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Town Honors
Square: At a City Hall ceremony
on Jan. 29, Supervisor Scott Wiener (left) commended
Residents for Noe Valley Town Square, including Todd
David, Leslie Crawford, Peter Gabel, Nisha Pillai, Chris
Keene, and Kate Sherwood, for their efforts to bring a
patch of green to 24th Street through a community
fundraising drive. Photo by Adam Taylor
Definition of an S.F.
Moderate
Editor:
In the February 2013 Voice article
“Demo Club Has a Growth Spurt,” Rafael Mandelman, described by
the Voice as
“an avowed progressive,” equates “moderate” Noe Valley
Democratic residents to “conservatives.”
In my experience, Noe Valley
and San Francisco moderates are all left of the political
center. In any other location in the United States, San
Francisco “moderates” would be referred to as “liberals.” Only
in the strongly left-tilting world of San Francisco politics
would someone mislabel an S.F. “moderate” as a “conservative.”
Every San Francisco moderate I know is a Democrat who is:
—Pro choice
—Pro marriage equality
—Pro more funding for public
education
—Pro infrastructure
investments
—Pro rent control
—And pro creating a business
climate where companies will want to bring jobs to San
Francisco.
How Rafael Mandelman labels
people who hold these positions “conservative” is beyond me.
Demonizing another point of
view simply denigrates and dissuades public engagement. And it
seems to me that Rafael Mandelman was attempting to demonize
S.F.’s moderates by calling them “conservatives.”
I hope all Democrats
(moderates and progressives alike) join the Noe Valley
Democratic Club and express their opinions. Public dialogue,
debate, and disagreement are the bedrock of a healthy
community and a healthy Democracy.
Todd David
Eureka Street
Club Welcomes All Democrats
Editor:
Many thanks to the Voice for
publishing not one but two pieces on the Noe
Valley Democratic Club (“Demo Club Has a Growth Spurt” and
“Analyze This” in the Rumors Behind the News column) in the
February edition. As Oscar Wilde noted, “The only thing worse
than being talked about is not being talked about.”
I write to clarify two items
that appeared in the “Demo Club Has a Growth Spurt” article.
First, there is a method by which members of the NVDC may
rescind the endorsement of a candidate. This process, as well
as the endorsement process and other actions of the club are
specified in its bylaws, which are posted on the Noe Valley
Democratic Club website at http://noevalleydems.org.
Second, there was no irony in
the recruitment of new members. The NVDC leadership reached
out to several Noe Valley leaders in search of new members.
Volunteers are the lifeblood of our community and we welcome
all registered Democrats residing in the greater Noe Valley
area who are interested in participating in the NVDC.
The NVDC focuses on connecting
people to the political process by registering people to vote,
educating the community on relevant local topics, and hosting
candidate forums and debates on current political issues. The
club also regularly hosts District 8 supervisor Scott Wiener
as well as other supervisors, school board members, and state
legislators. In addition to hosting Noe Valley resident David
Binder in January, the club recently hosted well-known
political strategist Eric Jaye (also a Noe Valley resident)
and political analyst and University of San Francisco
professor Corey Cook.
But the meetings are not
dominated by San Francisco politics. We have hosted programs
on timely issues in Noe Valley, from the opening of Whole
Foods to the proposed closure of a portion of Noe Street to
the development of the Noe Valley Town Square.
So we invite all interested
Democrats to join the Noe Valley Democratic Club. We look
forward to seeing you at our March 13 meeting at St. Philip’s
Church, 725 Diamond, at 7:30 p.m.
Hunter Stern
President
Noe Valley Democratic Club
Are We Being Under-Served?
Editor:
I hope the Noe Valley Town
Square project succeeds (“Town Square Progress Slow But
Steady,” February Voice) as fervently as the next
Noe Valley resident, and I laud the people working on it.
Thanks to them, and to you for your coverage of this
issue. But, or and, there
was a quote, and the line of reasoning behind it, that I think
are disingenuous, and I think undercut serious discussion.
In arguing for city money
through the Recreation and Park Department, one of the
organizers is quoted as saying, “Noe Valley is one of the most
under-served communities in terms of open space in the city.”
Huh? Okay, I know we want money for our project in our
neighborhood, and I know the government is a good source of
funds for projects like this, but I am embarrassed that we
would seriously argue we are under-served for open space given
the reality of our neighborhood.
I guess under the city’s
planning policy, which defines an area as deficient in open
space if there is no playground or park within a half-mile
radius, the Noe Valley Town Square site qualifies. But that
would only be because it is uniquely located in the middle of
the following amazing playgrounds and open spaces: Upper Noe
Rec Center, Billy Goat Hill, Walter Haas Playground, Upper
Douglass, Douglass Playground, Noe Courts, Kite Hill, and
Dolores Park (what did I miss?). Apparently, each is at least
one-half to three-quarters of a mile away from “downtown” 24th
Street.
And that is not even counting
Twin Peaks and Glen Canyon, two of the largest open spaces in
the entire city, which Noe Valley adjoins and enjoys. I would
imagine the city definition is intended to make playgrounds
walking distance for people with small kids, a laudable goal,
but come on, most of us can drive or take the 24 or 48 bus or
J train even with a stroller (as I did when my daughter was
younger).
Almost every study I have
heard cites the Tenderloin as the largest concentration of
city children in the densest quarters, and the Mission likely
second. Even if the Planning Department definition may not
find them “under-served” for open spaces, I think we can agree
they are.
Again, I hope we succeed in
this project, and I hope we get government funding of all
sorts. But I also hope we don’t argue, or ask our elected
representatives to argue, that Noe Valley is “under-served.”
It risks making us look spoiled and our arguments taken less
seriously, in a city where there are other neighborhoods with
needs for government support of all kinds—while we have
increasing numbers of (not exclusively I know) wealthy
residents and multi-million-dollar single-family homes.
I wish us the best of luck on
this laudable project, and I’ll sign up to help, but not
because we are under-served in this city.
Charles Spiegel
Elizabeth Street
The Voice received the
following email exchange between Noe Valley resident Eric
Anschutz and Supervisor Scott Wiener and thought it
important to share with our readers. —Ed.
No Forced Seismic Upgrades
Dear Supervisor Scott Wiener:
On behalf of several other
longstanding and recent Noe Valley homeowners and renters who
have been consulted on the issue, I want to thank you for
taking the time to hear our concerns about your proposed
requirement to force seismic upgrades in San Francisco.
In short, many of us feel your
legislation represents a dramatic overreach of government and
one that supersedes its reasonable authority over citizens in
San Francisco. We also feel your legislation fails to address
the city’s most urgent needs and instead places undue burdens
on its least able citizens.
Forcing mandatory seismic
upgrades on homes that have stood solidly for decades or even
centuries will have a number of directly negative effects. It
will displace renters of all types citywide, it will displace
lower- and middle-income homeowners citywide, and it will
forever change the composition of San Francisco such that only
rich homeowners with upgraded houses can afford to remain.
These directly negative effects are virtually guaranteed given
your proposed seismic upgrade legislation moving forward.
Again, we thank you for
considering this issue with the utmost seriousness that it
deserves, and for taking reasonable steps to protect the
health, safety, and economic well-being of all San Francisco
residents. Your legislation, however, fails to do this in
equitable or even substantial ways, instead forcing a number
of negative and presumably unintended consequences on the
people who can least afford them.
If you truly want to increase
public well-being in San Francisco, focus on health and
wellness instead of seismic upgrades. According to Health
Matters in San Francisco, accidents and deaths related to
seismic failings do not register among the top 20 historical
causes of death in San Francisco. Cancers, heart disease, and
HIV/AIDS do, along with substance abuse and violence-related
causes. There were precisely zero seismic-related deaths in
San Francisco from 2000 to 2007, the most recent period data
is available for. There were, however, 49,000 deaths related
to health and wellness in that same period.
Please step back from your
proposed legislation and rethink the consequences of what you
are doing. It seems probable that you could do a lot more good
and a lot less bad by taking an entirely different approach to
public well-being.
Eric Anschutz
Noe Valley resident
Retrofitting Long Overdue
Reply to Eric Anschutz:
I’m very sensitive to the need
to ensure that renters are able to remain in their units. This
legislation will result in extraordinarily little displacement
of renters, given that the work is performed on the ground
floor, in garages and storefronts. Any displacement that
occurs will be very brief. Soft-story retrofit work doesn’t
typically need to be performed above ground level. And if
there are ground-level residential units, the building is
probably not a soft-story building. As with any capital
improvement work, even if a tenant is temporarily displaced
(very unlikely here), the tenant has a right to return.
Capital pass-throughs are also quite limited, and I’m told
that the typical pass-through here is unlikely to be higher
than $20 or $30 a month for the significant majority of
impacted renters.
I agree with you that it’s
critical to avoid displacement of renters, and that’s a key
purpose of this legislation. In a major earthquake, many
soft-story buildings—and thousands of rent-controlled
units—are at risk. If a building with rent-controlled units
collapses, the tenants in that building will be displaced. And
if the collapsed building is then replaced with new
construction, the building will no longer be under rent
control. It’s in everyone’s interest—renters, owners, and the
general population—for our housing stock to hold up in an
earthquake.
We’ve delayed this task for
decades, and it’s time to move forward. This program does
impose hardships, both on owners who have to pay for it and
renters who will have to deal with the capital work and see a
small pass-through. But these hardships pale in comparison to
having buildings collapse and thus losing the housing
entirely.
In terms of the relative risk
of dying in an earthquake vs. other causes of death, the
statistics you cite don’t paint a full picture. You’re correct
that there were no earthquake fatalities between 2000 and
2007, but that’s because there were no significant earthquakes
here during that time period. Compare that to Loma Prieta,
where there were soft-story collapses and deaths. Experts
predict that we will have an earthquake significantly larger
than Loma Prieta. In addition to people dying when buildings
collapse, the survivors won’t have housing. We need to prevent
that from happening.
This isn’t an either/or thing.
One-third of our city budget is devoted to health and human
services, including helping those with HIV live longer and
better lives. We invest significantly in the health of our
populace. We also need to ensure that our housing stock is
strong and stable. This long-overdue legislation moves us in
that direction.
Scott Wiener
Supervisor, District 8
Opinion
Transform the Sidewalk into
an Urban Garden
Do you want to beautify the
front of your home? Are you looking for space to put in
flowers, plants, and trees? Do you want to help divert
rainwater out of the sewers? Do you want to attract more birds
to your neighborhood? Does your front sidewalk need repair?
If the answer to any of these
questions is yes, then the San Francisco Department of Public
Works (DPW) sidewalk landscaping Grey2Green program is for
you!
San Francisco is well-known
for beautiful parks, such as Golden Gate Park, and open areas,
such as the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, yet much of
the city was paved over during the residential development
boom between the 1930s and the 1950s. Paved streets and
sidewalks now comprise more than 25 percent of San Francisco’s
land area, more than all its parks combined.
Transforming portions of San
Francisco’s hardscape into greenscape improves the city’s
livability; creates opportunities for increasing both native
and beneficial nonnative species and habitat; helps to
decrease carbon monoxide levels, especially by adding trees;
and increases the amount of permeable area, thereby decreasing
runoff to an often overloaded sewer system.
DPW’s Grey2Green program
invites residents to transform their sidewalk into a green
oasis. San Francisco now offers a low-cost permit that allows
property owners to convert sidewalk into green garden space.
The more property owners who participate, the cheaper the
permit—so get your neighbors involved!
Sidewalk landscaping not only
increases property values, but also contributes to a more
pedestrian-friendly environment, provides habitat for birds
and butterflies, connects ecological corridors, and creates
better growing conditions for urban trees. These are just some
of the many positive benefits sidewalk landscapes can provide
to the city and the homeowner.
Stormwater management is a
huge challenge in San Francisco because of our combined sewer
system that processes both waste water and storm water. These
gardens can play a role in helping to reduce stormwater
runoff, which helps ensure that the sewer does not overload
and spill into the ocean or bay.
In addition, these gardens
help create a sense of community and encourage neighbors to
get to know one another. They can activate the space, and give
an opportunity for people who might not have any other
greenspace to garden in our highly built urban environment.
Some property owners receive
notices from the city to fix their sidewalks. This is a
perfect opportunity to remove some of the concrete permanently
and install a garden. Permits are required to ensure that the
public right-of-way remains accessible to all users and to
help protect the city and the property owner.
DPW has many helpful tools on
our website, including plant palettes, lists of
drought-tolerant recommended plants, a resident’s guide,
permit information and application, and templates for
designing a sidewalk garden. We even have how-to videos posted
on our YouTube channel.
For more information on DPW’s
Grey2Green sidewalk landscaping program, seewww.sfdpw.org and
transform your sidewalk into an urban garden!
Carla Short, Urban Forester
Department of Public Works
THE NOE VALLEY VOICE
P.O. Box 460249
San Francisco, CA 94146
www.noevalleyvoice.com
The Noe Valley Voice is
an independent newspaper published monthly except in January
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The Noe Valley
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April 2013 Issue: March 15,
2013
Editorial/Class Ad Deadline:
March 15, 2013
CO-PUBLISHERS/EDITORS
Sally Smith, Jack Tipple
CONTRIBUTING
WRITERS
AND EDITORS
Olivia Boler, Other
Voices Editor
Corrie M. Anders, Associate
Editor
Heather World, Associate
Editor
Heidi Anderson, Owen
Baker-Flynn, Karol Barske, Helen Colgan, Jan Goben, Kate Haug,
Liz Highleyman, Rebecca Huval, Laura McHale Holland, Florence
Holub, Tim Innes, Jeff Kaliss, Doug Konecky, Rhiana
Maidenberg, George Nelson, Roger Rubin, Shayna Rubin, Karen
Topakian
