The San Francisco Citizen

District 11 Supervisorial candidate John Avalos has an army of enthusiastic supporters that, literally, money can’t buy.

Of course you can pay people to help you out, but pound for pound, the best assistance you can get comes from committed volunteers.

A scene from Mission Street: 

John preparing for another ride in D11 with supporters.   

In these days of Instant Runoff Voting, it can be hard to hazard a guess as to who might win this election tomorrow but, after travelling up and down a short stretch of Mission in the Excelsior District, it’s apparent that Avalos is handily winning the battle of the campaigns.

Finally made it down to David Campos for District 9 Supervisor Headquarters at 24th and Mission. It’s an impressive campaign for more than a few reasons. 

He’s been performing well at debates and, consequently, he has a slew of varied endorsements, including the San Francisco Democratic Party, and the San Francisco Bay Guardian and the district’s popular supervisor, Tom Ammiano. The crime issue seems to be more of an issue in the Mission recently (to say the least), so voters might particularly value having someone with police commission experience. And also, he’s getting out there and spending lots of time meeting residents in the Mission, Bernal Heights and Portola.

What more can you ask for?

A somber evening at the well-attended anti-violence march on 24th Street last month:

A daunting list of supporters:

And David himself, in the background, on the phone talking to voters to the approval of Spider, the Campos for Supervisor Wonder Dog:

If you add in the fact that he’s raised the most money and he has a lot left to spend, you might conclude he has an impressive campaign.

Just saying.

Poor Manny, Moe and Jack here were made to be to be affixed to a tall pole, not towed around endlessly.  

As seen on 16th Street near Mission. Click to expand.

These Doggie Diner heads are weary of life on the road. When will their journey end?

So you’re doing a good deed in the Mission District of San Francisco, and then when you come back to your very-well-made, made-in-China ride, you see that somebody has taped a handbill to your bike. Then you see it says:

“HELICOPTERS COULD SOON BE FLYING OVER OR NEAR YOUR HOME AT ALL HOURS OF BOTH DAY AND NIGHT!”

And then you think, wow, somebody has finally bought off all those NOT IN MY BACK YARD Nimby people who were standing in the way of Progress, and San Francisco will no longer have the only Level One Trauma Center in the country to lack a helipad or access to a heliport.

Click to expand

But then you read on and see that the handbill is from the Nimby’s themselves. Disappointed. They think a helipad is a bad idea for them.

Read on to see the fruits of the labors of the Stop the Helipad people:

“A head-on collision on the Golden Gate Bridge in Maythrew the evening commute into chaos and drew immediate cries for new safety measures. Lost in the flurry of traffic reports and debate about possible barriers, however, was the aftermath of the crash for the most seriously hurt victim. Dr. Grace M. Dammann had to be transported by helicopter about 25 miles to John Muir Hospital in Walnut Creek because San Francisco General Hospital lacks a helipad for its acclaimed Level 1 Trauma Center.”

Mmmm. According to an American College of Surgeons Consultation Survey of San Francisco General Hospital’s Trauma Program:

“The lack of a helipad and helicopter service is a major deficiency in providing optimal trauma care for San Francisco General Hospital and San Francisco. It is difficult to understand why a city the size of San Francisco does not have any medical air transport. The congested roads and bridges with the surrounding water make helicopter service an essential medical support service.”

Will the YES HELIPAD people win this one?

Eventually…

There’s less than a month left until the big 2008 election in San Francisco, so it’s not too early to think about the Supervisor race in District Nine, aka The Mission and Bernal Heights. Here are the candidates to replace Supervisor Tom Ammiano:

David Campos
Eric Quezada
Eric Storey
Eva Royale
Mark Sanchez
Tom Valtin

Click to expand:

This was the scene inside the Victoria Theatre (rentals available) at last night’s debate hosted by lovely Ivy League lawyer “Sweet” Melissa Griffin, the San Francisco Examiner’s City Hall Examiner.

 200-something folks were in da house.

You can’t hide from the Big Board! All the candidates’ opinions on key propositions were posted in high relief for tout le monde to see:

What’s that - you want to hear what everybody has to say? You want to meet the candidates? Here you go.

Oh, you only want to hear from the front runners? Here you go.

Enjoy.

Or, in other words, ¿Quién mató a Brian Márquez?  That’s the question people are still asking in the Mission District, especially these days, when homicides in the area are up, up up. So much so, that hundreds of marchers, including Supervisor Tom Ammiano and Police Commissioner David Campos had to hold a vigil in an attempt to draw more attention to the situation.

The link to the website with information about Brian’s murder from 2005 is here.

A scene from 24th Street. Click to expand:

The Anonymous Tip Line for Violent Crime in San Francisco is (415) 575-4444. There are rewards.

Mark “Papa” Guardado, President of the Hells Angels’ San Francisco chapter, was killed in the  Mission District on September 2nd. Tomorrow’s funeral should be well-attended.

The vigil will be held Sunday at 7 p.m. and a funeral Monday at 10 a.m. at Duggan’s Serra Mortuaryat 500 Westlake Ave. in Daly City, with interment to follow at Cypress Lawn cemetery in Colma. The two-wheeled funeral procession could be the largest in Bay Area history.

This is what the sidewalk memorial for Papa Frisco looked like today at 24th and Treat in the Mission. Click to expand:

The Guardian Angels were on patrol in this area over the weekend and there are extra police around as well.

Let’s hope for a peaceful day tomorrow.

Lots of people marched down 24th Street and held a candlelight vigil last night in San Francisco’s Mission District. The motivation for this quiet parade of over 300? All the recent violence in the area, and particularly the shootings over the past two weeks.

People started gathering at 24th and Treat at 6:30 PM last night in front of the Mission Educational Projects building.  Click to expand:

Supervisor Tom Ammiano and Police Commissioner David Campos were both on the scene.

The Guardian Angels, those unarmed volunteer citizen crime patrollers, are on the rise in the San Francisco area lately.

Here’s what they looked like last year in Oakland. Click to enlarge:

via ruth-o-rama’s Photostream

And here’s who showed up in San Francisco’s Mission District yesterday, per San Francisco FYI net.

Some parts of the Mission certainly can use a little help these days. You can explore these issues with those who march tonight at 7:00 PM on 24th Street.

See you there.

This private parking lot near off Mission near Duboce has lifts that will carry your car as high as an elephant’s eye in order to let another driver park beneath. Aren’t they beautiful?

Click to expand

We need these things everywhere. Here’s a place in town that could use a few lifts, right?

But once you start lifting cars, it’s hard to stop. How high can you stack them?