yah. i gotta work too. i hear ya.

i’m going to do something about this though. i think it’s too big an opportunity to pass up. plus, i love meeting my neighbors. and i’d love to meet my fellow MMCs.

i’ve threatened to offer up a little organization before. i’ll do it before early Feb. gotta find a spot to invite everyone to. i feel it may be more peeps than my living room can hold.

if i need to start an organization, that’s cool with me. if i can piggyback onto someone else’s, that’s cool too. or a merge. or whatever.

will ask Allan to post the invite when the time is right.

thanks for the encouragement. think of the possibilities….

We have had the opportunity to interact with our city govenment twice, the first time was to get permit parking for 19th and 20th st from S. VanNess – Mission converted from meter to permit parking. We tried canvasing to get signatures, but people didn’t want to sign, and it was difficult to get any traction. Then, after the shootings in front of Cha Cha Cha, we talked to our neighbors, and formed an informal neighborhood watch group. Representing that group it was a world of difference. All of a sudden, via Tom Ammiano’s office who reached out to us, we were able to meet with the Mission Police station captain, meet the different officers working in the mission, and find out what the heck was going on with all of the violence.

What it came down to in Supervisor Ammiano’s case is that he responds to organized groups. If you are an individual they don’t care all that much because there are other larger groups pressuring them. What the prior comment says is completely the case, because MAC, MEDA, Tenants Union, can send people to meetings, and represent themselves as a group they can get traction to skew the political process to favor themselves.
I am all for a gym and some sensible and rationa plans for the mission, I gotta work, but would be happy to be part of a group that could meet 7:30 – 8:00ish, and the weekends.

zinzin, this will be good experience for your run for D9 sup in 2012.

so…

what to do? while i think MEDA & MAC have a big headstart…i also think some like minded individuals could find a way… to make some headway.

to date – with specific exceptions as cited by WRED re: 3400 Chavez – it’s pretty much grassroots “activists” vs. money-focused developers. the downtrodden vs. the trodders.

seriously, MEDA has 20 people working there. MAC i think is bigger, but even so. there’s A LOT of people in the mission who i think would be interested in fostering some responsible, non-imperialistic, good-for-the-hood, lets-get-rid-of -the-blight-and-use-some unused-real-estate type development.

i can’t believe that with a little organization, this type of thing couldn’t happen.

anyone with me?

As ZinZin says, providing social services etc. for the less well off is great and I fully support it. But trying to prevent any change in the Mission is unfair to the rest of the residents and, ultimately, just limits opportunities for those who need them most.

what’s a strategy for overcoming the fact that everyone who would come out IN FAVOR of this stuff is at work when the meetings hearings happen??

there’s got to be a way, no? what did those folks that fought for 3400 do? take time off?

sorry for all the questions.

as SFdoggy says, and as i’ve written 1000000 times ad nauseum on here, there’s a lot of people in the hood that are simply not represented or given a voice in local politics because they’re not clearly on a particular list of underserved groups upon which a cottage NGO industry is built (homeless, latino, low income, etc).

i’m NOT saying those folks dont deserve a voice…they do. and they deserve services and assistance and all that to boot. i am in favor.

but so does everyone else deserve a voice. fact is, the hood is changing, and has changed…and it makes militant activist groups like MAC (and MEDA based on what i learned here) seem arcane and out of touch. grasping at straws, even.

and damn if i dont think a 20000 sft gym on mission would be super cool, and well received by the whole hood, at a human, non political level. if for no other reason that it turns a blight into a business.

garbage & used condoms in the street, apparently, that’s cool.

how they rally 50 people in the middle of the day is beyond me, but there you go.

or, let’s say we were talking about the gym going into the old abandoned theater. and they had their usual 50 screaming zealots at the hearing at 11am or 2pm or whenever it is.

what if someone else, and i’m not naming names, came in with a petition signed by 1500 people who were in favor of the development. people from the neighborhood. people from across the socio-demographic array.

would one trump the other? which would trump?