include my family and friends that have enjoyed these games during my children's birthday parties at joey the cat. we all grew up in the neighborhood and most of us still live in the neighborhood or close by. we are not in the high-tech industry. we are blue collar workers ourselves. and have even invited the st. charles church to play the games with us. joey the cat is fun for both adults and children and more

we have at any given time, go in on a sunday morning and you'll see everything from toddlers to people my age there, and they are indeed playing mini golf, ski ball, basketball and they are eating, because it's a full service restaurant, and they are drinking either alcoholic beverages if they choose to and of course there's nonalcoholic beverages. we have kids until 8:00. and we have many of them. so i'm going to talk a little bit about the economics of the situation. and i can tell you very clearly there would be, no, you are ban

putt if we didn't have a restaurant and a bar. we only charge $12 for miniature golf. we have a full maintenance team that has to come in every morning to do work on it. it would not be financially feasible for us to have that. so, in fact, having food, and it is a full service restaurant, which is important. i have two kids. and they are there quite a lot. i've lived in san francisco, it will be 30 years next year. i live in vernal heights so i know about this. i can also speak to the issue of crowding and uber and everything else. you know, once you check the records, we've had no literally no complaints about this, no police incidents, nothing like this, no alcohol-related incidents that have come up in the five and a half years that we have been in business.

we do have a door person. we don't think of them as a bouncer because it's meant to be friendlier than that. but we have door people that are there every evening. and that actually also really helps in keeping everything safe and neat and making sure there are no incidents. joey can speak to how he wants to handle that, but there is a model here that he may well use. >> sir, your time is up. >> okay. thank you very much. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> hello. i live near this project. and i'm a real estate agent. i work with a lot of small businesses. and i'm shocked about how hard it is to start a small business, just being an entrepreneur is incredibly difficult. the odds are so against you. and it takes so much persistence

and so much courage. to take a game like ski ball and turn it into your business is even more impressive. and to do that in san francisco, to raise a family, takes an incredible amount of responsibility. and a person that takes on these odds and that has the responsibility and persistence and passion is somebody that i want doing business in my neighborhood. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> good evening. my name is vincent. i live on 20th and treat. i lived on mission for about six years now. and i live at my family house my grandfather was born in. i approached joey about three years ago to start an art program in his arcade to help use his walls as canvass and create a system for a few

artists in the neighborhood to get together and paint some murals. that's just part of the reason i'm here though. a few years later we were in a bind and a friend of mine had two daughters and one was sick and we needed to have a fundraiser. there were very few places that could aaccommodate and he lent his space to us. the point is not the sob story. the point is that he gave me and my wife and my friends a community center that we needed at the time. and allowed us to use the space to raise $4,000 for a charity called madeline's movement that we believe and participate in. thank you. >> thank you, sir. next speaker, please. >> good evening. my name is matthew. i'm the owner of a small bizarre

cade. it's just me. i do arcade repair around the city and do event rentals with my arcade games. i've known joey for a couple years. i work for him on a contract basis fixing his games. i do some design work for him. and when he mentioned this project about a year ago when this first started dreaming about this, he mentioned in the plans there a mezzanine which is like a second story that would be created in this which hopefully would contain some of my games, miniature games i make. they are 40 percent size. [off mic] they are literally child-sized games. [laughter] so i make those games. and i've lived in the mission

when i first moved here at 21st and florida. i lived in the upper hayes the last ten years. there's an arcade in the upper haight which again echoing the economic concerns is both a print shop, they make screen print t-shirts which is how they support the arcade. i work there on the weekends and if i had to encourage you to go there any day, it's full of kids playing my games, specifically parents showing their kids the games and the kids being approachable for the kids as well. i'm a blue collar worker. i repair arcade games. i need clients like joey to be able to live in the city. so i would encourage you to approve this request. thank you very much. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> hi, there. my name is dan baldwin. i'm an employee of joey the cat as the events manager. i'm tasked with the rental sales

and delivering the arcade games throughout the bay area to private events of all types. i have a part-time team of two event assistants that help out with the delivery of the games. i've been a resident of the mission for about five years now and have enjoyed working with joey in supporting a business that is owned by somebody that lives in the mission. and a vote for this discretionary review may jeopardize my position as well as my part-time assistants so i would ask that you reject the discretionary review and support the arcade. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> hello. my name is josh morris. i work at joey the cat as well. i also live in the neighborhood. and have for seven years now. i repair arcade games in this warehouse and also at other locations. we have our arcade games and i would like to be able to keep my

job because if we don't have more arcade games, then there's nothing for me to work on. the best thing about this is that when you see people playing, if you share the experience. we are in the business of creating champions. we are here sharing the board walk experience that really can't be achieved any other way than playing arcade games. and i want to continue making people happy by sharing that winning feeling with them, because i'm not olympic athlete but you get that sensation when you succeed and when you win. thank you. [laughter] >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> hello, my name is ryan. i'm bay area born and raised, been a business owner in the mission district for two decades, lived in san francisco for about the same. i'm also a member of the mission

merchants association and that's how i found out about this project. i feel like there's a lot of obvious tension in the mission district over gentrification and tech use use coming in and having a blast. and to be honest, it pisses me off when i see crappy behavior by people that aren't from here and whatnot but i think blaming joey for that and having him be the punching bag for that kind of anger isn't quite fair. i don't feel it's fair to characterize this as it's going to be strictly a techy hangout. i think we know that techies live in san francisco and people with money live in san francisco. but there's nothing about this that has that nasty smell of money. it just doesn't. this is a place that i would -- if i could afford to have a kid, i would bring a kid to hang out there and play ski ball or whatever. but this doesn't have an elitist

stink to it. and i know there's some people that have a drive and i respect what they are protecting. but i think that maybe this particular project should maybe get a little more slack and think about someone as trying to open an honest, independent, hard-working, working-class business and i know there's been some past and i don't know about that but i know his plan sounds good, and i back it. i think independent business is what san francisco needs, i think it's what the mission district needs and providing jobs, kids, sounds good to me. i back it. so that's it. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> good evening, commissioners. thank you for your time tonight. my name is pete. i am a resident of the block where joe is proposing to

operate this business. i also have been in the neighborhood probably somewhat longer than mr. ortiz has been on the planet. i was the president of the mission merchants association back in the '90s when there was a lot of discord about the tech boom back then. and it seems silly, not really realistic to continue to vilify the industry that drives the economy of our city today. in terms of all the different reasons why folks are brought up that we shouldn't have alcohol on the block, i can tell you that they all, every person that opposes every project that i've listened to kind of uses the

same stuff and hides behind the same stuff. i can tell you having lived on the block for quite some time that the only places where the hookers aren't hanging out and the pimps aren't hanging out are in front of the bar over there on the corner of shotwell and 20th. that's the only spot. so having more nighttime activity that doesn't revolve around the sex trade would be fantastic. having opened a dozen or so different businesses, all over the city, i can tell you that alcohol makes things viable. it's not always a bad thing. in fact usually it's a great thing. it's very, very difficult to make a business go without the help of alcohol sales. i'm trying to -- yeah, i mean all the different things, the no alcohol, the closing at 9:00. these are folks that have never operated a business.

they just don't care. they are naysayers, and that's not what san francisco is about. i've been here 40 years. i've heard a lot of this stuff. and it rings as hollow now as it ever did. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> good evening, commissioners. steven bus. i want to say congratulations to commissioner diamond on your appointment and confirmation. i hope future meetings don't go quite as long, because i know this must be grueling for all of you. so i would like you to support joey the cat and reject the dr. you know, i feel like we have the opportunity to start having a higher bar for drs and we

should not take such frivolous drs just on principle. it should be reserved for exceptional cases. and clearly that doesn't meet that bar. so, you know, it's hard for small businesses in san francisco. it costs anywhere -- it could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. it could be several months until you get permits. we've made a system that is difficult for anyone without connections, basically anyone who can't organize 20 people to come out to a hearing to open a new business. and that's not a healthy city. so, again, please reject the dr and let the small business owner continue to flourish. thanks. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> hi. i'm joe.

recent graduate. i'm speaking in favor of joey the cat. i think that direct -- discretionary reviews should only be used for extraordinary and extreme circumstances. and it seems a lot of things have not met up to this standard, and this case certainly is one of them. joey has been here for 11 years. he has gone through the permitting process. it's not an easy task. it takes about 86 days according to a census report, about 26 hours of processing permits. he has dotted his i's acrossed his ts and added a couple of objectionford commas and at this

point he's faced a roadblock. i think about my mother who has always wanted to open a business and how if she was in this position, you know, she doesn't have the best grasp of english. she didn't come to this country with a lot of resources and connections. if she was in this position without this host of great supporters and host of people who know her, she wouldn't be able to defend herself. i don't think she would have a chance of succeeding through a dr. i think that is broken. i think joey is doing great things for the neighborhood. i really think that you should accept this dr and set a standard that drs aren't supposed to be used for something frivolous but extreme situations that haunt the neighborhood. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> hi.

my name is daina. and i like small businesses. small business is dying. a lot of outwardly successful businesses are barely hanging on. there are places that are packed every single night and still they haven't been able to pay rent in months. and without a liquor license you can't begin to think about it. the businesses i talk to are terrified of dr. if you are thinking about opening a business it's like a sword over your neck. if it can happen to someone as awesome as joey, it can happen to anyone. and that's what potential business owners are thinking. our small business community can't afford to pay. please show your support for small business and please don't take dr. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> hi.

i'm jeremy, also from indy neoliberal. so recently san francisco was ranked the number 77th best city to run a business in north america. and that probably sounds pretty bad, but it's actually even worse because all of the business -- all the cities underneath that were in mexico. we are the absolute worst city in the united states and canada to run a business today. and this kind of process is a huge part of that where anyone can come up to the works of a project for any or no reason whatsoever, causing a business owner to have to pay rent for months potentially for a business that they can't operate. they have to go and tell their investors they have no idea when they are going to be able to get a return on their investment. maybe a big corporation can afford this. in fact most big corporations

can, because they can use revenues from other locations. but small business owners, they don't really have that option. it creates a fundamentally unjust and unfair system for small businesses who just don't have those kinds of advantages. obviously we can't really solve that process here today. but you can help us by swiftly rejecting drs that are in places where the businesses already principally permitted. as a conclusion, i'm another small business owner. i've lived here 15 years. i hope to someday wake up in a a city that is only the second worst city in america to run a business. >> thank you. any other public comment in support of the project sponsor? okay. dr requester, you get a two-minute rebuttal.

>> can reasonableness consistency start my -- can we restart my time? so i'm hearing a lot of things. so he brought this property for $1.5 million in 2014. this is not your mom and pop local i'm just trying to make a buck and have my business survives. he comes from a very wealthy family. this is not about an arcade using alcohol. this is about changing use so we can sell control. the mission has the highest number of alcohol-related arrests and ambulance rides in the city. we are taking the cost in the neighborhood. these private events are 25$00 an event. joey refused to continue the discussions after the fact that alcohol was a nonnegotiable which is right away had we knew that all his intent was.

so i would ask when not against the ski ball repair shop or ski ball is family-friendly space but we would ask for a community benefits agreement that gets up held unlike urban putt which has not been up held because they are not following that agreement. the whole point of having community benefit agreements is to make sure this is being mitigated and are having effects to make sure our folks cocome in and use these spaces. since the private event parties are $2,500 an event that you limit the event to five a month. so that way he's recouping a little bit of that. we don't need a private event destination spot where it's going to be private events all the time and no families are going to be allowed to be in there at this point in time. i would ask the commission to look at shotwell as a whole because there's a lot of conversion that's happening from pdr into tech office space so

that's a big concern, because we are talking about what's legally allowed and that's correct. but the fact is we are losing our pdr spaces and we are in the process of trying to preserve that through map 2020. thank you for your time. >> thank you. you get a two-minute rebuttal. >> so i just want to reiterate , this arcade is not going to hap. i think that's crystal leer so there's not a concession to be had. the only thing in the discretionary review i agree with is kevin checked the box on no, he didn't reach out to the in the neighborhood notification. when he says multiple opportunities, he backtracked to no we can't have alcohol and now he's trying to tell me hours to open my business. he's using data of how much a private event cost when this wasn't open to the public.

[off mic] >> you are out of order. >> my pricing is that's what was happening in the past so we are nonprofit events. he's not hiring those. that's a mischaracterization i'm only going to cater to techies. you saw steve walk up here and say a ton of different kinds of people all have events in his space and enjoy his space and enjoy food and beverage. so we bought this building because we know that it could be a public arcade and public restaurant that could provide community benefit. and i think that is the reason we bought it, for $1.5 million, the price doesn't matter. this is part of a dream to open an arcade to the public. and a space that we could stay in because an arcade without alcohol and food and beverage,

they don't exist. so i urge you to reject this dr, because i want to open this business to the public i want to put transparency on the building. i want this to be a public space. this is not going to be a private event space anymore. this will be a public space. >> okay. thank you. commissioner richards. >> so it's late and i'm really cranky. for those of you that don't like dr i give you two pieces of advice. one, get six members of the board of supervisors to put a charter amendment on our ballot that repeals the right to do dr on our business and tax code or get the signatures yourself to put the thing on the ballot because i'm tired of hearing about why san francisco is so bad. do something about it. secondly, mr. joey, can i ask you a question? can you come up, please? so, these other locations you

have, are they repair and arcade? repair and restaurant? what are they? >> they are restaurants, bars, . so there's a brewery, street food, places that have my machines in them. we don't have enough time to go into the whole side of my business but i restore arcade games, i put them in bars and repair them because they break when kids use them. >> so you are the only joey the cat there is. you are the only joey the cat location. >> this is the only joey the cat location. >> have you ever been to silver ball ranch? >> no >> i'll get you an introduction. they have about 5,000 pinball machines. it's in sonoma. you need to go see it. >> definitely that's my question

for now. >> back in the day when i was growing up in merced, a crazy day out for me was taking the 17 to san francisco state and playing video games. $5 to me was a world of money and i couldn't have been happier. later graduated to the cliff house arcade. there was a couple of them on market street as well if i wanted to really take in the train ride downtown. but i don't think this is businesses that bad. i really don't. i'm recalling commissioner ben from the entertainment commission just came out with an article saying it's almost impossible to open any businesses here in thi in this . this is coming from a commissioner here in san francisco. so i'm not in support of the dr today. >> commissioner johnson. >> thanks. so there's so many things to say. i'm struggling because it's late. so bear with me.

yes, it is important to protect pdr space. actually think this is a great pdr use space. we have had multiple conversations about how hard it is to even when we have protected pdr space, keep and fill pdr space and this feels like a next generation pdr space that's there. and it feels like the intent of that. and it is principally permitted use. what i'm hearing when i hear the concerns of the dr requester and community members that spoke out against this business is really wanting a space that if it's going to exist there is open to the community, that really respects and responds to the needs of the community. one of those issues is thinking about how this benefits the community, how can it be an open

and welcoming space to all people who live in the mission and the city, understanding the neighborhood context, understanding maybe you do a community night or discounted rentals for local nonprofits. wanting to see a plan in place that shows that you understand those needs and are really open to responding to those. i think also so much stuff was brought up about alcohol in the mission and the fact that that community is actually working to put together policy around the fact that the community is rialing from an oversatchuation of alcohol. so if there is going to be alcohol here in this business, what can you do to put a plan into place? maybe you give a phone number contact to community members who can call you if patrons are coming out of joey the cat and being disruptive. what is your plan to not call

the place police but find a way to mitigate the impact of the business. and how can you work with the surrounding community to actually implement that in a way that integrating your business into the community. but overall, i would say i think the move to open up the space to the public to create a restaurant in this space that can truly be serving of all different interests and members of the community is actually a step in the right direction. and so i would move to not take dr and approve the project. >> thank you. so i will also be not supportive of this dr. let me just add to your wise words, commissioner johnson. you are always so on point. that i think, you know, we have seen all kinds of changes in our neighborhoods.

resulting from income disparity. and, you know, it's hard to see sort of the effects in terms of displacement, loss of cultural space and accessibility. i don't believe this project does any of these things. i also think that there's been a real shift in the last ten years in terms of what's viable for restaurants and retail. i think there's been a sort of seismic shift. i wish we lived in a world where having pinball machines and an arcade was economically viable. but we don't live in that world. and so i am somebody who has spent a large part of my career doing technical assistance for

businesses in the mission, doing, you know, building support for folks to make a living, mostly immigrant businesses. and i know how tough it is to be able to survive, to be able to pay your employees, to be able to pay your mortgage. and so i think coming up with innovative business plans that involve different things, you know, events, pinball machines, hours during which kids can come, hours during which techies can come, things that can be flexible uses that will allow you to have a business that's viable and at the same time as commissioner johnson suggested, i hope you -- i saw you writing down her suggestions, which was excellent, which contribute to the community and are respectful of the community life. i think that's the way to go.

so i think that i commend you for having so much support. i think that's great. and i also want us to think about that issue of flexibility and spaces. i think umu designation is the perfect designation to be trying out flexible business models, having something going on during the day, having something else going on in the evening, maybe something on weekends, something on weekdays. i think because it's meant to be that in between pdr and residential, it is the perfect way to be trying out new business models in this world that we are living in of amazon and grub hub delivery where it's so difficult to have restaurants survive, even with alcohol. and so i think just for planning staff, i want to see some of these things and explore some of

these things, especially in umu, because i think it's important to preserve jobs. and i also will say that the pdr designation is exactly what we thought of, the repairing of the machine, that's the exactly what pdr is and if having this extra income with this new business model allows you to employ all of these folks, fixing up ski ball machines and other places, i think that's exactly what we want. so thank you so much. and i will not be supporting this dr. commissioner richards. >> just a couple thoughts before we vote and hopefully go home. i would love to see -- we talked about equity before. i would love to see on this project or dr, the applicant and the project sponsor and staff, if we so desire, actually put the project through the equity lens and see what the sausage is

at the end when it comes out. so that would be an interesting one. i love going to detour in my neighborhood. they have children's afternoons 12 to 5, saturdays and sundays. i hope you are able to do something like that for kids. the only thing that troubles me, and the reason why i will vote yes is indeed you had an events there afterwards. it looks like you did. if you didn't, then now is the change to say. with social media it's hard to disprove these kinds of things. i love pinball. >> second. >> thank you, commissioners. seeing nothing further, there's a motion that has been seconded to not take dr and approve the project as proposed. on that motion. [roll call vote] >> i vote not to take dr.

>> the motion is to not take dr. [roll call vote] so moved, that motion passes 4-1 with commissioner richards voting against. [applause] >> it's a weird spot. i struggle with -- [end of meeting] .

>> let's get started. welcome. yeah. you can be excited. you should be. welcome to the beautiful new playground, everyone. [ cheering and applause ]. >> my name is phil ginsburg. i am the manager of the recreation and parks department. we're so pleased to have everyone here to celebrate what is really a transformation for this playground, a place where childhood memories will be created and opportunities for imaginative play are endless. there are a lot of community supporters and folks that made this happen. we're going to introduce and recognize all of them during our short program, but i'm so honored to introduce someone who has kept her eye on this playground for many years.

as district supervisor and now as mayor, she is our park champion and chief. our kids do not need an advocate, because they've got mayor london breed. >> mayor breed: thank you so much, phil. let me tell you, i can't be more happy than to be here today. i remember a couple years ago when we cut the ribbon on the new basketball courts and there were conversations going on and on and on about the playground and the next to do something better. the parents who bring their kids here on a regular basis reflects what we see here today. as much as i love. i grew up in sands, so i'm a big fan, but the fact is these kids

are going to have a great time. we are so lucky in san francisco that we have so many people in this community that are so generous and we're actively engaged to shape what this playground looks like right now. we have amazing contributors who have invested so much money into supporting and making this happen. our incredible partner, the parks alliance, thank you so much for your continued alliance and this playground. thank you were jody pritzer for your major contribution to this project. and brian baker who hosted. thank you so much for your work

and for your advocacy. the work that you do to raise the funds and contribute to make this possible makes it happen sooner rather than later. so thank you, because the kids that are here today are going to be able to have a good time and enjoy this amazing playground. i know they don't want to hear a bunch of long speeches. i know they can't wait to get started with playing. thank you to the nopa community and the ashbury community for your work and advocacy. it is so great to be here today to have this incredible experience. i know you are wondering why is sheriff vicky hennesey here today. she's not here to take anyone to jail. her granddaughter is a lover of

this playground and we are happy to have her as a supporter, so thank you for your service to san francisco. fill, you say that i am the park champion, i tell you no one works harder to bring in the resources and move these projects faster to get these done so that you have these results today. thank you and your team for the work that you continue to do. [ applause ]. >> mayor breed: last but not least, i started that and she finished it. valley brown has been an amazing advocate for this community for decades and she made sure that we got this project done. i will say in absolute record time. we just broke ground on this project last year and in bureaucracy time, this is fast. ladies and gentlemen, the person who was making it happen and doing the work for this

community, your supervisor, valley brown. [ applause ]. >> thank you, mayor breed. i remember when this was a twinkle in your eye, phil. i see the ashbury council is here. people have come here because this is an amazing park and the way that it was done with the contributor contributors made it what it is now. look at everything. i was looking around. i can't believe how cool it is, and i'm going to take a slide down that slide. i don't know if anybody has done it yet, but i want to go and slide down that slide. it looks so fun. i have to say that the city is like a tanker in ice.

every time we try to do something, it takes that long. this is something that went fast because of community support, because we had private people coming in and saying let's make this work, and we can turn faster than a tanker in ice. thank you, everyone, thank you, mayor breed, and let's play. >> supervisor brown said it perfectly, let's play. the mayor has keys to the city and gives proclamations at the board and we give away park signs to true park champions. thank you for all of your incredible support. [ cheering and applause ]. >> the mayor alluded to the fact that this was a big community effort. we need partners and friends.

government doesn't do it all alone anymore. we need the support. i'm pleased to bring up our closest friend, drew beker. the alliance of parks department have worked together since 2013 or 2014 on let's play s.f. which is our campaign to renovate the 13-mo 13-most-deserving playgrounds around the city. it is a $30 million effort that has a significant amount of public money, but that wasn't enough to get it done. we are the parks alliance and is the san francisco recs and parks department work together on so many things, including our 150th golden gate park celebration. this is part of that. the panhandle itself was practice for building golden gate park. around the park are 80,000 trees

that were planted to figure out what would work best down the road. i'm so pleased to bring up a special partner, drew beker. >> thanks, phil. i want to give a shout out. thank you, mayor, thank you, valley, thank you, phil. the parks alliance is so happy to be a part of this wonderful event. i would like to give a shout out to the civic committee. thank you so much. you helped make this possible. i want to give a shout out. thank you, liz, for everything you do. also brian baker held an event before this. thank you for you and your family to support us and the san francisco parks alliance. thank you so much. and the rec and park commissioners, we couldn't do this without them giving the okay to make all of this happen. we have partners with rec and

parks and they don't get shout outs that much. i want phil, lisa, and abigail to know how much we appreciate what you do. it is so amazing to have one of the top rec and parks departments here in san francisco. you have no idea how important it is to push these types of projects forward and make this happen and that's because it comes from the top. your amazing manager, phil, ginsburg, let's give it up for him. >> this public-private partner that was alluded to, we raised about $11.3 million for 13 playgrounds across the city. our goal is to raise $14 million, so we have a little bit more to go in order to make this playground and close out this

program and have the most equity-focused playground initiative in this country called "let's play s.f.." let's make sure you visit "let's play s.f.." make sure you are part of this movement to bringing this movement to 20,000 kids across this city. it's about making parts a part of each and every community. parks are part of the big puzzle, about keeping the parks part of our story. we need to move neighborhoods forward building parks. thanks for being a part of this movement and let's play. thank you so much. >> thank you, drew. this playground is about play and it's about community. so representing our community today, we are so pleased to welcome 45 preschoolers from

steppingstones preschool. your granddaughter is here, but steppingstones has a spot in my own heart. representing steppingstones and speaking on behalf of the community, i'm pleased to welcome a few members to share the importance of let's play. >> hi. my name is rakoia. i'm a director of a local preschool up the street, but more importantly i'm a mother of a 2 year old who is up there right now. i actually came here from l.a. i went to ucla. when i came to san francisco and looked at the preschools for work and realized none of the preschools have outdoor spaces or if they did, it was tiny.

so steppingstones uses the community for their playground. what a resource to have playgrounds like these. this is an amazing playground just for the preschoolers, but also now that i'm a mom, for communities like this for playgrounds that inspire community and imagination. we were just here in april for the ground breaking, and now it's november and it's incredible. thank you so much, everyone. [ cheering and applause ]. >> before we do our first slide with our steppingstones preschoolers and supervisor brown, we have some gratitude. i need to do some closing acknowledgements. we have a lot of gratitude for all of our supporters. without their help and support as i said, this wouldn't be possible. let me echo my thanks to the

pritsker family. for brian and lesley baker, thank you so much for your support. for the folks from kaiser permanente, they have been big supporters. this weekend we lost an advocate for health and equity and diversity and true supporters of playgrounds and someone who understood the very important experience of play. we would ask you to take a quick moment of silence in mrmr. permi mrmr. permi mrmr. permi mr. permit -- permanente's honor. thank you. let's give a round of applause. we're also pleased to be joined today by sheriff hennessey and her granddaughter. vivian liang, and then dmitri

barstani is here with his mom, georgia. are you here and can you raise your hands? they're over there. thank you, dmitri and georgia for being here today. we're honoured to be here. his memory and gus' memory will live on. i would like to thank niko and marie who helped to work on the bench plaque that i believe are here. tim sieford and michelle welsh. steve courier from the parks and recs open space advisory. and then to the design and construction teams, you have an inspired design and project.

they deserve our thanks. to the landscape project. jeff cooper from c.p.m. services. and then to my own amazing team, the project managers for this effort, it takes a village, karen rupert, brett emerey contributed to this project. thank you, lisa branson, to your team to make this dream come to reality for our kids. we're going to have some honorary preschooler that is are going to join us. supervisor brown, if you want to join us too. the mayor is going to lead us in a countdown.

>> mayor breed: okay, supervisor brown, you're going to have to put a kid in your lap. are we ready, kids? five, four, three, two, one, let's play! >> thank you, everybody. in the words of our mayor, let's play. [♪]

>> my name is amanda [inaudible] over see the girls sports program. when i came to san francisco and studied recreation and parks and towerism and after i graduated i moved to candlestick park and grain r gain adlot of experience work with the san francisco 49 and [inaudible] be agfemale in a vore sports dynamic facility. i coached volo ball on the side and as candle stick closed down the city had me move in92 too [inaudible]

>> immediate interaction and response when you work with kids. i think that is what drives other people to do this. what drew me to come to [inaudible] to begin with for me to stay. i use today work in advertising as a media buyer and it wasn't fulfilling enough and i found a opportunity to be a writing coach. the moment [inaudible] you to take advantage of how you change and inspire a child by the words you say and actions you do. >> you have a 30 different programs for girls through rec and park and fast ball, soft ball and volley ball. i started the first volley ball league and very proud what i have done with that. being a leader for girls is passion and showing to be confident and being ambiggish and strong

person. [inaudible] for about 5 years. programs offered thraw thirty-three rec and park and oversee thg prms about a year. other than the programs we offer we offer summer camp squz do [inaudible] during the summer and that is something i wherei have been able to shine in my role. >> couple years we started the civic center socking league and what an amazing opportunity it was and is it for kid in the neighborhood who come together every friday in the civic center plaza on green grass to run and play. you otonly see soccer and poetry but also see books t. is a really promoting literacy to our kid and giving them to tools to make it work at home. real fortunate to see the [inaudible] grow. >> girls get pressureed with

society and i know that is obvious, but we see it every day, magazines, commercials the idea what a woman should look like but i like to be a strong female role for it goals that play sports because a lot of times they don't see someone strong in a female role with something connected with sports and athleticism and i love i can bring that to the table. >> soccer, poetry, community service. we now have field of dreams. we are [inaudible] all over the bay area and excited to be share our mission with other schools across the bay to really build the confidence and character of kids when they go out to play and close their eyes and think, why was [inaudible] we want to make sure-i want to make sure they remember me and remember the other folks who [inaudible] >> get out there and do it. who cares about what anybody else says. there will be

poopal people that come up and want to wreck your ideas. that happen today eme when i went to candle stick part and wanted to [inaudible] people told me no left and right. whether you go out for something you are passionate about our something you want to grow in and feel people will say no. go out and get it done. i can be the strong leader female and i love that. .

>> this is the recreation and park commission meeting, november 21, 2019. we welcome everyone. please turn off electronic devices and take your secondary conversations outside. if you would like to speak on any item today, we request but do not require you to complete a blue card. unless otherwise announced each person will have three minutes on each item. please address the comments to the commission. to allow equal time neither the commission nor staff will respond. the commission may ask questions for staff after comment is closed. if there is an item under the subject matter of the jurisdiction you may speak under general public comment. if the fire