Dolores Park Volunteer Day 2011

If you would like to show your support for the park and young people helping the community, come on out. Or, if you want the full on single mixers experience, rsvp for Single Serving Day here.

Ether way, please come and join in the fun.

• Dolores Park Volunteer Day
• Saturday, December 3
• 10 pm to 1pm
• Meet up in front of the old clubhouse.

The new signs were installed to address a lack of comprehensive signage in Dolores Park. While there are individual signs posted throughout the park, the new signs provide this information in  unified locations at park entrances.  We are also responding to  requests from community members and other city agencies about the need for additional signage in the park.  The sign installation was planned some time ago and there is no particular significance to the timing.

Rec and Park at work.

These three three signs contain standard language used in welcome signs  throughout our park system, there was nothing in particular related to Dolores Park in their message. Barbecues and open fires are prohibited in all of our parks by fire regulations. There may have been signs posted in Dolores Park in the past, these would not be unusual in our parks. The barbecues create  significant damage to the park when discarded coals are dumped on the landscape.

We have also noticed that SFPD has in the past week or so stepped in to enforce the 10pm closing. How is your relationship with Mission Station? And is there a new follow-up enforcement plan for Dolores?

SFPD has been devoting resources to closing the park (at 10pm) over the past couple of months.  Maintaining the park hours seems to be one of the best ways to provide for public safety and curb some of the more damaging incidents in the park. I do communicate with Mission Station regularly on issues that are going on within the park.

 

Welcome to Dolores Park

SFPD has told us, they can’t enforce Park rules if they are not prominently posted. So, if we want help with problems in Dolores, signage is where we begin. Of course, it’s all in the follow through.  We did see an officer on a dirt bike scoot through this afternoon.

The Picnic.

We followed with a short program thanking our volunteers and our sponsors, BiRite Market, Dolores Park Cafe and Morning Due Cafe for the great lunch. Also on hand, were representatives from our friends Dolores Park Church, Dolores Park Dogs, The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence and Dolores Heights Improvement Club. The Volunteer Center also sent us several students from the Year Up program.

The Friends of Dolores Park Playground accept the Steward of the Year Award

And before we all sat down to that great picnic lunch, I am very pleased to announce that we awarded the first Dolores Park Works Steward of the Year Award to The Friends of Dolores Park Playground.  This award will to be given to those who have shown exemplary service in the past year to pursuing one or more of the goals of Dolores Park Works. The Friends were selected because they have recognized the irreplaceable importance of play and recreation to young families and the need to support and recognize this. They have also vigorously pursued the best design, natural materials and plantings for the new playground and have pledged their commitment to the continuing maintenance and support of the Helen Diller Playground at Dolores Park.

Park volunteers hard at work.

And finally, Jake Gilchrist, manager for the upcoming Dolores Park rehabilitation was kind enough to come by on his weekend to up date us on the planning process. We can expect to see several prospective design ideas at our next Workshop on August 4, 6:30 pm.  The Park Department and the Dolores Park Rehabilitation Project Steering Committee is hosting these important workshops to set the direction of the Dolores Park Rehabilitation Plan. A final meeting is planned for Thursday, August 25  at 6:30. The location of both of these meetings is still to be confirmed.

MUNI J Church rolling down Dolores Heights towards downtown. (1960?)

Eric Andersen, RPD manager for Area 6, said one of his main goals in renovation is to see the long closed and abandoned 19th street MUNI stop demolished and replaced with landscaping. He called the old stop an attractive nuisance, a shooting gallery, a graffiti magnet, and an open sewer.   Jake Gilchrist, RPD manager for the Dolores Park renovation, said he was hoping for help from the MTA in a new design for the 18th Street entrance. “This corner is Dolores’s gateway to  the Castro,” Gilchrist told the commission.  It is now dominated by the J Church MUNI stop and an awkward wheelchair accessible ramp system.

Scott Wiener, District 8 supervisor had initially called John Haley for a report on plans to improve the performance of the J Church.  Wiener told Dolores Park Works that he decided to add a discussion on Dolores Park and to bring in representatives from RPD in order to institute a dialogue between the two departments.  ”In the past, there’s been little or no communication, and Rec & Park has been unable to effectively work with MTA.” Wiener said.  ”I’m hoping this hearing will change that dynamic and possibly result in an understanding between the two departments, an understanding that will establish a vision for the area and  define responsibilities.”