PUBLISHER’S VIEW

BY STEVEN J. MOSS

The View doesn’t have so much a business model as a business prayer. Every month, we hope that enough ads are booked, subscriptions taken, and donations received that we can afford to publish the paper. This admittedly not excellent system has lasted 53 years. More than 600 monthly editions, upwards of 100 million pages of material, have been delivered to doors and cafes, grocery stores and distribution racks. Through a dozen and a half U.S. “military interventions” or outright wars, Dotcom booms and busts, a pandemic and six significant earthquakes, one a 7.1 on the Richter scale doozy, the View has delivered its mix of news, features, and photographs, sometimes with cartoons or crossword puzzles thrown in.

Whether or not the View will make it to its 54th anniversary largely depends on you. Despite the heroic efforts of the paper’s marketing manager, Richard Romero, advertising revenues are way down, with more longtime sellers declining to renew – in many cases because they went out of business – than new ones signing up. After receiving spirited support during the pandemic, much of which was passed on to local merchants in the form of substantial ad rate reductions, charitable donations have almost disappeared. While the View prints in the range of 12,000 copies a month, we have roughly 50 paid subscribers. Delivered over the internet or physically the viability of news has been cratered by the adage, why pay for something you can get for free?

The View has survived largely be - cause of its staffs’ willingness to be paid little or nothing for their efforts. I assign and edit all articles, write this monthly column, and generally manage operations essentially as a volunteer. The paper’s production manager hasn’t received a raise from her modest salary in many years; which is to say, ever. Freelance reporters are provided with paltry pay, not nearly enough to support robust investigative pieces. Meanwhile, the cost of the View’s main expense, printing and delivery, has steadily increased.

Despite the lack of pecuniary benefits, we’re collectively dedicated to the View because we believe in the importance of community news, especially in today’s fractured world. And we get joy imagining and sometimes witnessing the smile on a merchant’s or family’s face when they see themselves in an actual paper, one they can send by post to distant relatives, while giving our readers a sense of informed rootedness in a real life, non-cyber space, location. We know that many, including lonely older adults aging in place in an everchanging neighborhood, look forward to each new issue as if it’s an old friend.

This month the View celebrates more than a half-century of delivering community news. If you’re moved to send us a present – a subscription for a friend, advertisement for a local business or nonprofit, or a straight up donation – we guarantee that it’ll be a gift that keeps on giving. Your support can help us rejoice in this year’s renewal; our business prayers will be answered.

Anchor Drop

After Anchor Brewing Company announced it was shutting down last month several San Franciscans, as well as the brewery’s union, indicated they wanted to purchase the brand. Anchor employees notified Sapporo USA, Anchor Brewing’s parent company, that they’ve “decided to launch an effort to purchase the brewery and run it as a worker co-op.” San Francisco native Kyle Withycombe, who sold a juice company last year, has also raised his hand, as has Mike Walsh, who has lived two blocks from the brewery for 30 years. A serial investor who helped finance more than 200 companies, Walsh said he’d have made an offer in 2017 when the company was transferred to Sapporo had he known it was for sale… Potrero Hillians who grew up in the neighborhood can smell the yeasty odor of beer-making in their dreams. And the periodic holiday parties at the brewery will be missed. Given the property's value to be developed as housing, the City will need to step in with significant tax breaks for any rescue deal to be successful.

Bus Stop Housing

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency released its latest redevelopment plans for the Potrero Yard bus facility, reflecting 513 units, down from the 575 previously proposed. The design, by Canadian-based IBI Group, depicts an 150-foot structure with roughly 1.24 million square feet of space, including more than 540,800 square feet dedicated to housing. Residences would consist of 117 studio apartments, 184 one-bedrooms, 144 two-bedrooms and 68 three-bedrooms. The 2500 Mariposa Street property would feature a seventhfloor amenity area, with 75,620 square feet of community gathering spots, a dog trail and two community gardens separated by a central tower and two earth mounds. A bit more than half the homes would be affordable to those earning no more than 80 percent of San Francisco’s median income of roughly

$126,000, with the rest earmarked for people who make up to 120 percent of the median. SFMTA hopes that the project will be constructed by 2027.

Just Reopen

Less than five months after it abruptly shuttered, Just for You Cafe is being resurrected under the name Giuliana’s Just for You Cafe. Co-owner Michael Tufo, who owns Calabria Bros. Italian deli in the Excelsior, wants to open this month, pending final City approvals. The breakfast and brunch spot was a neighborhood favorite for 33 years before then-owner Reid Hannula closed it last April. The new menu will include breakfast basics like pancakes, eggs, and bacon along with old favorites, such as New Orleans-style beignets. Tufo hopes to bring back former staff.

San Francisco Hearts

In 1988 on a Saturday evening after dinner while watching television a 65-year-old man collapsed in front of his wife and son. The son, poorly trained in traditional cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), attempted to ventilate his father, who didn’t respond. The son then tried manual chest compression; his father remained pulseless and breathless. Desperate, the wife and son grabbed a toilet plunger, successfully using it to get the man’s heart going until an ambulance arrived. Later, after the patient recovered at San Francisco General Hospital, his son gave the doctors some advice: put toilet plungers next to all the beds in the coronary unit. SF General didn’t do that, but the idea prompted physicians to consider better ways to do CPR. More than three decades later, at a summer meeting of emergency medical services in Hollywood, Florida, researchers presented data showing that using a plunger-like setup leads to remarkably better outcomes for reviving patients. A new procedure, known as neuroprotective CPR, is now gaining traction in medical circles, thanks to one family’s impromptu plumbing solution.

Steven J. Moss

ACCOUNTING MANAGER Catie Magee

MARKETING

MANAGER Richard Romero

MANAGER Helena Chiu