Sam Spade's San Francisco

The San Francisco Clean and Green City Summit is presented by Mayor Gavin Newsom, the Department of Public Works, the SF Clean City Coalition and the Recreation and Park Department. This all day FREE event will feature cleaning and greening experts, interactive workshops, inspirational speakers, a vendor gallery and more.

Participants will receive a rich learning experience on the city’s and the country’s best practices while developing new ideas and solutions for our year round cleaning and greening programs.

The summit will be held on Wednesday, February 15, 2006 at the San Francisco County Fair Building in Golden Gate Park from 8:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. The summit is free of charge, however, advanced registration is required. Please register today. Space is limited.

This all day event will team up a coalition of city residents, community leaders, and merchants with city government leaders and frontline staff to exchange ideas, develop policy initiatives and provide direction for the City as it continues to clean and beautify its public plazas, parks, and merchant corridors.

You will attend two workshops of your choice and these sessions will be both educational as well as interactive. At the end of each workshop, attendees will have prioritized city functions with an understanding of the opportunities and challenges the City faces as it cleans and greens San Francisco.

In addition to workshops, there will be speakers, lunch and a vendor gallery.



(A) What is Greening?
This workshop will discuss the challenges to building a comprehensive citywide greening program. What is the city’s vision for greening, and how will it change the city? An initial presentation will focus on the Mayor’s “Livable City Initiative” and streetscaping projects underway as part of the Better Streets Program.

(B) Community Benefit Districts
This workshop will explore how Community Benefit Districts (CBD) improve neighborhoods and commercial corridors. CBDs are revitialization and beautification efforts that are funded through private property owners. Base line services provided by the City will be detailed. Technical Assistance will be provided for developing a work plan to establish an increased level of service.

(C) Neighborhood Beautification Projects
Permeable Landscaping and Street Parks This workshop will review recent innovative street landscaping projects in San Francisco and elsewhere, and discuss several new initiatives to promote sidewalk landscaping and the creation of usable public open space in unused rights-of-way.

(D) A Plan for San Francisco’s Urban Forest
With the Mayors commitment to greening San Francisco’s streets, city agencies and community-based organizations must implement creative solutions to expand their tree planting, maintenance, and conservation programs beyond current capacity. This workshop will review efforts underway to develop a framework for promoting green streets. Presenters will summarize urban forest plans underway, developing legislation, and evolving partnerships with a perspective toward the future of San Francisco’s urban forest.

(E) Growing Greener Schoolgrounds
This workshop will inform the participant about innovations taking place in our schoolyards around the city. Traditional asphalt playyards are being replaced by educational gardens tended and stewarded by schoolchildren. Learn who the players are and how to get involved in this collaboration between the San Francisco Green Schoolyard Alliance and the San Francisco Unified School District. Presentation will include discussions about existing school gardens and new greening projects under the Prop. A school bond.

(F) Creating World Class Standards in our Parks
Learning from the past, looking toward the future. The Recreation and Park Department is creating new park maintenance standards. Come and learn what they are and add your input. National models will be reviewed and presented.



(A) Enforcing Quality of Life Laws
How can we stop people from trashing our City? Education and enforcement are keys to changing behavior that leads to a littered and graffitied city. This workshop will present information on quality of life laws, graffiti prosecutions, camera programs, and the City’s Citation Walk Program and Special Patrols as models for deterring bad behavior. Participants will discuss how to make these programs more effective and how current city ordinances can be improved.

(B) Neighborhood Beautification Projects- Community Challenge Grants
Presentation on how to develop and apply for improvement and beautification projects from the Neighborhood Beautification Fund/Community Challenge Grant Program. Neighborhood-based groups can apply for and receive funds to carry out neighborhood-initiated planning, organizing, or improvement projects in their community. All projects must provide a public benefit as well as emphasize neighborhood involvement.

(C) Moving Toward Zero Waste by 2020
San Francisco has set ambitious goals for reaching zero waste by the year 2020. Participants in this workshop will hear San Francisco's waste diversion strategies and best practices from other cities. Come with your suggestions for increasing both residential and commercial waste diversion.

(D) Equipment and Tools to Clean and Green our City
This workshop will provide participants with the resources and methods to evaluate and procure the various types of equipment currently used to clean and green our City. Equipment demonstrations will be provided and environmentally friendly purchasing options will be reviewed.

(E) Plazas & Gateways
This workshop will engage the participant into thinking about creative new approaches to beautifying San Francisco’s public spaces and gateways into the City. Transforming freeway off ramps, city plazas and street medians into places of intrigue and exploration through community participation, space activation, art enrichment, lighting and landscaping.



1) Register online here.

2) Fax Registration Form to: . Click here to download a .pdf (Adboe Acrobat) version of the registrartion form.

3) Mail Registration Form to:
Department of Public Works
1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, Room 348
San Francisco, CA 94102-4645