City’s survey of historic buildings expands

From today's Examiner, "Costly and contentious preservation battles have only increased during The City’s development boom. One way to head off those fights is to identify historic buildings and neighborhoods upfront before preservationists and developers come to loggerheads. And that’s exactly what city officials hope to do."

"Preservationists are optimistic that the initial funding will be supplemented by the Historic Preservation Fund Committee. Recently formed, the committee will dole out $2.5 million from a legal settlement with developers of a shopping complex at Fifth and Market streets who demolished part of the 1896 Emporium department store building they had promised to preserve."

"Dennis Antenore, a member of the Historic Preservation Fund Committee, said conflicts such as the one over the Harding Theater, which developers wanted to raze and turn into condos before neighborhood activists stepped in, might be avoided in the future."

“For developers, neighborhoods and preservationists, identifying what might be worth preserving in advance solves a lot of problems,” he said. “Last-minute fights cost a lot of money and a lot of grief.”

community policing: idea and reality

From today’s Chron:

"We as a city aren't doing enough,'' Mirkarimi said. "We don't have a definition of what community policing is in San Francisco, nothing in the code -- if there is nothing in the code, nobody is going to be held accountable.''
Part of the delay in getting a plan in place stems from the Police Department's staffing shortages. The department has just 57 beats dedicated to foot and bicycle patrols. Overall, however, the department is 264 officers short of the 1,971-officer minimum set by voters, and there are 59 vacancies in the inspectors bureau.
"You can't effectively do community policing when you're 300 officers short,'' said Gary Delagnes, president of the Police Officers Association, "because the Police Department's No. 1 responsibility is to respond to calls for service.''
….Mirkarimi, however, said a lack of resources should not derail structural change. "We can get creative about staffing, moving officers from the airport or moving officers in from other stations," he said, "where they are not suffering like other hot pockets in the city.''

I used to ask folks what they meant by ‘community policing’… and it seems the basic answer is ‘more cops on foot and/or bike’… which I’m fine with, but if that’s the case, then it’s simply a budgetary issue, right?

While people talk about lack of ‘answers’ from leadership in City Hall, it seems the answer is already there: fix or increase the police budget so they can hire more officers. Can you believe we’re currently operating 300 below a *voter mandated* minimum? Shouldn’t that be illegal?

Tys

The Ex's take on our 'hood

Just catching up on my local news, I caught this piece from last friday's Examiner about new business developments featuring prominent quotes from our pal Tys. In fact, the story leads with the Divis car wash development - perhaps based on an insider tip? Who knows...

http://www.sfexaminer.com/articles/2005/12/10/news/20051210_ne05_divis.txt

Slow Down!

A lot of people ask about how we can slow drivers down around here. Well, you can try working with the City...
http://www.sfgov.org/site/dpt_index.asp?id=13569

good luck.

Old Post Office @ Hayes & Divisadero

Work has finally begun on the old post office building down at Hayes & Divisadero. I've heard it will be a restaurant. The architect/designer has post a big sign on the front, so he must be impressed with his plans...

Drug busts & pot clubs

Below is an account from the SFPD Park Station newsletter. This happened ~200 feet from the Happy Day's club - coincidence?

Parole Violation/ Resisting a Police Officer
Tuesday, November 29, 2005; 1:25 p.m.;
Hayes and Divisadero Streets.
People called dispatch complaining of drug dealing in a silver colored car. This area has experienced an increase in drug activity and crimes of violence. Officers approached a car closely matching the car in question and detained the two occupants. Right away the passenger refused to cooperate with officers. Other units responded and the suspect continued to resist officers' efforts to investigate criminal activity. Turns out that, again, both subjects were on parole for serious crimes. Officers suspected that the uncooperative passenger might be under the influence of drugs because of his behavior. He was taken to the station where officers contacted his parole agent, who, ordered him returned to prison.