potrero view

April 2008

Letters to the Editor

FLAGS

Has anyone else seen the American flag flying at Pioneer Square, 555 De Haro Street?  Is anyone else appalled at its condition?  We live on a windy, sunny hill.  Fabric fades and erodes in such conditions, but I cannot figure out why they’re flying a filthy rag that’s about half the normal size of a flag.
Another concern is the lights on the front of the Wisconsin Street fire house.  In the January storm one glass globe got broken; now both are missing. I hope it’s in an effort to find an exact match.  It’s an historic building, and the lights should be replaced as they were. Also, the open/bare light bulbs strike me as being a bit dangerous:  will water pool into the sockets? At least the fire truck is right there if they short out and start a fire!
I know these are small concerns in the big scheme of things (I’d rather the fire fighters were fighting fires than blowing glass), but they say if you take care of the small things the big things take care of themselves. Well, maybe not, but it’s something to consider. Respect starts with self-respect.

Karrin Kain
Wisconsin Street

PAPERS

Another lame-brained San Francisco supervisor with nothing better to do than propose a solution for a non-existent problem:  earlier this year Ross Mirkarimi proposed up to a $500 fine for every instance in which a free newspaper is delivered to a home on a newly-created “do not deliver” list.
I’ve been publishing community newspapers in the Richmond and Sunset districts for almost 20 years.  Of the 50,000 newspapers I deliver door-to-door monthly, I’ve seven people on my “do not deliver” list. That’s how big this problem is.
It’s up to my delivery service to do the job and not deliver to people who don’t want a paper.  It usually works, but sometimes a new “walker” will accidentally deliver to a home that doesn’t want it. Am I to be fined $500 every time that happens, even though I’ve no control over the dozens of people delivering my paper?
Many of the individuals my service uses are from South and Latin American countries and don’t speak English. They are humping their butts off doing menial work to support families back home. Are we going to fine them, or their employer, for an honest mistake? Will they be fired or retaliated against? Are publishers to be held responsible for the actions of a subcontractor, even though we have no direct control over the delivery service’s employees?
I’ve had apartment managers who didn’t want the paper delivered to their buildings because they didn’t want to pick up the extra copies. They would deny every tenant in the building a copy of the neighborhood newspaper because of their own personal reasons. Do I deny 30 families a community newspaper because one doesn’t want it?
I say kill this misguided legislation before it takes one thin dime from San Francisco’s budget to hire more lawyers or create a new City Hall bureaucracy.

Paul Kozakiewicz
Editor, Richmond Review and
Sunset Beacon

 

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