“One issue that I am hopeful someone will take up is the claim by the Recreation and Parks Department’s Director Phil Ginsburg that “We want as much open space as possible, but we also need to have a way to care for it.” That was his quote in reference to why the City’s Recreation and Parks Department is unwilling to accept the donation of the park built in front of the new Rincon Green Apartments at 333 Harrison Street. Read the article here (hopefully, the shared full article will appear: http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Creating-new-park-no-picnic-for-broke-city-4490422.php?t=27ec6d327d3f99889e
“This is a lie from Phil Ginsburg and it should infuriate everyone who lives in the Rincon neighborhood or nearby. Why do I say it is a lie?”
Hey, speaking of Gavin Newsom lackey Phil Ginsburg, a few years back he had a total boner for this nearby project at Justin Herman and yet NOBODY HAS EVER USED IT EXCEPT FOR OCCUPY SF FOR A FEW MONTHS.
Gavin Newsom lackey Phil Ginsburg must be aware, I mean he’s not stupid, that this bocce thing was/is a big fat waste, but he’s afraid to acknowledge this because then he’d have to get a job in the real world.
Up first is the effort from official Mayor Ed Lee lickspittle CW Nevius:
Click to expand
Mmmm…
I’ll reserve comment else I’ll get Blocked from his Twitter feed (again. You know, for calling him an SFGov lickspittle last month, which he totally is.)
“With the birth of my first son, a ridiculously overwhelming list of work-related projects, and the fact that I was recently priced out of the South of Market Neighborhood and forced to move to a part of the City where homeless people aren’t constantly pooping on my doorstep (GASP!), I have decided not to continue.
With that said, if anyone out there would like to dust off LiveSOMA, I will gladly help you take it over. I would really hate to see the site- and its years of development- go to waste. Just shoot me an email. If not, I will be pulling the plug after the new year.”
“The proposal is to convert the existing church into a single family residence.”
Well, that’s direct, huh, right there in black and white.
[RACIAL SUBTEXT MODE = ON] Uh, so the Western Addition is losing yet another African-American church so yet another millionaire white family can move in, except realtors* call it the North of Panhandle Area now because it doesn’t have the baggage associated with the Western A? That’s my guess, but tell if I’m way off on this one, Gentle Reader. [RACIAL SUBTEXT MODE = OFF]
Via Redfin.com: “601 Broderick is a charming old church … in the heart of NOPA. Not for the faint of heart or faithless, this property needs a revival. … make them believers. Heaven only knows what the possibilities could be!” Receiving multiple offers on first showing, the sale closed before the For Sale sign was hammered in the ground. Highland Ferndale Partners, a luxury home developer purchased the church for restoration and resale. David Papale, partner and realtor, prefers not to disclose the sale price, but redfin.com notes the price clearly at $1,401,000, 40% over asking, a sizable investment in the future of the community. One might speculate, since this is real estate, that the sale price is more than adequate to cover the losses the bank faced in foreclosure on their faulty loan, a profit unrealized by the church. Mr. Papale claims, while the possibilities for the property include six units, it will be restored as a single family home and to its original Victorian appearance without “that horrible addition.”
And then festivities will end, of course, this Friday with the big 20th Anniversary Ride the evening of September 28th, 2012. (Not that you’d know it from the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition website’s ”Chain of Events” section, where all info about CM* is now censored.)
“It started with a bike ride in San Francisco on Sept. 25, 1992. About 50 people cycled in a pack along Market Street, hoping to earn some respect from drivers who sometimes ignored them or edged them off the road. They called it the “Commute Clot.” Today it’s known as Critical Mass, a movement that’s spread worldwide. Supporters say it promotes cycling and the rights of bicyclists. But critics say it is illegal, clogs traffic and antagonizes drivers. We talk about Critical Mass’ 20th anniversary, and its effects on the city.
Host: Michael Krasny
Guests:
Chris Carlsson, co-founder of Critical Mass who was part of the first ride on Sept. 25, 1992, and has since participated in Critical Mass rides in Milan, Vancouver and Porto Alegre, Brazil
Tune in at 10:00 on your radio or on your device, Listen Live.
*The SFBC raises money through fees but it also gets mucho dinero directly from SFGov. So that’s why it endorsed Ed Lee for Mayor even though SFBC’s members generally did not and still do not like Ed Lee. Similarly, Chrstina Olague, Mayor Ed Lee’s hand-picked recruit for District 5 Supervisor, gets endorsed over Julian Davis even though SFBC members actually favor JD. The SFBC is basically a quasi-government agency now, so it’s very afraid of seeming to say something negative about certain members of the City Family. It’s also afraid of hurting the chances of its officers someday getting jobs / health care directly with SFGov / SFMTA. Anyway, that’s why the SFBC is basically a SFGov kiss-ass these days. It will lobby San Francisco government, certainly, but that’s about as far as it wants to go. (Think about it – who would the SFMTA endorse for Mayor?)
So Ed Reiskin went to Harvard so he could be a do-boy for Willie Brown / Gavin Newsom / Ed Lee?
It looks that way.
Hey, why isn’t the head of MUNI an elected position? Mmmm…
Anyway, here’s the latest. Our SFMTA / MUNI / DPT, speaking through the City Attorney’s Office, doesn’t like being made fun of, so they’re going after individual Zazzle T-shirt makers.
In related news, remember this one, about the MUNI* Death Spiral? Look to see who, along with Joe Eskenazi, wrote that.
In closing, MUNI sucks, even harder than you think.
*Man, the stuff hit the fan at MUNI after that bit came out. There was a big meeting presided over by the guy who preceded Ed Reiskin. Actually, that guy later claimed to have not even read that bit. Anyway, this epic meeting that never happened is now enshrined in local lore. Ask your favorite City Family member about it sometime.
“Mission District resident and blogger Kevin Montgomery, Greg Dewar of the N-Judah Chronicles, and former SF Weekly Colunist, Patrick Connors launched stopedlee.com listing four reasons to vote for anyone but Ed Lee. None of them are connected to any candidate in the 2011 San Francisco mayoral race, the website notes.”
“We have to beat Ed Lee on his own medium. Using millions in donations from out-of-town millionaires and billionaires, he has gamed social media to spread the deceptive message that he represents San Francisco’s best interests.
Let’s get the message out there that Ed Lee the next chapter in a 16-year-old political machine that has notgotten it done for SF. Join us in making #EdLeeNot4Me a trending topic right before Tuesday’s election.
Tell your friends and followers on Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr why you are not voting for Lee. If you cannot think of what to say, copy and paste what we said—we won’t mind.
If you’ve already decided who you’re voting for, volunteer on election day for the campaign. And most importantly, VOTE!”
Blogger Michael Petrelis has recently been nosing around the issue of those horrible green pedmount news rack monsters that the corrupt WillieBrownGavinNewsomEdLee administration loves so.
Anyway, I’ve never met the man myself but this is an artist’s impression of what M. Petrelis looks like when he’s on the case against corruption from our City Family.
I’d tell you the name of the movie this is from, but that would be racist,* somehow.
Anyway, Petrelis was nosing around, as he’s wont to do, and then one of DPW’s webpages evolved a bit.
So, first it was all like this:
“The NAC meets regularly to discuss policies and procedures and to make recommendations to the Director of Public Works to amend the Guidelines Regarding News Racks and other progam needs.”
“Advisory committee members are newspaper distributors and concerned citizens appointed by the Director of Public Works.The NAC meets regularly to discuss policies and procedures and to make recommendations to the Director of Public Works to amend the Guidelines Regarding News Racks and other progam needs. Meetings are scheduled on the 2nd Tuesday of each month.”
Who’s doing what now? Were the relevant policies wrong before? Are they right now?
I know not.
Let’s hope Michael can get to the bottom of this soon.
*And then maybe, you know, to punish me, a signals intelligence officer working at the Chinese consulate near Japantown could packet sniff my cell again.**
**Now I’m not even sure about the first time. But I remember picking up some election stuff and a handcart at City Hall*** on a Friday evening, you know, using Mom’s Taxi,**** and it was the anniversary of something horrible that the backward, unelected, one-party-state that is the People’s Republic of China had done, so I figured I’d drop by Laguna on my home on Turk, check out the scene, see how many Feds are hanging about. It was boring so I sat in Mom’s taxi checking the gMail before heading out. Twelve hours later I get an email from Google telling me how I’d been hacked from somewhere in the PRC, ostensibly, on the East Coast – I checked the location on a map. That kind of thing hasn’t happened before and it hasn’t happened since. (And if somebody read my emails, I don’t really care anyway, as I haven’t ever really been in contact with the Tibetans or whomever might scheme to attack or whatever.) But, when there’s a protest going on around that consulate, you might want to consider taking the battery pack out of your mobile, just saying. Now I’m sure that the United States spies on China the same way that our Chinese Consulate on Geary conducts espionage on San Franciscans so I guess it all evens out in the great scheme of things. And maybe the hack was a coinkidink, don’t know. (China has more than a few freelance hackers, of course.)
***Now how on Gaia’s Green Earth does the Department of Elections get away with paying pollworkers less than minimum wage for a 15 hour day on Election Day plus three hours of unpaid training? It’s not considered work? There’s some exception? I gots to know. They called me again yesterday, following up on the numerous letters they’ve already sent out. 1. No, I don’t want to work this election. 2. No, I don’t want to work future elections. (Short phone call.) You know, maybe if the City paid election workers at least minimum wage, you know, the way they require everybody else in town to pay minimum wage, then the City wouldn’t have such a hard time finding workers who don’t go psycho and steal ballots and cell phones and whatnot? Maybe? Anyway, IMO the only reason to sign up for a pollworker gig is to get out of working for a campaign, which, back in the day, I was more or less required to do, you know, take vacation days off to work on campaigns else my supe, a so-called Constitutional Officer of the State of California would frown a perfect upside-down smile at me. And you don’t want that. And oh yes, remember to not tell the Fiona people you’re also working on Leland’s campaign and to not tell the Leland people you’re also working on Fiona’s campaign, cause, you know. Ah mem’ries.
****Which is actually an aging 8-passenger Toyota (which is actually shorter than some two-door Camry Solaras), but don’t worry – it has an old-school throttle cable going through the firewall and an electronic throttle position sensor doohicky too, belts-and-suspenders style, so I’ll have no one to blame when I get caught speeding on the superslab or crashing into things…
