[msie]

Why can't the locals deal with a reservation system? The fields are a shared resource paid for by all SF taxpayers, not just the local community. It seems the city did its best to inform everyone of the reservation system but some people will just ignore the rules. Not that I think it's right that the kids can't use the fields in the evening. I don't know all the details. Maybe there are some evenings blocked off for unreserved use. Maybe the locals want no reservation system at all. There has to be some give and take here. This has been turned into another anti-gentrification, anti-tech issue. At least some of the tech-workers are SF citizens and "locals" too. In some other parts of the world reservation systems work.

[esturk]

The point you're glossing over is the kids have no representation in the local city council. Yeah, people go on making laws and claiming they know what's best for children, but no one ever bother to ask them. In another extreme case, some adults entirely dismiss the kid's perspective claiming these issues go over their head.

This didn't turn into a gentrification issue as it is very much a class struggle issue from the beginning. (And as such, a gentrification issue.) Kids don't have money to pay to play, so they can't even share the field?

[msie]

Yes, I realize the kids have no representation and I should have elaborated on that. The community leaders who supposedly are representing the kids at the city hall protest should have been their voice at all those meetings. It would be outrageous that the city council didn't think of the kids when they drafted the policy.

Parks and recreation general manager Phil Ginsburg said that his department made that decision after notifying 700 community leaders and all residents within a quarter-mile of the park in English and Spanish and holding three community meetings back in 2009. He said that the new system left the park open for drop-in play 96 percent of the time.

With the park open for drop-in play 96% of the time surely there was evening time for the kids? Did nothing come from notifying 700 community leaders and holding 3 community meetings? Of course the parks board may have ignored all the recommendations, but what do they gain with a paltry $27 per reservation fee? I don't think the community activists will be happy until they get rid of the reservation system. There was probably a lot of compromise in the park plan and here we are with one side complaining.

Yes, some issues go over a kid's head and many adults too.

[wtbob]

> The point you're glossing over is the kids have no representation in the local city council.

Nonsense; they have the same representation anyone else in San Francisco has. The fact that they cannot vote doors not mean that they are not represented.

Moreover, this being America, their parents or guardians can vote.

[x0x0]

If you seriously believe that poor people, middle class, and upper class people all get the same representation in sf -- or anywhere in America -- and the same returns to their tax dollars, you're a willfully blind idiot. After all, whose kids just got prime hours in the local parks auctioned off?