November 2000
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The Voice welcomes your letters to the editor. Write the Noe Valley Voice, 1021 Sanchez St., San Francisco, CA 94114. Or send email to jaxvoice@aol.com. Please include your name, address, and phone number. (Anonymous letters will not be considered for publication.) You may also send us mail via our web site: www.noe valleyvoice.com. Note that letters may be edited for brevity or clarity.
How Soon We Forget
Editor:
With reference to your article about protests against City College students for taking up parking in Noe Valley [October 2000 Voice]: Are these the same Noe Valley residents who, when asked about a potential branch of the Mission YMCA at James Lick, said they didn't want any parking included in the proposal?
Gretchen Beck
Via email
Recycled Tenants
Editor:
More buildings have been taken off the rental market than ever this past year, leaving us renters in Noe Valley in a terrible state. Landlords can get market value for our cherished rent-controlled apartments when they are vacant. Many landlords are evicting renters under the Ellis Act and converting the apartments into condominiums for sale. The prices they are asking are incredibly high, since people are desperate for places to live. A single flat in a building can be sold for as much as the original building cost before it was subdivided.
The effects are devastating on the seniors in our community, the disabled, and on low- and middle-income renters displaced by their landlords for condo conversions.
Stop this disastrous recycling of renters now. Vote yes on Prop. N on Nov. 7 to preserve our neighborhood's character.
Anastasia Yovanopoulos
24th Street
Prop. N's Impact on Gays
Editor:
As a long-term San Francisco renter, I'll be voting no on Prop. N. Prop. N will bar renters from buying their first home together. Since January, there have been over 120 two- or three-unit buildings available for purchase by renters earning as little as $40,000 a year. To purchase one of these buildings, renters have been able to pool their money and collectively buy their home as a tenancy-in-common (TIC). They also write an agreement describing who will occupy which unit. Both TICs and "exclusive right-of-occupancy agreements" are effectively banned under Prop. N. If it passes, working renters wanting to own their own homes will be forced to move out of San Francisco!
Another horrible aspect of Prop. N is its impact on gays, lesbians, and unmarried couples. By California law, married couples automatically share community property. But gays and other unmarried partners often share their homes through a TIC. Prop. N keeps gays and lesbians from owning their home in this manner!
Many diverse couples who bought their first home as a TIC will be unable to sell it because of a clause in Prop. N that prevents "exclusive right-of-occupancy" agreements. That is the ugliest of the unintended consequences of Prop. N.
Professional activists and wealthy lawyers will benefit from the numerous lawsuits that will result if Prop. N passes. Prop. N allows anyone to sue anybody they allege has an exclusive right-of-occupancy agreement. The professional activists and lawyers prosper, and the renter loses yet again. Vote no on N.
Joe Capko
Via email
Beware of Phony Solicitors
Editor:
I would like to alert my neighbors to a local scam. A couple of years ago, a guy came by and asked for donations to the Glide Church food program. His credentials looked phony, and it turned out they were. Glide does not have people soliciting anywhere on the streets.
Well, someone just came by again last week with the same scam. Do not give to anyone saying they are from Glide Church. Instead, call Mission Station and report them. The number is 558-5404.
Jean Amos
Elizabeth Street
Where Have All the Artists Gone?
Editor:
Every time I wonder why I have not seen an old artist friend in a while, the word comes around that he or she has moved to New York, Pasadena, Eureka, Napa, Emeryville, etc.
Not only is it getting lonely, but it's getting sad -- a real loss for San Francisco. Some say an art movement will never occur here again. I can only hope that Elizabeth, Arthur, Christiane, and friends find fertile ground and community elsewhere.
Meanwhile, I'd like to share a little song I wrote.
Jack Freeman
Alvarado Street
Dot Com and Go
Where have all the artists gone?
Long time passing.
Where have all the artists gone?
Long time ago.
Forced t'the boondocks
One by one.
Who's still here now? Is anyone?
Who's here anymore?
Who's here anymore?
We used to say that no one cared.
Long time passing.
About the things which we dared.
Long time ago.
But the art com did not last.
Doomed are we to repeat the past?
Oh! Must we repeat the past?
Must we repeat the past?
No man's an island, it's been said.
Long time passing.
S.F.'s an island, it's been said.
Long time ago.
Now we work desperately,
While searching the Net frantically
Or cast a note in a bottle secretly,
Dot Com and Go.
Dot Com and Go.
Dollar signs now rule the world.
Long time coming.
Greed is not a new word.
Long time ago.
Who's left standing? Who can stay?
How much more rent must we pay?
Only a Fool would say.
Only a Fool would say.
--Jack Freeman, September 2000