I don’t know.
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Something to do with corruption?
Posts Tagged ‘boxes’
Why Does San Francisco’s Corrupt DPW Sometimes Haul Away San Francisco Chronicle Newsboxes? Photo
Friday, February 1st, 2013San Francisco Paints Green “Bicycle Boxes” in the Lower Haight to Warn Pedestrians of Cyclists Running “The Wiggle”
Tuesday, May 29th, 2012This is the first I’ve seen of these things, so here’s a photo of one of the new “bike boxes,” or whatever they’re called:
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I wonder, does Strava have a Wiggle segment? You know, so people could keep track of their times and race each other, you know virtually, you know, as Chris Bucchere used to?
Maybe, I don’t know.
Just in Time for the Holidays: Bike Lane-Themed Packing Tape! Bike Lane-Themed Packing Tape!
Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011Via the Niana Blog from Carl and Cole, here’s what you need:
“Whether you are a biker or not, it’s perfect for sealing your holiday cartons, boxes, or anything! People will be pleasantly surprised before they even open their packages.
2.5 inch x110 yards or 65mm x 100m. Wider than the regular 2 inch tapes (so that you don’t have to tape several times to ensure the carton opening is covered completely.)
I even used the bike lane tape on my checked luggage, and my suitcase totally stood out in the luggage conveyor at the airport. Not only my suitcase won’t be picked up by others by mistake any more, it also earned plenty of eyeballs 
”
OK then.
No AT&T LightSpeed Internet Service Anytime Soon – NIMBYs Win Against City – A Stay from Judge Harold Khan
Tuesday, November 15th, 2011The hard-core NIMBYs at San Francisco Beautiful (our Comcast monopoly’s L’il Buddy) ended up going two for two yesterday in their crusade ensure that dial-up internet service is the best that some San Franciscans can get. That is, they won a stay from Superior Court Judge Harold Khan temporarily blocking the installation of AT&T sidewalk boxes and they’ll have no requirement to post a bond to keep their stay.
This is, of course, despite the fact that the Board of Supervisors recently approved the installation.
Let’s hear the reaction from AT&T Regional Vice President, Marc Blakeman:
“Residents across the City, as well as the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, have voiced support for competition and choice when it comes to TV, high speed internet and digital phone service.
Despite today’s decision to issue a temporary stay, AT&T believes it ultimately will prevail in the litigation and it remains committed to bringing San Francisco a next generation IP network.”
Which, you know, sounds good to me, but I’m not a NIMBY.
So, when you see these existing boxes, which Judge Khan has no control over, what’s your reaction? Do you say, well there’s graffiti on a telephone box or an electricity box or a mail box so we shouldn’t have telephones and we shouldn’t have electricity and we shouldn’t have mail service? I don’t know.
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Let’s hear from the NIMBY side of things after the jump, but I warn you, it’s barely legible.
On It Goes…
OMG, NOPA NIMBY Nightmare: Telephone Pole Has a Cell Phone Antenna PLUS a PG&E SmartMeter – Double Trouble
Friday, October 28th, 2011The SmartMeter is the round white thing on the right and the cellie antenna is that stuff jutting out at the very top.
How would you like this RF farm parked three yards from your front door?
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Poor NIMBYs.
Poor by-now-certainly-sterile, wealthy, white, wizened, whiny NoPNA NIMBYs of the Western Addition.
Supervisor Scott Wiener’s “Dear NIMBY” Letter for Those Distraught By Yesterday’s Vote to Allow AT&T U-Verse Service
Thursday, July 21st, 2011Well, here it is, via Noe Valley SF, a Hyper-Local Guide to Noe Valley … With Attitude, it’s Supervisor Scott Wiener’s address to the NIMBY associations of District 8 regarding his approval of U-Verse Internet/TV/Phone service for San Francisco after all those years of delay.
See below – it goes on and on.
I myself don’t recall seeing too many AT&T boxes in the 415 with graffiti. The shots produced by the NIMBYs generally are from out of town / out of state. Anyway, here’s one of the genuine AT&T utility boxes already in town. It sort of has graffiti:
Via Eric Fischer – click to expand
Leave us begin:
From: Date: Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 4:41 PM
Subject: My vote on the AT&T issue
To: Scott.Wiener@sfgov.org
I’m sending this email to a number of neighborhood association leaders and other involved folks in District 8, in order to explain my vote yesterday on the AT&T environmental appeal. I would appreciate it if you would forward this email to your boards, memberships, and neighbors who have an interest in this issue. The voters are entitled to an explanation of all of my votes (and I cast many each week), including votes as controversial as this one. People can agree or disagree, but they deserve an explanation.
I will start by saying that I struggled mightily with this issue. Like many of you, I do not like these boxes, or any of the utility boxes that are already on our streets. Part of me very much wanted to vote against AT&T and for an EIR simply because I dislike the boxes. But one of the commitments that I made to myself, and to the voters, was that I’m not just going to be a reactive elected official. I committed that I was going to be the kind of elected official who tried to find solutions to hard issues. I also committed to myself early on that I would not abuse CEQA by ordering EIRs where the law doesn’t support it simply because I have policy issues with the underlying project. As described below, ordering an EIR here probably would have been illegal and certainly would have fed into our City and State’s addiction to environmental review, with the effect that good projects (including public projects) are delayed, killed, or made much more expensive than they need to be.
The issue here was very hard — pretty much everyone agrees that Comcast is in desperate need of competition while also agreeing that these boxes stink. There were also incredibly strong views on both sides of this issue. I received many emails from opponents, passionately and articulately describing the issues with the boxes, and from proponents, passionately and articulately describing why we need the service and competition. This was a no-win vote for me in terms of popularity contests. Either way I voted was going to make one group or the other upset with me. But, for better or for worse, casting controversial votes is what we do at the Board. If I wanted to be loved by everyone all the time, I wouldn’t have run for office.
And, this issue pointed to a major problem we have in San Francisco. We do a bad job managing our sidewalks. Our departments don’t coordinate well. We don’t have a strong master plan. We haven’t fully implemented the Better Streets Plan. That plan is how we should be managing our sidewalks and deciding what to put on them and where. Not through CEQA, which is a blunt instrument that doesn’t get you much other than delay and expense, but through actually having a plan for our sidewalks. As described below, through a strong and well-planned permitting system, we can do that.
So, why did I, in the end, tip in favor of voting to reject the appeal?”
It continues.
The NIMBYs Just Can’t Win in 2011: Here’s a Blow-By-Blow Account of the AT&T U-Verse Utility Box Vote. Poor Comcast!
Wednesday, July 20th, 2011[UPDATE: And oh, yesterday's vote at the Board o' Supes will have no effect upon cell phone service in San Francisco, despite what some might tell you. Uverse is about TV and wired Internet and wired phone service, for the most part. It's FttN, Fiber to the Node, bro-ham. It's not Fiber to the Cell Phone Antenna, no, not at all...]
The selfish, aging, rich, white, property-owning NIMBYs of San Francisco are having a tough go of it in the 415 during 2011. I mean, we just had the approval of the Booker T. Washington Community Service Center and the (effective) approval of the King Edward II project and, now, a whole mess of utility boxes from AT&T.
Am I saying that San Francisco should “push projects into neighborhoods without input?”
Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. The thing is though, even when you allow the NIMBY’s to give input before you start building a community service center or apartment building or brace of utility boxes, they’re still not happy.
Isn’t that funny?
Don’t you think that ugly people from San Francisco Beautiful had more than a little input on the long-delayed project to bring regular San Franciscans U-Verse Internet and TV and phone and WiFi service? (Way too much input, IMO.)
Anyway, Sunglint was all over yesterday’s action at the Board of Supervisors. See below. (Sunglint is not without strong feelings on the matter, so you’ve been warned.)
Is this an AT&T box? No it’s not. Should area NIMBY’s want it banned? Well, not if they want electricity:
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Here’s an excerpt from Sunglint, who later goes into what was behind each pro-NIMBY vote:
“At approximately 4:45PST, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted to affirm the exemption determination for AT&T’s once-in-a-century telephone infrastructure upgrade project, aka “Project Lightspeed.” This means that AT&T can now start to implement their plan to upgrade the telecom infrastructure in the city, with the goal of delivering higher-speed 24Mbs DSL service within all San Francisco districts. AT&T also calls this as “Uverse” which can be any combination of television, telephone, and internet.
The final proposal seems to allow 495 cabinets to be installed throughout the city of San Francisco by AT&T. Multiple potential sites for each cabinet location are to be evaluated. When AT&T seeks an excavation permit from the DPW, besides doing the usual permit stuff, DPW will also notify that site’s supervisor. Then, that supervisor signs an MOU (memorandum of understanding) with AT&T regarding the site, or one of the alternative sightings are considered. Something like that: the specific details seem fuzzy. There seems to be a formal and sane DPW appeals process, and a my-supervisor-is-crazy-curve-ball appeals process.
Voting against were the following sorry lot of supervisors, with their comments below.
District 1: Eric Mar
District 3: David Chiu
District 5: Ross Mirkarimi
District 6: Jane Kim
District 11: John Avalos
Note to the supervisors listed above: I will be voting against you in future elections, geography permitting, and consider your conduct in this matter anti-internet, anti-technology, anti-jobs: death eaters, all! Here are specific comments.”
Get Sunglint’s summary of comments here.
All right, I have to go talk a suicidal Comcast executive down from the roof right now. He’s yelling, “Millions, millions, our precious monopoly is going to lose millions!”
Oh, and after the jump, a list of NIMBY fellow travelers, the people who don’t want you to have high-speed Internet and whatnot.
The End of the Comcast Monopoly Might Begin Today: Boo, Comcast! Hurray, Free Infrastructure from AT&T!
Tuesday, June 28th, 2011[Well, the can got kicked down the road today at the BoS of course. Oh well. BTW, can your neighbors band together to prevent you from getting your mail? Not that I know of. So why should your neighbors band together to prevent you from getting your Internet at faster than dial-up speed? I don't know. Once again it's Rich White Homeowners 1, You 0.]
I don’t know, I think I’ve weighed-in enough already on the whole AT&T LightSpeed / U-Verse situation. But anyway, once more into the breach, my friends, once more down to City Hall for another Board of Supervisors meeting, starting at 2:00 PM this afternoon.
Now I know this might come as a shock to the easily shocked homeowners at San Francisco Beautiful, but, you know, most of the existing AT&T utility boxes in town don’t have graffiti all over them.
And remember, there’s graffiti in town that’s on other, non-AT&T utility structures.
Can you imagine?
All right, let me be your Sightsee M.C. – let’s take a tour of the Western Addition, the NIMBYs’ Fortress of Reaction.
Check it, is this a graffitoed AT&T box? No it’s not:
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So what, should we take it out to satisfy the millionaire homeowners across the street? You know, just do without whatever utility this utility box provides? Is that what you want, NIMBYs?
I think that one above is about electricity.
I know this one here is about electricity or gas, one or the other or both – see the new SmartMeter stuff? Is this array considered blight? So then we should live in the dark with candles, maybe?
Oh here we go, look at all this telephone pole “blight.” Should we get rid of land lines now?
Now, I don’t think you people need to watch any more TV than you already do. But U-Verse is a utility, right? Just like phone service and electrical and gas and whatnot, right?
So what gives wealthy, influential, white people* the right to put the kibosh on somebody’s Internet / Phone / Cable TV triple play for $99** a month?
That’s what I don’t know…
*What’s that NIMBY? You’re not wealthy? Oh yes you are! What’s that NIMBY? You’re not influential? Oh yes you are! You’ve got Supervisor Scott Wiener shaking in his boots, as ascared of you as he is of area dog owners. What’s that NIMBY? You’re not white? Oh, forget it, you already know you’re white, right NIMBY?
**For the first six months, but then, look out, brother!
We DON’T Need An EIR Before Utility Boxes Are Installed – Welcoming AT&T U-Verse Service to the 415, At Long Last
Tuesday, May 24th, 2011Get up to speed on the U-Verse issue right here and Fog City Journal has coverage of yesterday’s rally at City Hall right here.
Oh, look, yet another “utility box” on the sidewalks of San Francisco. But, kell domaje, it’s covered in graffiti. Let’s solve this problem by cancelling mail service to the 415 – does that make sense?
Now, let’s hear from the West Bay:
“My final words to SF Beautiful. Keep your hands off the neighborhoods of others. You don’t speak for us. We can speak for ourselves.”
Harsh. Now, I’m not sure how real a group the Ocean Beach Condominiums Homeowners Association is, but you can only get Comcast or dial-up internet out there near the ocean? Wow. Those poor devils, poor poor devils.
And, generally, do young people like judgmental homeowners associations? Apparently. (You mock twisted copper into the home? All right, but some people would like that. Deal with it. Who is stepping up for Fiber Into the Home or whatever they call it? Who is going to pay for that? Oh well, in the meantime, we’ll have AT&T as another choice.)
Anyway, appears as if those AT&T boxes will get approved today at the Board of Supes, but that will come with the chance that your neighbors will still say neigh and you won’t be able to get U-Verse after all.
Consider that a partial victory for Progress.
