Rob Bregoff: a bike guy on housing

To: Rob Bregoff

From: Rob Anderson

Date: May 8, 2007

Subject: Rob on Rob on Newsom's Sham Website

Bregoff:

What's the relationship between my politics and the Southern states you cite? Seems like just another nasty slur, Rob. Evidently you can't engage in political dialogue without being nasty. "All the voters" who voted to build the awful new Octavia Boulevard? Actually, those elections were all very close, with those voting to take down the Central Freeway finally winning. I wonder how many of those who voted to take down the freeway are having second thoughts about what they voted for now that 45,000 cars a day are coming through the heart of the Hayes Valley neighborhood.

The Market/Octavia Plan is a "giveaway" to developers in the sense that it provides them with a number of gratuitous incentives to build in that area, including no set-backs, no backyards, and little need to provide parking spaces for new units. This will make it a lot more profitable to build in that area, as if developers need extra incentives to build in San Francisco! How, by the way, do you know that most people in that area support the M/O Plan?

I know for a fact that the membership---your "neighbors"---of the Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association voted overwhelmingly against UC's land-grab, because I was at the meeting last year when they did so.

UC has had that property tax-free from the city since 1958 only because of its public education "mission." Now it wants to cash in by turning that property into a massive, for-profit housing development. Not to mention the fact that UC lied out front about why it was abandoning its education mission at the extension property, claiming that it couldn't afford to maintain the property as a school, even though it's now spending more than $2 million a year to lease property for the same operation in downtown San Francisco!

Of course if you think the new Octavia Blvd. is terrific, nothing I say about the M/O Plan or UC's greed trip will make any difference, since you are determined to "improve" that unfortunate part of town to death.

Nice touch about the "chinless woman." You almost controlled yourself for an entire message---after the "southern" slur on me in the first paragraph, that is---but evidently it's too much of a strain for you to contain your nastiness for long.

To: Rob Anderson

From: Rob Bregoff

Date: May 7, 2007

Subject: Rob on Rob on Newsom's Sham Website

Rob, you are obviously a lemming, politically as well. The problem is that most of your lemming brethren are living in places like Mississippi, Texas and Alabama. More than a few even manage to flourish in Washington DC. Somehow, you must have gotten separated from the herd. And, BTW, the neighbors prefer Octavia Boulevard to the Central Freeway. Removing the overhead structure has improved the neighborhood dramatically. You'd be hard pressed to find someone in Hayes Valley or the Lower Haight who wants that freeway back, but I'm sure you know better than all the neighbors and the voters of San Francisco who voted twice to build the boulevard. You have failed to tell me how I can get that land that is being given away. You still haven't explained how the Market/Octavia Better Neighborhoods Plan will be detrimental. Again, most of the neighbors are in favor of it, but then they're not smart, self determined humans. Are all my nice neighbors LEMMINGS? And who is grabbing UC? The neighbors are doing our best to get a great project in the heart of our neighborhood with lots of great, neighborhood-serving amenities. Most of the neighbors are all for it, except for some bitter, chinless woman who always seems out of step with the neighborhood lemmings in our work to improve the neighborhood.

Respectfully,

Rob Bregoff

From: Rob Bregoff

Date: May 7, 2007

To: Rob Anderson

Subject: Rob on Rob on Newsom's Sham Website

Sorry Rob-I don't mean to be nasty-it's just that when you publish missives such as the one below, it becomes obvious that you are much more invested in your own unfounded ideas than anything resembling accuracy. As long as you never let the truth interfere with a your rants, expect "lemmings" (such as myself) to take great glee in hurling sharp objects at your overinflated opinions, if they bother with you at all.

Rob Bregoff

From: Rob Anderson (rmajora@comcast.net)

Date: Sun, May 06, 2007

To: Rob Bregoff (rb@3-page.com)
Subject: Rob on Rob on Newsom's SHAM website!

It's there, Rob (http://www.actlocallysf.org/index.php). You're the kind of guy who only sees what he wants to see. Of course you support the Geary BRT, because you are basically a lemming politically. Now that you and your allies have screwed up the Market/Octavia area with Octavia Blvd.---and hope to screw it up even more with the Market/Octavia Plan and the UC land-grab---of course you want to do the same for the rest of the city. There's nothing wrong with the transit on Geary Blvd. that requires BRT. It's just the latest fad for you lemmings. If your comments to the mayor's website were as nasty as the messages to me, they deserved to be deleted.

To: home@prosf.org

From: Rob Anderson

Sent: Monday, May 07, 2007

Subject: Newsom's SHAM website

Mr. Bregoff:

Your "microscopic intensity" must have overlooked the essential nature of the Market/Octavia Plan, which is to encourage overdevelopment in the heart of San Francisco based on the "transit corridors" mythology---that we can build as much housing as we want, as long as it's anywhere near a major Muni line. In fact one of the people who originally formulated the transit corridors theory has sharply rebuked city planners for misapplying it to the neighborhoods of SF (http://district5diary.blogspot.com/search?q=Bernick). The M/O Plan will encourage 6,000 new new housing units and at least 10,000 new residents in that area, which is already densely-populated with 26,000 people. And the M/O Plan includes an unknown number of 40-story highrises in the Market-Van Ness area (note that the ugly building at 100 Van Ness is a mere 26 stories), which will cast shadows on the Civic Center. Great planning! The M/O Plan essentially down-zones parcels in that part of town. Developers will be able to build up to property lines (no set-backs), won't have to include any backyard space, and, as you indicate, will discourage new parking spaces for the new units and new parking lots/garages for that whole area. This is the other fallacy the M/O Plan is based on, the Bike Fantasy---that these 10,000 new residents, and visitors, tourists, small businesses, etc.---won't drive cars; they will ride an already crowded Muni and ride bikes! Since that area is now gridlocked with the former freeway traffic during commute hours, this is terrible planning.

Another fantasy: Yes, the Central Freeway is gone from that area, but, according to the DPT, Octavia Blvd. is now carrying 45,000 vehicles a day through the heart of the Hayes Valley neighborhood. How that makes the area more "walkable" is a mystery maybe Bregoff can explain. In fact cyclists and pedestrians now have to move across Octavia Blvd. briskly to avoid being flattened by all the freeway traffic, not to mention the noise, the carbon monoxide, the diesel fumes, etc. Some "amenities"! The people who brought you this disaster are eager to compound it with the Market/Octavia Plan and UC's 450-unit housing development on the old extension property, because We Need Housing.

From: rob bregoff [rb@3-page.com]
Sent: Friday, May 04
To: home@prosf.org
Subject: Re: Newsom's SHAM website

Still can't find that blog, but that's SF politics.

I'd like to know how I can get some of this land the mayor is giving away. Do I just call him and tell him I'm a developer and he'll give me title to a nice lot in Hayes Valley? Do you struggle under the delusion that we in the western addition are not watching the development of the individual parcels with microscopic intensity? We (the surrounding neighborhood groups) have set most of the guidelines for development in the Hayes Valley area ever since we got rid of the atrocious central freeway. We're advocating a higher BMR housing rate, reduced parking requirements (a parking space is a car magnet. More parking spaces = more traffic), senior housing, complete streets, living streets, bike facilities...the list goes on.

I can't think of how the Market Octavia Better Neighborhoods Plan could be called destructive. It's all about neighborhood revitalization, walkable services, transportation choices, mixed housing types. What's wrong with that? I thought we moved here to have these civic amenities.

Read about it here: http://www.sfgov.org/site/planning_index.asp?id=25188 and hold on to those invectives until you know something.

Rob Bregoff,

radical bike terrorist.

From: Rob Bregoff rb@3-page.com
To: Rob Anderson
Sent: Friday, May 04, 2007
Subject: Rob on Rob on Newsom's SHAM website!

Sorry Rob, but I didn't see your name listed under "blogs", but I did happily notice that the Geary BRT lanes are enjoying a huge majority. And you have no doubt noticed that most of the comments have been deleted.

Rob

Subject: Rob on Rob on Newsom's SHAM website!

From: Rob Anderson rmajora@comcast.net

Date: Fri, May 04, 2007

To: Rob Bregoff rb@3-page.com

Bregoff:

Hate to disappoint you, but my blog is still listed on that site (http://www.actlocallysf.org/index.php). Could you provide some specifics on the "conspiracy theory" claim?

Rob Anderson

From: Rob Bregoff
To: PROSF
Cc: sfbike@lists.riseup.net
Sent: Friday, May 04, 2007
Subject: Rob on Rob on Newsom's SHAM website!

Department of steam-coming-out-of-ears:
He USED to list your blog, Dr. Anderson, but NO MORE! Apparently your nose wasn't quite brown enough, so you were 86'd. The mayor is trying to greenwash himself (it's all the rage, haven't you heard?) so all your nutty pro-driving/anti biking conspiracy theory rants were probably seen as a liability. I still find them entertaining, though, in a Monty Python sort of way. Please keep 'em coming! and CALL Peter Ragone, quickly!

Rob Bregoff,

radical bike guy.


From: Rob Anderson [rmajora@comcast.net]
Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2007
To: home@prosf.org
Subject: Newsom's SHAM website

Comrades:

Hard to see why Bregoff is complaining about Mayor Newsom, since they agree more than they disagree. Bregoff thinks the appalling, destructive Market/Octavia Plan is terrific, and the mayor made a point of appearing before the Planning Commission to express his support for this massive giveaway to developers. Bregoff is a Bike Guy, and Mayor Newsom has given him and his delusional comrades everything they've asked for, even appointing the SFBC's Leah Shahum to the MTA board. The mayor lists my blog in his website, by the way, even though I've been critical of his housing policies.

Regards,
Rob Anderson

From: Rob Bregoff rb@3-page.com
Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2007
To: home@prosf.org
Subject: Newsom's SHAM website

I knew it was too good to be true! If you or any of your friends have posted comments critical of the Mayor on his act locally site (http://www.actlocallysf.org/index.php), you'll find that they, and probably the category they were posted under, have been erased.

I guess there must have been a torrent of negative comments about our inept mayor. I would surmise that the website is overseen by mayor's former foot-in-mouthpeice Peter 'Baloney' Ragone, who now works on his campaign, and the rest is history.

The mayor can't solve any of the city's problems, so he puts up a website so that WE, the citizens and come forward and provide some of the obvious but uncomfortable answers, and they get deleted! Meanwhile, read about all the positive things that are happening elsewhere, along with a bit of greenwashing of the current administration, and the list of all the things that have happened that he's taking credit for.

Meanwhile, there's no mention of the spike in homocides under his watch, and he isn't encouraging us to recall him, like he said he would if the murder rate doesn't go down, and nothing about losing the 49ers.

Ah, politics.

Rob Bregoff