City View

Proposition D

We support Proposition D that will advance the development of the San Francisco Central Waterfront (Pier 70), which, coincidentially enough, is where we live.


From the Voter's Handbook

Historic Pier 70

Pier 70 is a 65-acre brownfields site on San Francisco's Central Waterfront. For 150 years, this site has been used for shipbuilding and repair. Pier 70 is poised to become one of the City's most unique new neighborhoods, preserving the history that helped make San Francisco a world-class waterfront city.

The Port owns the largest floating drydock on the West Coast. The Port's ship repair operation occupies a 16-acre portion of Pier70. This Port tenant provides hundreds of high-paying skilled jobs.

The California Office of Historic Preservation determined that Pier 70 has 40 historic structures eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. Many Pier 70 historic resources, including the Union Iron Works Building, are condemned. Without new funding, these resources could be lost forever.

Proposition D provides the Port Commission, the Mayor and the Board of Supervisors with tools to promote adaptive reuse of Pier 70, while preserving existing ship repair operations:

An option for the Board of Supervisors to approve a Pier 70 land use and financial plan, developed through a two year community planning process;

An optional new financing tool to pay for public improvements to Pier 70 such as:
waterfront parks, environmental remediation,
historic rehabilitation of Pier 70 buildings,
solar panels, rainwater recycling, and natural stormwater management, and
maritime terminals

These improvements will be paid for by existing City revenues and will be offset by future tax receipts generated by the development of Pier 70.

As we have seen in the northern waterfront, visitors and residents love the San Francisco Bay shoreline. It's time to extend this experience to the Port's southern waterfront.
A great waterfront makes a great city. Please vote yes on Proposition D.

Supervisors,Sophenia Maxwell*,Tom Ammiano*,Michela Alioto-Pier*,Bevan Dufty*,Kimberly Brandon, Port Commission President

For identification purposes only; author is signing as an individual and not on behalf of an organization.

(No arguments against Measure D were submitted)

Baby and Gramps

Dutch Master

Robert likes the recent New Yorker review of two new books about Han van Meegeren, the artist and dealer who sold counterfeit Vermeer paintings to the Nazis during the occupation of Holland. The books are "The Forger's Spell: A True Story of Vermeer, Nazis, and the Greatest Art Hoax of the Twentieth Century," by Edward Dolnick and "The Man Who Made Vermeers: Unvarnishing the Legend of Master Forger Han van Meegeren," by Jonathan Lopez. Van Meegeren sympathized with Nazi's, and, famously, got Hermann Goring to trade 137 ill-gotten paintings for a Van Meegeren "Vermeer." After the war, he was put on trial for selling off Dutch national treasures. His defense: "They were fakes!"

The New Yorker review can be found here.

Dynamo Donuts in the Mission

Robert checked out Dynamo Donuts in the Mission. Generally, it is as described at Single Guy Chef blog.

Quote of the Day

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."

Theodore Roosevelt