A View From The Brink ... the beach is backwards

CEQA appeal plans sent to San Francisco Board of Supervisors

 

by Thomas K. Pendergast

 

(Originally published June 18, 2013, on SFBay, a news website for the San Francisco Bay Area.) 

 

After months of proposals, counter-offers and tentative deals, not one but two versions of legislation on California Environmental Quality Act appeals were kicked up Monday from a Board of Supervisors committee to the full board.

Those who want to appeal City decisions about building projects would have a choice to:

• File an appeal within 30 days of the project’s first approval by the Planning Commission, as legislation proposed by Supervisor’s Scott Wiener and conditionally supported by Board President David Chiu would enact, or    
• File an appeal later if the project changes significantly, as Supervisor Jane Kim has proposed with her legislation, which is supported by supervisors Campos, Avalos, Mar and Yee.

All three members of the Land Use and Economic Development committee  — Chiu, Kim and Wiener — agreed it was time to send legislation on how The City should handle appeals to decisions made under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) up to the full Board for a vote, but with certain reservations and conditions.

 

Go here for the full story on SFBay   --->>>

 

Marcus Books on the brink of closure

 

The Marcus Bookstore building was moved to avoid the razing of the Fillmore District. Now the family that owns the building may lose it because of a bankruptcy. PHOTO BY MIKE KOOZMIN/THE S.F. EXAMINER

 

Chris Roberts of the San Francisco Examiner newspaper reports that a bad move on a loan at the height of the boom, a financial crisis in the bust that followed, and finally, foreclosure and bankruptcy forcing a family from its longtime home.

It's happened all over the United States — and now it's happened in San Francisco to the country's oldest black bookstore.

Marcus Books, the Fillmore District institution that's been in the same Victorian at 1712 Fillmore St. since 1960, must move out by June 18, following an April bankruptcy sale that saw the storied building sold for a fraction of what it is likely worth.

When the bookstore leaves the three-story building — trucked there from Laguna Street after it was saved from the Redevelopment Agency wrecking ball that leveled most of the Western Addition — it also means the family that owns it must leave the two upstairs flats.

That is, unless the new owners can be convinced — by the NAACP, by housing activists, by the neighborhood, and by The City — to sell to a neighborhood-based nonprofit that's offering them a modest profit on their deal, as well as the chance to be saviors to a pillar of black community in San Francisco.

"We're not asking for a handout," said Gregory Johnson, who with his wife, Karen run the bookstore. "It would be one thing if we didn't have the money," Karen Johnson added, as they sat in the bookstore's incense-scented ground-floor space, indoor plants adding to the cool refuge from an unseasonably hot afternoon. "But we do. We have the money and The City behind us."

The trouble at Marcus Books began in 2006. Like so many other people during the real estate boom, the family took out a loan in order to pay expenses, Karen Johnson said during an interview at the bookstore Friday.

And like so many others, the loan — $950,000, with fixed monthly payments but a high 10 percent interest rate — turned out to be "predatory," she said. Monthly payments on the building ballooned to about $10,000, according to Dr. Mary Ann Jones, executive director of Westside Community Services.

 

Go here for the full story on the website of the San Francisco Examiner newspaper   --->>>

 

Night Stalker Richard Ramirez dies in prison

 

This photo released on Friday June 7,2013 shows convicted killer Richard Ramirez as seen in this June 15, 2007 photo in San Quentin State Prison in Marine County, Calif. California corrections officials say convicted serial killer Ramirez, known as the Night Stalker, has died. AP PHOTO/CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS AND REHABILITATION.

 

The Associated Press reports that Richard Ramirez, the demonic serial killer who left satanic signs at murder scenes and mutilated victims' bodies during a reign of terror in the 1980s, died early Friday in a hospital, a prison official said.

Ramirez, 53, had been taken from San Quentin's death row to a hospital where authorities said he died of liver failure.

He had been housed on death row for decades and was awaiting execution, even though it has been years since anyone has been put to death in California.

At his first court appearance, Ramirez raised a hand with a pentagram drawn on it and yelled, "Hail, Satan."

His marathon trial, which ended in 1989, was a horror show in which jurors heard about one victim's eyes being gouged out and another's head being nearly severed. Courtroom observers wept when survivors of some of the attacks testified.

Ramirez was convicted of 13 murders that terrorized Southern California in 1984 and 1985 as well as charges of rape, sodomy, oral copulation, burglary and attempted murder.

Satanic symbols were left at murder scenes and some victims were forced to "swear to Satan" by the killer, who entered homes through unlocked windows and doors.

Ramirez was finally run down and beaten in 1985 by residents of an East Los Angeles neighborhood while attempting a carjacking. They recognized him because his picture had appeared that day in the news media.

 

Go here for the full story on the website of the San Francisco Examiner newspaper   --->>>

 

Santa Monica Shooting: Gunman Kills Four

 

A gunman apparently wearing a bulletproof vest kills four people in Santa Monica before police shoot him dead.

 

Santa Monica College students evacuate the campus. (Sky News US Team photo)

 

The Sky News US Team in Los Angeles reported that a gunman has been killed by police after a shooting spree that ended with four victims dead in the Californian city of Santa Monica.

Santa Monica police chief Jacqueline Seabrooks said the rampage began just before noon on Friday when emergency calls reported shots fired and a house on fire.

Officers arriving at the scene found a home engulfed in flames. The bodies of at least two men - said to be related to the gunman - were discovered inside.

There are unconfirmed reports the pair were the man's father and brother.

A woman was also found shot in the arm in a car outside the home and was taken to hospital.

Chief Seabrooks said the shooting continued as the gunman, dressed all in black and wearing what appeared to be a bullet vest, stole a vehicle and travelled west from that scene toward Santa Monica College, randomly shooting and killing several people on the way.

 

Go here for the full story on the Sky News HD website   --->>>

 

San Francisco yanks two Richmond District massage parlor permits

 

by Thomas K. Pendergast

 

(Originally published in the June, 2013, issue of the Richmond Review newspaper, a community news source serving the Richmond District of San Francisco.)

 

The SF Department of Public Health (DPH) has yanked the operating permit of a Richmond District massage business on 12th Avenue and suspended the permit of another on Eighth Avenue. 

A permit for the Clement Service Center, at 311 12th Ave., was revoked due to allegations of illegal activities and unsanitary conditions, and the Warmer Massage business at 505 Eighth Ave. had its permit suspended by DPH due to a combination of technical violations and neighborhood complaints. 

At a public hearing on May 9, department inspector Edward Walsh told Dr. Tomas Aragon, a deputy director at DPH, that the Clement Service Center was caught by his department's investigator employing unlicensed massage practitioners in June of 2011. The parlor also stands accused by Walsh and the SF Police Department of engaging in illegal activity, operating after 10 p.m., and having a place of business used as living quarters. 

It was reopened again in July of that year. 

Then, on Jan. 24, 2013, "based on a report that police received and subsequent investigation, a search warrant was issued at this facility," Walsh said.

He said he observed three unlicensed massage practitioners there, so he issued citations. 

"We entered this facility with the police department and other agencies that the police invited," Walsh said. "We tried to speak to these three ladies that didn't have permits and they didn't speak any English. They didn't have any identification. One of them was in her pajamas."

He said this was approximately 2 p.m., and he found unsanitary conditions.

"The showers were filthy," said Walsh. "There were sleeping bags on the premises. There were two suitcases full of clothes underneath the massage tables. … There were 13 unused condoms found in a drawer in the cabinet of the employee room." 

He said after they were ordered to close, they reopened.

"I got a call on March 21 saying the Clement Service Center has reopened and asking if I'd approved. I said 'no.'" 

 

Go here for the full story on the website of the Richmond Review newspaper   --->>>

 

Another View: Oyster farm tries end run on wilderness pact

 

OPINION:

 

In the Sacramento Bee newspaper Amy Meyer opines that California is blessed to have spectacular national parks that show off our country's most treasured landscapes, from the granite peaks of Yosemite to the remote deserts of Death Valley. These beloved places are part of our cultural and natural legacy that we enjoy today and leave for future generations. They are, as Wallace Stegner stated: "America's Best Idea."

And this best idea is owned by you, me and all Americans.

You wouldn't know that from Stephanie Taylor's article on Point Reyes National Seashore, writes Meyer, and its famed ecological heart, the estuary called Drakes Estero ("Point Reyes shellfish bounty faces a shutdown"; Forum, May 19). Last November, when an oyster company's 40-year lease to operate in the estuary neared its expiration, the Obama administration fulfilled a long-standing agreement to let the lease expire on its own terms, giving all Americans their first protected marine wilderness in the continental United States.

This decision represents government at its best: Honoring the public interest and not succumbing to industry interests seeking to privatize property owned by Americans and planned for protection.

But now the Drakes Bay Oyster Co. has teamed up with industry lobbyists, anti-regulatory members of Congress, and Koch-brother affiliated groups to seek a new permit. Plus a Republican-sponsored energy bill that expedites the Keystone XL pipeline and permits offshore drilling along California's coast would grant a new oyster lease and strip the wilderness protections.

 

Go here for Meyer's full opinion piece on the website of the Sacramento Bee   --->>>

    

LAPD reviews Charles Manson follower's tapes for new clues

 

Authorities say recordings of conversations between Charles Watson and his attorneys could yield information on unsolved slayings committed by the Manson family.

 

Charles "Tex" Watson arrives in court in Los Angeles in March of 1971. (Associated Press)

 

Richard Winton of the Los Angeles Times newspaper reported that after a lengthy battle, Los Angeles Police Department detectives and prosecutors have decades-old audiotapes that could shed new light on other cases potentially connected to the Charles Manson killing rampage.

LAPD Cmdr. Andrew Smith said the department's elite Robbery-Homicide Division, along with Los Angeles County prosecutors, are starting to review the tapes of conversations between one of Charles Manson's most fervent followers and his late attorney to see whether they can help solve more cases from that period.

U.S. District Judge Richard A. Schell in March ruled that Charles Watson waived his attorney-client privilege when he allowed the lawyer to sell the tapes to an author who wrote a book on Watson.

The LAPD did not take immediate custody of the tapes because of the potential for appeals by Watson.

LAPD Robbery-Homicide detectives sought the tapes because they believe that during the several hours of conversations, Watson "may have discussed additional unsolved murders committed by Manson followers."

 

Go here for the full story on the website of the LA Times   --->>>

 

New Mexico county ordinance bans fracking

 

Susan Montoya Bryan of the Associated Press reported that a sparsely populated county in northern New Mexico has taken aim at the oil and natural gas industry, approving an ordinance that outlaws the extraction of the natural resources and puts the county's decision-making rights ahead of business interests and federal and state permits.

The Mora County Commission voted 2-1 on Monday in favor of the ordinance, which is aimed primarily at protecting groundwater sources across the county.

"Everyone understands the drought that New Mexico is currently in," Commission Chairman John Olivas said. "Our acequias and our irrigation canals are dry, so the whole idea is resource protection."

Olivas said he believes Mora County is the first in the nation to impose an outright ban on oil and gas development.

Some communities in New Mexico and elsewhere have passed moratoriums on oil and gas development, while others have tightened restrictions or banned the practice of hydraulic fracturing, in effect, severely limiting the amount of drilling that can be done.

In neighboring San Miguel County, a drilling moratorium has been in place for three years as county officials consider revamping regulations to address concerns about water use, road damage and drilling waste.

Since there are no active oil or gas wells within Mora County, experts say it's too soon to say what effect the ordinance will have, other than providing notice to the industry that it is not welcome.

Wally Drangmeister, a spokesman for the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association, said the potential of the natural gas deposits in the area may never be known if exploration isn't allowed and that could result in lost revenues for the county, as well as the rest of New Mexico.

 

Go here for the full story on the website of the Alamogordo Daily News   --->>>

 

Bay to Breakers, 2013, the ever-evolving footrace

 

It's a tamer Bay to Breakers but it still keeps its boozy flavor.

 

Tolossa Gedefa Fufui of Ethiopia won the 12-kilometer, 102nd Bay to Breakers race with a time of 35:01.
 

Photo and story by Thomas K. Pendergast

 

(Originally published May 19, 2013, on SFBay, a news website for the San Francisco Bay Area.)

 

Thousands came out for the Bay to Breakers race in San Francisco to have a good run, or a party, or both.

And then, well, whatever.

Some thought it might be dangerous because of terrorists. Others said they would not let drunken revelry and nudity hold notorious sway this year as in the past.

This is going to be a clean race, in every way, they said. Sure, that’s right, no doubt everyone got that memo.

True, the race started with a moment of silence for the victims of the terrorist attack at the Boston Marathon. No sense in drawing bad karma from ignoring America’s most recent footrace with the terrible events that came from it, the latest terrorist attack.

After that moment, however, it was all San Francisco.

Well, not entirely, because this year’s top winners were mostly from Ethiopia. Tolossa Gedefa Fufui of that country won the race with an official time of 35:01.

 

Go here for the full story on SFBay   --->>>

  

SFPD police log: Homicide in the Bayview District

 

File photo by Thomas K. Pendergast

 

(Originally published on May 16, 2013, on the Examiner.com website) 

 

Here are some recent crimes in San Francisco, culled from SFPD reports. Please note that the sub-headings in bold type are commentary from the reporter and not part of the original police log item.

 

Man stabbed to death in the Bayview district

May 15, 01:45 a.m., at the intersection of Innes Avenue and Arelilous Walker, near the India Basin in Hunter’s Point.

Police officers responded to a report from neighbors about hearing a man screaming. When they arrived they found Cameron Myers, 20, suffering from stab wounds. He was transported to San Francisco General Hospital, where he died. As it is an ongoing homicide investigation, police are not releasing further information about this case at this time.

 

Go here for the SFPD log report on Examiner.com   --->>>