Yesterday I helped make signs at the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation:  “Rise up for working elevators.”  An activist resident of the Tenderloin, Luis Castillo, pictured here,  discovered how unfriendly Hallidie Plaza is to people in wheelchairs, parents with strollers, and tourists with more luggage than can be accommodated on escalators, and no one wanted to take responsibility for the out-of-order elevator there, so Senior and Disability Action will have a protest there.  Mayor Breed wants to revive this plaza, but an elevator that’s been broken for years is not a sign of progress.  I suspect there is fear that a working elevator would be used as sleeping quarters.    But haven’t Mayor Breed and Supervisor Peskin just worked together to lower the required percentage of affordable housing units?  How do we rise above that?   

Here is my letter to Jennifer Ferrigno, legislative aide to Supervisor Hillary Ronan.  I'll post a separate blog on SF's Budget Public Comment Day.

Dear Jennifer Ferrigno,

Thank you so much for meeting with those of us advocating for the Climate Equity Hub yesterday.  

I was surprised to hear that Supervisor Ronen's comments on the Fixing Our City podcast were used to condemn her rather than praise her, and I thought of her when I read today's SF Chronicle article "S.F. leaders say 'unfair' reporting of city's big problems not helpful."  During the interview she corrected the interviewer Laura Wenus' statement that San Francisco is the worst of cities ("way up there")  in terms of encampments and drug overdoses, and, after checking facts,  Laura Wenus acknowledged that the supervisor was right.  I'd really like to have the transcripts to show how right-on the supervisor was.  She impressed me as very active, concerned, well-informed, and articulate ("not faking it")  in the interview, so I was genuinely surprised when I found out yesterday that people were damning for what she had to say--taken out of context!

Soon after she was first elected and I was doing outreach for City College, we ran into her in the Mission when she and someone else were looking into possible places for a Navigation Center.  She was with us when CARA (California Alliance for Retired Americans) members were trying to help a veterinary spot on 16th Street unionize.  She spoke in the Green Room when there was a dinner and program to help domestic workers.  She's really been a genuine pro-active presence.

Thank you for all you're doing, and please pass on my admiration to Supervisor Ronen too. 

Tina Martin

As  I mentioned yesterday, I've put Poverty, by America on hold at the SF Public Library.   

Here's the link for the podcast I refer to:

https://www.sfchronicle.com/podcasts/article/soup-with-hillary-ronen-18140301.php

 This morning I was listening to Fifth and Mission, "Can we keep BART from falling over a fiscal cliff?"  What Annie Fryman of SPUR said really resonated.  I've made a request for the transcripts, but this is basically what she said:  We expect public transit to be run like a business…no other public infrastructure has to do that…Libraries get operating funding…Highways don’t operate as a business.  There's a double-standard.  People don’t stop needing public transportation when we’re in a budget deficit…

https://www.sfchronicle.com/podcasts/article/bart-muni-fiscal-cliff-18148852.php

 

Too many "Progressives,” groups I used to identify with, are trying to shame and quiet anyone who has doubts about the wisdom of letting children undergo procedures like hormone replacement and surgery to change the gender they were born with.  The words used are also dishonest, in my opinion.  If children can’t get hormone replacement and surgery, they say they’re being denied “medical care.”  They also call the gender they were born with “assigned” as if someone at their birth declared without looking “You’re a girl” or “you’re a boy.”

Today there was a letter to the editor from a mother of a transgender girl saying “Having questions doesn’t mean I’m anti-trans.”  She spoke of her love for and pride in her transgender daughter.  But she says ”I still have reasonable concerns about medical transition—safety, risks, and benefits. I’m not alone in my questioning, but I find it difficult to speak up without coming under fire or being …labeled.”

https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/letterstotheeditor/article/transgender-questions-18130495.php