By Lisa Awbrey, HANC Vice-President

A disturbing trend in San Francisco’s recent elections is unfolding. Venture capitalists, Tech, and real estate billionaires are spending millions of dollars to control the outcomes of our local district elections. They slander and blame democratically elected progressives with a goal of removing them from office.

Please join HANC at our next public meeting on Thursday July 13, 2023 @ 7 PM where we will discuss the organization and influence of dark money in local and future elections. We will discuss recently formed (and billionaire funded) astro turf groups and Super PACs like GrowSF, TogetherSF, RescueSF, Neighbors for a BetterSF, Vote&ChangeSF, SOAR, and Hi5D5. The stated objective of these well-funded and organized groups is to target and remove truly progressive Supervisors Dean Preston, Connie Chan, Hillary Ronen and Shamann Walton from the Board of Supervisors and replace them with moderates. 

The newly formed local neighborhood groups say they promote cleanliness, safety and health, along with “law & order” campaigns; frequent tactics include stoking fears about crime and blaming progressive office holders as the cause.

Your ability as a community member and voter to weigh in on local policy and decision making is being targeted. All San Franciscans are impacted daily by decisions and policy making to do with issues like housing, public transit, schools, unhoused neighbors and health care.

By Danielle McVay, HANC Board

A quick internet search of “driverless cars San Francisco” will quickly solicit articles with fiery commentary and headlines such as “Fire chief warns against ‘unleashing’ self-driving taxis in San Francisco” (The Guardian), “San Francisco may soon get 24/7 driverless cabs. City leaders are fuming.” (The Washington Post) and a particularly funny video on the ABC 7 news site “Journalist documents wild ride inside Waymo self-driving car in SF'' which shows a very frustrated journalist give up on her Waymo ride and return to her private vehicle to make the trip to pick up her son at a popular destination in The City.

Most concerning is a letter from San Francisco Fire Fighters Local 798 sent on June 26th to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) ahead of a vote initially scheduled for June 29th but currently postponed till July 13th to expand driverless cars offerings. The letter states “autonomous vehicles have a demonstrated track record of interrupting response to emergency incidents and making dangerous situations even worse….blocked our emergency response to a mass shooting in San Francisco's Mission District”.

By Richard Ivanhoe, HANC Board

Installation of Additional Bike Share Station

An SFMTA map dated January 1, 2022 (but showing installations from June 2017 through July 2022) shows 8 BikeShare stations installed in the Haight Ashbury: Fell at Stanyan (19 bikes), Waller at Stanyan (17 bikes), Carl at Cole (23 bikes), Page at Masonic (31 bikes), Haight at Lyon (27 bikes), Broderick at Oak (27 bikes), Central at Fell (31 bikes), and Grove at Masonic (31 bikes). There are additional stations nearby at Frederick and Arguello (19 bikes), McAllister at Arguello (19 bikes), Parker at McAllister (27 bikes), McAllister at Baker (27 bikes) and Grove at Divisadero (27 bikes). The map can be found at Bike Share Installation Map.

 

By Lisa Awbrey, HANC Vice-President

For nearly six years, our community (comprised of local business leaders, 3 community groups, service providers for Transitional Aged Youth/TAY and unhoused people, seniors and parents of young children) has robustly participated in the plans to build 100% affordable housing at 730 Stanyan.

I cannot overstate the value (and rarity) of partnership among local residents working with their electeds and city departments to find solutions for San Francisco’s chronic problems.  Neighborhood workers and residents understand our neighborhoods best and, consequently, are a critical part of local problem solving. So why then does it seem that some at City Hall and the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development/MOHCD aren’t partnering with us? 

By Christin Evans, HANC Board

This past month, the SF Reinvestment Working Group voted unanimously to submit two business plans, each over 50 pages each, to the Board of Supervisors. The group’s year-long work to detail the capital and operational requirements of a municipal bank concluded with final reports prepared by city funded consultants HR&Advisors and the Findlay Group. The first plan details the precursor entity called a Municipal Financial Corporation (MFC) which would operate in the first three years and establish the lending track record required by bank regulators before approving the creation of an SF municipal bank. The second plan details the operations and prospective lending priorities and products of the SF Public Bank once it receives regulatory approvals. The Board of Supervisors will take up consideration of the two plans at a Government Audit & Oversight committee scheduled for July 2023. The full plans can be accessed at: https://sfgov.org/lafco/reinvestment-working-group.

By Tes Welborn, HANC Board

Money, Money Money! Tim Redmond called on the city to set up a 10 year Revenue Plan, as deficits will only be getting worse. The empty office buildings are going to ask for reassessments and lower property taxes, and that's about half of the city budget. Supervisor Connie Chan, heading the Supervisors' Budget Committee, tells us 2008 was worse! There are some hopeful signs at the state and federal levels of funds for more affordable housing. She'd like to see the proposed two-year budget in December, rather than May. Debbi Lerman, representing the Human Service Network, says nonprofits are struggling and they are often the first responders. They often struggle these days to find staff who will work for $17/hour. The mayor has spoken of cutting community and human services. Ms. Lerman proposes three rules for budget work: 1] don't cut life and death services, 2] don't cut items with other, dependent funding, and 3] don't cut services that will be hard to rebuild later. She noted that the city only funds the nonprofits 70%, of their budgets, even though they do much of the city's work, and only after the fact! So nonprofits have to spend time raising funds and struggling to have enough money to even start the year's work.

By Christin Evans, Calvin Welch, and David Woo, HANC Board

This month at HANC we will present a panel on policing in our neighborhood and citywide.  The panel will include Police Commissioner Max Carter-Oberstone, Legislative Aide to the District 5 Office Melissa Hernandez, and Park Station Police Captain Jack Hart.

To offer some context for the meeting it is important to remember that in the 1970's the Haight- Ashbury, now among the most wealthy neighborhoods in the City, with the City's largest number of Airbnb's catering to upscale tourists and visitors, was considered the "hell hole" of San Francisco and far more disparaged in the media than the Tenderloin is today. In story after story in the City's THREE daily newspapers and six or seven TV stations, public nudity and moral depravity, dope smoking and acid consumption in plain view, and the brisk sale of both on every street corner on Haight Street was reported. Sixty Minutes and the New York Times sent reporters to walk Haight Street to report that our neighborhood was the precursor, not simply of the fall of San Francisco, but of the entire western world as we knew it. Didn't happen, the media was wrong (again).

But what did happen and was rarely reported was the community response: the Diggers, the Free Medical Clinic, Westside Community Mental Health, The Haight Ashbury Community Alcohol Treatment Program (yes alcohol!), The Haight-Ashbury Community Development Corporation, the Food Conspiracy and the community based battle to keep Park Police Station open and local.

 

By Teresa Palmer, MD, Geriatrics/Family Practice (Attending Physician at Laguna Honda 1989-2004)

A final reprieve from closing Laguna Honda Hospital and Rehabilitation Facility (LHH), our 780- bed public nursing home, was given by the federal government (CMS-Center for Medicare and Medicaid services) on May 18. This was just one day before evictions of all residents was scheduled to start.

CMS gave the reprieve reluctantly due to a serious citation (“immediate jeopardy”) that appeared after staff was supposedly trained to avoid these. (This deficiency in resident care was: having no plan for monitoring a known suicide risk.)

Evictions and closure now start Sept 19, 2023. Funding by the federal government (80% of LHH cost) stops March 19 2024. Since CMS shut down new admissions in April 2022, only about 530 residents are left at LHH. Between April and July 2022, 12 of 57 residents who were evicted died.

LHH may apply for recertification (and re-opening to admissions) as early as July of 2023. This would prevent evictions and closure. However, LHH will only be recertified if its house is in order. Delays past September are likely. Evictions may resume in the interim.

For Laguna Honda to be recertified (and to avoid closure and evictions), CMS has very detailed and strict requirements, as detailed in a May 18 letter from CMS which can be downloaded here:  CMS Laguna Honda Letter.  

The requirements include adequate support by the State (California Department of Public Health, along with the following:

   1. A Certified Nursing Home Administrator must be hired by June 26.

   2.There can be no more “immediate jeopardy” citations.

  1. An Open Letter Regarding Hospitality House
  2. April 13th HANC Meeting Recap
  3. May 11th at HANC: The City Budget--More Money for Police is Certain, But What About Transit and Health Care?
  4. Update: 730 Stanyan Developer Meeting, April 4th
  5. HANC Endorses HIV/AIDS Funding Package
  6. The City Can and Must Do Better Assisting Neighbors Displaced by Fire