HANC Membership Votes to Fight Closing of Recycling Center

At its December meeting HANC members voted unanimously to call upon the Board of Supervisors to request that the new Mayor direct the General Manager of Recreation and Park Department (RPD) to hold hearing consistent with the department own requirements for public participation that would lay out a plan by which both recycling and a community garden could continue to exist at the Frederick Street location. The membership also called upon the new mayor to set-aside the eviction notice.

The vote was taken after a full report was made of the December 2nd RPD Commission hearing at which over seventy members of the public spoke in support of the Recycling Center pointing out the violations of RPD own rules for community participation in the chafing of uses in parks. Speaker after speaker pointed out that the RPD held not a single public hearing on over a year of considering the future use of the Recycling Center site. Indeed, in over a year planning the eviction RPD meet with HANC- in private- only once before announcing it was evicting the center. It turned down attending a public meeting on the issue in the Inner Sunset.

Two key facts support the request for a new public hearing process: first, The Golden Gate Park Master Plan calls for a park oriented recycling center, along with neighborhood drop off recycling for the location, a point actually ignored by RPD staff reports. Second, the recycling center is the only state required buy-back center in the area and its closing would be in violation of state-law with the City facing over $200,000 is loss revenue from the state unless replaced in the same general location.

HANC expects the City to honor the lease given the Center which means the Center will remain at its current location through June 2011, giving the new Mayor time to make a considered decision.