The San Francisco Elections Commission has moved up to Friday its special meeting to consider removing its three appointees helping to redraw the city’s 11 supervisory districts ahead of the fall races for the even-numbered seats. Its doing so has added an explosive element to the already chaotic redistricting process that is supposed to wrap up next week.

Groups such as the League of Women Voters, Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Asian Law Caucus, and ACLU SF Chapter have raised concerns to the elections body about its trio of appointees on the San Francisco Redistricting Task Force. They include queer task force member Chasel Lee, along with vice chair Ditka Reiner and Raynell Cooper.

“For months, dozens of historically and systemically excluded communities in San Francisco have put in substantial time and effort to tell the task force about their communities of interest and how their communities should be respected in the draft maps. Yet, with just a few days left in the mapping process, the needs of many of those groups have been left out of the draft supervisor maps made by the task force,” wrote the league and law caucus in an April 6 letter to the elections commissioners.

The oversight body had voted Wednesday to hold a special meeting on Sunday to consider removing its redistricting appointees, as the Bay Area Reporter reported in an online story April 6. But it announced Thursday it would instead meet tomorrow (April 8) at 1:30 pm in Room 416 at City Hall.

Its decision to wade into the matter days before the redistricting task force is to send a final map to the Board of Supervisors by April 15 has angered not only the task force members but also local leaders. Mayor London Breed and gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) both denounced the elections commission “last minute political inference” on Thursday.

“This undermines and corrupts what is supposed to be a transparent and non-partisan process. This is neither transparency nor good government,” stated Breed. “The Elections Commission should recognize that a decision to remove members of the public who have served this city for months would destroy the integrity of the redistricting process. Let’s finish the process as it’s designed and allow the appointed members of the body to exercise their independence free from threats or attacks.”

Wiener called it a “shocking and unprecedented step” and a “power grab” in a statement early Thursday when the special meeting was still set for Sunday. If the elections commission were to appoint new people to the redistricting task force then “those appointees will take their seats under a shadow, literally the day before the task force is required to publish its final map,” stated Wiener.

He was referring to the fact that to meet the April 15 deadline called for in the city’s charter, the task force must publish its proposed final map by Tuesday, April 12, to comply with a 72-hour public notice rule. Even if new appointees are approved Friday, they would be parachuting into a process that has been underway for months, noted Wiener.

Any new appointees, he stated, “would cast that critical vote, affecting San Francisco governance for a decade, without having participated in the months-long public process and many hours of public comment that the Task Force facilitated.”

District 6 Supervisor Matt Haney, whose district boundaries will see major changes due to it gaining the most new residents over the last decade amid a glut of new housing development, also told the BAR he opposes the move by the elections oversight body.

“I do not support removing the task force members appointed by the Elections Commission. While there are decisions they’ve made that I’ve disagreed with, the independence of the redistricting task force is essential and must be protected. They should continue to serve and complete their work,” stated Haney, who could be resigning from the board if he is elected later this month to the vacant 17th Assembly District seat.

Wiener specifically called out District 5 Supervisor Dean Preston and District 3 Supervisor Aaron Peskin for “leading the charge to get the Elections Commission to take this inappropriate, unprecedented step, based on his unhappiness with the proposed lines for his own district.”

Preston has made no secret about his displeasure with the maps the redistricting task force has proposed, as they will carve up his district into multiple other supervisor districts. For instance, the Haight and Lower Haight are currently proposed to be moved into District 8 with the LGBTQ Castro district, similar to how those neighborhoods had been combined in the district represented in the late 1970s by gay supervisor Harvey Milk, back when it was known as District 5.

“The most conservative forces in this city realize they can’t win district elections in a fair fight, so they’re not just moving the goalposts, they’re throwing the rules out the window,” Preston tweeted on Tuesday, asking people to “speak out against this blatant gerrymandering.”

Other areas of today’s District 5 would end up in Districts 1 and 2, while its remaining neighborhoods of Alamo Square, Japantown and the Western Addition are proposed to be combined with the Transgender District in the Tenderloin. LGBTQ leaders from both the Tenderloin and western South of Market have lambasted the plan to split them apart and have repeatedly called on the redistricting task force to keep them together in the future District 6.

In the early hours of April 7 the redistricting task force had voted to place on the agenda of one of its meetings in the coming days a resolution opposing the removal of the three commissioners. Chair the Reverend Arnold Townsend had pledged to show up at the Sunday meeting to speak out about the matter.

Task force member Matthew Castillon made the motion to have the body vote on a resolution opposing the elections commission’s decision and offered to write it.

“I cannot think of anyone who has higher integrity than these three people,” he said.

None of the three directly addressed the elections commission’s decision during the meeting, though Cooper hinted to it at one point.

“I will try not to be overly self defensive given though the earlier events in this place could be a place I am coming from,” he said.

In the meantime, the redistricting task force continued with its work, regrouping at 3 pm Thursday for another marathon session to redraw the city’s local political map. As it stood going into the meeting, gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman’s residence on Valencia Street would be drawn into District 9.

If that were to be adopted then he would need to move in order to run for reelection to the District 8 seat in November. Mandelman is currently the lone LGBTQ supervisor on the board.

San Francisco’s 11 supervisory districts are redrawn every 10 years based on census data so that they each have roughly similar populations. Things the task force considers include boundaries, neighborhoods, and communities of interest.

For information on the task force meetings, visit its website here.

Information for the elections commission special meeting can be found at its website here.

UPDATED 4/7/22 to add comment from Supervisor Matt Haney.

Help keep the Bay Area Reporter going in these tough times. To support local, independent, LGBTQ journalism, consider becoming a BAR member.

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In the days leading up to Rosh Hashanah that year, the president of the Sha’ar Zahav congregation in the Mission Dolores neighborhood of San Francisco discovered that a homeless camp had been set up in the synagogue. People slept in tents on either side of the building. The entrances and exits had become inaccessible.

Before the pandemic, it was not uncommon to see people sleeping in tents just steps from Sha’ar Zahav, the city’s historically gay and lesbian synagogue just two blocks from Dolores Park. During 2020, as more tents appeared around the synagogue, the synagogue staff brought meals to the unprotected people. They swept the sidewalk around the tents, handing out garbage bags, and then collecting the filled bags.

In 2021, however, this cooperative relationship between the synagogue and the unprotected dissolved, according to Marc Lipschutz, the synagogue’s president.

“Our campers in 2021 were not responsive, didn’t pack their rubbish, didn’t move their rubbish. They urinated on our building regularly, ”said Lipschutz.

Maintenance staff who came to collect rubbish three times a week are increasingly faced with a “monumental task,” said Lipschutz. He instructed them not to touch the hypodermic needles that they would find on the floor.

“Not all of our homeless neighbors were drug addicts. But some of them were quite safe, “said Lipschutz,” and were often under the influence and sometimes belligerent. “

In August, as the synagogue was preparing to hold face-to-face services and resume religious school, Lipschutz began contacting public officials: a member of the SF Board of Directors, the mayor’s office, the San Francisco Police Department, and the San Francisco Emergency Management Department .

“I felt that I had to balance the dignity of people who don’t have a home and the security of my community,” he said.

“I also want to stress that I didn’t want our neighbors to be removed without being offered housing and related services. I asked for assurances that their properties will not be confiscated because I believe this has happened in the past. and [I requested] that they will not be forcibly relocated, but with compassion. “

Over a period of two weeks prior to Rosh Hashanah on September 6th and 8th, emergency management teams, along with officers from the SFPD mission station, visited the camp to see what residential programs or accommodations the people in the tents would want to go to, Sam said Dodge, who had just arrived as the new director of the inter-agency Healthy Streets Operation Center in San Francisco.

We love our location and everything that is associated with it. This is part of the challenge.

Concentrated relocation efforts took place over Labor Day weekend, May 4-6. September, when the half-dozen people who lived in the small camp moved with their belongings in their possession to the city-approved safe sleeping villages and navigation centers. These are upgraded accommodations with more privacy and on-site services, Dodge said.

“That worked out well. We took our time, ”said Dodge. He said no one was arrested or their property was confiscated. The goals outlined by Lipschutz were achieved.

Lipschutz takes responsibility for clearing the tents and admits that he was rejected by several synagogue members who believed unsecured people were allowed to camp on the sidewalk because of inadequate affordable housing. Out of concern for public safety, he acted anyway.

“For someone who says, ‘Marc, you were wrong,’ I have to say, ‘I’m sorry. It pains me a lot. ‘ And in a way, maybe I was wrong. But I felt that I had to balance the needs of the communities, including my community of Sha’ar Zahav. “

More than two months since their removal, the people and their tents have not returned, said Lipschutz.

Rabbi Mychal Copeland in front of Sha’ar Zahav Congregation. (Photo / Norm Levin)

Sha’ar Zahav’s Rabbi Mychal Copeland said homeless people nestling near places of worship are a problem and she is meeting with nearby church spirits to find out “how we can best make positive changes in our city for our uninhabited neighbors can cause. ”

She said she supported Lipschutz in his actions to remove the camp in the synagogue.

“We love our location,” said Copeland, “and everything that comes with it. This is part of the challenge. “

On any given day, up to 5,000 people could live in San Francisco without protection, Dodge estimates. And the total number of people without permanent housing is more than 8,000 across the city, according to the last count as of 2019, although the number has undoubtedly increased higher during the pandemic. The census planned for 2021 has been postponed due to the pandemic. The next official homeless census in the city will be in January, the San Francisco Public Press reported. These data provide vital funding for the city’s homeless assistance.

These services are particularly urgent in the South of Market area, where Rabbi Yosef Langer of Chabad of SF (on Natoma Street on 6th Street, near a liquor store and single room hotel) meets someone at the front of the synagogue sleeps entry almost every day. He brings coffee and prepackaged meals to the people sleeping on the outside walls of the synagogue and greets them as they pass. On his way he notices human and dog feces.

Rabbi Yosef Langer of Chabad of San Francisco on patrol in SoMa. (Photo / Max A. Cherney)

“This is her home,” said Langer. “Many of them grew up on Sixth Street.”

However, if the entrance to the center is blocked by a sleeping person, he will tell them to move and, if necessary, call 311, the city’s emergency number. He says it usually takes three days to get a response, and if a person is removed, “within a night or so, they’re back”.

He has a relationship with the Hospitality House, an animal shelter just around the corner from the synagogue entrance, and tries to connect some homeless people to the organization’s rehabilitation resources.

“It goes so far beyond a religious thing,” Langer said. “If you don’t grab it, you’ll end up in a garbage can. If you don’t take the other one, it will fall on you. “

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The special election to recall Boudin will take place on June 7, 2022 during the nationwide primaries.

RELATED: 2 Former SF Assistant to Join DA Campaign to DA Boudin. to call back

About two weeks ago, the group Safer SF Without Boudin announced that they have already collected 83,487 signatures from voters in San Francisco who want to recall Boudin – far more than the 30,000 needed for the June vote.

The group claims Boudin failed to prioritize public safety by being too lenient to repeat offenders.

Two former prosecutors for the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office, former assistant prosecutor Brooke Jenkins and former prosecutor Don du Bain, have joined the recall.

Safer SF Without Boudin has said the recall effort will be democratic.

VIDEO: SF DA cites systematic errors after probation officers suspected of fatal NYE hit-and-run

However, the Stand with Chesa group, which opposed the recall, has claimed that the recall efforts are being led by Republicans.

Make no mistake: these Republican-led efforts to defeat an election are fueled by scare-mongers and dangerous misinformation. They are driving this recall at a time when we should focus on public health and economic recovery from the devastating effects of the pandemic. “Our city,” Stand with Chesa said in a statement on the group’s website.

Boudin, a former assistant public defender for the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office, took office in 2020 after beating former interim attorney Suzy Loftus in a close race. After his victory, Boudin said his office would focus on bold new initiatives like ending cash bail, reducing pre-trial detention, ending the three-strike rule and establishing a program to restore justice.

Since taking office, however, Boudin has faced severe criticism, including from the San Francisco Police Officers Association.

In January, when 45-year-old Troy McAllister was paroled for armed robbery, he fatally beat two women – Elizabeth Platt, 60, and Hanako Abe, 27 – as they were crossing the street while McAllister had a stolen one Car drove.

After revealing that McAllister had been paroled and arrested several times since then without charge, Boudin admitted the two women’s deaths were preventable and said his office would make “systematic changes” in how it worked with its partner agencies. including police and probation officers.

The video in the player above is from an earlier report.

Copyright 2021 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, retransmission, or reuse is prohibited without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc.

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The “History of Medicine in California” murals were painted in the late 1930s by Polish-born artist Bernard Zakheim, who worked for Diego Rivera. They were painted right on the plaster walls of an auditorium in Toland Hall, a 104-year-old building that, according to UCSF, is seismically unsafe and needs to be replaced.

Last year, the school hired RG Conservation Services (ARG / CS), a San Francisco-based company that specializes in heritage conservation, to remove and relocate the large, curving murals, some of which are fragile and have suffered water damage to have.

“There was no guarantee that this attempt to remove the murals from the building would be successful,” Soluri said, adding that the court had to consider possible damage or destruction of the artwork as a factor in making a temporary hiatus speaks.

In February, three neighborhood groups filed separate lawsuits against the University of California’s Board of Regents and the UCSF in the Alameda County’s Superior Court to halt the ambitious expansion project. They argue that the school’s 30-year comprehensive plan to modernize the Parnassus Heights campus will drive up housing costs and clog the streets in the “very restricted” Inner Sunset neighborhood.

In 2018, UCSF unveiled a plan to expand its already 4 million square foot campus in Parnassus Heights by approximately 2 million square feet. The project is expected to cost $ 3 billion and last three decades.

Together with around 1,200 residential units for students and faculties, the development plan will replace a nearly 70-year-old hospital that no longer complies with California seismic regulations and will have to be upgraded for inpatient care or shut down by 2030.

Groups complaining about the project include San Franciscans for Balanced and Liveable Communities, the Parnassus Neighborhood Coalition, and the Yerba Buena Neighborhood Consortium. They are calling for a full environmental review of the project to determine its impact on housing, traffic, air quality, and the aesthetics of the neighborhood – as well as possible damage to wildlife in the nearby Mount Sutro Forest.

Soluri said a previous environmental review had failed to adequately examine the health effects of construction noise and emissions near homes.

The Parnassus Neighborhood Coalition is also trying to enforce a 1976 regent agreement to permanently limit the size of the Parnassus Heights campus to 3.55 million square feet.

“This comprehensive plan of Parnassus Heights marks the regents’ first attempt since 1976 to revoke this enforceable promise,” said Soluri. “We have to get an injunction to keep the status quo.”

The neighborhood group further argues that the plan will demolish historically and culturally significant buildings that are eligible for inclusion on the California Register of Historic Resources. UCSF argues that the buildings are unsafe and need to be replaced.

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The British explorer Sir Francis Drake landed on a beach in what is now Point Reyes National Seashore in the spring of 1579 and claimed the land for England.

That was 28 years before an English colony was founded in the United States.

But some people in Marin County wish he had never stopped visiting, regardless of its historical significance.

As the Black Lives Matter movement gained momentum after the death of George Floyd, calls for the deletion of monuments and memorials to racist figures have multiplied in the United States

Drake was a slave trader. ABC7 reported that activists want its 10 meter high statue next to the Larkspur Ferry Terminal removed and renamed Sir Francis Drake Boulevard.

Lauren Brown told a reporter that the statue “disgusted” her.

“This is about moving that tale of white supremacy,” she said.

As is to be expected, the sculptor disagrees.

“That was not a sculpture of him, but the event!” Dennis Patton from San Rafael told the broadcaster.

A petition to remove Drake statues in Plymouth and Tavistock, England has garnered 14.00 signatures, the Guardian reported.

Drake was the most famous captain of his day, a pirate hired by Queen Elizabeth to ambush and pillage the Spaniards, and a vice admiral in the fleet that defeated the Spanish Armada, a turning point in English history.

But two decades before the naval battle, he made three trips to Guinea and Sierra Leone, during which 1,200 to 1,400 Africans were enslaved. Historians estimate that another 4,000 likely died in the process.

In addition to the statue and the boulevard, Drake’s name can be found throughout Marin County and the Bay Area, including San Anselmo High School and a famous hotel in Union Square, San Francisco.

MORE REFERENCE TO THE GEORGE FLOYD PROTESTS:

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Mike Moffitt is an SFGATE digital reporter. Email: moffitt@sfgate.com. Twitter: @Mike_at_SFGate

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SAN JOSE (KPIX) – Less than four weeks before the city of San Jose is due to present its plans to clean up hundreds of homeless camps near Mineta San Jose Airport, some airport residents have begun moving to even larger premises nearby. owned by Apple.

“Everyone knows there are homeless people out there, they just don’t want to look at them, I think,” said Lynn Shipman, who now lives on the sprawling Apple property in north San Jose.

CONTINUE READING: Neighbors express frustration at the homeless camp next to Mineta San Jose International Airport

Airport officials have until July 31 to notify the FAA of their plan to remove the camps that have been set up on 40 acres of land directly in the trajectory of the jets on their final approach to the runway. The city said there were up to 200 people, but official figures put the number between 400 and 500. The FAA has threatened to withhold millions of dollars in funding if the city fails to do so.

When the city began “cleaning up” the airport last week, some residents began moving from the airport to the Apple property about 3 miles away. Apple-owned lots bounded by Trimble Road, Orchard Parkway, Component Drive, North 1st Street, Charcot Avenue, and Highway 101 total approximately 55 acres.

According to Shipman, there are at least 30 people in the Apple camps, many with huge amounts of junk, rubble, RVs, tents and vehicles.

“And Apple, they’re not doing anything with this country at the moment. Why don’t you let the people stay until they do? ”Said Schiffsmann.

Robert Carlson, who also lives at the Apple warehouse, says “haters” who come to the site and start fires and destroy property are “shunned”. Carlson is reluctant to move into low-income homes as property storage is restricted.

CONTINUE READING: FAA raises concerns about sprawling homeless camps near San Jose Airport

“The problem is, you can’t bring anything. Most of the time you can’t bring anything with you. Cars clothes and that’s it. Lots of own mobile homes and everything else. It takes a long time to get an RV. And if we do, we don’t want to give it up, ”said Carlson.

Carlson, who spends his days collecting recycle for income, thought that Apple, the world’s most valuable company, owns the land.

“Tell you what, if you are such a wealthy company, you could help us all make this place better. Instead of trying to get us out of here when the company is this big, show that they care, ”said Carlson.

Local activist Shaunn Cartwright made no comment on the Apple warehouse, but said empty packages like the former Orchard Supply Hardware store on Bird Avenue are examples of how technology companies can alleviate the homelessness crisis.

“There is no plausible defense of sitting there and saying ‘I am going to leave this land empty’ and not acting as a good neighbor and providing safe parking spaces for these people in dire need. We need technology to be a good neighbor, we need it to enable safe parking on this land for a year or two before homes are built for these people, ”said Cartwright.

KPIX asked Apple for a comment. A representative said the company was formulating an answer.

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