Bayview District Newsletter
Bayview Police Station 201-Williams St, San Francisco, CA 94124
415-671-2300
Captain John Loftus
February 23, 2009
Coming Events:
Your input is requested in the search for the new Police Chief
The Police Commission is currently engaged in a search for candidates
for the next Chief of the San Francisco Police Department and is about
to retain an executive search firm to assist in that effort. The
Commission will be conducting a series of special "Town Hall" style
community meetings to receive suggestions and comments regarding the
Commission's search for Police Chief candidates. The meetings currently
scheduled are as follows:
Monday, February 23, 2009, Richmond Recreation Center, 252 -18th Avenue,
(Richmond District) 6 p.m. - 8 p.m.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009, Southeast Community Center, 1800 Oakdale
Avenue, Alex Pitcher Community Room, 6 p.m. - 8 p.m.
The Commission will hold its usual monthly community meeting on
Wednesday, February 25th, 2009, St. Mary's Cathedral Center, 1111 Gough
Street, beginning at 6 p.m. A special invitation has been extended to
members of San Francisco faith based communities to attend.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009, Visitacion Valley Middle School Auditorium, 450
Raymond Avenue, 6 p.m. - 8 p.m.
Thursday, March 5, 2009, John O'Connell High School Gymnasium, 2355
Folsom Street, 6 p.m. - 8 p.m.
Please call if you have any questions.
Lt. Joe Reilly, Secretary
San Francisco Police Commission
Thomas J. Cahill Hall of Justice, Room 505
850 Bryant Street
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 553-1667
(415) 553-1669 fax
Bayview Community Meeting
Our next monthly community meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, March 3rd,
at 6:00 pm at Bayview Station. Adam Gubser from the Livable Streets
Program will be present to answer questions about traffic in the
district.
Arbor Week – March 2009
Mayor Newsom’s Trees for Tomorrow Program will plant 25,000 trees by
Arbor Day 2009. Fun-filled Arbor Day Activities will include a
reforestation effort in which volunteers will plant 300 trees, and a
Green Resource Fair. Also, there will be activities for children
including: story time and arts and crafts.
For more information call 311 or visit www.sfarborday.org
Free Legal Help
Do you have a problem that may require an attorney? Visit the free
Legal Advice and Referral Clinic.
On Saturday, March 14, 2009 at Hastings College of the Law
198-McAllister Street, 1st Floor (at Hyde Street)
In the Louis B. Mayer Lounge
You must register between 10:30 am and 12:00 pm
or,
On Saturday, March 28, 2009 at Providence Baptist Church
of San Francisco,1601-McKinnon Ave (at Mendell).
You must register between 12:00pm and 1:30 pm
If you have questions, or would like more information please call (415)
989-1616.
ARRESTS OF INTEREST:
February 22, 2009-Warrant Arrest, Resisting Officers-8:50pm-800 Blk of
Jamestown-CN#090194478:
Members of the Tactical Unit received information from other officers
regarding a wanted individual. Officers responded to the location and
saw a vehicle pull away. Believing this was the suspect they were
looking for they pulled the vehicle over, only to find another subject
driving. Officers released the driver and responded back to the
original location where they found the suspect. Officers took the
wanted suspect into custody, without incident.
February 21, 2009-Possession of Methamphetamine for sale, Narcotics
Paraphernalia-1:11am-Bayshore/Cortland-CN#090188268:
Officer Borghesani and Officer Rodriguez were in the area of Bayshore
and Courtland when they saw a vehicle make an illegal u-turn in the
middle of the street. Officers pulled the vehicle over and spoke with
the driver, who also had an outstanding warrant for his arrest.
Officers conducted a search and found suspected Crystal meth and
numerous pills of Kadian. Officers placed the driver under arrest and
towed his car.
February 21, 2009-Grand Theft Auto, Conspiracy-5:10pm-1500 blk of
Bayshore- CN#090190649:
Officer McArthur and Officer Borgen responded to a call regarding a
truck that had been stolen off of a lot. Officers spoke with the victim
who stated that he had parked the truck inside of a lot and went inside.
After a while he came out to the lot and saw a suspect drive off in the
truck. Members of the plainclothes team responded and located the truck
and the suspect. The victim was able to positively identify the suspect
that officers had placed under arrest.
February 20, 2009 – Possession of Methamphetamine for Sales, Illegal
Possession of Firearms, Warrant Arrest – 1000 Blk Ingerson
Members of the Ceasefire Team located a wanted suspect on the 1000-Block
of Ingerson. Follow-up investigation revealed the suspect to be in
possession of methamphetamine, heroin and two firearms. Suspect booked
at Bayview Station.
INCIDENTS OF INTEREST:
February 23, 2009-Shots fired-2:52am-1400 blk of Innes-CN#090195003:
Officer Fong and Officer Kavanagh responded to the 1400 blk of Innes
regarding a possible shooting. Headquarters advised that the
Shotspotter System had picked up numerous shots fired in that area.
Officers on scene recovered numerous casings in the area. No victims or
suspects were located.
February 21, 2009-Shooting into a house-12:40pm-Northridge
road-CN#090189175:
Members of Bayview’s housing team responded to Northridge Road regarding
a shooting. Officers met with the victim who showed officers a bullet
hole in her upstairs bedroom window. The victim stated that she did not
hear any shots and did not know who may have done this. No one was
injured during the shooting. No suspects were located.
February 20, 2009-Aggravated Assault w/other weapon, Terrorist
Threats-6:30pm-400 blk of Mansell-CN#090187301:
Police Service Aid Luk, took a report regarding two suspects that
sprayed pepper spray at a victim and threatened to kill her, after a
high school basketball game. The suspects then fled the area. Officers
arrived on scene regarding another fight in the area, but did not locate
the suspects with the pepper spray. The officers did locate another
victim of the pepper spray, but that victim refused medical treatment
and left the scene. No suspects were located. No one else was injured
during the incidents.
February 19, 2009-Theft from a
person-4:00pm-Bayshore/Blanken-CN#090186682:
A citizen came into Bayview Station to report that a suspect had taken
her backpack when she fell asleep on a MUNI bus. The victim stated that
her id, paystub, check card and miscellaneous papers were taken. The
victim was not injured during the theft. The suspect was not located.
BURGLARY INCIDENTS:
February 22, 2009-11:30am-1900 blk of 25th st-CN#090194209:
Entry made through a kitchen window. Loss was two computers.
February 21, 2009-5:00pm-100 blk of Topeka-CN#090189670:
Entry made through a living room back window. Loss was a pack of soda’s.
February 20, 2009-4:30pm-1100 blk of Palou-CN#090188525:
Entry made through a front door and window. Loss was money, shoes and
video cameras.
February 20, 2009-8:00pm-Commer Court-CN#090187470:
Entry made through a front iron bars on a kitchen window. Loss was a
flat screen t.v.
February 20, 2009-11:30pm-300 blk of Rhode Island-CN#090189404:
Entry made through a broken window of a school. Loss was two flat
screen t.v.’s and two plasma t.v.’s.
========================================
BAYVIEW STATION RESOURCE LIST
EMERGENCY: 911
Non-Emergency: 553-0123
Customer Service Center: 311, for TTY or outside SF dial 415-701-2323
Cell phone 911: 553-8090 or 911
Bayview Station: 671-2300
Web: www.sfgov.org/police (For Crime Stats,
internet reporting)
Captain John Loftus 671-2300 Email: john.loftus@sfgov.org
Anonymous Tip-Line 822-8147 Bayview Station’s Voicemail
SFPD Anon Tip Line 575-4444 Live person 24-hrs a day
Graffiti Abatement 278-9454
Graffiti Fax 278-9456
Bayview Events: 671-2302 Sergeant Ava Garrick
Bayview Permits: 671-2313 Officer Gigi George
Code Abatement: 671-2302 Sergeant Ava Garrick
Deputy City Attorney: 554-3874 Yvonne Mere
Dept. Parking & Traffic: 553-1943
DPW: 695-2020 Dispatch
Quality of Life Liaison: 671-2333 Off Dorian McConico
SF SAFE 553-1984
Abandoned Auto 850-9737 Off Rodriguez (Mon- Fri 7AM – 3
PM)
Homeless Issues: 671-2333 Off Dorian McConico
Third Street Beat: 671-2300 Officer Gillies
Third Street Beat: 671-2300 Officer Lucchetti & Officer
Singleton
San Bruno Avenue: 671-2300 Officer Percy Hernandez
Bayview Narcotics 254-7197 Sgt. Hagan & Sgt. Dempsey
Westbrook Development 509-1678 Officer Kraus & Officer Teper
Westbrook Development 806-8304 Officer Reynoso & Officer Pasqua
Potrero Hill Development 509-1408 Officer Rodatos & Officer Sanders
Potrero Hill Development 987-6389 Officer Fowlie & Officer Ferraez
Hunter’s View Devel 987-6569 Officer Brian Petiti & Officer Chantal
Hunter’s View Devel 509-1270 Officer Robinson & Officer Dockery
Alice Griffith Develop. 269-4002 Officer Lamma & Officer
Jakson
Alice Griffith Develop. 254-8703 Officer E. Martinez &
Officer Pashby
Community Liaison: 671-2302 Sergeant Garrick
Gun Stop Program Procedures:
Citizens are encouraged to call the anonymous tip line at (415) 575-4444
to report persons who possess illegal weapons in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Police Department is currently hiring:
The San Francisco Police Department is continuously hiring qualified
applicants. Applicants must be 21 years old, have a valid driver’s
license, must be a US citizen, must have a high school diploma or
equivalent, and must not have been convicted of a felony or convicted of
a misdemeanor which would prohibit possession of a firearm. For more
information or to apply, contact the Department of Human Resource at 44
Gough Street, San Francisco.
Megan’s Law Website Access:
The general public can find out information on sexual predators on line
by going to the DOJ website: www.meganslaw.ca.gov or at the SFPD link at
www.sfgov.org/police. You may check specific names or zip codes to
locate those listed in the database.
Join The San Francisco Citizen’s Police Academy
For more information, including application process, please call Ms.Lula
Magallon at (415) 401-4720, or Officer Maria Oropeza at (415) 401-4701.
You can also email us at sfpd_citizenspoliceacademy@yahoo.com or visit
our website: http://www.sfgov.org/site/police_index.asp?id=20182.
Graffiti Alert: $250.00 Reward Program
Day Watch Sergeant, Ava Garrick, is Bayview Station’s Graffiti Abatement
coordinator. Each month she collects surveys from the various beat
officers to report graffiti to DPW and our own Graffiti Unit within the
police department. You can contact Sgt. Ava Garrick at ava.garrick
@sfgov.org.
311 Customer Service Center:
What is 311? 311 is a toll free, NON-EMERGENCY phone number that the
public can call to access information about government services. A live
customer service representative will be available 24 hours a day, seven
days a week, and 365 days a year. The service is available to both wired
and wireless customers. Wireless customers should call (415) 701-2311.
311 employees will be able to provide translations services in more than
145 languages and dialects and will employ a diverse staff of customer
service representatives. TTY users and customers outside San Francisco
should dial 415-701-2323.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Special to Bayview Hill Association: Bayview Police Department Newsletter
Bayview District Newsletter
Bayview Police Station 201-Williams St, San Francisco, CA 94124
415-671-2300
Captain John Loftus
February 20, 2009
Coming Events:
Your input is requested in the search for the new Police Chief
The Police Commission is currently engaged in a search for candidates
for the next Chief of the San Francisco Police Department and is about
to retain an executive search firm to assist in that effort. The
Commission will be conducting a series of special "Town Hall" style
community meetings to receive suggestions and comments regarding the
Commission's search for Police Chief candidates. The meetings currently
scheduled are as follows:
Thursday, February 19, 2009, South Beach Harbor Community Room, Pier 40A
at the Embarcadero, (behind ATT Park) 6 p.m. - 8 p.m.
Monday, February 23, 2009, Richmond Recreation Center, 252 -18th Avenue,
(Richmond District) 6 p.m. - 8 p.m.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009, Southeast Community Center, 1800 Oakdale
Avenue, Alex Pitcher Community Room, 6 p.m. - 8 p.m.
The Commission will hold its usual monthly community meeting on
Wednesday, February 25th, 2009, St. Mary's Cathedral Center, 1111 Gough
Street, beginning at 6 p.m. A special invitation has been extended to
members of San Francisco faith based communities to attend.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009, Visitacion Valley Middle School Auditorium, 450
Raymond Avenue, 6 p.m. - 8 p.m.
Thursday, March 5, 2009, John O'Connell High School Gymnasium, 2355
Folsom Street, 6 p.m. - 8 p.m.
Please call if you have any questions.
Lt. Joe Reilly, Secretary
San Francisco Police Commission
Thomas J. Cahill Hall of Justice, Room 505
850 Bryant Street
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 553-1667
(415) 553-1669 fax
Bayview Community Meeting
Our next monthly community meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, March 3rd,
at 6:00 pm at Bayview Station. Adam Gubser from the Livable Streets
Program will be present to answer questions about traffic in the
district.
Arbor Week – March 2009
Mayor Newsom’s Trees for Tomorrow Program will plant 25,000 trees by
Arbor Day 2009. Fun-filled Arbor Day Activities will include a
reforestation effort in which volunteers will plant 300 trees, and a
Green Resource Fair. Also, there will be activities for children
including: story time and arts and crafts.
For more information call 311 or visit www.sfarborday.org
Free Legal Help
Do you have a problem that may require an attorney? Visit the free
Legal Advice and Referral Clinic.
On Saturday, March 14, 2009 at Hastings College of the Law
198-McAllister Street, 1st Floor (at Hyde Street)
In the Louis B. Mayer Lounge
You must register between 10:30 am and 12:00 pm
or,
On Saturday, March 28, 2009 at Providence Baptist Church
of San Francisco,1601-McKinnon Ave (at Mendell).
You must register between 12:00pm and 1:30 pm
If you have questions, or would like more information please call (415)
989-1616.
ARRESTS OF INTEREST:
February 20, 2009-Stolen Property, Conspiracy, Burglary of a
Vehicle-1:40am-Indiana/Mariposa-CN#090184216:
Officer Ochoa was on patrol in the area of Indiana and Mariposa when he
observed two subjects suspiciously walking away from a parked vehicle.
The subjects jumped into another car as Officer Ochoa headed towards
them. The suspect vehicle then drove away at a high rate of speed.
Several officers arrived to assist in taking the suspects into custody,
without incident. After searching the suspect’s vehicle, officers found
numerous items of evidence in the car and were able to contact most of
the owners of those items in order to return them.
February 20, 2009-Cocaine for sale, Battery of a Police
Officer-12:09am-Kieth/Thomas-CN#090184056:
Officer Singh and Officer Kornegay were on patrol in the area of Shafter
and Keith when they saw a car, stopped mid block on the street, with a
subject leaning into the car window. The subject quickly stood straight
up and walked away when he saw officers approaching and the vehicle left
the area. Officers followed and pulled the vehicle over. Officers spoke
with the driver and saw, in plain view, suspected narcotics on the floor
of the vehicle. The driver was placed under arrest and the narcotics
were seized by officers. After further investigation, officers found
that the driver had a suspended license. Officers transported the
driver back to Bayview station where they recovered more suspected
narcotics from her person. The suspect became combative, kicking one
officer in the chest and another in the leg. The suspect continually
yelled obscenities at officers and attempted to get away, to no avail.
The officers were not injured during the attack.
February 19, 2009-Loaded Gun in a Vehicle, Possession of Marijuana for
sale-10:42pm-Silver/San Bruno-CN#090173826:
Members of Bayview’s plainclothes team were traveling in the area of
Silver and Girard when the saw a car parked in front of a liquor store
with a known subject leaning into the car window. Officer Mustafich
drove past very slowly and made eye contact with the driver and
passenger. The passenger, upon seeing the officers, jumped out of the
car and began to walk away. The driver, who remained in the car, was
seen placing something from the front seat to the back seat. Officers
also recalled an earlier report of this same vehicle, which had taken
off at a high rate of speed when officers attempted to pull it over for
a traffic violation. Officer searched the vehicle and located a gun and
suspected marijuana. The driver was placed under arrest, without
incident. The gun and suspected marijuana were seized as evidence and
the vehicle was towed.
INCIDENTS OF INTEREST:
February 18, 2009-Reckless Driving-6:30pm-1300-1400 blk of
Revere-CN#090179079:
Officer Williams and Training Officer Sanders were patrolling in the
area of Jennings Avenue when they heard, in the distance, screeching
tires and an engine revving. Officers saw the driver of the car, who
was performing “donuts” in a reckless manner, on the street. Officers
apprehended the driver who was cited and released. The vehicle was
towed. No one was injured during the incident.
February 19, 2009-Traffic Collision involving Muni
bus-11:02pm-CN#090183854:
A MUNI bus collided into a building causing considerable damage to the
MUNI bus and the building late Thursday night. Officers spoke with the
driver who stated that that the crash happened very fast and that he was
unsure what caused it. A pedestrian, standing near the building that
was hit, had to jump out of the way when he saw the bus approaching. He
was treated by SFFD for complaints of pain. A MUNI Inspector responded
to the accident, as did PG&E, who repaired a pole that was also damaged.
February 19, 2009-Battery of a Police Officer, Resisting
Police-Vandalism to a Vehicle.
Officer Gritsch and Officer Fong were parked on Mendell when they saw a
subject, who was intoxicated, stumbling and yelling at passers by.
Officers then saw a bottle flying through the air, towards the police
car, striking the windshield and breaking the glass. Officers detained
the intoxicated subject, who struck one of the officers with an elbow to
the chest. The suspect then broke free and attempted to run away.
Other officers arrived and caught the suspect, who had to be physically
controlled. Officers placed the subject under arrest and transported
him to Bayview station, where he was cited. Due to the suspect’s level
of intoxication, Officers called for a medic to transport him to
S.F.G.H.
BURGLARY INCIDENTS:
February 17, 090176100- Burglary residence, 200 block of Arkansas St:
Front door forced open, two bicycles stolen
February 19, 090181612- Burglary residence, unit block of Silliman:
Glass pane in door broken, electronic dictionary stolen
February 19, 090182408- burglary residence, 1100 block of Ingerson:
Entry made thru side door, TVs and computer stolen
========================================
BAYVIEW STATION RESOURCE LIST
EMERGENCY: 911
Non-Emergency: 553-0123
Customer Service Center: 311, for TTY or outside SF dial 415-701-2323
Cell phone 911: 553-8090 or 911
Bayview Station: 671-2300
Web: www.sfgov.org/police (For Crime Stats,
internet reporting)
Captain John Loftus 671-2300 Email: john.loftus@sfgov.org
Anonymous Tip-Line 822-8147 Bayview Station’s Voicemail
SFPD Anon Tip Line 575-4444 Live person 24-hrs a day
Graffiti Abatement 278-9454
Graffiti Fax 278-9456
Bayview Events: 671-2302 Sergeant Ava Garrick
Bayview Permits: 671-2313 Officer Gigi George
Code Abatement: 671-2302 Sergeant Ava Garrick
Deputy City Attorney: 554-3874 Yvonne Mere
Dept. Parking & Traffic: 553-1943
DPW: 695-2020 Dispatch
Quality of Life Liaison: 671-2333 Off Dorian McConico
SF SAFE 553-1984
Abandoned Auto 850-9737 Off Rodriguez (Mon- Fri 7AM – 3
PM)
Homeless Issues: 671-2333 Off Dorian McConico
Third Street Beat: 671-2300 Officer Gillies
Third Street Beat: 671-2300 Officer Lucchetti & Officer
Singleton
San Bruno Avenue: 671-2300 Officer Percy Hernandez
Bayview Narcotics 254-7197 Sgt. Hagan & Sgt. Dempsey
Westbrook Development 509-1678 Officer Kraus & Officer Teper
Westbrook Development 806-8304 Officer Reynoso & Officer Pasqua
Potrero Hill Development 509-1408 Officer Rodatos & Officer Sanders
Potrero Hill Development 987-6389 Officer Fowlie & Officer Ferraez
Hunter’s View Devel 987-6569 Officer Brian Petiti & Officer Chantal
Hunter’s View Devel 509-1270 Officer Robinson & Officer Dockery
Alice Griffith Develop. 269-4002 Officer Lamma & Officer
Jakson
Alice Griffith Develop. 254-8703 Officer E. Martinez &
Officer Pashby
Community Liaison: 671-2302 Sergeant Garrick
Gun Stop Program Procedures:
Citizens are encouraged to call the anonymous tip line at (415) 575-4444
to report persons who possess illegal weapons in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Police Department is currently hiring:
The San Francisco Police Department is continuously hiring qualified
applicants. Applicants must be 21 years old, have a valid driver’s
license, must be a US citizen, must have a high school diploma or
equivalent, and must not have been convicted of a felony or convicted of
a misdemeanor which would prohibit possession of a firearm. For more
information or to apply, contact the Department of Human Resource at 44
Gough Street, San Francisco.
Megan’s Law Website Access:
The general public can find out information on sexual predators on line
by going to the DOJ website: www.meganslaw.ca.gov or at the SFPD link at
www.sfgov.org/police. You may check specific names or zip codes to
locate those listed in the database.
Join The San Francisco Citizen’s Police Academy
For more information, including application process, please call Ms.Lula
Magallon at (415) 401-4720, or Officer Maria Oropeza at (415) 401-4701.
You can also email us at sfpd_citizenspoliceacademy@yahoo.com or visit
our website: http://www.sfgov.org/site/police_index.asp?id=20182.
Graffiti Alert: $250.00 Reward Program
Day Watch Sergeant, Ava Garrick, is Bayview Station’s Graffiti Abatement
coordinator. Each month she collects surveys from the various beat
officers to report graffiti to DPW and our own Graffiti Unit within the
police department. You can contact Sgt. Ava Garrick at ava.garrick
@sfgov.org.
311 Customer Service Center:
What is 311? 311 is a toll free, NON-EMERGENCY phone number that the
public can call to access information about government services. A live
customer service representative will be available 24 hours a day, seven
days a week, and 365 days a year. The service is available to both wired
and wireless customers. Wireless customers should call (415) 701-2311.
311 employees will be able to provide translations services in more than
145 languages and dialects and will employ a diverse staff of customer
service representatives. TTY users and customers outside San Francisco
should dial 415-701-2323.
Bayview Police Station 201-Williams St, San Francisco, CA 94124
415-671-2300
Captain John Loftus
February 20, 2009
Coming Events:
Your input is requested in the search for the new Police Chief
The Police Commission is currently engaged in a search for candidates
for the next Chief of the San Francisco Police Department and is about
to retain an executive search firm to assist in that effort. The
Commission will be conducting a series of special "Town Hall" style
community meetings to receive suggestions and comments regarding the
Commission's search for Police Chief candidates. The meetings currently
scheduled are as follows:
Thursday, February 19, 2009, South Beach Harbor Community Room, Pier 40A
at the Embarcadero, (behind ATT Park) 6 p.m. - 8 p.m.
Monday, February 23, 2009, Richmond Recreation Center, 252 -18th Avenue,
(Richmond District) 6 p.m. - 8 p.m.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009, Southeast Community Center, 1800 Oakdale
Avenue, Alex Pitcher Community Room, 6 p.m. - 8 p.m.
The Commission will hold its usual monthly community meeting on
Wednesday, February 25th, 2009, St. Mary's Cathedral Center, 1111 Gough
Street, beginning at 6 p.m. A special invitation has been extended to
members of San Francisco faith based communities to attend.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009, Visitacion Valley Middle School Auditorium, 450
Raymond Avenue, 6 p.m. - 8 p.m.
Thursday, March 5, 2009, John O'Connell High School Gymnasium, 2355
Folsom Street, 6 p.m. - 8 p.m.
Please call if you have any questions.
Lt. Joe Reilly, Secretary
San Francisco Police Commission
Thomas J. Cahill Hall of Justice, Room 505
850 Bryant Street
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 553-1667
(415) 553-1669 fax
Bayview Community Meeting
Our next monthly community meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, March 3rd,
at 6:00 pm at Bayview Station. Adam Gubser from the Livable Streets
Program will be present to answer questions about traffic in the
district.
Arbor Week – March 2009
Mayor Newsom’s Trees for Tomorrow Program will plant 25,000 trees by
Arbor Day 2009. Fun-filled Arbor Day Activities will include a
reforestation effort in which volunteers will plant 300 trees, and a
Green Resource Fair. Also, there will be activities for children
including: story time and arts and crafts.
For more information call 311 or visit www.sfarborday.org
Free Legal Help
Do you have a problem that may require an attorney? Visit the free
Legal Advice and Referral Clinic.
On Saturday, March 14, 2009 at Hastings College of the Law
198-McAllister Street, 1st Floor (at Hyde Street)
In the Louis B. Mayer Lounge
You must register between 10:30 am and 12:00 pm
or,
On Saturday, March 28, 2009 at Providence Baptist Church
of San Francisco,1601-McKinnon Ave (at Mendell).
You must register between 12:00pm and 1:30 pm
If you have questions, or would like more information please call (415)
989-1616.
ARRESTS OF INTEREST:
February 20, 2009-Stolen Property, Conspiracy, Burglary of a
Vehicle-1:40am-Indiana/Mariposa-CN#090184216:
Officer Ochoa was on patrol in the area of Indiana and Mariposa when he
observed two subjects suspiciously walking away from a parked vehicle.
The subjects jumped into another car as Officer Ochoa headed towards
them. The suspect vehicle then drove away at a high rate of speed.
Several officers arrived to assist in taking the suspects into custody,
without incident. After searching the suspect’s vehicle, officers found
numerous items of evidence in the car and were able to contact most of
the owners of those items in order to return them.
February 20, 2009-Cocaine for sale, Battery of a Police
Officer-12:09am-Kieth/Thomas-CN#090184056:
Officer Singh and Officer Kornegay were on patrol in the area of Shafter
and Keith when they saw a car, stopped mid block on the street, with a
subject leaning into the car window. The subject quickly stood straight
up and walked away when he saw officers approaching and the vehicle left
the area. Officers followed and pulled the vehicle over. Officers spoke
with the driver and saw, in plain view, suspected narcotics on the floor
of the vehicle. The driver was placed under arrest and the narcotics
were seized by officers. After further investigation, officers found
that the driver had a suspended license. Officers transported the
driver back to Bayview station where they recovered more suspected
narcotics from her person. The suspect became combative, kicking one
officer in the chest and another in the leg. The suspect continually
yelled obscenities at officers and attempted to get away, to no avail.
The officers were not injured during the attack.
February 19, 2009-Loaded Gun in a Vehicle, Possession of Marijuana for
sale-10:42pm-Silver/San Bruno-CN#090173826:
Members of Bayview’s plainclothes team were traveling in the area of
Silver and Girard when the saw a car parked in front of a liquor store
with a known subject leaning into the car window. Officer Mustafich
drove past very slowly and made eye contact with the driver and
passenger. The passenger, upon seeing the officers, jumped out of the
car and began to walk away. The driver, who remained in the car, was
seen placing something from the front seat to the back seat. Officers
also recalled an earlier report of this same vehicle, which had taken
off at a high rate of speed when officers attempted to pull it over for
a traffic violation. Officer searched the vehicle and located a gun and
suspected marijuana. The driver was placed under arrest, without
incident. The gun and suspected marijuana were seized as evidence and
the vehicle was towed.
INCIDENTS OF INTEREST:
February 18, 2009-Reckless Driving-6:30pm-1300-1400 blk of
Revere-CN#090179079:
Officer Williams and Training Officer Sanders were patrolling in the
area of Jennings Avenue when they heard, in the distance, screeching
tires and an engine revving. Officers saw the driver of the car, who
was performing “donuts” in a reckless manner, on the street. Officers
apprehended the driver who was cited and released. The vehicle was
towed. No one was injured during the incident.
February 19, 2009-Traffic Collision involving Muni
bus-11:02pm-CN#090183854:
A MUNI bus collided into a building causing considerable damage to the
MUNI bus and the building late Thursday night. Officers spoke with the
driver who stated that that the crash happened very fast and that he was
unsure what caused it. A pedestrian, standing near the building that
was hit, had to jump out of the way when he saw the bus approaching. He
was treated by SFFD for complaints of pain. A MUNI Inspector responded
to the accident, as did PG&E, who repaired a pole that was also damaged.
February 19, 2009-Battery of a Police Officer, Resisting
Police-Vandalism to a Vehicle.
Officer Gritsch and Officer Fong were parked on Mendell when they saw a
subject, who was intoxicated, stumbling and yelling at passers by.
Officers then saw a bottle flying through the air, towards the police
car, striking the windshield and breaking the glass. Officers detained
the intoxicated subject, who struck one of the officers with an elbow to
the chest. The suspect then broke free and attempted to run away.
Other officers arrived and caught the suspect, who had to be physically
controlled. Officers placed the subject under arrest and transported
him to Bayview station, where he was cited. Due to the suspect’s level
of intoxication, Officers called for a medic to transport him to
S.F.G.H.
BURGLARY INCIDENTS:
February 17, 090176100- Burglary residence, 200 block of Arkansas St:
Front door forced open, two bicycles stolen
February 19, 090181612- Burglary residence, unit block of Silliman:
Glass pane in door broken, electronic dictionary stolen
February 19, 090182408- burglary residence, 1100 block of Ingerson:
Entry made thru side door, TVs and computer stolen
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BAYVIEW STATION RESOURCE LIST
EMERGENCY: 911
Non-Emergency: 553-0123
Customer Service Center: 311, for TTY or outside SF dial 415-701-2323
Cell phone 911: 553-8090 or 911
Bayview Station: 671-2300
Web: www.sfgov.org/police (For Crime Stats,
internet reporting)
Captain John Loftus 671-2300 Email: john.loftus@sfgov.org
Anonymous Tip-Line 822-8147 Bayview Station’s Voicemail
SFPD Anon Tip Line 575-4444 Live person 24-hrs a day
Graffiti Abatement 278-9454
Graffiti Fax 278-9456
Bayview Events: 671-2302 Sergeant Ava Garrick
Bayview Permits: 671-2313 Officer Gigi George
Code Abatement: 671-2302 Sergeant Ava Garrick
Deputy City Attorney: 554-3874 Yvonne Mere
Dept. Parking & Traffic: 553-1943
DPW: 695-2020 Dispatch
Quality of Life Liaison: 671-2333 Off Dorian McConico
SF SAFE 553-1984
Abandoned Auto 850-9737 Off Rodriguez (Mon- Fri 7AM – 3
PM)
Homeless Issues: 671-2333 Off Dorian McConico
Third Street Beat: 671-2300 Officer Gillies
Third Street Beat: 671-2300 Officer Lucchetti & Officer
Singleton
San Bruno Avenue: 671-2300 Officer Percy Hernandez
Bayview Narcotics 254-7197 Sgt. Hagan & Sgt. Dempsey
Westbrook Development 509-1678 Officer Kraus & Officer Teper
Westbrook Development 806-8304 Officer Reynoso & Officer Pasqua
Potrero Hill Development 509-1408 Officer Rodatos & Officer Sanders
Potrero Hill Development 987-6389 Officer Fowlie & Officer Ferraez
Hunter’s View Devel 987-6569 Officer Brian Petiti & Officer Chantal
Hunter’s View Devel 509-1270 Officer Robinson & Officer Dockery
Alice Griffith Develop. 269-4002 Officer Lamma & Officer
Jakson
Alice Griffith Develop. 254-8703 Officer E. Martinez &
Officer Pashby
Community Liaison: 671-2302 Sergeant Garrick
Gun Stop Program Procedures:
Citizens are encouraged to call the anonymous tip line at (415) 575-4444
to report persons who possess illegal weapons in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Police Department is currently hiring:
The San Francisco Police Department is continuously hiring qualified
applicants. Applicants must be 21 years old, have a valid driver’s
license, must be a US citizen, must have a high school diploma or
equivalent, and must not have been convicted of a felony or convicted of
a misdemeanor which would prohibit possession of a firearm. For more
information or to apply, contact the Department of Human Resource at 44
Gough Street, San Francisco.
Megan’s Law Website Access:
The general public can find out information on sexual predators on line
by going to the DOJ website: www.meganslaw.ca.gov or at the SFPD link at
www.sfgov.org/police. You may check specific names or zip codes to
locate those listed in the database.
Join The San Francisco Citizen’s Police Academy
For more information, including application process, please call Ms.Lula
Magallon at (415) 401-4720, or Officer Maria Oropeza at (415) 401-4701.
You can also email us at sfpd_citizenspoliceacademy@yahoo.com or visit
our website: http://www.sfgov.org/site/police_index.asp?id=20182.
Graffiti Alert: $250.00 Reward Program
Day Watch Sergeant, Ava Garrick, is Bayview Station’s Graffiti Abatement
coordinator. Each month she collects surveys from the various beat
officers to report graffiti to DPW and our own Graffiti Unit within the
police department. You can contact Sgt. Ava Garrick at ava.garrick
@sfgov.org.
311 Customer Service Center:
What is 311? 311 is a toll free, NON-EMERGENCY phone number that the
public can call to access information about government services. A live
customer service representative will be available 24 hours a day, seven
days a week, and 365 days a year. The service is available to both wired
and wireless customers. Wireless customers should call (415) 701-2311.
311 employees will be able to provide translations services in more than
145 languages and dialects and will employ a diverse staff of customer
service representatives. TTY users and customers outside San Francisco
should dial 415-701-2323.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Special to Bayview Hill-Jake Sigg's Nature News
1. Beginner's walk at Lake Merced, Sunday 22
2. Bees in the City - stellar program at CounterPULSE Feb 25
3. Oceans vs plastics - correction on URL
4. Edna St Vincent Millay anniversary February 22
5. Useful information from the California Oak Mortality Task force and sudden oak death
6. Would you like to be a host for the Native Plant Garden Tour April 5?
7. New e-newsletter for invasive plants
8. The NAACP turns 100
9. More Lincoln
10. Endangered Species: California Game Wardens
11. Feedback
12. A lament for saver; prudence gets penalized
13. Wisdom from Arabia
14. New mintings for the penny? Why?
15. The Food Pyramid/Coffee's pros and cons/carrots of many colors/why are carrots better in winter?
1.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
starting at 10:00am
Walk: Beginner's Walk at Lake Merced
Guide: Tom Annese
Location: Lake Merced
Contact: Tom Annese tomannese@yahoo.com 415-297-1413
On this leisurely stroll around Lake Merced's Mesa, we'll identify and review some of the most common dune and coastal scrub species. With luck, we'll see some early bloomers, but we'll focus on learning these plants by vegetative characteristics. This walk will provide an excellent foundation for those new to San Francisco's flora and will help those planning to attend more advanced wildflower walks in spring. This is a short walk on flat sandy soil. Wear closed-toe shoes and layered clothing. Wind is likely. A pleasant drizzle will not deter us but heavy rain cancels.
Directions:
* We will meet at the intersection of Lake Merced Boulevard and Middlefield Drive near the crosswalk.
* The site is accessible via Muni lines #29 and #23.
* If you're driving, park on Middlefield Drive at Gellert and walk across the Boulevard to the Lake.
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2.
Title: Bees in the City
Date: February 25, 2009
Time: 7:30 p.m.
Place: CounterPULSE
1310 Mission Street (@ 9th)
San Francisco, CA 94103
Cost: Free & open to the public
Description: Learn about the "Colony Collapse Disorder" afflicting commercial beekeepers and the threat to agribusiness, in juxtaposition to the dozens of native bees flourishing in California's urban environments, which reinforce local biodiversity and provide another important link to growing our own food in cities.
Speakers: Phillip Gerrie (SF Beekeepers Association), K. Ruby (Institute for Urban Homesteading), Gordon Frankie, and Alemany Farm
Contact: steward@natureinthecity.org, 415-564-4107
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3. Correction on last newsletter's item about oceans vs plastic:
The oceans vs plastic; act
the link to the program is broken. (http://tinyurl.com/8hhzyj)
This looks like it might be the correct link: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/128097118
I got it by going to http://www.sfsurfrider.org/ and clicking on 'rise above plastics!' graphic on right
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4.
Born 22 February 1892: Edna St Vincent Millay
Information taken from the internet
Edna was in high school when she entered a poetry contest and wrote a poem, Renascence, which she recited at a poetry reading, and a woman in the audience was so impressed that she paid Edna's way to go to Vassar College.
She was a rebellious student at Vassar, then moved to New York City, where she lived in Greenwich Village and had numerous love affairs with both women and men. Edmund Wilson thought she was almost "supernaturally beautiful." He proposed marriage and never got over the rejection.
In her poem First Fig she wrote:
My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends-
It gives a lovely light!
And in Second Fig:
Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand:
Come see my shining palace built upon the sand!
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5.
The California Oak Mortality Task Force uses peer-reviewed science to help clear up misconceptions about sudden oak death. Because the pathogen can be transported in soil, sanitation is key to controlling the disease's spread. But people sometimes have taken unnecessarily extreme precautions after hiking in infested areas. "Some threw their shoes away right after hiking...Others put all their clothes in a paper bag, washed them right away and then burned the bag," (says a researcher). But all hikers really need to do is to clean clumps of mud off their shoes during the rainy season, she says.
Another misconception is that people in susceptible coastal areas should avoid gardening with native plants. "Some see the host plant list as a prohibition list," (says the researcher). "But aside from bay laurels, they all should be planted. Natives are better than nonnatives, which could introduce another pathogen." Bay laurel trees are the main host responsible for spreading Phytophthora ramorum in California wildlands.
Most recently, research has shown that sudden oak death infections are not affected by azomite, a mineral-rich powder that is mined from volcanic deposits. While azomite is touted as a natural cure, "it's like treating pneumonia with orange juice," says study leader Matteo Garbelotto, a forest pathology specialist at UC Berkeley..."Azomite appeals emotionally to a lot of people, (says a researcher). "now we'll be able to tell them that it doesn't work."
Excerpt from California Agriculture, January-March 2009
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6. Volunteer opportunity in San Francisco
Looking for a fun afternoon, meeting friendly interesting people, and having a positive impact on the community?
We are looking for volunteer to co-host at the Yerba Buena Chapter of the California Native Plant Society's Native Plant Garden Tour, Sunday, April 5, 2009, 11 AM to 3 PM.
No experience necessary, knowledge of native plants helpful but not required! The owner or caretaker of each of the private gardens will be present. Co-hosts greet visitors, ask them to sign in, and is the friendly face that improves guest experience. A packet of information, map of the gardens on the tour, open/shut sign for the entrance, and sign in sheets provided.
Please contact Nancy at: yb09nr@yahoo.com by March 1 if interested.
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7.
New e-newsletter on invasive plants
The Center for Invasive Plant Management now offers a free bimonthly electronic newsletter, which covers a variety of topics related to invasive plant science, management, education, and policy: http://www.weedcenter.org/
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8.
Another February 12 anniversary
The NAACP at 100
Much still to do
During the summer of 1908, riots raged through Abraham Lincoln's hometown of Springfield, Illinois. The quiet removal of two black men who had been held in prison as suspects in two separate attacks on white people enraged the white community. They took out their anger on black residents and black-owned businesses and properties. The riots went on for two days and simmered for longer; seven people were killed and some $200,0000 worth of damage was done.
The following February, partly in response to the Springfield riots, a group of Jewish, white and black activists met in New York to found the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, whose aim was, and remains, to ensure "the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination". Excerpt from The Economist 14 February 2009
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9. More Lincoln
Excerpts from the archives of The Economist: www.economist.com/fromthearchive
The new president-elect
“THE success of the Republican candidate for the Presidency in the United States will prove one of the greatest events of modern times, if it indicates, as we trust, no mere accidental fluctuation of public opinion in the direction of the Anti- Slavery cause, but the commencement of a permanent and sustained movement.”
24 November 1860
The death of a president
“THE murder of Mr Lincoln is a very great and very lamentable event, perhaps the greatest and most lamentable which has occurred since the coup d'etat, if not since Waterloo. It affects directly and immensely the welfare of the three most powerful countries in the world, America, France, and England, and it affects them all for evil.”
"...not merely that a great man has passed away, but he has disappeared at the very time when his special greatness seemed almost essential to the world."
29 April 1865
Looking back at Lincoln
“IT is yet too early to look for a full and satisfactory biography of one who in the pages of American history will occupy a place second only to Washington, both for services rendered to his country and for the integrity and simple-hearted devotion with which he served her.”
29 July 1865
__________________________
The war over Lincoln
America is throwing a big birthday party for its 16th president, and everyone wants a share
The forgotten meritocrat
...both sides have shortchanged one of Lincoln's most important ideals: that of self-help and upward mobility. Lincoln was not just content to be a personal example of upward mobility--born, in the poet James Russell Lowell's phrase, "out of the very earth, unancestried, unprivileged, unknown". He believed that the essence of the promise of American life was "to lift artificial weights from all shoulders" and "afford all an unfettered start, and a fair chance, in the race of life."
Both parties continue to pay lip service to this ideal. But they have done far too little about America's rusting ladders of opportunity. Mr Bush's Republicans cut the top rates of tax at a time when the richest Americans were amassing unheard-of wealth, and widened the gap between rich and poor while turning a healthy budget surplus into a big deficit. The Democrats are wedded to a system of affirmative action that judges people on the basis of their race rather than their individual merits. They are also in the pockets of teachers' unions which have fought relentlessly against introducing more competition or standardised testing into the public schools. Mr Obama, like Bill Clinton before him, has sent his own children to a private school, while simultaneously anathematising voucher schemes that would allow those less wealthy to do the same. If the hottest political question in this bicentennial week is "what would Lincoln do?", then the first answer is surely try a lot harder to repair America's faltering commitment to meritocracy.
Excerpt from Lexington's column in The Economist, 14 February 2009
Freedom's messy triumph
America, Empire of Liberty: A New History, by David Reynolds
Which American president was described by his top general as "nothing more than a well-meaning baboon"? Abraham Lincoln, who thought no better of General George McClellan. Convinced that a vast Confederate army lay in wait for him, McClellan hesitated to march on Richmond, Virginia, the rebel capital. "If General McClellan does not want to use the army, I would like to borrow it for a time," sighed Lincoln. When McClellan at last started creeping towards Richmond, he was embarrassed to discover that some of the imposing gun emplacements that had scared him were only painted logs.
Excerpt from The Economist, 14 Feb 09
(Lincoln was confronted by many, many problems vis-a-vis his cabinet, Congress, the public, and trying to keep border states [Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware] in the union. It was a difficult balancing act. But arguably his main challenge was General McClellan, who was good at organization, but cautious to the point of inaction. He missed opportunities to give the South the coup de grace, and that led to four extremely bloody years. McClellan was also uninterested in ending slavery. Lincoln eventually replaced him. McClellan ran against him in the 1864 presidential election. Shortly before the election he was still ahead in the polls; had he won he would have made a deal with the South allowing them to keep slavery.)
_________________________
“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country...Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.” Abraham Lincoln, quoted in Jack London’s The Iron Heel
(See also A lament for savers; Prudence gets penalized/and the Lincoln penny, below)
Frank Noto:
Jake, "Many of Lincoln's cabinet appointments were from his opposition--some of them contemptuous of Lincoln--and they reflected opinion of the Democrats from the North. "
If you are referring to his initial cabinet, I don't think there were many Democrats from any region, perhaps you mean Republicans. Or perhaps I don't understand what is meant by reflected opinion. When Lincoln ran and won in 1864 on a Union ticket, he did include Democrat Andrew Johnson, but I do not know how many other Dems were included.
Frank: Regardless of their affiliation, some of them reflected the opinions of northern Democrats (which had significantly different views from southern Democrats, especially on the matter of slavery).
_________________________
Hey Jake.
In the Lincoln and Darwin spirit... I wanted to share a video piece that I wrote for Time.com about Lincoln and Darwin. It's featured on the front page today - listed as a "Must See" video.
I put the links in my blog: http://www.sciencecomedian.com/blog/2009/02/16/science-comedian-lincoln-and-darwin-on-timecom/
Keep up the good work! I enjoy your emails.
Brian
Brian Malow
sciencecomedian@gmail.com
www.sciencecomedian.com
(The California Academy of Sciences has On the Origin of Species in hardcover for $8!!)
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10. From Eric Mills:
New DVD in Town: "ENDANGERED SPECIES: CALIFORNIA FISH AND GAME WARDENS," available from Snow Goose Productions, P.O. Box 2480, Mill Valley, CA
94942. Cost is $22 (includes handling & postage). Producer James Swann has promised to send copies to all California state legislators and the Dept. of Fish & Game, and Commission.
California is DEAD LAST in the nation (and Canadian provinces) in the ratio of wardens per population. We currently have only 192 wardens in the field, when we could use between 2,000-3,000 to do the job. Wardens make a salary of only about 3/5's what a CHP officer makes, and are far more likely to be shot while on duty. Wardens generally work alone, often without backup, 7 days a week. As a direct result of the pay inequity, new applicants are almost non-existent, and our wildlife and environment suffer accordingly. Reportedly, some 40% of the current understaffed force will be up for retirement within three years. NOT ACCEPTABLE! Our wildlife is in dire straits, poaching is on the increase, and conditions will only worsen in light of the current fiscal disaster we face.
ALL STATE LEGISLATORS MAY BE WRITTEN C/O THE STATE CAPITOL, SACRAMENTO, CA 95814.
Letters to the Editors of various newspapers would also be helpful. Here are a few addresses:
letters@sfchronicle.com
letters@latimes.com
letters@mercurynews.com
letters@cctimes.com
letters@sacbee.com
If you would like to get onto Eric Mills' email list: afa@mcn.org
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11. Feedback
Jim Hanson:
FYI, following up on your Nature News comment about population where the financial meltdown came from, I caught a KQED Forum program on the State budget mess and made this comment to the reporter who cited how recently increasing California population has also meant a growing demand for taxpayer services, thus we're broke.
I'm encouraging the reporters to bring up population pressures from unsustainable family size and what it's doing to everything. Promoting awareness and open discussion. Also this Dept. of Finance report about increasing population/family size and use of taxpayer-funded services is timely to the State budget breakdown.
Bob Twomey (re Love the Ocean and Use Less Plastic):
I understand there is a huge "plastic island" somewhere...where all the garbage gets sucks into a huge pool
Oh yes, I may have heard of it. Some of the stories I hear are too much to bear, and I just block them out. It's the only way I can get out of bed in the morning.
I'll post your question in next newsletter; you'll doubtless get a response.
Jeff Caldwell:
While population effect fears may not be entirely without merit, I cannot help but think of the utter rapacity of generations preceding this one, who were responsible for an enormous amount of ecological damage inflicted with and by far fewer people living on the land.
Like my Uncle Vince -- who, when he was young, shot any living thing he saw, senselessly killing. Shot turtles off logs.
Those who destroyed the great auk and the passenger pigeon ... those who chose, for money at hand, to make our creeks and rivers into concrete ditches.
It wasn't their numbers that did Nature in, it was their choices ...
You say that people's "fears may not be entirely without merit". Say it ain't so, Jeff. I cannot believe that you harbor doubts about the effect of sheer numbers of one species, especially one that is as clever and heedless as Homo sapiens--and one that is ignorant of what makes its own existence possible. What you say about our choices and what we have done and are doing is indisputable. But irrelevant. It's the numbers, aided and abetted by our behavior. Jake
P.S. Regarding my own experiences: I was raised on a ranch in Montana. We were taught to kill everything that moved: snakes, toads, magpies, skunks. They were "varmints", presumably in competition with humans, or or somehow detrimental to our interests. They had no right to exist. I saw my father shoot an owl in a pine tree near the house. We were given no reason for these killings; we believed in them because our parents told us so, and everyone else said so too. It was ingrained in the culture--the frontier psychology still ruled. We would stop the car and get out and club a porcupine to death. (At least this had a thin rationale: Porcupines did girdle and kill trees, although not in large numbers.)
We had a flock of sheep, which I herded. There was a lot of talk about coyotes, and the fact that they killed sheep, especially lambs, which were supposedly easy picking. It became embedded in our outlook, and I believed it completely. So much so that I thought I saw a coyote attacking a sheep one day--in the far distance. I fired a shot from a 22-pistol to scare it off. (I had only recently been allowed to carry a gun and was ready to play the hero.) Later in life I concluded that I probably fantasized. To many people, all sheep in a flock would look alike. Not to a herder who sees them every day, all day long. The flock was 500, and I knew every one of them. If one was missing, I knew it and looked for it. We never lost a single sheep, not even a lamb. (Ewes could fend off a coyote trying to catch her lamb.) Many people in livestock country probably still believe these legends.
Why am I telling you all this? This legend about coyotes and sheep was very successful in attempts to exterminate coyotes from the land. The compound known as 1080 was authorized by the government for many years. It would kill the coyotes and anything that fed on the carcass--on up the food chain. That was of no concern to the rancher who believed this nonsense, or to his senator and congressman. I mused on the fact that I was victim of the story, and totally believed it until middle age, when I finally figured that I had been a fool for believing it instead of believing my own eyes and experience.
There's a lesson that we should all learn. We are suggestible creatures, and we believe an awful lot of what others want us to believe. Sometimes all that is necessary for it to be believed is for it to be stated, verbally or in print. And--oh yes, repeat, repeat, repeat. Advertisers, PR folks, politicians well know this. History would be very different if it were not so.
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12.
A lament for savers
Prudence gets penalized
Borrowers get bailed out. Run your bank into the ground and the taxpayer will lend it money. Buy a house you cannot afford and the central bank will cut interest rates to ease your burden.
Meanwhile those who have lived within their means and put money aside for the proverbial rainy day have seen interest rates slashed to virtually nothing in America. No one offers to help them out, even though saving is needed to allow business investment which, in turn, generates growth. Asians, told off in the 1990s for their current-account deficits, now get lectured for saving too much.
This is quite a different paradox of thrift from the usual one. In theory, everybody regards thrift as a virtue. In practice, they treat it as a vice...John Maynard Keynes remarked: "Whenever you save five shillings, you put a man out of work for the day."
...savers are far from content. Those who have built diversified portfolios (another hallmark of prudence) will have suffered losses in equities, property and corporate bonds. Even those who have been clever enough to keep their money in cash have had to fret about the security of banks and money-market funds.
...In many countries the system is biased against the saver. Interest income is usually taxable, whereas some countries allow mortgage payments to be tax deductible.
...Indeed, those saving for retirement have another problem to worry about. A much-discussed trend of the past ten years has been for employers to switch from final-salary to money-purchase pension schemes, transferring the investment risk to the employee. Less well advertised is the fact that the shift has allowed employers to cut the overall level of their contributions, and the financial crisis has prompted some to impose a moratorium on payments.
Rationally, therefore, many workers should be saving more for their retirement right now. And that is before they consider building up a cash cushion against the risk of losing their job, or rebuilding their wealth to offset falling house prices.
Such people will be prudently preparing for the future, with the aim of not being a burden on the state. And they will get no thanks for it whatsoever.
Excerpted from Buttonwood in The Economist 14 Feb 09
"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it." -Mark Twain
I forget where I got this juicy gem, but it surely was pre-2007, pre-Madoff: "Only rich people invest in hedge funds. They're smart enough to look out for themselves."
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13. Wisdom from Arabia:
“A fool may be known by six things: anger, without cause; speech, without profit; change, without progress; inquiry, without object; putting trust in a stranger, and mistaking foes for friends”
When you heard that a mountain was moved, believe it; but when you hear that someone changed his character do not believe it”
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14. The penny--Is this minting really necessary?
To mark the occasion of Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday, the U.S. Mint has redesigned the penny. There'll be 4 new ones rolled out over the next year, the first one was February 12.
The front's the same, they just changed the back. It has a log cabin where the picture of the memorial used to be, since the 16th president was born in one.
Not for nothing, but 43 percent of the U.S. population says we ought to get rid of the penny once and for all.
(And why isn't it 100%? What an annoyance.
For an efficiency-obsessed system, one constantly searching for ways to shave costs, why the U.S. penny has survived the last few decades is a wonder. Think of the cost of mining, transporting, minting, distributing; and picture standing in a grocery line while someone is searching for the pennies--well, you get the picture. If someone ever totaled the cost of the penny it would exceed the value of the item by..by...uh--how many times?
For many years I've considered pennies not worth picking up. Several years ago, nickels joined that select group. Now I am looking at dimes with a jaundiced eye, and have a nanosecond debate about whether it's worth picking up. The penny's endurance is a phenomenon that must be ripe for a PhD thesis.)
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15. From Brown and Toland's Health Link Winter 2009
The Food Pyramid, made to order
You've probably heard about the U.S. Dept of Agriculture's Food Guide Pyramid, designed in 1992 to help consumers make healthier food choices. The updated online version--www.MyPyramid.gov--allows you to build a personalized pyramid, suited to your age, gender, height, weight and physical activity.
Coffee's Pros and Cons
Trying to break your coffee addiction? Before you do, consider this: That cup of java may actually help stave off disease.
Studies show that coffee may lessen your risk of developing Parkinson's Disease. (Caffeine seems to be the key ingredient.) Meanwhile, a study of more than 126,000 people suggests that coffee drinkers were less likely to develop Type 2 Diabetes, and a review of nine studies backs up those findings, calling for more research. On another medical front, a Japanese study of more than 1,900 men and women showed that coffee lovers are less likely to develop Metabolic Syndrome, a risk factor for heart disease.
Still, coffee has its downsides. It can boost heart rate and blood pressure and occasionally leads to irregular heartbeat. (Pregnant women are among those advised to limit caffeine intake.) Talk to your doctor.
____________________________
From Agricultural Research:
One carrot a day gives you your daily need for Vitamin A. This has not always been so; this trait has been only recently bred into it. Carrots now have 75% more Vitamin A than 25 years ago.
Beta carotene is used by the body to create Vitamin A
Carrots have been developed into many different colors: white, yellow, several shades of orange, through reds to black-red.
red: lycopene, a carotene that guards against heart disease and some cancers (also occurs in tomatoes and watermelons)
yellow: good eye health; protects against macular degeneration
purple: contains antioxidants
We eat with our eyes. Different color carrots were fed to people with eyes open and blindfolded. When they were able to see the color, they responded more favorably to it.
_____________________
In a previous issue of this newsletter, I asked the question about why carrots are so much sweeter and flavorful in the winter. Andrea Williams gave this response, which may make scientific sense. However, I'm still a little dubious, because along the California coast carrots grow through the winter. Does anyone have alternate explanations to account for their superior flavor in winter?
Andrea Williams, about why carrots are sweeter in winter:
Carrots store the excess energy carrot tops (the above-ground plant) produce all year as sugars. In spring, when the carrot plant starts growing again, the sugars are used to start more growth, and in summer much of the plant's sugars are being used for growth and reproduction. Then, in fall, the plant dies back to the root, storing its remaining energy over the winter until needed for fresh growth (theirs or ours!). It's another reason why there is often a debate, not heard much these days, about whether you should buy carrots with or without their tops on: some people believe the tops sap some of the nutrients and sugars from the root while sitting on the shelf; others (who I think are correct) say it doesn't make a difference.
2. Bees in the City - stellar program at CounterPULSE Feb 25
3. Oceans vs plastics - correction on URL
4. Edna St Vincent Millay anniversary February 22
5. Useful information from the California Oak Mortality Task force and sudden oak death
6. Would you like to be a host for the Native Plant Garden Tour April 5?
7. New e-newsletter for invasive plants
8. The NAACP turns 100
9. More Lincoln
10. Endangered Species: California Game Wardens
11. Feedback
12. A lament for saver; prudence gets penalized
13. Wisdom from Arabia
14. New mintings for the penny? Why?
15. The Food Pyramid/Coffee's pros and cons/carrots of many colors/why are carrots better in winter?
1.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
starting at 10:00am
Walk: Beginner's Walk at Lake Merced
Guide: Tom Annese
Location: Lake Merced
Contact: Tom Annese tomannese@yahoo.com 415-297-1413
On this leisurely stroll around Lake Merced's Mesa, we'll identify and review some of the most common dune and coastal scrub species. With luck, we'll see some early bloomers, but we'll focus on learning these plants by vegetative characteristics. This walk will provide an excellent foundation for those new to San Francisco's flora and will help those planning to attend more advanced wildflower walks in spring. This is a short walk on flat sandy soil. Wear closed-toe shoes and layered clothing. Wind is likely. A pleasant drizzle will not deter us but heavy rain cancels.
Directions:
* We will meet at the intersection of Lake Merced Boulevard and Middlefield Drive near the crosswalk.
* The site is accessible via Muni lines #29 and #23.
* If you're driving, park on Middlefield Drive at Gellert and walk across the Boulevard to the Lake.
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2.
Title: Bees in the City
Date: February 25, 2009
Time: 7:30 p.m.
Place: CounterPULSE
1310 Mission Street (@ 9th)
San Francisco, CA 94103
Cost: Free & open to the public
Description: Learn about the "Colony Collapse Disorder" afflicting commercial beekeepers and the threat to agribusiness, in juxtaposition to the dozens of native bees flourishing in California's urban environments, which reinforce local biodiversity and provide another important link to growing our own food in cities.
Speakers: Phillip Gerrie (SF Beekeepers Association), K. Ruby (Institute for Urban Homesteading), Gordon Frankie, and Alemany Farm
Contact: steward@natureinthecity.org, 415-564-4107
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3. Correction on last newsletter's item about oceans vs plastic:
The oceans vs plastic; act
the link to the program is broken. (http://tinyurl.com/8hhzyj)
This looks like it might be the correct link: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/128097118
I got it by going to http://www.sfsurfrider.org/ and clicking on 'rise above plastics!' graphic on right
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4.
Born 22 February 1892: Edna St Vincent Millay
Information taken from the internet
Edna was in high school when she entered a poetry contest and wrote a poem, Renascence, which she recited at a poetry reading, and a woman in the audience was so impressed that she paid Edna's way to go to Vassar College.
She was a rebellious student at Vassar, then moved to New York City, where she lived in Greenwich Village and had numerous love affairs with both women and men. Edmund Wilson thought she was almost "supernaturally beautiful." He proposed marriage and never got over the rejection.
In her poem First Fig she wrote:
My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends-
It gives a lovely light!
And in Second Fig:
Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand:
Come see my shining palace built upon the sand!
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5.
The California Oak Mortality Task Force uses peer-reviewed science to help clear up misconceptions about sudden oak death. Because the pathogen can be transported in soil, sanitation is key to controlling the disease's spread. But people sometimes have taken unnecessarily extreme precautions after hiking in infested areas. "Some threw their shoes away right after hiking...Others put all their clothes in a paper bag, washed them right away and then burned the bag," (says a researcher). But all hikers really need to do is to clean clumps of mud off their shoes during the rainy season, she says.
Another misconception is that people in susceptible coastal areas should avoid gardening with native plants. "Some see the host plant list as a prohibition list," (says the researcher). "But aside from bay laurels, they all should be planted. Natives are better than nonnatives, which could introduce another pathogen." Bay laurel trees are the main host responsible for spreading Phytophthora ramorum in California wildlands.
Most recently, research has shown that sudden oak death infections are not affected by azomite, a mineral-rich powder that is mined from volcanic deposits. While azomite is touted as a natural cure, "it's like treating pneumonia with orange juice," says study leader Matteo Garbelotto, a forest pathology specialist at UC Berkeley..."Azomite appeals emotionally to a lot of people, (says a researcher). "now we'll be able to tell them that it doesn't work."
Excerpt from California Agriculture, January-March 2009
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6. Volunteer opportunity in San Francisco
Looking for a fun afternoon, meeting friendly interesting people, and having a positive impact on the community?
We are looking for volunteer to co-host at the Yerba Buena Chapter of the California Native Plant Society's Native Plant Garden Tour, Sunday, April 5, 2009, 11 AM to 3 PM.
No experience necessary, knowledge of native plants helpful but not required! The owner or caretaker of each of the private gardens will be present. Co-hosts greet visitors, ask them to sign in, and is the friendly face that improves guest experience. A packet of information, map of the gardens on the tour, open/shut sign for the entrance, and sign in sheets provided.
Please contact Nancy at: yb09nr@yahoo.com by March 1 if interested.
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7.
New e-newsletter on invasive plants
The Center for Invasive Plant Management now offers a free bimonthly electronic newsletter, which covers a variety of topics related to invasive plant science, management, education, and policy: http://www.weedcenter.org/
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8.
Another February 12 anniversary
The NAACP at 100
Much still to do
During the summer of 1908, riots raged through Abraham Lincoln's hometown of Springfield, Illinois. The quiet removal of two black men who had been held in prison as suspects in two separate attacks on white people enraged the white community. They took out their anger on black residents and black-owned businesses and properties. The riots went on for two days and simmered for longer; seven people were killed and some $200,0000 worth of damage was done.
The following February, partly in response to the Springfield riots, a group of Jewish, white and black activists met in New York to found the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, whose aim was, and remains, to ensure "the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination". Excerpt from The Economist 14 February 2009
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9. More Lincoln
Excerpts from the archives of The Economist: www.economist.com/fromthearchive
The new president-elect
“THE success of the Republican candidate for the Presidency in the United States will prove one of the greatest events of modern times, if it indicates, as we trust, no mere accidental fluctuation of public opinion in the direction of the Anti- Slavery cause, but the commencement of a permanent and sustained movement.”
24 November 1860
The death of a president
“THE murder of Mr Lincoln is a very great and very lamentable event, perhaps the greatest and most lamentable which has occurred since the coup d'etat, if not since Waterloo. It affects directly and immensely the welfare of the three most powerful countries in the world, America, France, and England, and it affects them all for evil.”
"...not merely that a great man has passed away, but he has disappeared at the very time when his special greatness seemed almost essential to the world."
29 April 1865
Looking back at Lincoln
“IT is yet too early to look for a full and satisfactory biography of one who in the pages of American history will occupy a place second only to Washington, both for services rendered to his country and for the integrity and simple-hearted devotion with which he served her.”
29 July 1865
__________________________
The war over Lincoln
America is throwing a big birthday party for its 16th president, and everyone wants a share
The forgotten meritocrat
...both sides have shortchanged one of Lincoln's most important ideals: that of self-help and upward mobility. Lincoln was not just content to be a personal example of upward mobility--born, in the poet James Russell Lowell's phrase, "out of the very earth, unancestried, unprivileged, unknown". He believed that the essence of the promise of American life was "to lift artificial weights from all shoulders" and "afford all an unfettered start, and a fair chance, in the race of life."
Both parties continue to pay lip service to this ideal. But they have done far too little about America's rusting ladders of opportunity. Mr Bush's Republicans cut the top rates of tax at a time when the richest Americans were amassing unheard-of wealth, and widened the gap between rich and poor while turning a healthy budget surplus into a big deficit. The Democrats are wedded to a system of affirmative action that judges people on the basis of their race rather than their individual merits. They are also in the pockets of teachers' unions which have fought relentlessly against introducing more competition or standardised testing into the public schools. Mr Obama, like Bill Clinton before him, has sent his own children to a private school, while simultaneously anathematising voucher schemes that would allow those less wealthy to do the same. If the hottest political question in this bicentennial week is "what would Lincoln do?", then the first answer is surely try a lot harder to repair America's faltering commitment to meritocracy.
Excerpt from Lexington's column in The Economist, 14 February 2009
Freedom's messy triumph
America, Empire of Liberty: A New History, by David Reynolds
Which American president was described by his top general as "nothing more than a well-meaning baboon"? Abraham Lincoln, who thought no better of General George McClellan. Convinced that a vast Confederate army lay in wait for him, McClellan hesitated to march on Richmond, Virginia, the rebel capital. "If General McClellan does not want to use the army, I would like to borrow it for a time," sighed Lincoln. When McClellan at last started creeping towards Richmond, he was embarrassed to discover that some of the imposing gun emplacements that had scared him were only painted logs.
Excerpt from The Economist, 14 Feb 09
(Lincoln was confronted by many, many problems vis-a-vis his cabinet, Congress, the public, and trying to keep border states [Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware] in the union. It was a difficult balancing act. But arguably his main challenge was General McClellan, who was good at organization, but cautious to the point of inaction. He missed opportunities to give the South the coup de grace, and that led to four extremely bloody years. McClellan was also uninterested in ending slavery. Lincoln eventually replaced him. McClellan ran against him in the 1864 presidential election. Shortly before the election he was still ahead in the polls; had he won he would have made a deal with the South allowing them to keep slavery.)
_________________________
“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country...Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.” Abraham Lincoln, quoted in Jack London’s The Iron Heel
(See also A lament for savers; Prudence gets penalized/and the Lincoln penny, below)
Frank Noto:
Jake, "Many of Lincoln's cabinet appointments were from his opposition--some of them contemptuous of Lincoln--and they reflected opinion of the Democrats from the North. "
If you are referring to his initial cabinet, I don't think there were many Democrats from any region, perhaps you mean Republicans. Or perhaps I don't understand what is meant by reflected opinion. When Lincoln ran and won in 1864 on a Union ticket, he did include Democrat Andrew Johnson, but I do not know how many other Dems were included.
Frank: Regardless of their affiliation, some of them reflected the opinions of northern Democrats (which had significantly different views from southern Democrats, especially on the matter of slavery).
_________________________
Hey Jake.
In the Lincoln and Darwin spirit... I wanted to share a video piece that I wrote for Time.com about Lincoln and Darwin. It's featured on the front page today - listed as a "Must See" video.
I put the links in my blog: http://www.sciencecomedian.com/blog/2009/02/16/science-comedian-lincoln-and-darwin-on-timecom/
Keep up the good work! I enjoy your emails.
Brian
Brian Malow
sciencecomedian@gmail.com
www.sciencecomedian.com
(The California Academy of Sciences has On the Origin of Species in hardcover for $8!!)
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10. From Eric Mills:
New DVD in Town: "ENDANGERED SPECIES: CALIFORNIA FISH AND GAME WARDENS," available from Snow Goose Productions, P.O. Box 2480, Mill Valley, CA
94942. Cost is $22 (includes handling & postage). Producer James Swann has promised to send copies to all California state legislators and the Dept. of Fish & Game, and Commission.
California is DEAD LAST in the nation (and Canadian provinces) in the ratio of wardens per population. We currently have only 192 wardens in the field, when we could use between 2,000-3,000 to do the job. Wardens make a salary of only about 3/5's what a CHP officer makes, and are far more likely to be shot while on duty. Wardens generally work alone, often without backup, 7 days a week. As a direct result of the pay inequity, new applicants are almost non-existent, and our wildlife and environment suffer accordingly. Reportedly, some 40% of the current understaffed force will be up for retirement within three years. NOT ACCEPTABLE! Our wildlife is in dire straits, poaching is on the increase, and conditions will only worsen in light of the current fiscal disaster we face.
ALL STATE LEGISLATORS MAY BE WRITTEN C/O THE STATE CAPITOL, SACRAMENTO, CA 95814.
Letters to the Editors of various newspapers would also be helpful. Here are a few addresses:
letters@sfchronicle.com
letters@latimes.com
letters@mercurynews.com
letters@cctimes.com
letters@sacbee.com
If you would like to get onto Eric Mills' email list: afa@mcn.org
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11. Feedback
Jim Hanson:
FYI, following up on your Nature News comment about population where the financial meltdown came from, I caught a KQED Forum program on the State budget mess and made this comment to the reporter who cited how recently increasing California population has also meant a growing demand for taxpayer services, thus we're broke.
I'm encouraging the reporters to bring up population pressures from unsustainable family size and what it's doing to everything. Promoting awareness and open discussion. Also this Dept. of Finance report about increasing population/family size and use of taxpayer-funded services is timely to the State budget breakdown.
Bob Twomey (re Love the Ocean and Use Less Plastic):
I understand there is a huge "plastic island" somewhere...where all the garbage gets sucks into a huge pool
Oh yes, I may have heard of it. Some of the stories I hear are too much to bear, and I just block them out. It's the only way I can get out of bed in the morning.
I'll post your question in next newsletter; you'll doubtless get a response.
Jeff Caldwell:
While population effect fears may not be entirely without merit, I cannot help but think of the utter rapacity of generations preceding this one, who were responsible for an enormous amount of ecological damage inflicted with and by far fewer people living on the land.
Like my Uncle Vince -- who, when he was young, shot any living thing he saw, senselessly killing. Shot turtles off logs.
Those who destroyed the great auk and the passenger pigeon ... those who chose, for money at hand, to make our creeks and rivers into concrete ditches.
It wasn't their numbers that did Nature in, it was their choices ...
You say that people's "fears may not be entirely without merit". Say it ain't so, Jeff. I cannot believe that you harbor doubts about the effect of sheer numbers of one species, especially one that is as clever and heedless as Homo sapiens--and one that is ignorant of what makes its own existence possible. What you say about our choices and what we have done and are doing is indisputable. But irrelevant. It's the numbers, aided and abetted by our behavior. Jake
P.S. Regarding my own experiences: I was raised on a ranch in Montana. We were taught to kill everything that moved: snakes, toads, magpies, skunks. They were "varmints", presumably in competition with humans, or or somehow detrimental to our interests. They had no right to exist. I saw my father shoot an owl in a pine tree near the house. We were given no reason for these killings; we believed in them because our parents told us so, and everyone else said so too. It was ingrained in the culture--the frontier psychology still ruled. We would stop the car and get out and club a porcupine to death. (At least this had a thin rationale: Porcupines did girdle and kill trees, although not in large numbers.)
We had a flock of sheep, which I herded. There was a lot of talk about coyotes, and the fact that they killed sheep, especially lambs, which were supposedly easy picking. It became embedded in our outlook, and I believed it completely. So much so that I thought I saw a coyote attacking a sheep one day--in the far distance. I fired a shot from a 22-pistol to scare it off. (I had only recently been allowed to carry a gun and was ready to play the hero.) Later in life I concluded that I probably fantasized. To many people, all sheep in a flock would look alike. Not to a herder who sees them every day, all day long. The flock was 500, and I knew every one of them. If one was missing, I knew it and looked for it. We never lost a single sheep, not even a lamb. (Ewes could fend off a coyote trying to catch her lamb.) Many people in livestock country probably still believe these legends.
Why am I telling you all this? This legend about coyotes and sheep was very successful in attempts to exterminate coyotes from the land. The compound known as 1080 was authorized by the government for many years. It would kill the coyotes and anything that fed on the carcass--on up the food chain. That was of no concern to the rancher who believed this nonsense, or to his senator and congressman. I mused on the fact that I was victim of the story, and totally believed it until middle age, when I finally figured that I had been a fool for believing it instead of believing my own eyes and experience.
There's a lesson that we should all learn. We are suggestible creatures, and we believe an awful lot of what others want us to believe. Sometimes all that is necessary for it to be believed is for it to be stated, verbally or in print. And--oh yes, repeat, repeat, repeat. Advertisers, PR folks, politicians well know this. History would be very different if it were not so.
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12.
A lament for savers
Prudence gets penalized
Borrowers get bailed out. Run your bank into the ground and the taxpayer will lend it money. Buy a house you cannot afford and the central bank will cut interest rates to ease your burden.
Meanwhile those who have lived within their means and put money aside for the proverbial rainy day have seen interest rates slashed to virtually nothing in America. No one offers to help them out, even though saving is needed to allow business investment which, in turn, generates growth. Asians, told off in the 1990s for their current-account deficits, now get lectured for saving too much.
This is quite a different paradox of thrift from the usual one. In theory, everybody regards thrift as a virtue. In practice, they treat it as a vice...John Maynard Keynes remarked: "Whenever you save five shillings, you put a man out of work for the day."
...savers are far from content. Those who have built diversified portfolios (another hallmark of prudence) will have suffered losses in equities, property and corporate bonds. Even those who have been clever enough to keep their money in cash have had to fret about the security of banks and money-market funds.
...In many countries the system is biased against the saver. Interest income is usually taxable, whereas some countries allow mortgage payments to be tax deductible.
...Indeed, those saving for retirement have another problem to worry about. A much-discussed trend of the past ten years has been for employers to switch from final-salary to money-purchase pension schemes, transferring the investment risk to the employee. Less well advertised is the fact that the shift has allowed employers to cut the overall level of their contributions, and the financial crisis has prompted some to impose a moratorium on payments.
Rationally, therefore, many workers should be saving more for their retirement right now. And that is before they consider building up a cash cushion against the risk of losing their job, or rebuilding their wealth to offset falling house prices.
Such people will be prudently preparing for the future, with the aim of not being a burden on the state. And they will get no thanks for it whatsoever.
Excerpted from Buttonwood in The Economist 14 Feb 09
"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it." -Mark Twain
I forget where I got this juicy gem, but it surely was pre-2007, pre-Madoff: "Only rich people invest in hedge funds. They're smart enough to look out for themselves."
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13. Wisdom from Arabia:
“A fool may be known by six things: anger, without cause; speech, without profit; change, without progress; inquiry, without object; putting trust in a stranger, and mistaking foes for friends”
When you heard that a mountain was moved, believe it; but when you hear that someone changed his character do not believe it”
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14. The penny--Is this minting really necessary?
To mark the occasion of Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday, the U.S. Mint has redesigned the penny. There'll be 4 new ones rolled out over the next year, the first one was February 12.
The front's the same, they just changed the back. It has a log cabin where the picture of the memorial used to be, since the 16th president was born in one.
Not for nothing, but 43 percent of the U.S. population says we ought to get rid of the penny once and for all.
(And why isn't it 100%? What an annoyance.
For an efficiency-obsessed system, one constantly searching for ways to shave costs, why the U.S. penny has survived the last few decades is a wonder. Think of the cost of mining, transporting, minting, distributing; and picture standing in a grocery line while someone is searching for the pennies--well, you get the picture. If someone ever totaled the cost of the penny it would exceed the value of the item by..by...uh--how many times?
For many years I've considered pennies not worth picking up. Several years ago, nickels joined that select group. Now I am looking at dimes with a jaundiced eye, and have a nanosecond debate about whether it's worth picking up. The penny's endurance is a phenomenon that must be ripe for a PhD thesis.)
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15. From Brown and Toland's Health Link Winter 2009
The Food Pyramid, made to order
You've probably heard about the U.S. Dept of Agriculture's Food Guide Pyramid, designed in 1992 to help consumers make healthier food choices. The updated online version--www.MyPyramid.gov--allows you to build a personalized pyramid, suited to your age, gender, height, weight and physical activity.
Coffee's Pros and Cons
Trying to break your coffee addiction? Before you do, consider this: That cup of java may actually help stave off disease.
Studies show that coffee may lessen your risk of developing Parkinson's Disease. (Caffeine seems to be the key ingredient.) Meanwhile, a study of more than 126,000 people suggests that coffee drinkers were less likely to develop Type 2 Diabetes, and a review of nine studies backs up those findings, calling for more research. On another medical front, a Japanese study of more than 1,900 men and women showed that coffee lovers are less likely to develop Metabolic Syndrome, a risk factor for heart disease.
Still, coffee has its downsides. It can boost heart rate and blood pressure and occasionally leads to irregular heartbeat. (Pregnant women are among those advised to limit caffeine intake.) Talk to your doctor.
____________________________
From Agricultural Research:
One carrot a day gives you your daily need for Vitamin A. This has not always been so; this trait has been only recently bred into it. Carrots now have 75% more Vitamin A than 25 years ago.
Beta carotene is used by the body to create Vitamin A
Carrots have been developed into many different colors: white, yellow, several shades of orange, through reds to black-red.
red: lycopene, a carotene that guards against heart disease and some cancers (also occurs in tomatoes and watermelons)
yellow: good eye health; protects against macular degeneration
purple: contains antioxidants
We eat with our eyes. Different color carrots were fed to people with eyes open and blindfolded. When they were able to see the color, they responded more favorably to it.
_____________________
In a previous issue of this newsletter, I asked the question about why carrots are so much sweeter and flavorful in the winter. Andrea Williams gave this response, which may make scientific sense. However, I'm still a little dubious, because along the California coast carrots grow through the winter. Does anyone have alternate explanations to account for their superior flavor in winter?
Andrea Williams, about why carrots are sweeter in winter:
Carrots store the excess energy carrot tops (the above-ground plant) produce all year as sugars. In spring, when the carrot plant starts growing again, the sugars are used to start more growth, and in summer much of the plant's sugars are being used for growth and reproduction. Then, in fall, the plant dies back to the root, storing its remaining energy over the winter until needed for fresh growth (theirs or ours!). It's another reason why there is often a debate, not heard much these days, about whether you should buy carrots with or without their tops on: some people believe the tops sap some of the nutrients and sugars from the root while sitting on the shelf; others (who I think are correct) say it doesn't make a difference.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Special to Bayview Hill Association: From Captain John Loftus
newsltr.021309
Bayview District Newsletter
Bayview Police Station 201-Williams St, San Francisco, CA 94124
415-671-2300
Captain John Loftus
February 13, 2009
Coming Events:
Bayview Community Meeting
Our next monthly community meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, March 3rd,
at 6:00 pm at Bayview Station. Adam Gubser from the Livable Streets
Program will be present to answer questions about traffic in the
district.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Bayview Hunters Point Foundation for
Community Improvement announces
Free Shuttle
Welcome to our Free Health Shuttle Service being provided to the Bay
View Hunters Point Community. This Shuttle Service is currently running
Monday - Friday starting at 8:00am - 6:30pm. The route consists of 11
stops including San Francisco General Hospital and St. Luke's Hospital.
If you have any questions please feel free to contact:
BVHP Foundation
5815- 3rd Street
San Francisco, CA 94124
415-740-4416
or
Vincent Webster
(415) 559-3560
webstervincent@yahoo.com
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Prevent Theft of Recyclable Materials
Recycling materials are being stolen at an increasing rate in San
Francisco and around the Bay Area. Materials range from copper wire
and pipe to auto parts, to curbside recycling materials to even
decorative park and yard fixtures. You can avoid theft by taking
measures such these:
· Park your vehicle inside whenever possible, use a steering
wheel lock and/or alarm system if possible.
· Consider etching your driver's license number on parts that
have been targeted by recyclers, such as the catalytic
converter.
· When re-piping or remodeling, have pipes and/or wire installed
in the interior of your building or home.
· Paint, insulate or firmly secure existing pipes and wires in
several places to make it difficult for theft.
· Decorative outdoor metallic fixtures should be securely
fastened, bolted or cemented.
· Wait until the morning of scheduled pick up to put out
recyclable materials
· Lock or secure dumpsters and bins when possible
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
ARRESTS OF INTEREST:
February 12, 2009-Loaded gun in car, Possession of gun by a prohibited
person-1:53pm-Dakota/23rd-CN#090156760:
Members of Bayview’s plainclothes team were on foot in the area of
Potrero Hill looking for a subject who was wanted. Officer Mustafich,
advised officers that a vehicle, with the possible subject inside, was
approaching. Officer Alcaraz spotted the car, which parked across from
where officers were standing. The driver of the car opened the door and
Officer Alcaraz saw a gun in the door pocket. Officer Alcaraz
immediately informed other officers regarding the gun. Officers then
took the suspect into custody. The suspect and the gun were
transported back to Bayview for further investigation. CSI responded
and processed the gun.
February 11, 2009-Stolen car recovered, Possession of Burglary Tools,
Warrrant Arrest-9:00pm-Kansas/Mariposa-CN#090157122:
Officer Robinson and Officer Fuentes responded to an incident where a
male was attempting to break into a car. The officers spotted the car
and passenger, which and who matched the description given by
headquarters. Officers spoke with the occupants, who were unable to
provide officers with identification. Officers seized the vehicle keys,
which had been tampered with, and made contact with the registered owner
of the car. The owner told officers that he did not give anyone
permission to take the car. Another witness positively identified the
suspects and the car. Both suspects were taken into custody without
incident and transported back to Bayview Station.
February 11, 2009-Aggravated Assault w/knife-1:09pm-100 blk of
Middlepoint-CN#090152718:
Members of Bayviews Housing team were in the area of Westpoint and
Middlepoint when a citizen approached them and asked for their
assistance in dealing with his nephew. Officers located the nephew who
was yelling obscenities at the uncle. Other family members arrived and
attempted to calm the subject down. Officer Robinson and Dockery
attempted as well. The subject then pulled out a knife and was
threatening family members with it. Officers ordered the subject to
drop the knife, which he did. Officers placed the suspect into custody
and transported him to Bayview. No one was injured during the incident.
INCIDENTS OF INTEREST:
February 12, 2009-Evading a Police Officer
recklessly-4:55pm-LaSalle/Cashmere-CN#090158722:
Officer Santiago and Hunt were driving in the area of Ingalls/Palou when
they observed a car with a tail lamp out. Officers pulled the vehicle
over and were approaching the car when they saw that the driver and
passengers were reaching down and slunking low in their seats. Before
officers could reach the door of the car, the vehicle accelerated at a
high rate of speed. Officers broadcast the information to other units
and Headquarters. The vehicle was not found. No arrest was made.
February 11, 2009-Robbery w/gun-6:20pm-200 blk of Cashmere-CN#090154112:
A victim was robbed of a small amount of cash, while checking his
mailbox, in front of his home. The victim told officers that a suspect,
holding a gun, approached him and told him to give up all his money or
he would kill him. The victim grabbed at the gun, punched the suspect
in the back and hit the suspect with his cane. The suspect ran in an
unknown direction. Officers did not locate the suspect. The victim was
not injured during the incident.
February 11, 2009-Robbery w/force-7:38pm-Ceres St-CN#090154435:
A victim was robbed of her fanny pack by a suspect as she was standing
outside her house. The victim told officers that she had just gotten
out of her car when a suspect approached her from behind, put her in a
choke hold and threw her to the ground. The suspect then ripped the
victim’s fanny pack from her. The suspect then jumped into a car and
sped off. The victim told officers that she was not injured during the
attack. Officers searched the area for the suspect, with negative
results.
BURGLARY: NO ARREST:
February 13, 2009-3:05am-900 blk of Hudson-CN#090159134:
Entry made through a construction site. No loss.
February 11, 2009-4:00pm-1200 blk of Revere-CN#090156384:
Entry made through a back door. Loss was numerous construction tools.
========================================
BAYVIEW STATION RESOURCE LIST
EMERGENCY: 911
Non-Emergency: 553-0123
Customer Service Center: 311, for TTY or outside SF dial 415-701-2323
Cell phone 911: 553-8090 or 911
Bayview Station: 671-2300
Web: www.sfgov.org/police (For Crime Stats,
internet reporting)
Captain John Loftus 671-2300 Email: john.loftus@sfgov.org
Anonymous Tip-Line 822-8147 Bayview Station’s Voicemail
SFPD Anon Tip Line 575-4444 Live person 24-hrs a day
Graffiti Abatement 278-9454
Graffiti Fax 278-9456
Bayview Events: 671-2302 Sergeant Ava Garrick
Bayview Permits: 671-2313 Officer Gigi George
Code Abatement: 671-2302 Sergeant Ava Garrick
Deputy City Attorney: 554-3874 Yvonne Mere
Dept. Parking & Traffic: 553-1943
DPW: 695-2020 Dispatch
Quality of Life Liaison: 671-2333 Off Dorian McConico
SF SAFE 553-1984
Abandoned Auto 850-9737 Off Rodriguez (Mon- Fri 7AM – 3
PM)
Homeless Issues: 671-2333 Off Dorian McConico
Third Street Beat: 671-2300 Officer Gillies
Third Street Beat: 671-2300 Officer Lucchetti & Officer
Singleton
San Bruno Avenue: 671-2300 Officer Percy Hernandez
Bayview Narcotics 254-7197 Sgt. Hagan & Sgt. Dempsey
Westbrook Development 509-1678 Officer Kraus & Officer Teper
Westbrook Development 806-8304 Officer Reynoso & Officer Pasqua
Potrero Hill Development 509-1408 Officer Rodatos & Officer Sanders
Potrero Hill Development 987-6389 Officer Fowlie & Officer Ferraez
Hunter’s View Devel 987-6569 Officer Brian Petiti & Officer Chantal
Hunter’s View Devel 509-1270 Officer Robinson & Officer Dockery
Alice Griffith Develop. 269-4002 Officer Lamma & Officer
Jakson
Alice Griffith Develop. 254-8703 Officer E. Martinez &
Officer Pashby
Community Liaison: 671-2302 Sergeant Garrick
Gun Stop Program Procedures:
Citizens are encouraged to call the anonymous tip line at (415) 575-4444
to report persons who possess illegal weapons in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Police Department is currently hiring:
The San Francisco Police Department is continuously hiring qualified
applicants. Applicants must be 21 years old, have a valid driver’s
license, must be a US citizen, must have a high school diploma or
equivalent, and must not have been convicted of a felony or convicted of
a misdemeanor which would prohibit possession of a firearm. For more
information or to apply, contact the Department of Human Resource at 44
Gough Street, San Francisco.
Megan’s Law Website Access:
The general public can find out information on sexual predators on line
by going to the DOJ website: www.meganslaw.ca.gov or at the SFPD link at
www.sfgov.org/police. You may check specific names or zip codes to
locate those listed in the database.
Join The San Francisco Citizen’s Police Academy
For more information, including application process, please call Ms.Lula
Magallon at (415) 401-4720, or Officer Maria Oropeza at (415) 401-4701.
You can also email us at sfpd_citizenspoliceacademy@yahoo.com or visit
our website: http://www.sfgov.org/site/police_index.asp?id=20182.
Graffiti Alert: $250.00 Reward Program
Day Watch Sergeant, Ava Garrick, is Bayview Station’s Graffiti Abatement
coordinator. Each month she collects surveys from the various beat
officers to report graffiti to DPW and our own Graffiti Unit within the
police department. You can contact Sgt. Ava Garrick at ava.garrick
@sfgov.org.
311 Customer Service Center:
What is 311? 311 is a toll free, NON-EMERGENCY phone number that the
public can call to access information about government services. A live
customer service representative will be available 24 hours a day, seven
days a week, and 365 days a year. The service is available to both wired
and wireless customers. Wireless customers should call (415) 701-2311.
311 employees will be able to provide translations services in more than
145 languages and dialects and will employ a diverse staff of customer
service representatives. TTY users and customers outside San Francisco
should dial 415-701-2323.
Bayview District Newsletter
Bayview Police Station 201-Williams St, San Francisco, CA 94124
415-671-2300
Captain John Loftus
February 13, 2009
Coming Events:
Bayview Community Meeting
Our next monthly community meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, March 3rd,
at 6:00 pm at Bayview Station. Adam Gubser from the Livable Streets
Program will be present to answer questions about traffic in the
district.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Bayview Hunters Point Foundation for
Community Improvement announces
Free Shuttle
Welcome to our Free Health Shuttle Service being provided to the Bay
View Hunters Point Community. This Shuttle Service is currently running
Monday - Friday starting at 8:00am - 6:30pm. The route consists of 11
stops including San Francisco General Hospital and St. Luke's Hospital.
If you have any questions please feel free to contact:
BVHP Foundation
5815- 3rd Street
San Francisco, CA 94124
415-740-4416
or
Vincent Webster
(415) 559-3560
webstervincent@yahoo.com
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Prevent Theft of Recyclable Materials
Recycling materials are being stolen at an increasing rate in San
Francisco and around the Bay Area. Materials range from copper wire
and pipe to auto parts, to curbside recycling materials to even
decorative park and yard fixtures. You can avoid theft by taking
measures such these:
· Park your vehicle inside whenever possible, use a steering
wheel lock and/or alarm system if possible.
· Consider etching your driver's license number on parts that
have been targeted by recyclers, such as the catalytic
converter.
· When re-piping or remodeling, have pipes and/or wire installed
in the interior of your building or home.
· Paint, insulate or firmly secure existing pipes and wires in
several places to make it difficult for theft.
· Decorative outdoor metallic fixtures should be securely
fastened, bolted or cemented.
· Wait until the morning of scheduled pick up to put out
recyclable materials
· Lock or secure dumpsters and bins when possible
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
ARRESTS OF INTEREST:
February 12, 2009-Loaded gun in car, Possession of gun by a prohibited
person-1:53pm-Dakota/23rd-CN#090156760:
Members of Bayview’s plainclothes team were on foot in the area of
Potrero Hill looking for a subject who was wanted. Officer Mustafich,
advised officers that a vehicle, with the possible subject inside, was
approaching. Officer Alcaraz spotted the car, which parked across from
where officers were standing. The driver of the car opened the door and
Officer Alcaraz saw a gun in the door pocket. Officer Alcaraz
immediately informed other officers regarding the gun. Officers then
took the suspect into custody. The suspect and the gun were
transported back to Bayview for further investigation. CSI responded
and processed the gun.
February 11, 2009-Stolen car recovered, Possession of Burglary Tools,
Warrrant Arrest-9:00pm-Kansas/Mariposa-CN#090157122:
Officer Robinson and Officer Fuentes responded to an incident where a
male was attempting to break into a car. The officers spotted the car
and passenger, which and who matched the description given by
headquarters. Officers spoke with the occupants, who were unable to
provide officers with identification. Officers seized the vehicle keys,
which had been tampered with, and made contact with the registered owner
of the car. The owner told officers that he did not give anyone
permission to take the car. Another witness positively identified the
suspects and the car. Both suspects were taken into custody without
incident and transported back to Bayview Station.
February 11, 2009-Aggravated Assault w/knife-1:09pm-100 blk of
Middlepoint-CN#090152718:
Members of Bayviews Housing team were in the area of Westpoint and
Middlepoint when a citizen approached them and asked for their
assistance in dealing with his nephew. Officers located the nephew who
was yelling obscenities at the uncle. Other family members arrived and
attempted to calm the subject down. Officer Robinson and Dockery
attempted as well. The subject then pulled out a knife and was
threatening family members with it. Officers ordered the subject to
drop the knife, which he did. Officers placed the suspect into custody
and transported him to Bayview. No one was injured during the incident.
INCIDENTS OF INTEREST:
February 12, 2009-Evading a Police Officer
recklessly-4:55pm-LaSalle/Cashmere-CN#090158722:
Officer Santiago and Hunt were driving in the area of Ingalls/Palou when
they observed a car with a tail lamp out. Officers pulled the vehicle
over and were approaching the car when they saw that the driver and
passengers were reaching down and slunking low in their seats. Before
officers could reach the door of the car, the vehicle accelerated at a
high rate of speed. Officers broadcast the information to other units
and Headquarters. The vehicle was not found. No arrest was made.
February 11, 2009-Robbery w/gun-6:20pm-200 blk of Cashmere-CN#090154112:
A victim was robbed of a small amount of cash, while checking his
mailbox, in front of his home. The victim told officers that a suspect,
holding a gun, approached him and told him to give up all his money or
he would kill him. The victim grabbed at the gun, punched the suspect
in the back and hit the suspect with his cane. The suspect ran in an
unknown direction. Officers did not locate the suspect. The victim was
not injured during the incident.
February 11, 2009-Robbery w/force-7:38pm-Ceres St-CN#090154435:
A victim was robbed of her fanny pack by a suspect as she was standing
outside her house. The victim told officers that she had just gotten
out of her car when a suspect approached her from behind, put her in a
choke hold and threw her to the ground. The suspect then ripped the
victim’s fanny pack from her. The suspect then jumped into a car and
sped off. The victim told officers that she was not injured during the
attack. Officers searched the area for the suspect, with negative
results.
BURGLARY: NO ARREST:
February 13, 2009-3:05am-900 blk of Hudson-CN#090159134:
Entry made through a construction site. No loss.
February 11, 2009-4:00pm-1200 blk of Revere-CN#090156384:
Entry made through a back door. Loss was numerous construction tools.
========================================
BAYVIEW STATION RESOURCE LIST
EMERGENCY: 911
Non-Emergency: 553-0123
Customer Service Center: 311, for TTY or outside SF dial 415-701-2323
Cell phone 911: 553-8090 or 911
Bayview Station: 671-2300
Web: www.sfgov.org/police (For Crime Stats,
internet reporting)
Captain John Loftus 671-2300 Email: john.loftus@sfgov.org
Anonymous Tip-Line 822-8147 Bayview Station’s Voicemail
SFPD Anon Tip Line 575-4444 Live person 24-hrs a day
Graffiti Abatement 278-9454
Graffiti Fax 278-9456
Bayview Events: 671-2302 Sergeant Ava Garrick
Bayview Permits: 671-2313 Officer Gigi George
Code Abatement: 671-2302 Sergeant Ava Garrick
Deputy City Attorney: 554-3874 Yvonne Mere
Dept. Parking & Traffic: 553-1943
DPW: 695-2020 Dispatch
Quality of Life Liaison: 671-2333 Off Dorian McConico
SF SAFE 553-1984
Abandoned Auto 850-9737 Off Rodriguez (Mon- Fri 7AM – 3
PM)
Homeless Issues: 671-2333 Off Dorian McConico
Third Street Beat: 671-2300 Officer Gillies
Third Street Beat: 671-2300 Officer Lucchetti & Officer
Singleton
San Bruno Avenue: 671-2300 Officer Percy Hernandez
Bayview Narcotics 254-7197 Sgt. Hagan & Sgt. Dempsey
Westbrook Development 509-1678 Officer Kraus & Officer Teper
Westbrook Development 806-8304 Officer Reynoso & Officer Pasqua
Potrero Hill Development 509-1408 Officer Rodatos & Officer Sanders
Potrero Hill Development 987-6389 Officer Fowlie & Officer Ferraez
Hunter’s View Devel 987-6569 Officer Brian Petiti & Officer Chantal
Hunter’s View Devel 509-1270 Officer Robinson & Officer Dockery
Alice Griffith Develop. 269-4002 Officer Lamma & Officer
Jakson
Alice Griffith Develop. 254-8703 Officer E. Martinez &
Officer Pashby
Community Liaison: 671-2302 Sergeant Garrick
Gun Stop Program Procedures:
Citizens are encouraged to call the anonymous tip line at (415) 575-4444
to report persons who possess illegal weapons in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Police Department is currently hiring:
The San Francisco Police Department is continuously hiring qualified
applicants. Applicants must be 21 years old, have a valid driver’s
license, must be a US citizen, must have a high school diploma or
equivalent, and must not have been convicted of a felony or convicted of
a misdemeanor which would prohibit possession of a firearm. For more
information or to apply, contact the Department of Human Resource at 44
Gough Street, San Francisco.
Megan’s Law Website Access:
The general public can find out information on sexual predators on line
by going to the DOJ website: www.meganslaw.ca.gov or at the SFPD link at
www.sfgov.org/police. You may check specific names or zip codes to
locate those listed in the database.
Join The San Francisco Citizen’s Police Academy
For more information, including application process, please call Ms.Lula
Magallon at (415) 401-4720, or Officer Maria Oropeza at (415) 401-4701.
You can also email us at sfpd_citizenspoliceacademy@yahoo.com or visit
our website: http://www.sfgov.org/site/police_index.asp?id=20182.
Graffiti Alert: $250.00 Reward Program
Day Watch Sergeant, Ava Garrick, is Bayview Station’s Graffiti Abatement
coordinator. Each month she collects surveys from the various beat
officers to report graffiti to DPW and our own Graffiti Unit within the
police department. You can contact Sgt. Ava Garrick at ava.garrick
@sfgov.org.
311 Customer Service Center:
What is 311? 311 is a toll free, NON-EMERGENCY phone number that the
public can call to access information about government services. A live
customer service representative will be available 24 hours a day, seven
days a week, and 365 days a year. The service is available to both wired
and wireless customers. Wireless customers should call (415) 701-2311.
311 employees will be able to provide translations services in more than
145 languages and dialects and will employ a diverse staff of customer
service representatives. TTY users and customers outside San Francisco
should dial 415-701-2323.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Special to Bayview Hill Association from Ouesada Gardens
Quesada Gardens is what community looks like...
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Jobs in healthcare industry
Health practitioners work in one of the top five most profitable industries according to the research firm Sageworks Inc. Sageworks examined thousands of privately run industries, and found that healthcare ranked 4th, behind the number one profitable industry: dental offices.
It's good news that some sectors of our economy offer a more hopeful window of opportunity for job seekers.
If you know young people from the Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood looking at the healthcare industry as a possible career, San Francisco General Hospital would like to give them a special tour of the hospital. Contact: info@quesadagardens.org
Posted by Quesada Gardens Initiative at 12:17 PM 0 comments
Labels: Community News and Events, Food Health and Safety
Study shows potential of existing food systems
"Beyond Food Deserts: Measuring and Mapping Racial Disparities in Neighborhood Food Environments" by Samina Raja, Changxing Ma, & Pavan Yadav, provides more evidence that building community and the capacity of local systems is a key strategy in addressing even the most challenging issues.
The study found that, "contrary to reports in the popular press and studies from elsewhere in the country (Mari Gallaghar Research and Consulting Group 2006)...an extensive network of small grocery stores available within a five-minute travel time of minority neighborhoods offers a tremendous opportunity for creating healthful food environments within neighborhoods of color.
The study substantiates what we already knew, that there is an absence of certain healthful food sources, namely supermarkets, in neighborhoods like Bayview Hunters Point when compared to predominantly white neighborhoods.
The new findings offer insight into effective strategies to bring good food to communities like Bayview. Instead of trying to get supermarkets to open up stores here, the study suggests that "creative planning and policy support for networks of existing small grocery stores may be a more efficient strategy for ensuring access to healthful foods within minority neighborhoods."
Literacy for Environmental Justice's Good Neighbor program is an example of efforts to strengthen existing food retailing systems. Community-based food production like that which Hunters Point Family and the Quesada Gardens Initiative is engaged in, is another important capacity-building strategy.
See more about this issue and efforts in Bayview to support local food at resident Rhonda Winters' blog, at the Southeast Food Access Working Groups' online space, and in 2007's food preferences survey for the southeast sector.
Posted by Quesada Gardens Initiative at 11:30 AM 0 comments
Labels: Food Health and Safety, Gardening and Food Production
Spring tree plantings on the calendar
SF Environment is busy organizing Arbor Day plantings, and Friends of the Urban Forest set a date for the next Bayview Free Sidewalk Tree Planting.
It must be Spring!
For your free Bayview trees, fill out DPW and FUF forms that can be found online.
Planting is scheduled for Saturday, April 4, 2009 - 9am to noon, and volunteers are always welcome.
FUF volunteer and Bayview resident Matt Czajkowski advises that you can apply for a tree for a DPW-maintained site. Good tip!
Another hot tip? Trees make unusual and meaningful Valentine's Day gifts. FUF will send an email to your sweetie, or you can download and send a card that shows how green just might be the next red when it comes to celebrating romance.
Posted by Quesada Gardens Initiative at 10:13 AM 0 comments
Labels: Community News and Events
Friday, February 6, 2009
Healthier foods coming to Bayview
It's no surprise to Serena Ortega, who works for the business that includes Upper Crust Deli on Third Street in Bayview, that she doesn't have much competition when it comes to new products she is introducing. She's done her research.
"There was a line out the door at 6am this morning," she said, "and it's just the first day for us to offer breakfast."
The deal of the day was the breakfast burritto, a relatively healthy food alternative compared to other offerings on the commercial corridor, and very competitively priced (starting at just $3).
Next on Serena's list is a line of salads which is a nearly subversive act in a neighborhood known as a food desert by those who measure the distance between front door and produce retailer.
Many community-based groups such as Hunters Point Family, Literacy for Environmental Justice, and the Quesada Gardens Initiative have been long been concerned about the lack of healthy food options in the neighborhood, and have taken steps that include community food gardens.
These groups also belong to a collaboration called the Southeast Food Access Working Group (SEFA) where they sit alongside representatives from the SF Department of Public Health, Southeast Health Clinic, and the SF Wholesale Food Market to advocate for more and better food options.
A survey of Bayview residents' food preferences, accomplished through SEFA, and released in late 2007, is a high water mark in the overall effort to attract new and better food options to the neighborhood.
Posted by Quesada Gardens Initiative at 6:25 PM 0 comments
Labels: Bayview Business, Food Health and Safety
Valentine's Day means a visit to Yvonne's
We've said it before, we'll say it again...If you have a sweetheart or just a sweet tooth, you need to make your way over to Pralines by Yvonne.
The little store with the big heart carries Yvonne Hines' own line of pralines, butter cookies, lemon pound cake, and more.
For Valentine's Day, get a gift box wrapped with passionate red ribbon and packed with goodies to make your special someone say "yum."
Pralines by Yvonne is located at 5128 Third Street. Say hello to Jacqueline Smith (pictured) who keeps the place warm and friendly when Ms. Hines is away.
Yvonne was recognized as Business Owner of the Year in 2007 by Senator Carole Migden's office.
Posted by Quesada Gardens Initiative at 6:19 PM 0 comments
Labels: Bayview Business
Bayview parks are city's most neglected
Just across the street from one of the lowest rated parks in San Francisco is a gardening and open space improvement project that neighbors who live on the block have started since they can't really use the existing park.
The newer project is on public land, but limited to a narrow strip of dirt outside the larger fenced-in area because approval to use the empty lot has been tough for the neighbors to secure even though the site has been a trash dump for years.
These folks, known as the Palou Garden group, and similar groups associated with the Quesada Gardens Initiative and Bayview Footprints Network spend little, do a lot, and just might get a higher grade than City's Parks and Recreation department.
A report from the San Francisco Controllers Office reports that, while our city's parks are improved overall, Bayview's parks occupy half of the bottom ten list.
The report is covered in today's SF Chronicle and yesterday's SF Examiner. It is well-timed with an opportunity for Bayview Hunters Point residents to give input into the future of open spaces in our neighborhood.
The report is also a forceful reminder that resident-led efforts to define and maintain the open spaces near them is a cost-effective alternative to traditional government strategies that often fail to connect with the people who are most affected by the potential and problems associated with these public assets.
The report card (which grades parks based on the condition of their trees, lawns, benches and play areas) will almost certainly come up at the Open Space Community Workshop on Wednesday, February 24th from 7pm to 9pm at the Potrero Hill Neighborhood House at 953 De Haro Street.
The Neighborhood Parks Council and the City's Open Space Team will host the meeting as part of a series of community workshops designed to solicit the public's vision and priorities for the future of open space in San Francisco.
District with lowest-rated parks:
Bayview-Hunters Point/Visitacion Valley, 10
District with highest-rated parks:
Mission/Bernal Heights/Portola, 9
Lowest-rated parks:
Cayuga/Lamartine Mini Park, District 11
Sgt. John Macauley Park, District 6
John McLaren Park, District 10
Park Presidio Boulevard, District 1
Palou/Phelps Park, District 10
Top-rated parks:
Collis P. Huntington Park, District 3
Richmond Recreation Center, District 1
Fay Park, District 3
Midtown Terrace Playground, District 7
Hyde/Vallejo Mini Park, District 3
Most improved:
29th/Diamond Open Space, District 8
Saturn Street Steps, District 5
Page/Laguna Mini Park, District 8
Source: City Controller’s Office
Posted by Quesada Gardens Initiative at 9:03 AM 0 comments
Labels: Gardening and Food Production, Palou Garden
Monday, January 26, 2009
Bayview community-building network reinvented
REPORT-BACK TO OUR COMMUNITY
From Bayview Footprints' organizers and friends
Bayview Footprints did something you don’t see very often: a public review of what we do and how we do it. Even a collaboration fueled by volunteers, residents, and small organization staffers should be transparent, responsive and open to change.
In October, Footprints leaders and allies asked the Haas Business School to send a team of advanced students to facilitate public meetings, interview member group representatives, and present feedback and recommendations. We also administered two surveys, one for our member groups, and another for the broader community that was sent out online and published in the last Footprints News edition.
Bayview Footprints is respected and appreciated, according to the review findings, and accomplishing things that the community wants to see more of. On the other hand, most folks had trouble saying what, exactly, “Bayview Footprints” is!
Communications turned out to be the critical challenge: communicating Footprints’ mission and structure, communicating member benefits and responsibilities, and communicating what the group actually does.
What is “Footprints” anyway? The question came up often during the intensive public review process that Bayview Footprints just concluded. The Haas Business School volunteers said, in their final recommendations, that “Member groups interviewed were proud of their membership,” but that “Footprints’ main focus should be on networking the member groups.”
And so, Footprints is no longer a Collaboration of Community-Building Groups.” Welcome to the Bayview Footprints Network of Community-Building Groups!
Changes at a glance:
* Look for a new focus on “networking.”
* Look for the prioritizing of informal, small groups as members, with larger, more established organizations as supporters.
* Instead of monthly social gatherings, look for periodic “issue forums” on subjects of interest to member groups.
* Look for the network and its resources to be “open for adoption” for specific periods and for specific projects that member groups or other organizations need community support for.
Now, Bayview Footprints is a network of informal BVHP Member Groups building community, supporting resident leadership, and contributing to a balanced story about our beloved neighborhood. The “walking footprints” graphic represents the strength of diversity and the recognition that our past, present and future are inseparable.
Footprints’ focus is on shared values and a belief that every conversation and handshake is shaping our community whether it occurs in a meeting room or on the street. While member groups may play advocacy roles, the network as a whole is non-governmental, nonpolitical, and entirely supportive of established policymaking and advisory structures.
The network advances BVHP groups that typically don’t have a place elsewhere: social clubs, neighborhood associations, families, new projects, small organizations, projects without funding or sponsorship, independent businesses, and the like.
Member Groups benefit from mutual support and assistance, communications opportunities, and forums for the discussion of issues important to them. Membership is free; however groups are required to participate in the life of the network to retain membership. Member Groups each have a vote in any question affecting Footprints such as new member applications.
Supporting Organizations are larger and more established groups and institutions from within and outside the community that commit to contributions in support of the network. These organizations also receive benefits, such as being listed in materials, and are invited to participate in events. They are non-voting allies of Footprints.
Bayview Footprints Network of Community-Building Groups encourages the spirit and energy of community cohesion so that each footprint we leave today builds on the last, and leads to a future that includes everyone.
2008 ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Footprints is proud of its long list of accomplishments, all the more because it’s only been eighteen months since the first groups got together and defined a focus on positive strategies that build community and tell a balanced story of our neighborhood’s strengths.
* 7 social gatherings attracting hundreds of residents to the library, Upper Crust Deli, Roadhouse Café, Webspot, Javalencia Café and Gallery 94124, and the Quesada Garden.
* 6 Footprints News print editions, and dozens of e-news briefs.
* 4 issue forums, at the library and the Southeast Community Facility, on subjects including sidewalk and streets improvements, community responses to violence, history and culture, and arts funding to BVHP.
* “Bayview Is…” campaign launched so all individuals and affinity groups can share their own experience of their neighborhood through photographs, videos, public art, and more.
* Community calendar launched and paid for as a donation to collaborative work in the neighborhood.
* 1 portal website including a social networking component so that online resources for the neighborhood can be found and shared easily.
Accomplishments are the result of pro bono contributions aside from a $3,000 contribution from Wells Fargo Bank for the reproduction of the Footprints News, and a $3,000 contribution from Zellerbach Family Foundation for the “Bayview Is…” mural. We are grateful to all.
Bayview Footprints member groups are: ART 94124, Arthur H. Coleman Medical Center, Bayview Business Resource Center, Bayview History Preservation Project, Bayview Safe Haven, Bayview YMCA, Better Bayview Group, Blue Dolphin Youth Swim Team, BVHP Foundation for Community Improvement, Community Arts Center Working Group, Hunters Point Family, India Basin Neighborhood Association, Literacy for Environmental Justice, Old Skool Café, Pathlight Productions – Infinity Gospel Ministries, Public Glass, Quesada Gardens Initiative (including Bridgeview Garden and Latona Garden), Reachout for the Rainbow After School, Renaissance Parents of Success, Shipyard Trust for the Arts, Think Round, Inc./Children’s Mural Program, Third Street Youth Center.
For more information, call 415.822.0800 or email info@quesadagardens.org
Posted by Quesada Gardens Initiative at 11:54 AM 0 comments
Labels: "footprints" - leave a good impression
Arts in Bayview 2008 and beyond
NEW BAYVIEW MURAL DEDICATED ON MLK DAY
By Heidi Hardin
Think Round, Inc.
If you are in Bayview and standing on the hills along the Bay, look west to see something new near the familiar spire of All Hallows Church: strokes of bright colors that are part of Bayview’s newest piece of public art.
Acting on a generous grant from the Zellerbach Foundation, the Quesada Gardens Initiative solicited community artists Malik Seneferu and Heidi Hardin to create a “Bayview Is…” Community Mural on a gray retaining wall located on Newhall Avenue, just below the showpiece Bridgeview Garden.
Seneferu created a design that depicts the sun radiating across the 120’ x 14’ wall, dividing it into six areas of solid hot colors. Several large white birds fly across the expanse toward the sun.
The bold design was brought to life at the end of 2008 by the artists, and teams of volunteers from the community and San Francisco General Hospital.
The design is planned to evolve in a future phase of the project. The large, solid blocks of color within the sun’s rays create areas for community artists, youth, faith-based groups and others to express in words and images what “Bayview Is…” to them. These community-generated, community-inspired visions will be facilitated by Hardin and Seneferu who welcome your ideas.
The “Bayview Is…” Campaign is a community-generated and resident-led arts and communications campaign that has been developing a balanced story about the strengths of our neighborhood over time, like resident-contributed patches in an ever-expanding quilt. It is a project of the Bayview Footprints network and the Quesada Gardens Initiative.
Hardin and Seneferu are artists and educators with deep roots in Bayview Hunters Point. The groups they lead, Think Round, Inc. and the Safe Haven Program are both Bayview Footprints member groups.
SHIPYARD TRUST FOR THE ARTS REACHING OUT
By Marc Ellen Hamel
STAR Board Member & Shipyard Artist
2008 was a busy year for the nonprofit organization Shipyard Trust for the Arts (STAR). In addition to joining Footprints last year, STAR continued its tracking of the Hunters Point Shipyard redevelopment process, and built important new relationships within the Bayview Hunters Point community.
In 2009, the organization is focusing on building infrastructure, a process it is kicking-off with a full-day Board of Directors retreat this month.
Veronica Orozco, a native San Franciscan of Nicaraguan heritage, was the 2008 Artist-in-Residence. Orozco now joins the list of former artists-in-residence, which includes Rhonel Roberts, Dolores Gray, Juan Fuentes, Mary Booker, and Santie Huckaby.
STAR members and many Shipyard Artists have been active in the exciting new Bayview community arts organization, Art 94124, and were enthusiastic participants in a number of Footprints events.
ARTS CENTER VISION DEVELOPS
By Rebecca Haseltine
Shipyard Artist & ACWG Group Member
The Art Center Working Group, in 2008, continued manifesting the dream of a multidisciplinary Community Art Center on the Hunters Point Shipyard that emphasizes arts education. 2009 will bring more detailed development of our plan for the Center.
This past year, we met with individuals and groups in the Bayview Hunters Point community to build a broader coalition for the work, and to find out the scope of the community’s needs. We continue to work with the SF City Redevelopment Agency and the Citizen’s Advisory Committee to expand our base of support and to participate in the existing planning process for the Shipyard.
We also met with several experts who have created art centers in other locations to help us develop our ideas, expanded the core group of participants, created a brochure to present our mission and vision, and began investigating funding opportunities.
This year, look for us to continue this project intensively. We welcome participation on many levels. If you are interested in becoming involved, please contact me at 415.641.5301 or haseltine@earthlink.net.
ART 94124 SHOW
ART 94124 will celebrated its first show of 2009 last Friday at the unique gallery behind Javalencia Café at 3900 Third Street. A group exhibit of artists working in multiple media that salutes jazz and African-American heritage features original artwork, photography, and limited-edition prints.
Footprints member group ART 94124 represents an innovative mix of art, business and community, and is fueled by residents and other community-minded leaders who recognize the power of grassroots strategies to bring people together and create change.
Posted by Quesada Gardens Initiative at 10:17 AM 0 comments
Labels: "footprints" - leave a good impression, Community News and Events, Public Art Programming
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Bayview business notes
Folks collaborating to help businesses on Third Street report that eight new businesses opened up on the corridor in 2008. Among them are Auntie April's Soul Food Restaurant and Trendsetters.Below, FJ Cava is caught in a rare moment of relaxation in the entryway of his unique business, Webspot.
Webspot has has the creative attention of Traci Peace from Visions of LaModa (also pictured) who works with young women in the design field.
Visions of LaModa holds classes at Faith Temple Church on Oakdale, and took a group of youth last summer to New York City for a backstage experience of fashion week.
The collaboration between Webspot and Visions is a remarkable example of socially-responsible businesses working with the community for the benefit of all.
Posted by Quesada Gardens Initiative at 9:53 PM 0 comments
Labels: Bayview Business, Community News and Events
A & A Photography - Ready for your closeup
What's in a name?
In the case of A & A Photography, the answer is Arnella Williams and her son Alonzo Williams. A & A is the newest business on Third Street, next door to Upper Crust Deli at Revere, and is offering photography to meet all the community’s needs.
“I was raised in the neighborhood,” Alonzo said recently, “and wanted to start a business that helps the community.”
Alonzo has a sincere way about him, and is easy to believe. But check the price sheet, and you know he’s real. Need a quick professional photo of your new girlfriend or boyfriend for your wallet? Get one, and 55 copies for your jealous friends…all for just $16!
A & A Photography occupies a storefront divided by one of several backdrop rolls hanging from the ceiling. There seems to be a backdrop for all occasions. Stand in front of graffiti hearts for a youthful pose, or sit on a park bench for an old style studio portrait.
A & A offers a range of services, including wedding and church event photography, and is the go-to place for anyone building a modeling portfolio. The business specializes in the family portrait, and the increasingly popular pet portrait.
Alonzo’s brother, James Williams, slid behind the counter for a quick picture of the nonprofessional kind. “I’m photogenic,” he said, and then grinned to prove the point.
A & A is an inviting place that illustrates the Bayview most people have yet to discover…a place where friendly family businesses pop up to meet the needs of residents…a place where you can have a professional and artful portrait taken even though funky phone pics seem to rule…a place where the people on both sides of the business counter truly care about their community.
Walk in to A & A Photography (5112 3rd Street) Monday through Saturday from 10am to 6pm, or make an appointment (415.822.FOTO).
Posted by Quesada Gardens Initiative at 9:40 PM 0 comments
Labels: Bayview Business, Community News and Events
New manager at Bayview Wells Fargo
Cliff Banayat has moved to the manager’s chair of our neighborhood Wells Fargo Branch at Bayview Plaza. Denise Woo, former manager, has moved to a new position within the bank.
Footprints is grateful to Wells Fargo Bank for funding reproduction of the Bayview Footprints print newsletter.
Posted by Quesada Gardens Initiative at 9:35 PM 0 comments
Labels: Bayview Business
Innovative gardening idea from Bayview
Photos and text by Rhonda Winter
Bayview Resident
My neighbor Alyssa and I spent this afternoon making paper pots to propagate wildflower seeds for the Latona Community Garden. Anyone can create these simple recycled pots using just an empty can or jar and paper.
To make a paper pot simply cut your material to size, fold it and wrap it around your jar or can leaving a few inches over the end of the container, then fold the edges of the paper over into the open end. Next, remove the jar and push the sides down to form the bottom for your pot. Now you are ready to fill it with soil for planting your favorite vegetables or flowers.
Once your seeds have sprouted, the whole biodegradable pot can be planted directly into the ground so you do not have to disturb the seedlings’ roots. The entire paper pot will eventually just decompose into the earth!
When initially making paper pots I suggest experimenting with different sizes, methods and materials to see what works best for you; there is more than one way to make a perfect paper pot. I prefer to use old grocery bags the spirit and energy of community because they are sturdy and last many months, but something else might work better for your planting needs.
Posted by Quesada Gardens Initiative at 9:00 PM 0 comments
Labels: Gardening and Food Production, Latona Garden, Our Children and Youth
Wise Bayview resident talks about election
by Jeffrey Betcher
Bayview Resident
The day after Senator Obama became President-Elect Obama, Edward Allen’s thoughts went to his military days, a past president, and a time when the country was in peril beyond what we’re experiencing now.
“You can’t touch it,” Mr. Allen said of the Great Depression, World War II, and the generation of Americans that came together to turn things around. He ought to know. He’s lived through most of it.
I wanted to take a walk around my neighborhood, San Francisco’s maligned and challenged Bayview Hunters Point, to soak up the community reaction to the prior day’s election. I said “hello” to Mr. Allen, who was sitting about a minute’s walk from my front door, next to Wendy’s Bakery, looking out onto the unique urban beauty of the Quesada Garden.
Almost daily, weather permitting, Mr. Allen walks by my house carrying a folding stool, and takes position where folks have been gathering for the ten years I can speak to, and probably since the corner emerged from a dirt road and open space. Allen and other locals know that the corner has always been favored by the sun.
“December 7th, 1941,” Allen said. “The whole country came together in about a week.” He blew a gust of military and national history in my direction, complete with dates, names and events. De Gaulle…Churchill…Montgomery…Roosevelt…
Allen served from 1952 to 1954, during the Korean War, spending a good bit of time in Germany where he witnessed the stunning rubble that called itself “Berlin.” The Korean War was the beginning of the United States’ slow left turn into conflicts that should have been avoided, Allen believes. Vietnam and Iraq are on the same list.
“It’s not people like Bush who have to fight,” he said. “Poor folks do that part.”
Allen was drafted away from a job he had held at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard for five years, and there was nothing to do but put on a uniform. The Shipyard, a rare hub of job opportunities for working people, was no protection from the draft.
Allen, I already knew, was the son of a farmer. Usually quiet, he was walking by one of the community gardens in the area a few months be ago, on his way to Quesada Avenue and Third Street. He pointed out that the corn in the Bridgeview Garden needed more water than we were giving it. It was obvious that he knew what he was talking about.
Born in 1931, Allen was raised in Louisiana. With the exception of his overseas service, Bayview Hunters Point has been his home since he arrived as a teenager in 1947. When he returned from the service, in 1954, he looked for a job outside the Shipyard. “Working with longshoremen, there was a lot of hard living, drinking and that kind of thing. I ended up working for Best Foods on Bryant, and was there for thirty years.”
The Best Foods job was fortunate for Allen as the Shipyard began its postwar decline, and the neighborhood began to suffer from the evaporation of employment opportunities. But he remains proud of his military service, and his time at the Shipyard.
The election of Barak Obama stirred both that pride and his concern about how far we, as a country, have drifted from the generation of leadership that sent soldiers into harm’s way only when absolutely necessary.
“Where’s Osama bin Laden?” he asked, and then shrugged his shoulders. “And look at all we need here at home.”
The view we had, from the corner of Quesada and Third, supported Allen’s opinions. This is the kind of neighborhood that disproportionally bears the human burden when leaders call upon the military. It’s the kind of neighborhood that most needs the economic vitality that bringing resources home could create.
Allen grew up understanding the struggle to survive, and came of age in an era of unity generated by the demands of World War II, which, he believes, remains the best example of when the United States should fight. He remembers how, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, everything changed and ultimately got better.
Allen understood the comparisons of Obama to FDR. For him, the fact that a black man was elected president is meaningful. But what is more important is that a new president might unite everyone, and cut a path to the future that we all can find and travel together.
As we talked, passers-by -- each different than the last when it comes to race, class, and other things that usually separate us -- all smiled and shared in the excitement of the day. “From the outhouse to the White House,” one said.
If a sunny corner in Bayview and a conversation between neighbors are any indication, Allen’s vision for the country under an Obama presidency seems especially focused, and as close to becoming reality as the people walking by.
Whether we see sudden “change” or a long slow climb, we can find Edward Allen on most sunny days somewhere between the Quesada Garden and Wendy’s Bakery, making sense of the day’s events by remembering the past.
Posted by Quesada Gardens Initiative at 8:24 PM 0 comments
Labels: Community News and Events, History of BVHP
Bayview landscape "then and now"
Our community is growing dramatically...again! Large format versions of these photographs can be seen at our branch library on Third and Revere, behind the circulation desk.
Thanks go to Bert Graziano who took the older photograph around 1920, and Margot Bors who did photo restoration and then took the newer picture in 2003: footings to an eighty year span of local history.
The Bayview History Preservation Project, a co-founding Footprints member group, is located at the library, and houses many images and other treasures from our past.
Posted by Quesada Gardens Initiative at 7:13 PM 0 comments
Labels: "footprints" - leave a good impression, History of BVHP
New Bayview library designed
This rendering of the new Bayview branch library is the latest from Thomas Hacker Architects, and re!ects community input. Note the green roof!
Library Design Highlights:
* Expanded materials collections
* Meeting room with after-hours access
* Fully accessible
* Flexible design for future technologies
* Increased Chinese language collection
* Prominent reading area
* Two enclosed study rooms
* Expanded children’s area
* Inner courtyard
* More functional staff work areas
* A larger designated teen area
* New furniture
* Clear signage
* More computers and internet access
* Express self-checkout machines
* A variety of seating choices
* 24-hour book return
* Maximum use of natural light
* Public art
By Linda Brooks-Burton
Managing Librarian & Footprints Co-Founder
San Francisco voters passed a bond measure, in 2002, for $106 million to upgrade San Francisco’s branch library system. In 2007, voters authorized additional funding for branch improvement.
The San Francisco Public Library decided that its Bayview branch should be rebuilt given the voting public’s message and strong community support, and because increasing service needs have been difficult to meet in the current building.
In 2008, the San Francisco Public Library’s Branch Library Improvement Program (BLIP) produced important achievements, including pre-design meetings with branch staff, administration and architects from Thomas Hacker Architects, Inc. Three community meetings, at which the architects presented design options to the community, generated community input into the process that affected the final concept.
More community meetings will be held in 2009, and construction on the new building is scheduled to begin in early 2010 and be completed in late 2011. This month, art selection for the branch will take place.
The Bayview Branch Library is emblematic of the changing face of the neighborhood, and of the community’s historic commitment to education -an important stepping stone to a better life for African Americans, immigrants, and all working class families.
Bayview History Note: The branch is now named for a San Francisco clerical employee, Anna E. Waden, whose bequest made possible the cooperative community project that resulted in the current building at Third and Revere where a Sinclair gas station once stood. Constructed in 1969 under the leadership of its fi rst librarian, George Alfred, the library still traces its roots to a humble storefront facility opened in 1927.
Posted by Quesada Gardens Initiative at 5:44 PM 0 comments
Labels: "footprints" - leave a good impression, Community News and Events
Bayview YMCA - Healthy Resolution
NEW YEAR ’S RESOLUTION: Healthy youth, families and community
by Gina Fromer, Executive Director of the Bayview YMCA
The Bayview Hunters Point YMCA is always working to make a difference for you, for your family, for our partners, and for the community.
For the last ten years, we have been creating a unique story, providing a safe haven where people gather and celebrate family, and creating programs that have a direct impact on the families they touch.
With 2009 here, we are working to expand our youth services to include a community teen center, and to increase our Health and Fitness Studio programs for active adults. We see the difference that our YMCA makes every day in the lives of ordinary people.
The BVHP YMCA is an anchor organization working in collaboration with key partners to bring quality services and programs to the diverse community of Bayview Hunters Point. We are a focal point of youth development, youth leadership, and youth sports — a conduit for the forward movement of our future generation.
Note: The Bayview YMCA is a Bayview Footprints member group, and is located at the corner of Lane and Quesada. Contact them at 415.822.7728.
Posted by Quesada Gardens Initiative at 4:46 PM 0 comments
Labels: Community News and Events, Food Health and Safety, Our Children and Youth
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Bayview Is... mural dedicated
Annette Smith, one of the first to plant flowers on the Quesada Avenue median strip in 2002, beginning a new phase of community involvement in a challenged neighborhood, offered an opening prayer at the post-work gathering near the new “Bayview Is…” mural on Newhall at Bridgeview. Smith offered thanks for the effort underway in the neighborhood, and asked for wisdom and guidance as more and more people get involved in the work.
Dolores Williams, a longtime Newhall Avenue resident, spoke about the importance of community involvement. She can see the “Bayview Is…” mural from her kitchen window, she said, the same window from which she has seen crime and violence. She thanked Joel McClure for quickly covering over the graffiti that all too often would appear on the wall when it was a patchwork of gray paint. She said the mural is a big improvement.
Williams told stories about things she has seen from her window over the years, and about how neighbors have looked after one another. “Watch out your windows,” she advised, “and you might be surprised at what you see.”
Now, Williams has a view from her window of vibrant colors in a radiating sun pattern spanning over one hundred feet in length, and about fifteen feet in height. A series of birds, rendered in white silhouette, rise across the mural, suggesting rebirth and hopefulness. The design is by Malik Seneferu, an artist with deep and ongoing ties to the community.
Mary McClure who, along with husband Joel, is the project manager for the Bridgeview Garden project, helped roll paint onto the Newhall wall under the watchful eyes of the artists. Yesterday, she presented bouquets of flowers to those same artists, and introduced them to the audience as catalysts for change on Newhall.
Heidi Hardin, a Shipyard artist and longtime arts educator with a commitment to youth, the arts and environment, was the first to receive a bouquet. She thanked all those who worked on the project, and pointed out that she and her fellow muralist, Seneferu, were fine artists in addition to the collaborative, community-based work they have become known for. She expressed her personal commitment to advancing the health of families from all different faiths by using her arts in a project she calls the Human Family Tree project.
Malik Seneferu, after thanking Mary for his bouquet, encouraged support for all the arts work happening in the neighborhood, from the Arts Center at the Shipyard to the community-based Gallery 94124. He was moved by the dedication, he said, as he was by MLK Day and the inauguration to follow. In that spirit, he asked for feedback on an image of Obama, his newest artistic accomplishment, which he had brought with him.
Hardin and Seneferu both have a long history of working with at-risk youth, Hardin with her Children’s Mural Program and Think Round, Inc., and Seneferu with the Safe Haven Program of Hunters Point Family. They also possess the rare ability to foster their unique artistic visions while, at the same time, working in collaboration on projects intended to facilitate the expression of diverse voices.
The mural, Bayview’s newest piece of public art, is part of the “Bayview Is…” Campaign and the Bayview Footprints Network of Community-Building Groups. The Campaign is a resident-led effort to provide those with deep roots in Bayview the means to express their own experience of their neighborhood. It involves public art, like the new mural, photographs of residents holding signs with their own descriptions of their experience, and public events.
Posted by Quesada Gardens Initiative at 6:16 PM 0 comments
Labels: Bayview Is, Community News and Events, Public Art Programming
MLK Day of Service in Bayview
Residents from the Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood of San Francisco joined with volunteers from outside the neighborhood yesterday to celebrate Martin Luther King Day with community service, as then President-Elect Obama had suggested.
Groups from Stanford University, University of San Francisco and AmeriCorps, along with individuals from other San Francisco neighborhoods who wanted a service experience to mark their MLK holiday, worked in community gardens around the heart of Bayview.
The Quesada Gardens Initiative organized the event on behalf of the many informal groups focused on projects such as the Bridgeview Garden, the Latona Community Garden, and a new garden emerging on Palou Avenue.
About a hundred volunteers weeded, picked up trash, built retaining walls, laid piping for an irrigation system, painted garden furniture, and spread a mountain of mulch. Afterward, they gathered to share food and lemonade, dedicate a recently finished mural and celebrate the muralists, and share thoughts about the meaning of the day.
The day’s activities were promoted on KCBS, in the SF Chronicle and SF Examiner, and were covered by KGO local ABC news.
“I’ve had a lot of great moments in my private life, but this is the greatest in my public one,” Revere neighbor Nan Foster said as she worked in the Quesada Garden yesterday. She was talking about the inauguration, something that was on everyone’s minds and lips throughout the MLK Day holiday.
The MLK Day and the inauguration seemed like one holiday, and the work on the local level was never more connected to events outside the neighborhood.
Even with our hands in the dirt, we could sense the camera of perspective panning out to a long shot of the earth from space. MLK Day itself seemed to expand around us as people who are vastly different from one another worked together, drank lemonade together, and cheered together. Still a celebration of the African American experience and the movement toward civil rights, the MLK holiday seemed all the more inclusive as a day of purpose for all cultures and all struggle.
Contributing to the day of service were as many people who appeared nearer Obama’s mother’s ethnicity and culture as from that of the new President’s father. Individually, we brought to the day perspective dictated by our unique backgrounds. Together, we were immersed in a collective experience that is rare even in a place where unity is cultivated along with community gardens and public art.
Pictured are Drew Howard and Chris Waddling working on the newly emerging Palou Garden just west of Phelps. Photo by James Ross
See lots of great pictures of community-building work, all by Rhonda Winter, including pictures from yesterday.
Posted by Quesada Gardens Initiative at 5:25 PM 0 comments
Labels: Community News and Events, Palou Garden
Friday, January 16, 2009
New video on community-building in Bayview
The secret is out, if it ever was one, and it's Freshh!
A new video by Dorothy LaRue and Jeph Foust at Studio Freshh features community-building in Bayview, scenes of the neighborhood, Bridgeview Garden, Latona Garden, Quesada community mural, and more. The piece is now on the StudioFreshh website.
At about eight minutes, it's one of the more substantive pieces on building community cohesion through positive strategies that we've seen. The good folks at StudioFreshh hope for comments at their website...so please visit them to see the video, and leave an impression during your stay.
Posted by Quesada Gardens Initiative at 1:31 PM 0 comments
Labels: About QGI, Bridgeview Garden, Latona Garden
Saturday, January 10, 2009
New art show in Bayview
ART 94124 will celebrate its first show of 2009 on Friday January 16th from 6pm to 10pm at the unique gallery behind Javalencia Cafe at 3900 Third Street in Bayview. A group exhibit of artists working in multiple media that salutes jazz and African-American heritage will feature original artwork, photography, and limited-edition prints.
ART 94124 represents an innovative mix of art, business, and community, and is fueled by residents and other community-minded leaders who recognize the power of grassroots strategies to bring people together and create change.
Visit ART 94124 Presents: JAZZ! and see artwork from Bayview Hunters Point and beyond, including pieces by Kajahl Benes, Tad Bridenthal, Marsha Ercegovic, Juan Fuentes, James Gayles, Santie Huckaby, Natalie Kaufman, Malik Seneferu, Brian Stannard, Jon Tomlinson, and Charles Unge.
Posted by Quesada Gardens Initiative at 10:42 AM 0 comments
Labels: "footprints" - leave a good impression, Community News and Events, Public Art Programming
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Quesada Gardens Initiative
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Quesada Gardens Initiative
We are building "community," connecting across our differences, and strengthening local systems in the Bayview Hunters Point Neighborhood of San Francisco through strategies that have emerged from the grassroots: community and backyard gardens, public art projects, events, and more. We are 100% resident-led, and believe that communities should be allowed to define themselves. We also believe that we all have a responsibility to be involved in the life of the street where we live. There is nothing more valuable than informal groups and social networks, especially in challenging times. Contact us at 415.822.0800 or info@QuesadaGardens.org
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* About QGI (35)
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1800 Oakdale SF CA 94188-1764 (c/o Renaissance Parents of Success) 415.822.0800 tel 415.822.2460 fax info@quesadagardens.org
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Sunday, February 8, 2009
Jobs in healthcare industry
Health practitioners work in one of the top five most profitable industries according to the research firm Sageworks Inc. Sageworks examined thousands of privately run industries, and found that healthcare ranked 4th, behind the number one profitable industry: dental offices.
It's good news that some sectors of our economy offer a more hopeful window of opportunity for job seekers.
If you know young people from the Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood looking at the healthcare industry as a possible career, San Francisco General Hospital would like to give them a special tour of the hospital. Contact: info@quesadagardens.org
Posted by Quesada Gardens Initiative at 12:17 PM 0 comments
Labels: Community News and Events, Food Health and Safety
Study shows potential of existing food systems
"Beyond Food Deserts: Measuring and Mapping Racial Disparities in Neighborhood Food Environments" by Samina Raja, Changxing Ma, & Pavan Yadav, provides more evidence that building community and the capacity of local systems is a key strategy in addressing even the most challenging issues.
The study found that, "contrary to reports in the popular press and studies from elsewhere in the country (Mari Gallaghar Research and Consulting Group 2006)...an extensive network of small grocery stores available within a five-minute travel time of minority neighborhoods offers a tremendous opportunity for creating healthful food environments within neighborhoods of color.
The study substantiates what we already knew, that there is an absence of certain healthful food sources, namely supermarkets, in neighborhoods like Bayview Hunters Point when compared to predominantly white neighborhoods.
The new findings offer insight into effective strategies to bring good food to communities like Bayview. Instead of trying to get supermarkets to open up stores here, the study suggests that "creative planning and policy support for networks of existing small grocery stores may be a more efficient strategy for ensuring access to healthful foods within minority neighborhoods."
Literacy for Environmental Justice's Good Neighbor program is an example of efforts to strengthen existing food retailing systems. Community-based food production like that which Hunters Point Family and the Quesada Gardens Initiative is engaged in, is another important capacity-building strategy.
See more about this issue and efforts in Bayview to support local food at resident Rhonda Winters' blog, at the Southeast Food Access Working Groups' online space, and in 2007's food preferences survey for the southeast sector.
Posted by Quesada Gardens Initiative at 11:30 AM 0 comments
Labels: Food Health and Safety, Gardening and Food Production
Spring tree plantings on the calendar
SF Environment is busy organizing Arbor Day plantings, and Friends of the Urban Forest set a date for the next Bayview Free Sidewalk Tree Planting.
It must be Spring!
For your free Bayview trees, fill out DPW and FUF forms that can be found online.
Planting is scheduled for Saturday, April 4, 2009 - 9am to noon, and volunteers are always welcome.
FUF volunteer and Bayview resident Matt Czajkowski advises that you can apply for a tree for a DPW-maintained site. Good tip!
Another hot tip? Trees make unusual and meaningful Valentine's Day gifts. FUF will send an email to your sweetie, or you can download and send a card that shows how green just might be the next red when it comes to celebrating romance.
Posted by Quesada Gardens Initiative at 10:13 AM 0 comments
Labels: Community News and Events
Friday, February 6, 2009
Healthier foods coming to Bayview
It's no surprise to Serena Ortega, who works for the business that includes Upper Crust Deli on Third Street in Bayview, that she doesn't have much competition when it comes to new products she is introducing. She's done her research.
"There was a line out the door at 6am this morning," she said, "and it's just the first day for us to offer breakfast."
The deal of the day was the breakfast burritto, a relatively healthy food alternative compared to other offerings on the commercial corridor, and very competitively priced (starting at just $3).
Next on Serena's list is a line of salads which is a nearly subversive act in a neighborhood known as a food desert by those who measure the distance between front door and produce retailer.
Many community-based groups such as Hunters Point Family, Literacy for Environmental Justice, and the Quesada Gardens Initiative have been long been concerned about the lack of healthy food options in the neighborhood, and have taken steps that include community food gardens.
These groups also belong to a collaboration called the Southeast Food Access Working Group (SEFA) where they sit alongside representatives from the SF Department of Public Health, Southeast Health Clinic, and the SF Wholesale Food Market to advocate for more and better food options.
A survey of Bayview residents' food preferences, accomplished through SEFA, and released in late 2007, is a high water mark in the overall effort to attract new and better food options to the neighborhood.
Posted by Quesada Gardens Initiative at 6:25 PM 0 comments
Labels: Bayview Business, Food Health and Safety
Valentine's Day means a visit to Yvonne's
We've said it before, we'll say it again...If you have a sweetheart or just a sweet tooth, you need to make your way over to Pralines by Yvonne.
The little store with the big heart carries Yvonne Hines' own line of pralines, butter cookies, lemon pound cake, and more.
For Valentine's Day, get a gift box wrapped with passionate red ribbon and packed with goodies to make your special someone say "yum."
Pralines by Yvonne is located at 5128 Third Street. Say hello to Jacqueline Smith (pictured) who keeps the place warm and friendly when Ms. Hines is away.
Yvonne was recognized as Business Owner of the Year in 2007 by Senator Carole Migden's office.
Posted by Quesada Gardens Initiative at 6:19 PM 0 comments
Labels: Bayview Business
Bayview parks are city's most neglected
Just across the street from one of the lowest rated parks in San Francisco is a gardening and open space improvement project that neighbors who live on the block have started since they can't really use the existing park.
The newer project is on public land, but limited to a narrow strip of dirt outside the larger fenced-in area because approval to use the empty lot has been tough for the neighbors to secure even though the site has been a trash dump for years.
These folks, known as the Palou Garden group, and similar groups associated with the Quesada Gardens Initiative and Bayview Footprints Network spend little, do a lot, and just might get a higher grade than City's Parks and Recreation department.
A report from the San Francisco Controllers Office reports that, while our city's parks are improved overall, Bayview's parks occupy half of the bottom ten list.
The report is covered in today's SF Chronicle and yesterday's SF Examiner. It is well-timed with an opportunity for Bayview Hunters Point residents to give input into the future of open spaces in our neighborhood.
The report is also a forceful reminder that resident-led efforts to define and maintain the open spaces near them is a cost-effective alternative to traditional government strategies that often fail to connect with the people who are most affected by the potential and problems associated with these public assets.
The report card (which grades parks based on the condition of their trees, lawns, benches and play areas) will almost certainly come up at the Open Space Community Workshop on Wednesday, February 24th from 7pm to 9pm at the Potrero Hill Neighborhood House at 953 De Haro Street.
The Neighborhood Parks Council and the City's Open Space Team will host the meeting as part of a series of community workshops designed to solicit the public's vision and priorities for the future of open space in San Francisco.
District with lowest-rated parks:
Bayview-Hunters Point/Visitacion Valley, 10
District with highest-rated parks:
Mission/Bernal Heights/Portola, 9
Lowest-rated parks:
Cayuga/Lamartine Mini Park, District 11
Sgt. John Macauley Park, District 6
John McLaren Park, District 10
Park Presidio Boulevard, District 1
Palou/Phelps Park, District 10
Top-rated parks:
Collis P. Huntington Park, District 3
Richmond Recreation Center, District 1
Fay Park, District 3
Midtown Terrace Playground, District 7
Hyde/Vallejo Mini Park, District 3
Most improved:
29th/Diamond Open Space, District 8
Saturn Street Steps, District 5
Page/Laguna Mini Park, District 8
Source: City Controller’s Office
Posted by Quesada Gardens Initiative at 9:03 AM 0 comments
Labels: Gardening and Food Production, Palou Garden
Monday, January 26, 2009
Bayview community-building network reinvented
REPORT-BACK TO OUR COMMUNITY
From Bayview Footprints' organizers and friends
Bayview Footprints did something you don’t see very often: a public review of what we do and how we do it. Even a collaboration fueled by volunteers, residents, and small organization staffers should be transparent, responsive and open to change.
In October, Footprints leaders and allies asked the Haas Business School to send a team of advanced students to facilitate public meetings, interview member group representatives, and present feedback and recommendations. We also administered two surveys, one for our member groups, and another for the broader community that was sent out online and published in the last Footprints News edition.
Bayview Footprints is respected and appreciated, according to the review findings, and accomplishing things that the community wants to see more of. On the other hand, most folks had trouble saying what, exactly, “Bayview Footprints” is!
Communications turned out to be the critical challenge: communicating Footprints’ mission and structure, communicating member benefits and responsibilities, and communicating what the group actually does.
What is “Footprints” anyway? The question came up often during the intensive public review process that Bayview Footprints just concluded. The Haas Business School volunteers said, in their final recommendations, that “Member groups interviewed were proud of their membership,” but that “Footprints’ main focus should be on networking the member groups.”
And so, Footprints is no longer a Collaboration of Community-Building Groups.” Welcome to the Bayview Footprints Network of Community-Building Groups!
Changes at a glance:
* Look for a new focus on “networking.”
* Look for the prioritizing of informal, small groups as members, with larger, more established organizations as supporters.
* Instead of monthly social gatherings, look for periodic “issue forums” on subjects of interest to member groups.
* Look for the network and its resources to be “open for adoption” for specific periods and for specific projects that member groups or other organizations need community support for.
Now, Bayview Footprints is a network of informal BVHP Member Groups building community, supporting resident leadership, and contributing to a balanced story about our beloved neighborhood. The “walking footprints” graphic represents the strength of diversity and the recognition that our past, present and future are inseparable.
Footprints’ focus is on shared values and a belief that every conversation and handshake is shaping our community whether it occurs in a meeting room or on the street. While member groups may play advocacy roles, the network as a whole is non-governmental, nonpolitical, and entirely supportive of established policymaking and advisory structures.
The network advances BVHP groups that typically don’t have a place elsewhere: social clubs, neighborhood associations, families, new projects, small organizations, projects without funding or sponsorship, independent businesses, and the like.
Member Groups benefit from mutual support and assistance, communications opportunities, and forums for the discussion of issues important to them. Membership is free; however groups are required to participate in the life of the network to retain membership. Member Groups each have a vote in any question affecting Footprints such as new member applications.
Supporting Organizations are larger and more established groups and institutions from within and outside the community that commit to contributions in support of the network. These organizations also receive benefits, such as being listed in materials, and are invited to participate in events. They are non-voting allies of Footprints.
Bayview Footprints Network of Community-Building Groups encourages the spirit and energy of community cohesion so that each footprint we leave today builds on the last, and leads to a future that includes everyone.
2008 ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Footprints is proud of its long list of accomplishments, all the more because it’s only been eighteen months since the first groups got together and defined a focus on positive strategies that build community and tell a balanced story of our neighborhood’s strengths.
* 7 social gatherings attracting hundreds of residents to the library, Upper Crust Deli, Roadhouse Café, Webspot, Javalencia Café and Gallery 94124, and the Quesada Garden.
* 6 Footprints News print editions, and dozens of e-news briefs.
* 4 issue forums, at the library and the Southeast Community Facility, on subjects including sidewalk and streets improvements, community responses to violence, history and culture, and arts funding to BVHP.
* “Bayview Is…” campaign launched so all individuals and affinity groups can share their own experience of their neighborhood through photographs, videos, public art, and more.
* Community calendar launched and paid for as a donation to collaborative work in the neighborhood.
* 1 portal website including a social networking component so that online resources for the neighborhood can be found and shared easily.
Accomplishments are the result of pro bono contributions aside from a $3,000 contribution from Wells Fargo Bank for the reproduction of the Footprints News, and a $3,000 contribution from Zellerbach Family Foundation for the “Bayview Is…” mural. We are grateful to all.
Bayview Footprints member groups are: ART 94124, Arthur H. Coleman Medical Center, Bayview Business Resource Center, Bayview History Preservation Project, Bayview Safe Haven, Bayview YMCA, Better Bayview Group, Blue Dolphin Youth Swim Team, BVHP Foundation for Community Improvement, Community Arts Center Working Group, Hunters Point Family, India Basin Neighborhood Association, Literacy for Environmental Justice, Old Skool Café, Pathlight Productions – Infinity Gospel Ministries, Public Glass, Quesada Gardens Initiative (including Bridgeview Garden and Latona Garden), Reachout for the Rainbow After School, Renaissance Parents of Success, Shipyard Trust for the Arts, Think Round, Inc./Children’s Mural Program, Third Street Youth Center.
For more information, call 415.822.0800 or email info@quesadagardens.org
Posted by Quesada Gardens Initiative at 11:54 AM 0 comments
Labels: "footprints" - leave a good impression
Arts in Bayview 2008 and beyond
NEW BAYVIEW MURAL DEDICATED ON MLK DAY
By Heidi Hardin
Think Round, Inc.
If you are in Bayview and standing on the hills along the Bay, look west to see something new near the familiar spire of All Hallows Church: strokes of bright colors that are part of Bayview’s newest piece of public art.
Acting on a generous grant from the Zellerbach Foundation, the Quesada Gardens Initiative solicited community artists Malik Seneferu and Heidi Hardin to create a “Bayview Is…” Community Mural on a gray retaining wall located on Newhall Avenue, just below the showpiece Bridgeview Garden.
Seneferu created a design that depicts the sun radiating across the 120’ x 14’ wall, dividing it into six areas of solid hot colors. Several large white birds fly across the expanse toward the sun.
The bold design was brought to life at the end of 2008 by the artists, and teams of volunteers from the community and San Francisco General Hospital.
The design is planned to evolve in a future phase of the project. The large, solid blocks of color within the sun’s rays create areas for community artists, youth, faith-based groups and others to express in words and images what “Bayview Is…” to them. These community-generated, community-inspired visions will be facilitated by Hardin and Seneferu who welcome your ideas.
The “Bayview Is…” Campaign is a community-generated and resident-led arts and communications campaign that has been developing a balanced story about the strengths of our neighborhood over time, like resident-contributed patches in an ever-expanding quilt. It is a project of the Bayview Footprints network and the Quesada Gardens Initiative.
Hardin and Seneferu are artists and educators with deep roots in Bayview Hunters Point. The groups they lead, Think Round, Inc. and the Safe Haven Program are both Bayview Footprints member groups.
SHIPYARD TRUST FOR THE ARTS REACHING OUT
By Marc Ellen Hamel
STAR Board Member & Shipyard Artist
2008 was a busy year for the nonprofit organization Shipyard Trust for the Arts (STAR). In addition to joining Footprints last year, STAR continued its tracking of the Hunters Point Shipyard redevelopment process, and built important new relationships within the Bayview Hunters Point community.
In 2009, the organization is focusing on building infrastructure, a process it is kicking-off with a full-day Board of Directors retreat this month.
Veronica Orozco, a native San Franciscan of Nicaraguan heritage, was the 2008 Artist-in-Residence. Orozco now joins the list of former artists-in-residence, which includes Rhonel Roberts, Dolores Gray, Juan Fuentes, Mary Booker, and Santie Huckaby.
STAR members and many Shipyard Artists have been active in the exciting new Bayview community arts organization, Art 94124, and were enthusiastic participants in a number of Footprints events.
ARTS CENTER VISION DEVELOPS
By Rebecca Haseltine
Shipyard Artist & ACWG Group Member
The Art Center Working Group, in 2008, continued manifesting the dream of a multidisciplinary Community Art Center on the Hunters Point Shipyard that emphasizes arts education. 2009 will bring more detailed development of our plan for the Center.
This past year, we met with individuals and groups in the Bayview Hunters Point community to build a broader coalition for the work, and to find out the scope of the community’s needs. We continue to work with the SF City Redevelopment Agency and the Citizen’s Advisory Committee to expand our base of support and to participate in the existing planning process for the Shipyard.
We also met with several experts who have created art centers in other locations to help us develop our ideas, expanded the core group of participants, created a brochure to present our mission and vision, and began investigating funding opportunities.
This year, look for us to continue this project intensively. We welcome participation on many levels. If you are interested in becoming involved, please contact me at 415.641.5301 or haseltine@earthlink.net.
ART 94124 SHOW
ART 94124 will celebrated its first show of 2009 last Friday at the unique gallery behind Javalencia Café at 3900 Third Street. A group exhibit of artists working in multiple media that salutes jazz and African-American heritage features original artwork, photography, and limited-edition prints.
Footprints member group ART 94124 represents an innovative mix of art, business and community, and is fueled by residents and other community-minded leaders who recognize the power of grassroots strategies to bring people together and create change.
Posted by Quesada Gardens Initiative at 10:17 AM 0 comments
Labels: "footprints" - leave a good impression, Community News and Events, Public Art Programming
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Bayview business notes
Folks collaborating to help businesses on Third Street report that eight new businesses opened up on the corridor in 2008. Among them are Auntie April's Soul Food Restaurant and Trendsetters.Below, FJ Cava is caught in a rare moment of relaxation in the entryway of his unique business, Webspot.
Webspot has has the creative attention of Traci Peace from Visions of LaModa (also pictured) who works with young women in the design field.
Visions of LaModa holds classes at Faith Temple Church on Oakdale, and took a group of youth last summer to New York City for a backstage experience of fashion week.
The collaboration between Webspot and Visions is a remarkable example of socially-responsible businesses working with the community for the benefit of all.
Posted by Quesada Gardens Initiative at 9:53 PM 0 comments
Labels: Bayview Business, Community News and Events
A & A Photography - Ready for your closeup
What's in a name?
In the case of A & A Photography, the answer is Arnella Williams and her son Alonzo Williams. A & A is the newest business on Third Street, next door to Upper Crust Deli at Revere, and is offering photography to meet all the community’s needs.
“I was raised in the neighborhood,” Alonzo said recently, “and wanted to start a business that helps the community.”
Alonzo has a sincere way about him, and is easy to believe. But check the price sheet, and you know he’s real. Need a quick professional photo of your new girlfriend or boyfriend for your wallet? Get one, and 55 copies for your jealous friends…all for just $16!
A & A Photography occupies a storefront divided by one of several backdrop rolls hanging from the ceiling. There seems to be a backdrop for all occasions. Stand in front of graffiti hearts for a youthful pose, or sit on a park bench for an old style studio portrait.
A & A offers a range of services, including wedding and church event photography, and is the go-to place for anyone building a modeling portfolio. The business specializes in the family portrait, and the increasingly popular pet portrait.
Alonzo’s brother, James Williams, slid behind the counter for a quick picture of the nonprofessional kind. “I’m photogenic,” he said, and then grinned to prove the point.
A & A is an inviting place that illustrates the Bayview most people have yet to discover…a place where friendly family businesses pop up to meet the needs of residents…a place where you can have a professional and artful portrait taken even though funky phone pics seem to rule…a place where the people on both sides of the business counter truly care about their community.
Walk in to A & A Photography (5112 3rd Street) Monday through Saturday from 10am to 6pm, or make an appointment (415.822.FOTO).
Posted by Quesada Gardens Initiative at 9:40 PM 0 comments
Labels: Bayview Business, Community News and Events
New manager at Bayview Wells Fargo
Cliff Banayat has moved to the manager’s chair of our neighborhood Wells Fargo Branch at Bayview Plaza. Denise Woo, former manager, has moved to a new position within the bank.
Footprints is grateful to Wells Fargo Bank for funding reproduction of the Bayview Footprints print newsletter.
Posted by Quesada Gardens Initiative at 9:35 PM 0 comments
Labels: Bayview Business
Innovative gardening idea from Bayview
Photos and text by Rhonda Winter
Bayview Resident
My neighbor Alyssa and I spent this afternoon making paper pots to propagate wildflower seeds for the Latona Community Garden. Anyone can create these simple recycled pots using just an empty can or jar and paper.
To make a paper pot simply cut your material to size, fold it and wrap it around your jar or can leaving a few inches over the end of the container, then fold the edges of the paper over into the open end. Next, remove the jar and push the sides down to form the bottom for your pot. Now you are ready to fill it with soil for planting your favorite vegetables or flowers.
Once your seeds have sprouted, the whole biodegradable pot can be planted directly into the ground so you do not have to disturb the seedlings’ roots. The entire paper pot will eventually just decompose into the earth!
When initially making paper pots I suggest experimenting with different sizes, methods and materials to see what works best for you; there is more than one way to make a perfect paper pot. I prefer to use old grocery bags the spirit and energy of community because they are sturdy and last many months, but something else might work better for your planting needs.
Posted by Quesada Gardens Initiative at 9:00 PM 0 comments
Labels: Gardening and Food Production, Latona Garden, Our Children and Youth
Wise Bayview resident talks about election
by Jeffrey Betcher
Bayview Resident
The day after Senator Obama became President-Elect Obama, Edward Allen’s thoughts went to his military days, a past president, and a time when the country was in peril beyond what we’re experiencing now.
“You can’t touch it,” Mr. Allen said of the Great Depression, World War II, and the generation of Americans that came together to turn things around. He ought to know. He’s lived through most of it.
I wanted to take a walk around my neighborhood, San Francisco’s maligned and challenged Bayview Hunters Point, to soak up the community reaction to the prior day’s election. I said “hello” to Mr. Allen, who was sitting about a minute’s walk from my front door, next to Wendy’s Bakery, looking out onto the unique urban beauty of the Quesada Garden.
Almost daily, weather permitting, Mr. Allen walks by my house carrying a folding stool, and takes position where folks have been gathering for the ten years I can speak to, and probably since the corner emerged from a dirt road and open space. Allen and other locals know that the corner has always been favored by the sun.
“December 7th, 1941,” Allen said. “The whole country came together in about a week.” He blew a gust of military and national history in my direction, complete with dates, names and events. De Gaulle…Churchill…Montgomery…Roosevelt…
Allen served from 1952 to 1954, during the Korean War, spending a good bit of time in Germany where he witnessed the stunning rubble that called itself “Berlin.” The Korean War was the beginning of the United States’ slow left turn into conflicts that should have been avoided, Allen believes. Vietnam and Iraq are on the same list.
“It’s not people like Bush who have to fight,” he said. “Poor folks do that part.”
Allen was drafted away from a job he had held at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard for five years, and there was nothing to do but put on a uniform. The Shipyard, a rare hub of job opportunities for working people, was no protection from the draft.
Allen, I already knew, was the son of a farmer. Usually quiet, he was walking by one of the community gardens in the area a few months be ago, on his way to Quesada Avenue and Third Street. He pointed out that the corn in the Bridgeview Garden needed more water than we were giving it. It was obvious that he knew what he was talking about.
Born in 1931, Allen was raised in Louisiana. With the exception of his overseas service, Bayview Hunters Point has been his home since he arrived as a teenager in 1947. When he returned from the service, in 1954, he looked for a job outside the Shipyard. “Working with longshoremen, there was a lot of hard living, drinking and that kind of thing. I ended up working for Best Foods on Bryant, and was there for thirty years.”
The Best Foods job was fortunate for Allen as the Shipyard began its postwar decline, and the neighborhood began to suffer from the evaporation of employment opportunities. But he remains proud of his military service, and his time at the Shipyard.
The election of Barak Obama stirred both that pride and his concern about how far we, as a country, have drifted from the generation of leadership that sent soldiers into harm’s way only when absolutely necessary.
“Where’s Osama bin Laden?” he asked, and then shrugged his shoulders. “And look at all we need here at home.”
The view we had, from the corner of Quesada and Third, supported Allen’s opinions. This is the kind of neighborhood that disproportionally bears the human burden when leaders call upon the military. It’s the kind of neighborhood that most needs the economic vitality that bringing resources home could create.
Allen grew up understanding the struggle to survive, and came of age in an era of unity generated by the demands of World War II, which, he believes, remains the best example of when the United States should fight. He remembers how, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, everything changed and ultimately got better.
Allen understood the comparisons of Obama to FDR. For him, the fact that a black man was elected president is meaningful. But what is more important is that a new president might unite everyone, and cut a path to the future that we all can find and travel together.
As we talked, passers-by -- each different than the last when it comes to race, class, and other things that usually separate us -- all smiled and shared in the excitement of the day. “From the outhouse to the White House,” one said.
If a sunny corner in Bayview and a conversation between neighbors are any indication, Allen’s vision for the country under an Obama presidency seems especially focused, and as close to becoming reality as the people walking by.
Whether we see sudden “change” or a long slow climb, we can find Edward Allen on most sunny days somewhere between the Quesada Garden and Wendy’s Bakery, making sense of the day’s events by remembering the past.
Posted by Quesada Gardens Initiative at 8:24 PM 0 comments
Labels: Community News and Events, History of BVHP
Bayview landscape "then and now"
Our community is growing dramatically...again! Large format versions of these photographs can be seen at our branch library on Third and Revere, behind the circulation desk.
Thanks go to Bert Graziano who took the older photograph around 1920, and Margot Bors who did photo restoration and then took the newer picture in 2003: footings to an eighty year span of local history.
The Bayview History Preservation Project, a co-founding Footprints member group, is located at the library, and houses many images and other treasures from our past.
Posted by Quesada Gardens Initiative at 7:13 PM 0 comments
Labels: "footprints" - leave a good impression, History of BVHP
New Bayview library designed
This rendering of the new Bayview branch library is the latest from Thomas Hacker Architects, and re!ects community input. Note the green roof!
Library Design Highlights:
* Expanded materials collections
* Meeting room with after-hours access
* Fully accessible
* Flexible design for future technologies
* Increased Chinese language collection
* Prominent reading area
* Two enclosed study rooms
* Expanded children’s area
* Inner courtyard
* More functional staff work areas
* A larger designated teen area
* New furniture
* Clear signage
* More computers and internet access
* Express self-checkout machines
* A variety of seating choices
* 24-hour book return
* Maximum use of natural light
* Public art
By Linda Brooks-Burton
Managing Librarian & Footprints Co-Founder
San Francisco voters passed a bond measure, in 2002, for $106 million to upgrade San Francisco’s branch library system. In 2007, voters authorized additional funding for branch improvement.
The San Francisco Public Library decided that its Bayview branch should be rebuilt given the voting public’s message and strong community support, and because increasing service needs have been difficult to meet in the current building.
In 2008, the San Francisco Public Library’s Branch Library Improvement Program (BLIP) produced important achievements, including pre-design meetings with branch staff, administration and architects from Thomas Hacker Architects, Inc. Three community meetings, at which the architects presented design options to the community, generated community input into the process that affected the final concept.
More community meetings will be held in 2009, and construction on the new building is scheduled to begin in early 2010 and be completed in late 2011. This month, art selection for the branch will take place.
The Bayview Branch Library is emblematic of the changing face of the neighborhood, and of the community’s historic commitment to education -an important stepping stone to a better life for African Americans, immigrants, and all working class families.
Bayview History Note: The branch is now named for a San Francisco clerical employee, Anna E. Waden, whose bequest made possible the cooperative community project that resulted in the current building at Third and Revere where a Sinclair gas station once stood. Constructed in 1969 under the leadership of its fi rst librarian, George Alfred, the library still traces its roots to a humble storefront facility opened in 1927.
Posted by Quesada Gardens Initiative at 5:44 PM 0 comments
Labels: "footprints" - leave a good impression, Community News and Events
Bayview YMCA - Healthy Resolution
NEW YEAR ’S RESOLUTION: Healthy youth, families and community
by Gina Fromer, Executive Director of the Bayview YMCA
The Bayview Hunters Point YMCA is always working to make a difference for you, for your family, for our partners, and for the community.
For the last ten years, we have been creating a unique story, providing a safe haven where people gather and celebrate family, and creating programs that have a direct impact on the families they touch.
With 2009 here, we are working to expand our youth services to include a community teen center, and to increase our Health and Fitness Studio programs for active adults. We see the difference that our YMCA makes every day in the lives of ordinary people.
The BVHP YMCA is an anchor organization working in collaboration with key partners to bring quality services and programs to the diverse community of Bayview Hunters Point. We are a focal point of youth development, youth leadership, and youth sports — a conduit for the forward movement of our future generation.
Note: The Bayview YMCA is a Bayview Footprints member group, and is located at the corner of Lane and Quesada. Contact them at 415.822.7728.
Posted by Quesada Gardens Initiative at 4:46 PM 0 comments
Labels: Community News and Events, Food Health and Safety, Our Children and Youth
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Bayview Is... mural dedicated
Annette Smith, one of the first to plant flowers on the Quesada Avenue median strip in 2002, beginning a new phase of community involvement in a challenged neighborhood, offered an opening prayer at the post-work gathering near the new “Bayview Is…” mural on Newhall at Bridgeview. Smith offered thanks for the effort underway in the neighborhood, and asked for wisdom and guidance as more and more people get involved in the work.
Dolores Williams, a longtime Newhall Avenue resident, spoke about the importance of community involvement. She can see the “Bayview Is…” mural from her kitchen window, she said, the same window from which she has seen crime and violence. She thanked Joel McClure for quickly covering over the graffiti that all too often would appear on the wall when it was a patchwork of gray paint. She said the mural is a big improvement.
Williams told stories about things she has seen from her window over the years, and about how neighbors have looked after one another. “Watch out your windows,” she advised, “and you might be surprised at what you see.”
Now, Williams has a view from her window of vibrant colors in a radiating sun pattern spanning over one hundred feet in length, and about fifteen feet in height. A series of birds, rendered in white silhouette, rise across the mural, suggesting rebirth and hopefulness. The design is by Malik Seneferu, an artist with deep and ongoing ties to the community.
Mary McClure who, along with husband Joel, is the project manager for the Bridgeview Garden project, helped roll paint onto the Newhall wall under the watchful eyes of the artists. Yesterday, she presented bouquets of flowers to those same artists, and introduced them to the audience as catalysts for change on Newhall.
Heidi Hardin, a Shipyard artist and longtime arts educator with a commitment to youth, the arts and environment, was the first to receive a bouquet. She thanked all those who worked on the project, and pointed out that she and her fellow muralist, Seneferu, were fine artists in addition to the collaborative, community-based work they have become known for. She expressed her personal commitment to advancing the health of families from all different faiths by using her arts in a project she calls the Human Family Tree project.
Malik Seneferu, after thanking Mary for his bouquet, encouraged support for all the arts work happening in the neighborhood, from the Arts Center at the Shipyard to the community-based Gallery 94124. He was moved by the dedication, he said, as he was by MLK Day and the inauguration to follow. In that spirit, he asked for feedback on an image of Obama, his newest artistic accomplishment, which he had brought with him.
Hardin and Seneferu both have a long history of working with at-risk youth, Hardin with her Children’s Mural Program and Think Round, Inc., and Seneferu with the Safe Haven Program of Hunters Point Family. They also possess the rare ability to foster their unique artistic visions while, at the same time, working in collaboration on projects intended to facilitate the expression of diverse voices.
The mural, Bayview’s newest piece of public art, is part of the “Bayview Is…” Campaign and the Bayview Footprints Network of Community-Building Groups. The Campaign is a resident-led effort to provide those with deep roots in Bayview the means to express their own experience of their neighborhood. It involves public art, like the new mural, photographs of residents holding signs with their own descriptions of their experience, and public events.
Posted by Quesada Gardens Initiative at 6:16 PM 0 comments
Labels: Bayview Is, Community News and Events, Public Art Programming
MLK Day of Service in Bayview
Residents from the Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood of San Francisco joined with volunteers from outside the neighborhood yesterday to celebrate Martin Luther King Day with community service, as then President-Elect Obama had suggested.
Groups from Stanford University, University of San Francisco and AmeriCorps, along with individuals from other San Francisco neighborhoods who wanted a service experience to mark their MLK holiday, worked in community gardens around the heart of Bayview.
The Quesada Gardens Initiative organized the event on behalf of the many informal groups focused on projects such as the Bridgeview Garden, the Latona Community Garden, and a new garden emerging on Palou Avenue.
About a hundred volunteers weeded, picked up trash, built retaining walls, laid piping for an irrigation system, painted garden furniture, and spread a mountain of mulch. Afterward, they gathered to share food and lemonade, dedicate a recently finished mural and celebrate the muralists, and share thoughts about the meaning of the day.
The day’s activities were promoted on KCBS, in the SF Chronicle and SF Examiner, and were covered by KGO local ABC news.
“I’ve had a lot of great moments in my private life, but this is the greatest in my public one,” Revere neighbor Nan Foster said as she worked in the Quesada Garden yesterday. She was talking about the inauguration, something that was on everyone’s minds and lips throughout the MLK Day holiday.
The MLK Day and the inauguration seemed like one holiday, and the work on the local level was never more connected to events outside the neighborhood.
Even with our hands in the dirt, we could sense the camera of perspective panning out to a long shot of the earth from space. MLK Day itself seemed to expand around us as people who are vastly different from one another worked together, drank lemonade together, and cheered together. Still a celebration of the African American experience and the movement toward civil rights, the MLK holiday seemed all the more inclusive as a day of purpose for all cultures and all struggle.
Contributing to the day of service were as many people who appeared nearer Obama’s mother’s ethnicity and culture as from that of the new President’s father. Individually, we brought to the day perspective dictated by our unique backgrounds. Together, we were immersed in a collective experience that is rare even in a place where unity is cultivated along with community gardens and public art.
Pictured are Drew Howard and Chris Waddling working on the newly emerging Palou Garden just west of Phelps. Photo by James Ross
See lots of great pictures of community-building work, all by Rhonda Winter, including pictures from yesterday.
Posted by Quesada Gardens Initiative at 5:25 PM 0 comments
Labels: Community News and Events, Palou Garden
Friday, January 16, 2009
New video on community-building in Bayview
The secret is out, if it ever was one, and it's Freshh!
A new video by Dorothy LaRue and Jeph Foust at Studio Freshh features community-building in Bayview, scenes of the neighborhood, Bridgeview Garden, Latona Garden, Quesada community mural, and more. The piece is now on the StudioFreshh website.
At about eight minutes, it's one of the more substantive pieces on building community cohesion through positive strategies that we've seen. The good folks at StudioFreshh hope for comments at their website...so please visit them to see the video, and leave an impression during your stay.
Posted by Quesada Gardens Initiative at 1:31 PM 0 comments
Labels: About QGI, Bridgeview Garden, Latona Garden
Saturday, January 10, 2009
New art show in Bayview
ART 94124 will celebrate its first show of 2009 on Friday January 16th from 6pm to 10pm at the unique gallery behind Javalencia Cafe at 3900 Third Street in Bayview. A group exhibit of artists working in multiple media that salutes jazz and African-American heritage will feature original artwork, photography, and limited-edition prints.
ART 94124 represents an innovative mix of art, business, and community, and is fueled by residents and other community-minded leaders who recognize the power of grassroots strategies to bring people together and create change.
Visit ART 94124 Presents: JAZZ! and see artwork from Bayview Hunters Point and beyond, including pieces by Kajahl Benes, Tad Bridenthal, Marsha Ercegovic, Juan Fuentes, James Gayles, Santie Huckaby, Natalie Kaufman, Malik Seneferu, Brian Stannard, Jon Tomlinson, and Charles Unge.
Posted by Quesada Gardens Initiative at 10:42 AM 0 comments
Labels: "footprints" - leave a good impression, Community News and Events, Public Art Programming
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Quesada Gardens Initiative
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Quesada Gardens Initiative
We are building "community," connecting across our differences, and strengthening local systems in the Bayview Hunters Point Neighborhood of San Francisco through strategies that have emerged from the grassroots: community and backyard gardens, public art projects, events, and more. We are 100% resident-led, and believe that communities should be allowed to define themselves. We also believe that we all have a responsibility to be involved in the life of the street where we live. There is nothing more valuable than informal groups and social networks, especially in challenging times. Contact us at 415.822.0800 or info@QuesadaGardens.org
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