Membership Meetings: 2nd Thursdays ~ 7-9pm
Park Branch Library, 1833 Page St, SF, CA 94117 (except August)

HANC Member Meeting - May 2021

 

By Christin Evans, HANC Board

To defund the police, it is politically necessary to create an alternative when citizens call for assistance. In January, activists in conjunction with Police Commissioner John Hamasaki and Supervisor Matt Haney launched a campaign for CART SF (The Compassionate Alternative Response Team). At HANC’s February meeting, we will host a member of the campaign’s workgroup to present its plan for such an alternative.

Every year in San Francisco, the city receives over 60,000 reports involving homeless and mental crises which it directs to the police.  This despite the reality that police officers are not trained social workers, mental health experts, or care professionals, nor do they have appropriate resources to offer.  Many such calls result in police directing the individual or individuals to simply pack up and move along.

By Bruce Wolfe, HANC Board

Captain PedriniLast year the Haight Ashbury was bestowed yet another Park Station captain in a short period of time, Captain Christopher Pedrini.

You may or may not know that there is a direct forum with the Captain. From the Police Department website, “SFPD hosts the city's Community Police Advisory Boards (CPAB's), which are composed of community volunteers who live and/or work in a specific geographical police district. A CPAB member’s role is to advise the district station Captain about public safety, crime and quality of life issues that affect their community.”

By Richard Ivanhoe, HANC Board

Information about obtaining a Covid-19 vaccine has been inconsistent and confusing.  There are different Federal, State, and City websites, as well as information coming from private health plans and pharmacies.  Plus, California is in the midst of revising its vaccination plans.

Here is information we can give you (as of the end of January):

Eligibility - California

The California site (https://myturn.ca.gov/) will tell you if you are eligible for a vaccine, but is only booking appointments in Los Angeles and San Diego Counties for healthcare workers and individuals over 65.  California’s tier system is described at https://covid19.ca.gov/vaccines/#California's-vaccination-plan .

Eligibility-San Francisco

San Francisco’s site (https://sf.gov/get-notified-when-youre-eligible-covid-19-vaccine) will also tell you when you are eligible to be vaccinated.  Again, being declared eligible does not mean that you can get a vaccine.  Although individuals 65 and older are eligible, the State is first prioritizing those who are 75 and older, have high occupational exposure, or reside in vulnerable communities.  The State’s allocation guidelines (as of January 22) can be found at https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/Pages/Revision-of-Allocation-Guidelines-for-COVID-19-Vaccine.aspx .

By Christin Evans, HANC Board

At our January 14th meeting, the Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council will kick off the new year with its first member meeting focused on an update on the Politics of Affordable Housing.  With so many recent victories, including from 2018's Proposition C delivering $300M annually in new revenue through a gross receipts business tax, 2019's Proposition A authorizing $600M for affordable housing and 2020's Propositions A and I delivering even more funds, the question now is how quickly can those funds be pressed into service to bolster the city’s stock of permanent affordable housing.

Recent Affordable Housing Wins 

By Christin Evans, HANC Board

At the December meeting, we discussed the state of the Haight Ashbury commercial corridor and the opportunities for the community to play a role in its economic recovery.  The Haight Ashbury Merchants Association (HAMA) has been counting storefront vacancies since 2016.  In that time the commercial corridor saw storefront vacancies rise from 9 in 2016, to 21 in February 2020, to 31 in December 2020. 

This increase in vacancy rate from 6% to 21% of Haight storefronts is a challenge but also an opportunity for community involvement.  In November 2019, the voters passed the Storefront Vacancy tax which creates an economic incentive for landlords to quickly fill their storefronts with new tenants.  That legislation was put on hold by the Board of Supervisors at the start of the pandemic and will be taken up again in 2021. 

By Calvin Welch, HANC Board

We looked at how the Haight-Ashbury voted for  President,  Supervisor and  16  ballot measures HANC recommended to Haight-Ashbury voters.  We analyzed how each of the three sub-areas of the neighborhood voted and compared that to the rest of District 5 and the Citywide vote.

Since 2010 HANC has made recommendations on 75 state and local ballot measures to its members and Haight-Ashbury residents.  Of those 75 recommendations  Haight-Ashbury voters have agreed with 70 over the last decade, or 93% .  This year we made 16 recommendations, 9 local and 7 state. With COVID 19 forcing HANC to suspend its monthly meeting in which these measures were usually discussed, HANC board members dropped over 4,000 newsletters with the reasons for our our recommendations door to door  in the neighborhood.  Of the 16 recommendations, our neighbors agreed with 15 for a 94%  average.

 

By Richard Ivanhoe, HANC Board

It would be an understatement to say that 2020 was a year like no other.  We are still living through the global pandemic and economic crisis that both hit us last year.  Nationally, we had an impeachment, a primary election, and a general election.  Here’s a recap of 2020 from a very local perspective—HANC and the Haight-Ashbury.

We ended 2019 with a celebration of HANC’s 60th anniversary (our first meeting was in October, 1959, and our bylaws were adopted in March, 1960).  We had a new Supervisor (Dean Preston).  Our new District Attorney (Chesa Boudin) would be sworn in in January.  Our new Park Station Police Captain (Renee Pagano) had just started in November.  The Panhandle Playground had reopened in November, after 7 months of construction.  The Coalition for a Complete Community (CCC) held a community meeting in December to discuss the long-range development of the 730 Stanyan site.

By Richard Ivanhoe, HANC Board

As you may remember, there was a shooting on February 8, 2020 at Haight and Ashbury.  A few weeks later, on February 24, two pedestrians were injured in a vehicle hit-and-run.  The victims in both incidents were homeless or formerly homeless individuals.

There were community meetings about the shooting at the Bindery on February 18 and later that same week at the Park Branch Library.  HANC was planning to discuss both incidents at our March, 2020 meeting, but the earliest response to the Covid-19 pandemic was to limit or prohibit gatherings, and the meeting was canceled.

  1. Updated Covid-19 Restrictions and Testing Information
  2. HANC November General Meeting Recap
  3. December at HANC: How the Haight-Ashbury Voted in November
  4. December at HANC: Haight Street Economic Recovery
  5. San Francisco's Dark Money
  6. Thank you, HANC Members

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