Letter to the Editor

Editor: Now that the SF Board of Supervisors have passed the $7 "non-resident" Strybing Arboretum fee, will the San Francisco Botanical Garden Society be given carte blanche to do what they like with "their" botanical gardens? Will members enter free? Will prudent cost controls be implemented? Or, will the Society be able to run wild with taxpayer funds (as they already have with the new roads inside and the just- installed feudal-style banners)?

Hopefully, someone at City Hall is paying attention to the terms of the forthcoming Memorandum of Understanding between the SF Recreation and Park Department and the Society. However, given the execrable performance of our legislators and bureaucrats this may well be a false hope.

Hopefully, supervisors such as Sean Elsbernd and Carmen Chu, who both voted for the privatization, will take the professional responsibility to ensure that Society members will also be subject to the "non-resident" fees and that the Society's commercial excesses at the Arboretum are in check under the new regimen.

Hopefully.

Harry S. Pariser