Stepping up to the plate to fix playground

by Thomas K. Pendergast

A renovation is being planned for the Presidio Heights Playground, located on Clay Street between Walnut and Laurel streets, with funds from donations and grants raised by volunteers.

The playground lost its recreation director recently due to city budget cuts and the playground is somewhat degraded.

Grace Reyes, a nanny who cares for a three-year-old boy, says she has come often during the last three years and has noticed the playground slowly disintegrate.

"It's getting worse," Reyes said. "The toys are broken. The bathroom is not that clean. The playground is not colorful as we'd expect for a playground for kids. The sand needs to be cleaned. The basketball court is not that good."

She also said the lack of an onsite administrator or recreation director is a problem for several reasons, not the least of which is that programs for children have been eliminated because there is no one to run them.

"They had a program before," she said. "We used to come and they had a lot of programs, like cooking and pottery. There were a lot of programs but now, nothing."

Now that staffing shortages have closed the clubhouse, there is no access to a telephone and no pay phone in the immediate area, plus no medical supplies available. So, if there is an emergency, help is not immediately available.

"We need somebody in case of emergency. We cannot call because there's no phone. If we need some band aids or ice, there's nobody," she said.

Lisa Seitz Gruwell, communications director for the SF Recreation and Park Department, said the bathrooms at the playground are cleaned every day by maintenance workers, who open the playground in the morning and close it at night.

She said people can make reservations to use the park for special events and get permits by accessing the department's Web site or by calling the department.

Recently, the SF Board of Supervisors took $80 million from the public safety budget and gave $3 million of that to Rec. and Park. However, Gruwell says that money has not been allocated yet so there are no plans to replace the clubhouse staff at this point.

"Until the book is shut, you can lose funding at any time, so it's futile to plan that far ahead," she said. Meanwhile, a group of local citizens has been raising money to give the rest of the playground a complete makeover, including upgrading its toys and equipment, while also significantly changing the landscaping.

Amy McNamara, a member of the group Friends of the Presidio Heights Playground, says they've raised more than $725,000 to date, hired a project manager, Marvin Yee, a landscape architect who works for the City, and met with another landscape architect to begin creating formal construction documents. A conceptual drawing can be seen on the group's Web site at www.friendsofphp.org.

"At this point, we're moving from concept design drawings to actual construction documents," McNamara said.

"We've hired a city landscape architect to make sure it is code compliant. Once we've got a workable document, we're going to get approval from the SF Recreation and Park Commission in August. Then, we have to go before the Board of Supervisors for a public hearing and approval. We do not anticipate any problems with that." McNamara said.

Friends has targeted somewhere around this coming December or January to begin construction. At this point, they estimate about six to eight months to complete the project.

McNamara gave a ballpark figure of $850,000 as an estimate of how much the total cost might be.

"We are still actively fundraising at this time but we have enough that the City is letting us start it," she said.

According to McNamara, donations are being held by San Francisco Parks Trust, which provides them with non-profit status so the donations can be tax deductible, and will manage funds by dispersing the checks as the construction proceeds. The clubhouse will not be part of the renovation project.

"We can renovate without touching the clubhouse," McNamara said. "When we're finished, it will be a 'gift in place' to the City. After that, the City will take responsibility for staffing and maintenance."