potrero view

April 2010

Short Cuts

Crime

The February armed robbery at Chez Mama, followed by random shots being fired at Connecticut and 20th streets in early-March – no one was hurt in either incident – has Potrero Hill residents on edge.  In the later incident a sports utility vehicle was either shot at, or housed the shooter, in a conflict that appears to be related to turf wars.  According to Bayview District Captain Greg Suhr, additional patrols have been temporarily added to the area.  In the wake of another takeover robbery at Chaya Brasserie in South Beach, there’s concern that an unwelcome trend may be developing.  Armed robbery at well-lit retail establishments is the sign of desperation and stupidity.  Although, other than car thefts and burglaries, crime has generally declined over the past few years, chronically high unemployment rates may be leading our less imaginative citizens to (re)turn to the wrong occupation…A 32-year-old San Francisco man was arrested on suspicion of killing a convalescent center resident in the Outer Mission and attempting two subsequent carjackings last month.  One of the carjackings occurred on 16th and De Haro streets, when the murder suspect crashed a Toyota Camry into a Nissan Pathfinder, knocking the vehicle onto its side.  The suspect got out of the Camry and tried to carjack a silver sport-utility vehicle, reaching through a window and choking the driver.  According to Robin Talmadge, the owner of nearby World Gym, gym clients saw the crash and took off after the suspect.  Others helped the woman who’d been driving the Pathfinder.  It’s nice to know that do-gooders in the neighborhood vastly outnumber those with criminal intent.

Schools

Last month the San Francisco Unified School District notified parents throughout the City which school their incoming kindergarten, middle or high schooler could attend.  While three-quarters of the applicants were offered one of the seven schools they identified as wanting to attend, that didn’t make those who received none of their choices feel any better.  All hope isn’t lost, though.  Last year several solid elementary schools – including Leonard Flynn and Monroe – had slots available even after the first round selection process.  A wild card in the entire scheme is the class size changes that may be triggered by impending budget cuts…Next year a modified lottery will be imposed, which will provide greater emphasis on the applicant’s residential proximity to a school, with credit given to those living in low testing neighborhoods.  Much of Dogpatch, Potrero Hill, and South-of-Market are in the middle or next to lowest test score areas…

Willies

At Mayor Gavin Newsom’s prompting, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors has introduced a resolution to rename Third Street “Willie L. Brown, Jr. Boulevard.”  While the View tends to be mild-mannered about such generally frivolous governmental activities as street renaming, in this case we have a one-word response:  No.  Our offices are on Third Street.  We have no interest in being transported to Willie L. Brown Street, however metaphorical this journey may be.  If the current mayor and board want to name something after our esteemed former mayor, we suggest they look to The Millennium Tower, the City’s fourth largest building.   Such an edifice would be more in keeping with Brown’s legacy, personal and public.  If you feel similarly, let the Department of Public Works know:  thirdst.namechange@sfdpw.org; 415.554.0801.    

Openings

Turns-out the View was mistaken:  the space formally occupied by Lingba Lounge has already been leased to a tapas/sushi restaurant.  The paper had suggested that the building’s allegedly difficult landlord would impose higher rents than the market could bear, thereby blocking occupancy for some time (“18th Street Commercial Corridor Rocked by Changes,” February issue).  We’re delighted to have been proven wrong…Recently rezoned from light industrial to urban mixed-use as part of the Eastern Neighborhoods Area Plan a proposed project at 1717 17th Street would demolish 12,000 square feet of Production, Distribution and Repair (PDR) and a surface area parking lot that sprawls across three buildings located between De Haro and Carolina streets.  The existing structures would be replaced by two mirror image mixed-use buildings yielding 7,000 square feet of ground floor PDR, 8,000 square feet of commercial/retail, forty-one residential units and fifty-eight below-grade parking spaces.  Some residents have already expressed concern that the buildings’ height could create unwanted shading of Jackson Park…Last month Fourth Street was opened to traffic through the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF)-Mission Bay campus, ending at 16th Street…There are fifteen farmers markets operating in San Francisco, compared to twenty-three pot clubs:  the City has fifty percent more marijuana dispensaries than farmers markets.  While the green herb may have some health benefits, they can’t compare to a regular diet of fruits and vegetables.  Maybe those markets need to carry more shrooms…

Little Boxes

Last month the SF Weekly posted letters to Potrero Hill residents to let them know about Brugmann LLC’s – the holding company for the San Francisco Bay Guardian – plans to profit from placing T-Mobile cellular antennas on top of the Guardian’s Mississippi Street building.  The Guardian has previously published articles linking such antennae to increased cancer rates.  The two weekly papers have been engaged in ongoing litigation over unfair competition, a fight the Guardian has so far been winning.  It’s touching that the Weekly is so concerned about the neighborhood’s health.  Maybe next time they could purchase an advertisement in the View to express those concerns, thereby supporting the community’s newspaper…Woe is the life of a newspaper box:  used as a garbage can, homeless storage locker, and graffiti canvas. The View’s newspaper boxes are maintained by the father-son duo Walton and Kameron Chang, Tennessee Street residents. The View’s former delivery person, 19th Street resident Tom Thompson, gave up his paper route to help his wife, Karen Thompson,  with her successful mosaic tile business in Dogpatch, Archetile.  You might encounter the Changs cleaning the teal canisters – in some cases scrubbed down to their sheet metal – or making deliveries in Walton’s biodiesel-fueled Mercedes.  Produced in Dogpatch, green printed in Bayview, delivered by Dogpatch residents, covering neighborhood news:  it’s your View!  

Will Sing for Money

Last month KPIX’s Weekend Edition featured a segment on Raise a Roof campaign, which is raising money to build a preschool and parent center on the Dogpatch-based I.M. Scott campus, one of the City’s oldest educational facilities.  Friends of Potrero Hill Nursery School capital campaign director Katherine Doumani, a Dogpatch resident, and Hydra Mendoza, Mayor Gavin Newsom’s education advisor and a San Francisco Unified School District board member, were featured.  For information on the campaign: www.raisearoof.org...Potrero Hill resident Heidi Moss – no relation to the View’s publisher – has opened a voice studio in the neighborhood, offering lessons to individuals ages sixteen and over who’ve had classical singing experience.  Moss is a National Association for Teachers of Singing member, and has performed with the West Bay Opera, Pocket Opera, and Livermore Opera, among others.  For more information:  http://www.heidimoss.org/.

Kids

With summer fast approach – at least for those of us who need to book activities for our children – parents are turning to SFkids.org, an advertising-free website that includes a database of 1,500 local enterprises that provide services to City families with children.  More than sixty content pages present information for all ages – from babies to young adults – on activities, classes, schools, and amenities in every San Francisco neighborhood.  Check it out…The University of California, San Francisco Center for Science Education and Opportunity is offering a free, one-week summer Science Day Camp for children entering sixth grade this fall.  Applications are due April 16; space is limited.  For details:  http://cseo.ucsf.edu/ student-programs /career-exploration-education- health-sciences/ summer-science- camp… The U.S. Department of Labor’s Treasure Island Job Corps Center is looking for students.  The center provides young people with an opportunity to earn their high school diploma through almost a dozen career tracks, including culinary arts, carpentry, and medical assistant.  The center also offers extracurricular activities, such as student government.  For more information:  http://treasureisland.jobcorps.gov.

Bluepeter Less Blue

Last month the San Francisco Port Commission authorized two alternative designs for Bay Front Park in Mission Bay. One of the options is to preserve the Bluepeter building.  Friends of Bluepeter has until March 1, 2011 to find the roughly $300,000 needed to stabilize the structure, and to secure a viable development partner to rehabilate and re-purpose thebuilding for a public serving capacity, likely to include a restaurant.

For more information: www.bluepetersf.org.

Water Bugs

The Hamilton Swimming Pool opened in Western Addition last month.  The sparkling new facility features two water slides, an ample fenced-in children’s playground, and resurfaced tennis courts.  With the surrounding urban density, it’s a breath of the best of New York in the Golden City.  Bugs do need to be worked out, however.  One of the slides dumps into the stair-cased shallow end of the pool, forcing lifeguards to clear the area of babies whenever that slide is operational.  The showers are coldwater only, which on a recent visit prompted a gaggle of pre-adolescent girls to warm their bodies with the on-site hair dryers, a practice which if it’s repeated will not result in the desired energy savings.  The entry fee should be doubled from $1 to $2 for kids – $3 for non-San Francisco residents – to help pay for lukewarm shower water and maintenance of the playground’s grassy areas, which, if they replicate the children’s playground in Golden Gate Park, will quickly be denuded.  Low-income families should be given free seasonal passes.  Complaints, we have a few, but it’s wonderful to see the renovated facility available to a generally hard-pressed neighborhood.  Dive in!  

Coming Clean

According to Appliance Handbook for Women:  Simple Enough Even a Man Can Understand, by Vernon Schmidt, most of us are using 10 to 15 times more soap than necessary in our dishwashers and washing machines.  These appliances use much less water than in our parents’ day, and as a result need less soap.  Detergents have become increasingly concentrated; a little goes a long way.  Too much soap costs money – think of it as paying ten times the price for a box of Tide – can stiffen clothing, and shorten the machine’s life.  Sometimes less is indeed more.  

Corrections

Last month’s article “GreenTrustSF Champions Eco-Friendly Vision for Dogpatch” incorrectly stated that the UCSF-Mission Bay campus will ultimately include an estimated 21,000 parking spaces.  The actual number of expected parking spaces at full build-out is less than one-third that amount...In our call for contributions to support independent news coverage of this year’s District 10 supervisorial election the View incorrectly identified the Neighborhood Newswire’s url.  The correct web address is www.neighborhoodnewswire.net.   Those who’d like to donate to this effort are encouraged to do so, by sending a check to “San Francisco Community Power,” 2325 Third Street, Suite 344, San Francisco, California  94107. 

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