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By James Sword, HANC Board

On December 14, 2021, District 3 Supervisor Aaron Peskin tweeted “We're putting Recall Reform on the June 2022 ballot. Taxpayers should not be forced to spend millions to recall officials who were just elected or are up for re-election in the same year. Thx to co-sponsors @shamannwalton @HillaryRonen @DeanPreston @conniechansf @myrnamelgar!” This tweet was soon followed by a Chronicle story about the various measures up for the June 2022 election – one of four we get to participate in this year!

As the Chronicle reported, “Supervisor Aaron Peskin wants to change how vacancies on the Board of Supervisors, Board of Education, and Community College District Board of Trustees are filled. Currently, the mayor appoints replacements in the middle of an election cycle. Peskin wants to instead have a majority of each board’s members appoint a replacement to fill a vacant seat — for example, leaving the power to pick a temporary new colleague up to supervisors.”

The amendment will also limit recalls to officials who have served in office for at least 12 months, up from the current six months. It will prohibit the submission of recall petitions within 18 months of a regularly scheduled election for the official – the Board of Education members being recalled are up for election in November 2022. Supervisors Shamann Walton, Connie Chan, Hillary Ronen, Dean Preston and Myrna Melgar support the measure.

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San Francisco’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH) supported putting bathrooms, showers, handwashing stations, and referral services at 730 Stanyan as an interim use pending construction of affordable housing on the site starting in mid-2023, and issued solicitations for a service provider on September 7.  The Homeless Youth Alliance was chosen, and the services were scheduled to open by the end of October.

Approximately two weeks before the site was set to open, it was squelched.  Who actually squelched it and why remains a mystery.  Supervisor Dean Preston asked the Mayor at the November 9 Board of Supervisor’s meeting.  The Mayor claimed that there were insufficient funds and that “Not everyone in this community supports this project.”

The issue was addressed again at a meeting of the Government Audit and Oversight Committee on November 18.  Included in those in attendance were Shireen McSpadden and Emily Cohen from HSH and Eric Shaw from the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development.  Supervisor Preston asked if the interim use could go forward if he found additional funds, and was told that it would not go forward.  He asked if there were any issues with the Homeless Youth Alliance, and there were none.

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by Richard Ivanhoe, HANC Board

We last reported on the Park Branch Library in the August issue of the Voice.  The article is also available on our website at https://www.hanc-sf.org/24-home/632-park-branh-library-s-reopening-plans .  At that time we reported that the library had moved from “SFPL to Go” pick up service to full in-person library services, with the hours remaining 10 am to 5:30 pm, Tuesday through Saturday.

As of November 13, Park Branch revised its hours as follows:

Sunday:         1 pm to 5 pm

Monday         12 noon to 6 pm

Tuesday         10 am to 8 pm

Wednesday   12 noon to 8 pm

Thursday       10 am to 6 pm

Friday             1 pm to 6 pm

Saturday        10 am to 6 pm

The community room remains unavailable for HANC meetings on Thursday night, and we are continuing to meet online.

The San Francisco Library has plans for further reopening in early 2022, although we do not yet know the details.  Park Branch has scheduled some daytime activities for January, which can be found here:  https://sfpl.org/events/#!/filters?field_event_location_target_id=47 . 

We will keep you updated as we learn more.

26 November, 2021

The Board of HANC would first  like to commend staff for its acceptance of the overwhelming majority of MUNI riders preference for the restoration of full service (called by SFMTA staff  the "Familiar Alternative") to MUNI .  Specifically,  we would like to commend staff for the partial restoration of the 21 Hayes and the full restoration of the 6 Parnassus and the 43 Masonic lines.  These are crucial services to the over 20,000 residents of the Haight-Ashbury and we welcome their return.

We, however, are disappointed with the proposals dramatic increase in headways for the 6 Parnassus (an increase from 12 minutes pre-pandemic to the proposed 20 minutes) and the 21 Hayes to 15 minutes (from the pre-pandemic 12 minutes).  We understand that in some measure these unacceptable increases in headways are due to the unavailability of drivers and that MUNI staff are hard at work to recruit and  train new drivers. We are disappointed that SFMTA does not set a timeline on when the 6 and 21 will return to their pre-pandemic level of service.

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