February 2009 Update on Open Space Task Force

The work of the Mayor’s Open Space Task Force continues in its second phase, Community Outreach, to seek the ideas and the priorities of neighbors and neighborhoods around the City.

The scheduled outreach workshops began in January, with approximately 20 meetings taking place throughout the city during January-March (Click here for the meeting calendar). 

You may track our progress throughout this entire community engagement process at www.openspacesf.org.  Minutes from all meetings are posted at http://openspacesf.org/OSmeetingnotes.

In addition, we have created a  “Meeting in the Box” that enables you to hold your own meetings with neighbors or community group by guiding an organizer through a process of independent discussion.  These materials can be downloaded at
http://www.openspacesf.org/meetingpacket.  Organizers can call NPC (621-3260) for further assistance with these types of meetings.

The three key outcomes we are striving for with this outreach process are:
1)  Garnering your ideas for a long-term (100 year) Vision Plan for Open Space;
2)  Creating a ranked priority list of the public’s views on what open space issues are most important to tackle and in what order;
3)  Publishing an Action Plan for the next 5-10 years with all the best ideas from our workshops and from online participation.

NPC also hopes to develop some pilot projects as a key result of the Task Force in order to demonstrate how we can improve park maintenance.  We also hope that the community will help identify underused open spaces that could be transformed into new parks.  While we will push our elected officials and relevant city agencies to fund and implement the Action Plan, the community will be the key to making sure our collective ideas and vision are put in motion.

We hope that you take the next action step to meet the challenges confronting open space by either attending a scheduled meeting or by using the “Meeting in a Box” to host your own meeting with your friends and neighbors.

NPC is also happy to support you in any open space projects you and your fellow community members want to organize around. Please Contact Outreach Coordinator, Matt Silva at (415) 621-3260 or msilva@sfnpc.org for more information.