In 2012, HANC built a community garden at the Recycling Center and Native Plant Nursery site, creating Kezar Gardens Ecology Center, and garnered massive community support in opposition to our eviction. We did a lot more. Here is a recap of our monthly meetings: 

In January, we discussed the Recreation and Open Space Element of the General Plan. This now seems to have stalled. Captain John Feeney, who took charge of the Park Police Station in January, met with HANC in February and answered questions about traffic safety, enforcement of the sit-lie law, and parklets. Captain Feeney was replaced by Captain Greg Corrales in June.

Our March meeting featured a discussion with Supervisor Christina Olague, who began her term as Supervisor in January, 2012. Topics of discussion included the future of the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic, HANC’s Recycling Center, redistricting, chain stores appearing in our neighborhood without Planning Commission review, and food trucks. Supervisor Olague’s term ends in early January, 2013.

In April, we presented an update on Kezar Gardens, including a slide show of the 50 community garden beds that had been built, filled, and planted, and presentations and stories by some of the community gardeners. In May, we discussed the very short June ballot and had a debate on the proposition to put the City’s garbage contracts out for competitive bid.

In June, we discussed CPMC/Sutter’s plans with Bob Prentice and Paul Kumar from San Franciscans for Health Care, Housing, Jobs, and Justice. Although the plans to build a large facility at Geary and Van Ness will affect housing, traffic, and employment, the discussion focused on the impacts the development could have on the City’s healthcare costs for its workers and “Healthy San Francisco” participants, and also on the agreement to keep St. Luke’s Hospital open. The CPMC/Sutter plans have stalled, but it appears that there will be further developments during the next few months.

In July we held a discussion about displacement of community gardens. We had representatives from the Hayes Valley Farm, the Free Farm, and the Gill Tract, as well as from Kezar Gardens to inform and advise us.

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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.

ORGANIC GARDEN DESIGN
Date: Saturday, January 12, 2013
Time: 10AM - 12:00 Noon

Location: Garden for the Environment, 7th Ave at Lawton Street, San Francisco
Cost: Free, Sponsored by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission

Learn how to grow a healthy and beautiful garden that minimizes the impacts on the environment. From building a healthy soil with compost to selecting beautiful plantings appropriate for the Bay Area’s climate, this workshop will give you the basics to implement sustainable gardening practices.

Topics covered include:

• Importance of healthy soil
• Organic matter
• Composting
• Selecting colorful plants for the Bay Area climate
• Climate appropriate plants
• California natives
• How to water without waste
• Preventing nutrient run-off
• Irrigation basics and watering schedules
• Natural pest and weed management
• Pesticide alternatives
• Non-toxic weed control

This workshop is FREE! To pre-register or for more information please visit

www.gardenfortheenvironment.org

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These figures were presented at the HANC meeting on November 13.  They were compiled and presented by Calvin Welch.

How the Haight Voted, 2012

Turnout 2012 

US  59%

CA  71%

  SF 73%

D5   75%

HA  77%

___________________________

Turnout 2012

Haight-Ashbury

Area             Reg.           Vote               % ABS

N.Pan           3527         2643 (75%)         44%

Flats             6664        4978 (75%)          43%

Hills             3418         2776 (81%)         47%

HA           13,609       10,397 (77%)         45%

D5             55,581       41,918 (75%)       49%

SF           502,841     356,875 (73%)       53%

Source: DOE Final SOV, ; Calvin Welch

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The last day for buyback at the HANC Recycling Center at 780 Frederick Street will be December 29.  Drop-off is open through December 30.

After December 29, the nearest open recycling centers for buyback are:

Nexcycle - 1750 Fulton (at Masonic) - Tues - Sat 9:00 am to 3:30 pm (closed 1-1:30)

TOMRA Pacific - 1335 Webster (at O'Farrell) Mon-Thurs and Sat 10 am to 4 pm

Nexcycle - 735 7th Ave (near Cabrillo) Mon - Sat 10 am to 4 pm

After December 30 drop-off will be available, for a fee, at Recology (San Francisco Dump), 501 Tunnel Avenue  (near the intersection of Bayshore and Geneva)

Keep up-to-date via the Kezar Gardens blog and this website.  Here are links to recent press coverage:

"More Recyclilng Fallout - Small Businesses Gird for High Fees After HANC Closure" - San Francisco Bay Guardian, December 26

"HANC Recycling Center Faces Eviction -- Urban Agriculture Neighborhood Groups Call For Support" - The Epoch Times, December 12

"Sorry Chuck, HANC Eviction Hasn't Happened" - San Francisco Bay Guardian, December 5

"Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Counci Recycling Center Remains, But Eviction is Pending" - San Francisco Examiner, December 6

"Government At Its Best:  City Holds Hearings on Lack of Recycling Centers as it Arbitrarily Evicts One" - Sacramento Bee, December 7

"SF Mayor Held Hostage By Latte Liberals:  NIMBY Politics Force Green Workers Into Unemployment, Leaving Ma and Pa Shops to Take Back Their Own Trash" - Yahoo! Finance, December 3

"Kezar Gardens:  Haight Recycling Center to Close This Week" - SF Weekly, December 3

"Canned!:  The City's Eviction of HANC's Recycling Center Could Harm Local Businesses Along With the Gardeners and Recyclers"  - San Francisco Bay Guardian, December 4

HANC opposed the Parks Bond, Proposition B, in the November election. We believe Rec and Park should be spending money on gardeners, recreation directors, and regular maintenance of its existing facilities before building more. This is especially true when Rec and Park is raising fees and leasing out public park property at an unprecedented rate.

Why did the Bond pass? The No on B campaign was outspent by more than 100 to 1. The approximately $9,000 raised by the No on B campaign could not match the onslaught of TV, radio, and newspaper ads, robo-calls, and multiple mailers bought with almost $1,000,000 from “park enthusiasts” such as Ronald Conway, Thomas Coates, the three Fisher brothers, the LLC that runs the Outside Lands Festival, Wells Fargo, AT&T, the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, and the San Francisco Association of Realtors.

Would there have been more No votes if Rec and Park hadn’t promised the poorest neighborhoods, ignored for so long, that there would be something for them in this bond?   What if McLaren Park had received funding in any of the previous bonds? Did the recent purchase of the Bay Guardian by the Examiner influence its endorsement of Prop B? “The Guardian has never, in 46 years, opposed a general obligation bond for anything except jails or prisons. . . .We’re not happy to be endorsing Prop B . . .We’re going yes on B with all due reservations.” 

Still, 93,735 San Franciscans voted against Prop B—almost as many as all of the voters who cast ballots in the three contested Supervisorial races in Districts 1, 5, and 7. The reasons for opposing the Parks Bond have not disappeared—we want continued public access to our parks and recreation centers through sound maintenance and operations, and we don’t want control and access to parkland going to the highest bidder. Please join us and put your comments on the record at the Janaury meeting of the Rec and Park Commission on Thursday, January 17, beginning at 10:00 a.m in Room 416 of City Hall.

Join us on Thursday, December 13, beginning at 7 pm at the Park Branch Library as we discuss the November election.

It should come as no surprise that Barack Obama beat Mitt Romney 10,710 (90% of the neighborhoods vote) to 591 (.04%) here in the Haight-Ashbury. Nor should it come as much of a surprise in this stronghold of political “chat” that some 78% of the registered voters of the neighborhood voted, a stronger turnout that the 73% in San Francisco or the 71% in California.

As the old saying goes: “All politics are local”; and Decembers meeting will get as “local” as it can get. 

The meeting will be devoted to a discussion of how the Haight-Ashbury voted this last November by individual precinct and by sub neighborhood areas . we will compare and contrast the neighborhoods vote with the rest of District Five and the City. We will look at key ballot measures and how HANC recommendation on 6 City and 8 State measures was greeted in the neighborhood. We will take detailed looks at Proposition C, the Housing Trust Fund, Proposition E, the Gross Receipts Business Tax which HANC members campaigned for door to door in the neighborhood. We will also look at the District 5 Supervisor race and who came in where here in the Haight- Ashbury.

Assisiting in bringing some analysis to the number crunching, done as usual by HANC Board member Calvin Welch, Decembers meeting will have long time gay community activist, local merchant and past President of HANC, Joey Cain. Joey will be joined by Prof. Corey Cook, of USF, the political science “source” of record for the Chronicle and long time observer of San Francisco elections and politics. 

Joey, Corey and Calvin will be loaded with facts and observations and you should come loaded with questions, observations and opinions on what just happened. It’s all happening at the Park Brnach Library, 1833 Page Street, 7 PM, Thursday, December 13.

November’s meeting featured Alexis Smith and David Alumbaugh from the Planning Department and Christin Evans of the Haight Ashbury Merchants Association (HAMA).

In October, Supervisor Olague and the Planning Department announced a year long planning process for Haight Street, officially called the “ Haight Ashbury Public Realm Plan”. The year long planning process was set in motion by HAMA led by Christen Evans who came up with some concepts to make Haight Street more compelling to the neighborhoods residents. 

HANC was able to voice concerns about the lack of Planning Department enforcement of existing codes and policies on Haight Street, as well as the ongoing violation of permit requirements by Whole Foods which continues to use Page and Haight Street for unloading large trucks when this was banned by their permit.

Haight Street is officially designated as a “neighborhood shopping district” yet tens of thousands visitors from the world come each year. It is also a “transit preferential street” in formal plans yet cars, trucks and bicycles conflict with buses and pedestrians on a daily basis. It is a complicated mix of uses having more homes than shops, thus being both a residential street and a commercial street. It will take careful attention to try to balance the needs of all users of the street. This was the message delivered by attendees to Planning Department staff.

The Planning Department will be hosting another public forum on the matter in the first quarter of 2013. Stay tuned.

November at HANC

Join us at our general meeting on Thursday, November 8, beginning at 7:00 pm, at the Park Branch Library, 1833 Page Street, as we discuss the changes coming for Masonic, Oak, Fell, and Haight Streets.

2013 will be year of significant changes for the major streets in our neighborhood.  Oak and Fell Streets are slated to have new bulb outs, medians and a bike lane. On September 18^th the MTA approved a series of bulb outs and a raised median strip for Masonic from Geary to Fell. Work is expected to be well underway by next year.

Last month Supervisor Olague and the Planning Department announced a year long planning process for Haight Street, officially called the “ Haight Ashbury Public Realm Plan”. The year long planning process was set in motion by the two year old Haight Ashbury Merchants Association (HAMA), led by Christin Evans, who came up with some concepts to make Haight Street more compelling to the neighborhood's residents.

With all of this in motion HANC has asked James Shahamiri from the MTA and Alexis Smith from the Planning Department to present as well as Ms. Evans from HAMA.

How these three efforts will fit together and work for the residents and businesses of the Haight Ashbury is of keen interest. There seems to be a rather large “gap.” for example, in the Masonic street plan which ends at Fell while major issues of car, bicycle, pedestrian and transit connections and conflicts at Haight and Masonic goes unaddressed. Moreover, how the Planning Department enforces existing codes and policies on Haight Street has come under criticism from HANC, with the violation of permit requirements occurring at Whole Foods, which is now using Page and Haight Streets for unloading large trucks when such use was banned by their permit.

Haight Street is officially designated as a “neighborhood shopping district” yet tens of thousands visitors from the world come each year. It is also a “transit preferential street” in formal plans, yet cars, trucks and bicycles conflict with buses and pedestrians on a daily basis. Finally, Haight Street has more homes than shops and is a residential street as well as a commercial street. How these multi-uses are merged with what physical “improvements” are no simple matter and if all of us are to benefit, it must be done with all of our participation. So please come, Thursday, November 8 at 7 PM at 1833 Page street.