News Archives

The evening saw neighbors and SF City and County officials gather for the annual meeting to learn more about PPN, progress on a number of initiatives affecting the boulevard, and what's ahead in the coming year.

Park Presidio Neighbors Tenth Annual Festival

September 2007

A Fun Time Was Had by All!

It was announced by Wade Crowfoot at the annual Town Hall Meeting, held on May 23, that the Mayor's 2007 City budget includes $200,000 earmarked for Park Presidio Boulevard. Other speakers included Lorraine Banford, Robert Watkins, Brian Pangan, Kristin Bowman of Rec & Park, Mohammed Naru of DPW and Capt. Sandra Tong of Richmond Police Station. In the audience were Supervisor Jake McGoldrick, Summer Graham, Liaison to Districts 1, 2 & 7, Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Services, and Ron Miguel of PAR.

Lack of resources threatens not only the aesthetic beauty of the Boulevard, but is increasingly becoming a threat to life and property. This crisis was starkly illustrated on Saturday May 12 when a large elm tree on Anza at Park Presidio fell and crushed a parked car. Thankfully, no one was in the car, and there were no pedestrians nearby as the massive tree fell.

And in a scene that is becoming all to familiar, on May 28 on Funston and Anza there was another serious incident, this time involving a falling tree branch, causing damage to a parked car. As neighbors, we need to let our supervisor, Jake McGoldrick and other elected officials know that these dangerous situations must be dealt with. It is time to request an emergency appropriation before someone gets seriously injured. Please join us in calling for action. Contact Supervisor McGoldrick Jake.McGoldrick@sfgov.org (415) 554-7410 and officials at Rec. and Park (415) 831-2700.

After reviewing the previous years Boulevard work day plans, I decided as the new Work Support coordinator to have a more “Holistic” approach to Park Presidio Boulevard going forward. What this means: to see the Boulevard as one large park, made up of 16 small “green belts”.

I see the Boulevard as a whole, and would like to promote the volunteer effort on that basis. It would be a pleasure to see volunteers from all blocks working on the designated work day. I know in the past the work days were block specific, with the neighbors working on their own block.

My hope is to change this into a Boulevard Wide Effort, with volunteers working on whichever block has been designated. This is a different approach from before, but I feel it is necessary to adjust our work day strategy in relation to Rec and Park .

In Sept & Oct of last year, we were able to get some major clean up done on the 100, 200, 300 & 400 blocks of Funston and 14^th. These blocks were chosen by Rec and Park as the starting point because 1) it is the Geary Corridor 2) these blocks were in serious need of help. The North side of the Boulevard is in much better shape now.

The work was somewhat successful, with safety issues and homeless camps as a focus, many dead branches were removed, homeless encampments addressed and a general clearing out of debris was accomplished. The idea of working from the Task Force success was paramount in the scheduling of the 2007 Workdays. In January Carol and I met with Lorraine to start the calendar planning, It was decided with Lorraine that the first part of the year be dedicated to the blocks where the Task Force had worked. The idea is to follow up on their work with maintenance and planting. We also met with Phil Rossi, head of the nursery for Rec & Park and Kristin Bowman, Rec & Park Volunteer Coordinator. Both have been involved with PPN for many years. Phil was instrumental in the work that was done on the 700 blk of Funston. Carol’s excellent relationship with him has clearly helped us with his current participation.

Phil came up with a “planting palette” . This palette is suggested, and will be adjusted according to inventory and other factors, but will be based on :

The 600 & 700 Funston blocks illustrate a typical look and goal for the “overall effect” of each block, achieved by planting a “screen” on the Blvd side to block out noise and traffic, and a “park like setting” on the Funston & 14^th Ave frontage streets with more lawn, trees, shrubs and flowering plants I know this is an ambitious plan based on the current state of Rec & Park . At this time Rec & Park does not have a gardener for the Blvd. There has been a lot of personnel movement at Rec & Park, and Lorraine does not have any concrete information at this time regarding a permanent gardener for the Blvd. Candie Mattson has been on medical leave since the holidays. I am unsure of her return date. The Task Force has been curtailed due to a shortage of overtime funding . Although Lorraine was able to get a small TF out last week on the south end of the Boulevard, to pick piles of debris, fallen logs and branches. She has made no promises that this will continue. I feel it is up to us to keep this project moving along and Lorraine has encouraged us to make a plan and share it with her. She has been very supportive of our efforts.

The January work day was a huge success. 10 neighbors came out and Kristin Bowman, Rec & Park Volunteer Coordinator augmented with an additional 20 volunteers. The focus was the Geary end of 400 14^th. The plan for this area based on our meetings with Lorraine and Phil, is to plant this end of the block. Since the TF went thru planting will be fairly easy since there are wide swathes of bare areas. These areas on the Boulevard and 14^th Ave side will serve as “Pilot “ areas for the other blocks. We will see what does well and what the neighbors like for future plantings on the blocks. All the blocks will use the same plant materials, but in different quantities based on what is needed, climate and what already exists. Phil is working on the design and placement plan.

This in no way impacts the Master Plan. This short term effort will be incorporated into the Master Plan. The plantings taking place now are away from the corners and any other areas directly involving the Master Plan, ie bus stops and corners.

The purpose of doubling up on the blocks surrounding Geary is to continue the work that was done by the Task Force and really try and make a concerted effort to see some significant results. Feb & Mar work days will be on the 300 & 400 Funston.

April 14^th is the Clean Team work day. Based on our meetings with Rec & Park, it was decided that this work day will focus on prepping the areas to be planted on Sat, April 28^th.

Hopefully, the Clean Team effort will be large enough to get the area ready to plant. Phil and the gardeners will be supplying all the necessary materials. If the turnout is huge for Clean Team , ½ of the volunteers will work on 400 14^th and the other ½ will work on 300 14^th doing clearing of ivy and blackberries, trash pick up etc. For the actual planting day April 28^th, I am hoping to get additional volunteers thru Kristin, but it is particularly important that PPN come out in force for this work day.

With the support of Carol and Rec & Park I have been busy. My focus is on a “Boulevard Wide” volunteer effort where all neighbors can be involved in gardening and planting on all blocks. I hope you will join me in this effort.

Park Presidio Boulevard neighborhood volunteers, along with SF Rec & Park, worked together in the planting of over 250 plants on the 400 block of 14th Avenue. See neighbors working together to beautify the Boulevard here

On Saturday, September 23 the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department sent its "Task Force" to the 300 block of Funston Avenue in the first of a Park Presidio Blvd.-wide cleanup that will eventually see extensive brush clearing and trash pickup on both the Funston Ave. and 14th Ave. sides of the Boulevard.

A group of over a dozen workers, led by Park Supervisors Robert Watkins and Brian Pangang, began work in the early morning Saturday as part of an all day effort on the block. The Park Presidio Neighbors Association, working with Rec and Park, was instrumental in getting Park Presidio Boulevard targeted by Rec and Park for this much needed clean up.

Mayor Newsom joined a gathering of PPN officers and neighbors to take in our conceptual plans for the boulevard. We showed a five-minute video introduction, “PPN: Past, Present & Future,” followed by a presentation of the conceptual Master Plan. We discussed the urgent need to address the deferred maintenance issues and the need to develop and implement a reforestation plan. The Mayor was enthusiastic with his response and praised the initiative of the neighborhood for developing and coming forth with such an inclusive and thoughtful plan. He pledged his support and said he would call a meeting of department heads to start the process. He then suggested we walk the boulevard together so he could see first hand what we were talking about.

We are optimistic that we will be successful in taking the next step toward making our long-term vision a reality and are awaiting further feed-back from the Mayor’s office.

On April 26^th, 2006, we held our Town Hall General Membership meeting for all PPN members. The agenda included a DVD presentation of Park Presidio Boulevard, past and present, unveiling of the Master Plan and election of Executive Committee officers. Thanks to everyone who attended.

On March 25, 2006 the Fourth Saturday Work Day coincided with the DPW/Rec and Park Clean Team Event on Park Presidio Boulevard.

If you’ve strolled the boulevard in the last few weeks, you might notice its cleaner, fresher look. That’s because our yearly Community Clean Team event on October 22nd brought in an exceptional amount of manpower and city resources to dig deep on 14th Avenue, and spruce up the rest of the boulevard.

This city-sponsored workday enlisted 300 volunteers, 12 city gardeners and 30 neighbors. Agencies in attendance were SF Rec and Park and the Department of Public Works (DPW). Though the original job focused on the 700 block of 14th Avenue, overflow assignments benefited the 600 block and the rest of the entire boulevard with thorough litter clean-up and daffodil planting on each of the 15 boulevard blocks.

Candie Mattson, our District 1 Supervisor Gardener, took on the daunting task of managing almost 300 volunteers, rounded up the required paid city gardeners to properly supervise so many people, arranged for three dumpsters for the clippings and debris, and sent teams of planting volunteers with bags of daffodils to each block of the parkway. A dozen bulbs of mixed varieties of daffodils were counted out into paper bags, with 100 bulbs planned
for each block. Sites for planting had been previously located and marked with a flag. The
planting crew of 40 volunteers was instructed to “See a flag, plant a bag.” We should all enjoy the results next spring. Another 20 volunteers were dispatched to thoroughly clean litter from every block along the mile long stretch of greenway.

The hours worked by all of the volunteers totaled a entire year’s time in terms of man-hours. This is a massive improvement in city’s investment in the Park Presidio, in light of the fact that our green strip dedicated gardener was cut this year.

Thank you to all the neighbors and volunteers for your efforts and dedication. And we thank the city for their continued support and resource investment!

Photos courtesy of Merle Goldstone, Public Information Officer, Department of Public Works

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Town Hall Meeting May 21, 2008