potrero view
Photograph by Lori Higa.

Photograph by Lori Higa.

The playground at McKinley Square.

September 2009

Turf Wars Break Out at McKinley Square

By Lori Higa

The new sod at McKinley Square, high atop Vermont and 20th streets, positively glistens with a bright, almost neon green intensity.  But even before the temporary signs and fluorescent orange vinyl fences signaling pedestrians to keep off the grass have been removed, debate is raging over how best to use the highly-prized park.  More than a dozen Potrero Hill civic groups – ranging from parent associations to dog lovers – are weighing-in on the park’s future.  Although conflict has emerged over how best to use the green space, all involved agree:  McKinley Square should be properly maintained as clean, green, safe, and accessible.  

Two decades ago McKinley Square was a magnet for the dispossessed, taken captive at night by ranks of homeless, drug users and dealers, and prostitutes. The park was littered with discarded needles and condoms.  After sunset families and seniors rarely ventured into the space.  In 1993 former Hill residents Joan Ryssin-Anthony and Cathy Franklin started Friends of McKinley Square Park (FOMS) to spearhead efforts to make the park safe for neighborhood residents, particularly parents and their children.  

FOMS worked with the City to raise $750,000, a staggering amount of money at the time.  The funds were used to remove abandoned bathroom facilities, making the park less friendly to homeless and transient troublemakers, and to re-configure park grounds, creating open space, an upper terrace and children’s play areas.  By 2000 McKinley Square was flourishing, drawing in families from throughout the City to enjoy its steady sunshine, as well as herds of neighborhood dog walkers.

In 2004 a rash of crime prompted software entrepreneur Cris Rys to start an online discussion group, mckinleysquare.com, focusing on unwanted activity around the park.  “My home, neighbors, liquor store, multiple neighbors on San Bruno Avenue had been broken into,” Rys recalled.  The online chatter evolved to encompass a variety of neighborhood concerns:  lost pets, garage sales and traffic calming.  Earlier this year McKinley Square Community Association (MSCA) “banded together off-line because of the condition of the park,” which include dead or dying grass resulting from a broken solar-powered sprinkler system, according to Rys.  Around the same time Joyce Book, who lives across from the open space, founded McKinley Square Park Foundation (MSPF) to raise funds for park improvements.  

Working together, and sometimes apart, MSCA and MSPF, among other civic groups, convinced the City to re-sod the lawn, at a cost of roughly $35,000.  “Repeated calls to electrical maintenance shop management, and the heavy equipment division of the City’s Rec and Parks department by MSCA board members probably helped the process along,” said Rys, with a slight smile.  But making the grass grow is just the start of MSCA’s long wish list for the park.  The association wants to add a new pathway to existing benches once the temporary fence comes down, and new stairs on the park’s hilly, western side.  MSCA is also calling for a community kiosk, more wood chips, doggie poop bag receptacles and a new water fountain with doggie bowl near 20th street and San Bruno Avenue.

In July MSCA installed a board of nine directors, including Rys, D.B. Spahn, Tom Strother, Jane Westfall, Susan Reiner-Lyon, Tricia Lawrence, Susanna Upton, Jason Johnson and Christopher Irion.  While not yet a nonprofit, MSCA is fiscally sponsored by San Francisco Parks Trust.  In addition to park improvements, the association is organizing volunteers for foxtail eradication, keeping an eye on the annual Big Wheel race on Vermont Street’s curvy section, and helping to establish a new community garden at “The Benches” at 18th and San Bruno Avenue.  Rys has floated the idea of adding two new art benches in McKinley Square, possibly recruiting local kids or artists to make mosaic tiles for them.

Like many online groups populated by participants who are passionate about their concerns, MSCA’s online discussions have occasionally grown heated, leading to screening of messages by listserv monitors.  This, in turn, triggered a backlash by residents concerned about censorship.  At the association’s first board meeting, dot.com retiree and new dog owner Strother read from a pile of emails he’d printed out, asking if people thought they crossed lines of civility into personal attacks or foul language.  One attendee loudly resigned from the group because of what he said were “too many personal attacks on me instead of focusing on the group’s mission.”   

 “Although the money raised by FOMS was well-spent, in today’s market, three-quarters of a million dollars doesn’t go far enough,” said MSPF’s Book.  Book called on Potrero Hill’s community leaders to become foundation trustees, roping in a stellar crew, including Downtown High School principal Mark Alvarado, Friends of Franklin Square’s Antje Kann and Lester Zeidman, owner of Good Life Grocery.  Other trustees include O’Neill, Michelle Stephens, Harry Ault, Peggy Lopipero-Langmo, Frank Gilson, and Dick Millet.  Book is looking to fill two more board seats.  MSPF has already procured a $25,000 contribution from a private donor, and is looking to apply for funds from the Community Opportunity Fund and Challenge Grant, both sponsored by the City.  “We are committed to raising money on behalf of the community to make long-term improvements at our park,” Book said.    

Book has lived across from McKinley Square since she built her house on Vermont Street almost a decade ago.  Like many Hill residents she feels passionately about the park, calling it a “tiny gem.” With a background in mass communications and chief executive officer of her own media venture, Book is most interested in fundraising to expedite park improvements.  “Early on, we made a commitment to our community and with RPD [Recreation and Park Department]; to partner with them, be under their direction and guidance,” said Book. “We look to RPD to lead in community outreach and education.”  RPD launched the first of a series of park visioning meetings late last month.

According to Book, MSPF stewarded 13 neighborhood groups to apply for grants, under RPD’s overall direction, resulting in $2,000 in awards.  A portion of these funds went to the McKinley Square children’s group, sponsored by MSCA board member Upton; the rest was directed to Friends of McKinley Square Park, sponsored by MSCA treasurer Strother.  The monies will pay for a foxtail eradication effort, among other things.  

“There’s an overwhelming number of Hill residents who are what a research polling firm described as ‘politically active,’” said Book “and they are very diverse and well-organized.”  They include “a five-person Kansas Street group headed by Raymond O’Connor, the 300-plus Potrero Neighbors group headed by Julie Jackson, April Ellis’ San Bruno Avenue group that focuses on ‘the Benches,’ to the community garden and we can’t forget Potrero Hill Beautiful!”  said Book.  Then there’s the Potrero Hill Parents Association, with 500-plus active members, according to O’Neill.  All told, “there are probably 1,600-plus people who are actively involved in the planning issues surrounding our park,” said Book.

“The demographics of Potrero Hill have changed drastically in the last five to 10 years,” asserted Book. “We’re seeing an increase in families, small children who are staying put well past the three to five-year-old turnaround, and dogs.  In this economy, we’re also seeing more people enjoying their neighborhood park versus driving across town to Golden Gate Park and beyond,” said Book.

According to Strother, RPD data suggests that the off-leash dog play area comprises roughly 60 percent of the park; 1.6 acres out of total of 2.8 acres.  Book, who has two dogs, said, “If you go to the park from 5 to 8 p.m. every night, you’ll see lots of dogs running around.”  While the majority of the park is dedicated to dogs, the off-leash area isn’t easily accessible, nor particularly safe due to the prevalence of foxtail weeds, which can be fatal to dogs.  “If you look at what the dogs have, it’s the hillside,” said Strother.  As a result, dogs and families tend to be squeezed into a limited space.  

The dogs versus children debate has popped up in virtually every City park, as more people and dogs are squeezed into finite green spaces.  According to the Trust for Public Land (TPD), San Francisco ranks third nationwide in terms of the number of dog parks per 100,000 residents in the nation.  TPD also indicates that San Francisco is first when it comes to park-related expenditures per resident.

According to Book, this month MSPF will hire a landscape architectural firm to work with the community and RPD to design a long-term, master plan for the park, one that Book hopes will serve “generations to come.  We’re looking to solutions that will increase usage all throughout the entire six acres of the park,” Book said.  “Because we feel that’s healthy.  Healthy parks foster healthy communities. Part of that is to increase accessibility for seniors, toddlers, the disabled.”

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