Issue 304 ___Will you want to live in San Francisco - tomorrow ___May 2006

Annual Dinner May 17, 2006:
SFT will honor Jake Sigg, David G. Miles Jr.,and Michael Kiesling
San Francisco Tomorrow invites you to join in celebrating the accomplishments of three of the City’s grassroots leaders at its
35th Annual Awards Dinner on Wednesday, May 17, 2006
at Castagnola’s Restaurant on Fisherman’s Wharf.

This year we spotlight preservation of California’s natural heritage in our parks and on our hillsides. We prize the move to reserve the east end of Golden Gate Park for Healthy Saturdays, with safe exercise for walkers, skaters, bikers and romping children. We laud the prospect of a rebuilt Transbay Transit Terminal with Caltrain in a downtown station, ready for High Speed Rail.

The Jack Morrison Lifetime Achievement Award will go this year to Jake Sigg , former president of the California Native Plant Society, whose passionate advocacy on behalf of California’s native plants has helped protect them not just in San Francisco but around the state. Jake is well known in the City for his spring wildflower walks, but he also shows up in Sacramento and Washington as an advocate for environmental legislation. Tributes to him at the dinner will come from Supervisor Sean Elsbernd, author and former SF Chronicle environmental columnist, Harold Gilliam, and Treasure Island wetlands activist, Ruth Gravanis.

SFT will also honor two Unsung Heroes:

David Miles, President of the California Outdoor Roller Skating Association – a tireless advocate for improving recreational opportunities for youth in Golden Gate Park and extending car-free Sundays to Saturdays as well. Paying tribute to David will be Supervisor Jake McGoldrick, who will also tell us about his determination as a member of the Board of Supervisors to establish Healthy Saturdays.

Michael Kiesling, Convenor of RAFT – the Regional Alliance for Transit, who makes the completion of the downtown Transbay Transit Terminal his urgent mission, joining in the energetic efforts of the Sierra Club, League of Conservation Voters, SFT, TRAC and other rail organizations who want to make it easy for visitors from central and Southern California to visit San Francisco but leave their cars at home. The Transbay Rweminal project will provide thousands of new jobs and create 3500-4000 units of new housing, much of it affordable, on former freeway land. Speaker Pro Tem Leland Yee of the State Assembly will be with us to pay tribute to Michael.

The May 17 event will start with a reception at 6:00 p.m., dinner at 7:30 and the awards program at 8:00. Donations for the event support SFT’s efforts to protect the urban environment, fight for strong public transportation, and work with public officials to achieve our environmental goals. Dinner tickets are $50 each, Sponsor tickets are $75 (with dinner included) and Patron tickets for $120 (with dinner for two included). Advance reservations are requested, with checks mailed to San Francisco Tomorrow, 41 Sutter Street, No.1579, San Francisco CA 94104-4903. Patrons and Sponsors will be listed on the dinner program. Please invite your friends to come. Questions: Call SFT President Jennifer Clary at 585-9489 or Dinner Chair Jane Morrison at 564-1482.

June 6 Election
San Francisco Tomorrow
Recommendations
Leland Yee for State Senate
Janet Reilly for State Assembly
SF Proposition C to advance Transbay Transit Terminal and High Speed Rail

San Francisco Tomorrow has endorsed two candidates and one ballot measure to advance this year’s major environmental goals: more and better public transit, Caltrain downtown at a new Transbay Transit Terminal, and progress in plans for High Speed Rail for a two-hour and 45-minute trip between downtown San Francisco and downtown Los Angeles.

For State Senator, SFT has joined the Sierra Club, League of Conservation Voters and Vote the Coast in recommending a vote for Assembly Speaker Pro Tem LELAND YEE. Leland is committed to working energetically in Sacramento for the Transbay Terminal and High Speed Rail. In the State Assembly he has passed Resolution AJR 14 to stop oil drilling off the coast of California and advanced laws to clean our parks and beaches, jump start construction of a tunnel substitute for dangerous Devil’s Slide on the San Mateo County coast, and ban the clearing of oak trees.

For State Assembly in the 12th District, SFT is also joined by the Sierra Club, League of Conservation Voters, and Vote the Coast in recommending a vote for JANET REILLY. Janet has pledged to work for solutions to environmental challenges: climate change, air pollution, environmental justice, healthy watersheds, and healthy farms and forests. She is committed to greater investments in public transit for buses, commuter rail, High Speed Rail from central and southern California, and improved access and protection on city streets for bikers and pedestrians.

SFT fully supports Proposition C on the June 6 ballot asking the Mayor to serve on the Transbay Joint Powers Authority. San Francisco voters asked in 1999 that Caltrain be brought downtown to connect with other public transit in a new Transbay Transit Terminal and prepare for High Speed Rail from Los Angeles. Progress is very slow. We need the Mayor’s strength and leadership to make this long-stalled project happen.

The Transbay project is the most important transportation measure to be planned for San Francisco since construction of the Bay Bridge and BART. Along with the new terminal bringing all transit together, the project includes over 3500 new housing units, much of it affordable, on former freeway land, thousands of construction and other jobs, and quick and easy trips to San Francisco from visitors who will bring cash and leave their cars at home.
Ignoring TJPA's importance for the City, opponents of the measure object only because they think it's an imposition on the Mayor. Convenient for the Mayor, the TPJA meets on the fourth floor of City Hall and the measure does not prevent the Mayor from sending a proxy if he can't attend. The Mayors of Los Angeles and San Jose serve in person on major county transportation boards and, as in San Francisco, have access to information from transit experts on the City staff.

GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE AND YOU

ON Global Warming: “We do not know how fast change will occur, or even how some of our actions could impact it.” President Bush, June 11, 2001

We in San Francisco may be grateful for having survived the wettest March in history, but there can be little doubt that humankind’s conduct of late has affected our weather. Human behavior for the past 500 years has been changing the earth and the air we breathe
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Put simply, in releasing the stored energy of fossil fuel, complex hydrocarbons are combined with oxygen (burned as it were) and become water and carbon dioxide. The water’s not a problem, but the carbon dioxide is a gas that is present until some plant, in the process of collecting the sun’s energy, turns it back into a hydrocarbon. Carbon dioxide acts like a one-way mirror being transparent to ultra violet and visible light radiating from the sun, but opaque to infrared light, which the earth tries to emit back into space. With too much carbon dioxide, the energy that strikes the earth can’t then be cast off because it’s reflected back down by these excess CO2; hence, global warming.

In 1700 the atmospheric concentration of CO2 was at a low of 270 parts per billion (PPB). Since then, mankind has been stripping the land of CO2-capturing plants, often burning them for fuel and releasing their carbon back into the atmosphere. Current CO2 levels are at 375 PPB, a 39% increase.

While it is true that natural sources annually emit 150 billion tons of CO2 and absorb 154 billion tons, our burning of stored hydrocarbons releases another 7.1 billion tons of CO2 annually. As of April 12th, 2006, the United States makes up 4.59% of the world’s population, but consumes 25% of the world’s energy, releasing it as CO2 into the atmosphere. If the United States had signed the Kyoto Accord, we would have agreed to reduce our individual release of CO2 into the atmosphere from 7 TONS per year to 5.4 TONS per year per persons. Tons!

Many scientists believe that even that number should be halved. But going with the 5.4 tons, how are YOU doing? One gallon of gas releases 22 lbs. of CO2. So 10,000 miles per year at 20 miles/gallon = 5.5 tons. Or 10,000 miles on transit, train or bus, 2.5 tons per person. One flight to and from the East Coast (6,000 miles), 2.7 tons per passenger. United Platinum Card holder, 45 tons annually. Take the train, 1.5 tons. Leave a 100-watt light or computer on all the time, 13 lbs/year.

What to do? Plant a tree. One tree will remove one ton of CO2 over 40 years. An acre of fully stocked forest, 3.6 tons per year. Take public transportation. Drive a fuel-efficient vehicle. Changing your ways is only one part of the solution. Re-educating the general populace is the only way; how to get millions of people to do the right thing? Your support of worthy organizations helps to bring numbers to bear on an issue. But it is not an overnight thing. Nor is lobbying to reform the concepts imbedded in the corporate world and in global officialdom; it seems that those changes will take generations.

But the reality is that “the times they are a changing.” Our government chooses to ignore this reality, as does the corporate world. Even our governor included these words in his recent press release about slowing Global Warming, “without affecting industry”.

To fully calculate your personal climate impacts visit:
http://www.vtearthinstitute.org/carbonwksht.html

Ocean Beach Bonfire ban proposed
Currently, open fires are permitted by the National Park Service (NPS) on certain parts of Ocean Beach. For NPS, it’s time to weigh the difficulty of enforcement of the law regarding trash, drunkenness and assaults against the romantic notion of a circle of hominids comparing life stories around blazing coals on the beach.

To many, Ocean Beach is San Francisco's premier natural resource wilderness area. “Ocean Beach is San F'rancisco’s Yosemite,” said a recent letter to the Chronicle editor. Not only does it possess world-famous waves but oceanic conditions that have made it home to fragile, rare dune plants and habitat for animals and birds, some of them rare, such as the Western snowy plover. If bonfires are not eliminated, and burning plastic and trash in the beach firescontinue to pollute the beach, then it shows that San Franciscans prize Ocean Beach mainly as “an urban party platform” and not for its wilderness qualities.

Walking on Ocean Beach the morning after, breathing in the noxious smoking remains of 30-50 fire sites that are set up per weekend night, is beyond unpleasant. Wood that is washed up is sometimes soaked in creosote; the smell of it when the fire is still smoldering the next day is highly toxic. Shreds of aluminum foil, used to wrap food for cooking on the fire, are everywhere. Plastic bottles and caps, glass bottles, cans, half-melted styrofoam containers, clothing, shoes are all left behind as part of the previous night's revel.

Often the smell of the fires is carried ten blocks inland, to 42nd Avenue, in this writer’s experience. One can catch the stink of it just by opening the back door. It is sad to turn away from a walk on the beach because so many fires are still smoking the next morning. Months later, the chunks of charred wood, cinders and ash have not been carried away by the surf, as people think (it would harm the sea life if they were). These pellets of charred wood will remain on the beach for a long time even if the ban is enacted. Contact rudy_evenson@nps.org to give NPS your views.

About Prop D:
What is hidden inside

It’s too bad that we have to warn you to read the fine print. Prop D is a ballot measure that seems laudable, but has a wolf within.

The rebuilding of Laguna Honda Hospital was approved by the voters and the construction is now well under way. But the question of who the patients will be might alter the mission of the hospital and put the frail elderly residents living there at risk of removal. Which patients will be treated there, who will make admissions decisions, and will elderly people suffering from dementia no longer be served? Supporters of this measure want to define Laguna Honda as a hospital that serves the frail elderly.

However, the careful reader of the measure will find a provision that makes it possible for private nursing homes to be built on the Laguna Honda property which is zoned “P” for Public (only public uses are permitted by the Code in this zone). Many people will not notice the fine print and will miss the City Attorney's warning that Prop D would open up all land in the City that is zoned “P” for the development of privately owned nursing homes.

"How many opportunities do you have to rezone land without anybody noticing anything?" asked City Health Director Dr. Mitchell Katz, quoted in a recent Chronicle story. "It's just plain wrong. If you're going around town saying you care deeply about patients at Laguna Honda, you shouldn't be slipping in other issues that have to do with your own financial welfare." Does it help you to know that the measure’s major backer is the Residential Builders Association, which represents about 700 builders?

There are approximately 1,600 “P”-zoned lots in the City set aside for public use, including for parks, schools and hospitals; many “P” lots are found within residential areas. (Of these, 417 lots, including Golden Gate Park, are also zoned as Open Space and would be impossible to develop.) Others, such as eleven school properties closed or slated for closure, could be leased for nursing home development, if a conditional use permit were obtained.

Prop D’s high-minded purpose would be to ban from the hospital patients whose primary diagnosis is psychiatric or behavioral, or those who pose a threat to other patients, and to reserve it for the frail elderly. But to make Laguna Honda part of a Special Use District, which would not just set aside the hospital for patients in need of long-term nursing care, but also allow private builders to apply for conditional use permits to build nursing homes on publicly zoned lands citywide makes it more like a Development Plan for publicly zoned properties than anything else. It sets a very bad precedent to alter “P” Public zoning in this covert way.

Your ballot book prints the entire wording of the legislation. Once again, you need to read the fine print.

Healthy Saturdays in Mayor’s Lap

A proposal for a six-month trial period which would expand to Saturday the Sunday car-free experience on John F. Kennedy Drive (JFK) in Golden Gate Park passed the full Board of Supervisors recently by a 7 to 4 vote, Supervisors Dufty, Elsbernd, Ma, and Alioto-Pier dissenting. This places the fate of the Healthy Saturdays proposal squarely in Mayor Newsom’s lap.

On the one hand, the Mayor has been aligned with the wealthy benefactors of the deYoung Museum, who have led the opposition to Healthy Saturdays, and usually with these four supervisors. On the other hand, the Mayor spent a morning recently meeting with health professionals looking for ways to improve the health of our youth, many of them obese and prone to diabetes. One third of San Francisco youth cannot pass a minimal fitness test. Imagine these young people bilking, skating, running and playing on JFK Saturdays and Sundays without the noxious fumes of automobiles all around them.

To improve youth fitness the Surgeon General has said, “We must create opportunities for physical activities that are enjoyable, that promote adolescents’ and young adults’ confidence in their ability to be physically active, and involve friends, peers, and parents.” Healthy Saturdays does exactly this.

Last minute amendments to the Healthy Saturdays proposal added 18 more free parking spaces near the Concourse and Conservatory of Flowers for people with mobility issues (ADA) and would change the route of the free Park Shuttle to permit it to run on the car-free section of JFK on Saturdays. These changes would apply to car-free Sundays as well.

Who opposes the Healthy Saturdays program? First, Richmond neighbors who believe there will be greater demand for curbside parking on their streets (there are never any parking spaces available in the Richmond!) But the chief dissenter is the deYoung Museum who perceive a loss of revenue. Will the Mayor place free curbside parking for patrons of the deYoung above healthful recreation for all who visit the east end of Golden Gate Park? deYoung Museum patrons have a brand new 800-space garage but now they want free curbside parking to be reserved for them, too.