Overall, this was quite a night of local and city wide camaraderie. I had never before attended and glad I could get out to see it firsthand. The Neighborhood Empowerment Network event opened with honoring the lower Haight’s Merchants Association and ended with a tribute to the Bayview’s Quesada Gardens and its longest and game-changing supporter. Almost everything in between was about our neighborhood, The Portola.

The gentleman from Lower Haight accepted the glistening etched glass trophy and then quickly made a super humble and generous offer to provide advice and support to any other community organization in SF, for example how to organize an art walk, which has been a huge ongoing success for the Haight area. I shouldn’t tire you with the details of every single acceptance speech, but I cannot skip over a mention of the many highlights. Larry Winum, in accepting the Graffiti Watch award, gave a simple thank you plus this one line message: “as someone once said, the difference between art and graffiti is ‘permission’!” Thank you Larry and whoever you were quoting. There’s no truer, simpler statement about spray paint vandalism. The person nominating the Progress Park project in Dogpatch Potrero (D10), talked about their surprising and unexpected results. The goal was to beautify an empty lot under the DPW ramp, but what they also reaped was a great group of real life neighbors whose collaborations and value will continue on long into the future.

After the first couple awards, the evening quickly turned into The Portola Sweep, beginning with David Campos introducing Ruth Wallace to near roaring cheers and the lauded little Jack Olinger (a 12 year old Portolan who raised over $1300 for the CC Horticulture Scholarship in selling Garden Tour raffle tickets the last two years) appearing on stage in a sophisticated blue oxford and festive red bow tie (almost upstaging the city supervisor). John Avalos next honored the Ney Street Team in their remarkable SAFE Watch program (though certainly he should not have bothered citing 2008 crime statistics on this particular night reserved for kudos and progress. Boo Avalos.) Let’s counter with some of the many positives coming from this group: They are already underway with plans to add a brand new park space to their corner of the city, and in the last four years have exerted major influence on a local liquor store in becoming a better Congdon citizen. Way to go Ney Team! As Patricia de Fonte and Linda Cook accepted the award, they too offered to help out any other neighbor groups needing guidance or support. Wow. As if they haven’t already donated enough of their precious hours to making the 94134 more pleasant and crime free for all.

Darlene Zane’s message with the Green Community Project award was that before, a bare handful of people in THE PORTOLA could recognize each other.Today, “hundreds of people know each other on a first name basis!” (And everyone knows Ruth Wallace, the founder of the Garden Tour!). Mindy M took the podium for talking about Portola as the comeback neighborhood.  You could see the excitement circulate through the entire rotunda. That’s when it became clear a good third of the audience was representing our ‘hood and the other two thirds were rooting for our success from the sidelines. It was pointed out that the Portola is finally up on the likes of Yelp.com and CDBG but there are still AAA maps and similar out there that don’t list the Portola locale. Mindy also touched on the redistricting process of last year and how the most important wish and goal was accomplished:  that the Portola remained in tact and whole.

Next up was the top director at Rec & Park, Mr Phil Ginsburg, and I’ve never seen anything like it. His over-flowing enthusiasm and support for McLaren was a long sought blessing and one could tell he was indeed genuine. Help McLaren Park (Chuck and Trilce) were given the award for most outstanding park volunteer group, citywide, which Ginsburg said is the most competitive of all the NEN awards. Ginsburg went on to review for the entire audience all the splendid features of McLaren and its achievement in being bestowed with $12 million in new funding with the passing of Prop B. What we heard from the head man of SF’s park lands is that Golden G Park is of course the city’s iconic and historical resource-grabber, but “McLaren Park is the city’s future.”

When Supervisor Malia talked, we learned she was actually raised here in the Portola and her parents still reside in the Silliman/Colby home of her childhood. She followed on with another ship load of exuberance, making a big shout out for the entire audience to soak in, to the effect that the Lifetime Achievement award to Annette Y Smith and Quesada Gardens plus all of the Portola awards is “a win for the whole  – adored, but often overlooked and misunderstood – southeast quadrant of this city!” Second that Ms Cohen!

With that the ceremony adjourned into the adjacent, large and carpeted, hall to enjoy a spread of wine, beer, lemonade, and a diverse array of finger foods while socializing with the “neighbors” and their newly minted honorees.

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In the summer, we love walking in McLaren Park to enjoy the green open spaces, often dotted with flowers. Sometimes the wildflowers almost seem to take over the meadows. At other times, we are grateful for the planters of flowers, like the many colors of foxglove at the beautifully renovated Gambier Plaza.

As the seasons change, we find different sights and sounds on our walks in the park. A fallen tree branch covered with lichen, moss growing on a resting pine cone — these are the signs that fall is here, getting ready to give way to winter.

Do you like to explore McLaren Park? What have you discovered there recently?

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This month we’ve been contacted by a new Portola citizen. Realtor Helena Zaludova. She has spent the last year doing a lot of research into the statistics of the housing market in our neighborhood. So much so, she ended up buy a house here! Welcome to the Portola Helena.

Her research found such positive news about the turn around in the housing market and how it has affected our neighborhood. The Portola Planet asked her if she was willing to share some of this data and she kindly wrote up the following report. Thanks Helena…

The city of San Francisco as a whole has been enjoying a real estate renaissance of sorts.  We are experiencing historically low mortgage interest rates (as of 10/26/2012 you can find a 30-year fixed in the 3.6% range) and the Bay Area job market is bursting at the seams, attracting well paid talent to its tech and biotech industries. All this reflects in the real estate market and our Portola neighborhood has been no exception!

In Portola specifically, distressed property sales (bank-own properties, foreclosures and short sales) are down 62%, homes stay on the market on average 32 days (down from 104 in the first part of 2011) and the median home price jumped up to $625,000 year-over-year from $530,000.

Some recent notable sales include 1600 Felton, a turn-of-the-century 3 bedroom 1 batch cottage.  It was previously listed in 2011 for $549,000 without a sale (it’s important to note that this is no reflection on the agent – she is a dedicated professional). It was brought back to the market in July of 2012 at $519,000 and five weeks and 13(!) offers later, the sale closed at $620,000 with all the deferred maintenance that was there in 2011 still untouched.

Another interesting sale took place just a half a block up at 1643 Felton Street. Modest, but freshly updated 2 bedroom/1bath cutie of a house with not much of a street presence and square footage hovering right at about at 1000. Listed in mid-September for $598,000 and sold less than four weeks later with 6 offers at $650,000.

All this so say that things are looking up and our little neighborhood is enjoying just as much of a positive “bump” as the rest of the city. The saying goes that a picture is worth a thousand words – in our case we’ll have to settle for the charts above as they paint the pretty picture. If you want more information about any specific property sale in the neighborhood, or wonder what your home is worth let me know.  I just moved to the neighborhood myself and would love help in any way I can. In the meantime, spread the good news!

Thanks for the information Helena and if you want to contact her directly, head to her website at www.helena7x7.com.

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Children of the Portola desperate to consume sugary marshmallows

The winter nights are starting to draw closer and as the sun sets earlier each day, it is time for some halloween fun. On October 31st there will be a Halloween BBQ party at the University Mound Ladies Home (350 University Street). Starting at 5pm, there will be an array of food, donated by the Help McLaren Park group. To keep the children entertained there will also be some fun games and activities.

Then the fun really starts! At around 6pm the kids get to walk around the entrance lounge at the ladies home. Many of the elderly women will be ready with bags full of candy. After this parade of sugar hungry kids has ended, everyone heads over to another Portola secret. The halloween houses of Princeton Street where more ”trick or treating” continues. The residents of this street go all out for Halloween and there are many houses fully kitted out in scarey attire.

The organizers are also looking for help, so if you will be able to bring some games, some food & drinks or just help out in general, please contact Amy and Trilce. The Portola Planet will be dragging the entire Ninja family over, so come and join us for a bit of good old fashioned neighborhood fun.

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Head of School, Ed Walters, in one of his brand new classrooms

In April, the Portola Planet was informed of a new school moving into the neighborhood. The Alta Vista School out grew their measly 3,500 square feet in the Mission and needed something bigger. The Portola gave them that opportunity, 27,000 square feet bigger! Head of school, Ed Walters, invited me over to see what the new school looked like and to tell us about their philosophy on education and why the Portola was the right place for them.

The school was founded in 2010 by seven families who wanted to create a “progressive, project-based, independent elementary school”. Their Mission neighborhood location quickly became crowded, with 5 classrooms squeezed into the space of a typical family home. So the hunt was on for somewhere more suitable, and 450 Somerset Street presented the ideal option. Ed said the main reason was the building. It was an old Catholic school, associated with the church across the street, a school all ready to move into. Money could therefore be spent on improvements rather than the expensive building of classrooms and lengthy change of use processes with the city. Ed went on to say that the Portola is such a nice neighborhood. Very peaceful, low traffic (important for a school) and a very school friendly area.

Students perform a play about ants

One of the founding families was a chief scientist at Twitter and as such it comes as no surprise that technology litters the classrooms. Ed says the focus of the school is on science, math’s and technology. All classrooms have smart boards and elmos (camera based projection system, not cute red monsters). iPads for every student in the 3rd grade, and they teach programming starting in the 2nd grade. Just the sort of school needed to create the next generation of technologists in the bay area. At the moment there are 90 students in class. The grading starts with junior kindergarten, their youngest is around 4 1/2 years old, and they are running a 3rd grade class right now. Their plan, each year, to add another grade through to 8.

The school looks at education a little bit differently. It isn’t just about giving the students the information to memorize, they provide experiences for them to learn. For example lots of game play (with cards and dice) making class time a lot of fun. Their approach to the curriculum is also a little bit different.  Ed posed the question, “Is the data the important piece, or is how to think and solve problems more important?” He went on to say that, “Data in the 21st century is in your hand. Modern technology allows finding information fast and trivial. But machines are no smarter than us, so we focus our teaching on giving students understanding of the process not just the memorizing of results.” They look at the California Standards and don’t think they are strict enough. So they typically educate a grade ahead of what the CS requires. So their first graders do multiplication and division, which is typically a third/fourth grade standard.

A new garden project which will be irrigated with recovered water… all designed by students

All of this modern approach to education does come at a cost. At $20,000 per year, their teaching comes at a premium, but Ed mentions that 20% of the families in the school gets some form of financial help. 10% of the schools operating income is put aside to help those less wealthy and it ranges from a few dollars to almost full tuition. It would be great to learn that as the school grows, we see some of the families in the Portola given a chance to attend.

Overall my short trip around the school was very positive. They’ve been at the new location just 25 days and Ed says they will be reaching out to the Portola community over the coming months. The Portola Planet will keep in touch and we are so pleased to see such a highly regarded school land in our patch. Welcome to the Portola, Alta Vista school students, faculty and staff.

[View with PicLens]

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We received an email this week from one of our readers who has recently laid new lawn and found that an abundance of mushrooms started to grow. The email went onto describe that…

… Since the new grass was put down, we saw many mushrooms starting to pop up. It was great to see, but we have children and are concerned that these mushrooms might be poisonous. Do you know of anyone in the neighborhood that can identify these? We’ve attached a few photos for you to look at. Your help would be much appreciated…

Anyone know if these are good to eat?

After a quick Q&A with the Portola Planet staff (my wife, a 2-year-old and a 4-year-old) we soon realized our knowledge of mushrooms was poor. The photos seem to show two very different types of mushroom and they look a little bit like the ones you might see in a collection of shiitake mushrooms. But we certainly don’t want to be giving out advice.

A search of the internet reveals that San Francisco has its own Mycological Society and they meet every third Tuesday of the month at the Randall Museum. So this might be a good chance for our reader to take along their samples.

However the Portola is well known for its green fingered residents. So we are reaching out to the neighborhood to see if we have a fungi expert among us. Anyone able to provide our reader with some advice? If so, please contact us or leave some information in the comments below.

In the meantime, I think it goes without saying. Do NOT eat any mushrooms you find either in your garden, or on a walk in the park, without expert advice.

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San Francisco and the bay area is famous for food. But coffee comes a close second. With big brands like Peet’s Coffee in Berkeley to exquisite San Francisco coffee companies that are fully embracing responsible sourcing, environmentally friendly stores and high quality products. Four Barrel coffee is one of these companies and is driving the city’s most interesting and modern approach to the whole coffee phenomenon. News just broke in the last few weeks that they will be extending their reach into the Portola! This is exciting news and as such the Portola Planet called Four Barrel owner, Jeremy Tooker, to get some further information on the project.

New Four Barrel location in the Portola

Jeremy is in the final stages of opening the store at a location on San Bruno and Burrows. We asked him why the Portola was his next destination and he said that “well respected friends said it would be a great idea to open a store in the Portola.” He nearly bought a new home in the neighborhood, but his love for the beach ended up in a purchase to the East of the city. The Portola was also an amazing community to work with, Jeremy commented that “so much positivity came from the Portola, such an amazing response to his ideas to open a store”. Unlike any neighborhood he had worked with yet.

We asked what style the new store would take on, would it reflect the Valencia Street location? He said the style has not been fully developed, but he wants to avoid a cookie cutter approach and wants to reflect the neighborhood. It also will be called Four Barrel, a brand that Jeremy wishes to retain for neighborhood locations, unlike his new venture, The Mill, another new coffee store further downtown. What is certain however is that Jeremy intends to make the shop an example of a green business. He mentioned possible plans to create a compostable toilet and a closed loop water system, where waste and rain water is recycled into the business.

Jeremy really was very enthusiastic about coming to the Portola and he wanted to say thank you to everyone who has helped so far. He hopes to be serving us all coffee around the November / December time frame. We can’t wait. So while we drum our fingers in anticipation, check out the following video which really portrays the whole approach Jeremy and the rest of his team have towards coffee.

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The Portola neighborhood is often known for its history of growing flowers and as such gains the title of being the San Francisco garden neighborhood. So it comes as no surprise to learn there is an annual Portola Garden Tour. Ruth Wallace, a respected neighborhood citizen, has been in charge of exposing our most beautiful horticultural examples since 2007. She has just informed the planet of the details for this years tour.

It’s a scrappy, hardworking neighborhood in San Francisco’s underserved southeastern quadrant with hidden gardens to share and a generous spirit. The Portola, San Francisco’s Garden District, is becoming a draw for families hoping to retain urban living in a relaxed setting. The Portola has the added wholesome appeal of growing one’s own food, having a yard big enough for the kids to play or for the dog to romp while enjoying the vistas of San Francisco, The Bay and the Pacific Ocean from a new angle.

The Portola Garden Tour began in 2007 as a fund raiser for the Portola Branch Library at Goettingen and Bacon Streets. When the library opened in 2009, the community decided to continue the popular event as a fund raiser and created The Portola Garden Scholarship at CCSF. The first scholarship was awarded in 2010 and has grown to two per year as well as paying work projects in The Portola to CCSF students. This year’s Portola Garden tour will be Saturday, September 29^th and will feature 22 private and public gardens.

One of the most diverse neighborhoods in The City, with a representation of Maltese, Italian and Jewish families who immigrated in the late 19^th century to African American shipbuilders from the south in the war years to Caucasian and Latino families buying homes with the GI Bill to an influx of Mainland Chinese to Filipino immigrants, LBGT families, and most recently Vietnamese, the neighborhood welcomes all. Once home to flower-growing enterprises and farms, the Portola is San Francisco’s Garden District. With its high level of homeownership, southern exposure, ethnic and sexual diversity and mix of old and new residents, the neighborhood is redefining itself. Roughly bordered by Silver Avenue to the north, Mansell Street to the south, San Bruno Avenue to the east and McLaren Park to the west, The Portola is one of the last undiscovered, affordable sections of San Francisco. Young families, as well as long-time San Franciscans, are finding it an attractive and convenient place to live. Many of the homes have large yards, by San Francisco standards, bay and city views, and nice weather. Added to those factors is the emerging green movement, heralded by The City and embraced in the southeastern quadrant. Long-time local resident and artist, Oscar Melara noted, “The garden tour has taken greening efforts from an individual level and turned into a community effort to keep things going and growing in The Portola.”

Not just flowers growing in the Portola

Ruth told the Planet there are over 20 wonderful and luscious gardens on show with several new additions. Some have even been featured in Sunset magazine as well as gaining airtime on HGTV. Ruth tells us her favorite part of the entire event is witnessing how much pride our fellow Portolans have. These gardens are not the results of outsourced landscape professionals but created out of the owners love for their own spaces. We agree and with around 200 tickets being sold each year it certainly is quite a popular local event. So get yourself a ticket and come and experience the superb sun in the Portola and the effects it has on our local gardens.

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April 2012 was the month when heated debates took place over the redistricting of San Francisco’s neighborhoods. Every ten years the city looks at the population of the city and redraws district lines to ensure fair representation for the supervisors who represent them. The Portola used to be split between district 9 and 10. Yet after much toing and froing, the whole neighborhood landed in D9, along with our hipster neighbors in Bernal Heights and the Mission.

With this change we now have one supervisor who represents all three neighborhoods and that man, right now, is David Campos. We will always attempt to steer clear of any political bias, but we felt that we wanted to know more about what a supervisor actually does. So we at the Portola Planet (all one of us) felt it our duty to drag a camera and notebook all the way down to city hall (4.2 miles) and ask Mr Campos some hard lined political questions.

What took place in reality was we bought him coffee and a muffin and spent a nice hour or so chatting about how much we love San Francisco. We also discussed some interesting things that we would like to share with everyone.

An Interview With A Supervisor

Portola Planet (PP): So first off, describe the role of a supervisor and what that means to the residents of district 9.

David Campos (DC): I think there are about two to three different overarching roles that we have. One is we are a member of the cities legislator, so we pass laws that govern not only your district but over the entire city. So that’s a very important role. Second, and probably more important, is that you serve as a facilitator to the community. Ensure that the nuts and bolts that make a community function well are taken care of. Making sure the streets are clean, pot holes are filled, lights are working, etc.

PP: That sounds like a very mundane part of the job. I mean, you are not literally walking around looking for broken street lights that need repairing are you?

DC: It’s an interesting challenge. Because under the city’s charter we are not allowed to get involved in the day to day operations. Our role is to ensure that when someone in the neighborhood has a concern, the agency involved addresses it. So for example when there is a pot hole and someone calls the Department of Works and for whatever reason they don’t respond, we usually get to know.

PP: Ahh, so you give the innocent citizen a greater voice to get things done. So give us a good example of this in action in your last four years in office.

DC: Err well, so one of the things we have been working on is the issue of the condition of our streets. You know, I have been very frustrated that the quality of the streets in San Francisco, in terms of pot holes and street paving. It’s not where it needs to be.

PP: In comparison to?

DC: Well other cities. There is actually a standard that is followed with regards to the quality of our streets and it’s not at the ideal level. So one of the things that I do is I make a point of going around the neighborhoods and identifying problems.  But this leads to another frustration, DPW doesn’t have a lot of money to fix all these streets.

PP: So it’s not a case of negligence, but a problem of resources?

DC: Right. So one of the things we have been working on for a few years is how do we bring more money to DPW? We just recently had something on the ballot that brings more money to DPW to address this problem. So this is a good example of how our ability to pass law can directly help the quality of life for the people in our districts.

PP: So you mentioned there are three roles to a supervisor. The first being the ability to pass law, the second being your responsibility to the district, what’s the next?

DC: Ahh, so besides addressing the specific needs of your district, you are also making sure the city as a whole, collectively addresses issues. The last role is one that I take very seriously, is that we are also here to provide oversight over city agencies. Making sure that, even though we don’t have the ability to get involved in the day to day running of the agencies, we do have a responsibility to provide oversight on how those agencies are run. I am a big believer in best practices. So I have been one of the supervisors who has been calling for more audits and reviews on the management practices of agencies. I really believe we have to make the most of every penny of every dollar spent.

PP: So how effective is the supervisor’s ability of agency oversight?

DC: Well the MTA, which runs Muni, is one of the largest agencies in the city. It has a budget of about 800 million dollars. You know that’s a budget, by the way, that is larger than the budgets of many countries in the world. As we were looking into the management of the MTA, we realized they had not had a management audit in fifteen years. So we called for an audit because we believe that it is best practice, seeing if we are managing this money and the agency well. We were asking this without prejudging it, we just didn’t have any visibility into it. So one of the things the management audit found was that there not sufficient oversight by the board of directors that led to poor management of overtime. Muni accounts for close to fifty percent of the cities total overtime. What we learned during this audit was that over the past two year period not once did the board of directors even discuss the issue of overtime. There was no plan to address overtime. My point is that if you are a business owner and you’re consistently overspending in overtime, you are asking yourself, do I have proper staffing? Is this the best and most cost effective way to run my business? So that audit led to the creation of an overtime plan to curtail those costs.

We also looked into how Muni managed capital projects, such as building a rapid transit system on Van Ness. On average these projects were 526 days over schedule. A year and a half behind. That in turn showed on average they were ninety million dollars over budget.

PP: So an agency with a budget of 800 million dollars could easily miss the approval of a few million here and there. This can easily add up…

DC: Right. So our role as supervisor is not about pointing fingers and laying blame, but more understanding how we can do the best we can to spend the cities money.

Running for district 9

PP: Gotcha. So why did you run for supervisor of district 9?

DC: Running for office is such a personal thing, and for me, it is about giving back. I’m an immigrant. I came here as a kid from Guatemala and I have been blessed by this country. I have received opportunities I would never have had.

PP: So you were born in Guatemala? What age did you come to the United States?

DC: My parents brought me here when I was fourteen. I was able to get a great education because of this country. I went through the public school system, I was lucky enough to be accepted into Stanford University and then Harvard Law School. You know my parents came here with no money and that someone like me, can go through those educational institutions, get those degrees, I was very lucky. So me being on the board of supervisors is a way for me to give back to the country.

PP: When you first came to the country, was it straight to San Francisco?

DC: I first went to Los Angeles. Then I came up here for Stanford, then law school in Boston. But I knew I wanted to come back to San Francisco. After being exposed to the city when I was at Stanford, I knew I wanted to come back.

PP: What was your first residence in San Francisco?

DC: So in 1997 I moved here and my partner and I lived in Twin Peaks for a bit. I was working at a law firm at the time and after we finally paid off our loans we wanted to buy a property. I was very familiar with district 9 and I knew I wanted to be in that part of the city. We were lucky enough at the time to be able to afford a place to buy so we moved into Bernal Heights. I wouldn’t be able to afford it today!

So I had a choice before I decided to run for office. I had a well-paying job. I was running the legal department for the San Francisco school district. It was a very fulfilling job and I had an accomplished career. But I wanted to be more involved in the policy making and that’s when I decided to run for supervisor.

I thought that even though my role for the school district was very important, I wanted more of a say on the policies that were being created. It was a difficult decision because I knew how challenging elected life can be.

PP: What do you mean?

DC: Challenging as in you are in the public eye. There are also so many competing interests that it is hard to make everyone happy. You know explaining it to my parents was really interesting. They had a hard time understanding why I wanted to give up a well-paid, fulfilling job and if I was lucky, get elected into a job that pays a fraction of before and probably end up working harder.

PP: And answer not only to your boss, but to the 70,000 citizens of your district! So what was your parent’s reaction?

DC: I think because of the immigrant experience, they found it hard to understand why I would take a position that wouldn’t pay the same financial rewards. But they also know, because of the values they instilled in me, that money is not everything.

District 9 getting some attention

PP:  So now you are the supervisor. With the recent change in district 9 to now include the whole of the Mission, Bernal Heights and the Portola. How are you going to assure that residents of the Portola are going to get some of your attention?

DC: I’m very mindful of the fact that the Portola is going into a district where you have very engaged and very active Bernal Heights and Mission communities. I actually see that as a positive, because one of the things a supervisor can do is make connections amongst the communities. We already have the Portola Neighborhood Association working with the Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center. I actually think that because the Bernal community and Mission community are very engaged, it is very positive for the Portola because they will be a part of that engagement. There is already evidence of this, seeing people like Robert Ramirez (Portola Neighborhood Association program manager) meeting with Eric Arguello of the Lower 24^th Street Merchants Association. Or Robert meeting with the executive director of the Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center, Rachel Ebora.

PP: Previously for the past 10 years the Portola was divided into two districts, 9 and 10. With it now all in 9, you are saying that instead of looking at each neighborhood, the Portola, Bernal and the Mission, but that it is more about looking at district nine as a whole to work together as a community.

DC: That’s what we are trying to do. I think that another challenge we had when the neighborhood was split was it was confusing for people to know which supervisor to go to. We saw that same confusion in the north Mission when it was split between district 6 and district 9.

PP: Ahh so it isn’t just the Portola that has been united into one district now, but also the Mission?

DC: Exactly. That’s a very positive thing. It allows people to know who the point person is. It brings a level of accountability that wasn’t there before. The fact of the matter is, if you look at the geographical distance between neighborhoods, it’s not that far.

PP: Just the freeway which separates…

DC: You have a freeway and I know that’s a physical barrier and there is a psychological barrier that comes with that too. But I think that this is about breaking down those barriers and as a supervisor it’s one of the roles I play to break down those barriers. Let me give you another example right, one of the things I heard from the folks in the Portola is that we want to raise the visibility of the neighborhood. We want more people in San Francisco to know about the Portola.

PP: [Laughs] Right!

DC: We want more people outside of San Francisco to know about the Portola, right? One of the things we can do to make that happen is to ensure that in these city wide efforts, that the Portola is part of them.  One of these examples is Sunday Streets. It is something that kinda started in the Mission and that many people in the Portola are very interested in.

PP: What is Sunday Streets?

DC: So Sunday Streets happens a few times a year. We are trying to make it happen at least once a month. On a given day, a whole main street/corridor is blocked off. There are no cars, no traffic. People can walk, ride a bike, skateboard…

PP: So it’s not necessarily a commercial thing, it’s just a community saying let’s block off a street, go hang out, have a BBQ…

DC: But it also can have a commercial component. What we are seeing with Sunday Streets in the Mission is, it isn’t just those local to the neighborhood, but we also see a lot of people outside the neighborhood coming in. The merchants have actually benefitted tremendously from that. So I know that certain people in the Portola are considering having Sunday Streets come to the Portola. The fact that is has been happening in the Mission all this time, creates an opportunity for the Portola to work with them and learn what they did to make it happen, what mistakes were made and how they could do it better.

PP: Does this happen in Bernal as well?

DC: It happens in the Mission, China Town.. But Bernal hasn’t done anything yet.

PP: Ah ha, so another chance for the Portola to “one up” the Bernal? Nothing like a bit of friendly inter-neighborhood competition.

DC: [Laughs] Exactly, absolutely…

A pocket park on San Bruno Avenue

PP: So the planned pocket park at Burrows and San Bruno, what has been your involvement with this?

DC: Well we were involved from the beginning when people started talking about this. Our role was to support the effort in different ways. We connected the neighborhood activists [and] with the city agencies that are responsible for making this happen. DPW, Rec and Park and also other outside agencies such as CalTrans. We helped them get a good understanding of what needed to happen within the bureaucracy to make something like that be finalized. There were applications for funding we supported.

PP: Do you know if the request for funding has been approved?

DC: I think that some of it was. When something like this happens, when there is an interest on the part of the residents of the neighborhood, what we do is make sure we work with them to connect them with the right city agencies and also ensure the agencies know we are supportive of this.

PP: Facilitation is what I am hearing here. Telling people “you need to speak to them” and they know that you are on this making sure something is going to do something about it.

DC: Yes, and then you know once a park is built. It is about making sure it is maintained and used.

PP: Cool, that is going to be exciting.  Because that whole San Bruno Avenue corridor has a lot of potential and there is a lot of change already happening.

DC: Let me give you another example of where I think the cross collaboration between communities is going to be helpful. One of the things we did with the 24^th street corridor is we engaged in a community planning process. We provided some funding for the community to work with the city planning department, the mayor’s office, the residents and the merchants to see what they wanted that wanted that corridor to look like. We went through that process for about a year plus. I would like to see that happen with San Bruno Avenue, and again, the lessons we learned with the 24^th street corridor are lessons we can learn when planning the future of the San Bruno Avenue corridor.

PP: Is this something that has started?

DC: Not yet, that is something we are working on that we would like to kick off.

PP: This leads nicely into the rumors about the Avenue Theatre that CVS has an interest in taking over.

DC: This planning would involve discussions about that. You know, what is the neighborhood interested in having that corridor look like? What are the specific things they would like to see? What are the concerns? The priorities? One of the things we found out with 24^th street was concerns around lighting. So we spent a lot of time dealing with that. Cleanliness of the streets was another big concern. So I think having a forum or a process to have these discussions is very useful. It leads to understanding what the needs are. Do we need another CVS type establishment?

And finally… McLaren Park?

PP: So my final question, McLaren Park. It’s a big part of the Portola. How does that play into the plans for district 9?

DC: Look, McLaren Park is now part of districts 9, 10 and 11 and in many respects that’s a very good thing, because now you have three supervisors working on this. I really believe we have to make an investment in our parks and recreational spaces, because for me, these spaces are about more than just recreation. It’s also a public safety issue. Giving young people opportunities to do something positive, after school, in the summer. It’s a health issue as well right? Because of the ability to engage in recreational activities, simply going for a walk, keeps all of us, of any age, healthy. So I’ve been a big advocate for the city in providing more resources to McLaren Park. We have been fighting for a few months to get more money into a bond that is on the ballot in this November’s election. We have close to ten million dollars being dedicated to McLaren Park.

PP: Wow, that’s a big chunk.

DC: It is a big chunk of money. I don’t think it goes far enough. But it does show the level of commitment the city has. We are going to continue to push really hard to ensure it gets this ten million but also more money comes in.

PP: So if that money does happen, where does it go? Right to Recs and Park?

DC: It goes to Rec and Park, but always in the process of developing a spending plan they take into account the concerns and input of the community.

Our interview ran right into another scheduled meeting with David, so we ended up saying our thanks as we packed our bags. He was very welcoming and open about everything we discussed and I hope the readers of the Planet have also found this an interesting read. You can contact David via the information on his city website. You can also sign up to David’s newsletter, Campos Connect, and keep informed of things taking place in his office.

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Here is your regular update on the $20 millon dollar project renovating the park and recreation center in the middle of the Portola. The Planet took a walk down to the onsite offices and did the usual pleading and begging to get a peak inside the building. To our surprise, a hard hat was slapped on our head and we were led quickly off for a tour of the work so far. The excuse to let us? Well everyone WAS on their lunch break

As we walked inside the recreation center, we were met with an amazing view of change. They have totally rebuilt the foundations in certain places, all the insides have been mostly stripped and they are about to start bringing in some large steel work to provide extra support to the building. From the photo below you can see how the front of the building has been opened up and they are now pouring new concrete foundations. The photo also shows the area, underneath the metal girders, where the new floor is going to extend over the top of this new foundation.

New foundation as seen from the inside at Palega recreation center

New foundations for the Palega recreation center

On the outside the new roof is nearly ready to be put on. There is a large collection of pallets sat outside which contain a roofing system that allows for efficient ventilation of the property. These will be lifted into place over the coming weeks, so expect to see a large crane in action. The building is also going to have a big new addition on the side. A new extension of the side, built from steel and glass, is currently being fabricated offsite. The foundations are also nearly in place (see right) and again within a few weeks we will see the new shape take place.

Finally they are about to start grading the land to create the new baseball, softball and soccer fields. There are going to be two main leves with a drop inbetween that will be perfect for kids to glide their bikes down. At the home of the Portola Planet, we can’t wait. This is going to be such an excellent place for all the kids to come and play.

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