And all the while, the honking yellow Hummer of Main Contractor Synergy Project Management was discretely parked across the street, as discretely as possible given that it’s a honking yellow Hummer:
The mise-en-scene inside -it’s like a mini water park. Throw in an orca or two and then there’d be no reason to travel to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom (aka Marine World) in Vallejo:
But who’s that atop the ladder for the yellow slide wearing his street clothes? It’s Ross!
This speaker was no fan of the new fees at the San Francisco Botanical Garden. Certainly, he was outnumbered last night:
What if the fees get approved and things don’t work out? Then down will come the pay kiosks and then other options, possibly a ”tasteful sponsorship” (such as the “Chuck Schwab Co. Australia Garden*” or something) could generate a little money.
We’ll Find Out Soon Enough.
*Words from a Commissioner last night, they didn’t make the transcript.
Indeed. These picketers, called the “Society people” by their opponents, support the idea of charging non-residents $7 to get into Strybing. Why? So there’s enough money around such that three Strybing-dedicated gardeners won’t get laid off during our Great Recession.
This gaggle of self-described “plant people” certainly are timely, as the Board of the Recreation and Park Department (RPD) will decide thisauslander admission issue on Thursday, March 4th at City Hall. The question after that would be how the San Francisco Board of Supervisors will react.
Now, unlike last year, RPD isn’t having any big meetings to air out public concerns, probably because RPD knows how they would go – 250 San Franciscans would show up and the bulk of them would be strongly opposed to the charging of any fee to any one at any time.
AFAIK, the 2010 plan is similar to the more recent of the two 2009 plans in that only people who reside outside of the City and County of San Francisco would be charged. The Big Question is how many nonresidents would show up to pony up some cash and how much the program would cost to implement. After this program is up and running, the Next Obvious Step would be to charge San Francisco residents as well. Would that next step come in a matter of weeks, months, or years? There are no promises from anyone on that score.
The Save the Botanical Garden people are saying that not charging $7 would amount to ”depriving community residents of a tranquil place to visit.” Does Strybing need to become a “world class arboretum” in order to remain a “tranquil place” to visit? It would be easy to argue with the Society on this point.
“Isn’t a non-resident fee the first step toward a fee for everyone?”
The answer is yes. Hells yes, obviously.
“Isn’t the fee taking the Botanical Garden a step closer to privatization?”
No. This is a red herring, from the Sierra Club, for one, I think.
“Won’t setting up the booths to collect the fee and bringing in new workers just cost more than you’ll collect? Won’t setting up the booths to collect the fee and bringing in new workers just cost more than you’ll collect?”
Almost certainly not. The older “Cadillac Plan” of spending vast sums on infrastructure to enable the charging of fees might have had that risk, but there’s no reason that a well-run program, particularly one that makes the use of volunteers, wouldn’t net at least a little money.
“Why doesn’t the SF Botanical Garden Society just do more?”
Good question. The Garden Society, and they’re by no means alone on this, want to spend Other People’s Money on their pet projects. Some of them figure that Strybing needs 16 dedicated gardeners to become “world-class” and that they’ll never ever get the funding for that many from the City of San Francisco, recession or no recession.
Here’s the thing – “saving the botanical garden” will have the effect of excluding hundreds of thousands of people from Strybing. If you are a “plant person” then this is a small price to pay. And actually, plant people might even prefer to keep out the riff-raff. So, charging admission is a double win – more plants and fewer people.
If you’re a people person, you might prefer the “Keep the Arboretum Free” point of view. I guarantee you that the average person motivated enough to attend the public meetings last year would strongly favor having fewer gardeners around if maintaining the current crew meant throwing up a pay wall by installing checkpoints Charlie.
Now, was this a grass roots movement in front of the Budget Town Hall? You know, this group of Society people and the P.R. volk with their identical signs and their unsigned petitions
Well, maybe not prejudice extreme enough, ’cause the plan is back. There might be some differences, like having volunteers staffing the entrances to charge admission instead of hiring an expensive crew per last year’s proposal, but they’re similar ideas.
The next big meeting will be at City Hall on March 4th, 2010, and there’s also Mayor Gavin Newsom’s “in-person” town hall meeting at the County Fair Building near Ninth and Lincoln Saturday morning – the Charge $7 to Auslanders at Strybing crowd will be there starting at 8:30 AM to promote their cause.
I’ll tell you, the average person that goes to Strybing doesn’t care if it’s a “world class” facility or not so if a gardener or two or three or four were laid off, they wouldn’t really care. It’ll be interesting to see how this one works out.
Let’s ask a Strybing hummingbird what s/he thinks of the new proposal:
Our neighbors in the Great Sand Waste* of the Outside Lands are having a little trouble with the partial collapse of the Great Highway near Sloat, so there’ll be a meeting tonight at 7:00 PM:
“A community meeting is being held on Monday, January 25th at 7:00 PM at the Park Chalet(located behind the Beach Chalet at 1000 Great Highway just south of Fulton in San Francisco) to discuss the proposed actions at Sloat Boulevard. The DPW Project Manager, Frank Filice will be there to discuss the emergency declaration, the short-term strategy, and a process for a long-term solution. Everyone who has an interest in the preservation and the future of Ocean Beach is encouraged to attend. The emergency declaration will go before the San Francisco Board of Supervisors for ratification the following day, Tuesday, January 26th.”
“San Francisco – this is a derivative word from sand and Francisco. In the early settlement of this country it was the custom of an old monk of the interior, by the name of Jeremiah Francisco, to perform a pilgrimage to this place every month, to visit the tomb of a brother of the order whose remains he had here interred. The wind “blew like mad” here, and upon his return he was usually so covered with the dust and sand, that his neighbors were unable to recognize him; hence they soon began to call him sand Francisco.
On one of his pilgrimages he happened, by mistake, to die here, and the place ever after was called by his name. From the difficulty of enunciating the d, it was usually called SAN FRANCISCO, and has so continued to this day. The present popular notion that the place was named after the St. Francis Hotel is an error!
cf. my bike (the red one) - it was about five times cheaper and it has better brakes, gears, pedals, tires, etc., but, sadly, it does not have electric assist.Click to expand:
Here’s a reverse angle of President Chiu’s ElecTrek:
Our mayor with the Snowflake Girls near the Powell Street Cable Car Turnaround at the dramatic Moment of Lighting. Dixitque Gavin fiat lux, et facta est lux:
Click to expand
But let’s start earlier on in the evening. This was Market Street a little before the ceremony. It’s the darkest I’ve ever seen it, cause they turned off all the LED snowflakes (which have been burning the midnight oil quite a bit recently, as they were last summer, when they were being installed and tested) plus the streetlamps of the “Path of Gold” too.
The mise-en-scene last night. Aside from almost always appearing bored while waiting for others to finish speaking (looking left, looking right, looking left, looking up….), Gavin Newsom always handles these kinds of public events very well, as you would expect a charismatic leader to do:
The Least-Yellowest Teeth in all Christendom. In fact, nowadays, they’re so white that they’re on the blue side, as if flourescent. Amazing:
President of the Board of Supervisors David Chiu, taking time out of his interview with KGO-TV’s Lilian Kim to greet Frank Chu in front of The Gap, which is doing better these days, don’t you know.
And this is how I left it, with the lights on ’til January 2010:
Profoundly nativist, certainly. Racist? Well, as always, You Make The Call. (I mean, the bulk of the people we’re talking about here aren’t coming from Europe, that’s for sure.) A vote on this matter is on the agenda and CAPS is trying to pack the chambers with their supporters right now - we’ll just have to bide our time to see how this one turns out.
See how much sense this absurd YouTube spot makes to you. (Them immigrants don’t have two hands and two feet like us fine Americans, apparently….)
Today’s screed from the nativists. Enjoy:
“San Francisco Supervisors Play ‘Race Card’ in Response to TV Spot Linking Population Growth and Environmental Degradation
Supervisors’ Position is at Odds with Legendary Environmentalists, Including Gaylord Nelson and David Brower
San Francisco Board of Supervisors members Eric Mar and David Campos are attacking a Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS) ad campaign connecting population growth to environmental degradation. Mar and Campos have scheduled time for the Board of Supervisors to consider a measure condemning the ads today, Tuesday November 10th. CAPS will deliver the latest research regarding population growth and its effects on our environment to the Board of Supervisors prior to the meeting.
Mar and Campos’ position is at odds with a plethora of research and a long list of legendary environmentalists including the founder of Earth Day, Gaylord Nelson and the Sierra Club’s first Executive Director, David Brower. “Often, when someone doesn’t have the facts on their side, they resort to name calling,” explained Diana Hull, Executive Director of CAPS. “Obviously, this is an emotional issue for Mr. Mar and Mr. Campos but as community leaders, they should know better. In America, we welcome all viewpoints.”
The ad campaign makes the point that the number one factor driving U.S. population growth is immigration. Further, when immigrants come to America, their carbon footprint expands to four times what it was in their home countries. The ads suggest that curbing immigration isn’t the solution to global warming but it’s a start.
Along with many highly respected environmentalists, both Gaylord Nelson and David Brower highlighted immigration-driven population growth as a major factor affecting our environment. The 2008 CIS study on which CAPS’ ads are based is the latest in a litany of research reinforcing the common sense conclusion that population growth affects our environment. CAPS’ calls to Mr. Mar’s and Mr. Campos’ offices to introduce them to the research and the facts went unreturned.
“There are many daunting issues facing California and the San Francisco area, so I’m surprised that Mr. Mar and Mr. Campos see this as the best use of taxpayer time,” commented Hull. “With 12% unemployment and families having trouble putting food on the table, it seems like job creation would be a better use of the Board of Supervisors time.”
This attack on the ads comes just hours before the campaign is scheduled to conclude. However, based on the positive feedback CAPS received from San Francisco residents, Hull is considering bringing the ads back to the San Francisco area.
For more information about CAPS or to view the ad campaign, please visit www.CAPSweb.org
Instead of that, he actually rides MUNI all the time. Dude’s all over town. Srsly, he’s the real deal.
How refreshing.
Keeping informed with a cell phone on his shoulder and a newspaper or two in his hand as he rushes to board the next bus going outbound on Market Street.
Someone get that man a BlueTooth.
Compare Mr. Chiu with:
“The reality is, I’m a mayor who rides Muni,” he said, noting that he’d spent some of his boyhood riding city buses. “Do I use it exclusively? No. But I use it. … I’m the real deal.”
