This was an american an american concentration camp. So in placing a plaque in the wording, i want to end by saying this words matter and the truth matters. Thank you. President buell thank you. Clerk i know we have a couple of other folks for Public Comment. Please come forward. Good afternoon, commissioners, president buell, members of the commission, general manager phil ginsburg. Thank you for taking this issue up in your agenda. Im a longtime advocate for [feedback] as you know, San Francisco is one of three left in america. And im here to urge you to support the recommendation from your Operations Committee that met recently, which your committee did approve the signage for the issei Memorial Park plaque. So i would like for you to support the whole exact wording as it is. And im here to support the letter that was committed to you by submitted to you by paul osaki, the director. I am a Third Generation japaneseamerican and i was born in one of those american concentration camps. Specifically thue lake. So i urge you to support the exact wording, because words do matter. Thank you. President buell thank you. Good afternoon, commissioners, im executive director of the japanese cultural center. This is another opportunity for you to do a good thing. I first wanted to thank you and express my deepest appreciation for your unanimous approval of the issei garden project. In that proposal was the Historic Context of what now has become the language on this plaque. The garden itself is beautiful. You know, but you tie a story to it and a history, and it becomes a treasure for the community, for the neighborhood, and for the city of San Francisco. You know, i need to say this because there has been so much stuff being said about our history, but and i know you know this, but for the record, the opposition is no expert on japaneseamerican history. Taken a few things found on the internet and tried to weaponize it to use our history against us. I can assure you that the information contained on the plaque is 100 factual. October 3rd Operations Committee meeting made a statement that the issei were never gardeners. They were only farmers and damn good farmers. Thats the kind of thing that President Trump would tweet. You know, it is really condescending, because we were farmers, but the issei were also scholars and students and businessmen and doctors. And they were gardeners. You know, i just always assume that japaneseamerican gardens were synonymous with gardening. But i guess i was wrong, but for the record, japaneseamericans created the San Francisco flower mart on 6th and brandon at the turn of the century. They also started the california flowers Grow Association in 1906 and it started with 42 charter members. And then a couple of decades later by the 1930s, there were over 80 independent japanese nurseries, just here in the bay area. They also started the Southern California flower mart which is now the nations largest flower market of its kind. They started the california flower and Shippers Association which now attributes 80 of the domestic flower industry in the nation. [bell ringing] we have a deep history as gardeners and nurseries and i just wanted to clear that fact up. President buell thank you very much. Ill make this brief. My name is david darling. Ive lived on cottage row for 16 years. I first wanted to commend you all and your people for doing such an amazing job. Ive watched the park transform over that time. And its truly amazing. But also ive come to recognize that japan town is such a unique and valuable asset, cultural asset to the city of San Francisco and to me and my family. And this garden is so important in kind of preserving that asset. And the story that it tells and the story that the text of the plaque tells is frankly, kind of lost on a lot of people. And i think any opportunity we have to put that story forward, we should take that opportunity. Particularly the wording, i feel really strongly, that the word the phrase concentration camp means Different Things to different people. To my wife and her family, it means exactly what is referenced in this text. Thank you. President buell thank you. Clerk any other Public Comment . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. Sorry, richard. Good afternoon, again. Id to put in my two bits. Im proactive with this plaque being placed. Ive spoken about it during committee. It would be a wonderful place for people to reflect and try to get in touch with the ancestry. Practicing piety, respectful zone, past, present and future, and other issues related to a memorial place that is kind of like the old fisher place you can go to, and try to relax. And to meditate and to calm the inner calm of it. Which ever religious you are. So the place itself is not religion, its more a commemorative location. And i, myself, when i think about it, a lot of my old friends, i used to go barhopping a few places. Theyve already passed away. They would have been issei second generation. And then there would be the first generation. The issei. And they arent any longer around too much. I learned esprit. I wanted to keep in mind that in the spirit of such location, it should be something that the soul can reach of each and every one who would be of such time. When you search your own soul, you should find peace of mind. Thank you. President buell thank you. Clerk any other Public Comment . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. Commissioner mcdonnell thank you so much. In the noted words of the philosopher ice cube [laughter] commissioner mcdonnell he said you singing . No, he said today was a good day. And for me today was a good day. Where again were pausing to put an important stake and pin in the ground that recognizes the significant contributions of our brothers and sisters in japantown. I grew up attending Mount Trinity baptist church. If you know anything about the black church, sunday is all day. So, i had breakfast in japantown, lunch in japantown, dinner in japantown. Wednesday nights in japantown. Thursday night choir rehearsal. I almost lived in japantown. It was a wonderful place to learn and grow and so, again, to the tireless advocates who fought long and hard to bring us to this moment, thank you. Its unfortunate there were headwinds that didnt quite understand or value, but you persevered, so again, i commend you. Thank you so much for bringing us to this place. Commissioner anderson id like to ditto what commissioner mcdonnell said and also acknowledge, i agree with you how important it is to honor history correctly. To be sure that we dont sugar coat things, especially something so serious as what happened with the internment campsconcentration camps. I think we all share a mission here, that it does no harm to speak the truth. It does great harm to sugarcoat or cover the truth. I want to thank the advocates, the people that came up with the thoughtful wording. I probably could think of ways to make it stronger. I think you still exercise a great deal of discretion here and respect. And i just want to thank you so much from the bottom of my heart for that. President buell thank you. Commissioner bonilla yes. Members of my extended family were placed in concentration camps. The story that will be depicted on this plaque is a story is a very important story, its a very important lesson of what we should not ever do. Its a story that should never be forgotten. And this is this has tremendous significance to me and im so grateful to people like sandy and paul that brought this to light. And that we have the opportunity to vote on this today. Thank you so much. President buell thank you. Seeing no other comment, the chair would entertain a motion. So moved. Second. President buell moved and seconded. All those in favor . So moved. Thank you very much. [applause] were on item 8, mclaren playground and Group Picnic Area renovation. Good afternoon, im a project manager. Im here to amend the contract with cazadoro construction for the renovation project. To increase the change order amount allowed under the contract from 141,972 to an amount not to exceed 1. 269 million, which is greater than 10 over the original approved contract amount. First up, commissioners, this is not a request for additional funds. The two projects ill be speaking about here today are both fully funded. The mclaren playground renovation is a tier one project and is under construction and has budget of 3. 6 million. This project has come before the commission for Concept Design approval. The low bidder on the project was actually 6 under our construction estimate, which doesnt happen very often. And we benefitted from having eight bidders. Because of this, were in the fortunate position of being able to increase the project scope and response to community desires. Specifically, wed like to incorporate a swing area into the playground. This request did come up at the end of the Community Outreach phase. But at the time, we were very cautious with the project budget, because we had been experiencing a volatile bid market and didnt want to set ourselves up for future problems. At this point, we feel confident we can deliver the project within budget and would like to go ahead and include the swings. The community is very excited about this. Everyone feels like theyll add a lot of play value to the site. The second part of the change order is increasing the size of the footing designs for the original play structure. The original play structure is custom equipment, so the way the process works, the manufacturer doesnt fully design the equipment until theyre under contract. So we did not have this information at the time of bidding, but we did hold back funds as we foresaw this cost coming. And at this point, the structure has been fully designed, reviewed by the geotechnical engineers and approved in the building department. Moving on to change order 3, this change order folds the restroom project into the current construction contract. I brought this item to commission for Concept Design approval in june. And it was unanimously approved by the commissioners at full commission. This project came out of the mclaren vision plan process and is fully funded. During the plan, the community told us they wanted a restroom at the picnic area and that the playground deserved a restroom. And as the commissioners know, the vision plan and the quick start project from mclaren totaled 10 million in funding from mclaren park. Mclaren park is still a 300 an acre park with a lot of needs. This 10 million were fully funding eight Capital Projects and augmenting funding for an additional four. The goal of having the work done in the change order is to deliver completed site for the community with a new playground, picnic area and restroom. As you can see oh. Presentation. Sorry. As you can see on the screen, a portion of the site directly overlaps between the restroom project and the playground. And its at a critical point which is at the entrance. This is our ada entrance. If we were executing the contract in this manner, it would be challenging to potentially have two prime contractors sharing a site and we also didnt want to delay the project any longer. Additionally we think the approach can save the project money by using a contractor that is already mobilized on site. It will allow us to better balance, cut and fill soil on the site. Finally, we have a confirmed price from a contractor and dont have to go through the uncertainty of bidding the project separately. On the price, i would like this add that approximately 20 of the costs for the restroom work is actually the restroom itself. And 80 of the cost is the utility work and the site work. And i have a graphic to show is that. So maybe a little hard to see, but there is a pink dot that shows the restroom location at the picnic area. Then a yellow line demonstrating the trenching where we need to bring in the electoral from the pumphouse electrical and then there is a orange line showing where were connecting to Domestic Water outside of the park in the public rightofway. In total, were trenching 1700 linear feet to get Domestic Water to the bathroom. Its 300acre park. This park is owned by the recreation department, not public works, so there are not you utilities in the streets as you would expect with most public works streets. The prefabricated manufacturer was chosen because theyve worked with San Francisco. Theyre providing all of the bus driver convenient stations located throughout the city and some of the staff has visited those and found them to be sturdy and well constructed. The company is located in the United States and the bathrooms are built in the United States. Even after issuing these change orders, both projects will still have reserves and contin generals and i asked that the final piece of approval funding is on the new contract amount. It will require utility work, we would like this have additional contingencies available in case of unforeseen conditions. Regarding the project schedule, were planning to be complete in 2020 with a new joint project. Were looking forward to reopening the site for the community this spring when its most popular. So in conclusion, staff recommends the approval of this item. Thank you. President buell thank you. I have three blue cards. Good afternoon, commissioners and general manager and thank you for the shoutout about the concert. It will be at noon on saturday. But around the corner from the amphitheatre is where this wonderful site is located. This project has been on the wish list of all the mclaren park advocates for all the years that ive been involved with this. And were so excited its getting close, so we would really like to urge the commission to adopt it completely today so the project can go ahead as fast as possible and we can get back to using this wonderful picnic area. Part of it contains what i like to call the ghost playground. This was a playground that couldnt be rated in our annual playground ratings, because it didnt exist for many years. It had been torn down and was left as an empty area. So we had to reconstruct from old pictures what the playground had been. And how much it had meant to people to have a playground in that area. It did contain swings in the old days. And swings are still one of the most popular things you will find at many playgrounds throughout the city. So were delighted that could be incorporated with the savings. The restroom is vitally important. Having a Group Picnic Area where you have perhaps 50 to 100 people coming, weve been contending with just a horrible portapotty situation for over 20 years. It wasnt any way to create a new Capital Improvement not to include this as the package and the fact that they could find a bathroom program that would work within the money that was available to me was just wonderful. And im so delighted with capital for coming up with the plan. Thank you. President buell thank you. Matthew, im just speaking here today as someone who likes mclaren park. A theme in this meeting that happens, mclaren is one of the underinvested parks in the city, not the worse, but im glad to have the project go ahead. And provide the super important i menty for the amenity for the park in this part of the city. Thank you. President buell thank you. Hi, good afternoon. Im genie crawford. I live by the park. I walk there every morning early to get my exercise for about three miles. And i want to speak about how badly we need this restroom. I have a visual. If i put it here, will this show up . Because i walk by the portapotty every day in my walk, we have all been so upset with how this portapotty has not been maintained well and often has no latch and so i started taking pictures every week. And we tried to get it see if we could get it cleaned more. Heres more pictures. But, we desperately need the restroom that alexis ward has in the package. It will be so wonderful to have that there for the group. Group picnic area. Thats the point i wanted to really emphasize. Thank you. President buell thank you very much. Hello. I work the San Francisco parks alliance. Were really excited to be partnering with rec and park on the mclaren playground renovation and all of the letsplaysf playground. I support the addition of the swings and bathroom. Every kid loves swings and everyone deserves a proper restroom. And especially given the Community Support for the project. Were excited to see this move forward. Thank you. President buell thank you. Any other Public Comment . Richard still here . Seeing none president buell you cant see him, but hes not here. Public comment is closed. Commissioner anderson i just had a couple of questions. Im looking at well, its page 305 of our packet. It says mclaren playground funding at the top. And under the section that says Group Picnic Area restroom project, its 1. 7 million i guess to construct the there is 820,000 to construct the physical structure of the restroom, is that what it is . Correct, thats the construction contract amount. Commissioner anderson and then soft costs . What are soft costs . Soft costs include my time on the project, permitting, construction management, the architectural and engineering fees. There are all the utilities drawings. That kind of thing. Commissioner anderson have those fully been expended yet . Not all of them. We do have still a soft cost reserve that we are hopefully we wont need to expend that. Commissioner anderson i thought it might be interesting to let people know its really expensive to build anything in the city. And right now, the price tag for this bathroom is 1. 7 million. Im flabbergasted by that. And not because i dont believe in the great value that we get. I know we get great value, but you know, there is no reporters here, but man, if