Prop C Maintenance Standards

Prop C Maintenance Standards

In 2003, San Francisco voters passed Proposition C, which required that:

-- The City establish standards for street, sidewalk, and park maintenance;
-- The City departments engaged in street, sidewalk, and park maintenance publish their schedules on the web, and;
-- The Controller's Office conduct an annual performance audit of the City's street, sidewalk and park maintenance and cleaning operations.

Since July 2004, the Controller's Office has worked with the Department of Public Works (DPW) and our department to develop maintenance standards and schedules and evaluate streets, sidewalks and parks for compliance.

At Rec and Park, our managers are responsible for performing quarterly park evaluations to ensure that our parks are conforming to the established maintenance standards, evaluating things like turf conditions, cleanliness of bathrooms and grounds, functionality of play equipment and the condition of plants and trees.

Today, I ventured out to Mountain Lake Park in the Richmond District. The park is looking great.

Overall, our parks are doing extremely well. In the last round of evaluations, for the first time in the nearly five year existence of the program, the combined scores from RPD and the Controller’s Office reached a compliance rating of 90%.

This means the dedicated work of our staff is making a quantifiable difference in providing world-class parks and recreation facilities to the public. Having set the target of 90% at the inception of the program, we are extremely pleased to have reached this goal and look forward to maintaining this standard as we move forward.

November 20: An Early Thanksgiving

Friday, November 20: Turkey Cook Off

Thanksgiving came a week early for me this year, when I visited the Friday Night Fun program’s annual Turkey Cook-Off event, held this year at Eureka Valley Rec Center.

For more than 20 years, the department’s Friday Night Fun program has been providing city teens with safe and fun activities every Friday evening, getting them off the streets and into activities like sports, games, ski trips, group discussions, dances and other social events.

Every Thanksgiving, Friday Night Fun sites from all over the city meet for the annual turkey cook-off competition. Each site brings a home-made turkey or side dish and enters it for judging.

Lucky for me, I got to be a judge and taste all of the delicious treats from our rec centers and playgrounds. It was a great event with a lot of character and I’m glad I was asked to be a part of it.

We really do have some great programs out there.

Also, Jackie Battle, current Assistant Recreation Supervisor and longtime teen programs coordinator, did a fabulous job getting everyone together for this super event.

I’m making my reservations already for next year’s event.

November 19- Running Start Honorees

Running Start Honorees

In July, when I first came on board at Rec and Park and was still training for the San Francisco Marathon, our Department, the San Francisco Neighborhood Parks Council (NPC) and the San Francisco Parks Trust (SFPT) formed an aptly-named partnership program called the Running Start Fund.

The Fund solicited from members of the public some creative solutions that could be easily implemented and that would improve their local parks.

At today’s Commission meeting, I had the opportunity to thank the six members of the public whose ideas were selected and recently implemented into the Department’s operations.

Improved signage around park trash cans (Lia Smith)
Big Belly Solar Powered Trash Can at Mission Dolores Park (Gideon Kramer)
New Flag at Mountain Lake Park (Kate Scanlon)
Simplification of class/program registration procedures (Christina Goette)
New doggie relief stations in parks (Laura Cavaluzzo)
New trash cans at Louis Sutter Playground (Carol High)

The Department is always looking for ways in which we can improve what we do and how we do it. We depend on the public’s input because they are the ones who use our parks on a daily basis and who have a vested interest in the welfare of our parks.

I’d like to express a special thanks to all of the folks who submitted ideas to us for consideration, as well as to executive directors Meredith Thomas of NPC and Karen Kidwell of the Parks Trust.

We’ll be looking to implement more of your ideas in the near future.

November 18- Conservatory Garden Railway

Garden Railway Exhibit at the Conservatory

I love the words “repurposed” and “recycled.” When I’m done with this lifetime, I hope someone finds new use for me, just as the Conservatory of Flowers has found new use for a variety of household items and materials as part of their Second Annual Golden Gate Express Garden Railway exhibit, now on display through April 18, 2010.

The exhibit features a model railway system that meanders through a scaled, garden-filled replica of San Francisco, complete with a mini Transamerica Building, Ferry Building, Palace of Fine Arts, Golden Gate Bridge and Coit Tower.

What makes this exhibit doubly impressive is the fact that all of the landmarks are built using “recycled” and “repurposed” items--- things like utensils, light switch covers, corks, CDs, computer keys and even cheese graters.

This is the second iteration of the exhibit, which follows last year’s highly successful debut. Last night, I got to preview the exhibit and it instantly brought back memories of my childhood. This exhibit is not to be missed!

For more information, please click here.

The Week That Was: November 9-14, 2009

Monday November 9, 2009

More Sharp Park. This morning I participated on KQED's Forum with Michael Krasny. To listen to the interview, click here.

Tuesday November 10

Today, I met with our department's Capital staff for lunch. The Capital Improvement Division is an invaluable asset to our department, overseeing our major renovation projects that were outlined in the Department's Capital Plan in 1999. The division continues to oversee projects associated with Propositions A and C in the 2000 election, as well as projects to be completed as a result of the 2008 Clean and Safe Neighborhood Parks Bond.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Today, I met with Congresswoman Jackie Speier regarding Sharp Park.

Friday November 13, 2009

On Friday, I spent the morning at Justin Herman Plaza with the mayor and some other folks to talk about ways to address homelessness in the park and to clean up the plaza. I then spent the afternoon at Sharon Meadow in Golden Gate Park, talking to various homeless folks and watching drug dealing, etc. There will be a Homeless Connect event at Sharon Meadow on Thursday, November 19. It's a very important opportunity for the city to reach out to homeless individuals and connect them to a wide array of health and human services, including dental care, eye care, family support, food, HIV testing, housing, hygiene products, medical care, mental health services, substance abuse services, SSI benefits, legal advice, California ID cards, voice mail, employment counseling, job placement, wheelchair repair and more.

To learn more about the city's Project Homeless Connect program, click here.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

On Saturday, I visited an open house event at the Harvey Milk Center for Recreational Arts, which reopened earlier this year after a fantastic renovation project. The state-of-the-art center houses a host of fine arts classes and programs, including a Photography Center, dance classes and art classes. Director Brando Rogers, who has an impressive background in art, organized the event and will be a great addition to the center.

Later in the day, I attended Nature in the City's first fundraiser, "Growing Nature in the City." Nature in the City is a community-based organization dedicated to habitat restoration and community stewardship, conservation advocacy and public education of San Francisco's natural heritage.

The event was a success for this very important organization. I spent time with founding director Peter Brastow and other Nature in the City members, as well as a few of our own Rec and Park staff members.

Read more about Nature in the City here.

Graffiti Joe

It's great to get letters of praise about our staff. It confirms my belief that we have some dedicated individuals out there who take their work of maintaining our parks and facilities to heart. A few days ago, I received the following letter from an Anne Flatte and Matthew Harrington, who live near Glen Park and were out at the park on Veterans Day:

“I would like to thank Parks and Rec and especially Joe Padilla for the immediate response and clean up to the anti-semitic graffiti in Glen Park Playground yesterday. Our family was planning to go to the park that day and I am very thankful that I and my children, ages 7 and 4, did not have to see such offensive hate graffiti on the playground. It means a lot to us that the city responded immediately to this crime, and we are glad that Parks and Rec takes it very seriously and took swift action. In particular, we are very grateful to Joe Padilla for coming in on a holiday to clean up the graffiti. It's people like Mr. Padilla doing the right thing that makes our community great. If you could forward him our thanks we would appreciate it.”

Joe Padilla heads our paint shop, and he and his crew spend much of their work hours painting over graffiti in our parks. If you’ve ever met Joe, you can tell just by looking at his paint-spattered work clothes that he’s serious about his job. He’s a walking Jackson Pollock painting!

Thank you, Joe, for taking care of business and attending to this matter. This is not the first time our parks have been vandalized with hate speech. It's an issue that goes beyond common vandalism and steps up the seriousness of the crime a hundred-fold. Our parks are one of the few places people go to relax and enjoy nature in the city, and unfortunately, a very small number of people have chosen to abuse the pleasure and aggressively ruin that experience for the rest of us. Sad.

Four More Inclusive Playgrounds

In July, during my first month on the job at Rec and Park, we reopened St. Mary’s Playground, a fantastic facility and our most inclusive playground to date. The playground design allows children of all abilities access to all parts of the playground structure.

One parent, Erika Ragland, whose young son uses a wheelchair, was present at the opening and has been a proponent for more inclusive playgrounds in the city.

On Thursday, November 5th the Recreation and Park Commission voted to incorporate more inclusive playgrounds into the design of four facilities due for renovations via the Clean and Safe Neighborhood Parks Bond, passed by voters last year.

Playgrounds at Palega Recreation Center, Lafayette Park, Cayuga Playground and McCoppin Square will now incorporate Boundless Playground designs as we move toward providing more inclusive and accessible recreation opportunities for everyone.

This is a victory for all of us, and I’m glad to be a part of such a meaningful movement.