Tag: Rec and Park

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Supes take up community movement against new harbor in Marina

By Natalia Gurevich : sfexaminer – excerpt

City leaders are joining the Marina district’s ongoing fight against a plan to build a new harbor in front of San Francisco’s iconic Marina Green.

“On behalf of The City and County of San Francisco, I’m actually here to apologize,” San Francisco Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin said at a community meeting Wednesday night. Peskin called the Rec and Park department’s proposal “absolutely wrongheaded.”

Peskin also apologized for Rec and Park’s lack of transparency with the community. “It has been fixed from the get-go and it is the worst way of eroding trust in the government.”…

The supervisors shared Wednesday night that they intend to draft a resolution “to articulate clearly what the desire of the community is,” Safai said. Once that is introduced, it will go to the committee, and a public hearing will be held…

But ultimately, if push comes to shove, the supervisors can simply take the settlement money away from the project.

“There’s nothing in that settlement that compels us, binds us to build the West Harbor improvements,” Peskin said. “It’s a Rec and Park thing, it’s a Phil Ginsburg (general manager of Rec and Park) thing, it’s a mayor thing, but there’s nothing that requires us to do it.”… (more)

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Special Public Hearing on Proposed Great Highway Pilot on June 10

Tune in on Thursday June 10 at 1 p.m. at www.sfgovtv.org for a special joint hearing with the SF Recreation and Park Commission and the SFMTA Board to discuss a proposed pilot on the Great Highway.

Members of the public are encouraged to call in during the hearing or provide feedback via email:

For additional meeting information, see the flyer below, or call 311.

And consider signing the petitions here:
https://www.discoveryink.net/wp/petitions/

 

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More parks privatization: The horses of Golden Gate Park

By Steven Hill : 48hills – excerpt

The Ferris Wheel is not the only example of the SF Recreation and Parks Department privatizing Golden Gate Park — and establishing structures without a two-thirds vote of the Board of Supervisors.

Nearly 18 months ago, a private vendor moved into the western end of the park next to Bercut Equitation Ring and built 20 or so stables to house as many horses. Chaparral Ranch Horse Program offers riding lessons and trail rides through the park for $80 an hour. It was supposed to [be] a six-month pilot program.

Also, in a public park that routinely rousts out the homeless from living in the park, the vendor installed two large RV trailers, where an unknown number of vendor staff are living full-time.

These sure look like “structures” to me. And they have not been authorized by the Board of Supervisors…

Is it just a coincidence that the Parks Alliance, the off-the-books friend of Rec-Park that served as a slush fund for nearly $1 million in Mohammad Nuru’s Recology kickback money, just threatened to pull funds from a park in Supervisor Connie Chan’s district if she didn’t back off her criticism of the organization?

So many questions, and so few answers. Meanwhile, the privatization of San Francisco’s public park jewel proceeds apace…(more)

New Policy and Priority at Golden Gate Park. No more natural habitats and no more public access where we can make a buck.
Let’s keep the public out of OUR public parks so we can cash in on it to feed out growing park budget cause our main cash cow got caught out cleaning funds. And let’s make sure the public is not snooping round to see what we are doing and file and complaint. Let’s keep them busy fighting over the street access for as long as we can. No cars. No free access and no camping unless we set up a camp site that we can benefit from.

Who do our public servants work for now? They are certainly not working for us.

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Supes call for investigation of Ferris Wheel money

By Tim Redmond : 48hills – excerpt

Revenue goes not to the city, but to a private entity that’s part of an FBI corruption probe…

The reason the Recreation and Parks Department wants to extend the run of the Ferris Wheel – according to Rec-Park documents – is that the St. Louis-based vendor that built it, SkyStar Partners, needs about 500,000 rides to make the roughly $9 million it was counting on.

And the private San Francisco Parks Alliance, which is a part of the FBI corruption investigation in SF, was counting on taking its share of about $500,000.

You can read the contract here. Not a penny of the revenue from this carnival ride will go to the city. It’s split between SkyStar and the Parks Alliance, which is supposed to use it to finance celebrations of the 150th anniversary of Golden Gate Park…(more)

Nobody likes to pay for parties more than Rec and Park and the Parks Alliance according to FBI investigations, and the City Attorney.

We were objecting to the fumes and noise from the generator that does not follow the logic for a city that is making ordinary citizens give up their gas generated heating systems and cooks give up their gas stoves. But, if there is also a question of funds and who gets them, it should be up to the Board of Supervisors to determine whether or not to sign the contract. That is, unless the Rec and Park Department have full authority to override City Hall on the matter.