This was the scene the other day at the LGBT Center at a Harvey Milk Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Democratic Club meeting in support of Community Choice Aggregation.
Here’s a report from KPIX Channel 5 (if you can handle a commercial beforehand.)
Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, Supervisor David Campos, Carole Migden, Paul Fenn, John Rizzo, Chris Jackson, and Eric Brooks, among others, were all there:
The fight over Proposition 16 is hotting up, certainly.
That’s the news of last night from City Hall. Get up to speed on the issues here.
The next step is to see what happens at the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. (How much lobbying do you get when you spend five figures on a lobbyist? We’ll soon see.)
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.
[UPDATE: Let's see here, you can discover what some local celebrities think about this idea here at Manatease's YouTube Channel and, well, here's an uncredited single-panel comic on the subject discovered by LocalColorist, see comment.]
This was the scene the other day near Golden Gate Park’s Strybing Arboretum, aka San Francisco Botanical Garden. These protesters were politely picketing San Francisco’s semi-public, semi-photo-op Budget Town Hall at the County Fair Building when an elected official walked up and asked, “What kind of protest is this?”
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 this auslander 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.
Now, let’s have a go at the official FAQ:
“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.
We’ll see how it goes.
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
You Make The Call.
San Francisco’s Harvey Milk Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Democratic Club is hosting a Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) Town Hall tonight at the LGBT Center on the corner of Market and Octavia. CCA is:
“a system adopted into law in the states of Massachusetts, Ohio, California, New Jersey and Rhode Island which allows cities and counties to aggregate the buying power of individual customerswithin a defined jurisdiction in order to secure alternative energy supply contracts. Currently, nearly 1 million Americans receive service from CCAs.”
The special guests will be Assembly Bill 117 (2002) author Carole Migden, District 5 Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, District 9 Supervisor David Campos and San Francisco Bay Guardian Executive Editor Tim Redmond.
The whole shebang starts at 6:45 PM:
STOP the PG$E Power GRAB!
That’s okay! Former State Senator Carole Migden, author of the Community Choice Aggregation legislation, and many others will be at this special Milk Club PAC Forum to help explain these issues and show you how to educate our communities and take DIRECT POLITICAL ACTION!
This event is OPEN to the PUBLIC!
Please invite EVERYONE YOU KNOW to attend this SPECIAL FORUM and STOP PG&E!
Special Guests Include:
Former State Senator Carole Migden, San Francisco
Supervisors David Campos & Ross Mirkarimi, San Francisco
Featured Presenters:
Paul Fenn, John Rizzo, Chris Jackson and Eric Brooks
Moderators:
MILK Club Political VP Linette Peralta Haynes
SF BAY GUARDIAN Editor-in-Chief Tim Redmond
Convener:
Tom Taylor, Milk Club Environmental Caucus Chair
HISTORY + ACTION = PROGRESS
Harvey Milk Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Democratic Club
Celebrating 35 Years of Progressive Political Action and Fighting for our Communities
The civil war between those who call our Strybing Arboretum (home to orange hummingbirds, violet blue jays, purple flowers, red foxes, blue herons, pink berries and yellow poppies) ”Strybing Arboretum” and those who call it “San Francisco Botanical Garden” is hotting up again in 2010. Now, leave us travel all the way back to ought-nine, when the trial balloon of charging $7 admission to those residing outside of San Francsico County got shot down with extreme prejudice.
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.
Check it out for yourself at this San Francisco Botanical Garden Society webpage, where you can also “sign” a petition to support the idea of charging yourself money to get in. They have a FAQ as well.
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:
O.K., fair enough.
Nancy Hellman Bechtle ’s resume is now a little bit longer, as she’s just become the chair of the Presidio Trust’s Board of Directors per today’s press release from spokesperson Dana Polk.
Here’s a partial resume – all the deets below.
Executive summary: President, San Francisco Symphony
San Francisco Symphony President & CEO (1987-2001)
San Francisco Symphony Board of Governors (1984-)
Sugar Bowl Corporation CEO, Sugar Bowl Ski Resort (1998-)
J. R. Bechtle & Co. CFO (1979-98)
Member of the Board of Charles Schwab (1992-)
Bush-Cheney ‘04
Sugar Bowl Ski Association (as Chairman 1998-)
Charles and Helen Schwab Family Foundation Board of Directors
George W. Bush for President
National Park Foundation Board of Directors (2002-08)
Northern California Health Center Board of Directors
Presidio Trust Board of Directors (2008-)
San Francisco Opera Association Board of Directors
San Francisco Conservatory of Music Board of Directors
Here’s Nancy (camera right) on the job earlier this year at one of the Presidio Trust’s less-contentious public meetings:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 12/22/2009
San Francisco Community Leader and Park Advocate Nancy Hellman Bechtle
Elected New Chair of Presidio Trust Board of Directors
Presidio of San Francisco (December 22, 2009) – The Presidio Trust Board of Directors has elected Nancy Hellman Bechtle as the new chair of the Trust board. A community leader and long-time park advocate, Bechtle was appointed to the Presidio Trust Board of Directors by President George W. Bush in January 2008.
“Nancy will make a wonderful board chair,” said Craig Middleton, Presidio Trust Executive Director. “Her experience in park advocacy will be extremely valuable as the Trust continues to make improvements that enhance the visitor experience of the park. Nancy’s business acumen will help ensure that the Trust continues to make prudent decisions as we meet our requirements for financial self-sufficiency.”
A fourth-generation San Franciscan who has lived within five blocks of the Presidio since she was in grammar school, Bechtle comes from a family committed to philanthropy and civic involvement. She served from 2002 to 2008 on the National Park Foundation Board of Directors and as Citizen Chair of that foundation from 2006-2008. Bechtle was President and Chief Executive Officer of the San Francisco Symphony for 14 years, and has been on the Symphony Board of Governors since 1984. She currently serves on the board of directors for the Charles Schwab Corporation and is the chair of the board for the Sugar Bowl Corporation. Bechtle and her daughter, Jessica Galloway, recently co-chaired the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy’s (Conservancy) Trails Forever dinner, which raised over $887,000 for trails and programs in the park. The amount raised was the highest of any Trails Forever dinner.
Bechtle is the third chair of the Trust board, and shares the previous chairs’ commitment to parks. David H. Grubb served as board chair from December 2003 until July 2008. Grubb served previously on the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy Board of Trustees and he chaired the project committee for the Crissy Field restoration effort, completed in 2001. The first chair of the Trust board, Toby Rosenblatt, served for 8 years. Rosenblatt was a founding member of the Presidio Council, and he chaired the Conservancy board.
The Presidio Trust is governed by a seven-member board of directors. Six members are appointed by the President of the United States. The seventh is the U.S. Secretary of the Interior or his designee.
“I am honored and excited to be appointed chair of the board of the Presidio Trust,” said Bechtle. “David Grubb did a wonderful job as chair and he will be a hard act to follow.” William Wilson served as interim board chair after Grubb’s departure and will now resume his position as vice chair.
Bechtle has received several honors, including the Lifetime Achievement in the Arts from the California Arts Council and the Investment in Leadership Award from the Coro Foundation. She has also served on the boards of the San Francisco Opera Association and the Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation. She was Chief Financial Officer and Director for J.R. Bechtle & Company from 1979 to 1998.
The Presidio Trust was established by the United States Congress in 1996 to administer the Presidio of San Francisco, an urban national park located at the base of the Golden Gate Bridge. The areas overseen by the Trust include expansive open space and spectacular views, a 300-acre historic forest, and rare and endangered plants and wildlife. The park comprises nearly 6 million square feet of buildings, including 469 historic structures that contribute to the Presidio’s status as a National Historic Landmark District.
Pity poor Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger – tonight he crashed the annual San Francisco Democratic Party Fundraising Gala and Auction at the Fairmont Hotel atop Nob Hill and he was rewarded with a loud round of booing.
Poor guy. Did Assemblymember Tom Ammiano spontaneously yell, “You lie” at Arnold, ala Congressman Joe Wilson? Haha!
The evening captured via Francis Tsang’s BlackBerry
Per SF FYI Net:
The first thing you may think upon meeting Federal Communications CommissionChairman Julius Genachowski is that he looks like a lawyer who just might have gone to school with Obama. Bingo!
Then you read up on how he wants to smash open the iPhone over the recent AT&T / Google Voice lockout brouhaha. You see, Jules acted with a shocking quickness. Is it because he “gets” technology? Could be.
Anywho, Mr. Chairman came to the lovely Valencia Gardens housing projects (seriously, the best in the City, more appealing than the Fillmore Center Apartments anyway) on a dreaded sunny day to highlight “the importance of broadband access in low income communities.” Check it:
Julius, second from right, chatting with the Mission Digital Connectors:
And with other Missionites:
Can people in the area around 14th and Valencia open up their netbooks to catch 5/5 bars worth of WiFi goodness at 54 million bits per second? Yes we can.
There’s your schmoozefest of the day.
FCC CHAIRMAN JULIUS GENACHOWSKI TO HIGHLIGHT BENEFITS OF BROADBAND AT SAN FRANCISCO HOUSING DEVELOPMENT
Chris Vein, San Francisco’s Chief Information Officer
and Henry Alvarez, Executive Director of the San Francisco Housing
Authority (SFHA) will welcome Julius Genachowski, Chairman of the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC), for a Mission neighborhood event
highlighting the importance of broadband access in low income communities.
Chairman Genachowski will tour the technology facilities at Valencia
Gardens, a SFHA community, and meet with residents of Valencia Gardens and
community leaders. Valencia Gardens is a national model for bringing high
speed internet access to public housing sites. Through the San Francisco
Department of Technology’s partnership with the Internet Archive, residents
are able to receive speeds of over 50 mbps. In addition to access, the
Department of Technology has coordinated a wide range of training and
support programs for residents of Valencia Gardens.
The Department of Technology has led an initiative to bring broadband
access to 4399 units of public and non-profit housing developments.
WHAT: FCC Chairman tours Valencia Gardens Technology Center
WHEN: Sunday, August 2, 2009
3:00 P.M.
WHO: FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski
San Francisco Chief Information Officer Chris Vein
SFHA Executive Director – Henry A. Alvarez III
Hydra Mendoza, Education Advisor to the Mayor of San Francisco
Alan Greenley, One Economy
WHERE: Valencia Gardens Technology Center
360 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94103
There was a buzz of activity today in San Francisco regarding the upcoming furloughs for some employees at the University of California. Senator Leland Yee spoke to a group of U.C. employees and students this morning at 7:00-something A.M. Get his point of view here.
A little later, the same protesters went over to nearby FibroGen, so that prevented Mayor Gavin Newsom from an making appointment he had there today.
The mise-en-scene inside at Mission Bay this morning. Click to expand:
And this was the scene outside, what with a couple hundred U.C. workers milling about.
“I’m UC President Yudof. I get $1 million/yr. I’m not here to save UC.”
Let’s leave the Angel of Death and head back inside to meet University of California President Mark G. Yudof, on the left:
And here’s California Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi, who’s running for Congress these days. He had a few points to make about getting more money for U.C.
Now let’s hear from Sandra Faber, chair of the astronomy and astrophysics department at UC Santa Cruz. She talked about just paying out $150k in retention bonuses for three valued U.C. employees.
We should find out tomorrow how this all pans out.
To Be Continued…
Earlier this year, there was a plan afoot to charge admission at the San Francisco Botanical Garden (nee Strybing Arboretum). That ended up getting changed to a plan to charge admission only to foreigners, those unfortunates people residing outside of the sacred 46.7 square miles that make up the City and County of San Francisco.
This was a taste of the reaction from la raza to the plans to charge admission to auslanders:
Well guess what, that’s all out the window now. Read all about it right here from the General Manager of the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department in this “dear friends” letter quoted on EEEK, A BLOG!:
After a long and very lively conversation regarding fees for the San Francisco Botanical Garden in Golden Gate Park, we will be recommending that NO fee be charged for this special natural space. Instead, we will be instituting a “suggested fee” schedule and are looking to bring in a vendor to offer food and beverages.
We thank you for your input and look forward to working with you on our shared goal of keeping the Botanical Garden beautiful for present and future generations.
Thank you,
Jared Blumenfeld, General Manager, San Francisco Recreation and Park Department”
And if that’s not good enough for you, all this was confirmed by Rec and Park higher ups yesterday.
So put a fork in it - the plan, she is dead.
