Comments on: Dolores Park Community Meeting Recap

By: Vic Wong

Vic Wong — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 22:16:01 +0000

fixed, sorry bout that

By: Alex C

Alex C — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 21:45:47 +0000

He might have meant not the off-ramp itself, but the proposal to narrow the Dolores Street entrance off San Jose. That would encourage drivers to take Guerrero instead of Dolores, which would help the traffic at 19th & D.

I just posted a link to it but it seems to have gotten my comment flagged as spam, so go to missionstreets dot sfplanning dot org and look for “Dolores Street Gateway – PDF 11 MB”

By: Alex C

Alex C — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 21:37:29 +0000

He might have misspoken… One of the plans that came out of the SF Planning department was to narrow the entryway from San Jose into Dolores to one lane in each direction rather than two lanes in each direction, and use the extra space as a little park. That might have been what he meant when he said “off-ramp”. That would encourage drivers to take Guerrero, which is tuned for rush hour traffic, instead of zipping onto Dolores:

http://www.sfplanning.org/ftp/CDG/docs/missionstreets/board-Dolores.pdf

Or maybe he did mean the highway off-ramp, which I agree sounds pretty silly.

That PDF is from this web site with the record of the plans and a workshop they did last year:

http://www.sfplanning.org/ftp/CDG/CDG_mission_streetscape.htm

To see the proposals for Dolores and 18th/19th Streets, scroll down to page 43 in this PDF, and this JPEG:

http://www.sfplanning.org/ftp/CDG/docs/missionstreets/MSP_workshop_4_FINAL.pdf
http://www.doloresparkworks.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/19thdolores.jpg

The PDFs for 18th and 19th are missing from the Mission Streetscape web site; probably someone mixed up them and the other Dolores one.

By: SFDoggy

SFDoggy — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 21:01:04 +0000

On a different note, the idea of narrowing the 280/San Jose off-ramp to discourage people cutting through the Mission is, really, really stupid. That off-ramp is already very congested. But it is vital to residents of the Mission, Glen Park etc. Creating a traffic jam there seems like a very indirect way of dealing w/ the problem at 19th and Dolores.

By: HAROLD MILLER

HAROLD MILLER — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 17:35:08 +0000

As a candidate for mayor I am finding out that locals don’t show up for meetings about their hood, but are the first to complain, so just hang in there I am coming in 2011….

By: Alex C

Alex C — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 16:20:47 +0000

Lapidgeon, you’re totally right except in presuming that the neighbors are directing the daytime raids. Nobody’s calling the cops during the day. I was the one at the meeting who said to the cop, “It seemed to us that a guy got stabbed at night, so you started giving tickets to dog walkers at noon,” or some such. Corrales said that the stabbing was a coincidence, that the Honda Cops (on motorbikes) were called in response to noise and trash complaints, but then Bevan contradicted him and said that he pushed for the Honda Cops in response to the stabbing, so whatever.

Anyway, we seem to be reaching consensus: we need gentle official or semi-official encouragement of good behavior (cleaning up and being quiet and/or leaving) at night. Now if only we can get the cops on board.

By: SlobDog

SlobDog — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 05:55:11 +0000

Perhaps, but most urban parks are for chilling out and sitting with friends because of the limited free space not football. I enjoy the tennis and basketball courts. I think because of the park becoming a destination point we have an opportunity to show what good/new idea the majority involved can do when they want to do something normally considered bad or wrong.

The 30+ crowd at the meeting seemed to agree that drinking and hanging out is okay but crazy loud noise and urination is not (older sis/bro). There are places where drinking and police can coexist. 4 drinks per person in a party? Gantries allowing only resident cars/deliveries in but otherwise closing off the streets to cars?

If it was shat 20 years ago my comment on prop 13 is even more relevant. The composition of park visitors does change.

Of course their are limits to this. And Kevmo’s end game sounds to be anarchy of some sort. He counts on other crime to allow drinking in the park but I do see an agist (sp) culture clash going on here. However, I find a hard time believing it will work for the Police to do their job and write drinking/smoking tickets in the park while more serious crime is going on.

To be sure I respect the pov of people who live on the streets around the park and it sounds like it’s been bad – I just look at it differently. Maybe someday it will be one great big underground parking lot with a flat cement space on top for sitting, buying a latte and renting a tennis court. I would encourage these people to look for some kind of ‘bright side’ solution they should start to try to look towards that involves the majority of the park users.

By: Ferocious Foot Odor

Ferocious Foot Odor — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 01:42:39 +0000

Mission Station covers too wide a swath of the city, and has morphed into basically a high speed swat team that is nowhere to be found until shots ring out.

Its the culture of the place.

They should break it out and assign east of South Van Ness to the Southern Station, Castro (Dolores > west) to Park, and Split Bayview in two, with Bayview South and Bayview North.

As for the meeting, it was perfectly fine for Tevin to state his case, and perfectly fine for people to reject it. Which most did.

I think its because Tevin himself hasn’t been able to reconcile the essential truth: hip things inevitably devolve into douche magnets.

It has happened so far to everything from Armani to Burning Man to Oaky, Buttery Chardonay. And its happening to Dolores Park really, really fast.

The next great parks are out there, but I’m not saying what they are. At this point all anyone can do is buy time.

By: dolorespark

dolorespark — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 01:04:29 +0000

…and I tend to like Coralles’s point-of-view – I don’t know the full context of the incident you speak of, so I can’t really respond to it, but from my knowledge (and conversations with others) he tries to keep the police away from any ‘policy issues’ and tries to be low-key whenever possible. I think his take on the above issue was likely ‘yeah, the club sounds sketchy, but that ain’t my beat… if there’s a live problem inside, i’ll gladly send my boys, but if you want it shut down, that ain’t me… ABC, Entertainment Commission, pick a city department, but not the District PD’ -

On this issue, I sense that Corrales really doesn’t care one way or another, as long as the phone calls stop – which is kinda-sorta valid for his role in this whole process. With the way local politics are played here, this is honestly Bevan’s ball (the Supe should be able to influence local policy of Rec and Park and even the Police under neighborhood/community empowerment initiatives), and I’ll refrain from further comment there.

Short of influencing Bevan, I think that most other parties will yield to the simplicity of enforcing the laws that the neighbors seem to want enforced, and I can’t currently see any way around that.

By: Neo Displacer

Neo Displacer — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 00:52:34 +0000

I’ve met Coralles before. We had terrible problems with a social club that hosted murder and drug trafficking. He was a wanker who reminded us his mother grew up in the Mission in Eureka Valley. I was like huh? He basically told us there was nothing he could do. I was like Bullshiat. He was like ‘doh. Fortunately ABC was at the meeting and yoinked the club’s alcohol permit. He’s a good ole SF cop boy. Time for the lot of them to be put out to pasture.

By: required name

required name — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 00:29:06 +0000

I liked it better before they put in the soccer field and the park just slope down. We should go back to before they put in the soccer field. Or maybe we should go back to when it was a cementary.

By: ooeygooey

ooeygooey — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 00:09:23 +0000

20 years ago, no one wanted to live by the park and everyone who did had security gates and window bars. 20 years ago the park was no man’s land.

I do remember there being adult soccer leagues in the park about 10 years ago. I hope once the park re-do is done and the drainage fixed, that we can get the sports field back. The park is for more than drinking and smoking…

By: sergio

sergio — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 22:23:38 +0000

What are you talking about? The China man is not the issue. The stabbing of the poor bastard has nothing to do with the late night jerks. Now you peeps are trying to blame it on that f/u crime that happened to that person. Again, the fact that people call the cops late at night is just because they want to have a god night sleep.

By: Abbott

Abbott — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 21:23:32 +0000

Spot on. It’s really all about the late evening/early morning issues. It was actually mentioned at the meeting that it is inane for the cops to run hondas all day and then stop at 5 when in reality the shifts could start at 5 (or later) just to prep the park to close at a reasonable time.

And, for the record, I have never once called the cops before 10pm and I don’t plan to. Like I said, most people simply don’t care what happens during the day as long as folks pick up after themselves and are respectful of the neighbors. What I was getting at is that a likely conclusion to all of this from the police perspective (not mine!) is to simply crack down on everything and the daytime drinking/drugs (aka “fun”) will be the easiest target. Please don’t confuse that with my personal desired outcome. Thanks.

By: SlobDog

SlobDog — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 19:57:25 +0000

I’m sure the 20+ year property owners around the park feel so happy they could afford to not live on 24th, 16th and Mission Streets for fear of worse commotion. And thank goodness Prop 13 keeps their property taxes low after all these years.

I can sense these rumblings, “Gate the park!”