We all know anything with a “McDonald’s” in the headline is going to get some good traffic in San Francisco, but responsible reporting by Mission Local reveals that this latest thing is not really a thing:
The Recreation and Parks department confirmed that the documents, obtained through the Sunshine Ordinance, are indeed theirs. Elton Pon, spokesman for the department, said many of the contacts listed, totaling over 900, had requested information about concessions opportunities.
“We are required to include all companies that request to be placed on our contact list for potential vendor opportunities,” wrote Pon in an email to Mission Loc@l. “It is not staff’s role to determine who to exclude from the list but to include all who show interest in these opportunities and allow the selection process to run its course,” he wrote.
Carry on. Or read on if you like.
[Photo by I Heart Street Art]
Previously:
Oh Allan, your pissing contest is so cute.
“So you know, we are accepting proposals on an ongoing basis. At the end of my presentation I’ll actually give you a snapshot of the folks that will be coming back to you on May 6th. So if you’ve got a favorite food do let us know, we’ll encourage them to apply.” – http://sf-recpark.org/index.aspx?page=2507
Nobody’s pissing. I just got really excited when my Dolores Park Google Alerts were all “MCDONALD’S THIS” and “MCDONALD’S THAT,” and then was disappointed when nothing happened.
I don’t think you got the point of the piece that you didn’t link to (hence the pissing contest). It wasn’t about “McDonald’s” (hell, we can all agree that McDonald’s wouldn’t even be interested in the space), it was about the outreach. People have been condemning the process all along, accusing the Department from not doing their job notifying the public. They claimed they did their part, but the evidence clearly shows they didn’t. Out of 910, only a few dozen were local. So, yeah, you can claim it’s “not news,” but that’s not true.
The reason I used “McDonald’s” in the title was because it was a nod to Fayes, Dolores Park Cafe, and Chicken John, who had used McDonald’s as a fear-inducing “slippery slope” comparison to Blue Bottle. At the time, I dismissed this claim and fantasy, but it clearly wasn’t so.
Aren’t you talking about two different things? People were accusing the department of not notifying the public, the neighbors or neighboring businesses or whatever. And then you say, “Out of 910, only a few dozen were local,” which seems to refer to an entirely different part of the process. You do that a lot. Maybe that’s why I didn’t get the point of your piece.
Sorry, again, I was assuming you read the original piece.
“They claimed they did their part, but the evidence clearly shows they didn’t.” they should have said “Rec + Park”
910 was the number of businesses on the list of solicited businesses.
I understand both those points, and I read the original piece. I was not impressed. Mission Local’s report was more interesting, so I linked to them. You have not clarified your point.
There’s no reason the Parks folks had to reach out to McDonald’s. Saying so is very misleading.
They wrote the rules for park vending, so they could have easily excluded non-local vendors.
I enjoy McDonalds at least once a week — fries, a double cheeseburger and side salad. For like $3.50.
Its always packed with every stripe of people.
And their coffee is better than Blue Bottle.
Not to be mean, but your foot odor might calm down if you changed your diet a bit. The meal is only $3.50, but then the can of odor eaters is another couple bucks.
Pretty sure that anyone who thinks that MickyD’s coffee is better than Blue Bottle is someone whose opinions on food/beverages can be handily discounted as irrelevant.
I could be totally wrong, but I think what KevMo was trying to say is this: The Recs and Park folks claim they messed up by not doing enough outreach. But then you look at what they did, and it’s pretty clear that they did a LOT of outreach. They just reached out to the wrong people.
My view is that if instead of notifying chain fast food companies about the food cart opportunity they had notified park goers and local businesses, the community would have been involved from the start and things would have turned out very differently.
Astute!
I’ve got the point. The point is that nothing Parks and Rec has ever done, or could ever do in the future would ever be right. Obviously, they should have refused to provide publicly available information to companies that opponents to amenities in parks disapprove of, based on well, you know, the Parks and Rec government secrets code. Because the office assistant answering the phone should have done a detailed investigation of anyone asking to be on an information list before agreeing to take their information. Jeebus.
Astuter!