The Nominating Committee of HANC has made the following recommendations for Officers and Board members for 2013.  All HANC members are eligible to serve.  The election will take place at the November meeting.

President:                               Kevin Bayuk

Vice-President:                      Richard Ivanhoe

Recording Secretary:            Burt Phillips

Corresponding Secretary:    Robert Leon

Treasurer:                              Tes Welborn

Housing / Land Use Chair:  Calvin Welch

Recycling Chair:                     Karen Fishkin

Membership Chair:               Michele Welch

Nominating Chair:                 Joey Cain

Members-At-Large:             Colleen Rivecca

                                                 Bruce Wolfe

                                                 Jim Rhoads

                                                 Karen Masonheimer

                                                 Michael Behrens

Garden for the Environment will offer the following classes in November and December of 2012. All classes will be offered at Garden for the Environment, San Francisco’s organic demonstration garden at 7th and Lawton Street. Since its founding in 1990, the garden has operated as a demonstration site for small-scale urban ecological food production, organic gardening, compost education and low water-use landscaping.  For more information, call (415) 731-5627, or go to www.gardenfortheenvironment.org.  

GROW YOUR OWN FOOD
Organic Vegetable Gardening in November

Date: Saturday, November 10th, 2012
Time: 10AM - 12PM
Location: Garden for the Environment, 7th Ave at Lawton Street, San Francisco Instructor: Carey Craddock, Organic Gardening Instructor
Cost: $25 or $15 for GFE Members

Year-round gardening is one of our favorite things about the Bay Area and now, as we find ourselves squarely in Fall, it's time to think about your winter vegetable garden. Join us for this class which we offer on the 2nd Saturday of every month for seasonal-specific instruction for year-round vegetable gardening.

This month we'll cover:

- Vegetables to plant and what to harvest in Fall and Winter
- Fall & Winter Plant Care
- Soil Fertility and Cover Cropping
- Weeds, weeds, weeds! What to do about them.

By Calvin Welch, HANC Board

Proposition C is a Charter Amendment creating a Housing Trust Fund within the General Fund of San Francisco. If passed the fund will devote some $1.4 Billion over the next thirty years to the construction, acquisition and rehabilitation of permanently affordable rental housing in San Francisco, down payment assistance for first time homeowner, a homeowner stabilization fund for moderate income owners facing foreclosures, and a Infrastructure Challenge Grant Fund for small neighborhood parks, pedestrian safety improvements and community service space. 90% of the fund will be aimed at rental homes affordable to households earning no more than $50,000 , a figure covering the vast majority of San Francisco’s families with children and seniors. It is expected that each dollar from the fund will leverage at least a dollar from state and federal sources, producing housing for well over 30,000 San Franciscans over the life of the program.

In addition, Proposition C will “incentivize” the development of middle income housing by reducing from 15% to 12% ( a 20% reduction) the requirement on market rate developers to build Below Market Rate (BMR) homes on the site of their market rate development. Since neither the current “in-lieu” fee nor the 20% requirement for “off-site” BMR production is reduced it is expected that more “on-site” opportunities for middle income San Franciscans will be created.

The proposal was developed by Mayor Lee and a Housing Trust Fund Task Force made up of business and labor, community and industry representatives. It seeks to replace funding lost in state and federal cuts to affordable housing assistance and has received the support of a wide coalition of supporters. It was placed on the ballot with the support of nine of the eleven Supervisors.

HANC will be campaigning for the measure and will help organize two weekend mobilizations in District 5 on September 29^th and October 11^th at 10 AM at the Richardson Apartments, at Fulton and Gough.

VOTE NO ON THE PARKS BOND

            We do not trust the current Recreation and Parks Department (RPD) management to spend taxpayer money wisely. RPD wants to evict HANC’s community garden, built at no cost to the City, and spend $250,000 to replace it with a community garden.

            RPD has not agreed to maintain or run what it builds.   It has locked out the public to sell or lease our parks to the highest bidder. Families have been priced out of many park venues. Free or low-cost events have been cancelled or moved out of the parks because of excessive fees. These include outrageous fees to the Park Patrol, which has been mired in scandal. RPD’s mission should be to provide parks and recreation centers for the public, but it prefers being a “public-private partnership” profit center.

            After last June’s election, RPD entered into a lease for Coit Tower that ignored the will of the voters. Ignoring public opinion has caused RPD to spend millions of dollars on legal fees.

            We support improving our parks and recreation centers, but only when they remain free and open to all.

            Don’t trust RPD; vote NO on Proposition B.

Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council

www.hanc-sf.org

On September 14, an activist group came to our site at 780 Frederick and transformed it into a space of peaceful protest and community gathering.  The event had music from the Classical Revolution, the Interstellar Transmissions and many other bands and performance artists.  There was yoga.  There was meditation.  There was a seed library and teach-in workshops on ecology, self reliance and the fate of urban agriculture in our city today.  Even the police and the park rangers swung by a few times, to feast their eyes on the goings-on in the garden.

At nightfall, the music died down to  un-amplified drumbeats and a makeshift screen drew everyone’s attention with videos and dialogue about community togetherness.

Thanks for sticking up for us--Space TranSFormers--come back anytime.  Hopefully, we will still be here to welcome you.

Space TranSFormers will have Workday Wednesday every Wednesday beginning at 3:00 pm at our site.  More information is available at their website.  For the latest on Kezar Gardens, go to kezargardens.com

An ad hoc committee organized to come up with ideas for making the Alvord Lake entrance to Golden Gate Park more inviting, had its second meeting last week.

Attendees included three Park Station Police Officers, three Rec & Parks employees (and one retired Rec & Park employee), two art students from the Academy of Art, one representative of Supervisor Olague’s office, and eight neighborhood residents.

The art students presented their class projects which had the site at Alvord Lake as a “challenge project” for them. Both projects, while interesting, were focused on architectural enhancements that seemed to go beyond what the group is seeking.

The officer representing Captain Corrales outlined to the group the complexity of the social scene now existing at the site, and reminded us that not everyone there is selling drugs. One officer reported on the problem created by the garden between the pillars, which serves as a hiding place for drugs and seating. He suggested that the garden be removed and an information kiosk/booth be installed.

Most of the resident comments and ideas dealt with landscaping alternatives for the area, and the idea of an information kiosk/booth met with positive interest.

The next meeting of the group (as yet unnamed) will be at the site on Saturday, October 27 at noon. This is the normal work day of a group of volunteers who regularly work with Rec & Park gardeners from 9-12. Bring your work gloves and ideas!