Edwin M. Lee, Mayor Recreation and Park Commission

Minutes September 15, 2016

Commission President Mark Buell called the Recreation and Park Commission meeting to order at 10:04 a.m. on Thursday, September 15, 2016.

ROLL CALL Present Mark Buell Allan Low Kathleen Anderson Gloria Bonilla Tom Harrison Eric McDonnell

PRESIDENT’S REPORT Commissioner Buell: Given the size of the crowd and the time commitment to get them to testify I will forgo a President’s report.

GENERAL MANAGER’S REPORT Phil Ginsburg: Commissioners—well, maybe not as short as that but a relatively short General Manager’s report today.

Mayor’s Children Youth and Family Senior Advisor and School Board Commissioner Hydra Mendoza-MacDonnell and I have the great pleasure of serving as the co-chairs of the city’s Connecting Children to Nature initiative. This week and executive committee comprised of leaders from education, park, and youth-serving organizations met and just a little bit of context—in 2015 San Francisco was selected by the National League of Cities and the Children in Nature network as one of seven cities participating in a leadership cohort to discuss and explore ways to increase opportunities for children to connect with nature. Other cities include St. Paul, Minnesota; Madison, Wisconsin; Grand Rapids; Providence; Louisville and Austin. There’s a very important conversation happening right now in our city and across the country about equity and access and providing children with opportunities to connect with nature, to get outside, to put their cell phones down. On Monday the Executive Committee reviewed an implementation plan that offers a roadmap to engage communities and youth leaders, gather data and establish a metrics framework, provide increased opportunities for youth outside and make the children’s outdoor bill of rights a policy document that this Commission approved astragal to the policies, partnerships, and programs of a variety of city agencies and other jurisdictions in San Francisco. This work is very closely aligned with our Strategic Plan priorities and objectives and it is an honor to participate and we’re making some good progress. This Saturday is a very busy day in your parks. The day begins at 9:00 a.m. with the California Coastal Cleanup Day during which our volunteer staff will act at site captains at four park cleanup sites throughout the city including Heron’s Head, Indian Basin Shoreline Park, Golden Gate Park, and the Marina. Every year on the third Saturday in September people come together to take part in California’s largest volunteer event. Last year more than 68,000 people removed more than a million pounds of trash and recyclable material from California’s coast and inland waterways. Volunteer signups for these four sites are being handled through the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy at parksconservancy.org and there is still time to sign up. Also on Saturday morning the National AIDS Memorial Grove hosts a work party and special program honoring its 25th anniversary. The grove, which is location in Golden Gate Park, is a National Memorial and is a dedicated and serene space where those touched directly or indirectly by AIDS can gather to heal, hope, and remember loved ones. It is not only an officially designated National Memorial but it’s also a model of a very highly successful public-private partnership. That partnership has resulted in nearly 175,000 volunteer hours dedicated to that site, over $3.5 million invested in design and infrastructure and gifted back to the city, and the funding of an ongoing gardener at the site. We’re grateful to John Cunningham who is the Executive Director of the grove and we celebrate and congratulate them on their 25th anniversary. Then on Saturday night from 6:00 p.m. to 11:00 I hope to see many of you at the San Francisco Parks Alliance’s Annual Party for the Parks at the Panhandle Playground in Golden Gate Park. Proceeds from this year’s event will support the Let’s Play S.F. campaign, a joint effort between the Parks Alliance and our Department to renovate over a dozen city playgrounds benefitting over 20,000 children in San Francisco. Sunday is comedy day. One stage, five hours, forty comedians, a million laughs. This Sunday from noon to 5:00 is the 36th Annual Comedy Day at Sharon Meadow in Golden Gate Park. This is a free event which features some of the funniest comics from the Bay Area and beyond and includes Will Durst, former Assembly and Supervisor Tom Amiano, and Bob Sarlott. This event honors the life and legacy of Robin Williams who was very instrumental in supporting and participating in this event. Also on Sunday Red Umbrellas is back at the eastern end of Golden Gate Park near Alvord Lake. We’re thrilled that their partnership has been extended through December. You can stop by and enjoy high- quality art, meet local artists. Upcoming show dates include this weekend, it’s actually both Saturday and Sunday and September 21, 25, and 29. Information on other show dates can be found at recumbrellas.com. This is great partnership and placemaking effort to activate the Stanyan edge of Golden Gate Park. The 16th Annual Hardly Strictly Bluegrass comes to Hellman Hollow September 30 through October 2 featuring a free three-day celebration of bluegrass and beyond. This year’s lineup includes Mary Chapin Carpenter, Chris Issak, Jackson Browne, T-Bone Burnett, Marvis Staples, Emmylou Harris, Boz Skaggs, Cindy Lauper, and others. Finally, is Scaregrove, our annual Halloween event at Stern Grove is scheduled for Friday, October 28 once again featuring haunted houses, giant inflatable games, hay rides, costume contents and fun for all. Now for a look back, This Month in Parks. [video plays] That concludes the General Manager’s report.

GENERAL PUBLIC COMMENT Patricia Vaughey: Marina, Cow Hollow Neighbors and Merchants. We’re still missing the money addressed to the Parks Alliance for the Betty White Memorial Chair. Betty White was a person who raised the $50,000 for the playground to the left of the rec center. She was run over by a bus about six months later. Money was raised, it was put in what is now the Parks Alliance. We still haven’t been able to find the money and I would like the chair to go up. It’s only been five years. Number two is I want to see if there’s oversight in the money that’s in the Parks Alliance if money is being raised. I just have had it and I think we should do oversight on anything coming into it and for the future. I don’t want this to ever happen again. Thank you. Sam Nelson: Commission, General Manager, and staff, thank you for your time today. My name is Sam Nelson, this is Emily Koenig, we represent Lake Merced Rowing. I am a coach at St. Ignatius and she is a coach at Pacific Rowing Club. We are here to talk about Lake Merced, specifically Lake Merced West. Emily Koenig: As we mentioned in the past we are more than eager to work with any respondent and we’re very pleased that someone responded to the RFP. We’ve already met with him about the bottom two acres and our vision for that and it sounds like we’re going to be able to work in the future and we look forward to that. Sam Nelson: The key thing we’re coming to you today is future expansion for rowing at Lake Merced and fitness opportunities at the lake. We want to expand community rowing for all participants, youth rowing, both of our teams can expand drastically. We want to bring in more youth rowing camps, summer camps, opportunities for children who might not have that opportunity. Bring in para-Olympic rowing so those who have various disabilities and also really partnering with the veteran community in San Francisco. Looking at expanding adult rowing opportunities. There’s no sweep so flat water one-oared rowing for adults in San Francisco other than open water rowing which is a different beast. And we cannot do this in our current facility. Emily Koenig: Rowing really does change lives. I’ve seen kids just come out of their shells and obviously it brings two rivaling teams to come together on a common cause and we look forward to the meeting tonight and we thank you. Doug Block: I’m with Teamsters Joint Council 7, representing 100,000 Teamsters in Northern California and 12,000 in the City and County of San Francisco. I’m here to speak to a unanimous resolution the Board of Supervisors passed this week asking you to create a labor harmony provision for shuttle bus companies that get permits through your Department for special events. This would mirror a provision that was already adopted by the SFMTA last year and basically it was put in place to protect the residents of San Francisco from labor disputes spilling out into the streets, interfering with bus service and interfering with special events. I’m happy to say I don’t think it’s going to be a problem for any of the events that you authorize because we settled a long-standing dispute with Bauer’s Intelligent Transportation which does a lot of work for Outside Lands, Bay to Breakers, and other festivals and we’ve very happy that Bauer’s is going to continue that work and don’t anticipate any problems with any charter bus operators going forward in the future. So thank you for your consideration. Cheryl Brinkman: I’m currently serving as vice-chair of the SFMTA Board of Directors but speaking as a private citizen, frequent Golden Gate Park user. I want to thank you for your upcoming attention to bicycle and pedestrian safety in Golden Gate Park. I think the ides of speed bumps coming up to reduce traffic is fantastic to reduce traffic speeds is fantastic and I just want to let you know that I really hope that the next step will be big, will be visionary, will be something that works for Golden Gate Park for the next 50-100 years. The recent fatality in Golden Gate Park I think really made people think twice about using the park in the areas that don’t have safe protected bike lanes, the sort of lower part of JFK where the fatality happened feels very scary these days. As a cyclist I won’t even use MLK simply because the amount of car traffic and the speed of those cars is daunting for someone who is a timid cyclist. So again I just thank you for your attention and I know you’re going to take it seriously and I know that with the work of the SFMTA you’ll come up with a fantastic project that’s going to help open access to Golden Gate Park not in motorized vehicles. Thank you all very much.

CONSENT CALENDAR On motion by Commissioner Low and duly seconded the following resolutions were unanimously adopted: RES. NO. 1609-001 RESOLVED, That this Commission does approve the minutes from the July 2016 Commission meeting.

RES. NO. 1609-002 RESOLVED, That this Commission does approve the following animal transactions for the San Francisco Zoological Society, which were processed under Resolution No. 13572.

DONATION TO: ANIMAL SPECIES PRICE TOTAL DUE Micke Grove Zoo 0.1 marbled teal NIL N/A 11793 N Micke Grove Rd. Marmaronetta angustirostris Lodi, CA 95240

DONATION FROM California Department of 0.0.1 desert horned lizards NIL N/A Fish and Wildlife Phrynosoma platyrhinos 1416 9th Street, 12th Floor Sacramento, CA 95814

Tanglewood Ranch 0.2 Kunekune pigs NIL N/A 17360 Friendly Valley Place Sus scrofa scrofa kunekune Grass Valley, CA 95949

National Aviary 1.0 Andean condor NIL N/A 700 Arch Street Vultur gryphus Pittsburgh, PA 15212

San Diego Zoo Safari Park 0.2 Roseate spoonbills NIL N/A 15500 San Pasqual Valley Road Platalea ajaja Escondido, CA 92027

RES. NO. 1609-003 RESOLVED, That this Commission does recommend that the Board of Supervisors authorize the Recreation and Park Department to accept and expend a cash grant of up to $100,600 from the Surrendered and Abandoned Vessel Exchange (SAVE) Grant program administered by the State of California Department of Parks and Recreation, Division of Boating and Waterways, to abate costs for hauling out and disposal of potential future abandoned vessels in the Marina East Basin.

The Commission unanimously adopted Resolution Number 1609-004, which is attached hereto and titled “Resolution Approving Hours of Operations for Hayes Valley Playground of 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Seven Days a Week”.

SAN FRANCISCO ZOO Tanya Peterson: I am the Director of the San Francisco Zoo. I’m happy to give our monthly report on zoo events. We just this month opened a new exhibit, the Safaka Exhibit or as we say locally, Shafok. I want to thank the General Manager for attending. These leaping lemurs jumped on time and on schedule and I thank you for your remarks. This is the first step in the Society’s restoration of the Primate Discovery Center as we turn it into a Madagascar Hot Zone. It may be back to school elsewhere but it also is at the zoo. You can be a bookworm through the month of September each weekend we’re featuring different animals an authors who right about these animals. For those of you who like bugs this weekend is reading about bugs. So thank you to our literary partners for supporting these events. We also are trying to reach out to seniors for education and here are some examples of last year’s senior illustration classes. These happened three times during the fall. The models for the art classes are the zoo’s ambassadors of conservation and our seniors use mixed media to capture their beauty. These seniors have not lost their touch yet so we appreciate and support our seniors. Upcoming is Red Panda Day where we celebrate internationally the red panda. Our pandas are named Tenzing and Hillary after the two gentlemen who scaled Mt. Everest first. That day proceeds will be sent to the Red Panda Network to help endangered pandas throughout the world. We will then be hosting World Rhino Day. There’s a picture of our African Rhino Boon who is named after the 49er Alex Boon. Those of you may know the African Rhino is nearly extinct because of killings over the horn in some communities it acts as a natural Viagra. There’s no evidence of that so I’m told. We would like to make our visitors aware of the plight of the African Rhino on that day. Speaking of which during the month of September we are asking our visitors to either get online or make a pledge not to buy new ivory. Local media has reported that San Francisco Chinatown is one of the largest suppliers of new ivory. If you don’t know, 90 elephants are killed a day for their ivory tusks so we just want to make our community aware of the impact of buying new ivory. The Young Professionals are going to have a party at the zoo and it’s called appropriately Fur Ball and their theme is Where the Wild Things Are. I understand the band Notorious will be on hand to celebrate with our Young Professionals. I believe the event is in the Lion House. The whole month of October is called Zootober Fest. We will have hay mazes, bouncy houses, pumpkins. We are proud to host safe trick or treating for our community at the zoo. Lastly, speaking of our community we are one of the only zoos in the world on the coast and we think it’s an important to keep our coast clean so there’s three of my staff there, they found a magical carpet if you will on the coast there. I don’t know if they took that home or not. Mainly though we found cigarette butts and again we’re happy to partner with Golden Gate National Parks to keep our coast clean. That concludes my report, thank you.

PALACE OF FINE ARTS Secretary McArthur: As Commissioner Buell announced earlier staff will make their report. Then SFMAP will have a 10-minute presentation. After that we will proceed into public comment. I will call your name off. For anyone in the north light court once you hear your name please come up, I’m going to call several names together so that you have enough time to come up here, thank you.

Cassandra Costello: I’m with the Recreation and Park Department in the Property Management Division. I’m here today to present to you the staff’s recommendation for the nonresponsive determination of the San Francisco Museum at the Palace and also the recommendation to terminate the current request for proposals for the Palace of Fine Arts. Before I jump into the meat of the presentation today I did want to give a little bit of background to explain how we got to where we are today. A number of years ago we completed a conditions assessment report in 2011 and that report looked at structural analysis, historic preservation, structural integrity, transportation and operating and building systems and concluded that a minimum investment of about $20 million into the building was needed. We then convened with the help of the Mayor and Supervisor Farrell’s Office and an advisory committee which consisted of leadership representatives from various cross-sections of the city including finance, community, institutions such as the Academy of Sciences as well as the Exploratorium, City Departments and the Maybeck Foundation. Their task was to provide the Department with goals and objectives for building the process to secure a long-term tenant. Around the same time, we also launched a series of public meetings and a public process where members of the public were able to give feedback on the Palace process and what the building should be in the future. All that information was included into the competitive bidding process documents which started with a request for concept proposals which I’ll refer to as an RFCP moving forward. It was released in November of 2014. We received seven responses to the RFCP in May of 2015. The uses ranged from sporting and gym facilities, health and wellness, arts and culture, museum uses, hospitality and lodging. As with all of our competitive bidding processes we assembled an independent selection panel. We have a very professional and knowledgeable panel with expertise in finance, historic preservation, recreation, local neighborhood and merchant issues as well as urban planning and arts and culture. The panel scored each of the seven responses based on the evaluation criteria set forth in the RFP. As you can see there were three responses that scored in the top tier. San Francisco Museum at the Palace or SFMAP which I’ll refer to them scored significantly low in the financial capacity categories highlighted in this charter. However, they were still considered in the top tier and recommended to move forward in the next round of the process which was a request for proposal or RFP. The Commission invited those top three respondents to participate in the invite-only RFP which was released in December of 2015. In early 2016 two of the three invited respondents which was TMG and Equity Community Builders informed the Department that they would no longer be submitting final proposals due to the uncertainty of the possibility of leveraging state historic tax credits to finance their proposals. The uncertainty of obtaining a tax credit was due to specific modifications they were proposing to make, mostly windows in the building. The Department therefore received one response to the RFP from SFMAP in May of this year. The Department staff as well as a selection panel referenced earlier in this presentation thought that the concepts presented by SFMAP were intriguing and proposed intriguing uses. However, for a number of reasons which I will explain in the following slides the selection panel and the Department have determined that the response was nonresponsive. There were a number of nonresponsive provisions. However, I will focus the next few slides on the financial provision such as confirmed liquid assets, written commitments from donors equaling 50 percent of anticipated donations required and financial information including financial statements, real estate portfolio, pipeline and lender relationships. The Department received information at three separate times from SFMAP. The first was received on the due date which was May 20 for the RFP. The second response came in the form of a protest to our nonresponsive determination. That information was received on July 27 of this year. And the third packet of information was received on September 7. All of this information is also in the file and in your packets. So I’ll focus first on the pre-construction expenses. So the RFP asked for the respondent to have liquid assets to fund the higher of $1 million of pre-construction expenses. The higher of their $1 million pre-construction expenses. The first response we received provide no liquid assets and the amount of pre-construction expenses was unclear. The second packet of information still did not show evidence of liquid assets. However, they clarified, SFMAP clarified that their amount of pre-construction expenses was about $2.073 million. Last week we did receive a letter from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation stating a commitment of $2.7 million for pre-construction expenses. The second requirement that I want to point out is the donation requirement. Again, there was a requirement that if any respondent was relying on donations to fund their proposal their need to show evidence of 50 percent of those donations confirmed. I do want to note that SFMAP had since of November of last year to start fundraising for this endeavor and they were aware early spring that they were the sole respondent participating in the RFP process. The first submittal we received suggested different fundraising amounts. We received two letters in the first submittal, one from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation with no amount listed and one from the Republic of Families which stated that they were potentially interested in up to a $10 million donation upon their committee’s contingent and conditional review with no additional detail. There’s also no fundraising plan with that initial submission which was also part of the requirement for fundraising. The second submittal we received SFMAP clarified that their fundraising goals were $23 million. We received a new letter from the Moore Foundation indicating that they were going to consider a gift of $2.5 million. There is no clarification from the Republic of Families letter and we did not have a fundraising plan. In the packet received last week the fundraising indicated to range from $25 million to $100 million and there’s a new letter from the Moore Foundation confirming a $2.5 million donation. Additionally, no clarification from the Republic of Families. We did receive a fundraising timeline, however, the timeline suggests that a feasibility study has not yet been done for this project for fundraising purposes. The third area I’ll focus on is the financial capacity, the RFP required again financial statements, real estate portfolio, pipeline and lender relationships. The first response SFMAP indicated that this section was intended for for-profit entities and that they were excluded from this provision. The second submission they included letters from their lenders indicating their interest but did not have analysis or additional details, same with the last submission on September 7. Due to these reasons staff is recommending that the Commission confirm our finding that the response received from SFMAP is nonresponsive to the RFP and we’re recommending that we terminate the RFP. Staff feels strongly we need to continue a broad search for a long-term tenant to provide the significant capital needs of the building and provide public serving amenities. We have limited ability to do this while we’re still engaged in a RFP process. If the RFP is terminated staff will restart our efforts to find a long-term tenant for the building and if we do find interest from financial viable parties, we’ll come back to the Commission with recommended next steps. And I do want to point out that a termination of the RFP does not preclude SFMAP from future discussions around the leasing of the building. Staff in terms of the interim use will continue our existing agreements with both Innovation Hanger who has an innovation museum in the exhibition hall as well as the Palace of Fine Arts Theater who has been operating a theater since 1970. I’m happy to answer any additional questions you have, thank you.

Secretary McArthur: SFMAP if you could come forward for your presentation please.

Secretary Norm Mineta: Good morning President Buell and members of the Commission and General Manager Ginsburg. I am the founding president of the San Francisco Museum at the Palace otherwise known as SFMAP.SFMAP as befits the center of innovation that is the city of San Francisco and the Bay Area including Silicon Valley is pointing in a new direction for an American museum complex. I’m also the chair of the Board of Trustees of the Japanese American National Museum and as we all know a museum is a place for education, preservation, and research. Above all it is a place that reflects the unique character of the community, serves its particular needs and enhances the enjoyment of the daily lives of its citizens. With these goals in the mind the San Francisco Museum at the Palace complex will tell the untold San Francisco Bay Area Silicon Valley innovation stories that changed the world and continues to change it every day. We will employ exciting and constantly emerging new technologies, many invented right here in our stand-alone galleries. We will focus on the need for enhanced public school education for the 21st century in the SFMAP learning center featuring STEM, science, technology, engineering and math subjects, coding skills, and a water-filled model of the San Francisco Bay to further the environmental awareness of young people. The SFMAP museum complex will entertain visitors of all ages in our cafes, restaurants, and shops and in the newly restored San Francisco Museum at the Palace Theater for theatrical performances, community programs, lectures and an exciting technologically advanced feature film experience. The San Francisco Museum at the Palace complex program is a financial sound program, thoughtfully created with the exact right team at the right time in our history. Our team intends to restore this great public treasure as the icon of innovation and culture that Bernard Maybeck intended. And now my colleague Bob Mendelssohn will tell you about the elements of our financial support to provide this new institution in a San Francisco icon that will attract visitors from all over the nation and the world. Bob Mendelsohn: President Buell and members of the Commission, I’m Bob Mendelsohn. I’d like to tell you about the extraordinary finance and development team behind the San Francisco Museum at the Palace. Since leaving government in 1980 I’ve assembled teams and directed preconstruction activities for 36 years, for over eight million square feet of development of public and private partnerships in Washington D.C. And as with this effort on a pro bono basis. I was a key member of the development committee that building the Holocaust Museum in Washington. I have never been associated with a more talented and committed group of professionals than the team we’ve brought together to design, construct and finance the San Francisco Museum at the Palace. Led by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, Nibbi Brothers Construction, project management services by Swinerton including the noted historic preservation architect Jay Turnbull and the legendary geotechnical engineer Frank Rolo who designed the elegant solution to the seismic and liquefaction problem that has plagued the Palace of Fine Arts for generations. The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation has provided the needed $2.5 million preconstruction financing. We’ll receive some $20 million for historic preservation tax credit investment and $69 million in debt financing from Fundamental Advisors with whom we have negotiated a term sheet arranged by our investment banker Susan Winshall of Zion Bank. I’d like to briefly put the results of these efforts in context. Recreation and Park issued an RFP in December of 2015, closed May 20, 2016. The three finalists as you know where two hotel developers and the San Francisco Museum at the Palace, Inc. a nonprofit. The criteria for “responsible proposal” were evenly divided between the appropriate public use of the Palace and the financial capabilities of the respondents. This opportunity of a lifetime became available to us and the two other respondents nine months ago. The two hotel developers dropped out. If you grant us the opportunity, we’ll get right to work. The public won’t have to wait after all these years for, to quote the staff report, “restarted efforts”. And searching for “allowable modifications” to the treasured Palace. And now our Executive Director Kelly Macy will tell you how we’re going to do it, thank you. Kelly Macy: I’m the founding Executive Director of the San Francisco Museum at the Palace. As Executive Director I’ve worked with our extraordinary team over the last year and a half to develop this unique and timely program for one of our most beloved civic treasures. Our complex is all about innovation and so it’s most fitting that our business model is equally innovative. In order to mitigate risks and ensure that our complex thrives now and in the future. So let’s take a look at our annual revenue mix. Museum visitation accounts for $10 million. Theater programming in the new state of the art Palace Theater is $11.7 million. Destination events are conservatively accounted at $2.1 million. Parking is $1.7 million. Merchandise is $1.8 million. And rental revenues from our Palace Marketplace are $1.4 million. These complementary uses combine to create a sound and flexible revenue stream. Looking at our annual cash flow we show $7 million for debt service, factoring in the current financing terms on the table, $12.4 million in operating expenses including a staff of 100 people and our annual lease payment of $1.2 million. A reinvestment allowance of $1 million to ensure the grounds remain beautiful and cared for, leaving us with a healthy $8.1 million in net cash flow. Our capital plan includes $69 million in debt financing with Fundamental and Zion, approximately $21 million in historic tax credits and these two sources combined account for 77 percent of our total capital stack. $25 million in philanthropy, $2.5 of which has already been awarded for unrestricted pre-construction expenses by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. Our improvement costs consist of $29 million in life, safety, and liquefaction work to ensure the longevity and safety of this civic treasure. Twenty-five million dollars for our museum and STEM learning center, headed up by Dr. Bruce Alberts who earlier this week was awarded the Lasker Prize, the most prestigious national science award for his work in STEM education for public schools. Seven and a half million dollars on retail and dining. Twelve million dollars to create a new state of the art Palace of Fine Arts Theater. Twelve million dollars on complex-wide program costs, $20 million in soft costs, and finally $2.5 million in site work to improve the grounds, traffics flows and wayfinding. Our innovative and thorough business model will create a sustainable financial ecosystem in order to provide both in the present and in the long-term. If all goes as planned our development timeline would allow for a grand opening on July 4, 2020. I would respectfully request that the Commission recognize the tremendous value our team is offering to the city of San Francisco and enter into a lease negotiation with SFMAP. Now we have team members and supporters here who are looking forward to speaking to you all. Our investment banker from Zion’s Bank in Boston, the Republic Finance Division who flew out here today to speak to everyone. Thank you.

Commissioner Buell: Thank you.

Susan Winshall: I’m a managing director at Zion’s Bank. Zion’s is a publically held bank headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah and our local affiliate here in California is California Bank and Trust. We run the national not-for- profit investment banking group out of Boston. Thank you so much for the opportunity to come back to your wonderful city. We specialize in assisting not-for-profit organizations to borrow money for large capital improvement or refinancing projects. I’ve been in this industry for over 25 years and have completed hundreds of transactions for not for profit organizations nationally. We take great pride in working with a range of not-for-profit organizations in the education, social service, and cultural spheres. We’ve completed many museum projects throughout the country and one that we are particularly proud of is our experience with the Exploratorium. We served as the Exploratorium’s investment banker for their construction refinancing project which closed in November of 2013. We all know that the Exploratorium is a phenomenal institution and one that was benefitting greatly from the extraordinary support of the San Francisco philanthropic community. The folks at the Exploratorium referred to us to the San Francisco Museum at the Palace. As investment banker my job is to coordinate the entirety of the financing and assemble the right team for obtaining competitive and appropriate financing. This is a very exciting and historic project for the city but this financing is unique in two key ways. One as we all know, it’s brand new. Secondly, and I’ll make this quick, is that the revenue sources for this project are many and very different than traditional museum projects which rely solely on net income and from donations. To that end I specifically have selected Fundamental Advisors to join me on the financing team for SFMAP. Fundamental Advisors specializes in project financing for the public sector and nonprofit markets. They are based in New York and they lend directly to complex development projects such as this. Jon Stern: I’m with Fundamental Advisors. Fundamental Advisors is an investment firm based out of New York with approximately $2 billion in assets under management. The firm focuses on investment opportunities in municipal related opportunities and a particular focus is the revitalization and development of community assets. We have reviewed the projections and the plans for the SFMAP proposal and that project. Not only do we believe the projections are very reasonable and feasible but they also work well within the context of our financial models. In addition, we are prepared to move forward with a load of $69 million. We at this point have the cash on hand to make that loan to the extent that he projects moves forward and we’re excited about the prospect of moving forward here. Robert Jacobson: I’m a colleague of John’s at Fundamental Advisors and I just would like to add that we were very excited to get the call on this project from Susan. San Francisco is an exciting city. The Palace of Fine Arts is an iconic building and our business essentially is to work with governments to bring creative ways from the private sectors to reach civic goals and so we were very excited about this. We think it’s a very intriguing project because it allows for the expression of the great diversity of San Francisco from an aesthetic standpoint, a historic standpoint, a cultural standpoint, a culinary standpoint. And we came out here to show our support to the project. So we’re believers and we would like to have the opportunity to use the experience and capabilities we have to get it done. Janet Coffey: I’m here with my colleague Dan Winterson representing the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. The Moore Foundation has an endowment of over $6.5 billion and is one of the largest in the United Stated. Dan and I oversee all of the grants in the San Francisco Bay Area program. The foundation’s board recently committed $2.5 million to support pre- construction costs associated with the San Francisco Museum at the Palace. We are pleased to be able to come in at this early and catalytic stage. The goal of the foundation’s Bay Area program is to preserve the special character of the Bay Area and we see this effort to maintain public and community enjoyment and education at what has become an iconic location, very much aligned with that aim. We were impressed with the strength and the commitment of the project and advisory teams as well as the financial viability that can be generated by the multi-faceted revenue streams Since 2001 the foundation has spent more than a $120 million in support of Bay Area science and technology museums, a large portion of which has gone to organizations like the Exploratorium and the California Academy of Sciences in the city proper. We would consider future proposals from this group for programmatic support as the proposed Stem leaning center resonates with our other investments in this portfolio. We do anticipate other interests from private foundations and we will help make introductions to the project team when the time is right. We’re happy to answer any questions that you have, thank you. John Backer: I’m with Swinerton Management and Consulting, the develop management part of Swinerton. Swinerton has 125 years of experience in San Francisco as a builder and project manager. We are integral to the business and communities in San Francisco. Our role in this project is develop manager. That includes design management, construction management, cost, schedule and document control, and also managing the sources and uses of funds on this complex project including capital campaign, lender and equity investors. We provide the complete range or project development and delivery services. We have all the management skills and development experience needed to merit the time and monitor commitments for this project. We bring to SFMAP many years of significant project experience with complex projects and a complete organization with demonstrated ability to complete a complex develop project requiring significant fundraising in a historic structure. Recently Swinerton has been in charge of managing in the same role projects for the expansion of the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park, numerous projects of the Presidio Trust, the original San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the new de Young Museum. Personally I have overseen and worked on over $2 billion of projects including the project at the Presidio, the conversion of the old library to the new Asian Art Museum, the new Jewish Community and most recently the new Willie Brown Middle School for S.F. Unified. I’ve done over 20 projects with San Francisco Department of Building Inspector [unintelligible] jobs at the Presidio, and I’ve worked with all the design and construction team members on the team and I’m pleased to work with them again. I’m also a longtime resident of the neighborhood, lived there for nearly 30 years, a homeowner for nearly 20 years. I’m excited about the opportunity to work on an exciting project like this in my community. Larry Nibbi: I’m representing Nibbi Brothers Construction, our family firm and as a native San Franciscan I am here in support of the SFMAP. I’m not going to go into the experience of Nibbi Brothers Construction to be able to do the construction on this project because I think our reputation speaks for itself. But I am here to speak in support of what the team has put together and this wasn’t put together by just one individual, this was put together by a large team of people that really feel that the Palace of Fine Arts deserves this museum and this exhibit. We are dedicated to this project. As far as our construction company is concerned we have provided many of the numbers that you saw today and in joint collaboration with Swinerton we have worked with them before on projects and I don’t think there is a better development construction team that could be put together than Swinerton and ourselves. In my 30 seconds left I would like to also say that if you do not accept or reject the staff’s recommendation today all of these labor representatives that are sitting in this room today are not going to be able to work because it’s going to take you at least two years to get this thing going ago and we’re ready to start now. And these representatives need work and we expect you to honor that. Jay Turnbull: Good morning. I’m a principle at Page and Turnbull. I’ve long been involved with the Palace of Fine Arts first as former Chair of the Maybeck Foundation, then as preservation architect for the conditions study prepared before concept proposals and now as a member of the SFMAP team. I’m here to talk about tax credits. Since the historic preservation tax credit program was begun our offices managed and completed many tax certifications, none of these has failed to achieve final approval at close of construction but the process it iterative. First as design develops the project team commits to making changed deserved by the community, local reviewers, the SHPO’s office in Sacramento and the National Park Service. Second, the property’s character has to be maintained, this is why all major changes to the Palace building in our scheme are planned for the west side where historic context and reminders of the old Panama-Pacific Exposition are absent. This is where new possibilities and contemporary design are most appropriate. We can’t know how the museum design or any design for this site will be received ahead of time because tax certification is a process. It’s not assured until design and construction are complete but we believe that State and Federal reception of this project will be very position. The design team is ready now to meet appropriate preservation standards, stratify the community, qualify for some $20 million in potential tax credits and we’ve always had success with SHPO and the Park Service and to live up to the value of this very important historic site. Thanks. Kris Selberg: I’m with Save the Palace. I’m here representing the tens of thousands of people who signed a petition requesting that the San Francisco Palace of Fine Arts remain a center for the people of San Francisco, the artisans of San Francisco and remain a public asset of the citizens of San Francisco. I think it’s pretty clear from your own process to date that the site offers a lot of challenges to any type of business that wants to come in there but this is a special place that should remain San Francisco’s asset, the people’s asset and focus on the arts. It is the Palace of Fine Arts, that’s its history. I don’t know if you’ve looked through any of the old photographs of the Panama exposition but there were amazing galleries of sculpture outside that people walked through, galleries inside. It was meant to be an art experience and that’s what overwhelmingly the people I’ve spoken to literally thousands of people over the man months that I’ve been canvassing out in public that’s what they want it to be. They want it opened to the San Francisco public, focusing on the arts, and an asset and resource for the artisans of San Francisco that are undergoing so many problems right now with access to venues, rehearsal spaces. That is a real crisis here in San Francisco. As far as the future, we would like this current lease process to end. Our group as well as other art groups would be very happy to work with the Commission in the future to talk about a financing process through a bond process that we would completely support and work hard to get on the ballot in the future if we were sure that the future focus of a tenant would be with the arts, that’s what San Franciscans really want. We’re open to doing that with you guys and we look forward to talking with you about this in the future. Julie Mushet: I’m the executive director of World Arts West and part of the leadership team of the proposed center for Global Arts and Cultures. We continue to assert that the right thing to do is honor the purpose and heritage of the Palace of Fine Arts which was to build understanding and appreciation between diverse people from many places and communities through the arts. I believe this is needed now more than ever and I hope that whatever happens in the future of this building that the arts stay at the center and there’s a place for local artists to continue building the community and bridges between the diverse people of this city. Thank you. Javier Flores: I’m with the Labor Local. Laborers who represent over 5,000 and every day we work with minorities and everybody basically, we open the doors for everybody and often we have come and talk to companies live for example Nibbi. Giving the opportunity to local minority residents which is going on for quite a bit now. So I’m asking you, we’re supporting this project, Laborers, the only response to the termination of the Palace of Fine Arts. So please I encourage you to move forward, support this and thank you. Matthew Stein: Good morning Commission. I’m the co-coordinator of Save the Palace of Fine Arts, along with our founding member Chris Dankle. The campaign for Save the Palace of Fine Arts was organized last November in opposition to this RFP that was issued with terms and conditions including a 55-year lease which we felt was far too long and removed discussion of possible uses from the public domain. We feared this would lead to the privatization of a civic jewel and city monument based upon the RPD’s selection of bidders from a pool of proposals submitted through an earlier RFCD. For this reason, we felt the development of hotels and commercial ventures would threaten to transform the historic rotunda into a mere hood ornament for an exclusive secondary use. More than 25,000 persons locally and around the world agreed with us. We help numerous ground events fueled by grassroots movement to alert citizens of what we considered to be a travesty and further commercial encroachment on the city’s precious cultural resources. Our overriding concern is that this public parkland be preserved for primary uses, recreation, arts and cultural activities fully accessible to the general public and not for secondary uses masquerading as a primary use. This we don’t feel was addressed in the staff determination before you or the panel recommendation. We applaud the selection panel’s work and the due diligence performed by RPD staff in evaluating the initial SFMAP proposal of the response and protest. We ask the Commission to vote to support the recommendation of the panel and the staff to terminate this RFP so that you have the opportunity to reconsider reenvisioning plans for the Palace grounds and alternative means of financing improvements to the Hall and the Palace Theater and their operating costs. Jeanette Barocka: I was born and raised in San Francisco and I’ve lived on Lyon Street just a stone’s throw from the Palace of Fine Arts for over 50 years, raised our four children there, and we are very much concerned about why this is taking so long to come a decision or work out something. Why isn’t the city of San Francisco doing more to help the financial part of it? We could put it under the Education Department, we have classes that are going to be going on there, we could put it under other categories of the city’s budget and see if we couldn’t get some of our money raised that way if that’s the problem. But if there are other problems then we need to know about them because we want to have a museum that dedicates itself to the city of San Francisco and the San Francisco bay and we feel that this is something so very intrinsic in our San Francisco history that it should be operating now, it should be started. When Nibbi Brothers said they’re ready to start now I was thrilled, I was so happy to hear that this morning and I just think that if we could get it going now it would be wonderful and now I have five grandchildren and they are—three of them live in the neighborhood and I’m hoping that they will be part of the new Palace of Fine Arts museum. Frank Rollo: Part of the improvements associated with the SFMAP proposal are provided to ensure the preservation of the Palace for decades to come. To do so the SFMAP has to address and has addressed the life safety issues. Yesterday’s Chronicle reported that the USGS group on the seismic probability has increased from 63 to 72 percent of an earthquake of 6.7 or greater magnitude happening in the next 25 to 30 years. That’s three to one odds that there’s an event of this magnitude that’s going to occur and I tell you with those odds I would be willing to do some gambling. Combining the high seismic risk with a high geologic hazard that is the presence of loose sand that will liquefy during an earthquake it becomes imperative that life safety aspects of the reuse be addressed. The SFMAP proposal does so. The use on installation of micropiles as part of the upgrade that penetrate the loose sand should improve the performance during earthquakes. By delaying your decision to move forward with the S.F. feasible viable project you are running the risk that an earthquake will occur before improvements are made. If so the damage may not be repairable. I urge you to reject staff’s recommendation and to move forward with the SFMAP proposal. Peter Osborne: I want to thank the SFMAP team for allowing me the opportunity to be associated with this exciting project. I’m a native to San Francisco and the Palace of Fine Arts is obviously one of our great jewels in our crown. My role would be to provide a food and beverage element to the Palace, the museum. The Palace Oyster Bar and Grill seems to be a natural fit for the evolution of the property. Its association with the waterfront and the history of San Francisco speaks for itself. San Francisco is known worldwide for the quality of its dining experience and the enhancement that my little contribution could offer to this project I think would be significant and to repeat I think it is a great project and I’m proud to be a part of it. Funding is an issue. Funding is always an issue but my funding is in place and I’m ready to proceed given the opportunity. I respect the process of the politics involved and I respect the public opinion and as a native of San Francisco I want to see the right thing done. I see Phil out doing the right thing every day in Recreation and Park. I was at Nate Thurmond courts on Saturday, it was a spectacular event, you calendar of events upcoming is spectacular, I’d like to keep that tradition alive including the redevelopment of the Palace of Fine Arts. It really is a celebration of the city. We recently honored a hundred years of the Pan-Pacific Exhibition and there’s was lots of fanfare around it. This is a great opportunity to keep that lightening in the bottle and to move forward and I would be proud to be a part of it. Thank you for your time. Perry Butler: Good morning. I’m the owner of Perry’s Restaurants. We opened on Union Street 47 years ago. Having just celebrated that anniversary and I’m very proud of our longevity, I would very much like to be associated with this Palace of Fine Arts project. Bob Mendelsohn approached me months ago about our potential involvement and I was very impressed by what is proposed by the SFMAP people. They have a tremendous amount of vision, a great team assembled and this is one of those things that just feels like it absolutely should happen and I hope it would happen soon. We would be right there with Peter. We would be known as Perry’s at the Palace and I would be proud to do that. I think everyone in this room remembers our beloved columnist Herb Caen who was famous for saying San Francisco is the city that knows how. To continue to be that city this is the kind of project that should happen and hopefully would be greenlighted to go soon and we would be proud to be part of it. Bill Shepherd: I’m the board chair of an organization called Neighborhood Associations for Presidio Planning or NAPP. We represent neighborhood associations from the ocean to the bay that are adjacent to the Presidio, that includes the Richmond District, Pacific Heights, Presidio Heights, Cow Hollow and the Marina. NAPP has looked at this proposal closely and it has unanimously endorsed it, every single member had endorsed this project. Two of our reasons for doing so is that SFMAP offers a public use that’s inclusive and compatible with the Palace’s recent and past history. It is by far the best public use we’ve seen for this site. This is in sharp contrast to the two hotel finalists that withdrew which were exclusive uses for wealthy and only a token focus for the general public that Recreation and Park would consider such a use for this site is very disturbing. Monetizing this iconic, historic site is fundamentally wrong. SFMAP provides free for the city a seismic and liquefaction solution that will control tidal water intrusion all of which will protect the site and ensure public safety. This part of the SFMAP’s proposal is excellent and it’s great that the world will be schedule to be undertaken at the front end. We have no special input on financing but it is clear that SFMAP has established credentials and a plan that should be pursued by Recreation and Park. Paul Epstein: Good morning. Among other civic things I’ve been involved with is NAPP which Bill Shepherd just stated their position. I think we should all step back for a moment because we’re looking at numbers and the first question is what is the function of the building going to be? Two commercial enterprises were proposed—hotels as I understand it, and that proved unfeasible because of historic landmark considerations. A commercial tenant is likely to want to do things which are not compatible with historic landmark guidelines. The Palace is part of our patrimony that we all own and should respect. It should have a public use. It’s unlikely I would suggest that another worthwhile nonprofit idea is going to come down the road and have stronger organization and backing and financing, etc. This I would suggest is a bird in the hand. Any other use, any other kind of tenant is completely speculative and you need to find somebody who is going to put twenty or thirty million dollars into making the building habitable. I think that’s extremely unlikely. I think the city is lucky to have this proposal and it should be allowed to go forward, thank you. James Lee: I’m the president of Gardens of the City Museum and Memorial and Learning Center and I’m here today to speak on behalf of the San Francisco MAP proposal. I’m going to not go to my prepared statement because of all the professional people I’ve heard today but I will like to say that having been born here, raised here, educated here and for the past 40 years have worn the uniform of the San Francisco Fire Department I’d like to say that San Francisco needs to have a museum that encompasses the history of San Francisco and as I did my research I found that there is only two organizations out of this 50-some odd organization that represents San Francisco and those are the San Francisco Cable Car Museum and the San Francisco Fire Department Museum. And so I support this proposal for the San Francisco MAP and the Palace. The Palace was originally designed as a museum. It was not designed as a hotel and from what you’ve heard today the staff recommendations should be overturned, it appears that there is a pretty deep bench with regards to professionals that could pull this off and make it a very, very positive endeavor. And so I would recommend that the staff recommendation be overturned. As a final point of personal information I would like to do some—the San Francisco Fire Department will be celebrating its 150th anniversary next weekend at Fisherman’s Wharf and we’re having a parade, living history and it’s going to be a real hoot. If you’ve never seen a horse drawn steam engine this is the time to come. Bill Hudson: I’m also a member of NAPP and I’m the President of the Presidio Heights Association of Neighbors. While I respect and understand the need for Mr. Ginsburg and the Recreation and Park people to maximize revenue potential we’re looking at a site that is probably the iconic ground zero of San Francisco, maybe Coit Tower, but it is one of those sites that needs to be treasured and preserved and made the loadstar that it is for tourist traffic and I think the SFMAP proposal does exactly that and honors the building which it is going to occupy in a way that is perfect in many way for the use of that building, where it is and for the history of San Francisco. So I urge that Department’s recommendations be rejected, that we move forward with the SFMAP proposal and note with words of caution that doing otherwise is probably going to put this property in limbo with public protests for years to come before anything comes out of it for Recreation and Park purposes. Kristin Tieche: I support the staff recommendation to terminate the RFP and instead keep the arts in the Palace of Fine Arts because that’s the true and initial vision for the Palace. This is a place for the arts and in a city that is losing the arts by the second, by the day, with all the artist evictions and the gentrification that is happening it is making it harder and harder for artists to remain in San Francisco. We are in a state of losing our soul and losing our culture. So starting this process over and finding a tenant who also supports this mission and this vision of keeping the arts in the Palace of Fine Arts and in San Francisco is what I recommend which is why I support the staff recommendation to terminate this RFP process. Thank you. Adrian Simi: I’m a native San Franciscan, I represent the folks behind me, Carpenter’s Local 22 in San Francisco as well as about 3300 San Francisco carpenters from Local 22 and we’re actually here to oppose the termination of the RFP for a few reasons that I’m going to mention. Number one is SFMAP’s commitment to use Nibbi Brothers General Construction, long-time local San Francisco contractor, partner with Local 22 and just a great guy, Larry Nibbi we’re here to thank him. We’re glad he’s involved and we want to be involved in this too because the brothers and sisters behind me and down in the north light court probably about 20 other down there that’s going to provide jobs for us, it’s going to provide jobs for journeymen, journeywomen, apprentices, it’s a way in to the construction trades and it’s a way to the future for them. It’s a great opportunity to reunite, reinvigorate, revitalize this historic landmark and we feel that it should be revitalized and we’d like to ask you to please find SFMAP responsive and enter into the lease negotiations and we look forward to our participation with you in this project. Thank you. Will Travis: I’m the Vice President of SFMAP and I will be the museum’s director of environment education. I actually became quite familiar with all aspects of San Francisco bay during the 17 years I spent as the executive director of the Bay Conservation and Develop Commission. I now teach, consult, and advise on issues of climate change, sea level rise and land use planning in the bay region. SFMAP’s crown jewel gallery will explore the origin, the ecology and the changing nature of San Francisco Bay, the natural story. And the accomplishments and challenges facing all the people who have lived and now live beside the bay, the human story. By drawing on these lessons from the past SFMAP and its crown jewel will provide innovative approaches for visitors to learn how to continue to live, prosper and enjoy San Francisco Bay despite the challenges that climate change will bring to our region in the coming decades. I urge you to allow this project to move forward so we can revitalize the Palace of Fine Arts now and create a world-class center for public engagement and discovery. Thank you. Male Speaker: Thank you for this opportunity. When the RFC or RFCP process started a couple of years ago we had the pleasure of working with Mr. Ginsburg as well as Cassandra Costello in assuring that the theater remain in good stead with whatever project was developed. I am the Chairman of the Board of the Palace of Fine Arts League who operates the theater. This theater is a great service to the community, to the neighborhood and is an iconic institution in San Francisco and serves many, many civic groups. None of the groups—none of the groups honored this theater the way SFMAP did. Some of the proposals were eliminating the theater entirely and some of them at the insistence of the Commission included something that really amounted to a cocktail lounge in the lobby of the hotel. SFMAP not only fully supports the theater but is a great believer in enhancing it for many years to come. I appreciate your consideration and I know how important the theater is to the Bay Area. Michael Painter: I was a 15-year board member of the Exploratorium and 13 of it worked with Frank Oppenheimer and I think this is the type of facility he would like to see move in to this facility. The outdoor space—last Labor Day weekend I went to Terrapin Crossroads in San Rafael and I saw where they turned a parking lot into a vibrant urban space, perhaps one of the best in the world with relatively modest things. And we want to do the same thing with that parking lot in the back and to take care of parking we’ve developed a much better plan around Lyon Street or Palace Drive, whatever you call it and there’s other parking like 1500 cars that aren’t use on the weekend at the Letterman Digital Arts Center. So I think the landscaping that parking lot and turning that into a people space could be a huge, wonderful termination for the Presidio rather than just having more parking lots. So I think it can be a really exciting project and one that Frank Oppenheimer would be proud of. Fernando Herrera: I’m an architect with [unintelligible] here in San Francisco. I’m part of the SFMAP design team and I support this project because I believe this is the right program for the Palace of Fine Arts and surrounding neighborhood. I want you to consider three key architectural components—a museum, a theater, and a great hall, all of them seamlessly connected as a mixed use museum complex open to the public. The current Palace of Fine Arts is perceived now as a backdrop of the rotunda and turns it back to the west. SFMAP will keep this quiet relationship with the rotunda and the community to the east but while placing its program strategically to the west to activate the open space behind it. The connection to the rotunda to the west is through what we call the great hall. The great hall is a multifunctional space full of potential activities. It has a local marketplace that provides amenities to serve not only to the museum complex itself but also to the community and public. With SFMAP the rotunda and the Palace of Fine Arts can now be connected to the Presidio, to the new parkland, Crissy Field and beyond. I believe SFMAP celebrates the past while providing a program for the future. Thank you. Peter Lee: Good morning everyone. I’m a structural engineer and associate director with Skidmore Moorings and Merrill. I have participated in the SFMAP design team over the past year and a half. I would like to take just a few moments to underline the key seismic performance objectives that we have pursued and the seismic solutions that we have implemented in our proposal in response to the RFP. I know many of you have put a lot of hard work into thinking about the future of this very important building. SFMAP’s mission with respect to the seismic risks and hazards is to safeguard this important historical resource and community asset for generations to come. Foremost to protect the life safety of the occupants during a major code level earthquake while reducing the probability of collapse in more severe and very rare earthquake events. Number two, to limit damage to the primary structure, historic and non structural elements to repairable levels so as to protect and preserve the facility as a financial asset such that the building is not seriously compromised or considered beyond repair following a major event. And also to allow the facility to be reoccupied and become functional again within an expected timeframe after a major significant earthquake event as outlined in the RFI structural assessment report the existing building is at some risk due to this foundation liquefaction hazard and potential strong ground-shaking effects on the stress truss frames and may not achieve all three of these enhanced seismic performance objectives. SFMAP proposed structural seismic improvements are provided to ensure the structural integrity and preservation of the Palace and that these enhanced seismic performance objectives are met. Patricia Vaughey: I’m with Marina-Cow Hollow Neighbors and Merchants and you all know that it was me that fought to save the Palace League and the theater three times. I’m supporting SFMAP for that reason. I wish that we were further along on the finances. I just had expected more today. I feel that if we put it out for another RFP it’s going to be another dog and pony show again and I’ve never seen anything like it. My concern is the theater, that it be saved and not one inch be given to anyone else like the other applications had applied for. So I’m supporting SFMAP. One thing that has disturbed me about Mr. Rollo’s and Skidmore Owen’s presentations is that we currently have generators that suck out the—and keep the water flowing with the Palace underneath and they’re not working and with the eventual rise of 10 feet of water that’s been estimated for a long time for the great Bay Area they have to figure out how to have these generators that put the water out and distribute it correctly for the future down the line. I think that the money can be raised and I think we will raise it but the fact is we have to support this because I fear what’s going to come with another RFP. Paul Wormer: Good morning Commission and Mr. Ginsburg. I am speaking in part on behalf of the Pacific Heights Residents Association which is a member of NAPP to endorse the SFMAP proposal and urge you to reject staff’s recommendation to terminate. There’s not a lot I can add to a lot of the marvelous and significant comments that have been made earlier but clearly I have to say something and that is I don’t know if you realize how remarkable this is. There have been multiple proposals for museums in that segment of the city. This is the first one I have been to where there have not been hundreds of people in outright opposition. This has remarkable support but it is using the parkland in the way it’s intending. It’s a good adaptor for use of a building that’s going to be seismically reinforced. It is accessible to all. It’s a really good project and I urge you to move forward with it, thank you. Gary Malazian: I’m of varied accomplishments and an active citizen. It came to me a while back that in all this planning for the exhibition hall and Presidio Parkway and all that what’s missing is a seamless connection between the parade ground, Crissy Field, and the Palace of Fine Arts. What’s also not been mentioned is there is no place to my knowledge in the city of San Francisco where you can find the entire history of the San Francisco Peninsula and it all started at the Presidio. This is a marvelous opportunity accomplish that and my idea for doing that would be a physical seamless timeline from the parade grounds and you would have to build a pedestrian and bicycle bridge across Gerard to get to the Palace of Fine Arts but you will make a marvelous seamless connection between all those entities and that’s what I’m here to tell you, thank you. Sanjay Sinha: Good morning. I’m with California Bank and Trust, Zion’s local affiliate here in San Francisco. I’m also the relationship manager for the Exploratorium. We know the museum space well. This was a referral from the Exploratorium. We believe the project makes economic sense. The two things we look for in these projects—economics and character. You have sources of revenues that are unique here, it’s not just attendance but you’ve got a theater and you’ve got 35,000 of retail space and the attendance. The philanthropic community in San Francisco is going to be there for them. We have seen that with the Exploratorium, hundreds of millions of dollars have been raised and the interest in this museum is going to be high because it represents a tradition that will be continued. It’s not just a patch of land. The Palace ground represents something very sacred. It is where our city was reborn in 1915. Later on the Exploratorium represented this ground and it has become a museum that’s known the world over, it has the fourth highest brand equity globally. I can’t think of a better way to continue this tradition than to have a museum at the Palace and I urge you to overturn the staff recommendation.

Commissioner Low: I had some questions of Cassandra prior to Commissioners debate. In the staff findings there are three financial elements which were considered in terms of determining that the applicant was not responsive to the RFP and was the basis for the termination of the RFP. Walk us through each one in a little more detail. On confirmed liquid assets was the determination to satisfy that requirement actually cash in the bank of promise to fund?

Cassandra Costello: A letter confirming that there is cash in the bank from an entity with conditions for release could be sufficient. We would like to see and execute a grant agreement to make a final determination.

Commissioner Low: And does that money count towards the next element which is basically 50 percent of the fundraising raised or is that a separate requirement?

Cassandra Costello: I think that would be a separate compartment. You need the money to get going right now to start the project, to start your environmental review but SFMAP has said that they need about a $25 million to $100 million fundraising campaign separate from the preconstruction expenses.

Commissioner Low: So on that second element for the 50 percent does that have to be pledged funds or something else?

Cassandra Costello: Pledges with conditions and contingencies of release.

Commissioner Low: And the last element which is referred to as financial resources what were we looking for there?

Cassandra Costello: We were looking for significant evidence of long-term lender relationships, what projects were in the pipeline, how much debt and equity was needed for all of those projects, evidence that a respondent was going to be able to pull off a project of this magnitude. Talking about $150 million proposed budget to get a museum built. We need to be able to see that there are partners, joint ventures that are going to be able to partner and be able to pull that very ambitious project off.

Commissioner Low: So we were looking for commitment letters or give me an example.

Cassandra Costello: Sure, commitment letters or very clear evidence this entity provided this project.

Dana Ketcham: I think we were looking for a letter with financial analysis saying we’ve looked at these projections that you have put together and reviewed your assumptions that give us confidence that if these things happened we would be prepared to forward not just oh we’re interested in participating.

Commissioner Low: On each of these elements were they communicated to the applicant?

Dana Ketcham: They were laid out in detail in the RFP and in particular in connection with this applicant we actually met with them in April to go over the requirements.

Commissioner McDonnell: Forgive me if these are repeats of the same questions perhaps from a different angle. I want to make sure again, I appreciate the factors that led to this recommendation. On the liquid assets and Cassandra, you just referenced the letter confirming so is the basic fact that there was no letter confirming or there was a letter that spoke to something different?

Cassandra Costello: When we got the first RFP package there was no letter. There was a broad letter saying we’re interested in giving from their programmatic director. Then we got another in the protest they said our executive committee has reviewed this and then a week ago we received a letter saying that we are prepared to make a donation toward preconstruction expenses when an exclusive negotiating agreement has been signed so there is not cash on hand and we were concerned about having liquid assets on hand because we want to make sure this deal can go forward. Getting the Palace done we share the passion of the people we heard today. We want to make sure we’re not tied up in years of waiting especially for fundraising to come in. because we want to move forward with the palace.

Commissioner McDonnell: Thank you. Secondly, related to the fundraising and again that criteria around 50 percent of the $25 million there’s the $2.5 million committed from the Gordon Moore Foundation and then there was a reference to the Republic Family of Companies up to $10 million.

Cassandra Costello: There was one letter in the original proposal that said we’re willing to consider up to $10 million. There’s never been any mention of that since that first letter, no further confirmation. It wasn’t even referenced in their most recent packet so we don’t know where that stand but it does not meet any of the requirements to demonstrate a commitment for fundraising.

Commissioner McDonnell: So therefore to connect that against the $11.5 million benchmark the only commitment in hand is the $2.5 million from Gordon Moore. Okay, thank you.

Commissioner Buell: Thank you. I have a couple of questions. Perhaps Mr. Stern, Fundamental Advisors some comments he made I want to clarify and let me preface it by saying that while everyone has made wonderful comments about the use I don’t think there’s a dispute about that. We think it’s a terrific use and we extended this process by 30 days because we wanted to see where the financials were, so that is at the heart of it and Mr. Stern is I understood your comments correctly you said you had done the due diligence on the material provided and that you are prepared to sign a term sheet. I assume if we were to vote yes today for this project that you would be ready to sign a term sheet based on that information?

Jon Stern: Yes.

Commissioner Buell: Let me ask you, the revenue flows then that come from that as an example the proposal shows $1.75 million in parking revenue. Where is the parking that generates that revenue?

Jon Stern: To be perfectly frank that wasn’t the primary focus for us at least in our analysis, that’s a small portion of the revenue stream.

Commissioner Buell: Well, it’s five or six percent but it’s one of them. I’m just trying to get a sense of that.

Jon Stern: If I could maybe frame what we did in our analysis that might—

Commissioner Buell: I’m more interested in the parking and then I want to talk about attendance because the attendance number exceeds the Academy of Science’s number and that’s one of the most successful facilities in the city and I’m wondering what the analysis was on that as well. But can somebody answer the parking question first. Michael?

Michael: Virtually every museum you have to pay to park.

Commissioner Buell: Right. Where is the parking is what I’m asking.

Michael: The parking is on Lyon Street, it’s about 1000 feet of Lyon Street that will have 90 degree parking on both edges. It increases the parking by 40 percent of what it has. There’s also—

Commissioner Buell: And metered I assume or what? Who gets the revenue and who owns the street?

Michael: It could be handled exactly like the Presidio does. There’s a nearby thing, you have to go up and get a thing and put it on your dashboard.

Commissioner Buell: That would involve the city and negotiating, giving up their rights to that money and we know from Golden Gate Park they won’t give us the money that’s charged in Golden Gate Park so I just think that the due diligence process here may look good but this is at the very heart of the issue and it is good news to us that the partners are ready to sign a term sheet to provide $69 million in funding but the funding is predicated on some income streams that seem not clarified yet in the due diligence process but thank you for answering that. On the admission numbers how was that arrived at, the $10 million.

Secretary MacArthur: SFMAP can we have someone come forward regarding admissions?

Clive Jones: I was the founder of Economics Research Associations in San Francisco. Our firm specializes in visitor focused development project, museums, resorts, hotels. I did a lot of research work for George Kirkland at that time and then also in the GGNRA. So I’m quite familiar with the area. We’ve done hundreds of studies over the years. What we look for in a project such as this is a combination of revenue streams that reinforce each other. We have a museum which is attraction based, we have the theater which we won’t use the theater just for evening events, we’re going to program that theater during the day in conjunction with what happens at the museum much like they do at the Planetarium. There is also a good revenue stream out of events using the magnificent public spaces that are available throughout the building. We’ve designated four or five different areas that we can use for small events, large events can use the entire building. Attendance was based on our experience and it was based on a review of all of the local comparables. We’ve made no extraordinary assumptions about penetration rates. We looked at the market and applied what we thought was reasonable. In general, they’re about the average penetration rates of the local comparables not only on the attendance side but also on the operating expenses and employment requirements.

Commissioner Buell: Thank you. Kelly, perhaps the question I have for you is on the $25 million to be raised philanthropically what outreach has been done to date beyond the Moore Foundation?

Kelly Macy: Thank you. So the capital campaign began in December when we were awarded the short list and the way that our strategy is that in this initial quiet phase which we are now nine months into the goal was to solidify the program, to get a sense of appetite in the community for the program and to secure one key philanthropic supporter who then could help us lead the charge and launch our public capital campaign. So in that sense we have met our milestones in that regard because we have successfully connected with the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. We are thrilled that they want to help us make introductions into other key benefactors in this regard. There’s some confusion the staff has regarding the way the capital campaign draft was worked I guess. They in their report said that we hadn’t even started it yet but actually we’re in month nine and in fact have met our milestones for this initial quiet phase. The way that we stated it was that per our capital stack we’d need $25 million to make the equation work but based on the feedback that we’ve been getting from everybody including California Bank and Trust and what have you, Sanjay, our goal is really to far exceed the $25 million needed and to raise more like $100 million. Because of the feedback that we’ve been getting and the support for our kinds of programming including Stem education and our Bay conversation programs.

Commissioner Low: I agree with Bill Hudson. This is an iconic site for San Francisco. It’s an important site. I also like the speakers’ comments on making it seamless between the Presidio and the Palace of Fine Arts and I think we all agree this is an iconic site. All of us here on the Commission like the idea of the San Francisco Museum being at the Palace of Fine Arts. The initial concepts look fantastic and it looks like a great idea. However, the question before us is at this point in time has the applicant met the three elements on financing, confirmed liquid assets, 50 percent funds raised, and the financial resources to pull this project off. I’m not quite clear what the actual budget is. It seems like somewhere between $110 million to $125 million. But being in the real estate industry I realize that these projects develop over time and many times don’t come together until the closing. But based on what we’ve heard today and what’s before us today we don’t have the satisfaction of the first element which is the confirmed liquid assets of at least $1 million. There’s a promise but not the confirmed liquid assets. I haven’t heard or there’s nothing before us which shows that there are contributions of 50 percent either contributed or pledged. I appreciate Zion’s Bank and Fundamental Resources coming to San Francisco to express their interest in the project but what’s before us today doesn’t show the term sheet that’s referenced in Fundamental Advisors and there’s certainly not a commitment letter from Zion’s Bank to provide this financing. Jay Turnbull correctly points out the historical tax credits is the process that doesn’t usually come together also until the end. So I respect that testimony but still we don’t see where we are in the historical tax credits. So on that basis I don’t hear any compelling evidence of why we should overturn the staff’s findings.

Commissioner Bonilla: I am convinced that the SFMAP project offers the best and highest use for this venue and that’s been stated over and over again and I don’t want to lose sight of that fact. I’m also very impressed that the team that was put together to develop this project is truly community based, I think that’s extremely important. I’ve heard the beginnings of the financial pieces that need to be put in place to make this project happen. I was glad to hear that there are offers of funds for the preconstruction costs, some preapproved loans if I may call them that and that there’s—I see that there’s progress, definitely progress that has been made and of course there’s much more progress that has to be made. There’s a lot of work yet to be done. And also I am confident in saying this—I’m confident that— and this is what I’m more concerned about that a new RFP process would perhaps not be able to produce a more financially viable project. The reason being that the upfront costs that would be needed to deal with the liquefaction problem could be in the future a serious impediment to their ever even being another partner that would be willing to come to the table to work with the Department to develop a project at the Palace of Fine Arts. I am concerned that at the end of the day that if we are not able to find such a viable financial partner that it may be that the Department may have to cover those costs in order to entice someone to actually undertake this project. This is extremely important to me. If Recreation and Park has to come to the table and say you know at the end of the day—and we’re talking about two or three or four years later—we couldn’t find another partner who would not come in unless we covered these costs that we would have today, we would have wasted a very important—an excellent opportunity to move forward with the project. That is a concern, a major concern of mine. The other point I wanted to make is that perhaps—and this is something we have to look at—perhaps when we put together this RFP and we approve this RFP that the requirements that we put into this RFP were unrealistic, that our planning assumptions were unrealistic to begin with, that’s something that I’m concerned about and so there’s been tremendous amount of effort, resources, I really see a lot of community support for this project and I at the end of the day and in my good conscious I would be remiss if I did not vote in support of this project. I really strongly believe that I need to vote in support of this project and that’s what I plan to do, thank you.

Commissioner Low: I respect the comments of my colleague Commissioner Bonilla. Certainly there is concern about the future of the Palace of Fine Arts, there’s no question the all stars of San Francisco appeared here today. Larry Nibbi, Frank Rollo—all stars in the real estate industry at lease, hall of fame. I respect that. But the question before us today at this moment in time is the RFP that we approved did SFMAP satisfy those three conditions? The selection panel said no, our staff has said no. I haven’t heard today any reason to overturn those decisions and I would respectfully—I would support the staff’s finding and move this forward.

Commissioner McDonnell: I too respecting my colleague Commissioner Bonilla’s comments would frankly just echo Commissioner Low’s sentiments both in terms of the question that is before us and the very frankly compelling programmatic offerings, the vision of the team, the commitment to both the arts and the maintenance of the beautiful and historic site. As a native San Franciscan that makes the heart sing, absolutely. But that’s not the question before us. The question before us as we constructed the RFP as we engaged as we’ve already rehearsed both through the conceptual phase as well as then through the RFP continued phase had elements that we have to hold true to and I would be uncomfortable frankly changing those now in light of the fact that many applicants had to adhere to the same set of standards and I would absolutely not be comfortable changing those standards at this point. The last comment I’d make is as has been stated also in terms of moving forward the decision to terminate the current RFP for reasons already stated does not preclude the SFMAP teams from continuing to do their great work, to put forward a proposal that meets all of the criteria. Yes, it’s a delay and that is painful and yet I would be far more comfortable at that point considering approving this particular project and so for that reason I will be supporting the staff’s recommendation.

Commissioner Harrison: In light of my fellow Commissioner Bonilla as stated I too agree with her and would like to in some way find a better way to extend their negotiating process from what it is rather than just cancelling the RFP. Is there some way that we can do that to buy the SFMAP some more time to get their financing in order, that is of great concern to me also.

Commissioner Anderson: I just wanted to acknowledge and affirm what Commissioner Bonilla said. This is an amazing project. I really appreciate all the time and commitment that everyone has put into it and there was a safety issue that was raised and I was just wondering if we might have some comment on the structural assessment that was done by staff.

Phil Ginsburg: Commissioner I think you’re referencing the work that was done prior to the RFP in partnership with the Maybeck Foundation. I think you’re talking about the EHDD.

Commissioner Anderson: Exactly.

Cassandra Costello: Again, this is a study that EHDD led and they brought together a talented group of professionals, again through the support of the Maybeck Foundation and they did do a structural analysis. There are a lot of different options. We took the sort of the bare minimum of what we thought the building would need to sustain decades longer for public serving purposes and it did have a section on seismic, on structural, there are issues with the building considering the high water table level. So there are definitely a lot of concerns with the building and concerns that need to be addressed very quickly.

Phil Ginsburg: I think the specific question was if you could summarize what EHDD found about seismic specifically.

Cassandra Costello: I’d have to review the report on the seismic section. To be honest, I haven’t done it as of recent. I did talk about tying the trusses underneath the building. The building was secured in 1993 so the trusses are definitely secure however there are other elements and I believe it was mostly tying the elements beneath the building for the seismic and it was about I think a $9 million number for the additional seismic improvements.

On motion by Commissioner Low and duly seconded, the following resolution was adopted: RES. NO. 1609-005 RESOLVED, That this Commission does confirm the determination that the response from San Francisco Museum at the Palace is not responsive to the Palace of Fine Arts Request for Proposals (RFP), and to terminate the Palace of Fine Arts RFP.

Ayes: Low, Anderson, McDonnell, Buell Noes: Bonilla, Harrison

Commissioner Buell: Thank you very much, this does not preclude SFMAP from continuing their work and I would suggest that the real crux of this issues is to bolster the finances so that there’s some confidence that the Department could move forward on it. Thank you.

NEW BUSINESS/AGENDA SETTING Commissioner Harrison: Yes, I would like to place on the agenda for future discussion the labor piece that the Board of Supervisors just recently passed.

ADJOURNMENT The Recreation and Park Commission meeting adjourned at 1:38 p.m. Respectfully submitted,

Margaret A. McArthur Commission Liaison

Attachments: Resolution Number 1609-004

RECREATION AND PARK COMMISSION City and County of San Francisco Resolution Number 1609-004

RESOLUTION APPROVING HOURS OF OPERATION FOR HAYES VALLEY PLAYGROUND OF 7:00 A.M. TO 10:00 P.M. SEVEN DAYS A WEEK

WHEREAS, The City and County of San Francisco (“City”), through the Recreation and Park Department (the “Department”), owns real property located at the Hayes & Buchanan Street, known as Hayes Valley Playground, which includes a Clubhouse building; and

WHEREAS, the Section 3.21 (a) of the Park Code sets general hours of operation for the Department’s parks from 5:00 a.m. to midnight daily; and

WHEREAS, Section 3.21 (b) states that notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a), the Commission may by resolution and at any time set different hours of operation for any park or part thereof, based upon operation requirements or neighborhood impacts; and

WHEREAS, many members of the neighborhood and community stakeholders have communicated their desire to have the park open from 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. seven days a week and have expressed concerns that a 12:00 a.m. closure will bring about negative impacts to the neighborhood; and

WHEREAS, The Department has determined that to maximize safety for park users and residents, it is in the best interest of the public for the Park to be open from 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. seven days a week; now therefore be it

RESOLVED, That based on the findings set forth above, the Commission hereby sets the hours of the Hayes Valley Playground from 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. seven days a week to be effective 30 days after resolution approval.

Adopted by the following vote: Ayes Noes Absent

I hereby certify that the foregoing resolution was adopted at the Recreation and Park Commission meeting held on September 15, 2016.

______Margaret A. McArthur

Edwin M. Lee, Mayor Recreation and Park Commission

Minutes October 20, 2016

Commission President Mark Buell called the Recreation and Park Commission meeting to order at 10:01 a.m. on Thursday, October 20, 2016.

ROLL CALL Present Mark Buell Kathleen Anderson Gloria Bonilla Tom Harrison Eric McDonnell

Absent Allan Low

PRESIDENT’S REPORT Commissioner Buell: Thank you. Briefly, just to note that the November meeting of the Recreation and Park Commission will commence at 9:00 a.m. not 10:00 a.m. I would like to recognize Commissioner McDonnell.

Commissioner McDonnell: Thank you. Just a quick side note, somewhat in the spirit of get out and play. As a man of my word for those who are sports fans we’re in the middle of our Fall Classic and you also know if you’re a Giants fan that we suffered defeat at the hands of the Chicago Cubs and as a result of that I made a wager with PUC Commissioner Ike Kwon that depending upon who one of us would wear the apparel of the other team and therefore I must confess today that I am wearing Cubs cufflinks as well as a Cubs tie. I am paying my debt however I will conclude by saying if they lose to the Dodgers you owe me big time because in all things you must, sorry for those who care, beat LA.

GENERAL MANAGER’S REPORT Phil Ginsburg: Good morning Commissioners. After 108 years Commissioner McDonnell you can wear whatever cufflinks you want. A few quick announcements. It is with great pleasure that I announce Eric Anderson as our new Superintendent of Parks of Open Space. Eric’s selection comes as the result of a nationwide search among park professionals from across the country, a process that reinforced and collaborated Eric’s peerless horticultural expertise, accomplishment in stewarding public parkland, and leadership of high performing park maintenance staff. Many of you know that Eric came to our Department from years as a curator at Brooklyn Botanical Garden, one of our nation’s benchmark public gardens. Here in San Francisco he has served as a 3422 Park Section Supervisor, a Neighborhood Services Manager, a Park Services Manager, a Superintendent of Golden Gate Park and now our Superintendent for all of Parks and Open Space. Eric’s vast range of accomplishment and widely demonstrated leadership and management skills all combine to position our Department for greater achievement in delivering beautiful parks and cherished open space. With Eric’s promotion a couple of other quick moves I wanted to announce. Dave Iribarne becomes the acting Assistance Superintendant for Golden Gate Park which is a move that leverages his very impressive expertise in irrigation systems. His leadership in this position will be instrumental as the Golden Gate Park recycled water project and irrigation retrofit continue in partnership with the PUC. Dave leaves Park Service Area 4 which is the Stern Grove complex and Lake Merced complex, to assume his Golden Gate Park responsibilities. Therefore, I’m also pleased to announce that Robert Mohammad becomes the Acting Manager of Park Service Area 4. Robert moves from the Civic Center Complex. Building on Robert’s performance in these two complexes I look forward to him continuing and expanding his achievement in the parks in his new area of responsibility. So I would ask that you all join me in congratulating some new leaders in our Department. A few other quick announcements. Please join us in celebrating the 20th Anniversary of our Youth Stewardship Program this Saturday, October 22, from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at the Golden Gate Park Community Garden. Since 1997 our Youth Stewardship Program has worked closely with local teachers to develop a hands-on outdoor education curriculum centered around habitat restoration and stewardship of our parks and open spaces. This past year YSP served 60 schools and youth organizations, partnered with 87 teachers and led 2,670 students on 207 field trips in our parks focusing on topics like restoration, urban agriculture and wetland ecology. This is a special one to me as our city continues to focus on conversations around equity and access and providing more opportunities for kids to discover and connect with nature that is their own backyard. Next Thursday, October 27, at noon is the grand opening of the Noe Valley Town Square. The square is a former parking lot on the 24th Street commercial corridor. The proposal to establish a public open space at this site evolved through more than five years of collaboration between Recreation and Park, the community group Residents for Noe Valley Town Square, Supervisor Weiner and the San Francisco Parks Alliance. In June, 2013, Supervisor Weiner authored legislation to utilize $2.4 million the city’s Open Space Acquisition Fund that led to the purchase of the Town Square by our Department. The capital project is funded primarily from a land and water conservation fund grant as well as a variety of other sources and philanthropy from the residents for Noe Valley Town Square. So the ribbon cutting is next Thursday on San Francisco’s newest park. Next Friday, October 28, where you can again don a Cubs baseball uniform Commissioner McDonnell from 3:00 to 9:00 p.m. is Scaregrove, our annual family-friendly Halloween celebration at Stern Grove. Every year our entire Recreation and Park staff transforms Stern Grove into a ghoulish wonderland complete with haunted houses, hayrides, carnival rides, costume parades, and live entertainment. It is one of our four seasonal events that we host each year for San Francisco families. This may be our biggest event of the year and hope you will all come out there for what will no doubt be a dry day. Humorist Robert Orben once said here’s to all volunteers, those dedicated people who believe in all work and no pay. That probably goes for this Commission as well. On Saturday, October 29 from 11 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. we want to invite everything to join us for a very special volunteer appreciation party at the Lake Merced Boathouse as we take the opportunity to thank our cherished volunteers and repay them in ribs and cornbread. Each year volunteers give more than 180,000 hours of their time and energy to our parks and programs which is a gift in kind equivalent of more than $5 million to our Department. Volunteers will enjoy a barbeque lunch and live entertainment with beautiful Lake Merced in the backdrop. I invite everybody to join me to thank all those who work to make our parks better. Lastly, this is a policy one, speed humps. As part of a team effort to address chronic speeding on JFK drive in Golden Gate Park the Mayor’s Office and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency have partnered with our Department in proposing nine speed humps for a stretch of JFK where compelling data shows a very high number of incidents of speeding that have resulted in severe and even a fatal traffic injury. This proposal comes after our Mayor in August issued an executive directive on bicycle and pedestrian safety which directed city Departments to accelerate projects focused on improving San Francisco streets and bicycle network as the city works to achieve its Vision Zero commitment to end traffic fatalities and make San Francisco streets safer. SFMTA held a public hearing on the speed hump proposal in mid-September and obviously this has strong support for a number of community stakeholders including the Bike Coalition. Additionally, the proposal was presented at this month’s PROSAC meeting where the committee voted to approve a supporting resolution in favor of the speed humps and installation is expected in the coming weeks and I believe our Mayor will be out there next week to talk about this. I want to invite two people up to speak. One is Tom McGuire from MTA to give a quick perspective and then Richard Rothman from PROSAC.

Tom McGuire: I think what Phil said is all about this proposal. I’m the Sustainable Streets Director at SFMTA. In April of 2016 this Commission adopted Vision Zero which is San Francisco’s historic commitment to end traffic fatalities by the year 2024. Every year we lose almost 30 San Franciscans on the streets. The premise of Vision Zero is that these crashes are preventable and we can get to zero. We’re not the only city doing this—this is best practice of major cities around the world. As the General Manager said the focus here is on JFK Drive, so part of Vision Zero is identifying the streets where the most crashes, the most fatalities take place and unfortunately JFK Drive is one of those streets that’s on what we call the high injury network, the 12 percent of streets in San Francisco where more than three-quarters of our serious injuries and fatalities take place. So making sure JFK Drive is safe for all users, drivers, pedestrians, cyclists and of course park users is top priority for us. In June of this year we all remember the traffic death of Heather Miller a cyclist who was riding on JFK Drive near the 30th Street entrance and her death and other deaths that have happened this year have spurred the departments and the Mayor to accelerate safety treatments in the park and that’s why by next week we’ll have the nine speed humps on JFK Drive all west of Crossover Drive all in the areas where we believe the traffic speeding is its worse. We look forward in the coming months working with this Commission and Phil and his staff to find ways to make all the roads in the street safe for park users and to reduce speeding and create an environment where everyone can enjoy the park safely just like MTA is trying to do on all the streets in the city. Richard Rothman: I’m the first Vice Chair of PROSAC. Our Chair couldn’t be here today. He had to teach a class today. I think in your packet you have a resolution that we passed. We support the Vision Zero but—and also I represent District 1 on PROSAC and District 1, 5, and 4 are just concerned that with these measures that it doesn’t add to more traffic to Lincoln and Fulton Street so we asked them if MTA could come back within six months or after a reasonable time when they can compare the traffic between what it is now on the three streets, JFK, Lincoln, and Fulton now and then in six months to see if there’s any increase in traffic and we look forward to hearing from them and working with them to solve this.

Phil Ginsburg: Quickly, Ryan will conclude with This Month in Parks. [video plays] That concludes the General Manager’s report.

Julia Raskin: Good morning Commissioners. I’m a community organizer at the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. The Bicycle Coalition is a member-driven nonprofit with a mission to promote the bicycle for everyday transportation. As you mentioned earlier the tragedy of June 22 when two people were killed riding their bicycles is still fresh in the minds of many people in San Francisco. When Mayor Ed Lee issued the Executive Directive in August bolstering his commitment to make our streets safe places for everyone he committed to reducing speeds on JFK Drive where one of the fatal collisions occurred at 30th Avenue. We’re thrilled to see that in April the Commission resolved to adopt the Vision Zero resolution for the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department bringing the Department to alignment with the Vision Zero goals for the City and County of San Francisco. The proposal from the SFMTA and Recreation and Park to add nine speed humps and one raised crosswalk on JFK Drive between Transverse and Great Highway is in line with the goals of Vision Zero and is an inexpensive and short term measure for reducing speeds through the park. The Bicycle Coalition appreciates the city’s responsiveness especially in light of the Executive Directive. As an addition to this proposal we are encouraging that the SFMTA doe a speed survey before and after implementation to measure the effectiveness of speed humps in calming speeds along the corridor. The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition has historically advocated for opening access to parks for people biking and walking and strongly believes that parks are for people, that’s why we support the speed humps are a preliminary measure and we are advocating for a circulation study to consider long-term solution like traffic diversion to reduce vehicle through traffic which is another task that’s outlined in the Executive Directive. This would make the park more welcoming to people of all ages and abilities to either walk or bike safely in the park. Thank you for attention today and we look forward to continued improvement to ensure Golden Gate Park is a destination location and not a thoroughfare for fast moving vehicles commuting through treasured urban space.

CONSENT CALENDAR On motion by Commissioner McDonnell and duly seconded, the following resolutions were unanimously adopted:

RES. NO. 1610-001 RESOLVED, That this Commission does approve the minutes from the August 2016 Commission meeting.

RES. NO. 1610-002 RESOLVED, That this Commission does approve the following animal transactions for the San Francisco Zoological Society, which were processed under Resolution No. 13572.

DONATION TO: ANIMAL SPECIES PRICE TOTAL DUE Hattiesburg Zoo 2.2 Scarlet ibis NIL N/A 107 South 17th Avenue Eudocimus ruber Hattiesburg, MS 39401

DONATION FROM: Safari West 2.2 Scarlett ibis NIL N/A 3115 Porter Creek Road Eudocimus ruber Santa Rosa, CA 95404

Safari West 1.1 Scarlett ibis NIL N/A 3115 Porter Creek Road Threskiornis aethiopicus Santa Rosa, CA 95404 C.

RES. NO. 1610-003 RESOLVED, That this Commission does authorize staff to amend the construction contract with Anvil Construction, Inc. for Alamo Square (3202vr) by increasing the contract amount from $2,434,400 to an amount not to exceed $3,284,400, an increase of $850,000 which is greater than 10 percent over the original approved contract amount. RES. NO. 1610-004 RESOLVED, That this Commission does: 1) accept and expend from the Alamo Square Neighborhood Association a cash grant and in kind grant valued at approximately $87,300.00 to provide new trees and donor recognition pavers in Alamo Square Park and 2) approve a donor recognition plan at Alamo Square Park to honor donors who funded new trees in the Park. RES. NO. 1610-005 RESOLVED, That this Commission does authorize staff to amend the construction contract with CF Contracting, Inc. for Mountain Lake Playground (3204V) by increasing the contract amount from $1,968,750.00 to an amount not to exceed $2,315,625.00, an increase of $346,875.00 which is greater than 10 percent over the original approved contract amount. RES. NO. 1610-006 RESOLVED, That this Commission does accept and expend the following grant: 1) from the San Francisco Parks Alliance, on behalf of the Friends of Waterfront Playground, an in-kind grant valued at approximately $34,000.00 to provide improvements to the landscape area around the children’s play area in Sue Bierman Park.

SAN FRANCISCO ZOO teven Haynes: I’m the Vice President of the San Francisco Zoo. Thank you.

The Commission recessed meeting because of the emergency drill at City Hall at 10:21 a.m. The Commission reconvened at 11:16 a.m.

Steven Haynes: Thank you again. This is Steven Haynes, I’ve Vice President of the San Francisco Zoo. That was a nice drill, it went smoothly. Recently at the zoo we were very honored to give a tour to the Chilean Counsel General here in San Francisco and we were able to show him all the wonderful exhibits that we have and the animals that are from South America and specifically Chile. One of them, the wonderful pink flamingoes that we have and since September we have been hatching some new chicks. We now have four new flamingo chicks. They are white, fluffy and really cute. So come on out and see them, there are four of them running around and having a good time. The past summer was quite a momentous period for the zoo, we opened up two new exhibits, the most recent was the Sifaka exhibit. The Sifaka is a type of lemur from Madagascar. They are unfortunately endangered. The sifaka are kept separately from the lemurs because they leap like you have never seen, upwards of 20 feet. So if you haven’t seen them please come out and see the wonderful new exhibit and you’ll be mesmerized by the way they move about. It’s fantastic. In September we closed up our campaign of the pledge drive but it doesn’t change the pledge that the zoo has made to combat the ivory trade. The city of San Francisco is one of the worst offenders in the world for the import of illegal ivory and we feel due to our mission of conservation that it is absolutely part of what the zoo should be doing is helping to send this message out and have people take the pledge. So nearly 2000 people took the pledge to help stop trade of illegal ivory and we hope everybody will continue to join us in that. Most recently on September 30 we had a great event called Fur Ball. It was a young professional group of nearly 300 people who joined us at the zoo that evening, ending with a great cocktail reception in the giraffe barn and the event that evening raised over $60,000 to support the zoo and its mission. October is Zootober Fest and we’ve been having a fun time. The zoo has done some events in the past but this year we really repackaged the month with activities, a huge 5,000 square foot hay maze for the kids, a bouncy house for the kids, and other games. For the adults we have Brew at the Zoo, the zoo brewhouse and a polka band that’s been playing every weekend so it’s really been a lot of fund. What’s nice to see with this new type of event, kind of a repositioned event is it’s really drawing some new attendance, new faces to the zoo. In fact, the first two weekends of 2016 in October we saw an increase of 25 percent over the previous year’s October in attendance so we were really happy with that. Saturday morning the October 8 was a very special day. It was part of Fleet Week but also one of our members’ mornings which we host every month. It’s special for our members, they get in an hour early before the general public and this was one of the largest members morning we have seen with over 700 people attending. But what made that day even more special was a performance by the Navy’s US Pacific Fleet Band that came out and entertained hundreds of people. That day nearly 6,000 people came to the zoo so it was a terrific day. Everybody knows that the greatest Halloween event in San Francisco is Scare Grove. Following Scare Grove on Saturday and Sunday the 29th and 30th, we do Boo at the Zoo. It will be scary, creepy and crawly. Literally creepy and crawly with a special exhibit of our insect zoo. You can come in and watch your favorite horror flicks that are insect and bug related and see all of our wonderful bugs that are creeping around including the flesh eating beetle. We’ll have a costume parade every day. One of our celebrity judges is Chief Joanne Hayes-White as well. It will be a great opportunity for the whole family. There’s trick or treating as well as on both days we will be doing the pumpkin stomp and chomp, that’s not for us it’s for the animals. It’s a lot of fun to watch a hippo eat a 20-pound pumpkin. November brings us a lot of pivotal events, of course one of the most will be a snow day for cute little Ulu. It’s standard for polar bears in nature to live up into the mid-twenties of their age. Ulu is 35 years old. She is the oldest polar bear in captivity in North America. She was actually rescued by the San Francisco Zoo. She used to get into a lot of trouble up in her home of Churchill, Canada. She was found going through too much garbage and one time trying to enter somebody’s home. So the zoo saved her nearly 33 years ago as she would have been euthanized. So she has been living out a wonderful life. So as part of a wonderful little present we’re going to bring in four tons of snow on November 11, so come out and see Ulu frolic in the snow. This month October has also been a wonderful month for us to push the message of conservation. We have four lectures, three of them are still coming up, this Friday, Sunday, and then the following Sunday. So please come out and you can take part in this lecture series, daytime and evening as well. During the summer months Zoo Camp is one of the largest programs across the city, bringing in thousands of kids every day. But now it is time for winter Zoo Camp so registration is open so tell your friends, your families. November like I said is a big months and Santa has lent three of his reindeer that will be coming in from the North Pole on the 19th of November. They’ll be over in the children’s play area and we’ve got a great setup for them. We would like to send special thanks to Santa and Mrs. Claus for letting us have three reindeer and they will be at the zoo until January 2. Which then of course leads to the last item, Zoo Lights which is a huge event for us. It will be millions of lights, music, carolers, food and good activities beginning December 16 through December 30 will be Zoo Lights so it will be a great time.

PATRICIA’S GREEN ART INSTALLATION Dana Ketcham: Good morning Commissioners. I’m the Director of Property and Permits and Reservations. I’m here to present a proposal for your consideration to approve a request from the San Francisco Arts Commission to place a temporary art installation of two outdoor sculptures by HYBYCOZO a Bay Area based artist team at Patricia’s Green in Hayes Valley from November 8, 2016, to November 8, 2017. Up on the screen I have some information on the exhibition. The first slide shows you we’ve had a history of art exhibits at Patricia’s Green and it’s really drawn people to the park and been a wonderful addition since it reopened. This one’s a little different because it’s going to be in two locations. There’s going to be one in the center and then one over on the side where actually a tree recently came down. We’ve reviewed this with park staff, they’re all onboard with it. It’s still a little bit in the exact design stage but I’m going to show you a prototype. As you can see, it’s beautiful. It will light up at night. It will draw people to the park. We are finalizing the electrical work and it is sort of a build-in-place which is why I don’t have the specific designs of it. The preliminary Arts Commission Visual Arts Committee approved it yesterday. It will go to the full Arts Commission on November 7 and would not be installed without their approval. It is supported by the Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association enthusiastically.

Commissioner McDonnell: Just one quick question. It’s beautiful and is there potential, I’m presuming there may be, to move about the city in terms of temporary installations?

Dana Ketcham: Well, Jill Manton would be here but the Commission meeting went a little too long, she would be the one to answer that. I think it’s all about funding but I’ll raise it that you asked that question.

On motion by Commissioner McDonnell and duly seconded the following resolution was unanimously adopted: RES. NO. 1610-007 RESOLVED, That this Commission does approve a request from the San Francisco Arts Commission to place a temporary art installation by artists Yelena Filipchuk and Serge Beaulieu at Patricia's Green in Hayes Valley from November 8, 2016 to November 8, 2017.

LAKE MERCED WEST RFP Cassandra Costello: Good morning everyone. Cassandra Costello with the Recreation and Park Department in the Property Management Division. I’m here today to present to you the proposal from Lake Merced Recreation. I want to walk through the RFP process. Before I get started into the meat of the presentation I wanted to give a little background and orientation of the site, an update on the recent cleanup process performed by the PUC and again walk you through the steps that we undertook for the request for proposals process. Lake Merced West is situated between the shoreline of the south lake of Lake Merced and John Muir Drive just east of the intersection with Skyline Boulevard. It’s owned by the Public Utilities Commission however it is managed by the Recreation and Park Department pursuant to an MOU between the two Departments. The site was previously leased since the 1930s to the Pacific Rod and Gun Club who offered skeet and trap shooting. The PUC took over the management of the property in 2013 and they performed an extensive cleanup to remove high levels of lead, arsenic and polyaromatic hydrocarbons caused by the use from the Pacific Rod and Gun Club. The gun club vacated the premises in 2015 and the cleanup was completed earlier this year. Today the site is left with native grass hydro seed mix for erosion control with restored wetland areas along the northern portion of the site. The Department worked in very close collaboration with the PUC to develop the language in the request for proposals for this opportunity. The Commission approved the RFP in December of last year and it was released in January of this year. There were no objections to the language in the RFP at the Commission meetings, the conference meetings, or at the public community meetings. The opportunity focused on three main areas: reactivating the site, the Department and the PUC were looking for high-quality opportunities for public recreation to take advantage of this really special, unique lakeside setting. No recreational use was prohibited in the opportunity provided and we asked for proposals with initial term not to exceed 20 years but offered opportunities to propose an extended lease term. We also wanted to enhance public enjoyment of this 11-acre site and we were specific that the site is offered in as-is condition. The property will require substantial investment by the respondent. There are a number existing buildings, some of them are in poor shape and potentially resources. The provisions were developed jointly by the Recreation and Park Department and the Public Utilities Commission. Of course all proposed uses must meet a recreational purpose and the PUC mandated that the proposed use must protect the watershed and that future use is prohibited that results in deposits in the watershed and of course with this opportunity environmental review would be required and through the environmental review process a historic preservation analysis will be performed as well. The future agreement is subject to review by the California Coastal Commission. Many of the objectives that were developed again in close collaboration with the PUC were lifted from the Lake Merced Watershed report. This watershed report was developed by a group of lake users, stakeholders, advocacy groups, public agencies and the general public. There were three main focus areas, again taking advantage of this special parcel of property. Not contaminating the soil or resulting in restrictions on any future use of the site. Obtaining a financial viable tenant to enter into a long-term lease agreement with and provide valuable amenities to the public. With minimum qualifications that were to be met jointly or directly or through consultants or joint venture partners that was five years of experience fully managing a business nature of this opportunity and demonstrated association with at least two development projects of similar size and scope to the proposed project. Just as we did with the Palace of Fine Arts we created letters of interest and the process created an avenue for parties that didn’t want to or didn’t have the capacity to take over the entire master lease agreement for the 11 acres. They were able to submit a formal letter or interest. We posted that letter on our website and it was really an opportunity to encourage partnerships between entities. We received six letters of interest, one from City Kayak, one from the Bay Area’s Mini Horse, from the Lake Merced Rowing Community which consisted of SI, Pacific Rowing, South End Rowing Club and the Dolphin Rowing and Boating Club, a landscape and architecture design firm, the Dragon Boat Association and the YMCA. We also recently received a letter of interest from Outward Bound California. As you can see we did not receive a letter or any formal participation in the process from the previous tenant, the Pacific Rod and Gun Club, or from the Lake Merced Outdoor Center. The Department received one response to this RFP in June of this year. The response was from an entity titled Lake Merced Recreation LLC. It’s a joint venture between Outback Adventures and Greener Excavation and Construction. The response was posted on our website minus the confidential proprietary financial information and was available for the public to review. I’m going to walk you through before I get into the details of the proposal through the joint partnership. Outback Adventures was started in 1999 by Jay Gange who is here today with his team as an outdoor adventure company specializing in renting outdoor sporting equipment and providing guided tours and trips. Their mission is to enable and encourage the public to enjoy the great outdoors. Jay began Outback Adventures after completing his degree in environment studies and a five-year tenure in outdoor specialty retail store in the Bay Area. Outback Adventures now has two retail stores—one in the North Bay and one in the East Bay, however the bulk of operations still remains focused on getting the public outside and enjoying the water. I’m going to highlight a couple current and past permits that they have held. Yosemite National Park, Pt. Reyes National Seashore for 12 years, Castle Rock State Park—they’ve been offering rock climbing for 17 years—Stevens Creek Park for 15 years, and Pinnacle National Monument for eight years. This entity has vast experience providing recreation to the public in sensitive park settings all over California. Their current on-water locations consist of Steven Creek Reservoir in Cupertino, Dell Valle Regional Park in Livermore, and Galinas Creek near China Camp. They offer a variety of services at these sites primarily in water sports. A little bit about Greener Excavations and Construction. Paul Foley is here from the company, he’s the owner and operator. He began the company from a lifelong experience in the construction trade and he started the business in 2005 to offer a more environmentally conscience excavation and construction company. It makes sense that Outback Adventures and Paul Foley have combined. They share the environmental work ethic. Paul Foley has also completed large-scale construction projects up to $9 million in value. He’s worked on large historic ranches, public buildings such as the VA right here in San Francisco. He’s also 50 percent owner in CLM Builders. Lake Merced Recreation is also proposing to partner with a number of other entities such as the Yellow Bike Project. They’re a really unique organization. They’re a nonprofit do it yourself bike project, community building organization that invests in nonfunctioning bikes to get them back on the road. This really provided independent for those most in need, providing them with the transportation they need to get around. Yellow Bikes current operations are located in the Tenderloin. They’re also partnering with Poly Tech Associations, it’s a woman-owned company in San Francisco since 1986. They have a breadth of experience on large development projects in San Francisco and the Bay Area and they’ll also act as consultants to help navigate through the approval processes ahead. They’ve also brought on Stillwater Consulting who is a sustainability consulting company specializing in biofuels, green building, and business development. Their focus is to preserve the environment and the connection to its community. Lake Merced Recreation will also bring on a historic preservation consultant to add to their professional team. They’re proposing a number of uses. I’ll go into a little more detail when we talk about the phases of construction however I do want to highlight kayaking and athletic fields, paddle boarding, a variety of rowing opportunities, a food and beverage component, birding, fishing, and a farmer’s market. They’re proposing to execute and deliver this project in three phases. The first phase which will hopefully be completed in 2018 would have a number of buildings. They would like to build a kayak and paddleboard boathouse, install a new dock, public restrooms which is a very important part of the public process. We heard that loud and clear from our public meetings that this site needs a public restroom for those travelling around the long track. A new parking and roadway area. Landscaping and a gazebo. They also proposed to rehab the existing historic buildings into a bike area and a registration center, provide light snacks and ancillary retail, a restaurant, fitness room, bathroom and conference space. The proposed activities in phase one—kayak and paddleboard rental, lessons and instructions, a farmer’s market, picnicking, dining, fitness classes and the bike shop. Phase one is approximately is approximately $1.9 million. Phase two would be a little over $500,000. They hope to execute phase two in 2019. They’re proposing to install the athletic field as part of phase two and a gazebo and picnic area. Phase three which is highlighted in blue they’re proposing to install the community gardens, built a bird observatory, a community circle and fishing pier and install bocce ball courts. We had an incredible evaluation panel look at this proposal and evaluate it on the terms and conditions listed in the request for proposals. We had representation with expertise and watershed management, the Lake Merced task force, somebody with youth programming experience, and experience working with various communities in San Francisco, a representative District 7 supported by the District Supervisor Yee, this person is also Supervisor Yee’s appointment to the PUC Citizen’s Advisory Committee and somebody with deep finances experience. In the evaluation criteria which is listed in the RFP the Department emphasized use and activation. Seventy-five percent of the available programming or points were focused on public access, protection of the watershed, recreational uses, consideration of noise, parking and traffic mitigation and project feasibility. The RFP is not focused on revenue to the city but does look for an entity who has the financial capacity to complete their project. The respondent received an overall score of 85 points. Lake Merced Recreation is proposing an initial term of 20 years with an option to extend for an additional 20 years. These points will be negotiated should you authorize us to enter into the next stage. They’re proposing rent credits for the initial 10 years to offset their investment into the site. Additional terms and conditions as I noted would be negotiated and the proposed lease would them be presented to the Commission. I’m going to walk through a bit of a timeline. We’re hoping today that you select this respondent and authorize staff to enter into negotiations. We would fairly immediately begin the CEQA process, environmental review. We have committed to the public to go back to them for a public meeting to present the lease terms before you at the Commission and recommended to the Board of Supervisors. We hope to finish phase three by 2020. The Department performed extensive public outreach for this opportunity. We were able to leverage some of the stakeholder lists that the PUC had been generating for years with the Lake Merced watershed task force process in addition to our District Supervisors who presented this information in their newsletters. We also had extensive public meetings. I want to note that I’ve mentioned the Lake Merced Task Force a number of times, those meetings although they concluded a number of years accept the framework for developing the RFP that you supported earlier this year. We held a public meeting to present the terms of the RFP last fall and we held three pre-bid conferences as well onsite. They were attended by many including the Lake Merced Outdoors Center who attended all three meetings. I want to note that while the respondent was developing their proposal they did reach out to Lake Merced Outdoor Center three separate times, one email and two phone calls, with little or no response back. The respondent has however been able to advance partnership discussions with other who attended those pre-bid conferences such as Outward Bound California and Polytech Associates. The Department also held a public meeting just a month ago to introduce Lake Merced Recreation to the public. The meeting was attended by about 70 people and the vast majority of the attendees offered supportive comments for our respondent. We have received 27 personal emails and letters of support for the respondent. We’ve also received 139 emails opposing the respondent. 123 of those 130 emails were form emails with the exact same verbiage which essentially opposed Lake Merced Recreation and wanted to bring back trap and skeet shooting to the site. They criticized the proposal that it didn’t have a financially sustainable proposal. I want to note that the detailed financial information has not yet been disclosed to the public. They ask that you reject the RFP and rewrite the RFP so that Lake Merced Outdoor Center can submit a response. Eleven of those 139 mails were the form email but added additional comments. We also received five emails that were not the form email. They rejected the respondent and supported the Lake Merced Outdoor Center. We also received one email from somebody who was concerned in general about wildlife in the area and any activity that would take place. At the Operations Committee for those of you who were there we have seventeen people testifying in favor of the proposal including the Lakewood Apartment Association which represents the 1400 people who live directly across the street from the project site. We had a member of the Lake Merced task force, representatives from the rowing community and an environmental education group. We also have four people associated with Lake Merced Outdoor Center who testified in opposition to the Lake Merced proposal. Last week we received a letter from the leadership within Lake Merced Outdoor Center who asked us to amend the RFP to “insert skeet shooting into the activities offered at Lake Merced”. As I said earlier in my presentation skeet and trap shooting was not a prohibited activity in the RFP. Additionally, the Department did not receive any objections to the language in the RFP and the time to make modifications to the document the RFP was during the Commission approval process last year or prior to the submission date which was June. The Department received one response to this RFP and it’s from Lake Merced Recreation. This is the only response before you to consider today. We recommend that you authorize us to go into the next stages of the process, negotiate a term sheet followed by a lease agreement with Lake Merced Recreation. That concludes my presentation. However, I would with your permission like to bring up Steve Ritchie from the Public Utilities Commission and they’ve been just a great resource for us as we’ve navigated through the process today.

Steve Ritchie: I’m the Assistance General Manager of the PUC. I will make one comment to Commissioner McDonnell. A PUC meeting does not go by without hearing about the Cubs from Commissioner Kwon and it’s getting pretty old. On the other hand, it would be a pleasure to see them win. That aside thanks for providing me the opportunity to speak. I do have to leave to go to another meeting but I want to acknowledge that we’ve had a very strong working relationship on the development of the RFP here with Cassandra and Dana Ketcham as well as with General Manager Ginsburg. We have a strong interest in the protection of the underlying land. We had to spend substantial rate-payer funds to clean up the site. There is still shot in the lake and there may be some question if we will have to expend more to clean that up. So we wanted to make sure that whatever activities went on here that we fully support recreation at the site because it’s a great site but that it needed to be protected for future uses throughout and the Lake Merced itself needed to be protected. So we were very concerned that the RFP was very clean on that. We followed the process. We participated, we did not sit on the selection panel but we just wanted to make sure that the interests of the land and water would be protected as part of this and we’re satisfied that the proposal does that in its current form. I’d be happy to answer any questions and if further questions come up our staff person Obi Nzewi is here, he was project manager for the cleanup.

Josh Brankman: I’m the executive director of Outward Bound California. We are a nonprofit outdoor education organization based here in San Francisco since 2009 we’ve worked with nearly 5,000 young people from the great Bay Area most of whom live near the San Francisco city proper and go to school here. Outward Bound continues to work with young people across the state and our mission is to change lives through challenge and discovery. We do that through outdoor activities, teaching leadership, character, and service learning. Our commitment to this project is that we see this as a way to increase access to natural spaces here in the city for young people. Of course our focus has been young people. We understand that this project will actually impact the greater community, people of all ages from all communities here in the city and neighborhoods. We’ve worked with Jay and his team over the past months to look at the proposal they put together to see what kind of partnership we could build with to advance both our mission as a nonprofit organization, advance the mission of the PUC and the Recreation and Park Department. Throughout our conversations we have been nothing but impressed by this proposal and the team that’s put it forth. They’ve worked with the community they’ve talked to stakeholders from across the city. They’ve included nonprofit organizations like ourselves who couldn’t take on a project like this on our own but see it as a way to bring together nonprofit organizations and for-profit organizations in collaborative spirit. We fully support the project like I said and urge you to move this forward. Aaron Meyers: I’m a software engineer at a fairly large company based in Palo Alto. I was born here in San Francisco but lived most of my life on the East Coast in New York City. That’s a city many people consider the Greatest City in the World. I would have to disagree. I moved here because I wanted a fantastic city with fantastic outdoor opportunities and San Francisco afforded that by providing me with tremendous fishing opportunities. New York, you can catch fish - you would not want them near your dinner table. New York has very few beaches. It has no camping opportunities that I’m aware of. San Francisco provides all of that and it’s tremendous. Until very recently San Francisco also provided something else that I’m passionate about which is trap and skeet shooting. I’m a hunter. I have been for a long time. That’s something that’s near and dear to my heart. The PRGC when it was around provided obviously opportunities to practice shooting which is a necessary part of hunting and also educational opportunities for obtaining one’s hunting license. I’m very sad to see those things go. The reason that I found San Francisco so refreshing versus New York is because it’s so open not only to what are traditionally considered let’s say liberal passions but all passions including trap and skeet shooting. I understand that the Pacific Rod and Gun Club is not coming back. That ship has sailed. What I’m asking you to consider strongly is some way to incorporate trap and skeet shooting into the existing plans either by asking Lake Merced West to amend their plans to include the trap and skeet shooting on the trap and skeet fields on the site and are historic or to amend the RFP to allow the participation of a group that would support trap and skeet shooting. I know we just heard that the RFP did not explicitly exclude trap and skeet shooting. While that is technically true it also said it allowed not deposits into the lake which is a necessary part of trap and skeet shooting. I’d also like to clarify that the cleanup that was done was largely due to lead and arsenic. For many years now the Pacific Rod and Gun Club did not shoot lead shot into the lake. There’s steel shot which is nontoxic. There’s photodegradable wads. So this is imminently possible in an environmentally friendly way but by excluding all deposits into the lake you effectively excluding trap and skeet shooting. Sam Nelson: This is Emily Koenig. We are with St. Ignatius crew and the large school and Pacific Rowing Club. Emily Koenig: We are unopposed to the current proposal at Lake Merced West. Sam Nelson: We support Recreation and Park and the Commission’s vetting process for finding an ideal respondent. Emily Koenig: If the current proposal is accepted we are committed to continuing to work with the respondent and Recreation and Park. Sam Nelson: We’ve been providing rowing to the youth of San Francisco for almost 40 years and we commit ourselves to continuing to work with Recreation and Park, with whatever proposal respondent if you do choose this one we commit to working with him and then to help grow the area, bring more people to the people. Emily Koenig: We thank you so much for your time and we also want to invite you all to Lake Merced on December 3 for a big learn to row day. Anytime you are interested in coming out and watching a practice you can come in any of the coach’s launch whenever you want. Michael Emory: I’ve got a note I sent to Cassandra last week after her performance before you and I want to read it. Cassandra, while you dismissively announce that we did not file a letter of intent you failed to report that long before you drafted the RFP we met with you, Sarah He, Dana Ketcham, to review our concept. The Commissioners should know that you conceived the RFP with our twenty-page concept in hand. To not reveal this was quiet deceitful. Thus, to be truthful and transparent you and your staff were well aware of our plan, our partners, and our intentions. You also stated that you were surprised that we did not submit a response. Again, to be truthful and transparent you were made aware on multiple occasions that we felt that the RFP was specifically written to exclude skeet and trap shooting. The clause, protection of Lake Merced and surrounding watershed land, future recreational activities that would result in direct deposition of any waste hazardous material or foreign substance on the premises or in Lake Merced are prohibited. As you informed me the lake protections came direction from the PUC. As you know our response would have been immediately disqualified as it deposits small amounts of nontoxic steel shot into the lake. Thus you cannot honestly express surprise that we did not submit a response. Had you suggested that we file a protest over this clause a discussion or negotiation may have occurred that may have allowed us to reach a resolution and therefore submission of our plan. In looking at the actual issues that affect the overall Lake Merced water quality steel shot in a small portion of the lake and shore is a nonissue. The decline of the water quality and the water levels in the lake directly related to the adjacent golf courses and their former water and fertilizer use. The departure of the fish and fishing community is a direct result of the low oxygen levels related to the past practices of the golf course management. The EPA and the California Department of Fish and Game allow and require nontoxic steel shot when hunting in or around any State watershed. To forbid it at Lake Merced can only be intended to excluded our form of recreation. So I did want to read from your actual RFP some provisions that you should be aware of which I sent to Cassandra. The Department’s issuance of this RFP is not a promise or agreement that the city will actually enter into any contract. The Department expressively reserves the right to waive any technical defect or informality, reject any or all submittals, suspend any and all aspects of the process indicated in this RFP, amend this RFP, terminate this RFP and issue a new request for interest, request some or all respondents to revise submittals, select a tenant by any other means, offer new leasing opportunities in the area at any time and the last one, extend Telegraph Hill Dwellers deadlines for accepting submittals, decide not to pursue this offering. Thanks you. Robert Granucchi: I was born and raised in San Francisco. I first started shooting at Pacific Rod and Gun Club in the 1950s and even then it was a club of longstanding. I’m here today to protest the RFP as presently written. I ask that it either be rejected or amended to specifically provide for skeet and trap shooting. Earlier this morning one of the speakers commented that sports build character. This is particularly true of the shooting sports. They build the qualities of courtesy, discipline and safety. I’m 83 years old. My shooting years are at an end. I am here because I want to see the same benefits for coming generations that I have enjoyed. The previous speaker made the point that steel shot is by its nature nontoxic. I would simply add that the current generation of shotgun wads are biodegradable. There is no legitimate environmental concern about skeet and trap shooting the way it is conducted today. I’m going to conclude my remarks but I will take any questions if you have them. Thank you. Julia Raskin: Hello again, I’m a community organizer with the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition and on behalf of the organization and our 10,000 plus members I’m here to convey our strong support for a lease agreement with Lake Merced Recreation LLC to operate and manage a facility at Lake Merced West in partnership with S.F. Yellow Bike Project. The Lake Merced Recreation proposal would create space for grassroots community-based nonprofit that put bikes in the hands of people who would benefit the most while increasing recreational cycling opportunities for people who bike this popular and scenic route. The S.F. Bike Coalition has had a long-standing partnership with the S.F. Yellow Bike Project through community bike build program. They’re a trusted and established nonprofit organization promoting equitable access to bicycles and repair knowledge, making our city a better place in the process. This partnership has the potential to provide an affordable and healthy transportation choice to hundreds of San Franciscans, particularly those in our southern and western neighborhoods. We strongly believe that this proposal and S.F. Yellow Bike Project’s participation in it are directly aligned with SFRPD Mission by increasing access to enjoy our urban park space. We thank SFRPD for considering this lease agreement and partnership with S.F. Yellow Bike and for your attention today. Robert Caratin: I’d like to comment on the Lake Merced West proposal. They were offering picnic tables, boating facilities, bird watching, all of these things are currently already available at Lake Merced. I think the Recreation and Park Commission ought to offer diverse recreational opportunities for as many types of activities as possible and that should include skeet shooting. The skeet shooting site there was the only site within forty miles. It was very popular. It’s a recreational opportunity that’s about to be offered and I think the Lake Merced West proposal ought to be modified so that skeet shooting is brought back to Lake Merced. Kim Tam: Good afternoon. I’m a resident of San Francisco born and raised so I shared this story with you guys a couple weeks ago so my apologies for the redundancy. I’m a big fan of San Francisco Recreation and Park. I learned how to swim and rollerblade at North Beach and I learned how to play softball at Moscone and Kimball. I learned how to play volleyball at Chinese Rec Center. In fact, I got my first job as a summer camp director at Chinese Rec Center so thank you Mr. Ginsburg for all the opportunities that you’ve given me. Fitness and recreation has become a part of my life. I’m a personal trainer now and I see Jay’s proposal and this RFP as being one to offer all the opportunities that I had growing up and now that I’m in the Sunset I feel like it’s the perfect, it’s the perfect area, it’s an area that needs a lot of recreation support and I’m here to support his proposal, thank you. Nareessh Comar: Good afternoon Commissions and General Manager. I serve as the CFO of the Lake Merced Recreation LLC that’s submitting the proposal. I have an MBA in finance from UC Berkeley and my day job I work as an environmental scientist in a nonprofit company. I’ve known Jay Gangy and Christina Camp for more than ten years and I’ve really come to appreciate the dedication and hard work in what they do to promote or direct activities in the Bay Area. We’ve talked about doing business together and so when this exciting opportunity to develop Lake Merced came about it seemed like a perfect time for us to work together. I consider myself to be a nature lover. In my research I’ve done a lot of work in improving air quality in our urban area, improving visibility in National Parks. So this opportunity to work with them really seems perfect for me. So as part of the Lake Merced Recreation my primary role was to make sure our financial planning is sound including our cost estimates and revenue projections so used very realistic but conservative assumptions in our proposal to make sure we have a viable business model. I can assure you that our overall financial plan is sound and will deliver successfully our promised goals. I’m looking to working with my team and the Recreation and Park staff on this exciting project. Linda Chui: Good afternoon Commissioners. I’m a third-generation San Franciscan and live in the city and raise a son who goes to SFUSD schools. But I’m here representing the California Dragon Boat Association and to express our strong support for Lake Merced Recreation LLC’s proposal for Lake Merced West. I’m the CDBA’s past president and have been volunteering with the organization for over 16 years. I’ve spent a lot of time at Lake Merced over the years and I currently direct our International Dragon Boat Festival which unfortunately we had to move to Oakland this year. I also served on the Lake Merced Task Force and also helped write the Community Opportunity Fund for renovation to the north lake dock. So just a little bit of background about the CDBA and we were formed over 20 years ago and have been running Dragon Boat programs out of Lake Merced for about 15 years. While our festival had to move out of Lake Merced we host a number of other races there including our youth race, our college race, regional regatta and we have about 90 percent of our practices at Lake Merced in the north lake. This translates—I did the calculations—on an average week to about 1600 visits to north lake on a weekly basis and many of these are from youth. We run a free very large dragon boat high school program, we provide it free of charge to youth and we have about 1000 youth who participate from schools like Lincoln, Lowell, Washington, Mission, Wallenberg, Balboa, Galileo. Our program is open to all youth but we’ve been particularly successful at reaching an interesting group of immigrant youth who have never participated in team sports before so they didn’t grow up with baseball bats or soccer moms but they can compete in dragon boating a team sport at a very high level. They go actually all over the country to compete. They travel internationally to Macao and China to compete. And what we hear from them frequently is many of the them actually take two or three busses to get to Lake Merced every single week multiple times, it takes them over an hour each way, and when we ask them you know why do you do this they say we just love Lake Merced. We love being out here, we love feeling like we’re in the middle of nature and getting away from the city and so it’s this perspective that really leads us to want to be in strong support of this proposal. We’ve had the opportunity to meet with Jay and his group and they are extremely community-minded and collaborative and open to idea. Lake Merced is a very unique asset. As you know we’ve had trouble keeping our festivals here as we grow in San Francisco and so south lake is the larger of two lakes and right now its access is really limited due to physical infrastructure and lack of programming. The rowers have done a great job of activating it but we think there’s a lot more opportunity. Their proposal will dramatically increase access to the lake for all San Francisco residents and we’re in full support of activating this underutilized asset. Thank you. Jay Gange: Good morning everyone. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I’m the president of Lake Merced Recreation LLC. For the past 17 years I’ve made it my mission to enable and encourage more people to enjoy the outdoors so that they can gain a better understanding and appreciation for the environment. I’m excited about the prospects of being able to continue this mission at Lake Merced and bring a variety of activities to the residents of San Francisco. As you may know many people who grew up visiting Lake Merced talk about its former glory days, the days where there were many active lake users and a commercial concessionaire where people could rent boats, buy fishing licenses, and get a meal at the boathouse restaurant. Yes, compared to right now there were times when Lake Merced offered more to its visitors but things are changing for the better and that’s why we’re all here today. We have a plan to reactivate not just the lake’s waters but also its land-based recreational opportunities. Our plan is to offer a variety of activities that everyone can enjoy regardless of age, ability or skill level. With our wide range of offerings, we feel we have something for everyone. Our activities and amenities and have been selected to be highly compatible with the environment while maintaining open space and preserving historic resources. Our team is made up of dedicated professionals who have the experience to develop a thriving recreation business. If awarded this RFP we assure you, we will work extremely hard to make Lake Merced West a premier recreation destination. We’re also committed to joining with the many dedicated people many of whom are in this room who have worked tirelessly to advocate for, protect, and restore the amazing natural and recreational resource that is Lake Merced. I hope you agree with your staff and selection panel and approve our proposal for Lake Merced West. Thank you. Nathan Woody: I’m the executive director and cofounder of San Francisco Yellow Bike Project. For the last five years we founded our nonprofit to serve the city’s population with the least ability to access repairs facilities and materials for bicycles. I formed this nonprofit in response to the City Council’s idea that they would have 20 percent bicycle transportation by the year 2020. We are definitely far away from that. I founded our nonprofit to provide resources to those who would not otherwise have them. In some cases, even a repair to a bicycle can be cost prohibitive to some of our most vulnerable residents. So in that time we’ve served thousands of adults, affected thousands of repairs, distributed with the help of the bicycle coalition some of other community partners thousands of bikes on the streets. The coolest part about what we do is some of our work serving children. Just today I got one of those four-year reminder things on the social media feed telling me what I was doing exactly four years ago today and I was actually on the way with my other cofounder to Sunnyside Elementary with two cargo bikes full of kids bikes to facilitate our very first kids bike swap at that location. So that was a really nice reminder to me what is so exciting about this opportunity to San Francisco Yellow Bike Project and specifically he populations that we serve to have a safe, insulated from traffic and other road users where they can be very vulnerable to these machines. This space offers an opportunity to create a separate training facility, separate from cars and traffic, separate from the dangers that exist on the real world roads to allow our volunteers and staff to train children and get them up and running in a safe manner at this location. We’ll also be offering small essentials only sort of retail bike shop. The south and west sides of San Francisco are particularly underserved in terms of bike shops and not served at all in terms of community bike resources. We would also operate some community bike shops where the public is free to attend with no set cost for their participation. As I mentioned our biggest goal here is to create a safe place for the kids. Working with Lake Merced Recreation LLC this is just an incredible opportunity to grow our impact and get more bikes on the streets and more riders learning to ride safely. It’s truly a special moment in our history. This is something that could affect generations of cyclists to come. Paul Foley: I’m the owner of Green Excavations and Construction. I’ve been working in construction for over 25 years and developments for the past 12 years. I have a degree in construction economics and building management. I worked on almost every type of construction project out there. I’ve been an owner and partner in multiple mixed use commercial residential developments here in the Bay Area. We have worked projects all the way from purchase through planning, design and completion. We also have ongoing maintenance contracts on certain ranches and developments. I have an excellent relationship with a couple of very reputable commercial banks and some private investors. We have the capital, the manpower, equipment and experience to create the project in front of you today. We look forward to moving to the next stage. Dick Allen: Good afternoon. I’m a long-time rower at Lake Merced along with my three children and wife who is now faster than I am. A strange thing happened to me on my way to this meeting this morning is I boarded the MUNI at West Portal and I started reminiscing about the last 18 years that I’ve been involved at Lake Merced in trying to save the lake and there I flew right by the Civic Center Station I was so deep in thought which would be no surprise to my family, they’d just laugh at me. But I do want to call out a few people here and that is we’re so happy that Steve Ritchie joined the San Francisco PUC. He took it on his shoulders to save the lake. And then we had the good fortune of having Obi move in and clean up the site so it can become a recreational facility for Recreation and Park. And Cassandra thank you for all your work too. It’s a real pleasant activity for me to be able to be here and see us get to this point and Commissioners I won’t tell you who it is, he can admit it if he wants to, but one of the Commissioners here even went out bravely and joined a coaching session on Lake Merced and we didn’t have to rescue him. He came back and he was checking out his muscles and he seemed like he was ready to go again. Here’s the thing about Lake Merced that a secret really in San Francisco, any of you have children or friends who have applied to University of California say at Berkeley, 55,000 students that you’re competing with. Everybody that graduates from Lowell is qualified to go to Cal but they don’t get in, that’s just the way it is. But if you’re a rower from Lake Merced and a coach has identified you he will say make your application to Cal. When that application gets to Cal he stamps it and those rowers get into Cal and that’s the same for Stanford, Washington, Princeton, Harvard, you name it. That’s the beauty of Lake Merced. Keep that in mind as we move into phase two to implement the proposal for Lake Merced. Nick Myers: I’m the guide service coordinator and climbing and paddling guide for Outback Adventures. I’ve worked with Jay and Christina for some time now and I’m here to vouch for the character and work ethic of these two in particular. I’ve seen them work seven days a week more often than not and stay up countless nights to finish items for customers that they needed the next day or the day after just so that they were done. They’ve gone from guiding troops to getting a store to have two retail stores and three on-water locations and if there’s one thing I know about them it’s that they won’t give up and what they create will be the best that it can be. I also want to mention some of the feedback that we’ve been receiving about this project in the couple hours that we had our staff onsite at Lake Merced speaking to people about the project we received almost 250 signatures supporting the proposal. Almost every person that we spoke to signed the petition and was very excited to hear about the new proposed land use. I thought it might be helpful to share some of these comments we noted from these interactions. Henry C. uses the lake daily for relaxation and thinks the lake is underutilized. He would like to see a community friendly area to relax and bird watch. He mentioned that the SFPD gun range was enough noise. Ina is a Lake Merced resident that has used two Outback Adventures locations and thinks the proposal would be a perfect fit for the San Francisco community. Mary is 90-year-old resident that grew up by Lake Merced and walks her dog daily around the lake. She remembers the noise from the rod and gun club and feels it’s time for a change. Trevell is a teenager and just started fishing six months ago and he was very excited about additional fishing opportunities that he insisted that he sign the petition. Nancy is a dog walker that has concerns regarding noise from the shooting that scares her client’s dogs and she is interested in facilities that are dog friendly. Larissa was riding her bike when we met her and she was excited to hear about a community nonprofit bike service offering. Myron is a fisherman that would like to see additional fishing options at Lake Merced and Ashley and Tina would love to see kayaking on the lake in order to have a different form of exercise. Several would have loved to be here today but the meeting time didn’t fit with their schedules. These are the types of comments we keep hearing again and again. We’re excited at this proposal. It’s supported by people of all ages and interests and we attribute this support to the wide range of offerings. Neal Hunt: I’m a San Francisco resident. I own a business here. We provide flowers. I’m here to speak on the nature of the RFP, it concerned me. One of the things that Michael an earlier speaker alluded to is that it was a poison pill snuck into the request for proposal that is the deposits in the lake. As you know—I’ll deal with that later—but one of my issues with this is we have one submission but there was another submission that was fully formed that was designed by the architect who created Cavalla Point, it was Leed certified, it offered diverse opportunities, it was environmentally sustainable and had been vetted by a consulting firm to be so. It offered rowing, a restaurant and many other activities, and that was the proposal that included skeet. Unfortunately, it wasn’t submitted because of the issue with the deposits in the lake. Shot now is composed completely of nontoxic materials. It is considered adequate for every single watershed owned be either the Federal or State Wildlife Agencies. So that is not actually an issue for the lake but it was used to limit the proposal. My concern is that we are removing some activities that have history in San Francisco that are unique in favor a for-profit company from out of town and there’s some nonprofits that could ride along but those could be included in any use of the lake. These are all fine activities, the paddle boarding and the kayaking and whatnot but one of the considerations is that many of these activities are available in better locations nearby or have been tried and failed at the lake previously. For example, you can rent kayaks in Alameda beach and Sausalito and many different areas. A basic reality of the lake is that it sees the sun about four months out of the year if you put it all together. It tends to be windy and foggy and those of us who live on the west side, I live within maybe a quarter-mile of the lake, we kind of like it that way. So my concern is that we have eliminated the possibility of historic activities, eliminated a community-based organization that had diverse membership or all economic levels, of all ethnicities, and we’re replacing it with something that while very nice things that are already readily available in the area. I feel like it’s another example of traditional San Francisco being supplanted by the new shiny San Francisco. Jonathan Gull: Good afternoon. I was retired from San Francisco Department of Public Health since 2012. After retired, what should I do? So I found a wonder spot in my neighborhood that is [unintelligible] shooting in our club, in the Pacific Rod and Gun Club it come out [unintelligible] team member from our club. So we would like San Francisco [unintelligible] so why don’t keep this wonderful program for people to practice our [unintelligible] games? Second point, also I came to San Francisco since 1989. The most historical [unintelligible] we all love and remember is the Golden Gate Bridge. This club, the age of this club, the age is must older than the Golden Gate Bridge. So I just don’t think we have too many [unintelligible] in San Francisco city, things we are most famous tourism city in the world. So why don’t we keep this very old historical site for our public interest? Thank you for listening.

Commissioner McDonnell: Cassandra, a few questions if I may. Let’s start with a central question in this issue around the stipulation in the RFP around deposits. A, what were the conditions around which that was placed by PUC? B, is that alterable or not I guess is the question?

Cassandra Costello: As I mentioned in the presentation the terms and conditions were developed jointly between the Department and the PUC. That specific provision that you mention Commissioner was mandated by the Public Utilities Commission. They manage the watershed. This is a very unique and important water resource so they mandated that no permanent deposits, no deposits be left in the lake. That language was inserted in the RFP. At this point the time to amend an RFP as I mentioned was in December when this was vetted at the Commission at both Operations and full Commission. We presented the terms and conditions of the RFP to the community in a public meeting and we also had the RFP open for six months and we did not receive any formal request to amend any portion of the RFP.

Commissioner McDonnell: Secondly, in terms of the scoring sheet—moving forward, thank you for that. In terms of the scoring sheet I noted that in most of the sections the scores were—we discussed this I believe at Operations but if you could replay it for me I’d appreciate it—which is 80, 90 percent. And then when we got to financial feasibility and then financial terms it was 64 and 71 percent respectively and can you just remind me what are the issues you’re looking to address, resolve, mitigate and you potentially move into negotiations?

Cassandra Costello: Thank you for the question. As you noted the evaluation criteria did focus on use and not financials and not revenue to the city. This is a first-time project for Outback to do a substantial project in San Francisco. However, with their partnership with Greener Excavations we’re confident in the joint venture, partnership’s ability to deliver a project of this size and nature and based on Outback’s seventeen years of offering recreation in a vast breadth of sensitive park properties—they’ve been in national parks—we have full confidence that they’re going to be able to execute this project and deliver a timely project. The proposals were relatively low in the proposed financial terms. They did propose the first ten years of a rent credit which was completely allowable in the RFP. We know that a substantial investment will be required into the site and we wanted to make sure we would be able to amortize those details in the lease agreement. So the next stage if you authorize us to enter into negotiations we will be digging into those financials and coming back to you with a lease agreement for the project.

Commissioner McDonnell: Two more questions. One, in the time—and it wasn’t clear to me at what point, phase one, two, or three, at which activities actually begins. Is it post three, mid-two, it wasn’t quite clear.

Cassandra Costello: Immediately after phase one is completed the activities would be available to the public.

Commissioner McDonnell: Last question, while not formal I would presume that our duet friends from the rowing club are going to be partners, because it wasn’t clear in the actually RFP.

Cassandra Costello: I think they’re going to be coexisting on the lake. They are not partnering on this proposal but are very supportive of the proposal I think due to their love and enjoyment of the lake and wanting to see what’s best for the lake and the grounds that surround the lake.

Commissioner Buell: I see no other Commission questions. I want to thank Commissioner McDonnell, those were many of the questions I had and I think the genesis of this requirement about the particles in the lake is central to at least putting this forward and going through extensive neighborhood meetings and community meetings. With that, I don’t see any other questions, the Chair would entertain a motion.

On motion by Commissioner McDonnell and duly seconded, the following resolution was unanimously adopted: RES. NO. 1610-008 RESOLVED, That this Commission does authorize the Department to negotiate a lease agreement exclusively with Lake Merced Recreation LLC for the operation and management of Lake Merced West.

EQUITY METRICS Phil Ginsburg: Let me introduce you. I want to use this as an opportunity before John speaks to offer some thanks and gratitude for the entire Proposition B process which was very fundamental to the long-term financial stability of our Department and the deferred maintenance work. So there was a financial piece to it but John was also very much of a leader in focusing us on a conversation that is facing all cities and all parks Departments right now on equity and insuring that we are delivering services and programs to communities that need it most and John lit a spark that is going to lead us on a—has already led us on a really important and enlightening journey and we are learning more and more about what other parks Departments across the country are doing and no doing and because of our work and our partnership I think we are going to end up emerging as a leader in this conversation and I wanted to say thank you to John.

Supervisor Avalos: Chair Buell and Commissioners thank you for having me speak. I want to thank you for your work on allowing the Department to go through the process of creating metrics for equity on decisions around capital and operations. It’s critical as a city that we do such things. We’ve seen the greatest economic growth that we’ve ever seen in this city in recent years but that growth hasn’t affected all parts of the city equally and we have to look at how we can assure that neighborhoods that are left out can get a greater amount of attention and resources from the city. I live in a District that is pretty much like that, the southern part of San Francisco on the border with San Mateo County and Daly City we don’t have the same kind of resources that other neighborhoods have. We have great facilities but they’re also maybe not quite as adequate as other facilities are in the city and there are huge needs we have all over San Francisco to make sure everything can be as good as it can be but that’s not always easy to do. We also are part of San Francisco that has been left out of a lot of economic activity. We just heard a report that the sales tax in our retail establishments on Mission Street and the Excelsior are actually going down. That we’re not achieving the kind of economic activity of other places in the city. I’ve been personally blamed for that but I don’t think that’s all about me but really about how as a city we often overlook how we can provide the infrastructure that can actually help all neighborhoods to thrive equally and we see that where we have development, big building going up, big transportation systems going in, that a lot of the dollars that go around the develop stay in that area, they don’t really get dispersed through other parts of San Francisco. We’ve seen that with the NFL, we’ve seen that with the Warriors, we’ve seen that with America’s Cup and we’ve seen that with Transbay and all these other facilities that go up all over San Francisco. For me it’s really important that we think about how we can use our economic boom not just to assure that money trickles to neighborhoods like the Excelsior, the Lakeview, and the Visitation Valley area but that actually we can be deliberate about how we can make sure that resources flow to these neighborhoods that are left out of this economic activity. We also have in District 11 probably the greatest, the best park advocates of anywhere else in the city. We have people who spend their whole lives volunteering for our parks, not just one park but several of them across the District and they do that because we realize that our parks are like our town squares, these are the places where we actually have the greatest amount of city investment that everyone can really enjoy. We have large investments of MTA in my District but actually the investments for MTA are around their maintenance facility and not so much about things that people use every day. The experience of people who use MUNI and Bart is one of just getting through as quick as they can through industrial area that’s more serving how we maintain our vehicles that giving people a good experience. Our parks are different than that. Our parks—people go there to exactly enjoy our parks and so it really makes a lot of sense that we actually think about where we don’t have a lot of other cultural events or resources in District 11 and other parts of the city like District 11, we don’t have a lot of economic activity, is that we use what resources we have to shore up and provide a better experience for people in San Francisco. We have the Jerry Garcia Amphitheater is a good example. There have been years we’ve been working on trying to get greater events and resources to actually have a renovation of the Jerry Garcia Amphitheater and we have little things we’ve done but we actually haven’t done the major renovation that really has to happen there but instead we’ve actually created our own neighborhood low-income neighborhood events at parks there, all done by volunteers with a little bit of—maybe $5000 a year. That’s because we have this huge amount of interest in people who want to take care of our parks. So I want to say this and very quickly, I really appreciate the work on the equity metrics. I see the equity metrics are creating the lens by which we make later decisions on. Taylor Emerson has done a tremendous job on that. I think that they’re ready to be approved and also it’s a work in progress, that next year we’ll actually learn something from this year and we can approve metrics that will actually help make decisions in the future and how we make decisions around Cap and Operations in the future. So I’m okay with where we’re at right now but I want to make sure that we have an open mind about how we actually move forward with the metrics in the future, that we’re not just setting things in stone that’s going to be replicated year after year without any changes. Lastly, the one flaw I see and overall 90 percent I think is really good. One flaw I see is that we don’t take into consideration our equity metrics we just look at—I want to caution—I want to caution that we just don’t look at the resources and the allocations that Recreation and Park makes within its own system. That we have to look at how Recreation and Park makes decisions compared to other Departments, compared to other resources that neighborhoods have, compared to economic activity that other neighborhoods have, so that we’re putting a comprehensive view on what it is to be a neighborhood that is left out of economic activity, a neighborhood that’s left out of cultural events and how we make up the difference with the great assets that we have in our Recreation and Park system. So that to me is a challenge moving forward is that we can think about not just our Recreation and Park allocations but how our Recreation and Park fits overall and how the city is supporting neighborhoods. I’ll say this, that the neighborhoods I worked really hard to get you know a little bit of money every budget year for our neighborhoods, you can’t put too much in a neighborhood if you don’t have the resources to accept them and we build year after year and still we have a lot more resources that we need to put in for our neighborhoods in District 11 to be better supported. Thank you for listening.

Commissioner Bonilla: Yes, before you leave I want to say this—I am a resident of District 11 and I have lived there for 30 years and I can attest to the fact that we have seen very little expansion in terms of services for that District. I think it has been and continues to remain a greatly underserved area and what I’d like to say to you is that after your tour of duty is over that you will continue to shepherd this legislation and help with the implementation especially in our District because we need some strong leadership to really turn the situation around in that area.

Supervisor Avalos: Thank you and just a little push-back, let’s meet and talk. I’ll let you know the litany of things that people in District 11 have actually contributed and made happen with the help of my office. It’s been tremendous and I don’t think it should be overlooked but it also is not enough compared to what we’ve seen in terms of other neighborhoods getting.

Phil Ginsburg: I just wanted to offer comments while John was still. One is that I actually agree with John Avalos because of his leadership and focus on parks. There actually has been a very significant amount of focus and effort and no it is not enough and I think this lens helps us make some additional decisions but I think that we’ve actually done good work together in District 11 as I think when Taylor gets up here and shows it’s not a precise District 11 analysis but whether it’s through various bonds or a lot of the philanthropy that we’ve been able to cultivate District 11 has been a beneficiary. The other point is Zoe Polk was here from the Human Rights Commission and she had to leave because of the length of the meeting. We are in regular dialog with Director Davis and Zoe who is an expert in this. And they are thinking about strategies to look at inter-agency equity issues as you noted.

Supervisor Avalos: I saw Cheryl on the corner of here and she was saying that was really important to her and I’m excited about that because DCYF is starting to look at equity as well as—

Phil Ginsburg: This is not unique. So the Human Rights Commission is going to take a leadership role and we have volunteered in Cheryl’s world not mine to be a guinea pig. We have volunteered to be one of the Departments that are going to help lead that exercise and that inter-agency focus so we’re all talking about this the same way and all potentially using data the same way and hopefully achieving joint outcomes.

Supervisor Avalos: That’s fabulous. Actually in 2013 I visited Seattle and King County, they have a whole Department there that’s looking at equity as well, racial equity, economic equity. So I’m hoping that San Francisco will surpass them in terms of analysis.

Commissioner Buell: Thank you, appreciate it.

Taylor Emerson: I’m from the Finance and Administration Division of the Recreation and Park Department. Since the last time I was here talking about equity to the Capital Committee in August and the Operations Committee in September we have done an extensive public outreach effort as well as to our sister agencies across the city, the other Departments that are working on this—PUC, they call it social benefit, MTA, DCYF, Human Rights Commission and us. We have also collaborated with the Controller. Before I start I’m going to read a statement from the Controller. Staff from the city performance in the Controller’s Office reviewed the data and calculations underlying the Recreation and Park Department’ equity metrics. City performance staff validated to the extent possible the data and calculations provided by RPD. City performance provided RPD with feedback to clarify data values and sources, metric definitions and made recommendations for future metrics. RPD incorporated the feedback and the proposed metrics were deemed appropriate and accurate. So we have reached out far and wide and as a result of all the collaboration we’ve done over the last few months it is a much better presentation. The beginning is the same but as we get to the good part there’s new material. I want to start again by reading the mandate in the charter. The Department shall develop a set of equity metrics to be used to establish a baseline of existing Recreation and Park services and resources in low income neighborhoods and disadvantaged communities compared to services and resources available to the city as a whole. So that was our task and we began the very day or perhaps the day before it passed and the subsequent language the charter sets forth how the equity metrics are to be integrated and incorporated and to lead in future resource allocation decision. After they’re approved by the Commission we will integrate them into the strategic plan update which will be for the five-year period FY 17-21. And then the strategies, objectives and initiatives included in the strategic plan will be specified what we will complete in the Operations Plan for the upcoming fiscal year 18 and the Capital Plan. And all that leads to our budget. At each stage of this planning process which will repeat annually for 29 more year there is community feedback. The very first step was to define disadvantage. We were fortunate to live in California where the State of California has been working on this same question for about the last five years in response to Governor Brown’s cap and trade program where proceeds from that program are to be allocated 25 percent to disadvantaged communities. So they too set out to define what makes disadvantaged communities and the California Environmental Protection Agency developed a tool that is not open date called Cal Inviro Screen and it is a fantastic data source quickly being adopted by other public agencies across the state. What it does, it looks at the characteristics of a population that would make it more vulnerable to disadvantaged and these are age, rates of asthma. Age is the rate of youth and seniors. Low birth rate. Low education. Linguistic isolation which is definitely a feature in San Francisco. Poverty and unemployment. Their data compares the frequency of these characteristics in census tracks in each census track to every other census track across the State of California so that all census tracks are essentially ranked in terms of their degree of disadvantage. We have set the line at 20 percent so in other words the highest 20 percent rates of these census tracks are the communities that are references in the charter low income and disadvantaged. We took the Cal Inviro Screen data and were able to isolate the census track data just for San Francisco so that to be more true to the spirit of the charter comparing each census track to all other census tracks in the city. That is what this maps shows. So the very darkest purple there, the two darkest color shades are the top twenty 20 percent frequency of these characteristics. That doesn’t show well for the audience but I hope that the Commissioners can see it—then we overlaid that data to a map with our parks. Again, census track with the highest 20 percent of Cal EPA’s population characteristics compared to the city as a whole are designated as equity zones. So these are the places where we are going to count, measure, track, and evaluate and compare the Recreation and Park services and resources compared to the city as a whole. As you can see in the dark purple the parks are there so we know the name of each of those parks and we were able to come up with then a list of the parks that are in the service area of the equity zone. There are not 77 parks here. If we go back to the map we gerrymandered—last time I here I told you were gerrymandered just one of the lines to exclude Golden Gate Park from an equity zone. We also in response to public comment took out Lincoln. So this list is a bit different from the last time you saw it. Once we had defined the designation of disadvantaged communities we renamed them equity zones and came up with a list of parks there. Then we set about looking at what data we had that was quality data that had integrity and that spoke to our purpose, our mission. Geographic access, of course recreation for everyone, clean, safe and well- maintained parks, our investment. And these are some of the data source they’re at the top. Members of the audience, this is very difficult to see, there are a few copies on the table there, lots of numbers. So let’s just go through them a big to understand this charter. I want to point out that an asterisk indicates where this has either been revised or added in response to feedback from the wide array of people we have interacted with. Again, about 20 percent of the population because we took the 20 percent highest rate of those characteristics in the equity zone and a common theme that we heard was people wanted to see the equity zone—the charter just requires us to show the equity zone compared to the city as a whole but folks wanted to see the area outside the equity zone so we did add that middle column there as well for additional comparison. There are about 35 percent by number of our parks serving this 20 percent - just looking down that first column, 20 percent of the population. That was also added in response to public comment because originally we just had park acreage and there was a criticism that because McLaren falls inside such a large park that was distorting. So I thought that was an excellent point and so we pulled out a number of parks as separate way to look at this in addition to acreage for the access metric. About 19 percent of the park acreage there serving 20 percent of the people. 35 percent by number. All parks are included by the way. We counted mini parks the same as community gardens. We’re not evaluating types of recreation or types of assets. All are equal in our mind and all have devoted advocates and users. Looking down, safety. Safety was something we heard over and over about parks. Of course we don’t—we’re not the Police Department and this feels in some ways outside of purview but it does speak to in some ways the attractiveness of a park, the use of a park and how that would be different for people across the city. As you can see the rate of SFPD incidents—and let me just stop right there. This data was from San Francisco open data and it was very difficult to refine. I give you my commitment that next year when I’m here and we’re looking at this baseline of numbers compared to the next year’s data this is going to be refined to be more meaningful but for right now this is what we could get. Incidents are anything that leaves a paper trail in the Police Department. So an illegal left turn, a missing person, or in fact a crime that could have started in a park and moved out or started outside and moved in within 500 feet which is about a block. So a much higher rate there. Maintenance. This is the park evaluation scores which are the Proposition C mandate where Recreation and Park staff and staff from the Controller’s Office evaluates every park every quarter and its amenities, the quality of the cleanliness, the quality of the landscaping. What this shows is that in an equity zone 85 percent of the amenities or features passed the evaluation. A little bit higher in the non—the outside the equity zone part of the city and then an average there citywide. Maintenance and repair, that reflects the closure rate which is to say the closure rate of our work orders which is the sink is broken, etc. These are the internal work orders that come from 311, staff, and other sources. So this reflects how many TMA work order requests came in FY 16 and of those how many were closed. So inside to say performed, they were completed. Inside the equity zone 84 percent. Outside 82, and then the citywide average of 83. Capital investment. Capital investment includes—we decided to do a three-year average because Capital is so lumpy. It’s hard to say any one year is—because we get voter approval for a bond and then we issue it six months later and then the park is renovated for three years and then opens to the public so what year would you count it. So we decided to a three-year average there. This includes the last three budgets as well as all the appropriates to date on the 2012 bond. In the annual appropriate ordinance that has this capital investment in it it includes funds gathered from developers, the IPIC inter agency planning.

Phil Ginsburg: It’s all capital dollar appropriate from whether it be our bond program or developer fees or grants that we’ve obtained. Anything that is run through the annual appropriate ordinance and again and Taylor noted we take a three-year average because capital projects take more than one year to do and when the funds are available again as Taylor noted is lumpy, the dollars don’t become available in a consistent way. We look at three years rather than one.

Taylor Emerson: There’s an asterisk on this one. The numbers are quite different from the last time you saw this and it’s in response to a finding from the Controller’s Office that we had not counted it correctly or fully and so that’s part of the explanation for why that’s so much bigger than the last time you saw it. Volunteers. There’s two kinds of investment actually but also again in response to public comment we separated out the volunteer hours and another element of responsiveness on our part was that members of the community wanted to see park volunteers which are people that are working on litter abatement or weeds segregated from recreation volunteers. Now we can really see that recreation volunteer hours which are given to people really so that’s the standardizing denominator there per 1,000 people in equity zones versus outside and then the city as a whole, that’s looking good. Park volunteer hours. So this is the landscape part of it, comparable there per acre. We did that one per acre. That seemed to make more sense because park volunteer hours are in fact given to the land. And then just the last one there just as another way of seeing these numbers a percent of the total volunteer hours given in each of the areas so 22 percent in total of the volunteer hours both types are provided inside the equity zone. Recreation. Hours of recreational resources. Previously this included the recreation volunteers I just referenced above but we pulled those out so again this numbers look quite different than the last time we showed this chart. Hours of recreational resources now reflects the structured recreation provided by our staff or our partners for example the Vis Valley Y or Self Help for the Elderly which does lots of programming at rec centers. So just us and our partners now and then just again sometimes these numbers are hard to understand so we tried to present them in different ways, so this is a percentage, so 20 percent of the people getting about 46 percent of the recreation resources. And scholarships, scholarships are not subjective, we don’t have an allocation decision there but we wanted to show this because you know it could have actually gone in access as well because this really reflects our commitment to make sure that everyone can get out and play and by looking at these numbers it shows that in fact our marketing, our education efforts to help people understand that the scholarships are available for all ages we’re successful. There’s more work to do but 20 percent of the population has 36 percent of the scholarships. This is just a plotting of the incident data that we used. These metrics as Supervisor Avalos said and as we have said so many times are just a tool. They’re a way to now look at everything we do and use this tool to help us more deeply understand and here’s one way we could look at it—the average—this should actually have an asterisk for Commissioner Buell because your joke last time really set us to be thinking about the statistician that died in a lake of an average depth of three inches because averages sometimes hide the story, they can dilute the story. So here’s the average park scores but another way to look at it is the top of the scores. Instead of averaging let’s look at the top and the bottom. So the top twenty park scores in FY 16 40 percent of them were in the equity zone. Now, remember they have 37 percent of the parks. So that seems to be on par. In FY 15 though there was just—and it’s fun now to have the lens to go back and look at things before we even conceived of an equity zone. In FY 15 25 percent of the best scoring parks were in equity zones so what that shows is that we redid Gillman and DiMaggio and some other parks that are located in these areas and now their scores are higher so they’re moving in the right direction. On the bottom end of the scale the lowest park scores in FY 16 50 percent of the lowest park scores were in the equity zone. Now they have 37 percent of the parks so that is definitely askew although if you look at FY 15 is was 70 percent so we’re going in the right direction for both the bottom and the top but more needs to be done. This is very rewarding and gratifying to apply this lens to our existing data and to think about all the ways we can use it in the future. This is a super long list and I’m not going to read it of—we took these equity zone parks and then applied them to our current year budget which was—

Phil Ginsburg: I’m going to jump in here because this is where the rubber meets the road. This now gives us an ability to say okay so what are we doing with this data? How are making sure where is our commitment to parks in these neighborhoods and this year is unique because our budget frankly was done before the measure passed and before we had engaged in this pool but to just show you where our priorities are and where your priorities are and where PROSAC’s priorities are and the community’s and the board’s this is the work, these are current projects that are in our budget and current programs that we are launching on the next two slides that are in parks in equity zones and without reading every one there is a significant amount of capital investment, a significant amount of park acquisition and development, a significant amount of program expansion for maintenance projects, field renovations, court resurfacings and even a couple of public safety initiatives in those parks. Now, over time our goal is to develop a little bit more of a system for how we prioritize our investments and pick our projects and it should be a combination of site, condition, and need and some of this equity focused data. And we are just beginning the journey of exploring how to put that matrix together so that we can be more data-driven and frankly perfectly transparent in why we’re making some of the investments that we’re making or letting all of you make certain decisions based on how different projects rank on this data. So this is the beginning of a journey but what’s worthy here is that this Commission and this Department’s existing values. These are the projects we’re working on.

Taylor Emerson: This is just a list of some of the formal conversations that we’ve had about this work. There have been uncountable information conversations just in the hour out in Civic Center Plaza I talked for the whole time about this with lots of people So this is—today is highlighted. We are hoping that you will approve these metrics. But our work is not done. We are going to continue to—the next step as you recall is to integrate them into our strategic plan. We’re going to go back to PROSAC in November with that. We are going to continue to reach out and get feedback and to make this better and better over the years and there’s a yearly cycle moving towards our budget and then repeat for the next 29 years. I want to note that the underlying data, the Cal Inviro screen that we used, the State is issuing version 3.0 coming out pretty soon. Cities are giving comment on it now and if you can just think 2.0 is based on the 2010 census, just how much San Francisco has changed since then and the version 3.0 will be based on the mid-census, the American Community Survey, so 2015 data and it also has a number of new population characteristic factors including one for rent burden which will I think yield a different line of designation for disadvantaged and that next year when I’m here we may in fact be looking at a different set of parks. So this is a dynamic analysis and the data is changing as our world changes all of us are moving into a world of big data, for sure, and I can assure you that the crime stats, some of the work on TMA is going to be refined and more illustrative next time. This is our very first cut. We’ve never done anything like this nor has anyone to our knowledge every come up with metrics although lots of other Departments are working on it and thinking about it this is a quantitative expression of equity and it’s only going to get more and more informed as the data continues to refine.

Denis Mosgofian: I’ve served for the last five years as a District 5 representative on PROSAC and I was on the working group that submitted our advice to you as we are advisory in our resolution and our PowerPoint and presumably that’s in your packet we were truly pleased and I know that you know this and I don’t need to say a lot more than that. But we were truly pleased at the effort made for planning more equitable distribution of park resources and services. But we were deeply concerned that some of the metrics showed little significant different at least in the initial draft between the disadvantaged zones and the advantaged zones. We were supportive of the incorporation of the equity into our strategic and operations planning and we know we’re going to look at that in the next few months. However, we want to make sure that unlike the Hubble telescope this equity metrics lens which the General Manager has told us over and over and over again is going to be the lens through which we look at everything, or you look at everything, we want to make sure its adjusted before its launched. So we are supportive but we want some time for some corrections to the metrics. For example, the metrics show—and I’ll make this as a key point—the stats still presume for example that 100 percent of park resources and services are consumed in an equity zone park by equity zone residents. A study of 24 census tracks around McLaren for example establish that 12 of the 24 tracks actually were occupied by non-equity zone folks and that they used the parks and Palega by 56 percent of the population using the quarter-mile buffer zone around everything that was established as the assumption of how people use parks. That buffer zone is the basis for the analysis that the census tracks actually show a more accurate assessment of who uses the park. It is incorrect to assume that an equity park is used entirely by 100 percent equity folks residing nearby.

Commissioner Buell: Can I ask you a question? I won’t hold you to the time on this. Would one assume in the case then that would be because we have some sports fields there and we have visiting teams that are using it from outside the area or people coming in because of programming in the parks? Do we know the answer to that when you say there’s that percentage that aren’t from the area?

Denis Mosgofian: Actually, the point I was making based on the study of the 24 census tracks around McLaren and Palega was not based on that. I will come to that point about visiting teams because that is a point.

Commissioner Buell: I’m just curious that we’re all talking the same thing.

Denis Mosgofian: I was talking about a study of 24 census tracks around the southern section on the map and it included the border which was the buffer zone that Taylor established and I think the Department has established, a five-minute walking zone. It turns out that when we examine the 24 census tracks that touch 12 of them are equity and 12 of them are non-equity. They are further away than what was thought and when you look at it and you do the total calculation of the populations 56 percent of the users of the park came from the non-equity and 44 percent came from the equity.

Commissioner Buell: Got it, thank you. Continue.

Denis Mosgofian: So the issue there is the assumption that an equity park is used by 100 percent by equity residents. It’s true if all of the census tracks around a park are equity zones, that’s true, but it turns out what’s left out in fact is that all throughout San Francisco even near equity parks census tracks vary and some of them are non- equity and some of them are equity. So that assumption is a fundamental thing that is mistaken, the 100 percent, because what it does is leaves out sharing and the reality is the sharing that’s left out of the metrics and the reality is in all sorts of areas all over San Francisco people share but there’s another assumption that’s fundamentally not recognized Taylor’s work. I have no criticism of Taylor, I think she’s done excellent work but folks tend generally—and that’s the assumption of the quarter mile buffer—folks tend to generally go to the parks nearest them for most of what they do in parks. And I pointed out to her earlier I said you know I live near Golden Gate Park. I’ve been to McLaren 15, 20 times in my life. I’m a native San Franciscan. I’ve been to Dolores Park 35 times. I’ve been to Lincoln Park 40 times. I’ve been in Golden Gate Park 2000 plus times. Sometimes it used to be three or four times a week and I’ve been across the street from it for 43 years. So what you do is you go to the parks nearest you. There’s another assumption I wanted to get at which I think is important to know and it’s connected to this. Most people go to the places nearest to them to recreate and as we know from teachers and other people who work with folks in disadvantaged areas oftentimes the kids there haven’t even been to the mountains or to a beach or to a farm. So it would be inappropriate then to assume that just because people have two legs that they can actually travel across town and go to the nicer parks or the other way around. So I think that those assumptions and what that is it that economics determines often how far people go for recreation and I think that should be incorporated into the equity zone.

Commissioner Buell: I think I’ve given you as much time as I can.

Denis Mosgofian: I was just going to urge that you—is the point I made to you earlier is that when you said this is an ongoing process that the Commission, you guys are probably the only oversight entity that can do this.

Commissioner Buell: Got it.

Denis Mosgofian: You need to establish a mechanism for that.

Commissioner Buell: Thank you.

Ana Gee: I’m representing District 6 PROSAC. When I first listened to the very first presentation on equity metrics I was very excited because my District is one of the Districts that’s in great need of open spaces and I think this is a wonderful project that you have. However, I’m just going to go over one issue and that is the scores versus observations. And the presentation we saw that some of the scores are really high for some of the equity parks and specifically for McLaren Park which has a score of 85.3 and [unintelligible] Heights which also has a score of 85.5. The problem that I see with this is that when you go to these parks you see that there’s no garbage cans, you see they’re dirty, you see the structures of the playground are broken. So how is it these two parks have such a high score? That doesn’t equal what is on the score which is on the actual parks. And going back to the observations I think it’s very important that when scored in a park you look at a park as an individual park not as a standard for all the parks especially in the Tenderloin because we have many, many hundreds of families that don’t speak English. We have Middle Eastern families that speak other languages that is not English. We have Asian speakers. We have Spanish speakers and for the most park they don’t understand or they don’t know it is okay to say hey we don’t have garbage cans here, that it is okay to call for repairs. So they don’t get the chance to call and ask for these repairs so therefore I think that observation is very important when scoring the parks. Thank you. Linda D'Avirro: Good afternoons Commissioners and General Manager Ginsburg. Since my Supervisor already pretty much said what I was going to say to start with I won’t even go there but I do want to emphasize that it was PROSAC that championed the equity metrics that were passed in the recent bond charter amendment. And again as was said earlier by Denis we’re thrilled that the equity metrics are here because it’s really important to those of us, particularly those of us who live in equity zones now that we realize this is something that’s long overdue and it needs to be done. As Phil mentioned it’s not anecdotal it’s real data that we’re looking for so with that said PROSAC had a number of recommendations that as Taylor has said this is even newer than I think a day or two ago because she has incorporated many of PROSAC’s recommendation which are in a packet that you should have that we still are looking for those also to be incorporated.

Commissioner Buell: Those are in our packet, so you know that.

Linda D'Avirro: Thank you. And so I just want to point out a couple of things that we’ve given several data points that so far have not been incorporated and I’ll leave that with Margaret because those aren’t in your packet but we have some ideas of things that should be in there and they may be planned but we don’t want to wait another year. I think part of what I’m asking for is an ongoing conversation formally and informally because under PROSAC’s rules it’s a very formal structure we would like to be able to have ongoing meetings in some format or some way to incorporate these changes and just you know one example is the percentage of TMAs that’s listed on here, one of our recommendations is that you should have a number for TMA backlogs in equity zones and how long they’ve been in there since the day that they were called into, when they were finally closed out, particularly in structural cases because you see a lot more of those in equity zones. So that’s one example. Another one is a measurement of staff levels. The NERPA or National Recreation and Park Association has standards. For example, McLaren Park should have ten, we have one and a half. So I think those are real valuable measurements in equity zones that we would like to have incorporated that’s in that document that I hope you’ll get a chance to see. So with that in mind we passed a motion that also is in your packet urging that you support our recommendations and ask RPD to incorporate them soon rather than later and to develop and ongoing process to work with us to fine tune the results. Thank you. Dee Seligman: Good afternoon. I want to speak about the metrics on maintenance as they exist right now. In my opinion maintenance should really be about money spent per capita, that’s the most direct and meaningful measures, one of the most. Why isn’t it in here? The two metrics that are in here which are the park scores for maintenance and repair requests logged into RPD internal TMA system as completed are indirect and much less reliable metrics. RPD says this metric is not proposed because they don’t know how much they spend for maintenance in any given park. Can they actually be serious about this that they don’t know how many gardeners, janitors, and managers are allocated to each park? Their TMA system does not track time and materials associated with a job? If they don’t have this information they need to figure it out now. How can they do a good job of managing our parks without it? I would suggest we use the area of maintenance more meaningful equity metrics such as janitorial hours per month for bathrooms and clubhouses per capita of local population, trashcan capacity per capita of local population, trashcan pickup volume per month per capita of local population, the bathroom open hours per month per capita of local population. As with capital spending maintenance spending should not be based on the Natural Area Program. In fact, the Natural Areas Program is specifically exempt from the evaluation of cleanliness in its areas. The activities of NAP do not benefit park users at large. Of particular concern is their reliance on toxic herbicides. NAP enjoys a special exemption from Department of Environment rules that allows them to use the most toxic herbicides freely in the natural areas for such dubious purposes as “landscape renovations”. These metrics should not promote spraying toxic chemical in equity zone parks. Thank you. Leah Pimental: I serve as the Chair of the Blue Greenway for the San Francisco Park Alliance but most importantly I’m a mother and a third generation from the Bayview. I use parks every day. Every weekend we visit parks throughout the city and we’re very pleased with these equity metrics. Equity is often a discussion but Recreation and Park is actually investigating to see how are these funds really benefitting each part of the city and park. Parks are the last affordable things in San Francisco and it provides for not only children but families and it’s very important to move this forward. It should be a living document constantly evolving and getting feedback and as you said about is one park because they’re having baseball. I live directly across from the Silver Terrace Park, depending upon what happens there’s basketball and football and soccer and it directly impacts who’s visiting those parks but getting that type of feedback and data really understanding what benefits are going into the park can really help the people of San Francisco but mostly importantly the children who use it. We only go to the park that’s so fascinating to see how the children care so much about learning and understanding what’s in their park. One of my son’s favorite things is a stick that he got from Golden Gate Park. The children were flowing and so energetic to really see and understand. They’re city kids. To be out in what they call the wildlife of a park is really important to them. It’s really an important factor to really make sure that we are understanding but also really making sure that the equity metrics are in place. Thank you. May Wong: I just want to say that what has been said before is very impactful. There are a few things that have been left out. We have not really taken into consideration transportation, getting to and from our parks and also the impact as Commissioner Buell has said of outside people coming and using our parks, especially professional dog walkers. So that needs to also be taken into consideration but thank you for all the hard work and hope that it will work for everybody.

Commissioner Buell: Thank you.

Commissioner Bonilla: I just wanted to ask a question. The equity zones on that map that you provided for us will those zones serve as the framework from which all the City Departments work with or is it just particular to Recreation and Park programs and services?

Phil Ginsburg: I’ll take that one. This gets to the work that we’re doing with the Human Rights Commission and the Mayor’s recent retreat with his Department heads in which equity was becoming a clear value. Right now many different Departments as you and I have discussed have different ways of looking at this. A lot of cities are all talking about equity, agencies within cities are all talking about equity, very few folks are defining equity and coming up with data to collect. So this is a start. We actually think that this lens using the population characteristics from the EPA is a somewhat innovative approach and it is my understanding the other Departments may consider adopting the strategy. This is out work. This is for Recreation and Park services, that’s what Proposition B requires us to do.

Commissioner Bonilla: So there’s a possibility that those may vary?

Phil Ginsburg: So far different Departments have looked at this in different ways. We think looking at the geography of where our equity zones are regardless of what it is that we Recreation and Park are measuring, comparing service delivery within these neighborhoods versus the city as a whole is kind of an interesting approach to make sure that the city is delivering services. Far be it from us to tell other Departments how to do their business but I think that’s what the Human Rights Commission is starting to think about, about how we have a citywide conversation in this regard.

Commissioner McDonnell: I’ll begin first with a huge thank you to Taylor your leadership but also all of the voices that have gone into baking what we have before us now. The fact frankly that we’re even having a metrics conversation at all is a huge quantum leap.

That said I would just acknowledge at least from my perspective that the data and metrics that make up the current iteration are a part of a wide, deep set of data sets that are both informed by the actual data points themselves but also points of view and there are varied points of view around not only the data sets themselves but the importance of them. They rise and fall based upon one’s perspective and access points all of which is hugely valuable and important and therefore almost, my perspective, impossible to land on the perfect set of data and metrics that will be wholly satisfying to everyone involved and everyone who cares. So therefore for me this particular set is very useful. I feel like by and large the right metrics to be measured and paid attention to are right, roughly right frankly and hence the iterative nature of going forward will be important. I think that the opportunity for us to learn frankly from this first baseline and what it tells us, what it lifts up for us, some things that we presume now to be important we may presume not to be as important later in the process. Other things we didn’t we might lift up in later iterations. So the other thing I think is important, if we were trying to develop a set of metrics that will become the static sole determining factor for all the things we think are important, capital investment, et cetera, I would be afraid because A, it’s an imperfect data set but B, there are so many other factors outside of the data that ought to inform our whole or more comprehensive decision making. So I don’t look to this as the sole static decision making piece for everything we hold near and dear to us in terms of how we will again make our investments going forward. And the last thing I would say is I really want to underscore certainly I know everyone in this room agrees with this but that interdepartmental collaboration whether it lands on these or other sets that is a citywide conversation we absolutely need to have so if there are ways for me individually or this Commission to play a role in promoting I would want to take advantage of that.

Commissioner Anderson: I want to commend the staff and all the volunteer hours from the members of PROSAC I want to thank you. I just wanted to affirm is it May? I wanted to ride on your coattails a little bit and ask if in the future if transportation issues could be considered as appropriate. I can give you a little anecdote as a mom here in the city with children that were eighteen months apart there was no way I was going to wrestle two strollers and all the accouterments onto two different busses to get to their chosen area park and I would often see moms very pregnant trying to wrestle kids in strollers and things out of minivans and all that. There’s just not adequate loading and unloading around a bunch of parks and no way are people going to take three city busses to a park so I really urge you to keep pounding on that drum and I’ll be right there in the band with you, so thank you.

Phil Ginsburg: Some reflections and then a concluding remark. One, with respect to transportation so equity is a big issue in transportation. I just sat in the director’s working group which is a meeting of big city Departments, the larger Departments, and we talk about big policy issues related to growth and equity and MUNI is doing its work there. For us what you’re talking about Commissioner and I think what May might have been alluding to is access and let’s take a second to celebrate the fact that we have more parks within a ten-minute walk of a higher percentage of San Franciscans than any city in the county, 99 percent of us live within a ten-minute walk, right? For us transportation is more of a policy initiative that something we would necessarily kind of measure. What we’re measuring is how many people can live within a 10-minute walk of a park. And we are thinking through and have thought throw a variety of initiatives to make sure—this is what mobile recreation is about where we actually bring our rock climbing wall and our bikes to different neighborhoods so kids don’t have to come to where the one rock climbing wall is in the city, right? We’ve talked about that in the context of a aquatics, with respect to summer camps, with respect to bringing teens from our juvenile probation system up to Mather. We recognize that to give kids and families the experiences that they want that the transportation is an issue. We budget for transportation and it continues to be kind of a policy work. With respect to collaboration Commissioner McDonnell that is the Mayor’s big thing, right? That’s what—I didn’t really report out on this but I just spent all day with my colleagues, Department heads, at a retreat and it was inter-agency collaboration on this topic and others and one where you’ll hear about more where there are five or six Departments all working together is Civic Center and the Civic Center Commons idea and how we’re trying to kind of work through that. But we work very closely whether it’s with the PUC, SFPD, Juvenile Probation, DCYF, DPH on Healthy San Francisco, we have a number of collaborations with Departments that kind of fit our vision and now what the Mayor is trying to do is make sure that Departments are collaborating on his citywide vision and that is a work in progress. Last. You know, look, this is s start. But we should be proud of the work and by the way we shouldn’t be apologetic about the data, right? The data actually suggests that these our values and yes we can do better, I will be the first to admit that we need to continue to drill deeper to find different ways to make sure that our parks are responsive to community need but at this level the data suggest that these are your values as a Commission, these are our values, and these are our park users’ values. Finally, a big thank you to Taylor and a number of other people on our staff. We have taken this very seriously. We talk about it at our executive staff retreats. We are engaging in a year-long internal learning process on the topic of equity, working with the Human Rights Commission and some other outside facilitators and you know we are now in a position where we are not reacting to the financial crisis of the moment or the political controversy of the moment where this is we have now a chance to really kind of drill deeper on this topic and that is our plan.

Commissioner Buell: Thank you. Seeing no other questions let me make a couple comments. One, Taylor I think this is terrific work. You should be very proud of it. I think it’s right at the heart of what we should be doing to give us some better judgment about our priorities and how we set them. So much appreciated. I agree with everything everybody said. This is a first-shot at it. It’s not going to be perfect. There are places where people individually or collectively can find shortcomings or where they think it can be improved. I’m cognizant of the fact that two things I think would be helpful. Because it’s an ongoing process we need to have a mechanism where both suggestions that improve the process can be incorporated and the mechanics that we haven’t set in place only one way to look at these problems and therefore only use certain metrics. I think we have to keep asking ourselves are those the right metrics and so how we get to that point I would leave the staff to report back to us. I honestly perhaps naively could envision a day when the Mayor sets aside an afternoon where all the Departments sit in the chamber and metrics for all the city services could be talked about in the broadest sense as to how we deliver to the people, not the biggest taxpayers but all the taxpayers. How do we satisfy what we can deliver as services to those people? So I think this is a great place to have this discussion. I thank PROSAC. I thank the Park Alliance. I think they’re both the players that have the most day to day knowledge of how you can help this process, so thank you for participating and with that I would entertain a motion.

On motion by Commissioner McDonnell and duly seconded, the following resolution was unanimously adopted: RES. NO. 1610-009 RESOLVED, That this Commission does approve a set of equity metrics and targets as required by the new Charter language approved by voters as Proposition B in June 2016.

CLOSED SESSION On motion by Commissioner Anderson and duly seconded, the commission voted to go into closed session.

The Commission recessed into closed session at 1:42 p.m. The Commission returned into open session at 1:46 p.m.

On motion by Commissioner Harrison and duly seconded, the Commission voted not to disclose any discussions held in closed session.

On motion by Commissioner Bonilla and duly seconded the Commission voted not to report any actions taken in closed session.

NEW BUSINESS/AGENDA SETTING Commissioner McDonnell: I don’t know where to put the placeholder for the very last comment Commissioner Buell that you made around the revisiting of—and I don’t know the right iteration but at some point on equity metrics.

ADJOURNMENT The Recreation and Park Commission meeting adjourned at 1:51 p.m. Respectfully submitted,

Margaret A. McArthur Commission Liaison