanted to add it wasn't here, it was somewhere in the southwest. with this type of breeding, i was hoping to

decrease any accidental mauling over the tiger breeding. that to be included if something, if possible, a temperature grade. i think women know more about it than men do. and doing the graphing, and possibly to project a better access to breeding temperature and the time when the breeding actually happens. when the breeding actually -- it's something that is animal husbandry, and when i look at it, it doesn't have much to do with embriology -- these are wild animals. i haven't come up with a way, to attach on it -- i don't know if you can put a temperature gauge on her, but if it works, you might still prevent the killing that happened not too long ago in the southwest.

i'm just hoping we can get some way of measuring the receptive of our female sumatra tiger. thank you. >> chairwoman: is there anyone else who would like to make public comment on item number six. seeing none, the public comment is closed. commissioners, this was discussion only. we're now on item 7, the echo centre at herring park, approval of memorandum of understanding. >> good morning. my name is brenda, and i'm with the volunteer division with the recreation and parks department. i just want to say that we did present this on the april 4th operations committee meeting, and at that time we hadn't received approval from the port commission, and so we are here on the general calendar to present present ando over the m.l.u.

>> so like we're proposing to enter an m.l.u. with the port, the eco-center is located in the southeast sector of san francisco, in district 10, inside of a park called parents head park. the eco-center is a special facility because completely off the grid. it has solar powers, it has a waste water treatment plant inside that treats its own water. it is a really cool environmental, sustainable building, that serves as a community classroom. and it actually was constructed about nine years ago, and it was opened to the public in 2010, in april, which is why we'll be celebrating earth day event on sunday, the 21st. it was advocated by the

literacy for environmental justice, approved by san francisco. rec and park will be operating the program, and has been operating programs at herrington park since 2010. we actually have several programs there. and i'm going to slide over -- actually, can i use this mic? okay. actually, i'm going to backtrack here. the m.l.u. agreement terms that we have is with the port, which is to continue to provide public access hours, at least five days a week, including one weekend day, track and record visitors and usage of the facility, and send monthly reports to the port, work with community stakeholders and develop programming and events that interest the bay view hunter's community. and provide two staff to provide operation of the building. and stored the landscape area adjacent to the eco-center.

provide our own services to keep it clean to the public. and share it with the hunter's bay community organization to use for community workshops, and provide free programs at the eco-center to local communities, and over all events. like i said, we have been working at herrington park for about nine years, from a work order from the port. and we've averaged about 3,200 hours of service. we served about 9,000 youth, and facilitated over 80,000 total hours. and with this proposal being at the eco-center, we expect to increase our stewardship along about 2% the first year. and so a lot of those programs that we do, our green program, which is an internship program for high school students, and we hire students from the southeast sector. we have our youth stewardship program, and we're in our 2n 22nd year.

and it is a dual program where you provide interchips for adults. so we hire about five to six s.c.a. interns to run the program. and so we're serving two different avenues. and we have our youth development collaboration, and we work with more structured programs through the j.v.k. vocational service program. we've been placing interns throughout the park for years, and we also have an arts collaborative, literacy collaborative students from downtown high that come out and dive deep into the education and resttation arestorationat herrington park. and we have national coastal cleanup day. we work with a lot of corporate groups and non-profits to come and restore the land and learn about the birds and the history of herring tonton

park. and we've had healthy walks at herrington park for the lost four years. so we're already involved at the eco-center, so it is not a big change for us to come over here. it will be a natural ral fit fofitto come here and work h the programs to continue to expand the opportunities for district 10. so there are four new activities that we do plan to implement our first year. one of them is sunday engagement program. it might just be the weekend program over all. and so that's an opportunity for us to engage with public users to learn about birds and nests, and we'll have some specimens. it is more like a mobile museum we plan to take on to the trail. we're going to be conducting surveys to get a real understanding of what brings them to the park, so we can use that information to develop programs and build different events that will help, or that meet their

interests. we're currently actually implementing a third public saturday workday through our newest partnership with the probation enrichment program. and this summer we'll be hosting our summer camp from the joelia rec center from 10:00 to 1:00. a lot of this work is made possible through our partnerships. and we'll continued with our partnerships and build relationships with the organizations that are serving the population we want to reach. the port has been a huge supporter for years, and the green usage is in collaboration with the port. they have supported literacy program, and so justice is a staple in district 10. and they help us a lot with the work scope and understanding of some of the wetlands' features.

a.p.r. has been a big supporter in helping to recruit youth, and we'll be working a lot with them in developing new programs at the eco-center. the student conservation association has been a supporter and why we have interns serving in our youth stewardship program. the parks alliance has been big supporters for both of our programs, and parks in general. and that's our green usage program. thank you for your time. and that concludes my presentation. >> thank you very much. >> chairwoman: do we have any public comment on this item? come on up. >> good morning, commissioners. my name is carol bock, i'm the environmental affairs manager for the port of san francisco. and i am here to urge you to support execution of this memorandum of understanding with the port. i made an informational

presentation in march and they voted on april 9th in favor of staff executing the memorandum of understanding. we have worked with rec and park staff for almost 10 years at herring's head park, and we are just 100% confident, and also what we've heard from our contingents, since this agreement was proposed, has supported that confidence that rec and park is really the best entity to make the -- to get the best public benefit that the eco-center facility has to offer. i'm really excited about working with them, and the opportunities that are presented by having them be able to bring all of the work that they've done outside into the park and expand it into this unique facilitymenfacility. thank you. >> thank you. >> chairwoman: next speaker.

>> good morning, commissioners, general manager ginsburg, good morning. >> chairman: can i get you to speak into the mic. >> does my clock start over? >> chairwoman: yes, but you need to speak into the mic. >> can you hear me now? >> yes. >> good morning. my name is kirk rhymes, and i'm with the program in san francisco. i'm also a district 10 resident. and for the past six years, i've been very much involved in the eco-center. for the interest of time, i want to be short and brief and to the point because the eco-center has a lot of history with my community. there are thousand linear feet away t-a community, a commm trying to engage in in this space. i'm in support because i hope that the

opportunities and histories and relationships that have been promised will be fulfilled. i'm very much looking forward to working with our p.d. in doing this as a resident and as the a.p.r. i. program manager. thank you. >> thank you very much. >> chairwoman: next speaker. >> good morning commissioners. my name is jackie flynn, i'm the executive director at the a.philip randolph institute in san francisco. the eco-center is a hub for innovation and education for all. it was a commitment to the bay view hunter's point community that has suffered enormously from ahs of neglect and planned racism. the eco-center was a programs and commitment to environmental and social justice, through education, retaining our history, engaging the community, creating local and green jobs, and a space for life-inspiring students. for the last six years, my

team at apri, has worked hundreds of hours, poured in sweat, equity and love into the eco-center. our hope is we get to see the vision of our supervisor sofia maxwell, green actions' marie harrison, and tessy ester from hunter's view, who fought tirelessly to provide social justice to our community. so we are in support of the transition and m.o. u., and we're committed to continuing to be a community partner. i want to take a moment to think folks, like kim kiefer, who is not year, alongside brenda, one of the biggest green users' fans. phil, you're so genuine when you provide opportunities for our community, and i recenter appreciate.

and also thank carol bott from the port because we have worked on this for years. i'm very much happy to see the efforts of leadership. so in closing, we're hopeful with the right leadership, our community can fulfill this commitment together. i thank you guys very much. >> thank you very much. >> chairwoman: is there anyone else who would like to make public comment on this item? being none, complic public commt is closed. >> mr. ginsburg, did you want to weigh in on that? >> very briefly. it is mostly gratitude, beginning with carol and elaine forbes and the port for your long-standing partnership along the southern waterfront, and your confidence and faith in us. we really appreciate that. it is very meaningful. to brenda, for your initiative and drive and really taking green agers, and our stewardship of the

eco-center to the next level. this has been a real passion project for you, and that's very obvious, and that's why we have the right person at the helm. and, just lastly, to jackie and curt, but to the community more broadly, thank you for your trust in us as well. and we are very humble and aware of the important history of this site and both the actual and symbolic promise of environmental justice that this building holds. and we will do our best, in partnership with you, to make good on our commitments. >> thank you. the chair would entertain a motion? >> moved. >> seconded. >> all those in favor? >> yea. >> so moved. >> chairwoman: we're now on item 8, the synthetic turf replacement project.

>> good morning, commissioners, an i'm general manager dan morrow with the capital improvement division. i'd like to read the agenda for the record and then i'll go into a little more detail on why i'm here. what i'm requesting today is discussion and possible action to authorize the rec and park department to negotiate a construction contract with the silver sympathetic turf replacement project, as required under the san francisco administration code 6.23c, subparagraph two. i have a clerical error, it is actually 6.23, not 02. about a week and a half ago, i came to the capital committee and gave a brief discussion only on this item, to replace some worn-out, sympathetic turf at these facilities, with

new synthetic turf, and do some upgrades, replacing fencing, fixing the bleechers, adding a drinking fountain, and making some a.d.a. im movementimprovements that are necessary. we didn't have bids in at that pointer. we weratthe point. we were waiting for the bid period to close, which was the following day. unfortunately, we only received one bid as a part of that process, and it was substantially higher than our budget for the construction work. with that we scratched our heads a little and tried to figure out what our next steps were. we went to the city public works office, and we saw when you receive one bid over the estimate or no bids, it affords the department to move forward with a negotiation process with a qualified contractor. as part of that process, it also requires that we get the general manager's approval to move forward before we ask for your permission. so in your packages, jewel

you'll see a letter that commissioner ginsburg signed. my goal is to move forward, find a competent contractor, and negotiate a bid price that is lower than the bid we received. and more in tune with the project budget that we've identified for the project. with that said, we obviously stretched the time out a little bit here because once that negotiation process takes place, i'll have to come back to you for the standard process of a contract approval process. so my goal is to enter isn't a negotiation scenario, get a price that is reasonable and appropriate for the project, and then come back to you, hopefully next month, with a proposal to award a construction contract. what that may mean is the construction duration may shift a little at our first project, we were anticipating starting that on june 1st, and

completing in october. but because of this sequence of events, we'll probably have to push that construction process to july and negotiate a shorter construction window for that particular project. coleman will follow that, and start construction in december and finish in april-ish. i'm happy to answer any questions. >> commissioner harrison. >> today we're voting on to allow you to go into the negotiations process? >> yes. the administration code allows us to negotiate with either the bidding contractor who submitted the bid, see if we can get to an appropriate place, or go to another contractor who meets the qualifications of the original bid process. >> and then you'll come back to us? >> and then we'll come back to you with a name and number and a contract request award. >> secondly, as i mentioned at the capital committee the other day, i want to thank you and

congratulate for you due diligence and finding a new in-fill on this turf. it has been kind of a touchy subject for a while. thank you for your work. >> i have a question, but let's do public comment first? >> chairwoman: is there any public comment on this item? >> richard? [laughter] >> good morning. i had a little chat with mr. amar earlier, and i concluded that it is good for the commission to approve of the right to negotiate. that is not the main gift of whagistof what i want to talk about. it is the use of the legal ballpark -- i was hoping that they would be able to find a way varying the size of the ball field.

i want to introduce women's softball, so that's recreation and a larger field than the little leaguers. so of such planning, is there a way you can make adjustments, where it is used by both the little guys and little gals and women's softball? i think it is just adding on different pieces of synthetic turf and moving the bags around,and then there will be a higher degree of recreational usage of such area. other than that, i like the idea they're going to have good stuff in there. it is not that black rubber thing that i didn't like. it was -- that's about it. i hope they can get that softball-sized, and maybe some of the gals here might want to swing a bat. i think you'll get better park usage because there

be league guys on most of the weekends. >> thank you. >> chairwoman: is there anyone else who would like to make public comment? being none, public comment is closed. >> thank you. >> i just wanted to say i'm glad that we did this demonstration, that our experiment worked, and that we have some options to the traditional sympathetic field. and so the question i wanted to ask is that going forward, i know it has been pretty standard procedure that we replace our fields,lik, like every 10 years? that will continued to be the case for both fields? >> the lifecycle for these fields is approximately eight to 10 years. i think we have some experience with the fields lasting a little longer than that, but, yeah, we do expect to have the same lifecycle with this

alternate in-fill. commissioner, it has been a long road on this program. as you'll recall, what we said when conversations about the original in-fill material caused concern, we said, (a) we stood by the date tan the belief thadata and the beliefthat the . we knew this technology was going to evolve over time, and alternate in-fills were just beginning, but we didn't want to just jump in. we didn't want to be the ones to go out and purchase them not knowing how -- you know, how resilient they were going to be. and now we have enough experience, and a lot of the manufacturers are also using alternate in-fills, and this is the way of the future. you have to remember, these fields don't require any water, don't require any herbicides, much lower maintenance costs.

and more importantly, in a dense city like hours, they afford more opportunities for play. it's that simple. >> having lots of family members that play soccer, i personally want to express my appreciation and thanks for this special effort. >> thank you. >> dan, the cost, or the bid, seems so much higher than the budget. [laughter] >> with that experience that we're getting of getting better products, we don't seem to be getting better prices. what's happening there? >> um...i'm still scratching my head a little bit on this one. not to get into the weeds on this, there are a few contractors out there that have the experience on putting synthetic turf fields in. it requires kind of a unique skill set and some experience doing it. some of our standard contractors in the city that do terrific work in our park system, don't have the experience to do

the section of synthetic turf that is required. it is not just the green stuff. the more important element is the base below that. and getting that correct and the drainage and the material correct is the backbone of the system. with that, as part of the outreach process, i talked to and did some outreach to four or five different contractors we worked in the past, a lot of them in the bay area, and lot of them are not city contractors. little interest from some, and little response from others. i think folks are two busy. so we only ended up with one bid on this. since receiving the bid, we sat down with the architect and the contractor and tried to line crawl through where the deviation was. we found some items -- and i'll use this at one example. we had some minimal painting work out there on some concrete walls, painting from our standard khaki green to a more

bright and joyful color. the contractor wanted half a million dollars to do painting. and that's after the contractor reaching out to 15 different painting subcontractors, and only receiving one bid from them. so that is an example of why their bid was higher than anticipated. it's just a difficult climate right now with subcontractor it'ss, and the local hiring goals, which increased some of the bid prices. i'm hoping looking at different subcontractors and doing a little more outreach, we can hone in on a price we can afford and get this project moving. >> good luck. i don't see any other questions. entertain a motion. >> motion to approve. >> seconded. >> all those in favor, so moved. thank you. >> chairwoman: as mentioned at the beginning of the meeting, item nine