Wet work, Mayor visits, Serenity wins

Videos by QGI'er Craig Cannon

Pictures contributed by Elizabeth Skow and Mary McClure

Community groups call for help

Many community based organizations fade away for lack of resources.  Some Bayview Hunters Point organizations seem determined to stick around.  Two of those have issued calls to their communities and supporters to help them do just that. 

Old Skool Cafe, an organization that has found a way to build life and work skills with at-risk youth while dishing up some great eats, is reaching out to the community.  Core organizers hope their years of work and the youth-serving project they've created will be embraced more broadly.

Old Skool Cafe has style

Old Skool Cafe held a soft opening of their new space at 1429 Mendell Street on March 29th, 30th and 31st. Patrons chose from a savory selection from Old Skool's International Soul Food Menu.

Quesada Gardens Initiative's need for

Leadership High School students helped in the gardens this week.

funding went public in SF Public Press.  What started as an all-volunteer effort has become full-time jobs for several residents.  As the group nears its 10th birthday, its average annual budget of $20,000 veered into unrealistic territory for organizers who must either build the organization enough to offer them modest support or try something else.

Quesada Gardens Initiative is a community building organization, which means its mission is the kind of labor intensive, street-level community organizing that must be consistent over time to succeed.  The insurance and fees associated with building and maintaining public spaces and artwork has stretched residents' ability to pay for years. 

Many other community-emergent organizations are struggling just as much, of course.  You will find these organizations in Bayview Footprints Local News, the voice of a network of community building groups.  In fact, the Footprints Network first formed because of the scarcity of support and resources for the small informal projects that were creating change where other efforts had trouble showing results.  These groups decided that sharing resources and helping one another was the only option.

Redevelopment changes hands, Bayview affected

San Francisco Redevelopment Agency staffers are packing boxes.  Resources and leadership are shifting.  Bayview Hunters Point, and neighborhoods like it throughout California, are plunging into yet another chapter in their sagas of urban change.

"The Mayor and the City are committed to continuing the Agency's work in neighborhood revitalization, affordable housing, and economic development," said Tiffany Bohee, Executive Director of the SF Redevelopment Agency. As of January 24th, the City of San Francisco became the successor to the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency and its approved programs.  On March 1st, Mayor Ed Lee made appointments to a new Oversight Board. 

According to a recent Hunters Point Shipyard Citizens' Advisory Committee newsletter, the Hunters Point Shipyard Project Area is deemed to be an enforceable obligation.  The same is true of the Mission Bay Redevelopment Project and part of the Transbay Redevelopment Area.  Those projects will move forward as planned.

The Citizens Advisory Committee for the Shipyard will continue to represent community interests with regard to the Hunters Point Shipyard project.  

Here's what some community leaders are saying:

I believe that under the new successor agency we will continue doing what needs to be done to meet the need of our various communities in this great City. Dorris Vincent

We are entering a new era, and we must be prepared to shoulder our part of responsibility that this move calls for. Willie B. Kennedy

If you have never attended our meetings, this is the time for you to attend. Your input and advocacy is needed more than ever. Veronica Hunnicutt (CAC Chair)

The members of the new Oversight Board:

Olson Lee, Executive Director, San Francisco Mayor's Office of Housing

Lindy McKnight, Vice Chancellor of Student Development/Dean of Student Support Services, San Francisco Community College District

Bob Muscat, Executive Director, International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers, Local 21

John Rahaim, Executive Director, San Francisco Planning Department

Nadia Sesay, Director, Mayor's Office of Public Finance

Lynette Sweet, Board Member, Bay Area Rapid Transit District

Nancy Waymack, Executive Director, Policy and Operations, San Francisco Unified School District

Historic settlement for black farmers

Restoring hope for black families

By Kenneth Hill for the Food Guardians

Throughout American history, African-Americans have landed on the short end of discrimination. So, as I surfed through the National Black Farmers Association website, which is dedicated to the advancement of African-American farmers- my attention was immediately captured by a glaring banner stating, "Black Farmers Awarded $1.15 Billion in Settlement." As I processed the statement, my curiosity began to grow and my computer mouse raced to 'click to read more.'

As I sat and waited for my computer to load the next page, my mind began to explore the different possibilities as to why black farmers were being paid $1.15 in settlements. As I began to read, my eyes and mind consumed the article, reading every word, as it excited my curiosity. As I read further, a sense of gratitude came over me as I learned that the U.S government had awarded black farmers $1.15 billion on the basis of discrimination. My sense of gratitude stemmed from the always controversial topic of reparations for African-Americans.

As an African-American that supports the idea of reparations, I believe that the U.S government’s actions are just, timely and needed. In this case, the government has recognized its faults in a reasonable time, provided more than an apology for their unethical actions, and is giving black farmers that which is overdue to them.

This historic civil rights class-action suit has validated the claims made by black farmers for decades: that black farmers were systematically denied USDA loans and farm subsidies that were made available to white farmers with similar credit histories. USDA farm loans and subsidies are an essential part of a farmer’s operating budget and safety net, and this systematic denial of equal rights has resulted in a decline of black farmers at more than 3 times the rate of white farmers. Black farmers now make up only 1% of the nations farmers.

In 1999, Timothy Pigford made a claim of discrimination against the U.S Department of Agriculture, stating that he was denied U.S farming money because he is black. After being denied U.S Agricultural funds, he joined with other black farmers in a class action suit, Pigford v. Glickman. The suit claimed that the U.S. Department of Agriculture discriminated against black farmers and failed to properly investigate the claims of discrimination. The U.S Department of Agriculture only owned up to their faults through an approved settlement agreement and consent decree in Pigford Vs. Glickman on April 14, 1999, by Judge Paul L. Friedman of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Judge Friedman’s actions were just, however his just actions were cut short; not all black farmers were granted money in this settlement.

These African-American farmers kept fighting until they eventually got justice. Thousands of African-American farmers claimed they did not receive adequate council representation, which resulted in delays while filing their claims. The settlement agreement imposed by Judge Friedman on behalf of the U.S government deemed 22,721 farmers eligible, and set the deadline for application submission as September 12, 2000. By November 2010, 15,642 of the 22,721 eligible class members had received an approval from the courts to be paid. The other 7,079 eligible class members were those who claimed inadequate representation, in addition to thousands of farmers deemed ineligible, or others who were unaware of the proceeding in the initial Pigford claim.

But in due time, as America was preparing to elect the nation’s first African-American president, the U.S government approved a provision in the 2008 Farm Bill that set aside money for African-American farmers who “Farmed or attempted to farm between January 1, 1981 and December 31, 1996; Applied to the USDA during that time period for participating in a federal farm credit or benefit program and believe that they were discriminated against on the basis of race in the USDA’s response to that application; or Filed a discrimination complaint on or before July 1, 1997 regarding the USDA’s treatment of such farm credit or benefit application.”

An early estimate from the U.S government expects more than 70,000 black farmers to be eligible for funds under the 2008 Farm Bill provision. “Black people have been bullied out of their way of life for many years, and to see my friends and family made whole is a blessing,” said Isaiah Young. Though some will be made whole, we can’t shy away from reality -the high number of African American communities across the nation impacted by the decline of African American farmers seems to go hand in hand with the lack of access to fruits and vegetables within African American communities.

San Francisco’s Bayview, a majority African American district, has deep farming roots, and once played a critical role in the city's food shed, according to a report on agriculture and the Bayview by Quesada Gardens Initiative. The Quesada Gardens Initiative has compiled a detailed report of Bayview’s history with food and farming, which contrasts with the current lack of access to fruits and vegetables.

The report states that “Bayview Hunters Point is a neighborhood where fresh, healthy food is hard to find, but liquor, fast food, and highly processed food and beverages abound.” A lack of fruits and vegetables was not always an issue in Bayview; this report states that “ocean and bay fishing, slaughter houses,http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif rail lines, ‘truck farms,’ pastures for grazing animals and family farms all proliferated here, [in addition to] immigrant families raising animals, vegetables and fruit as part of the community's daily life.”

But due to many factors, including the redevelopment of the district and the U.S government’s discrimination against African American farmers, the Bayview, once a farming district, is now saturated with liquor stores and fast food chains. These convenience food outlets sell cheap foods and beverages that are high in salt and sugar, which is a catalyst to the disproportionate rates of diabetes and hypertension from which Bayview residents suffer.

In contrast to the fast food chains and liquor stores, the SEFA Food Guardians have been raising awareness by promoting nutrition education and advocating for change, in addition to gathering community input to assure that change is lasting. The Food Guardians raise awareness by educating the community about healthier food options and the importance of eating healthier, as well as linking oppression to these food issues. The Food Guardians also advocate for change by attending many health fairs and meetings, advocating for progressive public policy, and utilizing community input to create a sustainable change. Creating a sustainable change is important to the Food Guardians and essential to the growth of the African-American community.

In an attempt to insure a sustainable change, on December 8, 2010 President Obama signed legislation that renders a payout of $1.15 billion in damages to African American farmers on the basis of discrimination. On September 1 of this year, the litigation proceedings came to an end and the $1.15 billion was approved for payout. U.S. District Court judge Paul Friedman deemed this settlement to be “fair, adequate, and reasonable." We now need to work together to fight for access to healthier foods and healthier neighborhoods that are fair, adequate and reasonable for all.

Quesada, path of struggle

By Jeffrey Betcher

When I met Vivian Richardson about five years ago, I liked her right away. She was warm and friendly, quick to get involved in the life of her community, always smiling. She impressed me as the type of person most anyone would want to have as a neighbor.

That's why it's so hard to imagine her living anywhere but in her Quesada Avenue home.

In 2006, Vivian had joined Maggie Apostol and other neighbors on her block to talk about an organizing project which eventually resulted in the installation of a backyard garden. In fact, she was one of the first to express support of the effort.

Since then, like so many others in our neighborhood, Vivian has been injured by the home foreclosure crisis. But what would be a crushing blow to most of us, is a call to action for Vivian who moved back into her home, organized a march, and landed on the front page of Wednesday's Bay Area section of the SF Chronicle.

Vivian is pictured leading a group down Quesada Avenue toward 3rd Street. See the full article here.

For me, seeing Vivian in the newspaper was an important reminder that, for all our attention to positive change where we live, many folks are more vulnerable than ever. Too often, those losing a foothold here are those who contribute most to making Bayview Hunters Point a unique San Francisco neighborhood.

The cornerstone of our collective history that is about "struggle" ... losses and victories (against all the odds) ... is precious. For Vivian and many others caught between a bank and a hard place, history is a current event.

BVHP wellness strategy goes international

The Seva* Partnership, a wellness policy and advocacy project that has connected community members and medical professionals in the service of better health for residents of Bayview Hunters Point, just went international.

Two neighborhood residents, Roberto Ariel Vargas and Sudeep Motupalli Rao, and Dr. Sharad Jain, who directs the Internal Medicine Residency Track program for UCSF at SF General Hospital, delivered a presentation about the partnership to participants at the Community-University Expo 2011 in Ontario, Canada last week. About forty attendees interested in how to better connect education and work in the community setting discovered the Seva* project.

The newly revised Seva* Health Care Policy, Practice and Advocacy Recommendations was made available online so that participants could see the practical results of such a project.

The brief and website emerged from a series of dialogues with residents that Seva* hosted at several community organizations to explore grassroots wisdom about strengths and challenges residents of Bayview Hunters Point experience with regard to staying well.

The community-based participatory research process and resulting policy and advocacy tool were reviewed by an "Accountability Council" of residents, healthcare professionals and community advocates. Key findings include the importance to residents of social cohesion, a clean environment, quality youth mentorship, improved access to care, and a better response to trauma caused by violence.

Bayview residents on "Why I contribute"

Gatherings of people who live, work and play in Bayview are common near the Quesada Gardens. The gathering pictured occurred on MLK Day 2009.

At Quesada Gardens Initiative's December 2010 meeting, at a home alongside the first garden in what is now a network of projects that involves hundreds of people throughout the heart of San Francisco's Bayview neighborhood, involved residents talked about why they got involved ... and why they stay connected.

One highly-involved student liaison from University of San Francisco, and a diverse collection of thirteen Bayview residents spoke. Participating residents' ages ranged from four to seventy, were both renters and home owners, new arrivals and folks who have been in Bayview for generations. Here is what they had to say:

QGI is a model of what Bayview can be. It’s about progress.

It’s easy to support QGI. There are so many ways to help.

A contribution from community members to QGI is like giving money to ourselves. The benefit is direct.

The garden itself draws new people to the community. The garden is its own best advertising.

I volunteer with other nonprofits, but like QGI because it is local, and it gives me a place to share my talents.

Because Annette is so lovable!

QGI breeds sociability.

QGI is a good model of grassroots community-building.

We can shape the community here, whereas other neighborhoods are shaped for us.

When people live at Quesada Gardens, they can still define their own community…unlike other neighborhoods.

We include everyone. Everyone has a say. We all have respect for one another, and everything we do is transparent.

It’s about tolerance and respect.

QGI is “the commons.”

I still feel like I’m free here.

All are accepted, all are forgiven.

QGI is people sticking together and working toward a safe place to be.

QGI is a group of people who have brought together their good intention. The people who make it all happen are really special.

Neighbors coming through feel more secure because we’re out and about. We used to do the neighborhood watch-style of organizing on the block, but it never really went anywhere. Now we are actually out on the street instead of just watching out our windows.

QGI teaches by example. At USF, service-learners often report that they learned more about social justice and grassroots power from QGI than other community partners.

QGI keeps it real in a neighborhood that is one of San Francisco’s last places for people who aren’t rich.

You can give these folks who spend their time and resources to build community another reason to stay involved: Because supporters know we're here and care enough to contribute.

Recognition fuels community-building

Heidi Hardin's Jefferson Award is well-deserved.  It recognizes Heidi for decades of commitment to good works. It may also prove valuable beyond simple recognition.

Awards like this one boost awareness about important issues, draw contributors to worthy projects, and keep community-builders committed to the work.

The Quesada Gardens Initiative is a good example. Co-Founding gardeners, Karl Paige and Annette Smith won Jefferson Awards and other acknowledgments in the early days of the project, drawing funding leads and public awareness that have helped to grow the work ever since.

As the organization began to win awards, such as those from San Francisco
Beautiful and Crissy Field/Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, resident leaders came to understand how nice it is to be celebrated ... and how important it is. Involved individuals seemed re-energized, and often deepened their commitment to the work.

Those experiences, in part, led the Quesada Gardens group to establish a "Thank You Committee," a sub-committee of its Board of Directors that held as its sole responsibility saying "thank you" to the many individuals and groups that contribute to Quesada Gardens.

The spirit of acknowledgment is now a part of the organizational culture, and can be seen in everything the group does. For instance, a memorial to the founders (pictured), a beautifully landscaped vista above the main Quesada Garden, is a permanent and "green" thank you.

Neighborhood food production assessed

An estimated 10,000 pounds of food is grown in Bayview Hunters Point each year, a number that is increasing as assessment efforts improve, and as more residents begin raising food. The estimate puts the neighborhood's annual food production at about a day’s worth of what is needed to feed the 34,000 people who live here.

Download the full report

The history of urban agriculture in San Francisco's Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood runs deep, and began a century ago with the critical role that the Southeast Sector of San Francisco played in the City's food shed. Struggling immigrant families raised animals, vegetables and fruit as part of the community's daily life.

More recently, the history of agriculture here includes the origins of SLUG (San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners), The Garden Project (founded by Catherine Sneed), Girls2000 (from Hunters Point Family), the California Plant Nursery (project of Literacy for Environmental Justice), and the gardens network that is emerging from community-building work at the Quesada Gardens Initiative.

Bayview's models of food production demonstrate significant social and educational value. Those that have emerged from community-building and organizing approaches seem able to sustain resident involvement and produce strong social networks. Community gardens more closely associated with "greening" also operate as informal public forums. Policymakers and researchers increasingly include "greening" alongside other community development cornerstones such as small business, faith-based institutions, and community-based service providers. Grassroots political advocacy groups are entering the food production arena at a more rapid pace, hoping to make a practical contribution to their constituencies that also advances their general agendas.

Gardens can serve as effective entry points for governmental agencies and large nonprofit organizations to disseminate their messages. Community-building project leaders in Bayview are learning how to balance the opportunity for education and movement-building against the risk of undermining multicultural consensus and local resident investment in their projects. All social change agents in Bayview Hunters Point grapple with a history of disappointment associated with external institutions and movements.

Backyard gardens are increasingly important and popular in Bayview, a trend that may parallel the broad economic downturn, the global food movement's progress with reshaping cultural norms about food, the efforts of public health institutions working to decrease health disparities through physical activity and better nutrition, and new programming from environmental institutions geared toward the reduction of food transport-related carbon emissions.

Contributing factors to the trend toward backyard gardening in Bayview and similar multicultural urban neighborhoods may include unique definitions and experiences of "community." Grassroots community-builders understand that the days of the "neighborhood town square" have passed, and that the connection between municipal "civic centers" and vulnerable populations of people has always been tenuous.

Many residents of Bayview Hunters Point consider the physical parameters of their "community" as their own home or yard, immediate neighbors, and block-level associations. They may or may not feel safe and connected to the commercial districts and corridors available to them. This is especially true when residents experience barriers to social connection such as language and cultural difference, country of origin or citizenship status, and socioeconomic inequity associated with class, race, or gender identity.

Schools-based gardens have proliferated in the neighborhood as “seed to plate” demonstration projects at Bayview Hunters Point schools such as Malcolm X Academy, Willie Brown Jr. Academy, Bret Harte Elementary School, and Charles Drew Elementary School. These programs, which sometimes have filled gaps left by dwindling science and physical education programming, are suffering from eliminated public funding that once had been at a higher level in California than in any other state.

The Quesada Gardens Initiative is mapping assets in Bayview for the Bayview Footprints Network to model hyper-local interactive online interfaces. The group hopes to build capacity of the community's own online portal site while also serving data to citywide and other mapping systems. As a policy and practice matter, the group advocates that both community and larger groups work together to drive traffic to the most local online resources available, and to build the capacity of community-generated social and environmental change tools.

Volunteers are working through the Quesada Gardens Initiative to identify community-, school-, and backyard-gardens and fruit trees, and ultimately to record open spaces, cultural and social history landmarks, and other places of importance to the wellness of a community. The "early" food production numbers cited above are based on well-known gardens in the neighborhood and estimates derived from the Quesada Gardens Initiative's tracking of food production in its own gardens. The actual number of gardens, especially backyard gardens, is unknown … for now.

The current status of urban agriculture in San Francisco's Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood, to the extent that that is a quantifiable phenomenon, pales in comparison with its food shed history, but is an indicator of growth and potential. There is reason to be hopeful that much more food can be produced here, and that food can be produced in a way that supports the community's interest in defining itself, protecting its diversity, and putting its stakeholders in leadership.

Jeffrey Betcher, Quesada Gardens Initiative
From a presentation to the Southeast Sector Food Access working group (SEFA) in January 2011

Pictured is Tony Tarket, Bayview resident and horticulturist for QGI, demonstrating raised bed planting for USF students.

Krispy Korner Cushman in Wall Street Journal

Take a whirl around Krispy Korner Garden and you'll probably think that Bayview has gone crazy for Cushmans, those 3-wheel vehicles that look cool until you see one stopped by your parked car to deliver a ticket.

Krispy Korner member, Rahsaan Morin, is the star of a Wall Street Journal national print article and online video about these vehicles he has helped make a staple of Bayview transportation.

One of Rahsaan's vehicles, a rare Cushman with a hydraulic lift bed, was on loan to Quesada Gardens for years, and could be seen carting mulch, plants and tools between garden projects. QGI Co-Founder, James Ross (pictured) restored the body, while he and Rahsaan took care of its sundry mechanical needs.

TEDx SoMa features the power of the hug

If you have visited the Quesada Gardens in the heart of San Francisco's Bayview neighborhood, you may have gotten a hug from Co-Founding gardener and Board of Directors Chair Annette Young Smith. The hug is one of the things visitors remember most!

An old fashioned hug still counts for a whole lot, even in the emerging world of Interactivity in the Digital Future.

The future was current, and innovative ideas were commonplace at TEDx SoMa's May 21st event at pariSoma Innovation Loft, held in partnership with Institute for the Future.

Jeffrey Betcher, who works on the cusps of digital and pre-digital worlds where traditional community-building continues while the digital cloud thickens, delivered one TEDx talk about a project he directs: Quesada Gardens Initiative.  He shared the story of how his neighbor Annette, who doesn't have an email address, inspired a rag tag band of Bayview residents to change the world where they lived.

SF Weekly reported that the event "brought out some of the most innovative minds, both as speakers and attendees," and posted a slide show of event pictures by Julie Blaustein on its website.

Hug v. Tech was streamed live on Justin TV and other online outlets. The event earned over 100,000 views. Hug v. Tech and other Tedx talks can be viewed on Youtube.

Jeffrey Betcher works on the cusps of digital and pre-digital worlds where traditional community-building continues while the digital cloud thickens.  His TEDx talk includes the story of how his neighbor Annette, who doesn't have an email address, inspired a rag tag band of Bayview residents to change the world where they lived.

Innovative bid policy emerges from library project

Two pieces of legislation potentially relevant to the construction of the new Bayview library were heard by the Board of Supervisors Land Use & Economic Development Committee on April 19th at City Hall.

The new Bayview library was being bid using an Integrated Project Delivery approach, where the city hires a Construction Manager/General Contractor under expanded criteria. Under proposed legislation, bid proposals could be evaluated based on quality, cost, and workforce participation, instead of cost alone.

The second piece of legislation considered would grant bid discounts to small and micro-Local Business Enterprises that joint venture with other firms to bid on construction contracts under the Integrated Project Delivery approach. This change would provide an incentive for larger established contractors to mentor smaller firms.

The agenda is available online, and more information can be obtained from Minday Linetzky - by email or phone (415.557.4662) - at the Branch Library Improvement Program.

Seva* listens to BVHP about health issues

Photo: Participants in a program started by Dr. Risha Irby-Irvin, a Seva* team member who has just won a prestigious award. From left, Robert Dickerson, Dijon Shepard and Jamil McQuinn join Taniqua Alexander, right, and other program participants on a field trip to the set of the TV show CSI.

What if policymakers at all levels heard from those who live, work and play in San Francisco’s Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood about real experience and grassroots responses to community health and wellness?

Seva*, a partnership between the BVHP community and San Francisco General Hospital’s Internal Medicine Residency Program, believes they should. Residents of Bayview Hunters Point can expect to live on average 14 years less than residents living on Russian Hill, according to the highly-regarded Health Matters online tool.

Residents, doctors, community-based organizations and leaders from throughout the neighborhood are engaged in a series of grassroots dialogues that have taken them from the table of the African American Community Health Equity Council to the gym at the Willie Mays Boys & Girls Club.

Seva* participants are listening to the people who suffer most from health disparities and other challenges affecting wellness, and discovering untapped community wisdom for addressing the needs of the people who live within that community. A policy and advocacy tool is being developed to amplify grassroots experience and knowledge.

There are still involvement opportunities for anyone interested in Seva*’s work. BVHP organizations can host a community dialogue and sign-up as an organizational supporter, and individuals can serve on the Seva* Accountability Council to review drafts of the brief. Contact Roberto Ariel Vargas for more information.

*Seva emerged from relationships built within the Southeast Sector Food Access Working Group, and is funded by University of California Partnerships.

The student doctors who are part of the Seva* team are remarkable for their commitment to making the world a better place for all people through good healthcare provision. Several of them have made recent contributions.

For instance, Risha Irby-Irvin, MD, who is in her third year of residency, was honored by the American Association of Medical Colleges for her work in designing and implementing the Summer Empowerment Academy, a program that offers support and guidance to teenagers from low-income communities and seeks to inspire them to pursue higher education.

Risha started the program with her husband Nathan, an emergency medicine resident at Highland Hospital in Oakland, to address some of the social determinants of health. Why?

“I work at San Francisco General Hospital,” she says, “and every day I see the effects of poverty, violence and a lack of educational opportunities.”

See more about Risha’s work and this presigious award online.

Devora Keller, MD, co-authored a paper called “Health Literacy: New developments and research” in the Journal of Communication in Healthcare about health literacy in vulnerable populations.

The fact that it often seems like doctors and patients speak different languages lends urgency to Devora’s contribution, and is a big part of the reason Seva* exists. Email Devora if you would like to learn more about her work.

Basim Khan, MD, one of the student doctors most involved with Seva*, pulled up to a meeting in Bayview last weekend with a car packed to the roof with boxes of relief supplies for Haiti. Those who know Basim are not surprised by expressions of his concern for others, like this one. Now, those who read the Los Angeles Times shouldn’t be surprised either.

Basim authored a high-profile opinion piece, for that newspaper’s November 5th edition, on the need for more primary care physicians and better community-based healthcare provision. He noted that, fifty years ago, half of all American doctors were primary care physicians, a figure that has dropped to a third.

That fact is alarming since, as Basim says, primary care physicians “are a patient's advocate, an ally in a system that is becoming increasingly complicated, overbearing and even dehumanizing.”

Not to be outdone by his students, Seva* organizer and UC Primary Care/Internal Medicine Residency Program Director, Sharad Jain, MD, was seen on CBS channel 5 recently. He talked about the prevalence of obesity which he and other providers have been seeing for years on the front line of healthcare provision in our area.

See the full interview with Sharad.

The entire Seva* team is proud of the achievements of these and other involved doctors at SF General Hospital.

Gardening in the rain

by Joti Levy, Willie Brown Academy Garden Educator

The rain is a magical element that brings both blessings and challenges to a garden.

As I forged through traffic with my windshield wipers on full force and downed caffeine into myself, I could not help but be thankful for the overflowing water that was filling the reservoirs, nourishing the soil and bringing so many new mushrooms and vegetables to life.

I also thought anxiously of my new starts lying in their raised beds. Would my romanesco broccoli with their beautiful fractals just starting to bud make it?

I arrived at the garden, and to my delight found that the plants were not yet flooded. Some beds were holding puddles of water next to their plants. I asked the students of my fifth grade class what to do.

They told me all the things I had thought of, but I loved hearing their creative minds moving.

“Put a tarp on top”, one student said.

That could lead to a lack of evaporation and hurt the plants.

How about canopies or a hole in the raised bed?

Now I am putting on my galoshes, rain pants and rain coat, covering my tool shed to prevent more moisture from seeping in, and heading out to use my students wisdom so that my romanesco broccoli can live out its term. I can’t wait to learn math with the fractals that come out of those broccoli as we make a yummy dish in the not so distant future!!

Library petition - Bayview residents share views

Photo shows artist's signature on the exterior brickwork sculpture at the old Bayview Branch Library on 3rd and Revere.

A number of respondents to the online petition regarding the new Bayview Branch Library and the brick sculpture that is part of the current building have shared comments. As of 5pm Tuesday, these are those comments, as written:

I think that in today"s world there must be a way to move the artist work to some new room within the new building and use it as a background wall. So what if it cause a few dollars more.

I have been going to the Bayview Branch Library since I was a kid. I remember when it was in a small storefront next to Fuller Pharmacy. I was glad when the Waden facility was built because my neighborhood deserved a better library. I want the same for my child now. I do deeply respect and appreciate art, but a single piece should not hold up this project. There are new artist in Bayview Hunters Point who deserve to be nurtured in a beautiful new facility. This is a much bigger issue than protecting the artistic expression of a single individual. Please do allow our new library to be held hostage to a well meaning but narrow artistic point of view. Our babies come before bricks.

I live 2 blocks from the library, and have been to nearly all of the planning meetings for the new branch. It is very important that the new library be built as soon as possible. It is an invaluable resource for our neighborhood, and the new art that has been commissioned is fantastic. I like the old sculpture, but it just doesn't work with the new library.

We need a new face 3rd street face is changing so we must change with the times. The kids deserve a new library San Bruno has one south of market has one why bayview can have one. If they want the sulpute take it out perserve it and when we rebuild put it back or put it in a glass display so the whole world can see but don't deprive the kids just because a slulpure or is that the real reason. let's be fare.

I believe there should be a place in the Shipyard for this piece. Our children need this new library.

I'm a resident who really would like to see our library receive some well deserved renovations and if that means standing up for my children and I all 4 of them 2 in college who definitely use the space when ever their home and 2 in high school we should be able to have a word in what happens in our community.NOT to mention that I look at the space daily and I don't know if that's true for someone who does'nt even live in our community. So it make me wonder who's interest and investment are we thinking of a community or the ego of an artist. Any positive change in our Bayview community should be welcomed by anyone who has the best interest of our children and families in mind.

I understand that the sculpture (and the library building itself) was created at a time of turmoil in the Bayview/Hunters Point, we are again in a period of turmoil and the renovation of the library space will be part of the renaissance of the BVHP. Preserviing the work, in a different location, will maintain the history while at the same time allowing new history to be made.

We attended planning & design meetings that were very well publicized- where was the artist/former architect then?

Please send a picture

It is part of this community history

Let's keep the progress on 3rd Street moving forward!!

If possible, the costs of relocating the sculpture should not be borne by the artist! There may be state laws regarding the destruction of artwork without the artist's consent that may be problematic and vexatious if ignored.

destroying the artwork is unacceptable. The SFPL/BLIP should have foreseen this issue. If the piece is to be moved it should be done using City/SFPL funds.

Our community needs and deserves a new library. We have worked hard to plan one, even after funding for our library was moved to the bottom of the list. Please don't delay this project further. The new design will be a catalyst for further renovation in our Town Center and will provide a beautiful and light-filled public space for our children.

I've worked in the Bayview community for 1 1/2 yrs and support the new library

I was a librarian at the Branch during some of these community meetings, and the meeting room was always crowded with residents. The project should stay on schedule and allow the new artwork and building to move on.

Listen to the Bayview Residents!!!

The community needs this new library now!

Bayview's new library on hold?

Artist Jacques Overhoff's signature on the wall of the existing building.

Linda Brooks-Burton, Managing Librarian at the Bayview Branch Library, sends this update:

The Bayview branch is slated to be demolished and rebuilt beginning in January 2010. The new library will be a larger state of the art “green“ branch which the community is very excited about. During the closure we will have interim services at the YMCA on Lane Street.

We are now encountering an obstacle that might push the closure date further back or possibly halt the project altogether. The sculpture that is imbedded in the outer brick wall of the current building has come into question. Two of the original architects for the building and the artist have requested a hearing with the San Francisco Arts Commission to see if they can either have the sculpture worked into the design of the new building or stop the rebuild altogether.

For the past year, the library, the community and the architects assigned to the new building project have been working on a design for our new library, a design that is 95% completed. We have had community meetings over this past year, at which the artwork was never brought up as an issue.

It would be great to preserve this piece of art and possibly move it to an alternate space like the Hunters Point Shipyard. But, if one of the architects of the existing building cannot stop the construction of a new library, he wants that new structure built around the sculpture so that the sculpture would not have to be moved. This, of course, does not fit in with the new design that we have been working on.

The hearing is scheduled for 3pm on Wednesday, October 21st at the Arts Commission located at 25 Van Ness. The Bayview Branch is requesting community members show up at the hearing to voice concern over what seems to be a concerted effort by the artist and architects to impede the Bayview library’s rebuild process.

photo credit: Betcher

Leadership SF visits Quesada Garden

Sixty local leaders, who are part of an organization dedicated to "developing community trustees," visiting the Quesada Gardens Initiative this morning. They represent the 2008-2009 class of Leadership San Francisco, an affiliate of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce.

Pictured, James Ross (red shirt), co-founder and co-organizer of QGI, tells the group a bit about the history of the 1700 block of Quesada Avenue in Bayview, and about the social transformation that has happened there.

This is the second year in a row that Leadership SF participants have visited the Quesada Gardens Initiative's cluster of community-building projects in the heart of the neighborhood. Once again, they heard about, and saw the impact that low-cost strengthening of social cohesion and highly-localized systems can have.