Three City Hall Murders: Moscone, Milk, and HANC.

Last night, 12-2-2010... there was an act of Attempted Murder, at City Hall, San Francisco.
The S.F. Recreation and Park Commission did it, with malice aforethought, at the order of the Mayor. They voted 7-0 to replace the 35 year old HANC Recycling Center with a Community Garden, at the "Frederick and Arguello and Lincoln" plot of land, adjacent to the west end of Kezar Stadium.

Since the HANC Recycle center had served the needs of the Inner Sunset, Haight Ashbury districts..since 1974...you would have expected this to be the culmination of a long process of this City Commission either finding that the Center was not any more needed, ..or that it was no longer fit to operate at its site, for specified and verified reasons, like noise, pollution, or whatever.>.... If you had assumed this, you were wrong. The Commission acted without any such procedure. Last night's Agenda item #12 was solely about "designing the Community Garden to go where the Recycle Center now is... So, in spite of the murder of the Recycle Center being a foregone conclusion. close to 200 folks came, most to defend the "Dead Recycling Center Walking"...

It was said that "Curbside recycling collection eliminates the need for th HANC Center.Well, 3,000 customers a month, use the HANC center, so one assumes that they need more than the trash company recycling pickup.
The Commission found, nevertheless, that since the trash company does weekly curbside recycling collection..that that should suffice..

This is like the Library Commission closing all the Branch Libraries, because of a "weekly bookmoblie service" to homes.

2) Some opponents of HANC said that the Center is an Industrial Use, not compatible with a Park. They, however, are ok with a monster Sewage Treatment Plant in the Park, and a "14 soccer fields complex", and an Auto Body Repair shop at the east end of Kezar, and an apartment house and stores next to that at the corner of Stanyan and Frederick, and an enormous wood chipping yard in mid-Park...( the speakers were never protesting these, save for the Recycle Center, which is more a "customer drop-off, than an Industrial Use.)

3) Some opponents of HANC said that HANC causes there to be alcoholics sleeping in the Park, who collect "deposit containers", and sell them to HANC. They think that if HANC is gone,so will be these folks. This is a case of "confusing 'correlation' with "causation"...The fact is: if HANC goes away, there will be some store nearby to buy back the empties. The Park will still be the same desirable place to sleep and gather the empties, which will be then sold in the Inner Sunset or Inner Richmond, or the Haight... This fact was lost on those who think "HANC causes alcoholics in the park" folks. ...

The environmental benefits of HANC, the economic benefits.... all were mentioned by speakers, but none had been investigated, aforehand, by RecPark staff, while in the midst of plotting the murder of this 35 year old Citizen HANC...


Mayor Newsom is moving on to bigger and better things, next month. He will be the state's Lt. Governor. This execution, at his order, will serve notice across the state, that he is only to be disputed at risk of life, limb, and recycle center. (HANC has occasionally differed with Mayor Newsom on civic matters...)

This was not a skewed process, from the start, as sometimes happens in City Hall.
This was a "totally screwed process", as the coffin screws and lumber were ordered long ago, and last night was, in reality, a Wake for the dead, only the Seven Samurai Commissioners had not formally announced that, and had proceeded to "Lets design a garden where the recycle center was".

So, we only have the hope that the Supervisors, while selecting an Interim Mayor, will stipulate that that person give HANC an interim Lease of at least a year, and that a Joint Committee be formed to evaluate the importance of the HANC Center, and how to fix anything that might need fixing.. If noise needs to be muffled, it can be done, etc. Maybe there should be a regular way for critics to be heard by a neutral panel, and dealt with, so that the record is not later subject to being exaggerated or distorted. ...This "lynching" should never have happened. In fact: there should be a "HANC type" recycle center in each Supervisorial District...

True Confessions: I am not neutral.... I blame it all on my wife. She and her 4 women friends, in 1970, founded R.E.A. (Richmond Environment Action) at USF. I got involved there, in 1973, through 1996, when USF reclaimed the land for teacher housing.. I met Ed Dunn, Sr. then, and REA then helped him with $$ and labor and advice.. to open HANC Recycling in 1974..

We jointly caused the opening of about 10 Community Recycle Centers within a few years, and saved the City from committing all its trash to the proposed BIG TRASH INCINERATOR, opposite to Candlestick Park.... Had that gone through, we would not be claiming such "City success at total recycling",...while at the same time our dear RecPark Commission is trying to kill it.

No matter how you slice it: This was a pre-meditated deed, unappealable to the Supervisors, or the Permit Appeals Board, and a sad beginning to this year's Winter Solstice events.