Brothers & Sisters:
Take a quick look at the Examiner. Then see the Department response and the Union response. Please check in at the City Committee meeting with ideas.
http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/Report-finds-parks-vacant-of-gardeners38983439.html
See the responses.
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Hi Vince-
ReplyDeleteWe sent this reply today, as a letter to the editor:
San Francisco is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, due in no small part to our stunning parks and open spaces. Our city’s 220 parks comprise twenty percent of the seven by seven square miles that make up our city. We have almost ten square miles of park land, enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of people everyday and maintained, at the moment, by just 231 hardworking gardeners.
I am one of those gardeners, so when I read the article “Gardeners AWOL in SF Parks” I found myself in a state of disbelief. The article sites a Controller’s report that concludes that the condition of San Francisco’s
parks is improving even as the number of gardeners is deceasing. This is an extremely positive report us, but the Examiner chose to focus on a finding that shows that gardeners are only at a particular park during their scheduled time 40 to 54 percent of the time. The Examiner concludes the reason for this is that we are AWOL.
Let me offer a different theory: The city’s gardeners are not sitting still and that makes us difficult to count.
Every morning, I receive a number of 311 notices from the public of problems in the park. This morning was no exception: tires and broken glass dumped in playgrounds, cars driving into parks breaking irrigation,
mattresses and hazardous waste (oil and razors), and home garbage dumped in tennis courts. We try to take care of these problems within 24 hours.
Our gardeners go to where the problems are first. Then, we report to where we are scheduled to be. You call it AWOL, I call it being responsive to the public.
As a result, our parks are improving -- as the report concludes – and that is thanks to the hard work of our city’s gardeners.
Robert Sheets
SF Gardener
Thanks for your letter to Beth. The article was a frustrating take on an otherwise positive report.
Lisa Seitz Gruwell
San Francisco Recreation and Parks
501 Stanyan St.
San Francisco, CA 94117
415.831.2740
415.831.2096 (fax)
lisa.seitz@sfgov.org
Beth:
Thank you for your story in today's paper.
If you have any questions about the schedules posted on the controller's website or their accuracy kindly let me know. We (Laborers' Local 261) filed a case with the City long ago (Yomi Agunbiade) because as a Union we
anticipated this story and knew those Prop C schedule postings to be inaccurate in many ways. We filed that case along with Isabel Wade and the Parks Council at their urging.
There simply is not sufficient staffing to cover the acreage. Spot checks will lead persons to incorrectly assume AWOL when in fact there are "floating holidays" "sick days" and multiple areas that each employee is
required to "cover" at the same time while the Controller's schedules take none of it in to account. It is unfair to paint all of our City Gardners with such a wide and negative brush. In addition to GPS, we believe its time to at least consider 11 District Captains that the citizens can contact directly related to their volunteer needs. We are always ready to
think "outside the box" in hard times.
As a Union we have and will continue to work with the Department, citizens, and community based groups to provide services and accommodate needs. We have always worked toward this end with the Parks Trust, Neighborhood Parks Council, and Friends of the Urban Forest. We hope that they will continue
to advocate for the needed gardeners for our whole park system to keep it safe and enjoyable for everyone.
Vince Courtney
City Representative/Political Captain
Laborers' International Union, Local 261
3271 18th Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 810-4500
(415) 826-4550 office
(415) 826-1948 fax
vince@liuna261.org