Potrero View 2010: December

homeless Population l arge in southeast san Francisco

By Ben Terall

District 10 Elects New Supervisor

By Steven J. Moss

Last month District 10 voters elected a new Supervisor: Malia Cohen. In a hotly contested race, in which Lynette Sweet won the most first place votes, Cohen elbowed past her initial third place position to emerge the winner through the ranked choice voting process. In the final tally just one-fifth of the voters identified Cohen as one of their three choices, enough for her to edge out Tony Kelly, who received the second most first place votes.

The election results tell a chaotic tale of a district in search of an identity. The two Asian-American candidates, Marlene Tran and Teresa Duque, gathered more than 3,400 votes between them, reflecting a new, powerful, ethnic voting bloc. Kelly beat me in Potrero, but didn’t crack the top five vote-getters in the district’s other three dominant communities: Bayview-Hunters Point, Visitacion Valley, and Portola. Cohen won without strong support from the Hill – she was sixth in terms of first place votes from our community –suggesting a political tilt towards the district’s southern neighborhoods. More than 2,500 District 10 voters either didn’t select a supervisorial candidate, or spoiled their ballot by marking multiple politicians as their first choice. If these individuals had properly voted or participated in the supervisors’ race they’d have changed the outcome.

I came in fifth, receiving 178 fewer first place votes than Sweet. No longer a candidate, I can now

fully return to my role as the View’s publisher and editor. And tell you the tale of my year’s experience run-

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Last year 444 individuals in Bayview-Hunters Point, Visatacion Valley and Potrero Hill were without a permanent home, according to the San Francisco Human Services Agency. While this count indicates that the number of homeless in the area is significantly lower than ten years ago, there are more people without homes today than in 2007, when there were an estimated 349 homeless. While Potrero Hill’s median household income is almost $90,000, 13 percent of the neighborhood’s residents live below the federal poverty line.

Paul Boden, who co-founded the Coalition on Homelessness, and currently is the Western Regional Advocacy Project’s (WRAP) executive director, believes the number of homeless is higher than

City estimates. In 2005 WRAP was “formed as a regional collaborative of social justice organizations from six West Coast cities,” according to its website. Boden noted that a decade ago homeless numbers included people who were couchsurfing, in “doubled-up” conditions, and other transitory situations. In the 2007 count, the much stricter U.S. Department of Urban Development and Housing (HUD) definition of homelessness was used. Boden also believes that many homeless individuals remain uncounted. In 2009 “…a point in time head count was done on a late January night by volunteers walking around with flashlights...they then added in people in HUD funded shelters,” he said. According to WRAP, “This

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Potrero Resident Preserves His Giants Baseball Connection

By Sasha Lekach

When Howard Brown went to the San Francisco Giants ticker-tape parade on November 3, two days after the Giants won the 2010 World Series, a casual observer may have assumed that he was one of the many ordinary fans crowding Civic Center. But Brown, a native Virginian-turnedSan Franciscan, has a unique connection to the team. “Everyone was saying I was just a fan now,” Brown said. “And I was like, ‘No, I’ve been a fan since the 1950s.’” A Pennsylvania Street resident since 1982, Brown’s relationship with the Giants began when he met baseball player Willie Mays, and he has photographs and other memorabilia to prove it.

Mays was recruited from the Negro Baseball League to join the thenNew York Giants in 1951, becoming one of baseball’s first major league players. He stayed with the Giants when they moved to San Francisco in 1958, and played for the team until 1972. In 1952 Mays was drafted to serve in the Korean War. Although he never made it to Korea, he spent his years of service playing baseball at Fort Eustis, Virginia. It’s during this period, between 1952 and 1954,

that Brown met Mays. Brown, a young boy at the time, was living in Hampton, Virginia, less than 30 miles from the military base. As a 10 year old, Brown was a batboy for the local Negro League team, the Hampton Patriots. While working at home games, Brown met the future San Francisco Giant and Hall of Famer Mays. “I’ve been a Giants fan ever since I met him, never thinking I’d come to California,” Brown said, who later travelled to the Bay Area on a vacation and decided he had to stay.

According to Dr. Mary T. Christian, a former Virginia State legislator and dean of the School of Liberal Arts and Education at Hampton University, Mays’ presence added some excitement to Hampton during the 1950s. Christian’s father, John Robinson, owned the Hampton Patriots, along with a local football team. Christian was a young girl at the time, and not particularly interested in sports, “[All] I knew he was a member of baseball,” she said.

“My dad brought him home to have meals with my family.” Later when Mays became famous Christian realized she’d eaten many dinners with a baseball great.

Brown is also an athlete, playing college baseball and football –his fellow teammate and friend was Oakland Raiders coach Art Shell – at Maryland University, Eastern Shore. In San Francisco he played on a Potrero Hill slow-pitch softball team. In 1983, his team won the City championship, bringing with it a

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Serving the Potrero Hill, Dogpatch, Mission Bay and SOMA Neighborhoods Since 1970

District 10’s newly-elected Supervisor, Malia Cohen, will speak at the Potrero Hill Democratic Club meeting on December 7th, 7 p.m. at the Potrero Hill Neighborhood House.

Howard Brown’s Giants memorabilia, including photographs of Willie Mays when he served in the armed forces during the Korean War.

Waiting for Superman or Godot?

By Linda Chang

The original idea for this article was to review the much acclaimed film Waiting for Superman . The film’s marketing promised to do for education what An Inconvenient Truth did for climate change. Unfortunately, Davis Guggenheim missed the mark. He revealed the complexity of the issue, but failed to tell the bigger story.

The failures of America’s public education system aren’t the sole fault of the teachers’ unions. I applaud Guggenheim for introducing the idea of better school governance, but he failed to explain fully the levels of governance that are already in place. It’s true that many teachers benefit from generous contracts for tenure. But someone else had to sign those contracts; otherwise, it wouldn’t be a contract. Those other signatories are elected or appointed officials, acting on behalf of another set of elected individuals. I’ve yet to find a film review or op-ed piece that highlights this fact. Teachers don’t govern themselves and unilaterally run schools. There are district boards, school site councils, and parent-teacher associations who wield tremendous power. Waiting for Superman addresses none of this. Moreover, rewarding patronage over performance isn’t solely endemic to public education. Nor is delinking compensation – even egregious compensation – from performance only rampant with public school teachers.

Waiting for Superman does highlight the cultural question at hand: why do American students test so low in basic skills relative to their counterparts in other nations, while scores for confidence soar? I’d argue that public school dysfunction is an overall cultural issue, a slowing burning crisis, just like climate change. In that context we can be falsely lured into thinking there’s a Superman when we’re really waiting for Godot.

A new film I’m looking forward to seeing, and hope will be much discussed, is Race to Nowhere. This film promises to challenge our notions of

Letters to the Editor

what high stakes testing – as a means to accountability – and overly-extracurricularized kids has done to education, and more importantly, what we’ve done to ourselves. I’ve also been making my way through Diane Ravitch’s latest book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System . Ravitch is the country’s most eminent education historian. She was an early champion of the educational reform proposals that have defined federal policy frameworks since Bush, Sr., and shaped the funding decisions of major donors, including The Bill & Melinda Gates, Broad, and Annenberg foundations. Yet last spring Ravitch denunciated the central tenants of this reform agenda: heavy reliance on testing and charter schools.

Ravitch book reviews the available studies, describes their unresolved methodologies, and identifies their faulty conclusions. She criticizes the major foundations for perpetuating ideas that don’t pass even the common sense test. Regarding the question of teacher quality, which is a pivotal issue in Superman, Ravitch quotes Bill Gates in testimony to the National Conference of State Legislatures: “if the entire U.S., for two years, had top quartile teachers, the entire difference between us and Japan would vanish.” Yet not only is teacher effectiveness extremely difficult to measure, but, according to quote Ravitch, “common sense suggests that any system of measurement that produces a top quartile will also produce three other quartiles.” What do you do with that bottom three? A businessman is trained to create profit-seeking policies based on top-performing indicators while discarding the poorperforming teams or programs. But public education is supposed to serve everyone. No for-profit business, not even Walmart, aspires to serve everyone. Ravitch also points-out that private foundations hold enormous political and economic power that,

espirit Park

Editor,

I’m responding to Meryl Krouss’ letter in the View’s November issue. Esprit Park is both an off-leash dog park as well as a park for humans. Transferring the park from the Esprit Company to the City and County of San Francisco, and acquiring the necessary funding, involved a lengthy process that included many meetings by dedicated neighbors. Perhaps a reader who was directly involved in those meetings will contribute to this dialogue, and confirm my understanding that the final agreement stipulated that half the park would be off-leash. Initially, there were small, handmade signs indicating the side for dogs. Over time, those signs have disappeared.

More importantly, why can’t this park be shared by all neighbors? I’ve been there many times and seen people playing soccer, volleyball, and bocce. I’ve seen families picnicking. I’ve seen nearby workers having lunch and sunbathing. All of this has occurred while dogs ran around and played. Given that so many different people use the park, it’s not fair to blame the condition of the lawn and plantings on dogs. Of course dog owners need to be responsible. So do parents of young children and anyone else who uses the park. Let’s not demonize any one group, and instead find a way to share this public space. In our urban environment there must be room for everyone.

Peter Chase Texas Street Editor, I agree with Meryl Krouss’ letter

in the View’s November issue. Esprit Park isn’t an off-leash dog park. Park users are violating the law when they allow their dogs to run off-leash in the park.

When the park was transferred from the Esprit Corporation to the City and County of San Francisco the community had numerous meetings with the Recreation and Parks Department, dog owners, parents, and non-dog owners to discuss how best to deal with the diverse interests of these stakeholders. As you can imagine, there were numerous heated debates. But we came to an informal agreement to not hold to the letter of the off-leash law. The north lawn would be for off-leash dogs and the south lawn was to be “no dogs allowed.” The park’s perimeter was to be on-leash at all times. Informal signs were posted to inform visitors of these rules.

The agreement hasn’t worked out. The signs have been removed. Many dogs run free on the south lawn. Last year Rec and Park’s Steven Cismowski came to a Dogpatch Neighborhood Association meeting to tell us, among other things, that Esprit Park’s soil is so saturated with dog urine the plantings are severely compromised and dying. In response he said he’d put the signs back up. Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened.

I encourage all neighbors to enjoy Esprit Park, Dogpatch’s only municipal park. Please remember the north lawn is reserved for dogs, which, by law, should be leashed. The south lawn is for kids’ activities, sunbathing, relaxing, ball throwing, and other human activities.

Susan Eslick Minnesota Street

Elderly Mutts Have Oprah on their Side

ediTor and pUblisher: steven J. Moss prodUcTion ManaGer: lisa Tehrani

sTaFF: regina anavy, lauren bowne, linda chang, dewitt cheng, Michael condiff, debbie Findling, Terry Gutherie, lori higa, sasha lekach, catie Magee, david Matsuda, sarah Mcdonald, sara Moss, Mauri schwartz, bill slatkin, ben Terall and heather wagenfeld

Potrero Hill resident and Muttville Senior Dog Rescue founder Sherri Franklin (left), along with volunteer Patty Stanton (right), are all smiles with some adoptable senior dogs. Why? They were lucky audience members for The Oprah Winfrey show where Oprah taped her annual “My Ultimate Favorite Things” episode that aired on November 22nd. Most of the goodies Franklin and Stanton received from the show are up for auction to raise funds at www.muttville.org through December 6th, except for the car. You’ll see Sherri driving a new re-designed 2012 Volkswagon Beetle later next year with a “Thanks Oprah” sign on one side and “Muttville” on the other. Be sure to honk if you see her with adoptable poodles, poms and other mutts in the new MuttMobile!

Power

Last month the California Independent System Operator (Cal-ISO) identified several factors that could lead to the termination of the 362 megawatt (MW) Potrero Power Plant’s reliability-must-run (RMR) contract by the first quarter of 2011. A 30-day test of the 400 MW Trans Bay Cable –which conveys power to San Francisco from the City of Pittsburg – has been successfully completed. The cable, which became fully operational over the Thanksgiving holiday, allows for the closure of the plant’s largest unit. The shutdown of the facility’s three peaker units is predicated on Pacific Gas and Electric Company completing upgrades to two transmission lines between the Martin, Bayshore and Potrero substations, expected this month. In late-October, the plant’s owner, Mirant Corporation, told the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that it “…fully supports the shutdown of the Mirant Potrero power plant as soon as the units are not needed for reliability and the RMR agreement has either been terminated or is not renewed.” We’re almost there…

Greening

With recent grants from Burning Man and the San Francisco Parks Trust, plans to improve 22nd Street have almost been completed, and are available for viewing at gtsfcw.org. The owners of 1100 Tennessee Street

Short CutS

– where Piccino Cafe is located – will add plants, replace a tree, and install permeable pavers to a driveway and on the adjacent sidewalks. Another nearby property owner may be adding a parklet, transforming parking spots into green space…Farley’s will also be sponsoring a parklet in front of the popular café, designed by Dogpatch-based landscape architect Topher Delaney…The Potrero Boosters Neighborhood Association,

development at 1321 De Haro. The Boosters are concerned about the negative impacts the variance will cause to the open space and associated views. The hearing will take place at City Hall the evening of December 8. For more information contact the Openspace’s board of directors: 6336.SKO (756)…Anchor Steam Brewing Company received the William C. Ralston Corporate Award for its contribution to San

San Francisco Board of Supervisors recently acted to eliminate toys in McDonald’s Happy Meals. Perhaps their attention will now turn to Buena Vista and other elementary schools, where three or more ice cream carts can frequently be spotted after the last bell rings. The next board action on the issue could very well be to establish sugar-free zones around educational campuses…

rent

Rates to rent the Potrero Hill Neighborhood House (Nabe) are in flux. The nonprofit’s board met last month to discuss the facility’s rental fees, and temporarily reduced the hourly cost of the main theater from $250 to $200 per hour. The board will continue to discuss long-term rates at their January 18 meeting. During current economic hard times, in which City funding for the Nabe’s programs has been slashed, the facility is increasingly dependent on rents to keep the building operating.

Plumbing

working with the Starr King Openspace board, is appealing Board of Appeals’ approval of a request for a rear yard variance at a proposed

Francisco’s historic legacy last month from the San Francisco Museum and Historical Society…In its continuing fight to save us from ourselves, the

For years Potrero Hill residents have complained about low water pressure; apparently they have reason to do so. According to Thomas Friel, who offers plumbing service from his Connecticut Street office, it takes one pound of pressure to raise water two

The 11th annual Potrero Hill History Night at the International Studies Academy featured the history of public housing on Potrero Hill. Over 150 people, including 25 Terrace & Annex residents enjoyed a barbeque dinner prepared by the Bottom of the Hill, The Parkside and Chat’s Coffee while listening to the Apollo Jazz Group. The program included a short video produced by BAYCAT: “Public Housing on Potrero Hill: a Timeline” which can be found on youtube.com. Following the video, Goat Hill Pizza’s Philip DeAndrade interviewed three men who grew up in the Potrero Terrace in the 1950’s -60’s. As Peter Linenthal says in the Rebuild Potrero Fall Newsletter, “The oral history project gives us an opportunity to know the history of the place that we all share —an important step in helping the Potrero Hill community understand itself and better plan for the future.”

• During the past month, residents of Potrero Terrace & Annex have continued to participate in the “Get Togethers” mentioned in last month’s column. These gatherings have been a successful means of engaging a large number of residents in a discussion about the future of their community.

• A Potrero Hill-wide Get Together is being planned for January 29, and will bring together Terrace & Annex residents and stakeholders from all over

Potrero Hill to create a cohesive community vision and action agenda. The event will develop several working groups with specific projects.

The planning committee for this event will be comprised of 15 to 20 people from the Terrace & Annex and neighbors from the surrounding community.

• Weekly Garden Work Days have been established at the Family Resource Garden at 85 Turner Terrace every Monday from 10-11 AM. Residents are invited and encouraged to join the efforts and harvest the seasonal produce. Details of the larger Texas Street garden including design, budget, fund raising plan, education program, etc., are being developed during ongoing Garden Committee meetings. If you are interested in participating, call Emily at 415-806-1429.

New! Now in its 4th week, the weekly walking Club has grown to 20 people. Through flyer distribution and word of mouth, the group has been drawing community members to join in the 30-40 minute walking route. As the club grows, additional days will be added. Please join the Club every Monday at 2:00 at 25th & Connecticut.

To find out more about any of the above projects or groups, please call us at 415-806-1429 or email: potrero@bridgehousing.com

The historic firehouse up for auction on Tennessee Street was open for tours last month. Interested buyers, historians and photographers took advantage of the opportunity to see inside the building. Photograph by Emmanuel Schnetzler.

Pirates Play in Potrero hill

By Michael Condiff

Like most parents, David and Donna Nuño were once concerned with how to keep their children productively active. Four years ago, they found a solution: year-round youth baseball. The Nuños coach the Jackson Pirates, a program comprised of 30 kids – including their two daughters – in grades five through eight. Most of the kids are from the Potrero Hill and Mission neighborhoods.

“We’d much rather have them on the field than on the streets,” Donna Nuño said, before one of the program’s offseason practices at Jackson Park. “This way we know where they are and what they’re doing, and other parents know where their kids are and what they’re doing. It’s like a family. Most of our players have been on the team for four years.” The Pirates participate in the San Francisco Youth Baseball League (SFYBL), which fields more than 100 teams citywide during its spring season. The league is open to both genders, but boys dominate most of the rosters. Although several other teams represent the Southeastern neighborhoods – particularly South-ofMarket and Bayview-Hunters Point –the Pirates are the only SFYBL team based primarily in Potrero Hill.

The Pirates’ program was organized in 2002 by Potrero Hill resident Bob Boileau, who took an existing

team that was based in another part of San Francisco and brought it to Jackson Park. At the time, Boileau said he noticed “tremendous potential for really good baseball in the Southeast section of the City, but it was not being developed” because there was no place locally for kids to learn the game. In 2005, that potential was realized when the Pirates won their first and only City championship.

Boileau coached the team until 2008, when he became a SFYBL commissioner. The Nuños served as assistants under Boileau for a season, and have been the Pirates’ primary coaches for the past three years. “Our girls were having fun playing and we were having fun learning the ropes of coaching, so we said, ‘Why not?’” Donna Nuño said. “We’re having a blast with it.” In the fall and winter, the Pirates meet for practices twice a week at Jackson Park, which the team still calls home despite the fact that the Parks and Recreation Department doesn’t currently provide support to activities at the facility. According to Donna Nuño, the Pirates use the offseason to work on fundamentals. “We want to keep their skills up and progressing,” she said.

Many of the Pirates players also participate in middle school baseball programs that run during the fall, at James Lick Middle School, Live Oak and other campuses. For the

Spring SFYBL league, the Pirates separate into two teams. SFYBL has divisions for each grade level, from kindergarten through sixth, and a combined division for seventh and eighth grade players. Because SFYBL rules allow a player to “play up” one grade level, the Pirates field a team in the sixth and seventh-eighth grade divisions. The teams typically play two games a week during the spring season. No games are played at Jackson Park; the Pirates travel to one of the more than 20 fields SFYBL has available throughout the City. “We really try to go around and represent Jackson Park and Potrero Hill to the rest of

the City,” Donna Nuño said.

The Pirates also field a team in the SFYBL’s summer league for middle school-aged kids. This past season, the Pirates finished second in their division. According to Donna Nuño, the Pirates are seeking sponsors for their 2011 teams. Baby Blues BBQ on Mission Street served as the team’s lone sponsor last season, contributing half of the $750 league entry fee. Parents footed the bill for the remainder, and also purchased uniforms, equipment and refreshments.

Anyone wishing to be a sponsor or contribute to the team can email go_jacksonpirates@yahoo.com.

Potrero Pirates’ older boys team. Photograph courtesy of David and Donna Nuño.

shorT CuTs from page 3

feet uphill, and pressure gets used up as water is pumped higher. Friel said low water pressure is common on the top of the hill, and offered some solutions, including removing devices that restrict water flow, and conserve water, from faucets and shower heads. “ You’re not wasting water by removing it,” said Friel, “you actually need more water flow [in] your shower head and faucets to enjoy the same amount of water that your neighbors in the high pressure areas enjoy.” If that doesn’t work, another option is to install a booster pump and pressure tank in the cold water supply to provide extra pressure. Though a more expensive fix, “that will give you a lot better shower,” said Friel.

salesforce

Last month salesforce.com announced it had purchased 14 acres of land in Mission Bay for the company’s global headquarters. The roughly $278 million deal includes eight parcels along Third Street that could accommodate nearly two million square feet of space when fully built, 45 percent of the total commercial property in 303-acre Mission Bay. The purchase is one of the largest San Francisco land sale transactions in years. The redevelopment area now includes 3,126 housing units, 1.7 million square feet of office and research and development space, 13 acres of parks,

and more than $400 million of roads and infrastructure. The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF)Mission Bay campus occupies 43 acres, with construction recently started on the $1.5 billion UCSF Medical Center, which will include the Benioff Children’s Hospital, Women’s Specialty Hospital and Cancer Hospital

Corrections

In last month’s View (“Auto Repair Shop Stands Strong for Three Decades”) the owner of San Francisco Auto Repair Center was inaccurately identified. His correct name is Jerry Lewis…The November Crime & Safety column contained errors in the section entitled “Pedestrian Bridge Closing Discussed at Meeting.” The last paragraph should have read: “The possibility of closing the 18th and San Bruno pedestrian bridge was addressed by the City Attorney’s office, SFPD, DPW and Caltrans. Robert Salazar, the regional manager of Caltrans, which owns the bridge, said, “I will support whatever you guys want to do.” Yvonne Meré, deputy city attorney, asked, “Would it help stem the violence if we gate the bridge?” Meré said it was the City’s responsibility to maintain the bridge. Bayview Captain Greg Suhr suggested, “We could enclose the bridge and treat it like a park. A lot of parks in the City are closed at 10 p.m. and open at 6 a.m. We’ll take responsibility to make sure no one’s on that bridge so they can’t get locked in. We’ll get the locks shrouded so they can’t get cut off.”

Local Business Illuminates the City

By Sarah Mcdonald

100 Watt Network, a national light fixture company, has its headquarters in a small storefront office located at the corner of 19th and Vermont streets. The company specializes in custom work, which makes up 80 percent of its business. Recently, the firm designed a fabric-like glass panel system – called a BEAM fixture – for Hibiscus restaurant in Oakland.

The lights, made entirely from recycled glass, consume only seven watts of energy. According to owner and Potrero Hill resident Jason Perkins, while the enterprise offers a product line, “we tend to wait until someone asks us to build something.

Perkins entered the light fixture business through an unusual route. He was working on his master of arts in literature at San Francisco State University in the early 1990s, and living on Second Street, where warehouses were being torn down for the construction of AT&T Park. Intrigued by their design, Perkins began salvaging old lights from the warehouses to install in his apartment. A friend noticed the fixtures, and asked if Perkins could find more for her. Perkins was in business. He started Luce International, an importing enterprise which sourced mostly Italian products, with his mother in 1993. Over time Perkins

started to make his own light fixtures. In 1997 he launched 100 Watt Network.

Without a formal education in design, Perkins’ likes to collaborate with the architects who come to him for custom work. “I’m happy working with other people’s ideas,” he said. “Every time [we] get a project it’s a challenge.” The company now has offices in Chicago, New York, and Seattle, in addition to San Francisco. One of their highest profile projects was a series of light fixtures made from recycled beer bottles, which are featured at 60 Starbucks locations nationwide. According to Perkins, the company has been involved in many projects using recycled materials, and looks for opportunities to create sustainable products. They rely on materials manufactured in the United States and purchase many

Above: Beam fixture at Hibiscus Restaurant in Oakland. Below: Lighting at the Press Club Restaurant won several American Institute of Architects design awards. Photographs courtesy of 100 Watt Network.

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eleCTioN from front page

ning for a seat on the board.

The Candidates

American politics is dominated by two-candidate races, with the occasional lovable or, more typically, mad-as-hell, third candidate making their appearance. With two or three people running, voters can suss-out who leans left, who leans right, and who is the independent. In San Francisco the two candidate race is typically segmented into who belongs to the lefty faction, aligned with the San Francisco Bay Guardian and Tenants’ Union, and who is more moderate, a moniker which stretches to include pro-working family candidates backed by labor unions and pro-business types supported by property owners.

The District 10 race didn’t follow this script. Twenty-one candidates filed papers to run, giving voters more choices than they can find in Safeway’s cereal aisle. There was an African-American man who, in Baptist Church-style cadence, insisted that black voters choose him because “he was them.” A pony-tailed businessman, speaking like an accountant, promised to bring business sense to the board. And there was an angry Communist – in this rare case, the label actually sticks – who yelled out her speeches, stopping abruptly when time was up, giving the effect of the channel being changed midinfomercial.

In these situations, a mediating force – newspaper; civic organization – would typically anoint the most serious candidates as worthy of voters’ attention. But in San Francisco we don’t have a fully functioning newspaper, and in District 10 the available civic organizations either ducked for cover or backed a candidate. Almost every forum included at least a dozen supervisorial hopefuls. Even the View, following a mostly hands-off policy due to my status as a candidate, identified ten individuals worth looking at. This led to the comical – or pathetic – situation in which there were periodically more candidates than audience members at a given venue. To accommodate the crowded stage, one or two minute responses were required for even the most complex questions – how will you create jobs; what’re your plans to help children – with no time for actual dialogue or debate. Voters – weeks before election-day happily lured away by the San Francisco Giant’s much more entertaining competition – mostly tuned out. In the end it took the collective efforts of the top five candidates to add-up to more than 50 percent of first place votes.

We now know that these top five were the truly competitive candidates, with another three dark horses. Sweet started out as the frontrunner, and never stopped campaigning like one, with huge billboards sprinkled throughout, and even outside, the district. But, besides her multiple campaign offices, Sweet had only an intermittent

presence in the neighborhoods, leaning heavily on her staff to respond to the deluge of questionnaires submitted by seemingly every interest group in the City. Her message was vaguely pro-growth, principally focusing on her credentials as an elected member of the BART board and previous appointee to a host of City commissions. Yet, like most of the candidates, she avoided mentioning how she made a living, which was principally as a public relations consultant, most prominently for the developers of the Trans Bay Cable. Sweet was always impeccably attired, presenting as a solid moderate and respectable adult among an otherwise ragtag sea of mostly marginal candidates.

Cohen, a social networking consultant who took the year off to run for office, may have pursued the most disciplined campaign. A more ambitious, younger, version of Sweet, Cohen was the classic candidate: always smiling – unless privately encountering a competitor – well-groomed, with a handful of platitudes at the ready. Her entourage often included family members, who exuded warmth and authenticity, an effective complement to her more buttoned-down presentation. Cohen campaigned 24/7, nailing down endorsements with shear willpower – and the help of her mentor, Assemblywoman Fiona Ma, and later, Senator Leland Yee – and fielding a steady stream of canvassers. Her message was akin to a shiny lottery scratch ticket, in which the words

safety, health or employed made you a winner, the payout to be provided at some future date.

Kelly, who produces the San Francisco Symphony’s program guide, exuded a hail fellow wellmet appeal, and was the most cogent lefty in the race. Aggressively backed by the Bay Guardian and the Tenants’ Union, Kelly had the tenacious support of members of various neighborhood associations and clubs, including the Potrero Hill Democratic Club and Neighbors of San Francisco General Hospital, a.k.a., Stop the Helipad. Following the lefty playbook, he called for a City-owned bank, citing South Dakota as the only state in the union that supported such an institution, an odd example to tout, given the words “only” and “South Dakota.” Kelly’s campaign was supplemented by a strategy to undermine the other main Potrero Hill candidate’s – mine – appeal, through a multi-media misinformation campaign. He avoided direct canvassing, taunting candidate Chris Jackson, who was collecting signatures to place his name on the ballot outside The Good Life Grocery on a cold summer day, that he was going home to his warm apartment rather than interact with voters.

Marlene Tran warned voters not to underestimate her campaign, an admonition that proved prescient. Like the retired school teacher she is, Tran arrived at forums carrying a sheaf of papers – crime statistics, continued on next page

Susan is both your PotreroHill neighbor and Realtor®. With her keen business sense and warm approach to client service, she is at once upscale and down to Earth. Kind of like PotreroHill.

PotreroHill North Slope Home

•3 bedrooms, 1.5 baths

•2 levels of living space

•Living room with downtown SF Views

•Formal dining room

•Large eat-in kitchen

•Laundry room with washer & dryer

•Wine cellar in basement

•Garage with two car parking plus storage

•www.455connecticut.com

455 Connecticut Street

Listed for: $899,000 ~ Sold: $975,000

•Expansive 2 bedroom 2 bath layout

•Sweeping panoramic SF Skyline, Bay, Bridge views

•Private walk-out deck

•Private Garage

•In-unit washer & dryer

•Great natural light throughout

•Deeded storage room

•Pool & Tennis Courts

•Fitness Center & Clubhouse

Listed for: $799,000 1802 20th Street

Best Wishes for Happy Holidays!

And with nearly 30 years of San Francisco real estate expertise in the city’s most exclusive neighborhoods, and of course her own home base of Potrero Hill, it’s no wonder she’s the first person so many San Franciscans turn to for guidance when they decide to buy or sell property.

She’s been at the top of this game for years; when only the best of both worlds will do, call Susan Olk.

Prime North Slope Condo-B2B Views

Close Outcome in District 10 Supervisors Race

The District 10 supervisorial election results indicate a disturbing pattern of racial voting. European-American candidates, Tony Kelly and Steve Moss, dominated voting in Potrero Hill, African-Americans, Malia Cohen and Lynette Sweet, won Bayview-Hunters Point, while Asian-American candidates, Marlene Tran and Teresa Duque, were the top two vote-getters in Visitacion Valley. Sweet was the only candidate to be among the top five vote-getters in all five of the district’s key neighborhoods, though Cohen and Moss were among the top five in four of the communities. District 10 turn-out was just 50 percent, notably low even for a non-presidential year election. Note that the ranked-choice outcomes don’t include second place votes for candidates who were eliminated in early calculation rounds. For example, the votes in the table don’t include second place votes Sweet may have received from Kelly, Tran, or Cohen; nor does Moss’ tally include second place votes he may have received from these same candidates.

newspaper clippings, flyers – that she’d occasionally search through as she made a particular point. Anticrime, pro-public transportation, defender of Asian-Americans, and a vague job supporter, Tran appealed to first generation immigrants and their families as someone who’d stand-up for them. She doggedly attended the forums she was invited

to, while her field campaign focused mostly on the heavily Asian-American Visitacion Valley neighborhood. My campaign stressed that I was the guy who could get things done, as evidenced by my history as the founder of a local environmental nonprofit and publisher of the View My message – that the district wasn’t the problem, but the solution to its

own and the City’s problems – had a “morning in America” tang, which may have been a mis-match with the electorate’s mood. A committed door knocker, my campaign probably had the most direct contact with individual voters. But I failed to get strong backing from environmental and community organizations, and was relentlessly labeled by the Kelly and Cohen campaigns and their allies as a carpet bagging tenant-hater.

This field was rounded-out by Duque, Dewitt Lacey, and Jackson. Duque, who was overtly nervous at the handful of forums she attended, focused almost exclusively on crime and public safety, lavishing her attention on the district’s Asian-American population. Lacey, a handsome zombie candidate brought to life by the Democratic County Central Committee’s endorsement, ran a campaign seemingly modeled after Dean Martin. Operating mostly out of Bloom’s Saloon, he was the less

ambitious doppelganger to Cohen. His slogan – it’s time to get our fair share – almost drifted to parody. In the campaign’s final days it was replaced by a flyer that called for voters to “give City Hall the finger” by pushing the button for him, a message that stands on its own merits. Jackson’s campaign followed the pattern of a giant, clumsy, puppy. He tried to replicate Sweet’s gravitas as the other elected candidate running, but at only 27-years-old the claim didn’t stick. His message focused on making sure that the district’s existing population benefitted from coming economic change. After launching an energetic canvassing effort, his campaign devolved mostly into throwing flyers on the sidewalks in front of voters’ homes. Towards the end of the election a noted barber in the Visitacion Valley community complained that Jackson had used a photograph of him in his shop without his permission, a slight-of-hand indicative of Jackson’s immaturity.

Every one of these candidates believed that they’d make the best supervisor, and that, with the right efforts, voters would recognize that. But it was difficult to see through the haze of 21 candidates, neighborhoodcentric concerns, race politics which tilted against the African-American male candidates and in favor of the emerging Asian-American voting bloc, and attack campaigns. In the end it’s not surprising that the top five candidates consisted of two European-American men, two African-American women, and an AsianAmerican senior. As I frequently said in my campaign, District 10 is America, with all of its diversity, nascent opportunities, and troubled legacies. And like America, the district is in deep transition, trying to find itself through an era of economic hardship, demographic change, historical myopia, and identify crises.

This is the first of a three-part series. Next month: candidate endorsements, money, and mudslinging.

Courtesy of Moss for District 10 Supervisor Campaign. First place and ranked choice votes as of November 24; all other data as of November 16.

homeless from front page

unsystematic process results in a gross undercounting.”

Lisa Dyas, of Compass Family Services, which provides services to more than 3,000 parents and children each year, couldn’t give specific homeless numbers for Bayview-Hunters Point or Potrero Hill. “In general, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that the official number of homeless and what is perceived in the neighborhood are at odds,” she wrote in an email. “At Compass we work exclusively with homeless and low-income families. It is very difficult to get an accurate count of homeless families because they are not a visible population. A family might not have a fixed address, but they might be couch surfing, staying with relatives, in hotels or in their cars.”

“Over the past two years we have seen an incredible increase in the number of families seeking services,” wrote Dyas. “For example, there are currently 177 families on the city-wide waiting list for shelter. This is an almost 100 percent increase from two years ago. A family can expect to wait up to six months or longer for a three to six month shelter stay.”

According to Sara Shortt, executive director of the Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco, which counsels tenants on their rights, “the City has been aggressively closing shelters, but is not providing housing.” The Housing Authority has a waiting list of 30,000

people. “It’s clear that people are more down and out and job situations are less stable,” Shortt said.

“There’s more overcrowding, roommates are packed in like sardines. People feel they have to stay where they are, and are more vulnerable, especially the undocumented, elderly, and disabled.” Shortt said the national foreclosure crisis has mostly impacted her organization’s South-of-Market clients, where renters have been dislodged when condominium-owning landlords are foreclosed on.

Boden believes that City Hall’s response to homelessness has been

will persist.”

inadequate. He called for a more comprehensive approach, including providing the needy with quality education, access to healthcare, a living wage, as well as housing options. To accomplish this Boden said San Francisco’s political leadership would need to advocate for its poorest residents at the federal level, with upper income residents contributing more to address the problem. According to WRAP, “Until federal production and subsidization of affordable housing is adequately funded, the latest policy fads for addressing mass homelessness will continue to fall far short and the human suffering and loss of life that result from these failures

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Recently, two homeless men eating at a Potrero Hill soup kitchen, who didn’t want their names used, complained about negative stereotypes of homeless people. They wanted to see better communication between people living on the streets and better-off San Franciscans. “Bill” praised businesses that treated the homeless people who sleep in front of their doors with respect, even paying them to do basic tasks. Though he admitted that he only knew a few examples of this sort of harmonious working relationship, he saw it a useful model.

were adequately housed, those jobs would no longer exist. “What is their incentive to make their jobs redundant?” he asked. Gene’s critique of homeless bureaucracies is echoed in Hobos, Hustlers, and Backsliders: Homeless in San Francisco, written by sociologist Teresa Gowan. Gowan worked with the Coalition on Homelessness in the mid-1990s, and relied on research from that period in her book.

-Lisa Dyas, Compass Family Services

“Gene” said that there was too much bureaucracy in the City, which provided just enough services to keep homeless people alive, but not enough to enable them to improve their situations. According to Gene, many of his friends on the streets “need counseling,” but aren’t receiving it. He noted that the government in the European country he came from always provided counseling, with far fewer bureaucrats administering to the destitute in his homeland.

Gene believes that there’s a conflict of interest in so many people employed full-time to deal with homeless people: if the homeless

According to Gowan, when mass homelessness at a level unseen since the Great Depression reemerged in the early-1980s, progressive activists were able to mobilize mainstream support for social programs to help those in need. But Gowan argues that those short-term victories ultimately gave rise to a “homelessness industry,” which serves to maintain status quo damage control where “social justice goals were all too easily displaced by the business of daily social work.” This bureaucratic network expanded from 1,500 agencies in the early 1980s to more than 15,000 such agencies ten years later.

Boden agreed with Gowan’s analysis. He pointed out that federal funding for homeless services – mainly shelters – went from $94 million in 1983 – most of which was administered by the Federal Emergency Management Administration - to $367 million in 1993, in 2004 constant dollars. But, Boden and other homeless advocates argue that the funding increase hasn’t been matched with a similar rise in new housing units catering to the homeless.

Call me today for a FREE consultation about your home and your plans. A portion of my commission benefits the Potrero Hill Public Library. Happy Holidays!

“Over the past two years we have seen an incredible increase in the number of families seeking services..... an almost 100 percent increase.”

Melinda

baT boy from front page

large trophy that’s still on display in Brown’s apartment.

Brown has two faded black and white photographs of Mays and unidentified army friends looking into a camera at Fort Eustis, with barracks in the background. And kept in a plastic baggie is Mays’s New York Giants baggage tag. Mays’s 24 jersey number is still etched into the soft brown leather. Brown had a few baseballs signed by Mays, but as a young boy he didn’t appreciate their value, and played with them until they were destroyed. When asked if he’d consider selling his Mays memorabilia, Brown politely, but firmly, indicated that he wouldn’t.

liGhTs from page 5

inputs locally, including having much of their glass blown in Berkeley.

Business has been slow during the Great Recession, forcing the company to lay-off staff. “That was hard,” said Perkins. 100 Watt Network currently has 22 employees nationally, and stays competitive by keeping prices reasonable and staying small. “In bad economies it’s better to be a smaller company,” said Perkins.

100 Watt Network’s office is across the street from Downtown High School, and the business participates in the school’s work study program. Three or four students are typically employed, and engaged in career development – learning about careers and how to interview for jobs – and community based-work, like weeding and cleaning up streets, schools, and parks.

“It’s been fun,” said Perkins. He hopes 100 Watt Network will be involved with the redevelopment of the Potrero Annex-Terrace complexes, focusing on providing economical, energy-efficient lighting for the new buildings. “We’ll work for nothing,” he said, to be involved with the project.

View’s Founders Reflect on Paper’s Early Days

By Sasha Lekach

It all started at St. Teresa of Avila Church on Missouri Street in 1970. As one of The Potrero View founders Rose Marie Ostler tells it, the newspaper, then called Hills and Dales, was first printed at the church because it had a mimeograph machine. “We asked Father Peter Sammon if we could use the mimeograph machine and he gave us permission,” said Ostler, who still belongs to the congregation. Another newspaper founder, Bill Dawson, was also a St. Teresa member, and together with Ostler’s husband Marion “Micky” Ostler and Lenny Anderson, they used the church’s facilities to create a small neighborhood newspaper.

early involvement, Micky credits former publisher Ruth Passen for helping the paper thrive over the last forty years and converting it into what it is today. Passen implemented the current masthead, enlisting her friend Giacomo Patri to design the artwork. According to Micky, in the early 1970s “People got involved in the View [because] kids of that time were questioning authority. We wanted to say more, we all had something to say,” he said. “The stories we wanted to write had to do with social upheaval.”

Brown sharing his former days as a Giants bat boy.

Perkins lives on Texas Street with his wife and two children, and said he enjoys living and working in Potrero Hill.

Seasons Greetings from The View

The two- to four-page monthly paper presented community news, opinions and events, produced by volunteer reporters and photographers. “When we did this we never dreamed it would become the paper it became and [that it would] still be around,” said Rose Marie, who has lived on the Hill since 1946. “It was great to be involved in the community”

Within a few months the paper shifted from mimeograph copies to a smaller, low-tech version of its current newspaper form. Rose Marie, who helped with logistics and administrative tasks, remembered rubbing on the headings of articles since there was no computer formatting then. “The headings we had to rub on,” she recalled. “They weren’t always straight, they were a little crooked sometimes.” After helping with its initial launch Rose Marie’s involvement in the paper diminished, as she pursued her career in education, eventually becoming a kindergarten teacher in Daly City.

By the summer of 1970 Micky, now a retired salesman, renamed the paper The Potrero View. Despite his

Micky believes the View’s purpose is to help create community cohesion. “It was not a Village Voice, it was not a Street Sheet. It was meant to be a community organizing tool. A way to communicate with various people on the Hill.” Before the paper officially launched, Micky recalled sitting in Dawson’s living room discussing options for community change. “The conclusion we came to was that people don’t talk to each other.” That was when the small founding team headed to St. Teresa’s to start printing mimeo copies. Eventually the early team moved to Dawson’s basement, before landing at the Potrero Hill Neighborhood House.

According to Micky, it was at first challenging to get local merchants to allow the paper to be distributed from their stores. Because they were a vocal, albeit small, publication in a socially-sensitive time, many of the neighborhood stores were reluctant to carry the paper, let alone advertise in it. Micky remembered The Good Life Grocery as being one of the View’s first welcoming distributors and eventual advertisers. “Many folks didn’t want anything to do with [us] long-haired freaks,” Micky said. “But when I look at [the View] today I am surprised by the size and scope of what it turned out to be.”

From Tater to Katie

By David Matsuda

Our oldest daughter Katie got the nickname “Tater” when she was a tot. A best friend replaced spoken k’s with t’s, and added r’s on to most words; hence Tater [the] Tot. At 16 Tater has come into her own. She’s herself a great friend and, as such, has great friends. She regularly babysits, and gives us a cut of the action to put towards college and a hoped for pick-up truck. She has a great grade point average, though her last minute cramming can be a bit un-nerving.

My wife, Kristi, and I feel pretty good about where Tater is: responsible, sometimes beyond her years, and ever more independent. So why does who Tater was and where Katie is going scare me so much?

While I’m not naïve enough to think that we could freeze Tater in time, I didn’t anticipate her development moving at warp speed. Life is so structured during the school year that we purposefully under-plan summers, relying on favorite activities, spontaneity, and unstructured togetherness to punctuate the down time. This past summer Tater was a blur. The parental pit crew changed tires, filled her up and watched as she made her way back on the track and on to another adventure. Kristi and I found that if we didn’t plan ahead, our last minute proposals to share time with Tater were often trumped by her previous plans.

Tater and I have always been snugglers; side by side with a leg on top, an arm around, or holding hands on our way to wherever we might be going. Hugs, tickles, tussles, chase and catch, and tummy farts were oft-repeated favorites. Back from Iraq I was reintroduced from Tater to Katie, who now prefers that our once warm and intensely physical relationship become a thing of the past. I’ve reluctantly acquiesced, not because I want to, but because my little girl is now a young woman. What, I now ask myself, have I sacrificed during my years deployed?

Like our parents and all who’ve raised kids before them, I’m no longer as relevant as I once was. My oldest becomes more sophisticated, as I, in her eyes, become less so. I’m no longer her link to understanding a large, mysterious world. I no longer share her complete reality; she knows more about many things than I do. I’m no longer the only man in her life.

Intellectually I knew this time would come, even relished the telltale signs of its approach. But emotionally I’m overwhelmed by the void even as I watch with admiration as shared antics with Tater become a thing of the past, and Katie, with leaps and bounds, moves towards her self-determined future.

I was raised by my parents to

see TaTer page 13

Historic Dogpatch School Being Revitalized for Families

By Heather Wagenfeld

Two derelict former bathrooms are about to be transformed into spaces that will house a preschool and community center for families. While the large outbuildings had been left to rot and attract vandalism in the center of Dopatch, they’re also on the National Register of Historic Places, and counted among City landmarks as a part of San Francisco’s oldest schoolhouse: the I. M. Scott School.

Built on Minnesota Street in 1877, Potrero Grammar School was renamed I. M. Scott School in 1899, after the powerful industrialist and local Union Iron Works general manager. The large annex and two outbuildings that were added along Tennessee Street in 1890 remain today.

The reconstruction effort is being led by Friends of Potrero Hill Nursery School, which will re-purpose both outbuildings: one into the school’s long-awaited permanent home, the other into a family center for the community. The preschool has been temporarily located in Ocean View since 2008, when it was forced to leave Potrero Hill. A whopping $378,000 has been raised through individual donations and grants, but another $122,000 is needed to complete the project. Construction will start as early as January.

“We ask our Potrero neighbors to keep their end-of-year giving local this year. This project can be enjoyed by everyone in the community; turning 300 square feet of broken asphalt into gardens and open space; the family center will serve new parents and be open for community events after hours,” said Katherine Doumani, Dogpatch resident and project volunteer. According to Friends’ founder Monica Leicht, “There is a certain joy at the prospect of once again filling the old school site with the ring of children’s voices.”

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Left: The original bathroom, circa 1890. Photograph courtesy of the San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library. Below: A rendering of what one of the remodeled preschool buildings will look like after completion, designed by Jackson Liles Architecture. To donate or learn more about the project and the fascinating history behind I.M Scott School: www.raisearoof. org.

Turkish Treats on 18th Street

By Lauren Bowne

I have to admit to having an aversion to Pera when it first opened. My feelings had nothing to do with the new restaurant, and everything to do with Eliza’s won ton soup. When Eliza’s moved out of the 18th Street space, I didn’t know how I was going to survive without that golden broth being easily accessible. But on the eve of Pera’s one year anniversary, I’m now quite happy that this friendly Mediterranean restaurant has joined the Hill’s other international offerings.

Restaurant owners Sherry Wilson and Irfan Yalcin met in 2005 while Sherry was living next door to the San Bruno and 20th Street community garden. Despite very different backgrounds – Wilson was raised on a Navajo Reservation; Yalcin in a small village in Turkey - the pair had much in common, and decided to embark on their first restaurant adventure together.

Pera is named after a vibrant district of Istanbul, Turkey. Wilson and Yalcin chose its 18th street location in part to recreate the lively hum of that Turkish neighborhood. According to Wilson, “that kind of atmosphere, one of unity and joint community is very appealing. I think that is what

we are all trying to get at in our day to day interactions here on the Potrero Hill.” Nothing says community like a warm Potrero Hill night. On a recent visit with my in-laws and husband, Pera was bustling. Sidewalk tables were full, and the front doors were wide open. We were greeted with a smile, which is standard at Pera, and promptly seated inside. Water and soft bread with an accompanying herbed dipping oil quickly arrived, perfect to tide us over while we perused the menu.

I’m eight-months pregnant, but I don’t think I’m alone in occasionally craving simple Mediterranean faire. There are times when nothing will do but a plate of grilled lamb, Greek salad and pita bread; or, perhaps better yet, a shish kebab wrap dripping with tzatziki. With Pera in the neighborhood you won’t have to go far to get your Mediterranean on. The menu is filled with dishes we all know and love, like mousakka – basically eggplant lasagna – and dolmas – stuffed grape leaves. Pera’s Turkish influence sets it apart by offering lesser known dishes, like Talas Boregi – chicken baked in phyllo – and Karides Guvec – shrimp stew.

The meze platter is a great way to start, providing an opportunity to try

most of the appetizers Pera offers. The olives and feta are great to snack on with soft pita dipped in tzatziki, but it was the Turkish treats that flanked the plate’s more common elements that really stood out. My favorite was the kabak mucver, a fried zucchini cake. The salty green patty was perfectly balanced with the fresh crisp tzatziki, cucumber yogurt sauce. A surprise favorite for me were two eggplant dishes. Don’t tell my Jewish grandma, but I never eat her baba ganoush, which

is roasted eggplant puree. Pera’s two piles of flavorful eggplant dip didn’t meet the same fate. The saksuka was a chunky eggplant tomato sauce flavored with garlic and olive oil; I scraped the plate to get every last drop on my pita. The melitzano salata was similar to baba ganoush, just mashed grilled eggplant and garlic. Pera’s Chef Muhamett must have put in a secret blend of spices: he had me eat-

see Pera page 13

website Connects s an Francisco Families to Kid-Friendly resources

By Terry Guthrie

Parents, if you’re desperate for ideas about what to do with the kids now that the rain has started and winter break is just weeks away, join the upwards of 12,000 monthly visitors to www.sfkids.org . This advertisement-free website created by parents for parents provides thousands of links to no- or lowcost family programs, events and activities throughout San Francisco, as well as links to how to get to where you want to go using public transportation.

The website has links to childcare and education information, health, food and parenting resources. Searches can be conducted based on a child’s age, the neighborhood of interest, or by date. For example, a list of the best educational and game websites can be found by going to “Activities/Cool Kid Links.” Your teen can bookmark “Cool Nurse” for health information. Enter Potrero Hill’s 94107 zip code for events close to home. Click on any date on the home page “Calendar” to see what’s happening around the City on that day. The free online sfkids.org monthly

newsletter posts important school enrollment deadlines and events, holiday and seasonal activities, new websites and podcasts.

This month you can find dropin art classes for kids of all ages, ice skating at the Embarcadero Center, or tickets to see the Nutcracker. If you need an activity idea for today, check out sfkids on twitter or facebook for daily postings and comments by your friends and neighbors. The website has a print-friendly function, and pages can be easily emailed to friends and family. Some pages are available in Chinese and Spanish. Although www.sfkids.org doesn’t include blogs, it does offer a listing of parent blogs, editorial comments on all links, and articles written by staff and local parents.

The website is funded by the San Francisco Department of Children, Youth and Their Families, working with GoKid.org. Nina Thompson, Chris Loughran and Kim Boyd Bermingham edit the site. The editors encourage submissions for upcoming family events or ideas for the “Parent Resources/Articles” and “Stories” section through their “Suggest” function.

Pera from page 11

sChools from page 2 ing the stuff with a spoon.

At lunch, Pera offers wraps and sandwiches unavailable on the dinner menu. And the restaurant is flexible with its offerings. They list a chicken, salmon and veggie wrap, but the day I went I was in the mood for lamb. The lamb burger with feta and olives sounded perfect, but it wasn’t wrapped in their homemade bread. What’s a picky pregnant girl to do? Ask! The servers were happy to make the burger into a wrap, served with a side of tzatziki and good old French fries. The only thing I’d change would be to add more sauce inside the wrap for a bit of moisture. But the side was plentiful and adequate to pour on top of each bite.

I’ll be heading regularly to Pera for tasty Turkish morsels. Make sure to wish them a happy anniversary if you’re walking by!

Pera is located at 1457 18th Street; 796-3812.

Home Delivery

similar to Waiting for Superman’s criticism of public schools, is unaccountable to other entities.

As parents and members of the concerned public, we need to revisit education’s fundamental goals. Parents have been seduced into an unthinking submission to API scores.

In interviews, Ravitch boldly asserts that testing has encouraged the dumbing-down of American students. When it comes to scores and systems, common sense and life experience show us that there are always plenty of smart people who know how to game the system to get ahead. But is that the point of education?

I look forward to exploring our public education system in upcoming articles, as well as in conversation with our neighborhood’s schools.

Linda Chang is a parent at Starr King Elementary and a former education consultant. put the group before any one individual. I’ve stressed time and again to Katie to never leave anyone out, to always make sure everyone is included; a lesson at which she’s excelled. Little did I realize that the day would come when it was I – in mourning and celebration – who would feel left behind.

TaTer from page 10

Through December 19

Theater: Match

Expression Productions presents the Bay Area premier of Match by Stephen Belber. Mike and Lisa Davis arrive at Tobi Powell’s home to interview the retired dancer and choreographer when a simple agenda turns into a multi layered suspense drama that in the end will either inspire or ruin them. See review page 16. 8 p.m. Tickets: $12 to $28. Royce Gallery, 2901 Mariposa Street. Information: www.matchonstage.com; 866.811.4111.

Community: 17th Annual Farley’s Holiday Reception

Support developmentally disabled artists from The Arc, Art Production Center and the Janet Pomeroy Center. Live music, dancing and a Winter Item Drive; donate coats, jackets, scarves, mittens, gloves and stocking caps for those in need. 7 p.m. Farley’s, 1315 18th Street. Information: www. sfsmiles.org.

December 3 - 4

Dance: The False and True Are One

Liss Fain Dance’s performance installation, in collaboration with Jeri Lynn Cohen enacting the short stories of Lydia Davis, creates a world of shifting relationships and perceptions.

Designed with the audience moving through the set at their own pace, the dance is ongoing throughout the hour-long duration, with the dancers in different areas of the space, and the actor centrally placed. 8 p.m. Tickets: $25. Z Space at Theater Artaud, 450 Florida Street. Information: lissfaindance.org.

December 4

Holiday: American Industrial Center’s Third Street Sale

More than 60 Bay Area designers and manufacturers offering discontinued inventory, samples and product overruns to make your holiday shopping complete. 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. 2575 Third Street.

December 1

Music: “Blue Christmas”

Kick off your holiday season with a holiday concert by the Captain Casual Blues Band. Blues music peppered with Christmas tunes is sure to get you in the spirit. 8 p.m. Free. Farley’s, 1315 18th Street.

December 3 – 11

Performance: In Folds Of Gold

Noh Space presents Sha Sha Higby’s world premiere of In Folds Of Gold

The show explores a whimsical journey of life, death and rebirth through images that evoke the passage of time and day, or the shifting of the seasons. Using the manipulation of handcrafted materials, textures and exotic sculptural costume interwoven with puppetry, dance and intricate props, Higby’s work provokes a sense of patience and timelessness. Friday and Saturdays, 8 p.m. Tickets: $20 in advance; $25 at the door; $12 children. 2840 Mariposa. Information: 800.838.3006; www.shashahigby.com.

December 3

Music: The Cuban Cowboys’ Release Party

San Francisco rockers The Cuban Cowboys release their new album, Diablo Mambo, at Bottom of the Hill with special guests Dead Westerns and DJ Santero. Doors open 8:30 p.m.; show starts 11 p.m. Tickets: $10 in advance; $12 at the door. 1233 17th Street. Information: 621.4455.

December 5

Music: Voice Studio Showcase

The Voice Studio presents the final showcase of its group vocal class “Vocal Technique & Performance.” Hear this group put their new talent to use at Farley’s. 7 p.m. Free. 1315 18th Street.

December 6

Theater: Humbug Holiday at the Clown Cabaret

Head over to The Jewish Theatre to celebrate the joy and misery of the

holidays with San Francisco’s brightest clowns, including Ed Holmes as the Humbug Santa and Pi, the Physical Comedy Troupe. 7 and 9 p.m. Tickets: $15 at the door. 470 Florida Street. Information: climatetheater.org.

December 9 - January 28

Art: It’s All a Blur SOMArts’ Cultural Center presents an exhibition about levels of empowerment and enfranchisement in the American West and the current status of the American Dream. Including paintings, photography, installation art, video, audio and performance art, the exhibition is conceived by the organization’s curator and gallery director, Justin Hoover. Gallery hours: Tuesday to Friday, 12 to 7 p.m.; Saturday 12 to 5 p.m. Free. 934 Brannan Street. Information: www. somarts.org.

December 11

Environment: Industrial Shoreline Cleanup

Join Sea Scavenger for their monthly shoreline cleanup to remove plastic from the Bay. 10 a.m. to noon. Meet at the Willie McCovey statue at the Junior Giants Field. R.S.V.P. to info@ seascavenger.org.

Art: G-2 Artists Holiday Exhibit

G-2 Artists live/work at the Goodman 2 building, a combination residence and artists live/work loft building at the G-2 Theater (Thick House). Participating artists include Anahid Arsklanian, Brent Bushnell, Sofia Carmi, Carolyn Crampton, Jakub Kalousek, Onyx Williams and Vasna Wilson. They will be hosting a holiday exhibit and sale, with performances and refreshments on December 11.

6:30 to 9:30 p.m. Exhibit opens December 15 through 19, 3 to 5 p.m. 1695 18th Street. Information: contact Brent at b2art@inreach.com; 821.1145.

December 11 - 12

Performance: The Revolutionary Nutcracker Sweetie

In Krissy Keefer’s Revolutionary Nutcracker Sweetie , Clara is an undocumented worker working for the wealthiest family in town, the McGreeds. At their annual holiday party, the McGreeds’ wayward son, Drosselmeyer, crashes the party and gives Clara a freedom-fighting Nutcracker doll from South Africa. Together, Clara and the Nutcracker go on a journey of self-discovery and realization during which they run into a homeless Sugar Plum Fairy, an Angel of Resistance and a Snow Queen mourning the melting of the Ice Caps. Using Taiko, Tap, Modern, Trapeze, Belly Dance, Salsa, Ballet, Bungee, Salsa and Hip Hop to tell its story, the production provides a break from the traditional holiday festivities Saturday, 2 p.m.; Sunday 5 p.m. Tickets: $15. Brava Theater, 2781 24th Street. Information: www. dancemission.com

December 12

Holiday: Santa Claus

Visits Farley’s

Although very busy, Santa has agreed to be at Farley’s and meet all the local kids and listen carefully to their Christmas wishes. He’ll be handing out candy canes and lots of good cheer. Bring a toy to donate to the San Francisco Firefighters Annual Toy Drive. 3 to 4 p.m. Free. 1315 18th Street.

December 18

Community: The New Taste Marketplace

Local foodie Eliana Roffman spearheads the second New Taste Marketplace at Saint Gregory’s. A variety of items will be offered, including gourmet cupcakes, tacos, duck confit; preserves, pickles, as well as street food and other artisan delights. Come ready to eat! 4 to 9 p.m. $0 - $10 sliding scale to benefit The Food Pantry and St.Gregory’s Episcopal Church. De Haro at Mariposa. Information: newtastemarket@saintgregorys.org.

December 19

Community: Booster’s

Annual Holiday Party

Share holiday tidings with your neighbors at the Potrero Booster’s Neighborhood Association’s annual party at Gallery 323, featuring local fine art and Dolce Bella chocolates. Potluck - bring something to grill and a dish to share. 2 to 6 p.m. 323 Potrero Avenue.

December 22

Holiday: Nabe Holiday Community Luncheon

The Potrero Hill Neighborhood House hosts its fifth annual traditional holiday meal for the entire community, sponsored by Walter and Elise Haas Foundation and the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund. Bring a toy to donate to the Nabe’s annual toy drive; enjoy holiday music. 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Free. 953 De Haro Street.

Cuban Cowboys’ Jorge Navarro will play at Bottom of the Hill December 3rd.

Michael Medici and Jennifer Bareilles, star in Match. Photograph by Colin Held.

G2 artists will display their work at the Thick House on December 11th.

Match: Emotional Blood Sport

By Dewitt Cheng

Stephen Belber’s play, Match , portrays a battle of wills and wits. Evocative of Anthony Shaffer’s literary cat-and-mouse game, Sleuth, Match is set in the less glamorous environs of a bohemian shabby-chic apartment located in remote upper Manhattan. It features three characters who break into various emotional dances or couplings during the play’s ninety-five minutes. That little apartment with its grad-student bookshelves is a no-exit tinder box.

The psychological menage a trois includes Tobi, a sixtyish dance teacher and former dancer; Lisa, a thirtyish graduate student from Seattle who is researching the dance world of Tobi’s glory years in the late-1950s; and her slightly older husband Mike, a bored and reluctant third wheel. As the interview – or, rather, inquisition – progresses, roles change, and change again. Tobi becomes more than just a theatrical ironist, bon vivant and name-dropper; Lisa and Mike turn out to have secrets. While some aspects of the play seem discordant or underdeveloped, like the fingernail parings Tobi keeps in a jar, the three characters seeking the truth through shifting alliances engage our attention and sympathy.

The acting is believable and compelling. Michael Medici brings an engaging wistfulness to Tobi’s aging dancer as he reviews his life, at first with well-worn anecdotes, and later with self-deprecation, realism and pride, as well as something of a dancer’s grace. Jennifer Bareilles’ Lisa progresses from charming and ingratiating ingénue to protector and peacekeeper. John Gilligan’s Mike moves from stoic aloofness to despair and rage, and beyond. A minor quibble: more interplay and perhaps more business with props would enhance the impressions of immediacy and danger.

Match continues at the Royce Theater, 2901 Mariposa Street, Thursdays to Sundays through December 18.

Burning Libraries Tells harrowing immigrant Tales

By Lori Higa

Burning Libraries: Stories from the New Ellis Island, the latest production by Helen Stoltzfus and Albert Greenberg, brings to life the poignant true-life narratives of immigrants to America. The show uses a kaleidoscope of voice-overs, based on more than 30 raw, unedited transcripts of interviews done by children with their elders, fleshed-out with exquisite aerial dance, puppetry, visual effects and music.

From the kitchen of a Yemenite Jewish family to a Vietnamese refugee boat, searing Sonoran desert to the tragic scene of the Port Chicago explosion, Burning Libraries gives voice to the stories collected by immigrant and migrant children, as well as descendants of African-American slaves. It’s a travelogue of sorts, but of often gut-wrenching scenes, including raging war zones, murderous military regimes and refugee camps. In current times where “thinly-veiled racism” and “rampant xenophobia” continue to exist, said Stoltzfus, Burning Libraries is a stark reminder of our unique heritage as a nation built on the backs of immigrants and slaves. The production is a tribute to those whose dreams of a better life propelled them to make their way to America.

Director Stoltzfus created Burning Libraries after culling through more than 400 interviews Oakland and Bayview-Hunters Point school children conducted with their parents, grandparents, siblings and family members. The conversations were collected as part of the Ancestor Project, which emerged from Stoltzfus’ work

Rick Collins

with Arts & Literacy in Children’s Education, a nonprofit of which she codirects. The show’s title is inspired by the West African saying: “If a person dies without his or her story being told, that’s like a library burning down.”

The performance features breathtaking aerial ballet by Azana and Susan Voyticky, lithe dancing by Jesus Cortés and Danny Nguyen, a moody and evocative score composed by Greenberg, and shimmering video effects by Ian Winters. Antonio Echeverria of Matrix II and III fame sculpted the puppetry and designed the set; choreography was created by the ensemble and local dance legend Kim Epifano, with lighting by David

Robertson. Stoltzfus and Greenberg are former co-artistic directors of the internationally acclaimed A Traveling Jewish Theatre, now known simply as The Jewish Theatre, which is located at 450 Alabama, in the Project Artaud artists’ cooperative.

Burning Libraries will be presented December 3 through 5 at Laney College Theater, 900 Fallon Street in Oakland. Tickets are priced at $25 Friday and Saturday, $20 Sunday, with $5 student/senior discounts. No one turned away for lack of funds. For more information and tickets, visit brownpapertickets.org, call 800.838.3006 or visit alicearts. org

“Port Chicago” ensemble in the killing of African-American sailors at Port Chicago, California during World War II. Photograph by Taija Lynn.

Hill Glass Artist Featured at 32nd Annual Celebration of Craftswomen Fair

By Lori Higa

Glass artist, architect and longtime Hill resident Terry Ow-Wing is a featured artist in the Celebration of Craftswomen Fair, a benefit for The Women’s Building, which is in its 32nd year. With works from more than 200 women artists, the fair is San Francisco’s largest holiday event of its kind. Proceeds support the programs offered at The Women’s Building, a community center that’s served women and girls for three decades.

Ow-Wing’s glass art runs the gamut, from plates, pens and pendants to decorative wall art, the sublime to the utilitarian. Her pieces soar above the ordinary, with eye-catching colors, shapes and designs, that combine the discipline and training of an architect with the imagination and creativity of an artist. Mastery of both kiln-formed and lamp-worked glass techniques are reflected in Ow-Wing’s impressive range. “Kiln-formed means the glass was heated in kilns to both fuse and slump it into shapes,” explained Ow-Wing. “Lamp-worked refers to the use of modern-day ‘torches,’” she

added. The artist uses an oxygenpropane set-up. “It burns clean and hot in melting glass. With glass on a torch I can make more detailed and free-flowing glass works.” OwWing’s signature pieces are portraits of people. “I use lamp-worked glass extensively in my ‘portraits.’ The torch gives me the freedom to ‘draw’ and create forms I could not ‘cut’ from glass.”

Originally from Napa, OwWing had relatives in the City and visited frequently growing up. She eventually settled on Potrero Hill, where she’s lived with husband and fellow architect Jon Pon for 17 years.

Ow-Wing did undergraduate work at the University of California, Berkeley, and earned a masters degree in architecture from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. “A long time ago, when neighborhoods had their own city planners, Jon was one for both Chinatown and Potrero Hill,” Ow-Wing said. “He had purchased the land on which we now have our home during the time when there was an old paint factory across the street, which are now condos.” Ow-Wing no longer practices architecture, the creation and production of her

glass art having become a full-time occupation.

Recently, Ow-Wing has been producing glass art using ancient Japanese kimono and stencil designs. “I’ve always loved kimonos” she said. “I particularly like the ‘haori’ style - because they are shorter in length and easy to wear any time.” OwWing started collecting kimonos in college and more recently, Japanese stencils.

Ow-Wing was inspired to make

is the next best thing to manipulating light both in color and form and intensity.”

Featuring work by some of the country’s best women artisans and fine artists, the Celebration of Craftswomen has been a pioneer in creating environmentally-conscious and sustainable products. Works in a variety of media are offered, including traditional hand-crafted items, such as ceramic and glass vessels; sculpted wood; metal, polymer clay,

glass art when she took a glass jewelry class at Fort Mason several decades ago. “It was addicting!” Since them, the artist has taught glass art, in particular, lampworking for fusing, throughout the country and at Bayview-based Public Glass. She’s participated in the Craftswomen Fair for almost two decades. “I always love doing this show because it benefits The Women’s Building and its services to women. That is really important to me,” she said.

“As an architect, we are always concerned with how light enters and is perceived in a space. If I could be a ‘light sculptor’ I would. Using glass

beaded, stone and precious metal jewelry; woven, painted silk, leather clothing and other wearables; home furnishings and accessories; fine art sculpture; photography; watercolor and oil paintings. The Women’s Building’s Emerging Artist Program was launched in 2006 to encourage new artists to participate in the fair at a reduced price.

The fair is held at Herbst Pavilion in Fort Mason Center, on December 4 and 5. For tickets: www. celebrationofcraftswomen.org; 650.615.6838. For more information on Ow-Wing: http://GlassArt. weebly.com.

Terry Ow-Wing at work. Photograph courtesy of Terry Ow-Wing.

Maureen DeBoer Your Neighbor Bringing Good Neighbors to Potrero Hill

Photograph by Emily Payne

with Community Corps from mid-January to mid-June. Stipend is

Ow-Wing’s glass plate. Photograph courtesy of Celebration of Craftswomen.

Get a Job!

By Mauri Schwartz

The View asked Hill resident and career expert Mauri Schwartz, President / CEO of Career Insiders, www.CareerInsiders. com, to answer questions from job seekers. Submit your questions to editor@potreroview.net.

Q: I’ve heard that companies receive hundreds, maybe a thousand, resumes for every job they post. Is this true? If so, how can I get noticed?

A: It’s true. Hundreds of people may apply for a single position. Look at it this way: 600 candidates are trying to push through the front door simultaneously. Who squeezes through first may have little to do with his/her qualifications. What you need to do is to find another, less crowded, portal, perhaps a side door which is situated near the hiring manager’s desk.

This is just a metaphor; I’m not suggesting you physically go knocking on the back door. And don’t break any windows to get in. But you need to conduct reconnaissance, and formulate a strategy for gaining entry with a positive reception, one that is courteous and professional.

In a previous column I described how to use LinkedIn to research your target organization, identify the decision maker, and find connections who can provide introductions, enabling you to make a “warm call.” Even if you can’t identify anyone in your network who can introduce you, you

should still make a cold call by contacting the manager directly. While not ideal, this will still allow you to avoid the crowd at the front.

There are additional ways to identify the decision maker’s name. Visit the organization’s website and look for information about the management team. Based on the job, look for the executive who heads that function. Examine the names and biographies of other officers; you may know one of them. Reading their bios may provide additional networking advantages.

For example, Fred wants to apply for a job as a benefits specialist at a small cleantech company. From the firm’s website, he identifies the vice president (VP) of human resources (HR), but doesn’t recognize her name and sees nothing in common in her bio. However, Fred notices that company’s president is an alumna of Harvard’s School for Social Enterprise. And so is Fred. Fred’s next move is to email the President, pointing out this connection in a friendly way. The message should describe his interest in the position, include his resume as an attachment, and have a subject line such as this: Harvard SE Connection or Fellow Harvard SE

There’s no reason that Fred can’t simultaneously email the HR VP. He should also apply according to the job posting’s instructions. It’s rare, but sometimes you’ll get selected this way.

Another way to identify the decision maker is to Google the job title and company name. The key person may appear in publications other than those on the website. If you’ve already identified the manager, Google his/her name to gather useful information to use in personalizing your message.

Potrero hill resident has Juice

By Michael Condiff

Even if you know Lisa Bach, chances are you don’t know her by that name. For most of the past two decades, the 51-year-old Carolina Street resident has been called everything from “the Juice Doctor” to “the Juice Witch.” Mostly, though, she’s known as Juicey Lucy.

“It’s a sweet treat being her,” said Bach, owner of San Francisco’s famous, intentionally-misspelled juice company. “I love helping people change their relationship with food. It makes them feel better, live better, have more vitality. Plus, I get to hang out with fruits and vegetables all day. They’re great company. They don’t give a s**t. They don’t complain or talk back. They just make you feel good.”

Juicey Lucy’s is a mainstay at local farmers’ markets and festivals, offering 16-ounce jars of customized, freshly-pressed juice. “Sometimes we don’t see the end of our line until the day is over,” Bach said. Juicey Lucy’s sources all of its produce from those same markets, so its juice recipes fluctuate seasonally. “If all you do is shop in a supermarket, then you don’t realize that everything has its own season, because the same things are there year round,” Bach said. “We’re out there every day, rain or shine, picking up whatever is beautiful and vibrant.” The juice is also available by door-to-door delivery three days a week. “We make it that morning

and have it at your door a half-hour later,” Bach says. “All you have to do is drink it.”

Bach operates Juicey Lucy’s out of her Potrero Hill residence/ warehouse and a Bayview kitchen. Depending on staffing needs for farmer’s markets and festivals, she employs up to a dozen individuals. For the past four years, she’s hired one at-risk youth from the Life Learning Academy on Treasure Island, which is part of the Delancey Street Foundation. “It’s really amazing working with these kids,” Bach said. “These are kids that because of economic or social conditions might never know what eating vegan or organic food is all about. So they come to me, they staff the markets and the festivals, they see how wonderful and available good, healthy foods are and it heightens their awareness. It ends up changing their relationship with food.”

A self-described medicinal eater, altering the way people approach food is Bach’s primary passion. “I encourage people to listen to their bodies; nine times out of 10, it will lead you in the right direction,” she said. “Eat what you need; eat what is necessary. But be conscious of what you eat. Once you do that, you’d be surprised how often you put things in your mouth that you don’t need or want, you’re just doing it out of

see JuiCe page 21

Hunting Dogpatch for the Best Chocolate Chip Cookie

By Bill Slatkin

Among history’s happy accidents was Ruth Wakefield’s 1930 discovery that her baker’s chocolate tin was empty. So she crumbled a Nestlé’s semi-sweet chocolate bar into a dessert she baked for guests at the inn she and husband Kenneth operated on a Massachusetts toll road. Rather than blending with the other ingredients, tiny streams of chocolate running through the dough, the chunks held their own. The result was a new taste sensation: the Toll House Cookie.

Eighty years later the chocolate chip cookie is a favorite treat in New England, the deepest part of the American South, among hard-working Midwestern farmhands, blast engineers on oil rigs in the Yukon, and among our neighbors who enjoy a bite while sipping their lattes on 18th Street or chatting over backyard fences in Dogpatch.

“Hunting the Hill for the Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie” appeared in the September View. The search now continues along Third Street.

On the Illinois Street side of the American Industrial Center (AIC), tiny Jolt N Bolt Café offers a gorgeous array of cakes and tarts, and two sizes of chocolate chip cookies. The texture of the two-ounce version, selling for 80 cents, strikes the perfect balance between soft and crunchy, with a taste that might be

a bit sweeter than Mrs. Wakefield’s original creation. This cookie has become so popular that Jolt N Bolt sells it in a modified do-it-yourself form, with a dozen dough balls in a $5.95 package that customers can bake at home. The café’s four ounce offering, at $1.75, is just as good, and

and reminds the taster of how lucky we are for Ruth Wakefield’s successful experiment. The cookie delivers a tongue-delightful tart and sweet blend, while the Guittard chocolate bits punctuate the experience with their rich flavor. I admit though, to the temptation to find fault with the cookie’s texture, because my preference is for a crispy bite rather than a soft chew.

there’s more of it to relish.

Gilbert Cab, owner of Oralia’s Café some 100 feet south, and on AIC’s Third Street side, explained that the chocolate chip cookies sold to customers when the cafe opened in 2009 were sourced from a local bakery. But roughly eight months ago Cab decided he could produce a better product. Oralia’s 2.25-ounce cookie is a great value at one dollar,

The nearly Frisbee-sized goods that come out of Selah Flint’s oven at Serpentine Restaurant taught me not to discriminate against a cookie because its surface is yielding rather than briefly resistant at first bite. The $2.50 that buys Serpentine’s 4.5 ounce and 6.5 inch diameter cookie is an investment in a melt-in-your mouth kind of softness that makes texture irrelevant to cookie enjoyment. And Flint’s product is fun to look at too. Viewed up close, the broad surface of this treat reminds me of dark gold grain fields after the harvest, with slightly protruding brown chunks of earth almost glowing in the sunlight.

About this time it occurred to me that the Third Street bakeries match-up against the Hill’s chocolate chip cookie vendors in much the same way our Giants dominated the Texas Rangers. With a single exception, the cookies offered along 18th and 20th streets come in little plastic wraps. They weren’t freshly made on premises. Only Baked, a dessert emporium that would belong in the City’s Pastry Hall of Fame if there was such an institution, provides customers with goodies that comes out of its ovens, rather than off a delivery truck.

Third Street offers much more cookie competition. Ian and Annabelle Slores, also know as Mr. and Mrs. Miscellaneous, sell a version in which the chocolate, rather than presenting itself as a series of chips, is swirled into the dough, with a taste that varies daily. Maybe the recipe isn’t followed with consistency. Maybe Annabelle’s mood goes into the mix along with the two types of sugar – brown and granulated – the dash of vanilla and the other ingredients. But each day’s production, though slightly different from the last, is no less delicious.

Knowing that many research questions can be answered by a librarian, I consulted with Dorice Murray and Abby Bridge, helpful professionals at the Potrero Branch of the public library, both of whom enjoy a good chocolate chip cookie

now and then. Murray and Bridge agreed to evaluate samples of the Dogpatch cookies with the aid of a panel of tasters selected from their colleagues. Having recently engaged in ranked-choice voting, the library staffers gave each cookie a grade in the order in which it was appreciated. Like the just concluded San Francisco Board of Supervisor’s District 10 race, the result was practically too close to call.

According to one panelist, the Jolt N Bolt Café goody looks just the way a chocolate chip cookie should; another was taken with its smell, taste and texture. Oralia’s product scored two first place votes – each of the others had one – and one of the panelists may have discovered a secret ingredient, detecting a hint of butterscotch. There was a debate about whether the Serpentine or Mr. and Mrs. Miscellaneous cookie had the richest flavor, along with a side discussion about whether one or the other was too rich.

Meanwhile, I checked out the cookie offered at the Phoenix Café, owned by Hire-Ability, the training and job placement nonprofit located south of Dogpatch on Indiana Street.

Cook and baker Phil Woods produces a firm and tasty two-ounce cookie sold for $1.25, which ranks with the best in the neighborhood. And while recognizing there’s an art to doing it correctly, Cook emphasized what he called the “exact science” of using fresh ingredients in the precise amounts, baked at the ideal temperature for just the perfect amount of time. Those specs remain a trade secret.

After this long, arduous and flavorful odyssey, I found that there was no definitive answer as to the best chocolate chip cookie in Dogpatch. Perhaps it’s all a matter of personal taste and preference. Maybe with the awareness of not knowing I’ve achieved a greater level of wisdom. Naw; it’s just a sugar rush.

That’s the way the cookie crumbles. Photograph by Bill Slatkin.

Phil Woods, baker at Phoenix Cafe.

Photograph by Bill Slatkin.

By Regina Anavy

Four Wounded by Gunfire on halloween

A three-year-old girl, 20-yearold man, 24-year-old woman, and 52-year-old man were wounded by gunfire on October 31, at 25th and Connecticut streets, from gangrelated violence. All victims were treated at San Francisco General Hospital and are expected to fully recover. The incident is still under investigation.

City hopes for Community Consensus on bridge Closure Proposal

At an October meeting held at Downtown High School, 693 Vermont Street, the idea of installing gates for late-night lock-down of the pedestrian bridges at 18th and San Bruno Avenue and 22nd and San Bruno Avenue was discussed. The proposal originally came from a call to the City Attorney’s anonymous tip line, in reaction to the stabbing and robbery of a woman walking alone in the area late at night. The idea is based, in part, on the assumption that criminals can easily flee from Potrero Hill over the bridges into the Mission District, where they tend to disappear. However, there’s no guarantee that locking the bridges at night would prevent crime. Such a strategy would also force late-night pedestrians entering or leaving the Hill to walk under the freeway along 17th Street, which could be equally unsafe.

Two community groups, the McKinley Square Park Foundation and the McKinley Square Community Association, are discussing other approaches to making the area safer. Suggestions include installing security cameras on the bridges, adding lights, and cutting back part of the landscaping to remove hiding places.

Before making a decision to shut-down an important part of the neighborhood’s infrastructure, City officials are waiting for a consensus from the community. A public meeting will be held on December 7 at 6:30 p.m. at Downtown High

School (DHS) to discuss the issue. DHS principal Mark Alvarado and deputy district attorney Yvonne Meré plan to organize a working group to formulate ideas for safety around the footbridges. In the meantime, Jay Schumann, 799 Rhode Island Street, has proposed “a volunteer system to walk vulnerable people to and from their cars or wherever after dark….I would be happy to escort our neighbors from their cars to their doors. If you feel the need, call me.” Schumann’s phone number is 648.8880.

homeless encampments Cause Concern

Joe Marlin, station manager at Dogpatch Biofuels, 765 Pennsylvania Avenue, reported that his bicycle was stolen, and that other businesses near 22nd Street have had problems with theft. “There is a homeless encampment under the 280 freeway,” he said. “They have a fortress there, with ladders going up into the structure.” Marlin witnessed his bicycle being hoisted up a ladder; when he went to investigate, he noticed broken bicycle locks on the ground. “Are those passages capable of being closed?” he asked.

According to Robert Salazar, California Department of Transportation Regional Manager for San Francisco County, San Mateo County and Santa Clara County, “There’s a whole community up there. If you notify us we can schedule a sweep. We have to post the area and take pictures without touching anything. For 72 hours we have to let them stay there and collect their belongings and move on. Then we come back in with the California Highway Patrol. If there’s anything left we have to bag it up, box it, and hold it for 90 days, and then we clean the camps out. We come back with the CHP, and if there’s somebody there they’re allowed to arrest them. However, they’re going to take them to court, the court’s going to let them go, and then they’ll be back in the neighborhood or down the freeway. We have become a maid service to them by repeatedly cleaning up these areas. As for a permanent solution, that’s something for society to answer.”

94107 Crime StatiStiCS

October 16 through November 15

Ladder to the homeless encampment inside the bottom of the 280 Freeway. Photograph by Joe Marlin.

habit.” Bach drinks 32 ounces of green juice a day. “I’m not a fruit girl; I like those leafy greens,” she said. “That’s where the real energy is. Fruit is the fluff, but the green juices really strengthen the body and give you that vitality for the day.”

Bach’s interest in juicing evolved from the yoga classes she began taking in 1992. When she decided to shift from a corporate customer service career, she landed on the idea of opening a juice bar inside a sample store at the corner of Columbus and Filbert streets in North Beach. Bach launched the business in 1994 as Juicey Lucy’s. The day she opened, there was a line out the door. “I thought, “OK, this is going well,’” she said. “Eventually, I just took all the other merchandise out and put in some tables and it just became Juicey Lucy’s.” A Russian artist offered to paint the company’s name on the store window and added the ‘e’ to Juicey. Bach kept it. “That’s how she spelled it and I love that it’s misspelled,” she said. “It sets us apart.”

Steadily increasing demand at farmer’s markets and festivals allowed Bach to close the North Beach store in 2002. While grateful for her time there, Bach said Juicey Lucy’s never fit into the North Beach way of things. “I was the wrong meatball over there,” she said. “North Beach is pasta and pizza and cigarettes and alcohol…a hard life. And then

there I was, the juice diva, out there with her flowers and incense and wheatgrass, saying, ‘Juice…you’ll feel great.’ They’d look at me like I was from another planet.” One day, a father pointed at Bach and told his daughter to “‘go ask that lady if she’s a witch.’ It was a little hurtful at the time, but I take it as a compliment now.”

Bach is working on a book, tentatively titled 365 Days of Juice , which she hopes to publish by 2012. She also wants to build on Juicey Lucy’s cleansing programs, which typically last 10 days and are designed to stabilize toxicity levels in the body. Juicey Lucy’s began offering the cleanses in 2006. “There are cleanses for each organ of the body,” Bach explained. “Generally, ours is to refresh, revitalize and replenish. Once you get past the hunger and maybe a little moodiness, you feel great. By the tenth day, most people feel an energy and vitality they’ve never felt before.”

As for her own energy, Bach says she can “run circles around the kids that work for me,” but is looking forward to taking a continued step back from the business and relaxing for a bit. “Juicey Lucy isn’t going anywhere, but in the last few years I’ve been trying to gain some separation between Juicey Lucy and Lisa Bach,” she said. “I have a life I didn’t have for the first 12 years of the business. Now, the markets run without me. People will still call me Lucy, but I’m working hard at cutting those ties.

I’m Lisa Bach, now.”

POTRERO BRANCH 1616 20th STREET 355.2822

Tuesday 10 am - 8 pm, Wednesday 12 noon - 8 pm

Thursday 10 am - 6 pm, Friday 1 pm - 6 pm

Saturday and Sunday 1 pm - 6 pm

Monday CLOSED

By Abby Bridge, Potrero Branch Librarian

holiday Closure

The Potrero Library will be closed Christmas Day, December 25 and New Year’s Day, January 1. On the eves of Christmas Day and New Year’s Day, the Library will close at 5 p.m.

Potrero library Children’s Programs

Baby Rhyme and Play Time. For infants up to eighteen months old and their caregivers. Tuesdays, December 7, 14, 21 and 28, 1:15 to 1:45 p.m.

Family Storytime, featuring stories, songs and rhymes. For children from birth to five years old and their caregivers. Thursdays, December 2, 9, 16, 23 and 30, 10:30 to 11 a.m. and 11:15 to 11:45 a.m.

Fun Flicks: Bear Snores On, Snow Cat, Antarctic Antics. Fun Flicks is offered every second Wednesday of the month, and includes short films based on children’s books and stories. Bring a snack! For children ages five and older. December 15, 6:30 to 7:15 p.m.

Holiday Stories and Gingerbread Fun with Felicia. Listen to holiday-themed stories and decorate your own tasty holiday cookie with Felicia Martin. Funded by the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library. Space is limited; call for a reservation. December 18, 4 to 5 p.m.

Unless otherwise noted, all Potrero Branch Library programs are held in the second floor meeting room.

Potrero library Campaign

The Potrero Neighborhood Library Campaign Committee meets monthly to discuss fundraising strategies and progress. If you’d like to join the committee, contact Mary Abler at Friends of the Library: 626.7512, extension 107 or mary.abler@friendsssfpl.org.

Please contact Mr. Keith Forman from the Navy if you want to ask questions:

Local telephone number: (415) 308-1458 Of ce telephone number: (619) 532-0913 Fax number: (619) 532-0995

E-mail: keith.s.forman@navy.mil

Or look for information on the Navy’s Hunters Point Shipyard website: http://www.bracpmo.navy.mil

Click “Prior BRAC Installations” drop-down menu, and then select “Former NSY Hunters Point.” Information and project documents also available at Hunters Point Shipyard

b ayview Police s tation Captain’s Community meeting is held on the first Tuesday of each month in the Bayview Police Station Community Room at 201 William Street. Enter through the Newhall Street door. Next meeting: December 7th, 6 p.m.

Dogpatch Neighborhood a ssociation usually meets the second Tuesday of each odd-numbered month. Next meeting: January 11th, 7 to 9 p.m., 654 Minnesota Street @ 19th Street. Voting membership is open to anyone living in or owning property or a business in Dogpatch. For more information or to join/pay online: mydogpatch.org.

mcKinley s quare Community Group is a communication and discussion group regarding events and activities, clean up days, improvement and beautification, and other concerns, such as crime in the neighborhood. No Board meetings in December. Next meeting: January 12, 2011, 6:30 to 8 p.m. at Downtown High School, 693 Vermont Street. Board meetings open to the public. Visit www.mckinleysquare.com for more information.

Potrero b oosters Neighborhood a ssociation meets the last Tuesday of each month at 7 p.m. (social time begins at 6:45 p.m.) in the wheelchairaccessible Potrero Hill Neighborhood House, 953 De Haro Street. For more information: www.potreroboosters.org or email president@ potreroboosters.org. No December meeting; comunity members are welcome to attend the holiday party on December 19th instead, see page 15 for more information.

Potrero hill association of merchants & businesses meets the second Tuesday of each month at 10 a.m. at Goat Hill Pizza, corner of Connecticut and 18th streets. Visit www.potrerohill.biz or call 341.8949. Next meeting: December 14th, 10 a.m.

Potrero hill Democratic Club meets the first Tuesday of each month at 7 p.m. at the Potrero Hill Neighborhood House, 953 De Haro Street. For more information: 648.6740, www. PHDemClub.org. Next meeting: December 7th, 7 p.m. Come and meet your new supervisor.

Potrero hill Garden Club usually meets the last Sunday of the month at 11 a.m. for a potluck lunch in a local home or garden. Discussions are held on organic, edible, or ornamental gardening appropriate for Potrero Hill’s microclimate. Call 648.1926 for details.

s tarr King openspace The next Starr King Openspace Board of Directors Meeting is on Wednesday, December 15th, 6:30 p.m. in “Bungalow

A”, at Starr King Elementary School, 1215 Carolina Street (enter at the side yard gate at Coral Road between Carolina and Wisconsin). Board meetings are open to the to the public. While time will be set aside for public comment, the Board may reserve some agenda items for closed session discussion. The Starr King Openspace Volunteer Work Day is held on the 3rd Saturday of each month, excluding holidays. Next Volunteer Work Day: December 18th, 9 a.m. to noon. Meet on the Openspace along Carolina Street, across from Starr King Elementary School. For more information: www.starrkingopenspace.org; email the Board of Directors at starrkingboard@gmail.com; voice mail 415-6336-SKO (756).

art and music

ATTENTION ARTISTS Goat Hill Pizza is looking for local artists to show their work at the restaurant. Please call Alicia Wong at 415.641.1440 if you are interested.

business services

GRAPHIC DESIGN/PROMOTION FOR YOUR BUSINESS Web sites new and updates. Ads, Logo/Identity, Display, Brochure, Sell Sheet, Flash Animations, more. On the Hill. www.jcarpinelli.com 415 282-5516. Community Activities

Community services

SENIORS (60+) - DON’T EAT ALONE!

Join us for daily lunch and add to your social life. Mon-Fri, hot nutritious meals-your first time with us you get a free lunch! Bingo, cards, birthday celebrations, special events, and other activities. For more information, call Dolores Maghari at 415.826.8080. PH Neighborhood House, 953 De Haro St.

health, healing & beauty

HOLISTIC CLINIC OPEN HOUSE Sunday, 12/12 from 2-5 p.m. Our clinic offers acupuncture, chiropractic & massage

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therapy. Cinda van Lierop L.Ac & Patricia Watters L.Ac will give complimentary ear acupuncture. 20% discount coupons for chiropractic treatment! Delicious refreshments & holiday gift certificates available. Potrero Hill Healing Arts & Sea Dragon Acupuncture @ 1317 18th St. (above Farley’s).

home services

TOM’S PLUMBING Tom has been satisfying Potrero Hill customers for over 30 years. All plumbing needs handled promptly and efficiently at a very low cost. Keep it local and call Tom Keats: 415-824-3538.

HANDYMAN EXTRAORDINAIRE! 20 years experience repair, remodeling. Elec, plumbing, light fix. Anything doors! Double-hung windows. Cabinetry, Decks, staircases MMcQuate@gmail.com. Mike (415) 308-2380.

E M S PLUMBING Licensed contractor for your plumbing needs. Selling your home and need to replace toilets? 4th generation Potrero Hill resident. Doing it right the first time! ED 596-0883 Lic#945019.

J. A. EMMANUEL CONSTRUCTION

License #861994 is organized to provide service with optimum efficiency and flexibility. Quality work with experience in residential construction can help make

your dreams a reality. New construction, house addition, remodeling and conversion. House, apartments, condos, kitchen, bathroom & more. Reasonable rates. All insurance necessary for the projects. Call 415.902.2469 for FREE ESTIMATE or visit www.jaemmanuelconstruction.com.

180 COLOR & DESIGN Our philosophy at 180 Degree Design is to use color to transform home and business spaces in ways that work for you. Choosing the right paint color can be extremely frustrating for many people, we can help you avoid costly mistakes and achieve the best results for the interior or exterior color of your home or business. Contact us 415285-3014 http//:www.180color.com.

HOMEOWNERS, “THINKING GREEN”

I am Robert Forrer of Baywolf Construction (license#927335) and I can provide an energy use analysis of your home. I have 30+ years of experience in remodeling and building energy conserving spaces. As a carpenter and general contractor I have working relationships with quality skilled people in many trades including PV solar. P# 401-0281, baywolfconst@ mindspring.com.

housekeeping

CLEANING PROFESSIONAL 25 years

Experience. Apartments, homes, or offices. Roger Miller, 415-664-0513 or 7944411 9a-5p.

DO YOU NEED HOUSECLEANING? We will do it for you. Call Sara & Marco 4153108838.

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rentals

CHARMING GARDEN APARTMENT

One BR, 2-night minimum. Fireplace, patio, deck, French doors. 415.641.4488 ACTIVSPACE FOR ART, HOBBY & BUSINESS. Rent from $395 a month utilities included. Private, Secure, Affordable, 24/7 access. Call Tama for further details 415-355-1515.

SPACIOUS AND BEAUTIFUL Furnished guest garden apartment. Private. 1/2 blk. to restaurants. Non-smoking. 2 people. 415-861-3208.

Technology services

STEREO REPAIR / HOME THEATER INSTALLATION Gene’s Sound Service offers expert component-level repair and installation of audio, video and home theater systems. On-site service with convenient day, evening or Sat appointments. Many local references. “Gene’s honest and knows his stuff. Give him a try.” Bobby McFerrin. Call Gene at 415-3771258. More info at www.genessoundservice.com

COMPUTER PROBLEMS DRIVING YOU BUGGY? Problems fixed! 25 years of industry experience. Personal IT consulting to small businesses or busy professionals. We can install and/or help shop for computer/network/printer or setup/ troubleshoot wireless networks. If you’re not technical, don’t worry we are. Rob 415.244.3305 rob@sfcomputech.com