Rec and Park Manager Opens Door to Private Sponsorships of Parks

Solution to Rec and Park's budget woes: sell out? The general manager of the city's park department is now a fan of Central Park's public-private setup in New York: "Everything — everything — is named: every bench, every tree. And it's done very modestly, very tastefully." Just color us surprised if those words don't set off a nuclear bomb. At one point, the folks that take care of the Golden Gate Bridge suggested something similar — tasteful, "low-key" sponsorships — and got shot down. (Now they're going the adventure tourism route to rake in more money.) Anyway, it seems the Chron story today only represents a dip of the toe in the water, to see how San Franciscans would react to the idea of "coffee kiosks and hot dog stands" in their parks.
· Public-private pairing envisioned for S.F. parks [SFGate]