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commissioner lee: i agree with the comments that i ve heard over and over again which is that the process has been flawed and it brought us to where we are today. at our meeting some months ago when we approved this issue, this permit, that not enough community outreach had been done prior to this, clearly, to this issue being brought before us to this issue. now we find ourselves having been down this road, what s before us is the placing of the cart, the placing of where the cart is itself, not the permit, we approved the permit, approved the selection of these two vendors but we find ourselves now, having, because of the process, of this process, which we ll take up at a later agenda item on outreach, at this point, we re, you know, as a commissioner sitting here, listening to what the community has been saying, i find i find it difficult. one speaker, for instance, said that perhaps we could separate out and have one vendor over another. you know, i think that brings us down a slippery road. once we start choosing one vendor over another, you know, where does it end? we as a commission, it s our responsibility to set the policies, the route that the staff and department needs to take. i would say that you know, regardless of what we do on this issue in a few minutes, that we look seriously at the outreach, the process, and make sure that this moving forward, we re talking about more and more of these permits, does not happen again. so outside of what we do on this particular permit, this is a lesson for us as a commission, moving forward, that we have to do the outreach before we get to where we find ourselves now. president buell: commissioner bonilla. commissioner bonilla: i attended this meeting, there were some very consistent themes throughout the meeting. one was that and i agree with the community that there was not as much opportunity allowed for them to make input as should have been allowed, thus setting a more positive tone and setting the tone that we were there, the department was there, to get more input from the community on this project. the other i ll list a few of the consistent themes as quickly as i possibly can, the other is that the park is truly overburdened with use. trash, inadequate restroom facilities, and that that adding these new revenue-generating solutions will generate more even more impacts that would create, perhaps, more problems than we know than we know of at this time. the other consistent theme is that there was definitely a preference for having a having la cocina there, be a you know, allow la koci in a project la cocina to go in over blue bottle, that was clear. the other in addition to that, there was a very, very clear sense that the community was being asked to make input about the project on a project after the fact, that they didn t they weren t that we that the department wasn t there at the onset in terms of stating to the community what the problem was and soliciting their input in terms of what some potential solutions could be for the problem. in fact, i, myself, only heard at the meeting that our problems at do lohrs repark was a $70 at dolores park was a $70,000 problem. so we have a problem of $70,000, you know, why not go to the community and say, we ve got this problem, what are your ideas for how to solve this problem? maybe that s what the community was hoping they would have gotten, and now, they were pretty much i mean, they didn t, and now they re pretty much stuck with an idea that was generated top down from the department down to the community. so it puts us in a very difficult it actually puts us between a rock and a hard place because we are at the 11th hour having to deal with how do we meet the $70,000 deficit, how do we address it? and at the same time, we re in a situation where within the next month or two, we have to look at how do we address perhaps additional deficits with the within the next fiscal year, so it s it s a very difficult place for all of us to be in. and i think what we re going to have to do is for i think we re going to have to take a step back and we re going to have to explore together how we generate, how we meet this deficit, current deficit of $70,000, and on top of that, how we explore i mean, we ll pratches be in the situation of exploring how we deal with a potential budget deficit that may be on us for next year. so these are comments from attending the meeting. i really wish i would have had more time to hear i mean, that there would have been more time to hear more from the community and get their input and perhaps for future meetings, we might look at first off hearing from the community and then framing our responses to what the community has to say. thank you. president buell: maybe i ll make a comment before the general manager weighs in on this. for those of you who saw the agenda, this is discussion only, there s no action before us. for those disappointed we won t come to any conclusion, we approved the permits, and this has nothing to do with la cocina, it s really siting the vendor, it s trying to put it away from other businesses. we ve heard about the size of it and that it would be on and offsite each day. we limited the lease to two years as an experiment to see how it works. having said that, that s what we have done. having heard you today that informs the staff. i think everybody would agree including the staff that we haven t had the luxury of the kind of outreach we d like to do on any of these things. we ve had a gun to our head on finances, always behind the eight-ball, we have limited resources and so i think it s fair to say we haven t done the kind of job that would be perfect. but i don t think anybody should characterize any wrong intent or evil intent around here or any collaboration to get something done that shouldn t be done. everybody is working pretty hard at this, and everybody is voicing honest opinions. it would be hard to disagree with 90% of what was said here today by all parties. i think the best i can tell you at this point is that you ve been heard and we ll continue this discussion at a staff level and it s@appropriate to bring it back for further discussion, i think there has to be more communication with the community about it, that s clear. no one i said this last time. no one is trying to run honest business people out of business because that isn t the intent. but i assure you that around the country, some of the best practices in urban parks are to provide a variety of services, many of them including food services. the debate as to whether food should or shouldn t be in the park, i find less legitimate, even though it may be a big concern of coming in after the fact when there are no food services now, i can understand that concern, but it should be framed with where we are and what we re trying to accomplish. so i m afraid there isn t a satisfactory answer to your concerns today because there s no action before us of up or down, yes or no. now i m going to put the burden on the general manager to make any comments about where you see this going from here. excuse me, commissioner martin wanted to weigh in, i apologize. commissioner martin: i was listening to everyone on this situation, it is really a situation in this city that we have a lot of concerns about and i hope that we get a chance to get our stuff together again to try to come up with a real answer to it and you know so we can try to come up with an answer because it s really a lot of concerns everybody is talking about, but so much of it sounds so real and so much stuff in it so it s a lot of things we need to do together to get this city rolling. thank you, commissioner. mr. ginsburg. thank you, commissioners. my thanks to there has been some healthy and passionate dialogue about the issue and that s a good thing. i think it s brought more intention to both the challenges and opportunities at dolores park, we shouldn t lose sight of the fact that we re on the verge of $15 million in capital investment in this beautiful jewel. i think we try not to get too defensive about sort of process and outreach issues because, you know, i can assure you the staff is working as hard as we can and we re in the business of trying to provide clean, safe, fun parks for everyone. we re we value community input and want community input. if there were certain missteps, which it sounds like primarily, a couple of neighborhoods, a couple of communities around the park, that s a learning experience for us. i think since that initial outset, however, and one of the reasons we chose to calendar this as a separate agenda item and have an extensive discussion here was to continue the dialogue and out of respect for the people here. i think we, at a staff level, learned a lot about some on the ground concerns and frustrations around the neighborhood that i think will be valuable. my personal opinion is that the worldy not come to an end here. and that we will, like what we re doing throughout our system, we re going to try new ideas. i want to emphasize, this is not all about just dollars. raising revenue is an important part of our overall economic strategy so we can provide clean, safe, fun parks, so that we continue to provide recreational opportunities, because during the budget process, i used to say, it was either a dollar raised or a dollar cut. we are beyond that and we as a community, a parks community chose to minimize the impact of service cuts on the public through you know, through increasing services and amenities in our park. that s what this is a strategy at the macro level. we do not budget parks on a park-by-park basis. and what i was trying to illuminate at that meeting, commissioner, was a frame of our operational expenses that doesn t even reflect the true overall expense once you factor in, you know, overhead and h.r. and accounting and park patrol and some of the other tangential services that go into supporting a particular park. i was trying to kind of articulate, if you were to look at the cost of operating that park would be, what would have happened had this commission not pursued a strategy of raising revenue rather than cutting service? it would have been potentially another one less gardener in the park or one less custodian in the park. that was the point i was trying to make in that meeting. in a nutshell, this is always helpful, we re always looking to move the ball forward and we will continue our dialogue of i ve actually invited someone to help with our technology, to push out information more quickly, more promptly and we try not to repeat our mistakes. i am very proud of our staff and frankly, our strategy here, which is through increased services and, you know, we have some people here we don t have everybody who has had a kid at the playground at dolores park, they want to get a cup of coffee without walking 1,000 feet. respect is always in any event, we look forward to continuing to work with the dolores park organization, looking for strategies to continue to provide a sustainable park system. president buell: commissioners, other comments? commissioner bonilla. commissioner bonilla: i wanted to add, i was in mexico city several years ago when all the when the government of mexico decided to put a stop to all the vendors, all the street vendors who were totally monopolizing all the open space because there was because, in fact, commercialization was running rampant and when i was there, the it was day one of the government eliminating all of that all of those individuals from setting up businesses, selling individually, without any permits and there was huge, huge protest. every street in mexico city was blocked. and the reason i m bringing up this point, and that is, i think there is a role that we should play a role, in if we are going to allow ventures of this type, that they be that they be licensed, that they be permitted. i think there s a greater role, at least from my perspective, in permitting vendors, rather than just allowing anyone who wants to sell in any place, especially in public places, so i think i think in our future, there should be some part of the work that we do to make sure that there are that we there are opportunities to have vendors in different facilities, that we do so but that we do so with buy-in, certainly, from the community and that these operations be strategically placed. so i just want to be on record as saying that i m not opposed to, you know, this project, per se. i just think that we just need to go about it in a different way. president buell: seeing no other commission questions, that concludes discussion on item six. we re going to move to item seven, thank you. we are on item seven, civic center community benefit district. that s my daughter right there. hey, hey. president buell: item seven. good evening, commissioners, i m the assistant director for strategic partners. i m going to give a quick introduction and hand it off to lisa of the mayor s office. maybe we ll give everybody a chance to leave the room and then take this. we better get security. ok, we re ready to move forward. good evening, commissioners, i m les kushner, i m going to give a brief introduction and pass this off to lisa kagan, who works in the mayor s office. this item proposes a community benefit district for the area around the civic center, civic center plaza. we have looked to formulate the boundaries of the district and what the services would be. lisa will get into this more, but it would include extensive security, street cleaning excuse me, sidewalk cleaning, graffiti removal, ambassadors, as well as a full-time staff to pursue grants on behalf of the district. staff feels this is a wonderful opportunity and with that, i ll pass it off to lisa and either she or i will answer any questions you may have. good evening, commissioners, president buell. nice to see you all. my name is lisa pagan, i work in the office of economic and work force development, i m here to present a proposal that s on the table that has been in the works for two years now and the mayor introduced resolution requesting that the board of supervisors authorize him to sign petitions in support of the proposed inclusion of city parcels in the civic center community benefit district, so i m here today asking for your support but understanding that it is the board of supervisors who ultimately would vote or not on the petitions. i m here to explain to you a little bit about what the civic center community benefit district is aiming to do and take any questions that you may have. so the civic center community benefit district, and i manage a program in the office of economic dwoment in support of the formation of community benefit districts throughout san francisco where they are requested by community stake holders. what is being proposed for civic center is a 35-block area, 654 parcels, the stake holder group would like to raise $743,000 a year in the civic center to deliver services. and petitions were mailed out to all of the property owners in the district in september and they were also submitted to the board of supervisors in terms of the city parcels and divisions supervisors jurisdiction. the proposed term for the district is 10 years, they re allowed to go up to 15 years under our local ordinance. the steering committee that s been meeting for two years on the civic center community benefit district concept is comprised of private property owners that own buildings in the district. the ones that are checked have signed petitions in support of the district, the a.a.a. building property owners, the offices, the company that owns those, mercy housing that owns affordable housing in the district and opera plaza, the commercial condominium entity that owns commercial portions of that plaza. those have submitted pe fissions petitions in supports. the arts organizations in the district have been a huge proponent of our district. the conservancy, the san francisco ballet school, the asian art museum, the s.s. jazz that is building a new center, the symphony, opera and ballet all participated in the steering committee and the state government buildings as well as the san francisco the city and county of san francisco departments have participated in this process. so there s three zones in the proposed district and each zone as a different level of service. the zone where civic center plaza is, is one of the goals for that zone is increased foot patrol ambassador service. the idea is that patrons of the arts venues want to feel safe walking from bart, muni, also from the parking garage underneath the civic center plaza, they want to feel safe and utilize those opportunities more in the area. so the hope would be that community guides, folks that work for the district but can escort folks around and provide sort of an opportunity for people to ask questions and help folks who need social services get linked with those in the city. the other thing going on in zone two, which the civic center plaza is located in, would be beautification services, public space and sidewalk activation opportunities, cleaning and maintenance on call and graffiti removal on call. there s also a proposal for the city and organization a coalition with both government and private sector involved and there would be staff who would advocate for the district who would communicate with all the members of the district and help coordinate when there s big events on the plaza, would help coordinate with the other stake holders in the district about what s going on and when there s desired events like the ice skating rink or other things they want to do, help be an advocate and help fundraise for those kinds of events that the community wants that bill when that will benefit the community. once this organization is established, it can fundraise, it s a nonprofit so it could fundraise for projects that would benefit the community as a whole. this is a map of the proposed district, the three zones are in three different colors. one zone one in yellow, zone two in pink, and zone three in green. the plaza is block 788 right there. in the middle in pink. a big part of services to be provided are advocacy, fundraising and community building. projects that promote the district s health and vitality as a whole. it s not just city hall or government buildings, the district has a lot of privately owned buildings, a lot of residential apartments and condominiums and a lot of commercial office space and of course a large hub of government buildings and arts organizations and arts institutions that serve the city and the region. so there s a sense that there s a need to bring the whole neighborhood together under a coalition like this so that fundraising and advocacy can happen for the whole area and build neighborhood pride and ownership and coordinate all the different events going on. safety services, i mentioned the ambassadors can help people find their ways around, escort, help kids of groups of kids coming to visit different places, do traffic and crowd control an help with special service need for folks in need of getting connected to social services that exist through the city or nonprofit.
this as a separate agenda item and have an extensive discussion here was to continue the dialogue and out of respect for the people here. i think we, at a staff level, learned a lot about some on the ground concerns and frustrations around the neighborhood that i think will be valuable. my personal opinion is that the worldy not come to an end here. and that we will, like what we re doing throughout our system, we re going to try new ideas. i want to emphasize, this is not all about just dollars. raising revenue is an important part of our overall economic strategy so we can provide clean, safe, fun parks, so that we continue to provide recreational opportunities, because during the budget process, i used to say, it was either a dollar raised or a dollar cut. we are beyond that and we as a community, a parks community chose to minimize the impact of service cuts on the public through you know, through increasing services and amenities in our park. that s what this is a strategy at the macro level. we do not budget parks on a park-by-park basis. and what i was trying to illuminate at that meeting, commissioner, was a frame of our operational expenses that doesn t even reflect the true overall expense once you factor in, you know, overhead and h.r. and accounting and park patrol and some of the other tangential services that go into supporting a particular park. i was trying to kind of articulate, if you were to look at the cost of operating that park would be, what would have happened had this commission not pursued a strategy of raising revenue rather than cutting service? it would have been potentially another one less gardener in the park or one less custodian in the park. that was the point i was trying to make in that meeting. in a nutshell, this is always helpful, we re always looking to move the ball forward and we will continue our dialogue of i ve actually invited someone to help with our technology, to push out information more quickly, more promptly and we try not to repeat our mistakes. i am very proud of our staff and frankly, our strategy here, which is through increased services and, you know, we have some people here we don t have everybody who has had a kid at the playground at dolores park, they want to get a cup of coffee without walking 1,000 feet. respect is always in any event, we look forward to continuing to work with the dolores park organization, looking for strategies to continue to provide a sustainable park system. president buell: commissioners, other comments? commissioner bonilla. commissioner bonilla: i wanted to add, i was in mexico city several years ago when all the when the government of mexico decided to put a stop to all the vendors, all the street vendors who were totally monopolizing all the open space because there was because, in fact, commercialization was running rampant and when i was there, the it was day one of the government eliminating all of that all of those individuals from setting up businesses, selling individually, without any permits and there was huge, huge protest. every street in mexico city was blocked. and the reason i m bringing up this point, and that is, i think there is a role that we should play a role, in if we are going to allow ventures of this type, that they be that they be licensed, that they be permitted. i think there s a greater role, at least from my perspective, in permitting vendors, rather than just allowing anyone who wants to sell in any place, especially in public places, so i think i think in our future, there should be some part of the work that we do to make sure that there are that we there are opportunities to have vendors in different facilities, that we do so but that we do so with buy-in, certainly, from the community and that these operations be strategically placed. so i just want to be on record as saying that i m not opposed to, you know, this project, per se. i just think that we just need to go about it in a different way. president buell: seeing no other commission questions, that concludes discussion on item six. we re going to move to item seven, thank you. we are on item seven, civic center community benefit district. that s my daughter right there. hey, hey. president buell: item seven. good evening, commissioners, i m the assistant director for strategic partners. i m going to give a quick introduction and hand it off to lisa of the mayor s office. maybe we ll give everybody a chance to leave the room and then take this. we better get security. ok, we re ready to move forward. good evening, commissioners, i m les kushner, i m going to give a brief introduction and pass this off to lisa kagan, who works in the mayor s office. this item proposes a community benefit district for the area around the civic center, civic center plaza. we have looked to formulate the boundaries of the district and what the services would be. lisa will get into this more, but it would include extensive security, street cleaning excuse me, sidewalk cleaning, graffiti removal, ambassadors, as well as a full-time staff to pursue grants on behalf of the district. staff feels this is a wonderful opportunity and with that, i ll pass it off to lisa and either she or i will answer any questions you may have. good evening, commissioners, president buell. nice to see you all. my name is lisa pagan, i work in the office of economic and work force development, i m here to present a proposal that s on the table that has been in the works for two years now and the mayor introduced resolution requesting that the board of supervisors authorize him to sign petitions in support of the proposed inclusion of city parcels in the civic center community benefit district, so i m here today asking for your support but understanding that it is the board of supervisors who ultimately would vote or not on the petitions. i m here to explain to you a little bit about what the civic center community benefit district is aiming to do and take any questions that you may have. so the civic center community benefit district, and i manage a program in the office of economic dwoment in support of the formation of community benefit districts throughout san francisco where they are requested by community stake holders. what is being proposed for civic center is a 35-block area, 654 parcels, the stake holder group would like to raise $743,000 a year in the civic center to deliver services. and petitions were mailed out to all of the property owners in the district in september and they were also submitted to the board of supervisors in terms of the city parcels and divisions supervisors jurisdiction. the proposed term for the district is 10 years, they re allowed to go up to 15 years under our local ordinance. the steering committee that s been meeting for two years on the civic center community benefit district concept is comprised of private property owners that own buildings in the district. the ones that are checked have signed petitions in support of the district, the a.a.a. building property owners, the offices, the company that owns those, mercy housing that owns affordable housing in the district and opera plaza, the commercial condominium entity that owns commercial portions of that plaza. those have submitted pe fissions petitions in supports. the arts organizations in the district have been a huge proponent of our district. the conservancy, the san francisco ballet school, the asian art museum, the s.s. jazz that is building a new center, the symphony, opera and ballet all participated in the steering committee and the state government buildings as well as the san francisco the city and county of san francisco departments have participated in this process. so there s three zones in the proposed district and each zone as a different level of service. the zone where civic center plaza is, is one of the goals for that zone is increased foot patrol ambassador service. the idea is that patrons of the arts venues want to feel safe walking from bart, muni, also from the parking garage underneath the civic center plaza, they want to feel safe and utilize those opportunities more in the area. so the hope would be that community guides, folks that work for the district but can escort folks around and provide sort of an opportunity for people to ask questions and help folks who need social services get linked with those in the city. the other thing going on in zone two, which the civic center plaza is located in, would be beautification services, public space and sidewalk activation opportunities, cleaning and maintenance on call and graffiti removal on call. there s also a proposal for the city and organization a coalition with both government and private sector involved and there would be staff who would advocate for the district who would communicate with all the members of the district and help coordinate when there s big events on the plaza, would help coordinate with the other stake holders in the district about what s going on and when there s desired events like the ice skating rink or other things they want to do, help be an advocate and help fundraise for those kinds of events that the community wants that bill when that will benefit the community. once this organization is established, it can fundraise, it s a nonprofit so it could fundraise for projects that would benefit the community as a whole. this is a map of the proposed district, the three zones are in three different colors. one zone one in yellow, zone two in pink, and zone three in green. the plaza is block 788 right there. in the middle in pink. a big part of services to be provided are advocacy, fundraising and community building. projects that promote the district s health and vitality as a whole. it s not just city hall or government buildings, the district has a lot of privately owned buildings, a lot of residential apartments and condominiums and a lot of commercial office space and of course a large hub of government buildings and arts organizations and arts institutions that serve the city and the region. so there s a sense that there s a need to bring the whole neighborhood together under a coalition like this so that fundraising and advocacy can happen for the whole area and build neighborhood pride and ownership and coordinate all the different events going on. safety services, i mentioned the ambassadors can help people find their ways around, escort, help kids of groups of kids coming to visit different places, do traffic and crowd control an help with special service need for folks in need of getting connected to social services that exist through the city or nonprofit. then there will be regular coordination of the security company that works in the individual buildings that don t leave the buildings, there s a need for coordination. all these build vgs teams that could be better coordinated with our police and city police. it would make sure all these entities provide coordination amongst each other and work together to help make the area safer. and the other thing is activation of the public spaces. you, rec and park, has done an admirable job working with the park, those of us who work here appreciate that, but there s more that needs to be done. there s a feeling that when people, you know, in the morning and when they go home, there s nodes around the bart and muni station that need activation. if there was a better sense of performers or other people it would feel safer for people coming in and out of the district at different times. this district would like to work with the park for events around the plaza and help with that. there s on-call graffiti removing and sidewalk sweeping and washing, dispatch service, so if any city or public or private building has problems, they can call the dispatch service as well. these are for services the city does not provide, it s above and beyond what u.p.w. provides that this district would provide and so close coordination with d.p.w. and their services would happen, there would be no duplication of services, this would be above and beyond that. beautification and greening, so fundraising could be focused on getting capital improvements in the area, street furnishings, planting, lighting, these districts tend to fundraise for those kinds of capital improvements throughout the district where needed. and they have, again a $743,000 proposed budget annually to serve this district as a whole and right now we re in the petition phase, we re asking for your support, some of us went to the city hall preservation advisory commission and they approve they supported having city hall be part of this, we re also going to the library commission today and we ll be going to the other city department commission to inform everyone what s going on and also ask for your support. and then if the petitions come in, if we receive 30% support, we can ask the board of supervisors to have the department of elections send out ballots and so by the end of the year, potentially the district could form if there s enough support from the property owners in the district. and so the city parcels comprise 24% of the district, the city parcels under the board of supervisors jurisdiction and city civic park center and garage is one of the parcels and the assessment. the proposed assessment for the civic center parking garage is $32,000. it s our hope with increased feeling of safety there will be more patrons coming to the garage at nighttime so those revenueses will be going up and you ll see a direct benefit from ar participating in this but we also think it can help with the ice rink and other proposals you want to see happen that could be revenue-generating also for civic center plaza. and there s some enterprise departments that are also going to have their boards vote on this, like the war memorial build, ballet, symphony, opera, they like this. the war memorial board has to take a formal vote because they own the buildings, they ll do that next week. and the p.u.c. and asian art museum, the asian art already voted yes. that s it for my presentation, i d be happy to take your questions. and again, we hope the mayor s office, the office of economic work forest development and the many, many people on the steering committee hope that you think this is a great idea like we do. commissioner lee. commissioner lee: my questions have to do with permitting of the sisk center for events and so forth. how does this interact with our permitting division? is this another layer of approvals we re going to need our permitees to get? no, rec and park permit events. commissioner lee: so there should be no impabblingt for the ice skating rink and other permitted events. we think this will maybe not in regards to the ice skating rink, we think it will increase revenue by improving the general area and the safety and thes a thetic appeal of the area, we ll see more people looking to permit the area and more visitors to the garage and ice rink and things like that. commissioner lee: i want to make sure we have full control over the permitting process, there s not another layer. no. commissioner lee: if our permitee wants to erect a tent, for instance, the ice skating rink if they want to put up a tent, would that have to go through a separate no, absolutely not. as a matter of fact, any of the events that originate with the if the c.b.d. is aproved and there is an organization that runs it, if they come up with events, they have to go through us for permits. we remain the permitting agency. commissioner lee: and they would get in the same queue as any group wanting to permit they wouldn t have any special relationship or special it s still our park and we still permit it. president buell: commissioner levitan. commissioner levitan: i think this looks great and is well presented. i know the presentation you gave us doesn t show opposition. is there anybody we can think of who is opposed to this? at this pint, it s too early to tell. i haven t heard of any, but that doesn t mean there won t be. we have many public hearings to go through. commissioner levitan: and outreach. right now everybody in the district has received a petition and the management plan. they ve been told, you know, to please vote on it to go to the website to call if they have questions, and the supervisors, if there s enough petition support, will hold two different public hearings before this could be established. commissioner levitan: good, thank you. president buell: commissioner hairson. commissioner hairson: i assume the street sweepers and custodians will remain? yes. president buell: we have some public testimony? we do. ernestine wright. president buell: no displays of emotion at this committee meeting. i am the first one that made a business improvement district in the city at the urging to establish it in union square. that was the first park that had a business improvement district. out of frustration with all the urinating and what not, it was a mess. that s why i want it down at the embarcadero. this is the entry to the city, it should be done there too. anyway, i heartly approve this, hallelujah, this is the way to go. you need a marketing director, as i was telling you many times before, you ve got to run this park division like a business. it s not run like a business right now. i was successful in my business, i m telling you how to do it. very easy. lisa pagan is a saint. she should be put up to the highest levels here because this is what we need. city doesn t have the money, this is the way to go. the businesses would be happy to contribute. i don t think anyone objects to it in any area. lighting is very important, you ve got to make it enticing for people to want to go there. this is the way to go. i m so happy we ll have l.e.d. lighting in the park, this is going to brighten up the whole area. there won t be vandalism of trees and damage and all that that you have all over this city. that s another deterrent. worth the investment. so go ahead and do this. this is the way to go. i can t say enough. president buell: thank you. is there any other public comment? please come forward. mr. president, commissioners, i m jim haff. the mayor gave me the title as coordinator of his civic center stake holders group, and i have been active before that and for the last six years in trying to bring some order to civic center. there has been no entity that brings the disparate parts together, in fact, you will find i found over the years that the people who worked at the asian art museum and ran that, never knew the people in the public library, who ran that, etc., etc. i guess it was four years ago, i spoke to the mayor and to his chief of staff at the time, mr. ginsburg, who is not here today, and they bought into the notion that we needed to have some vehicle to pull things together and give some order to the area. he asked lisa pagan and her colleagues to undertake the studies necessary for a c.b.d. it s taken a long time, partly because it s such an odd group of properties with half of them being public and half being private. but we are very close to having it done. the entity that looks after the c.b.d. is the a nonprofit. it is not a public agency and therefore would be an advocate for things but not in the official role of things. but let me point out this to you that when the ice skating rink came up, i m the one that set up the meeting with the people from the state building and various parks around the plaza that some of your people did not know to have a discussion and now there is a fruitful dialogue between the supreme court justices and judges and the people working on the ice skating rink and all of that. if there was a c.b.d. i would not have to play that role, there would be somebody paid to look after those things every day. so that is why this is in my view so important for bringing the quality of life for all the employee the visitors in the civic center and pest important and it s important to you because you control the plaza and that needs to be worked on and you ll find in the next several weeks that there s a proposal to replan the plaza, which is wenting its way through the board of supervisors. that will be an integral part of the c.b.d. and planning process for civic center will be worked together to improve the area. i urge you to unanimously approve this. president buell: thank you, mr. hess. howard. i certainly support you chipping in a little bit to make all of this happen, but beyond that, we have all these office edifices down there, all these similar offices downtown would have shops and restaurants and coffee shops underneath. the area is pretty dead. we go there frequently for the opera, symphony, stuff like that. it s beyond your purview but i would support livening up, in europe, you have city halls where you get the best beer and bratwurst, certainly that would president buell: that would be a big improvement in this city. thank you. is there any other public comments on this item? seeing none, public comment is closed.