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.