What: Upper Noe Neighbors monthly meeting. "We'll be featuring many of the candidates for District 8 supervisor. Great opportunity for Noe Valley residents to get a head start on evaluating the candidates."
When: Tonight, Thursday the 22nd, 7:30pm
Where: Upper Noe Recreation Center, Day/Sanchez
Can't make it? With only a year left in this campaign there will likely be many more opportunities to meet Rafael Mandelman, Scott Wiener, Rebecca Prozan, Laura Spanjian and whomever else dreams of taking Bevan Dufty's seat on the Board.
Update: SF FYI net attended.
whoever
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post. Hope to see some of you Noe Valley SF blog readers at the meeting tonight.
ReplyDeleteDid anyone go? I'm curious - did they discuss the parking meter extension issue? The google buses?
ReplyDeleteMost amusing question: "Can each you show us your MUNI pass?"
ReplyDeleteBest alternate response "I don't have my wallet with me but I just bought a Smart Car."
Meters were discussed - I don't believe anyone was in favor of the proposal as written. Ideas discussed included allowing for longer than one hour parking and having meters that take credit cards. Scott Weiner noted the impact the current proposal would have on those who clean office buildings at night (primarily low paid immigrants). Rafael Mandelman said if increasing parking fees meant being able to increase MUNI service he'd consider it. Several people were in favor of an annual car tax rather than more nickel and diming people but apparently that's not possible. Rebecca Prozan noted that she would be representing car owners and has to be sensitive to their needs to. Laura Spanjian thought more people should buy Smart Cars.
No mention of Google and Apple and other company) buses, but there was a fair bit of discussion on the sanctuary issue.
"Ideas discussed included allowing for longer than one hour parking"
ReplyDeleteGreat idea. That's why the plan already allows for 4 hour parking in the extended hours. In theory this should include modifying the meters to accept 4 hours of payment at once, so that you don't have to feed the meter mid-flight. We're close enough to Silicon Valley that we should be able to adjust the amount of time you can buy in a parking meter dependent on time of day, but I never overestimate the capabilities of government projects - see Translink.
"Scott Weiner noted the impact the current proposal would have on those who clean office buildings at night (primarily low paid immigrants)."
Hmm. I assume he means low paid legal immigrants. Illegal immigrants aren't (legally) allowed to get a drivers license, register a car, or get insurance. I personally think they should be able to do so - without that information being forwarded to ICE - as a protection for all users of the streets.
As for legal low paid legal immigrants - seems to me I see a lot more of them on the MUNI with me than I see in cars. If Weiner's real concern is that population, he should be for the meter extension and the help it would provide for the MUNI budget. I would have pressed to see if he wasn't using that statement to wrap a progressive concern around a populist pander.
Mandelman is perhaps unaware of cuts to MUNI and that these cuts were made due to budget problems? Increasing parking fees is not going to provide improved MUNI service - we're simply hoping that the cuts in service will not need to be more draconian.
Re-reading that, it's a bit rough. Apologies to the candidates if I am jumping on a misrepresentation of what they said. This issue has been in the papers almost daily for weeks, and was the subject of 4 hours of public comment at the MTA meeting Tuesday.
You have to admit, using Smartcars to hoist up your green creds is pretty weak. It gets like 33mpg. A Mini Cooper gets that much and it lets you drive highways without feeling like you're on your final trip on earth. Compare either with a typical 150cc scooter which gets 70mpg, and takes up a fourth of parking space.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of cars like Smartcars, but the Smartcar itself is badly executed. Not to mention expensive and with the worst transmission and handling of any car currently sold in the US. Now that they've made them a bit longer, the idea of parking them perpendicular to the curb (as with motorcycles or scooters) has become much less likely to be approved.
Anyway, I'm just saying I'm not likely to vote for Spanjian if she insists of being a living billboard for Mercedes. Bright ideas like these we don't need. At those prices, Smartcar is really more of a Snobcar.
My 1994 Mazda MPV Minivan gets 33 mpg.
ReplyDeleteSmart Cars also do nothing for the parking issues in San Francisco. Metered parking spots need to be sized for the largest typical car, not the smaller one.
ReplyDeleteIs it just total coincidence that every candidate belongs/belonged to an "LGBT Democratic Club", or did our Democrat overlords mandate that a white LGBT candidate be elected in District 8? Issues-wise, they don't seem that far apart. Where are the Greens and the independents? For a multi-everything city, our current candidates seem pretty interchangeable.
ReplyDeleteanonymous - feel free to sign my signature petition. I guess I need 1000 signatures to avoid the filing fee...
ReplyDeletecan I sign it "anonymous"?
ReplyDelete