Transcripts For SFGTV 20150306

[gavel] the meeting will resume. This is the Public Safety and Neighborhood Services committee of the San Francisco board of supervisors. I am rickric the chair of the committee. To my left is Julie Christensen and were expecting our vice chair david campos very soon. Mr. Evans can you call the next item. Item 6 is a resolution recognizing the inauguration of the San Francisco childrens outdoor bill of rights of the resolution on october 18, 2014. Thank you. The sponsor is mr. Mark farrell and from his office is catherine stephanie. Good afternoon. I am appearing on on behalf of supervisor farrell today. This was brought to our attention by the Presidio Trust who is here today and they were going to celebrate the inauguration of the San Francisco childrens outdoor bill of rights back in october in 2014. This resolution had been endorsed by the San Francisco parks and Rec Commission and in 2007 the state of california adopted the nations first state wide childrens outdoor bill of rights to acknowledge the importance of nature to a childs physical and emotional well being. The Presidio Trust asked if supervisor farrell if he would put the same resolution in front of the board of supervisors it to recognize the initiative to promote these outdoor experiences listed for all San Francisco children and commem rat this in october. This was a no brainer for supervisor farrell. As you know supervisor farrell is a former park director and is raising his kids here and understands that the children should be introduced to these areas and playing in the mud and sand and discovering wildlife and riding a bike among other things. The reason this is before you today it was originally on the adoption without reference to calendar but it was asked to refer it so the committee could hear it and were glad they did that. I appeared before the Youth Commission twice and i was blown away by their analysis, their thoughtful questions and the way they looked at this resolution for us its a no brainer. Of course every child has a right to these experiences listed in the resolution and what i liked about what we heard in the Youth Commission is that what are we going to do about it . Its easy to pass a resolution but where does the real work begin . So what we realized is that the real work comes together i mean comes by everyone works together, asking how we make it happen how we Pool Department resources to make sure all of the children get to connect with nature and develop to their fullest potential, how we work with the youth leaders to enjoy the experiences in the resolution and how do we communicate to them in the city and county of San Francisco and the things available to them . This of course is a larger conversation were committed to. Our office is committed work with the youth leaders and Department Heads and mark is comimentded to this as we go into the budget season as how can we set forth the priorities in the resolution and i urgure your department and i would like to turn on over to a representative from the Presidio Trust. Thank you. Good afternoon commissioners. I want to give a shout out to the youth in the house and great to have you here today. Just one more step in making some history in San Francisco a kind of revival of what childhood used to be like in the city what we love so much and were raising children in so i will give an overview today. I want to call out Charlotte Hill and nonprofit connecting kids to parks and zoey that works for the Youth Stewardship Program and connects youth with the Natural Heritage so the back story here i probably dont need this slide but the benefits. Physical well being, less stress, intra and interpersonal skills development, increased cognitive functioning and increased sense of connection with nature were waiting for the slides to appear on the screen but please continue. Great. Of course a development of a environment ethic rooted in place. You dont need a ph. D in Child Development to know intuitively these are quality parts of any childhood in the world so that brings us into the bigger picture. Were increasingly an urban species as of 2007. Most human beings live in urban environments and i assume it includes everyone here in this chamber today and increasingly urban world means a more built landscapes that childhoods are being experienced in. A second major factor is the decreasing of outdoor time, and there are many reasons for that. One is increased technology. One is concerns about safety. So as a result of this over the past decade there have been numerous calls to action from the white house to local organizations like outdoor afro and one of those resulted in an initiative that catherine referred to, the california childrens outdoor bill of rights which was the first of its kind in the united states, and since then roughly half of the states have created their own crustom tailored version of an outdoor bill of rights that is relevant to the children growing up within their respective state scpils add that several cities created their own version, chicago and lansing michigan so four years ago there was a interdiscipline group of pediatricians, parents and park staff, urban ag folks that came together to bring that national and International Conversation to the local level. What does it mean for the seven by seven of San Francisco and for kids growing up in the urban environment of San Francisco . So one Main Initiative that resulted from this collaborative is what were discussing today. The slide they have up here is a survey that was in spanish, chinese and english that went out broadly into classrooms, into communities. This is a group of second graders at lawton elementary crunching the numbers from their particular survey. These are middle School Students taking it in an after School Program and it also brought us to city hall many times over the last year, to the rec and park commission, two blocks from here to the San Francisco Unified School District board, and i have to say there wasnt a whole lot of arm twisting here. People were genuinely very, very supportive of this new charter, new commitment to childhood in the city, so these are many most of the current family of endorsers. You will recognize i would imagine most of the logos on there. These agencies and organizations represent the stakeholders who are in a position to deliver to work as a team, as a village so to speak, to make this really work as something for every child and that is an emphasis on both the poster and the postcard which i will leave for all three of you. This isnt just for pacific heights. This isnt just for the richmond. This is every conner of San Francisco every child growing up in the city. So im going to go through a few images of what this social compact represents. All photos taken in San Francisco if you recognize many of those places, so were at a point where we are gathering stakeholders. We are envisioning how were going to collaborate together to deliver on this, and our recent meeting with the mayors Youth Commission gave us good ideas how we can deliver on that as well and i think we will hear from them today too so thank you very much. I was going to say this is really helpful and the slides and i know that a lot of work has gone into this, but were trying to do our best not to lose a quorum here from our body here so were going to urge the presenters to be as succinct as possible and i know there are a lot of young people that want to express their views but i appreciate the succinctness of the presentation. Great. Thank you very much. Ms. Stephanie i believe we have zoeo burton from the rec and Park Department. Did she want to go up as well . And shes the Youth Volunteer and educator from our San Francisco Park Department and thank you to damian for the vision and the belief in this social compact that he and so many others have developed. Thank you so much for having us today. I dont have much to say that besides our program puts into practice a lot of these rights everyday. Thats i didnt was dressed this way and i was doing this morning in a garden with second graders and were working on the first get outside and play work of earth week, april 20 and were meeting to how are we sharing the message to the San Francisco Unified School District and creating programs around that so that is pretty exciting so anyone that has thoughts on that or want want to let us know. Thank you ms. Burden. I have a list of the Youth Commissioners provided by the staff that will speak and we will open it up for public for Community Based groups but i wanted to correct one thing and the Youth Commission is broadly represented by the mayors appointee and all 11 supervisors and have tremendous experience and valuable input to not only what the mayor does but the board of supervisors as a legislative body for this but its really the Youth Commission that we have been trying to do our best to make our meetings a little bit later so they could come and participate fully so am appreciative of that and the staff ensured there is good representation. Im going to call the names of the Youth Commissioners that i have here and we will open it up for Public Comment. [calling speaker names]. And then i will start calling the names of people that have signed up and were going to ask people to try to keep comments within two minutes if possible. Okay. Good afternoon. My name is anna burnic. I am one of our mayor appointed Youth Commissioners and vice chair to the housing environment and [inaudible] committee and i am here with my colleagues. We want to acknowledge and thank the sf children and groups for their efforts to promote greater connection between nature and children in our city and thank supervisor mark farrell for referring this legislation to the Youth Commission. The San Francisco childrens outdoor bill of rights obviously affects young people and as the charter body here to advise on youth related policies and programs in the city the Youth Commission is grateful to have had the opportunity to discuss this resolution with others. Finally we would like to thank this committee, supervisor mar and supervisor campos and supervisor christensen for allowing us to speak with you about this issue at a youth friendly time. The Youth Commission endorsed the San Francisco childrens outdoor bill of rights by the recreation and parks department. During the last term where we first supported it. We were also following what happened at Mission Playground between employees and neighborhood youth at the soccer field so when we saw this legislation being introduced we wanted to have it referred to have a discussion about the rights that children and youth have in our city. Its from these discussions that we wish to bring up some concerns we have heard including staffing, supervision and program and scholarship accessibility, Neighborhood Parks and reservations and lighting. Now i will pass it on to my colleague. Hello supervisors. I am the district 6 Youth Commissioner and a part of of the housing Environment Service committee and i just want to talk briefly about the scholarship information about the rec and Park Department, and as we all know they have offered a lot of classes that tend to be free but a lot of them cost roughly around 20 to 200 and a lot of young people including myself cant afford those classes that are to serve the young people and many of the youth that go to the parks that want to take the classes are of low income backgrounds and cant afford the classes that are supposed to serve them and recently in one of our meetings mr. Bob pe losso, the superintendent of Neighborhood Services informed us that last year 1. 5 million were awarded the rec and Park Department awarded this amount for scholarships and i definitely want to commend rec and Park Department for doing that but when i went to my neighborhood and asked my local boys and girls clubs if they heard about the scholarships none of them have heard about it and some of the solutions that i came about is that for the budget it would be beyond amazing if we can increase more of the scholarships to increase youth participation, but also and most definitely increase the outreaching efforts to let more young people know about these scholarships especially those young people in low income backgrounds and and dont even speak do not have english as their first language and if i knew about these scholarship information early on i would have definitely taken 100 advantage of them so i really hope that you all can help continue making these scholarships and classes more accessible for young people throughout San Francisco and especially to those neighborhoods that have a lot of low income young people so thank you. Thank you commissioner. Great recommendations too. Next speaker. Good afternoon board of supervisors. I am lois avalos and the district 5 commissioner. Just to go off what my colleague mentioned around the Scholarship Program and it is Different Services that rec and park offers to youth. In particular i want to talk about the Language Access ordinance that we recently heard from katy tangs office and grateful to her to look at this ordinance and give some commentary. Were really excited to see how the new ordinance will benefit people overall in San Francisco and particular how will help improve the relationship between rec and park and residents. We believe that successful implementation of this can help rec and park outreach to people what are limited English Speaking. As mentioned theres a lot of programs and service but people dont know about the programs and service because of their lack of proficiency in english and we think implementing this ordinance will help these families get access to the families and sthafers really could benefit them. In addition we think also this ordinance can help inform People Better about the rules and regulations that go for these parks, Mission Playground or buena vista park, golden gate park, whichever park it maybe and create a peaceful environment and this is the time that you can be here and this is what you can do and not do at this park and Language Access will help and i think rec and park outreach to people that could benefit from this information and youth in general that could get access to these programs. I participated in a program called project incite and providing field trips at low cost or no cost to kids blind or visually impaired. It was a Great Program for me. It would have been great to see other youth more involved. I think at the time outreach to communities that dont have a lot of English Speaking proficiency and a more inclusive program. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next speaker. Good evening. I am the Youth Commissioner for district 10 and part of the housing environment and city Services Committee. Before the recession our city parks and clubhouses and play fields had a consistent park staff who were able to help anyone that had problems or conflicts if they came up. The staff was there to make the environment safer for youth and children. We believe that safety is very important to have in your parks especially where children are playing. You may have heard the incident last june where a man was shot in front of kids and his son at 2 00 p. M. In broad daylight and was playing a game of dodge ball and engine what the kids and his son had to witness and go through after seeing him shot. If there was a on site park person this would be a puch different experience and incident and even if the staff couldnt prevent the shooting itself they could have made it safer for the children in the area and had a procedure in place. This would eventually prevent further trauma for the children that had to witness that shooting. We are asking for you to consider the youth and children in our parks as a priority, and also that you make our parks safer. Mr. Bob pelosi from the rec and Park Department shared theyre having discussions [inaudible]. We in the housing environment and city Services Committee are in support of this and we feel that we need to have a consistent park staff in the playgrounds and fields where children and youth play. Thank you for considering our parks and park monitors and park staff. Thank you. Thank you commissioner davis. Next speaker. Hi. My name is rosa. Im the district 3 Youth Commissioner and the chair of the housing environment and Service Committee working on the San Francisco childrens outdoor bill of rights and park related issues. Thank you for lning to our recommendations and issues that we see with parks today. I would like to thank all of the speakers that came out today to talk during Public Comment and i hope everything we hear today will go into consideration when reviewing the budget for departments that oversee the citys recreation and outdoor space. Specifically rengeration and Park Department as theyre the main source for youth to explore the outdoors in the city. I hope that the city extends the right regained by Mission Playground youth to areas that youth frequent most and [inaudible] adult permitted play, playgrounds frequent the most and extended lighting hours so youth have a safe place to play later in the evening and staff at the playgrounds so there are adults supervising the youth so theyre safe and we want accessible signage and every resident here in San Francisco know exactly what theyre reading, what they see and we want them to know there are programs and Scholarships Available for them in the different languages that they can understand. I would like an Equity Analysis as well when rec and park creates their budget. With this we would like to see the youth population, the low income population using the different parks in San Francisco, the geography such as hours available for people in the city limited english preefficiencies in the neighborhoods and we can also see Language Accessible for the people. We thank you for scheduling this at a youth friendly time and enact our policy. We hope to work with you in the near future on these recommendation that the commissioners brought up today so thank you very much. Thank you so much commissioner chin. Are there any other Youth Commissioners that are here . Seeing none lets open this up for Public Comment. I have a number of speaker cards but i see theres a number of youth i should call first before the community representatives. [calling speaker names]. From the chinatown campaign academy. If you could come forward and line up on the right side of the room. [calling speaker names]. If there is anyone else that would like to speak please come forward as well so go ahead. Good afternoon. Board of supervisors. I am baifd and from Chinatown Community Development Center campaign academy. I am a resident [inaudible] and even though my neighborhood has been historically known as a dangerous neighborhood many kids go to play play basketball and do anything they want, but as we know ever since that hertz playground incident many groups that i went to avoided that neighborhood for a long time ever since that incident. The reason for it even though they avoided it go further parks and other parks didnt have the same resources as that playground. That park had [inaudible] basketball courts and baseball field and we resorted to a smaller park where they couldnt do these activities so we want you to create more adult watchers so kids will feel safe going there and you could create more resources in other parks so they can have fun doing the things they want to do and thank you and have a good day. Thank you. Next speaker. Hi good afternoon board of supervisors. I am andrew and a resident from chinatown so we have three parks and they are really crowded, so when i was Little Elementary School student every time i went nearby to the parks in chinatown my mom would yell at me for doing anything around them because she thinks the sand pits were hazardous so everything was was dirty and i noticed there wasnt a cleaning staff or any regulation of the sand pits and this discouraged me and many other kids from approaching public parks in chinatown, and yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker. Hi. My name is ja and a resident from soma. Even though there are parks in soma i enjoy parks in my neighborhood. However, safety has always been a concern for not only the parents but the youth too so many have been teens have been bullied and there are drunks in the park to and brought safety to this public space. Sometimes they bring violence or dangerous to the youth and prevent us from going to parks. The park near by house i was dragged by a drunk person and hes asking me for money. That experience prevent me from going out for a long time. When i was on my way home