There are some changes in the works for San Francisco's Botanical Garden at Strybing Arboretum.
The City will be reviewing this summer the arrangement it has with the San Francisco Botanical Garden Society, the private non-profit established in 1955 to work collaboratively with the city's Botanical Garden. The SFBGS has, by the city's reckoning, been responsible over the years for providing fundraising and management support for the garden, as well as for propagating plants for the garden sale and the garden itself. The SFBGS also operates, currently, as the private contractor responsible for collecting admission fees from nonresidents, a revision to the garden's open-door policy instituted almost two years ago on a trial basis by the Board of Supervisors. (In the past two years they've collected about $1.3 million, $750,000 of which went back to the SFBGS as reimbursement for collecting the fees.) The nonresident entry fee ($7) is set to expire this September.
Flickr/Topher.
Currently, though, it looks like the City is ready not just to extend the fee but to offer the SFBGS a 10 year contract (with 2 potential 10 year extensions) to lease additional space and build a new 10,000 square foot plant nursery. You can review the terms of the contract over here.
The plan seems to be an attempt on the city's part to establish the Botanical Garden as a more sustainable enterprise in the face of the kinds of financial pressures faced by large, public parks everywhere.
So far there's been a small base of very vocal opposition to the plan. This is the only place the conditions of the new contract are being publicized, and the only place publicizing the fact (which is true) that the SFBGS is shelling out as much as $15,000 a fiscal quarter for a lobbyist.
At the same time, a few crucial things to make clear:
1) the SFBGS already leases a bunch of space from the Botanical Garden; the contract is for an expansion of their space.
2) Most of the opposition is apparently positioned against the single major difference scheduled to take place, which is the expansion of a new plant nursery into the surrounding area, which by one reckoning involves felling numerous trees and by the city's language involves expanding into surrounding concrete (look for yourself).
3) The plan would not involve leasing the entire 55-acre park to the SFBGS, but only expanding their extant lease of sales, ticketing, nursery and educational space and adding a new nursery building.
4) The plan is apparently for the SFBGS to assume a large part of the garden's administrative and management responsibilities, which may or may not reduce the financial burden of paying City administrators to operate the park on tax dollars.
Oh, we might also mention, it looks like the SFBGS is hiring a development director. We didn't ask how much they pay.
Anyway, whaddya think? Should the garden go back into city-only management? Should the nonresident fee get the kabosh? We're undecided. If you have feelings you need to contact your Supervisor ASAP.
The City will be reviewing this summer the arrangement it has with the San Francisco Botanical Garden Society, the private non-profit established in 1955 to work collaboratively with the city's Botanical Garden. The SFBGS has, by the city's reckoning, been responsible over the years for providing fundraising and management support for the garden, as well as for propagating plants for the garden sale and the garden itself. The SFBGS also operates, currently, as the private contractor responsible for collecting admission fees from nonresidents, a revision to the garden's open-door policy instituted almost two years ago on a trial basis by the Board of Supervisors. (In the past two years they've collected about $1.3 million, $750,000 of which went back to the SFBGS as reimbursement for collecting the fees.) The nonresident entry fee ($7) is set to expire this September.
Flickr/Topher.
