By Tes Welborn, HANC Board Member

The SF Plaza Program is another effort of the City to privatize public spaces and to pass on their maintenance costs to private parties. It innocuously imagines non-profits and neighborhood groups being able to spare time and money to address City infrastructure maintenance, and then allows them to close the public space and hold private, entrance-fee events. We've seen how allowing Civic Center to be leased by private parties has led to the blocking off for weeks of Civic Center and portions of adjacent streets, followed by continued closure while grass is replanted. Imagine nonprofits set up by Twitter, Ron Conway, Google, etc. being able to take over even more of our precious and limited public space! AND put up sponsor signs!

The Mayor's office of Economic and Workforce Development gives a number of examples of current “activation” such as farmers markets, movie nights, food trucks, and dance that do serve the community. Why should the public have to maintain city facilities paid for by taxpayers? Why should private, admission-charged events occupy public plazas at the expense of quiet public enjoyment?

Sponsors say The SF Plaza Program is a new collaborative public realm initiative designed to leverage various City, private, nonprofit and stakeholder group efforts to provide long-term activation, management, and/or maintenance for designated City Plazas. The plan was developed by the Mayor’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development (MOEWD). This new initiative is designed to activate the public realm while empowering interested and City-identified stakeholder groups to steward the long term care, maintenance and/or activation of plazas adopted into the Plaza Program. If approved by the Board of Supervisors, the program would leverage benefits for the public realm by supporting community-based groups in becoming stewards of their neighborhood open space.

Centralizing management of the public realm may be a good idea, but this plan goes too far.  While we encourage ocasional public events in public plazas and streets, the HANC Board opposes the commercialization and privatization of public plazas, admission fees, exclusive use by a particular group, and sponsor signage. Please contact Supervisor Breed and state your opinion.