— By Jack Morse (@jmorse_) |
Following on the heels of last Thursday’s video depicting Dropbox and Airbnb employees attempting to kick a group of children off the Mission Playground soccer field, a protest has been planned by the San Francisco Latino Democratic Club challenging the city sanctioned system by which the tech employees reserved the field.
Scheduled to take place this Thursday at 9:00 AM on the steps of City Hall, the protest organizers state the following goals:
1) We demand an immediate end to the privatization of Mission Playground and for all public access be restored
2) We demand that all privatized use for adults of Mission Playground and other youth-used recreation spaces throughout the city undergo community review planned by the neighborhood
3) We demand that community customs and park traditions be followed and supported by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department.
4) We demand full-time San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department staff for Mission Playground.
The youth of our city should not have to pay to use our public parks. Their health cannot afford it. Their safety cannot bare it. The relationships and community built from free play is what will help bring our City together. Join us and speak for the youth of San Francisco! Let’s keep our parks accessible to the elderly, disabled, poor and working-class.
The protest organizers seem focused not on the extreme sense of entitlement demonstrated by the Dropbox/Airbnb employees (some of which have apologized for their actions), but rather on the paid reservation system put in place by the Recreation & Parks Department, which fostered the conflict shown in the video. This is a good thing, as protesting the tech community is clearly a losing battle. And there is actually a chance that the city will take a look at their parks policies, which allow for the use of public space to be restricted to only those that can afford to pay for it.
Comments (15)
Hey, a protest that actually tackles the cause of a problem, rather than its effects. How refreshing!
Totally agree.
For years now, Rec and Park General Manager Phil Ginsburg has been working overtime to privatize and limit access to as many SF public parks as posssible, and this is just one of the latest festering pustules on the Ginsburg / Scott Wiener / Ed Lee / Mark Buell corruption machine.
We already pay a fortune in taxes and bonds for unrestricted access to our public parks here in San Francisco.
The people in this neighborhood already had a great system worked out for prioritizing who is allowed to play on this field, which was based on sharing and allowing everyone to play.
The problem here stems from greedpigs like Phil Ginsburg who cuts budgets for Recreation Center employees and gardeners while (with the help of Scott Wiener, of course) allocating millions of taxpayer dollars to six figure middle management, public relations hacks and an ever increasing recreation and park security patrol force. Meanwhile, Ginsburg wants to restrict park hours and charge you to use them.
As an additional bonus, Ginsburg and Wiener recently made it a crime for you to visit any of the public parks you pay for after the ungodly hour of midnight.
If you care about parks and don’t want to see brodouches and corporate parties kicking out children, feel free to contact Mayor Ed Lee and Supervisor Scott Wiener to give them some feedback on Phil Ginsburg and our parks:
Mayor’s OfficeCity Hall, Room 200,1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett PlaceSan Francisco, CA 94102Telephone: (415) 554-6141Fax: (415) 554-6160Email: mayoredwinlee@sfgov.org
Supervisor Scott Wiener1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett PlaceCity Hall, Room. 244San Francisco, Ca 94102-4689(415) 554-6968Scott.Wiener@sfgov.org
Their health cannot afford it. Their safety cannot bare it.
What is the root cause of their poor health and safety?? TECH COMPANIES? Wait I don’t get it.
dont be daft. Ie they dont have access to a group activity that is healthy and fun they will turn to drugs and gang activity or something illegal. Im sorry you are white and do not understand this
You are also encouraged to come to the soccer park on Tuesday evening to paint protest signs.
Bring cardboard, markers and paint.
The Tuesday evening about 7 time is picked , so that people can witness for themselves what happens if the field is rented this Tuesday night.
I see how this would make the field more accessible to the poor and working-class, but how will this keep the soccer field more accessible to the elderly and/or disabled? In most pickup games people who fit that description on average may see drastically less playing time, and rarely get passed the ball. Seems like for their use case, it’s actually better to have some way to exclusively reserve the field so that you could have a seniors-only game, or a wheelchair game.
5) Here’s our plan to address the $30 million dollar budget shortfall that SFRPD faces each year.
I think unfortunately ‘pay to play’ is here to stay unless someone figures out how to get RPD a larger cut of tax money. A protest may get it removed at one field just to make people be quiet, but it’s not going to change things overall. The situation goes beyond the RPD commission.
This provides a pretty good overview of the funding situation:
http://www.spur.org/blog/2011-09-08/how-solve-san-francisco-s-parks-fund…
That report is from 2011. The budget then was $129 million and the budget for 2013-2014 was $160 million. Which means that the more than the $30 million budget shortfall has been more than covered, not to mention the hundreds of millions of dollars from multiple park bonds passed in the last 10 years that continue to fund park improvements.
Phill Ginsburg is spending millions of taxpayer dollars every year on six figure middle management beareaucrats, public relations hacks and an ever increasing recreation and park security patrol force while crying poor. Rec and Park funding increases year after year,b ut we are told to accept reduced services and limited access to the public spaces we all pay for with our taxes.
We have more than enough money to provide for our public parks, it’s just being mismanaged.
The supposed need to accept privatization along with reduced access and being charged fees to use our own public spaces are all part of Phil Ginsburg’s big lie.
Almost every city in the world has free soccer fields. San Francisco did too for decades. But now that Valencia Street is in a boom, the City is too damn poor to keep the light on the field. For sure.
There are plenty of OTHER parks these bros can pay to play, leave this one free and open.
If you would like to have more soccer fields in SF, vote yes on I!
The Latino Democratic Club is protesting what? Every Latino in SF should be protesting the Latino Democratic Club for false representation. We need more fields for our kids to play, but the budding politicians of the Latino Democratic Club are out campaigning with the west side white nimbys who hate seeing Latino kids in their neighborhood, so they’re blocking the soccer fields at Beach Chalet. I’ll be at their protest to let them know how hypocritical they are.
“Their safety cannot bare it”? Even if that was spelled right, it wouldn’t make sense.
“About a year ago, San Francisco Rec & Park General Manager Phil Ginsburg and I met. He said that he wanted to bring the park system into the 21st century with an easy to use mobile app that anybody could use. We started to talk about features that he wanted from a mobile app, he said it had to include ticketing, reservations, permits,”
http://govfresh.com/2012/10/appallicious-helps-cities-go-mobile/
Someone please tell the “#sharingeconomy” that true sharing doesn’t cost money.
And let’s tear down the recently installed gate at the Strybing Arboretum too, keeping out “the public”.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/04/us/04bcarboretum.html
“In a world where we’re getting less funding,” Park and Rec GM Ginsburg said, “the more revenue we earn, the more open and the more accessible our parks and facilities can be.”
To those with disposable income.