potrero view
Photograph by Brittany Riddick.

Photograph by Brittany Riddick.

Each month a diabetic support group meets for lunch at the Potrero Hill Neighborhood House.

August 2010

Short Cuts

Yearbook

Daniel Webster Elementary School’s Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) was awarded a $23,000 community challenge grant to pay for a tile mosaic mural on the school’s Missouri Street side.  Josef Norris and Kid Serve Youth Murals will work with Webster students to create a two and a half-story mural entitled, “We Have a Right to the Tree of Life.”  The mural will be installed between October 2010 and January 2011, with a community day in which everyone will be welcome to lay tile.  Including the tile grant, Webster’s PTA raised roughly $45,000 for the upcoming academic year, more than 10 times what it secured last year.  Not bad for a PTA that’s only in its second year…In response to the threats of dramatic public school budget cuts Starr King Elementary School raised $70,000 to help pay for educational programs.  All in, San Francisco’s public elementary schools collected more than $5 million for the upcoming academic year, though most of that was garnered by just two dozen PTAs.  Some schools, particularly those located in predominately low-income neighborhoods, raised barely enough to pay for colored pens and paper…In between caring for two-year old Colin, 15-year Mississippi Street resident Brian Scully recently launched www.DVDyou.com, an online, do-it-yourself, DVD yearbook creation website.  DVDyou allows users to upload their photographs, videos, and music, edit them online, and add titles, effects, captions, and other features.  Schools, sports teams, PTAs, and others can produce a Hollywood-style DVDs for $9.99, which is shipped the next day.  Check it out.

Camping (No)

The Department of Public Works posted a notice to vacate a homeless encampment located on 18th and Pennsylvania streets, alongside the freeway, last month.  Meanwhile, there’s been an increase in the number of recreational vehicles parked on Illinois Street, the inhabitants of whom are not waiting for a ship to pick them up for their cruise to Cabo…In addition to what appears to be an increase in informal living situations, the recession is taking its toll on City programs that serve needy kids.  A group of Hill residents is calling for restoration of youth-serving programs at the Potrero Hill Recreation Center on Arkansas Street.  Over the past year center staff, who organized drop-in sports and other activities catering to families living in the Potrero Annex and Terrace complexes, have been transferred, laid-off, or retired.  Meanwhile, at the Potrero Hill Neighborhood House Opportunities for Diversity, an educational initiative led by Sharon Johnson, will be eliminated at the end of summer.  The program has provided homework help and school counseling, among other offerings, for the past six years.   Kids from low-income families face complex challenges and few opportunities for training specific to their needs.  In these hard times we need to do what we can to make their lives better, not worse. 

Politics

None of the candidates vying to succeed Sophie Maxwell on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors secured the 1,000 signatures necessary to waive the entire $500 fee to be placed on the November ballot.  Steve Moss came close, submitting 955 qualifying signatures, followed by Chris Jackson, at 802, and, in a surprising show of strength, Marlene Tran, with 574.   Other candidates that collected signatures included Lynette Sweet, 479, Malia Cohen, 338, Kristine Enea, 298, and Ashley Rhodes, 279.  Dewitt Lacey, Eric Smith, Rodney Hampton Jr., Nyese Joshua, James Calloway, and Isaac Bowers submitted less than 125 signatures.  No signatures were submitted by Tony Kelly. The candidates have until August 6 to replace invalid signatures to achieve the necessary 1,000.

Progress

A group of south-of-Dogpatch residents are working to reclaim a former park located under a northbound Highway 280 on-ramp on Indiana, between 25th and 23rd streets.  The area just east of the property, which is owned by the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), is steadily being transformed from vacant lots and empty warehouses to modern loft condominium buildings and restaurants.  Community activists are working with Caltrans, the San Francisco Department of Public Works, and San Francisco Parks Trust to create a gathering and recreational space for their neighbors.  Information can be found at http://www.indianastreetgardening.com... speaking of progress, Plow, the new family-friendly restaurant on 18th and Texas streets, opens later this month, rather than in July, as reported in last month’s paper...Papito’s, our newest neighborhood taqueria, opened at the end of last month...Opps, last month the View listed the incorrect owners of Blowfish Sushi, Ritsu Tsuchida and Jason Teplitsky are the actual owners.

See Food

Martin Reed recently partnered with ABS Seafood at 699 Illinois Street to launch his new business, I Love Blue Sea, which buys and sells seafood verified as sustainable.  Reed relies on third party standards, like those developed by Greenpeace and the Monterey Bay Aquarium, to determine sustainability.  If he knows that illegal fishing is prevalent in certain species, he won’t traffic in it. And he insists that suppliers sell him only fish that can be traced — individually — through bills of lading and bar codes...Low-income Potrero Hill homeowners may be eliglible for a solar installation in exchange for sweat equity. Contact Leah Pimentel at Grid Alternatives for details: lpimentel@gridalternatives.org.

Clubbed

The Port of San Francisco has evicted Jelly’s Dance Club from Pier 50 after a second fatal shooting in two years occurred at the venue last month.  According to police, a gunman fired several shots as he chased a man around cars parked near the club on Terry Francois Boulevard.   Lee Farley, a 39-year-old City of Richmond resident, was shot and died at San Francisco General Hospital.  Although there were numerous witnesses, the shooter got away, and no one has stepped forward to provide police with information about the murder.  Two years ago 34-year-old Clarence Corbin of Antioch was fatally shot outside Jelly’s while trying to break-up a fight.  Police arrested a Richmond resident two days after the 2008 slaying, but didn’t press charges.  Jelly’s has been a port tenant since 1993.

Peakers Die

While the Potrero Power Plant continues to operate pending the months-late completion of the Trans Bay Cable, last month the City and County of San Francisco formally notified the California Energy Commission that it no longer intends to build the San Francisco Electric Reliability Project (SFERP).  SFERP’s centerpiece was three 50 megawatt peaker plants, to be owned by the City, which would have replaced the existing plant.  However, Trans Bay elbowed SFERP aside in last-minute policy debates.  Presently, we have neither peakers nor the cable, but ongoing reliance on an antique power plant.  Has someone’s pocket been picked?        

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