"Credit Rob Anderson for the cars"

H. Brown wrote:

I went to Golden Gate Park on Saturday and boy was it jammed with people on foot...and cars. Credit Rob Anderson for the cars. Rob never saw a rich person or a car that he didn't love on sight. He pushed hard against neighborhood interests who[sic] were trying to stop a Warren Hellman garage to house 800 cars under Dede Wilsey's[museum?] Rob said her step-kid who wrote an expose of her was just "a spoiled brat." He's supportive of a proposal by the Brannan family to add another garage for 162 cars beneath a chain store and market rate apartments along the footprint of the old Cala at Haight and Stanyon[sic]. Toss in the UC Medical garage 2 blocks over and you'll have parking for over 2000 cars within 300 or so yards from the Stanyan Street entry to the park. Think that's good for the air or pedestrian safety? Anderson doesn't care. He also supports the Wilsey plan to repeal the Sunday "no car" respite that has been such a success for the past 20 odd years.

I "pushed hard against neighborhood interests" over the garage under the Concourse? In fact the opposite is the case, since Brown's anti-garage friends first pushed the idea of a tunnel from Lincoln Blvd. to the Concourse as the only legitimate southern entrance to the garage as per 1998's Proposition J. Fortunately, both the Concourse Authority and Judge Warren agreed that a tunnel would tear up the neighborhood on the south side of Golden Gate Park. 

The fall-back position for Brown's political pals---who, not coincidentally, were/are anti-car bike zealots---was to make the northern, Fulton St. entrance to the garage the only entrance, scrubbing the essential inside-the-park entrance now located on Academy Way. Fortunately for the park and the neighborhood in the Fulton St. area, the court also rejected that dumb idea. But the thing about city progressives is that, in their minds at least, they always support the neighborhoods, even if the facts don't bear that out.

There is no "anti-pot panic" in SF, created by Arthur Evans or anyone else. Supervisor Mirkarimi carried the ordinance that began to impose a regulatory system on the pot clubs in SF for the first time last year, even though California's medical marijuana initiative was passed by the voters way back in 1996. Nor did the city's initial rejection of a pot club near Fishermans Wharf reflect anything more than a consensus that neighborhoods should be able to veto the location of a new pot club. Brown's alleged concern for the neighborhoods apparently doesn't apply when it comes to locating pot clubs.

I don't know any rich people, except for my landlords, who are indeed lovable people.

I called Dede Wilsey's kid a "crybaby punk," not a "spoiled brat." To me anyone who writes a book complaining about his mother qualifies as a crybaby. Tell it to your therapist, pal.

On the old Cala site at Haight and Stanyan: If another supermarket is going to be located there---with housing on top, like the Albertsons at Fulton and Masonic---of course an underground parking garage makes sense, since both residents and shoppers will need it. Does Brown think all the prospective shoppers and residents should park on neighboring streets? Hard to see how that helps the neighborhood Brown is allegedly so concerned about.

Brown's fantasy about turning SF into another Amsterdam is just the sort of "progressive" attitude---usually unspoken---that Arthur Evans, and a lot of other people in the city, are concerned about. More drugs and more hookers, not exactly a bracing vision for the future of our city.

I do not support doing away with car-free Sundays in the park, but I do oppose the car-free Saturdays idea.

I deleted Brown's ugly personal attack on Arthur Evans, who is a more serious writer on public policy in SF than Brown has been or ever will be. In fact, Brown is giving substance abuse a bad name, since, judging from his sloppy, fact-free essays, he writes while drunk/stoned.

H. Brown wrote:

I told you so. I told you so. I told you so. I told you that although Ross Mirkarimi had the best intentions in the world when he worked to write legislation regulating the local distribution of medicinal marijuana...warned you that putting control over pot clubs under the jurisdiction of the Planning Department (particularly that asshole, Larry Badiner) would only wind up with Newsom's Republican appointments to the Planning Commission and the Board of Appeals...would end up with them killing the clubs one at a time. Well, the first club has bitten[sic] the dust. That would be the Green Cross which proposed to operate in a tourist area (about all that was available given the amendments to the legislation added by Republican surrogate, Sean Elsbernd)...proposed to operate near Fishermans' Wharf.

Opposition to which it was nuts to deny, if you think at all. I mean, do you think that people go to Amsterdam to look at the neat wooden shoes? Fuck no, they go there to get legal pussy and pot. They come here for much the same reasons...They come here to party, just like they come to Amsterdam and we should be encouraging that...So, the Mirkarimi legislation empowered the most reactionary commissions in the government (Planning and Appeals) to control pot clubs, then he and Newsom turned a blind eye while Mitch Katz cut the City Pot Card program out the City budget and gave control of cards to the Republicans who run the State. And now, if you get a card (many, many people have opted out)...if you get a state card, they get your name and address and your doctor's name and address and on and on...all the information goes to the State and that means DEA and many more.

These guys[Rob Anderson and Arthur Evans] are my inspiration. I mean, really. A gadfly really can derail a train...Arthur has succeeded in creating an anti-pot panic that culminated in the denying of a permit to do business for the first pot club to reach Badiner at the Planning Commission (Green Cross---perfect management---all "t"s crossed and "i"s dotted and still no permit). Only 5 of the remaining 30 clubs have applied for permits. You may expect them to get the same treatment because Newsom appoints conservative Republicans to his commissions (and he doesn't even know it). Anyway, it's gonna be back to Delores[sic] Park and the gangs to buy your medicinal pot, grandma. The pot clubs are going away...

I went to Golden Gate Park on Saturday and boy was it jammed with people on foot...and cars. Credit Rob Anderson for the cars. Rob never saw a rich person or a car that he didn't love on sight. He pushed hard against neighborhood interests who were trying to stop a Warren Hellman garage to house 800 cars under Dede Wilsey's[museum?] Rob said her step-kid who wrote an expose of her was just "a spoiled brat." He's supportive of a proposal by the Brannan family to add another garage for 162 cars beneath a chain store and market rate apartments along the footprint of the old Cala at Haight and Stanyon[sic]. Toss in the UC Medical garage 2 blocks over and you'll have parking for over 2000 cars within 300 or so yards from the Stanyan Street entry to the park. Think that's good for the air or pedestrian safety? Anderson doesn't care. He also supports the Wilsey plan to repeal the Sunday "no car" respite that has been such a success for the past 20 odd years.

I was in the park this past Saturday and I saw lots of traffic congestion and lots of people and the two don't go together. I also saw something else. Two somethingelse's[sic] actually. First, was David---what's his last name? father of skaters in Golden Gate Park? used to have a show on channel #29 Access and they drove him off? Anyway, David is a big supporter (along with 80% of City) of "Healthy Saturdays" closures of the park. We had that in the bag a month or so back until Bevan Dufty had a drink with Dede Wilsey and changed his vote to support a Newsom veto of Jake McGoldrick's Saturday Closure[sic] to cars (a failed Gonzalez initiative). David was there with an informational table manned by "Healthy Saturdays" supporters. That was just great and everyone was very supportive of their efforts. But there was something very dangerous on a poll[sic] next to the skaters' station.

Warning from Gloria Young

Gloria only signs these announcements from the Board about impending meetings and actions, but it still chilled me a bit to see her name at the bottom of the flyer scotch-taped to the poll[sic]. A public hearing or invitation for public comment regarding changes to the Sunday closure law. Oh yeah, Wilsey and Anderson and Newsom and Dufty are not happy with just killing the Saturday closure proposal. Nope, they used Michela-Alioto-Pier to front opposition to Saturday closure on a disability access basis (no, Pier didn't show pictures of a burning World Trade Center in her presentation)...and, she didn't just double-cross the Board into accepting amendments to the Saturday closure that included allowing anyone into [the] park with [a] disabled placard (there are 23,000 of them in town and all of the rich have them)...she extended the requirements to the venerable Sunday closure as well. Expect to see cars in the park on Sunday soon.

Critical Mass: "Anti-Car Bicycle Lunatics"

A correspondent writes:

It's amazing that the anti-car bicycle lunatics are still permited to stage a monthly obstructionist bicycle circus on our city streets. The cops should arrest them for mayhem! CM is organized and promoted by the socialist SF Bicycle Coalition, along with their violent anarchist friends. Don't give them money or participate in their anti-car nonsense. The SFBC is a nutty bicycle organization dedicated to the idea of eventually banning cars in SF. It doesn't represent reasonable or responsible SF bicyclists. It's a extremist group of bicycle Marxists intent on punishing the motoring public for driving cars. They want $10 a gallon gas, $100 to $200 parking meter tickets, street closures & shrinking of streets, endless Berkeley style traffic calming controls, GG Park closed off to cars entirely, a London style (Orwellian!) congestion pricing scheme enforced with thousands of ticket cameras that would charge motorists $20 or more daily to drive downtown, photo ticket cameras at all city intersections, a 15 MPH speed limit on city streets, and a $1000 minimum yearly vehicle registration fee. Their mean spirited anti-car agenda is to punish motorists for the crime of driving. Don't give them any money or support!