Mission Mission

Jenn brings this to our attention:

Crime in the Mission

Seven people have been murdered in San Francisco’s Mission District in the past three weeks. We talk with community members, the mayor’s office and the police about what can be done to stem the increase in violence in the neighborhood.
Host: Michael Krasny

Link. Or, listen live. Also, right after, at 10am, David Simon, creator of The Wire is on.

Better Valencia Project has the scoop, including design details, concerns about the 26-Valencia, and a six-month delay. Link.

A few Mission Mission readers, as well as Mission Mission itself, attended the meeting. Reader dogfella weighed in first:

Overall somewhat disorganized and not really sure what the goal of the meeting was other than a soapbox.

Various community-based organizations used the soapbox to preach one thing: Instead of spending more and more money on more and more cops, put at least some small part of it toward more outreach programs. People are upset that patrols focus on Medjool and the Valencia corridor instead of the more residential parts of the neighborhood, where schoolchildren are getting stabbed up on a regular basis. Instead of SWAT teams and K-9 units, they want rec centers to be open later.

Reader dogfella also calls attention to the poor turnout:

Considering that 7 people were killed in the last week, turnout of about 110 people (incl. city officials, non-profits) seems pretty dismal.

To put that in perspective:
*SFGate reports that Glen Park’s community meeting in response to a stabbing / store robbery had 300 attendees.

*Last year when SF was going to increase street cleaning in the Mission to 2x’s a week per side, over 100 people stormed city hall and Tom Ammiano’s office to protest that the city was adding street cleaning to increase ticket revenues (never mind the crazy amounts of garbage on the streets).

So where was everybody? John offers this theory, which I hope is erroneous: “the mission has been taken over by hipsters. That’s why nobody went to that meeting, hipsters dream about ‘change,’ they preach about it, but they always expect others to deliver those changes.”

Next up, reader zinzin offers another, possibly related possibility:

the meeting was primarily for the Brown people that live in the hood, have lived here since the 50’s – the Latino community from whom the artists / punks / hipsters / yuppies stole the neighborhood – because it’s them that are having their kids killing one another.

for the most part (i’m sure there are exceptions)…no one from any of these newer groups can really understand what it must be like to have your kids in the life, blamming away at one another with guns. kids!

Blam! Is this why turnout was poor? The punks and yuppies don’t get it? Too surreal, all these grisly murders? Do we need a concerted effort to get everyone in the neighborhood more engaged with everybody else? Maybe so.

At the meeting, I met an older dude named Mike who’s been a Mission resident for decades. He said he’d seen it all before — the violence, the efforts to curb it. So I asked if any particular elements of past efforts had seemed valuable at all, and without batting an eye, he said yep. There once was a lady cop who rode her bike around the neighborhood, meeting people and making friends and generally getting engaged with the community. She made neighbors feel at ease, everyone felt good about everything, and then they shipped her off to another precinct.

In any case, Mike sees this kind of police presence as supremely valuable, and one can see why. An engaged police officer is a better police officer, and an engaged neighbor is a better neighbor. Better cops, better neighbors — better neighborhood.

Update: Photos by dogfella.

Jesse Keyes of turkeydinner just wrote in and made our day a little brighter:

Neighbors Project is an organization dedicated to improving urban neighborhoods by teaching people how to be better neighbors. They throw block parties, publish how-to guides, and sponsor special social experiments like the Food & Liquor Project, which encourages people to shop exclusively more often at corner stores (known as “food and liquors” in Chicago, apparently). They say shopping hyperlocally like this means you aren’t driving your car to the suburbs, you’re supporting neighborhood businesses instead of chains, and you’re more likely to run into your neighbors or befriend new ones.

To promote this agenda, the group has just produced the Bodega Party in a Box, a helpful kit containing much of what one needs to throw a first-class party using only items found at corner stores (known as “bodegas” in New York, apparently). Inside is a cookbook, party invitations, decorations, and custom-printed reusable shopping bags. Proceeds from the sale of the bags go toward furthering this and other initiatives.

In any case, the basic principles at play here seem solid. Do things in the neighborhood, get to know your neighbors.

Previously on Mission Mission:

Cellphone Ban in Mission Corner Stores?

Chillaxin’ at the Nice Lady Store

Reader Dogfella just wrote in with this news:

COMMUNITY MEETING IN RESPONSE TO 7 KILLINGS LAST WEEK TONITE 5PM

Mission Community Council, SFPD meeting of residents, nonprofits and religious groups on Tuesday at 5 p.m. at the Mission Recreation Center.

Mission Recreation Center 2450 Harrison St @ 20th & 21st
USE 745 Treat St @ 20th & 21st ENTRANCE

SFPD confirms that district Captain Stephen Tacchini will be in attendance. See you there?

Earlier tonight, we were walking westbound on 20th Street somewhere between Atlas Cafe and Modern Times Bookstore, and all of a sudden we heard opera. A pedestrian behind us was singing, with gusto. I think she was a soprano, and she sang us all the way over to Mission Street, where she began to blend into some Lil Wayne bumping out a third-floor bay window. I love living in the city. Thanks, opera singer!

Eric Drooker‘s musical slide show presentation at Modern Times tonight was a gas as usual. He played banjo and narrated a (strictly analog) slide show made up of graphic novel excerpts, paintings, and photos from a recent trip to Palestine. When he got to this pigeon painting, a cover he’d done for The New Yorker, he told a story. In doing some research, looking for pigeon pictures from which to draw inspiration, he learned that pigeons are known in some circles as rock doves. He said he liked thinking of them that way, thinking about being in a city, surrounded by doves.

And it’s true, right? Right. It’s nice to think of pigeons not as pigeons but as doves.

From this week’s Free Farm Stand report:

I am a big believer that gardens and trees themselves can bring healing energy to the planet and for that fact alone we need more of them. One of my crazy fantasies right now is to try to talk Delano Market into letting me plant a Peace Garden in a part of their parking lot. I live right across from it and at night a lot of stuff goes down out there, and our neighborhood besides needing some good local organic food could use some good vibe energy that gardens and nature can bring.

Link. Who can pull some strings?

Photo by romleys.

So warns Johnny0, creator of this t-shirt decrying recent crimes committed against area taco trucks. Get your own Burrito Justice here.

Previously on Mission Mission:

‘Fuck Cars’ T-Shirt

Titty City T-Shirts For Sale

Sheeeeeeyit: Re-Elect Clay Davis T-Shirt