Mission Mission

Best place ever to watch slow, halting campaign speeches. Also, Tollie-bahn don’t surf!!

Just a reminder: the big debate is tonight at the Victoria Theatre at 7:30. It’s open to the public, all the candidates will be there, and the moderator is local media luminary Melissa Griffin. Complete details are at District 9 Debate 2008, including sponsor list and question submission form (and the above graphic).

P.S. Dude, Tom Valtin looks like he belongs in Gogol Bordello! Badass!

On the eve of the big debate amongst his possible successors as District 9 Supervisor, Tom Ammiano asked the city for half a mil to help combat violence here in the Mission. SF Gate has the scoop:

The Board of Supervisors is considering spending an extra $500,000 to reduce violence in the Mission District, which has faced a wave of violence this year. But Mayor Gavin Newsom wants the supervisors to first work with his office to decide whether the money already spent in the neighborhood needs to be redeployed on more effective measures.

More effective measures? Sounds prudent, but can it be done? Link.

Photo by rondd5.

Sangroncito found this guerilla PSA on a Bartlett Street wall: “I never knew what I had until it was gone.” It’s a dramatic piece of work, but I can’t help but feel like in a way it’s out of place in our neighborhood. Just by virtue of our collective choice to spend our time in a place like the Mission, we demonstrate that we are keenly aware of what we’ve got. Right? Link.

SF Gate just published a little examination of the District 9 supervisor race:

The front-runners to replace Supervisor Tom Ammiano are all well-known Latino men in their late 30s to mid-40s who have solid records, strong endorsements and similarly far-left political beliefs.

Police Commissioner and attorney David Campos, neighborhood activist Eric Quezada and school board President Mark Sanchez have nearly indistinguishable platforms.

Is it true? Are fortyish, revolutionary Latino dudes the rich old white dudes of the Mission? More importantly, will this be a real race? Link.

SF Print Collective is having some kind of gallery opening next week, so I was perusing their site and came across a whole series of posters produced years ago for something called the Mission Anti-Displacement Coalition. This beauty stirs up varying sets of emotions for me. Was anybody around when this campaign was in full swing? Link.

Previously on Mission Mission:

Gentrification Implications of Sidewalk Stencils

The Chronicle‘s C.W. Nevius just filed a report called Worrisome changes roil the Mission District. In it, he takes a look at homelessness and gentrification, in part through the eyes of a longtime Missionite called Pergola. At the end, they come across some of those sidewalk stencils we all love so dear:

“Sanctuary city for the rich,” one reads. Another said, “Gentrification, better than crack.”

It leaves residents like Pergola wondering how he got on the wrong side of this.

“I was going to make one up that said, ‘Poop on my driveway and I will run over you with my stroller.’ “

In the Mission, people might not think that was funny.

I think it’s funny! But seriously, it’s nice that our paper of record is taking an interest, yeah? Read the whole thing for some startling facts and figures, and insights from city officials and others in the neighborhood.

Previously on Mission Mission:

Sanctuary City for the Rich

Quoth zinzin:

there’s a lot of weird red goo on the street & sidewalk outside Bender’s this morning. the sewer grate on the corner, in particular, looks like the scene of a low budget horror film. very red, very splattery. soon it will be black and collect sticky garbage i am sure. maybe they’ll put a hose on it today.

that said, it’s much better than the car on my block whose entire passenger door is covered in an explosion of human feces this morning. it’s on the sidewalk too, which isn’t unusual…but on the car itself? couldn’t even bend over enough to get it all onto the ground?

i won’t post a pic here, i’m far too genteel as is the esteemed readership here, but that could make a frequently updated Mission blog in itself: glamour shots of human feces in my hood.

Sounds like a winner. Any takers?

The New York Times travel section spent a weekend in the Mission District and came back with a photo essay. They went to Pirate Cat Radio, Weird Fish, Aquarius Records, Dolores Park, Foreign Cinema (above), St. Francis Fountain and Mission Dolores, and were struck by the “balance between [the neighborhood's] colorful Latino roots and [its] gritty bohemian subculture.” They also refer to people in the park as “Frisbeeing, smuggled-beer-drinking multitudes.” I’ve never smuggled anything into Dolores Park. Link.

Tonight at 5:30pm:

The League of Young/Pissed Off Voters is hosting a debate between the candidates for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in District 9 (the Mission and Bernal). There’s a whole bunch of candidates, but as we all saw from the presidential primaries, it’s hard to have a substantive debate with a large number of candidates. So we’ve reviewed them all, and we’re only inviting the three strongest candidates:
- Eric Quezada
- Mark Sanchez
- David Campos

For a more complete list of candidates, see here. Asked to describe how they decided on this particular trio, the League wrote back:

The League’s steering committee decided that Campos, Quezada, and Sanchez were the strongest candidates based on (1) their experience, (2) their positions on the issues, and (3) the strength of their campaigns.

1. Experience: They all have strong resumes that make us confident that they’re ready for the job.
2. Issues: We feel that they share our views on the most important issues, including:
- Addressing the root causes of the crisis of violence in the Mission (such as lack of jobs, education and community), and reforming the SFPD.
- Maximizing affordable housing (particularly in the new Eastern Neighborhood Plan) to preserve San Francisco’s character.
- Making San Francisco a national leader in the fight against global warming by implementing Community Choice Aggregation and passing Prop H.
3. Strength of campaign: We’ve seen that all three are working hard and that they have demonstrated broad support in the community.

Some of the other candidates are interesting, but when considering the combination of experience, philosophy, and strength of campaign, we decided that Campos, Quezada, and Sanchez are head and shoulders above the rest.

The debate takes place at the Pirate Cat Radio studio and cafe at 21st and Florida. The public is invited to watch in person, or listen in via 87.9 FM or the Pirate Cat website. And it’s over by 7pm, so you can go see Drooker.