On March 9, the first annual tennis and basketball tournament to raise funds for programs run at the Ella Hill Hutch Community Center in the Western Addition will be held.The tournament will benefit health, fitness, and nutrition programs offered at the center for over 700 children, youth and their families. For more information, check out their Facebook page.
At a meeting on February 5, which included representatives of three Haight Ashbury organizations (HAIA, HAMA & HANC) and three Rec & Park employees, Friends of Alvord Lake was formed. After a presentation/slide show and discussion, the group decided to seek fiscal sponsorship of the SF Parks Alliance and to start a process with the Rec & Park Department to transform the whole Alvord Lake area, from Waller to JFK drive, with the goal of recreating its former status as "the" pedestrian entrance to Golden Gate Park. A project manager will be selected within Rec & Park, public meetings will be held with all stakeholders, landscape architects will be sought, and the whole process could take at least three years. No one envisions any buildings in the area, but an existing building/restroom could be utilized as an information center. Stay tuned!
January 24, 2013
Re: 780 Frederick Street
Dear Commissioners:
The Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council (HANC) has a number of concerns regarding the site of its former Recycling Center / Native Plant Nursery / Community Garden at 780 Frederick Street. Although we will try to address these concerns during public comment at the January 24 Commission meeting, the concerns may be too numerous to be fully addressed at the hearing, so we are supplementing our comment with this letter.
1) As far as we know, the last time the site was discussed at a Commission meeting was on December 2, 2010. At that time the action item was to approve a preliminary concept design for community garden plots at 780 Frederick Street. As nothing beyond a preliminary concept design has been approved, why has the Recreation and Parks Department (RPD) been working on the site since early this month? Why is work continuing without further discussion or approval of the scope of work or of any final design?
FILE NO. 110186
[Recycling Program]
AMENDED IN BOARD 3/8/11 RESOLUTION NO. 121-11
Resolution requesting the Recreation and Parks Department and the Department of the Environment collaborate to establish a comprehensive Parks recycling program utilizing the expertise, volunteer base and facilities of the HANC Recycling Center in Golden Gate Park, for the Department of the Environment to establish an Independent Recycling Center Master Plan, and requesting the Recreation and Parks Department to rescind the eviction of the HANC Recycling Center from Golden Gate Park.
WHEREAS, AB 2020, The California Recycling and Litter Reduction Act of 1986 (the "Bottle Bill") requires the City to provide residents with convenient means to redeem recyclables, a requirement not met by curbside-pick up alone; and
WHEREAS, The Department of Environment ("DOE") has confirmed the Bottle
Bill is an effective incentive that has increased diversion rates since the program was initiated; and
Garden for the Environment will offer the following workshops in January, 2013. All classes will be offered at Garden for the Environment, San Francisco’s organic demonstration garden at 7th and Lawton Street. Since its founding in 1990, the garden has operated as a demonstration site for small-scale urban ecological food production, organic gardening, compost education and low water-use landscaping. For more information, call (415) 731-5627, or go to www.gardenfortheenvironment.org.
NATURAL PLANT CARE
Date: Saturday, February 9th, 2013
Time: 10am - 12pm
Location: Garden for the Environment, 7th Ave and Lawton Street, San Francisco
Cost: Free! Sponsored by the SFPUC
Planning ahead for low-maintenance design and sustainable products is a key element to a successful organic garden. Join us to learn about natural maintenance practices that will keep your garden beautiful and your labor to a minimum.
Topics covered include:
- Weed control
- Value of mulch
- Non-toxic weed control
- Moisture and weed seed germination
- Growing healthy plants
- Alternatives to chemical fertilizers
- Natural pest management
- Beneficial Insects vs. harmful Insects
This workshop is FREE, sponsored by SF Public Utilities Commission.
On January 3, HANC ended some 35 years of operation of its recycling center after being evicted from the Kezar stadium site at 780 Frederick by the Recreation and Parks Department (RPD). The purpose built location, created when the new Kezar stadium was built in 1990, replaced the old parking lot site on the east side of old Kezar where HANC recycled for most of the 1970’s.
The center was the last remaining community-based recycling location in western San Francisco. Now recyclers will have to drive to the Bayview to recycle. It had grown into a community garden and a native plant nursery, with 10 employees paid a living wage and provided health benefits, both of which also ceased functioning at the location. Rec and Park claims it will establish a new “community garden” but has refused HANC’s request to honor the existing community gardeners plots at the site nor has it announced any schedule. RPD terminated their “community planning” process for the new garden after support was expressed by neighbors involved for continuing HANC’s role at the site.
The center was the focus of an intense attack by the San Francisco Chronicle in recent years, being the subject of nearly twenty editorials or opinion columns by CW Nevius. It is as if the Chronicle sought to overcome the entire history of the neighborhood in its unprecedented attacks on the lowly recycling center. In the last year of his abbreviated second term, Gavin Newsom directed his General Manager of Rec and Park to evict the center after HANC lead the neighborhood opposition to the Newsom campaign against young people sitting and lying on Haight Street.
In the course of the long campaign by both the Mayor and the Chronicle a “narrative” was created based upon three often repeated (and self-contradictory) lies:
- 1.The center had “outlived its usefulness” as curbside pickup made it pointless; the center attracted homeless people to the neighborhood and Golden Gate Park;
- 2.The center was “banned” by the Golden Gate Park Master Plan, and, as ol’ CW liked to say the City “did not want it anymore”.
- 3.Residents of the neighborhood opposed it and wanted it
Like most manufactured “narratives” aimed at shifting public policy they are difficult to refute as reality is a little more complex than a falsely simple story line and requires an argument that makes sense only to folks paying attention. Yet, to the chagrin of both Newsom and the Chronicle people paid attention and the “lies of the lying liars” were exposed.
Sutter-CPMC has been negotiating with the Mayor's Office, Supervisors Chiu, Campos, and Ferrell, and a mediator, and it seems now that a smaller Cathedral Hill Hospital and a larger St. Luke's are being planned. Sutter has rejected permitting nurses to have transfer rights to the new facilities. We expect the revised proposal to come to the Board of Supervisors sometime in January or February and need to stay vigilant.
UCSF is initiating a process to identify real estate opportunities for its Laurel Heights Campus, part of a strategy to reduce the University’s operating costs by consolidating campus work sites. UCSF seeks a developer to help create a compelling vision for the Laurel Heights site that will benefit the neighborhood, the City and County of San Francisco and UCSF.