This is what I got just now in response to my email query to Parks and Recreation:

RE: Info on the Farmers Market Civic Center Change

Yahoo/Inbox

• 

  RPDInfo, RPD (REC) <rpdinfo@sfgov.org>

  To:Tina Martin

  Wed, Aug 30 at 4:57 PM

  Hi Tina,

   

  Thanks for your feedback.

   

  Rec and Park understands change is hard, that’s why we’re offering a ton of city support to make sure the farmers’ market can succeed. The new Fulton Plaza site, just across the street from UN Plaza, will include things like dedicated vendor and staff parking and increased parking enforcement to ensure spots are not taken by non-vendors; overflow space at Civic Center Plaza; and monitored loading zone for restaurants picking up large orders. Also, security assistance will be provided through Civic Center Community Benefit District ambassadors, Urban Alchemy, SFPD, Sheriff’s Office and Park Rangers. Additionally, there will be free customer parking at Civic Center Garage—something that UN Plaza lacked.

   

  The space at Fulton Plaza location is actually larger than the market’s footprint at UN Plaza. The UN Plaza location covered just 30,000 square feet, while the new Fulton Plaza space affords 40,000 square feet. At the height of the season, the Heart of the City Farmers Market has 70 stalls, and the new location across the street can accommodate all of them.

   

  This move is not a last-minute plan. Rec and Park and the Civic Center Community Benefit District have been in conversation with farmers market stakeholders about a proposed move for the past four months, meeting more than a dozen times since April 10. The CCCBD team has spent countless hours ensuring the farmers market’s move to Fulton Plaza is a better experience for vendors and customers.

   

  Best,

   

  SF Rec and Park

It was so hot at the Farmers Market, where this rally was taking place, that I got a message on my iPhone showing a thermometer and saying that I needed to cool off my iPhone before it could be used again.  Fortunately, Gloria Sanchez, a very thoughtful activist I know from OWL (Older Women's League) had given out frozen water sticks, so I pressed mine against my camera and got it working again!

A camera man/reporter from Channel 5 (KPIX?) was there, and when he asked to interview someone a woman volunteered.  "Why are you against this move if it's just a block away?" he asked.  Maybe she didn't understand English, or maybe she didn't understand the issue, but she replied, "I love this market, and they're closing it down."

Just as I was whispering to Barry Hermanson (a Green Peace activist I last saw this month at the rally against giving Waymo and Cruise driverless cars free reign before the vote by the California Public Utilities Commission) that she shouldn't say they're closing it because that gives less credence to the cause, the guy leading the rally, David Elliot Lewis said, "Let's be clear.  They're not closing it down." Then he went on to say what they were doing that threatened the Farmers Market.  

Among the speakers were David Lewis Elliot, a farmer who showed us a news clipping pertaining to her husband, also a far long ago, Jan H...a founder of the Farmers Marke (back in Mayor Feinstein's time), Steve Pulliem, the Executive Director of the Farmers Market, Supervisor Aaron Peskin, Supervisor Dean Preston, and a woman named ?  I hope this will be reported in the Channel 5 news because I'd like more names! The woman dressed as a grape was particularly articulate.  A woman wearing a Parks and Recreation scarf (on this hot, hot day!) said the equivalent of "Screw them" in reference to Parks and Recreations, whose purview the Farmers Market is not.  Willie Brown was coming out of City Hall during the rally.  I also saw a masked woman I think may have been Izekiel Romano, Betty Traynor, and Carol Jean Wisnieski.  More later...
 

 I want to support the Farmers Market at the Civic Center in San Francisco, and I plan to go to the rally today and then to City Hall for the press conference afterwards.  But I wonder about the way it's being promoted with "City relocating and downsizing..." because this 42-year Heart of the City market is being moved one block west at Fulton Plaza, a location larger by 10,000 square feet, according to Daniel Montes, the spokesperson for Parks and Rec.

I think the demands are good if the change really means what's implied here.  Will they have to park their vehicles off site, or will that 10,000 square feet more of space make it possible for them to park where they've always parked--behind their booths? Will the infrastructure be so different?  Will they need new canopies and stronger weights for them?

1. 6-month pilot with benchmarks that can measure the success or failure of project/relocation.
2. Extra security for vehicles parked off site.
3. Adequate infrastructure including running water, sufficient lighting for early morning set up, anchors to tie down canopies.
4. Financial compensation to farmers for the burden/costs of the move. (Costs could include extra weights for canopies, new canopies since some are not strong enough for wind without tie downs, dollies, carts, extra help for unloading/restocking and loading)
5. Allocated space for market/vendor expansion to financially sustainable levels.

David Elliot Lewis, who's co-chair of the Tenderloin People's Congress, is the main organizer of the rally, according to the SF Examiner.

Steve Pulliem, the executive director of the Farmers Market, isn't attending the rally and doesn't officially support it.  But he's the one who's come up wit the demands.  Some farmers are alarmed because they were told it would be a pilot project for 6 months, and now they're saying two years.  

 

There's such a short distance from the Murphy Windmill to the Beach Chalet to the Wilhelmina Windmill, and they're all worth seeing!  The Murphy Windmill is said to be the largest of its kind in the world, and  "The Murphy Windmill and Dutch Windmill were said to have pumped up to 1.5 million gallons of water every day, transforming the existing sand dunes into a green oasis," reports the write up at this link:

https://noehill.com/sf/landmarks/sf210.asp#:~:text=The%20Murphy%20Windmill%20is%20commonly,dunes%20into%20a%20green%20oasis.

The AFT 2121 Retirees Chapter went to all three this past Friday, August 25, 2023.

 

 Sundown Cinema at Dolores Park last night was a feel-good affair, especially if you weren't intent on seeing the movie being shown, MAMMA MIA. It was truly shown but seen by only a few thousand because of the masses passing by trying to find a spot and the many funny diversions. Some did sing-along, and it was nice to hear and see people in harmony!

The mood was bright, and so was San Francisco. Both the screen and the city glowed. Erika, Sandra, and I were visited by a beautiful white dog. People were lined up the way people line up for rock concert tickets, but it turned out to be the porta potties they were seeking!

 

My fascination for driverless cars turned to concern when I heard about their interfering with first responders when they stall and have to be rescued by human beings ("unexpected vehicle retrieval events"), as was the case for Cruise 177 times between January 1st and July 18. We don't need more cars on our street. There are over 100,000 human ride-hail drivers in SF. We need to support public transit!

I found out about this rally from the new head of Transit Justice, Shaya French, who spoke at the rally today. I spoke too after a self-declared communists I recognized from the defense of the ArnautauffMurals at Washington High School.

Unfortunately, after the rally this morning and 5 or 6 hours of comments, the California Public Utilities Commission voted to give driverless cars more berth.

On the positive side, demonstrations are good meeting places, and I saw Elaine and Phil Pasquini and met Martha Hubert, who was artfully writing messages in chalk.

"What the city urgently needs is a modern, frequent and efficient public transportation system and fewer cars." - Phil Pasquini

I've been taking Muni in SF since 1966--all over the city--and most of my experiences have been positive ones.

On Friday after visiting Jonathan Carver Moore's Gallery in the Line Building on Market near Turk Street, we went through the Tenderheart Restaurant on the ground floor--before they were officially open-- to the roof in search of one of those public spaces. After peering down on the roof of the Golden Gate Theater, we had some taste treats at the Rise over Run Bar and took in the view of downtown SF--beauty, opulence, and misery. (No misery shown here. You can find it on your own.)

 

 

Thanks to an article by Tony Bravo, I learned about Jonathan Carver Moore's Gallery in time to suggest it as part of a birthday for a friend, Leslie Simon, who co-created the Museums Study course at City College of SF.  Jonathan Carver Moore is very charming and even offered us a glass of prosecco.  I'd made an appointment to be sure it would be opened this past Friday, but maybe it would have been anyone.  Among those coming in while we were there was Abram Jackson, the de Young Museum's new director of interpretation.  Leslie had read his article on "Words Matter."

https://www.famsf.org/stories/words-matter

Here, too, is the article by Tony Bravo.

https://datebook.sfchronicle.com/art-exhibits/jonathan-carver-moore-gallery-18195644

 

Lily Janiak's article on theaters in this area, "Creative pivot eyed as subscriptions plummet," appeared in today's paper.  

https://datebook.sfchronicle.com/theater/bay-area-theater-subscription-18197863

 I wrote to her to thank her for this.

Dear Lily Janiak,

Your article on the SF Playhouse as an outlier in the sense of their having kept their subscriptions steady between July 2019 and this past July really resonated with me, a subscriber.  I love their "Empathy Gym" words in the room we go in an hour before performances, and it's fun to make fools of ourselves posing with the life-size chorus line or whatever they have there to represent the present show.

For years the staff has been very responsive to special needs.  The person I subscribe with needs an aisle seat, and they never make us feel that any special request like that is annoying.  They really do have that "special sauce" someone refers to in your article, and they exude warmth.  Bill English also writes very thoughtful pieces for the playbill, and the person who introduces each performance (maybe you know her name; I can't remember) does it with humor while reminding us how important it is to support live theater.   

I have to admit that when I get the survey asking, among other things, whether the play added to my understanding of people who are different from me, I sometimes check no, but many times the plays do add that dimension.  

A former head of the Theater Department at CCSF (a department now decimated, I think) said that the SF Playhouse was his favorite one in the area.  It's mine too.

Thank you for caring about theaters whether they're my favorite or not!  The SF Chronicle is very lucky to have you.

Tina Martin