The Gardeners Fire Back

San Francisco's maligned park gardeners have launched a defensive salvo against their most persistent foe. That wouldn't be bugs and weeds, but rather recurring news reports that they're corrupt.

In 2004, workers for a city-funded nonprofit organization called the San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners, or SLUG, were alleged to have been pressured to volunteer on Gavin Newsom's mayoral campaign for fear of losing their jobs.

In 2006, a longtime San Francisco parks gardener leaped to his death off the Golden Gate Bridge after a TV news story alleged he was among goldbrickers on the gardening staff. And earlier this week, a story in the San Francisco Examiner described a city report showing gardeners aren't always where their schedule says they'll be as evidence of more goldbricking. The Recreation and Parks Department swung a shovel in the Ex's direction Thursday with a top brass-approved letter from a gardener accusing the Monarch of the Dailies of inaccurately maligning his brethren.

To wit:

San Francisco is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, due in no small part to our stunning parks and open spaces. Our city's 220 parks comprise twenty percent of the seven by seven square miles that make up our city. We have almost ten square miles of park land, enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of people everyday and maintained at the moment by just 231 hardworking gardeners.

I am one of those gardeners, so when I read the article "Gardeners AWOL in SF Parks" I found myself in a state of disbelief. The article sites [sic] a Controller's report that concludes that the condition of San Francisco's parks is improving even as the number of gardeners is decreasing. This is an extremely positive report for us, but the Examiner chose to focus on a finding that shows that gardeners are only at a particular park during their scheduled time 40 to 54 percent of the time. The Examiner concludes the reason for this is that we are AWOL.

Let me offer a different theory: The city's gardeners are not sitting still and that makes us difficult to count.

Every morning, I receive a number of 311 notices from the public of problems in the park. This morning was no exception: tires and broken glass dumped in playgrounds, cars driving into parks breaking irrigation, mattresses and hazardous waste (oil and razors), and home garbage dumped in tennis courts. We try to take care of these problems within 24 hours.

Our gardeners go to where the problems are first. Then, we report to where we are scheduled to be. You call it AWOL, most would call it being responsive to the public.

As a result, our parks are improving -- as the report concludes - and that is thanks to the hard work of our city's gardeners.

Robert Sheets
SF Gardener