News broke last week (though Park and Rec was not making a secret of it) that the greater part of Dolores Park would most likely need to close for over a year in order to accomplish a long needed and anticipated renovation. Many in the community took the news as a personal attack on their lifestyle. A Facebook fan page “Don’t Close all of Dolores Park” has 1,200 member as of this writing. Rec and Park and Supervisors Dufty were again reminded of how much the residents of the surrounding dense neighborhoods depend on this park for open space. Philip Ginsburg, rec and park general manager, says he is now committed to finding a way to accomplish the renovation in stages, “if fiscally possible.”

The meeting is being billed as a forum for questions about the upcoming renovation, information about the project planning process and information on how we can get involved. Invitations went out Friday to the new park stewardship group, Dolores Park Works, the Friends of Dolores Park Playground, local neighborhood associations and other stakeholders.

The new playground project is being handled as a separate project and public input and planning for the Helen Diller Playground is closed. Construction will most likely begin in late Fall of this year and may disrupt much of the southern end of the park.

in Dolores Park has been pushed back till Fall.  Mary Hobson, Rec and Park project manager, Capital Improvement Division, told us, “I just received an updated schedule from the landscape architect working on the playground project.  Design is scheduled to be completed in late May. It typically takes us three to four months to solicit bids, award and certify a contract, and then get the contractor out and ready to start work.” We can now plan for the playground to close and construction to begin in October, with reopening in April or May of 2011.
 Park managers have been told that once construction on the play area begins, we should expect much of the south end of the park to be fenced off for 8 months.

The Friends of Dolores Park Playground have been working for a total renovation of the play area for some time. Their vision, the construction of a new “World Class” playground with an emphasis on natural materials, is soon to be a reality. The Friends group have secured a private grant for up to $1.5 million to help with the cost. Nancy Gonzales-Madinsky, the Friends Group chair has told us that there were some items on their wish list that did not fit the budget, a wind sculpture was one.  The group has decided to go ahead and include these “Bling Bling” features in the final plans and are now seeking private funding to cover the $250 thousand short fall.

Planning for a greater Dolores Park renovation is slated to begin shortly. Hobson  tells us that, “We are going through the bond sale process right now. In fact the Board of Supervisors process is kicking off on Wednesday. If all goes well I hope to have designers ready to start working right away.”  This renovation is authorized  to include the courts, field, and clubhouse; restoration of existing roads and pathways; upgrades to subsurface infrastructure, irrigation and lighting; modifications to the site to remove barriers and improve accessibility, and overall reconditioning of the park landscape.  Construction should start in December, 2011. Much of the park will be fenced off for this project, according to park department representatives. Hobson believes that her original estimate of 16 months may be too much. and it could now be  ”substantially less” , now that the playground is being handled as a separate project.

Community meetings on the greater $11.7 million renovation of the park  are  expected to begin in late May or June. We can plan for about three public meetings over the course of four months.

So, it looks like we may have the new playground open in Spring 2011 and the greater park fenced off for the winter and spring of 2011-2012, at least. This is hard to visualize and plan for. What maybe even harder to plan for is a vision of what Dolores park should look like at the end of all this dust and mud. As one prominent park neighbor told me, this is a renovation that needs to last for 30, 40 or 50 years. We need to build a park that can adapt to future changes. What would you like to see in a rejuvenated Dolores Park?

Nice hat.

Still in the dreary days of Winter, but Rec and Park’s Dolores Calendar all ready  looks pretty full.   Many of our favorites look like they are back, our neighbors Dolores Park Movie Night are holding down their regular slot, the second Thursday of the month. The Boys will kick it off April 8.

The mega Film Night in the Park  has reserved three sexy saturdays, June 5, August 7 and September 25.  The undeniably patriotic San Francisco Mime Troupe has grabbed Fourth of July and Labor Day weekends. And the revered San Francisco Symphony will turn Dolores into a concert hall July 25.

Arguably the most popular city hall sponsored event of the last ten years, Sunday Streets returns to The Mission June 20 and July 11. This year the streets will stay closed an hour longer (10 am to 3) for all of you who can’t make it out of the door on Sundays till 1 pm..

Friday and Saturday, June 25, 26 of Pride Week are of course reserved for the Trans March and Dyke Rally. You would have to prey these dates out of their cold dead hands. And the Cinco de Mayo Festival will again be the Saturday after the fifth, May 8.

We don’t as yet see the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence’s traditional Easter Spectacular or a Mission neighborhood favorite, Latino Pride. Times a fleeting kids. You need to book your beer soaked turf early. Let’s also hope that the park deptment will be able to continue to accommodate the many smaller cultural events that request to use Dolores. Such as last years The Taming of the Shrew, produced by Women’s Will. And the all peddled powered Bicycle Music Fest. So far, these arts groups are attracting small, polite crowds and both have no large sound systems. Win, win win.

Corection: Dog Fest 2010. Held last year in Duboce Park, stays in Duboce.  Sorry for the missinformation.

Womens Will

After a week of solid rain, a rainbow appeared at 5:30 pm on a Friday. The park is going to have a great weekend.

Three rangers and two cops showed up last night to issue five tickets and end our night. My citation reads “Permit requirement. Unauthorized athletic activity.” Their leader told us it was a $103 fine.

We were told someone complained. There were three empty tennis courts at the time. We were having a fine night with a fairly steady stream of spectators.

Sounds like this will net us a meeting with the elected district city supervisor. The sup. is trying to find the appropriate R&P person to join our discussion. Ruckus had been trying to get a meeting for a couple months with no success.

This fast moving game is fun to watch and was being held right on the corner of 18th and Church.

Approx 7:00-7:30 last night, a tree fell down in the center divide in
Liberty street, blocking the street. It had been standing in the
center divide in Liberty street, outside the front door of the
apartment block at 380 Liberty, near the corner with Sanchez.

By the time I got home, someone had
called and DPW were already on scene. It was quite a mess, with bits
of wood everywhere, including my doorstep a couple of doors downhill.
I chatted with them for a while, and they showed me just how rotted
the tree was; it was totally decayed right through the center, soft
spongy wood that you could squeeze with your fingertips, and just
needed the windy night to bring it down. Luckily, no-one was injured,
and no cars were parked at the red-kerb at the time.

While standing in the midst of it all, DPW looked quickly at the
other trees nearby, and thought they were much younger healthier
trees, swaying in the wind like healthy trees should, and hence not
similarly diseased.

I found them super efficient, and really friendly, while working in
challenging circumstances. That particular team were not supposed to
be working last night, but got called in by SFcity because they had
so many trees down across the city, the usual crew couldnt keep up.
“got the phone call just as I was about to have dinner with the wife”
was one quote.

DPW finished the last of the chopping/shredding/chipping work approx
1:30am, and left the place spotless.

Ramon said this is an important event for the local community and that Rec and Park had doubled it’s fee since last year, but the participating non-profits and food booths had been able to pay. He is expecting a crowd of 300 to 500.

The show began today at 11 am and goes to 5.

Kevin Montgomery, of the blog MissionMission had urged all “lovers of the park” ,  ”if you care about the city making community events more rare, your right to picnic, grilling pork, trash, noise, dogs off-leash, dogs on-leash, pedophile hipsters smoking cigarettes near the swings, or whatever your issue is, show up.” Many in the  young group did plead eloquently and passionately for the status quo and the ability to organize impromptu events and consume alcohol.  But, Kevin urged the meeting to embrace what everyone could agree on, the need to reduce trash, and to go from there.

So, a working meeting has been organized for this Sunday, September 20, 2-4 pm at the Liberty Bell plaza, 19th and Dolores. Gideon Kramer, meeting organizer and SafeCleanGreen steering committee member told us,  ”What we aim to do is not just spruce things up around the park (litter pickup, graffiti cleanup), but raise consciousness so that less cleaning up has to be done in the future because park users are picking up after themselves and disposing of their trash responsibly.”

 Gideon said he also was anxious to keep last night’s meeting focused on positive  results. “ We purposely avoided areas of contention (like dogs off leash, alcohol, drugs, noise, rowdy behavior) in favor of focussing initially on those things we can all agree on, and over which we have power to effect a change.”  he told us. Though all these points were brought up, the commitment from all sides of the “Turf War” to sit down and have a civil conversation on the parks problems and the neighbors concerns was abundantly clear.

 The  young “Dolores Park Lovers” had come to play ball. Their ability to organize and communicate was well demonstrated by their numbers, called to the meeting by posts on blogs, Facebook, and Twitter.  The Lovers are also politically savvy. Kevin told us that he had already spoken with Dana Ketcham, Rec and Park’s lead for event permits at Dolores. And last week, there was a sit down in Dolores with Beven Dufty , with, we we were told, a frank exchange of views.  These skills are most welcome if we are to form a strong representational support and oversight group for Dolores.  This is what a great park deserves.

 Dolores Park Advocates (Do you like the name?) is well on the way to becoming a true representation of all Parks users. Let the love fete commence.

Charlotte Petersen, SafeCleanGreen and Kevin Montgomery, MissionMission having a warm and fuzzy moment.

Beven on the lawn. photo by JohnnyO