President’s Message
There has been quite a bit happening since last month… The Better Neighborhoods Plus Planning & Implementation Process legislation has taken an unexpected turn. As a result of our request of Supervisor Fiona Ma and our meeting with City Attorney Dennis Herrera, CA Herrera is looking into and will respond to our request for written opinion on the rulings that the legislation’s Amendments of the Whole and the need for them to go back to the Planning Commission for review and comment.
If you saw the February 28 Board of Supervisors meeting at which BNP was to have had a First Reading, you would have noted that most supervisors spoke against it, none more so than Supervisor Chris Daly and President Aaron Peskin. However, instead of voting on the legislation then and there, it was sent back to committee. Had it been voted on, it would have gone down, we are quite sure. Still, it ain’t dead yet; we are keeping careful track of where it surfaces next. We had requested the Planning Commission to ask for all the amendments of the whole to go before them for their review and comment, and at the March 2 hearing they did. (Thanks, Supervisors and Commissioners!)
Supervisor Daly called for all of us to give ideas for replacement legislation: that which comes from the neighborhoods rather than from the top down. Perhaps our best bet here, if it found that we indeed need neighborhood planning legislation. is to study and modify the Seattle Plan, which has been recognized nationally.
This month I met again with Milton Marks and Allen Grossman concerning a trees proposal. Because of CSFN’s bylaws, we decided that it would be better for them to approach individual neighborhood groups with his proposal, rather than CSFN.
I spoke to the Garbage Impound Account at the Committee Hearing, an item on which CSFN has taken a stance, reading the CSFN resolution in to the record.
Recreation & Park Department’s Audit was before the Rec & Park Commission, which I attended to speak on behalf of CSFN.
Isabel Wade’s Neighborhood Parks Council sponsored a talk with Dr Paul Gobster called Envisioning a New Urban Nature. In it Dr Gobster discussed the opportunities provided by city park land for protecting native species and ecosystems. Since various sides of this topic is near and dear to many hearts in CSFN, I was particularly interested in hearing what he had to say. Several other CSFN also attended this noontime event, among them, Nancy Wuerfel, Mary McAllister (SPEAK); Karen Crommie (CVIA); Sally Stevens, Jim Krotzer (GGHNA); Rae Doyle, Avrum Shepard (GWPNA).
Most of my time just recently has been taken in planning for the March 15 meeting with Mayor Newsom. Thank you to all who have contacted me with your neighborhood group’s interests. Working with the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Services, it appears that each of them is in the process of getting looked at and attended to.
The meeting with Mayor Newsom itself went really well, as so many of you can attest. Our main issues we discussed with him were:
1.) Vetoing BN+ when/if it passes the Board of Supervisors and lands on his desk. As it turned out, he is no big fan of BNP, and assured us that we have nothing to concern ourselves with on that score. Dean Macris was front and center to hear us as well.
2.) Neighborhood Seismic Safety was the second issue, with both Richard Shadoian of Haight-Ashbury Improvement Assn (HAIA) and Charley Marsteller of Van Ness Neighbors (VNN) on hand with experts to present their work on the issue. The third main thrust of the meeting was Nancy Wuerfel’s (SPEAK) issue on what the mayor can do to reduce some costs to help the ratepayers. She presented the Mayor with the CSFN resolution passed unanimously requesting more City accountability for ratepayer-funded activities. Since not everyone who asked to present an issue had a chance to do so, I will request a meeting with one of the mayor’s senior staff so we can meet with him on these issues. Thanks to everyone who made this meeting so successful!
…Judith Berkowitz (EMIA) |
