Capt. Richard Corriea: Report on bluegrass fest.

Capt. Richard Corriea

Lindley Meadows came alive with the sound of music on Friday Oct. 3, at 10 a.m., as the annual Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival opened in Golden Gate Park. The event, which is sponsored by Warren Hellman and has occurred annually since 2001, consisted of nine sound stages spread over the park's Lindley, Marx and Speedway meadows. After a two-hour concert and picnic lunch for local middle-school students, the event ran daily through Sunday night at 8 p.m.

Richmond Station has worked collaboratively with the event promoters since the first festival and this year was no exception. Dawn Holiday, Eliote Durham and Sheri Sternberg of Slims Productions appreciated our public safety concerns and supported our recommended police staffing levels. The cost of policing the event was paid by the promoter.

I was present for the entire event and can report that over-all the tenor of the festival crowd was peaceful and we had very few police incidents. Alcohol was not sold at the event, which is a significant reason why our crowd issues were minimal. Since alcohol consumption is permitted at Speedway and nearby meadows, some folks attending this free festival brought alcoholic beverages with them.

Police arrested four individuals for public intoxication and several thefts were reported. Also, an individual was injured in an altercation and needed medical treatment for a head laceration. We did have some overcrowding in parts of the venue on Saturday, which were eliminated the next day by the installation of additional fencing. There was a small brush fire south of Speedway Meadows and strong winds on Saturday blew over two large eucalyptus trees near crowds gathered by Marx Meadows. It is unlawful to smoke in the park and officers received complaints about this behavior.

Festival medical services were provided by Rock-Med, a private contractor. Most treatment was provided at the venue, however some cases required transportation to local hospitals. There were six medical emergencies that required an ambulance.

One item of particular concern was traffic congestion north and south on 19th Avenue and other streets surrounding the venue. Some of the congestion could be attributed simply to the large number of people that attended the event. However; the situation was made worse by a significant amount of illegal parking of vehicles in and around the park. In fact, Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive was essentially reduced to a one way street due to illegally parked vehicles. Many motorists parked on the grass in various parts of the park.

John F. Kennedy Drive was closed to vehicle traffic between Transverse Drive and 36th Avenue as planned for duration of the Festival. Transverse was closed between 25th Avenue and Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive. Outside of these areas we encountered a significant amount of illegal parking, especially on grass adjacent to park roadways.

The Municipal Railway provided additional bus service to and from the festival and many attendees used public transportation. Others rode bicycles to the Festival and in spite of more bicycle parking than last year the bicycle parking areas were filled to capacity by mid-day on both Saturday and Sunday.

On Oct. 26, officer Jill Connolly met with promoters to discuss the festival and also to consider areas that can be improved upon for future events. The consensus was that future festivals should end by 7 p.m., rather than 8 p.m. as was the case this year. Given the time that the sun sets at this time of year it was bit too dark after 7 p.m.

The promoters were concerned about the illegal parking and agreed to work with us to develop solutions to assure that we don't have problems in the future. In additional to using enforcement tools for parking and congestion problems, I suggested outreach to encourage the public to utilize alternative and public transportation. The promoters agreed to expand bicycle parking capacity for next year's event.

The promoters are looking forward to the next Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival which will start on Oct. 1, 2010 and run three days. I look forward to working with them and keeping community and public safety concerns in the forefront of our discussions.

Motor Vehicle issues in the Richmond

As of Sept. 30, there have been 215 injury accidents in the Richmond District. During the entire year of 2008 there were 310 injury accidents, including four fatalities.

Richmond Station officers have arrested 99 drivers for DUI as of Sept. 30. There have been no fatalities this year. Please drive carefully and obey all traffic laws.

Auto burglaries continue to be a significant problem in the District. In nearly every break-in there were items of value left visible in the passenger area of the victim's car. Items most often reported taken include: GPS devices, lap-top computers, brief cases, luggage, purses, coins, CDs, cigarettes and empty packages of all types.

Around Richmond Station

We are in the process of forming a community advisory board for the Richmond Police District. If the notion of participating interests you, kindly send me an e-mail and I will send you some literature that describes the functions of the board, time commitments and objectives. If you have already sent me an e-mail I will be sending out literature this week.

Please attend the next Community/Police Forum on Nov. 17, at 7 p.m., at the Richmond Station, which is located at 461 Sixth Avenue. Our guest speaker is Major Wu, commander of the United States Park Police, the organization that provides police services in the Golden Gate National recreation area.

Richmond Station distributes an email newsletter weekly. Our newsletter contains information about recent crimes, arrests and events in the District. To receive the newsletter, please e-mail us at sfpd.richmondstation@sfgov.org. You can also visit http://richmondforum.wordpress.com to see the current station newsletter, past editions and periodic public safety advisories.

Capt. Richard Corriea is the commanding officer at the Richmond Station.