Doesn’t San Francisco already pay seven figures a year to run the San Francisco Botanical Garden? So why should people have to pay to get into the thing? Oh, it costs money to run, a whole lot? Well, then why don’t we just shut it down?
One might wonder.
Jim Lazarus, past president of the Recreation and Park Commission, gets it wrong here:
Well actually, Jimbo, why not let’s do nothing and then the fee would go away by itself, right? No repeal is necessary, actually, as you already know, huh Jimbo?
Now here comes simple-minded Randy Shaw of Beyond Chron, who doesn’t seem to understand that the purported quarter-million a year that’s “expected” (by whom, some wildly optimistic person, obviously) to be generated by the fee will for pay three “extra” unionized gardeners at the Arboretum. There’s no way on Gaia’s Green Earth that the fee at Strybing will pay for social services.
SF Crime Examiner Thomas Pendergrast has pretty much all you need to know about the plan to make permanent the access fees at the San Francisco Botanical Garden.
And looky here, here’s a pdf from Budget and Legislative Analyst Harvey M. Rose, CPA:
When an accountant calls your forecasts “highly optimistic,” what’s he really saying?
Oh well.
I guess the BOS will soon vote to make the temporary boycott of the San Francisco Botanical Garden a permanent boycott.
Oh well.
As seen last Saturday:
Oh, and look what else is coming up:
“Thursday, April 7, 2011 2:00 p.m. City Hall, Room 416 11a. GOLDEN GATE PARK ACCESS PASS Discussion and possible action to recommend that the Board of Supervisors approve an ordinance amending Park Code Article 12 authorizing the Commission to discount admission fees for the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and the San Francisco Botanical Garden as part of a Golden Gate Park Access Pass. (ACTION ITEM) Staff: Brent Dennis.
Hey. what’s a GOLDEN GATE PARK ACCESS PASS? We’ll find out soon enough…
Quintin Mecke was on hand representing Assemblymember Tom Ammiano’s office and somebody else spoke for Supervisor John Avalos. Noticed Aaron Peskin in the audience as well.
All the while, there was absolutely nobody on or near the Main Lawn just inside the admission gate. Presenting your empty Strybing Arboretum:
Click to expand
But that’s the way the San Francisco Botanical Garden Society likes it.
Saturday April 2nd, 2011
1:00PM – 2:00PM
Arboretum Main Gate
(9th Avenue & Lincoln)
YOUR HELP IS NEEDED NOW
On April 6th, 2011, the Budget Committee of the Board of Supervisors will be making a crucial decision on the future of the fee, either free admissions for all or a permanent non-resident fee.
SUPPORT- Ordinance 110113 sponsored by Supervisors Avalos, Campos, Kim, Mar and Mirkarimi to use Prop N tax revenues as a sustainable solution to support a free public garden.
OPPOSE- Ordinance 110225 sponsored by the Mayor for a permanent fee.
After 7 months the fee has been a failure. Only $54,800 out of a promised $250,000 has been collected. Attendance, based on Rec & Park figures, has declined sharply with non-resident visitors down 70% vs. estimates and resident visitors down 36%. RPD’s strategy is to market Strybing Arboretum as the new Japanese Tea Garden.
WHAT YOU CAN DO TO STOP THIS HARMFUL FEE:
Attend the Budget Committee Hearing on Wed. April 6 (time TBA)
Boy, if there’s anything I hate it’s got to be all them foreigners what come to my City and County of San Francisco to empty their pockets and then leave. You know? I’m talking about the hordes from Belgium and Sicily and Marin County and the goddam East Bay coming here and just sucking up all the oxygen and walking around like they own the place.
So I was overjoyed when RPD started charging admission at the San Francisco Botanical Garden (fka Helene Strybing Arboretum, but she got old and died so nobody cares about her anymore, you know, the lady what paid for the place) cause I live here in the 415 so I can walk in just by showing my ID. I love that, it makes me feel special, I just walk past those loosers and I say something like, “Suck-eeeeers!” Or, “I’m a Neighbor, I’m a Res-I-Dent, bi-atches. Respect!” You know, something clever like that.
So imagine my shock when I first saw this GroupOn-style deal. See that? The SFBG is now half-off for auslanders!
I don’t know, but won’t this encourage visits? I mean, aren’t we trying to empty the arbo of people and starve out the squirrels and the Canada Geese in order to become “world-class” ‘n stuff?
And won’t this cut into revenue? Aren’t there some days already when the total gross doesn’t even cover expenses to charge people to get in? You know, talking about those $11-an-hour-no-benefits toll-takers. (Hey, shouldn’t the people who sell tickets in those boxes be in a union too? Couldn’t they have a vote, you know, get the NLRB in here to monitor a little election? Why not?)
Is Phil Ginsburg the new village idiot now that the old Mayor has blown town? Does Phil Ginsburg have a “Life Coach” too, you know, someone to tell him how he’s always right and how he can See The Future better than anyone else? Tony Robbins, here we come.
Anyway, for some reason, our Strybing Arboretum needs to impress people on the East Coast, people in Boston, New York, and D.C. You know, an “Our arbo is better than your arbo” kind of deal. That’s what drives the Great Fencing Off of Strybing. And you taxpayers, you visitors, you foreigners, you auslanders, well you can just go to Hell.
Oh well.
The Moon-Viewing Garden as it looked before the Botanical Garden Boycott of 2010 to whenever:
All right, imagine you are in charge of running the paid admissions program at San Francisco Botanical Garden in Golden Gate Park. (Now, I’m going to make things hard on you by picking December 8th, 2010 to run this exercise, so brace yourself.)
Of course, you can only charge people who can’t prove they live in San Francisco and you have two gates to worry about so it’s tough. Your Main Gate got six paid visitors on Dec 8th so you took in $42 at $7 per. And the Friend Gate (that was dude’s last name, but apparently RPD will take your name off of whatever they used your money to fund after you die (like Strybing Arboretum, the former name of the whole joint)), aka North Gate, well, three teens came in that day so that’s $15 at $5 per head.
Your gross for the day is $57. The question is how much should you pay the two ticket seller/SF resident ID checkers in your employ to make the program to charge admission to non-residents sustainable?
Maybe one dollar per hour? Check it:
Well actually, the non-unionized toll-booth collectors make $11 an hour (since the minimum is $9.92, no benefits of course) so that the Arboretum can make enough scratch to fund three (3) unionized gardeners who make a lot more and, of course, get benefits.
Here are all the deets that I have about the paid admissions program:
Hey, what if we charged everybody, residents and non-residents alike, money to get in? Wouldn’t that cut down on visitors even more?
Well, sure. Its all has to do with the elasticity of demand – how many people will just forget about the arbo (as I’ve already done) when they start having to pay.
Keep in mind that you taxpayers are still giving a ton of money each year to the San Francisco Botanical Gardens. Maybe they should just go private? You know, could just raise money to buy the land and then the new owners could run the place as they see fit? Why not? It would save San Franciscans a lot of money every year, right?
I remember thinking that if people temporarily stopped going to Strybing during the 12 month trial period, then the workers getting paid $11 an hour to collect your $7 admission / scrutinize your photo ID would have the chance to find new jobs instead huddling in a wooden pillbox on caster wheels all the live long day. And then, once again, anyone could enter, just the way it was for the past 65 years.
I remember.
I think these trees are the ones atop Heidelberg Hill – they’re whichever ones you can see looking south from the Waterfowl (Wildfowl?) Pond. (300mm lens plus a lot of digital zoom.) Click to expand
So this is the scene – gates are mostly closed now and you’ll get confronted by a lonely sentry and a lonely tolltaker upon entry:
That was the Friend Gate, here’s the Main Gate. See the toll booth back there?
Here it is up close:
Now personally, I’m boycotting the place, at least until they’re forced to make changes next year, but that didn’t stop me from taking a peek inside Strybing on Saturday:
That’s your Great Meadow, right by the Main Gate – more geese (a couple dozen) than people (zero), actually. It was a ghost town.
The protesters don’t want any fees for any body and they don’t want to have to have their IDs checked to prove residency. That’s what this woman was signing for:
Now the new rules talk about requiring PG&E bills and whatnot to prove residency, but all the gatekeepers have been asking for the past couple of days is your zip code. (When I wanted to pop in and check to see how many lazy sunbathers were lollygagging on the Great Meadow, I told them 94123, the whitestfirst zip code I could think of, and that was it, no problem.)
Now, did they really advertise these ticket-selling jobs on the craigslist for $11 an hour? (That’s my understanding.) I’ll tell you, that’s less what In-and-Out burger workers make and it’s way less than what nearby workers doing substantially the same work make. And I’m guessing that’s a pay-rate of about a quarter of what a gardener costs Park and Rec to employ.
And here’s the kicker - being a gardener is a better gig to boot. I’d much rather be out there taking care of business in the gardens than be cooped up in a little wheeled shack, personally.
Anyway, this whole fiasco comes down to what you think the mission of Strybing Arboretum is. If you think its mission is to serve people, then it looks like Strybing’s just given up on about half of its mission.
But if you think the place should be considered a museum of plants, then having more money (I assume, I mean I assume that the gatekeepers will pull their weight and gross more than $22 per hour or whatever the marginal hourly cost is for this whole program) and fewer people is a double bonus.
Regardless, this German family doesn’t get counted in the stats. They shared a chuckle over a nearby Sign of Nine Noes and then started scrutinizing this notice, the one that tells them they are now zweite Klasse at best.
Then they just shuffled along, among the hundreds turned away by the new rules this weekend.
A small group of protesters was on hand this AM at the main entrance of Strybing Arboretum (aka San Francisco Botanical Garden) in Golden Gate Park.
This woman’s been coming to Strybing since 1970 and she has a photo of her with baby Nell to prove it. And at the lower right of this poster, she has a shot from ought-three when Nell got married in the Main Meadow. But Nell’s off in the East Bay now, so it’d be $15 for Nell and her fam to come visit these days.
