Beach visitors’ center will stay open, but unstaffed
By: Beth Winegarner
Examiner Staff Writer
January 30, 2009
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| Rosa Linda Robinson, Assistant Recreation Director for the Beach Chalet visitor center, has worked there for the past 12 years. (Cindy Chew/The Examiner) |
SAN FRANCISCO — Come mid-February, two staffers at the Beach Chalet, San Francisco’s only coastside visitors’ center, will be laid off, leaving tourists to pick up visitor guides — and navigate the site’s historic murals and architecture — on their own.
The workers run docent tours and provide tips on amenities citywide, from hotels to museums to parks, said Rosa Robinson, who has worked in the visitors’ center for 11 years.
The positions were cut to save the Recreation and Park Department $137,000 per year, which is part of $2.5 million in budget cuts made in December in response to The City’s projected budget deficit for this fiscal year.
Their last day will be Feb. 20, after which the center will remain open, but unstaffed, according to Rec and Park spokeswoman Lisa Seitz Gruwell.
“They’ve talked about transferring us, but we haven’t heard anything,” Robinson said. “We do everything — we have everything the visitors’ center downtown has. We have nine or 10 tour buses a day come through.”
The Beach Chalet opened to the public in 1925, and at that time had a lounge and changing room on the first floor and a restaurant above, according to the Web site for the Beach Chalet restaurant, which currently offers diners second-floor views of the Pacific Ocean.
It was later used as barracks for troops, but now the first floor serves as a welcome center for the park.
In addition to letting tourists in on San Francisco’s many attractions, the employees also teach about the architecture of the Beach Chalet, designed by Willis Polk, along with its Works Progress Administration-era murals, mosaics and wood carvings.
Additionally, they take care of odds and ends — from stray dogs to homeless humans — and warn beach visitors about the dangers of the surf, which has taken seven lives since Robinson started working there, she said.
“It’s important to have staff at the Beach Chalet,” said Rec and Park Interim Director Jared Blumenfeld, who made the cuts. “But when you look at someone running a basketball program for kids, or a custodian cleaning bathrooms in Golden Gate Park … we tried to cut in areas we thought would have the least impact.”
Blumenfeld cut a total of nine staffers in December and said the public can expect more park layoffs in the coming months as the department struggles to identify $8.8 million it can cut from its budget in the 2009-10 fiscal year.
Rec and Park layoffs
In December, nine Recreation and Park Department positions were cut in a move that will save $620,000 per year. Among the cuts were:
1 Recreation supervisor
2 Recreation directors
1.5 Assistant recreation directors
2 Executive secretaries
1 Secretary
1 Clerk
Source: Recreation and Park Department
