Around and Nearby – Page 4 – FOREST KNOLLS NEIGHBORHOOD

California Academy of Sciences Free Days

The California Academy of Sciences has a few free days occasionally. (The usual ticket is $30 for general admission; $25 for seniors/ students/ youth 12-17; and $20 for kids 4-11. Under 4s are free.) The last admission on free days is at 4 p.m., but it’s usually crowded so they recommend getting there early.

Target sponsors free days by zipcode, and ours (for 94131) are coming up soon: April 12-14th, 2013. If you’re going, the adults will need proof of residence, and can take in up to 6 children.
On April 18th, admission is free until 2 p.m. but the place closes at 3 p.m.
The next general free day, courtesy Chase, is on 2 June 2013.

Before visiting, check out the details HERE on their website.

CalAcademy is only about 10-15 minutes away from Forest Knolls. (Some people even walk down there, though I guess it’s a bit of a hike back, uphill!) Personally, I find it so interesting and convenient that I have a membership. It takes only 2-3 trips to break even. The Membership page of their website is HERE.

West Portal Arts and Crafts Fair Coming up – April 12-14

I was in West Portal yesterday, and saw this poster for the annual street fair. It’s always worth a visit, if you like arts and crafts, or are looking for a unique gift for someone. I try to go each year. Here are links to my posts from previous years.

Legion of Honor: Royal Treasures and Blackbirds

Yesterday, we visited the Legion of Honor. They have an exhibition of Royal Treasures from the Louvre, a collection of opulent artifacts and woven wall hangings. There’s an inlaid stone table-top that is quite incredible; if you go, be sure to notice the pomegranate seeds…

The other highlights were a collection of cups and jugs carved out of semi-precious stones like amethyst and agate and lapis lazuli; and a collection of elegant and ornate snuff-boxes that reminded me of pictures of Faberge easter eggs. The whole exhibition, with its emphasis on rich, fine work reminded me of displays I’ve seen of Moghul art, where a similar dynamic was on display – artisans patronized by a wealthy court, trying to out-do each other in the brilliance and detail of their work.

Somehow, though, in a museum, it just seemed out of context. I’ve visited Versailles once, and there it would have all made sense.

THREE BIRDS IN A FOUNTAIN

On the way in, we walked past the big fountain at the Legion of Honor. It’s pretty devoid of life – the water is too deep for birds, and there’s nothing there. So I was surprised when I thought I saw a blackbird dive in. Of course I was mistaken. There was no bird, dead or alive, in the water.

On the way back, from the other side of the fountain, I saw what happened. The birds were flying under the rim into the overflow gutter, which had just enough water to make a useful bird-bath. I watched for a few minutes, and saw several birds do the same thing.

Clever.

Donate Books for Inner Sunset Book Blast!

A message from Barbara Oleksiw, who stages wonderful free volunteer-driven events in her house on the corner of Irving and 6th… she’s collecting books for her annual Book Blast. If you have old books that need a new home… drop them off!

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We’re now collecting for the Inner Sunset Third Usually-Annual Book Blast.
This year, the event will be a full weekend, Saturday/Sunday, April 27 & 28
at the NW corner of Irving & Sixth; Noon until exhaustion.

Feel free to drop books NOW at 1297 Sixth Ave. in our sheltered doorway, in bags/boxes, not too heavy to make my eyes pop out. If necessary, we can pick up your donations, just call. We’d love kids’ books, fiction, dictionaries, books, psychology, science, cookbooks, travel, maps, books, videos, biographies, books, CDs, DVDs, books, paperbacks, history, and books!

**please note: we canNOT accept text books, encyclopedias or magazines, unfortunately.**
This is not a charity event, or a swap and no money will be exchanged…
It is our neighborhood’s effort to recycle books.
Leftover books will be donated to the SF Public Library for their annual fundraiser.

Volunteers *very* welcome (err…needed!) Pls call Barbara: 2.46.47.48

January 2013 Crime (Such as it is), and Poisoned Tree Update

As usual, there was nothing much from Forest Knolls or Midtown Terrace in the Park Station police newsletters. (We like it that way!)

But a few things did catch my eye:

January 23, 1.49 a.m. Drunk driving at Clarendon and Oak Park. “Sergeant Callaway & Lewis located a vehicle that had been involved in a hit & run traffic collision. The driver was determined to be seriously in the bag.”

Jan 17th, 1.55 a.m. A report of an attempted “hot prowl” at 300 Warren Drive: “Victim was awoken by noise at his rear door. He looked out and saw the suspect trying to break in. Victim yelled at the suspect who fled.” (A “hot prowl” is when someone enters a home when people are present.)

Jan 17th, 12.30 p.m. Malicious damage to a vehicle at Clarendon and Panorama.

Jan 17th, 11.15 a.m. A collision at Clarendon and Christopher, because someone was going too fast.

Jan 5th, 9 a.m. 100 Marview. A car was stolen.

Jan 3rd, 11.30 p.m. Collision at Crestmont and Devonshire – someone was speeding.

POISONED TREES UPDATE

Those poisoned trees, which I wrote about HERE? I’d written to UCSF about them; they said it looked like it was SFWD’s business. A few days ago, I saw SFWD working there, and now it looks like they have cut down one of the trees and trimmed the other. I suppose there was no other way with the trees becoming unsafe.

Citizens Action Plan for Seismic Safety – 30 Jan 2013 meeting

I got this message for inclusion on the blog: There’s a meeting on Jan 30th, 2013.

Join Lt. Erica Arteseros and the Neighborhood Emergency Response Team (NERT) partner with SF City Administrators office, Patrick Otelinni, Director of Earthquake Safety, to look at seismic safety of SF buildings.

Learn the most current information on the Citizens Action Plan for Seismic Safety program (CAPSS) including an introduction of the proposed Pilot Program of ‘Soft Story’ Projects to implement seismic upgrade in those most vulnerable of residential/small commercial buildings and how neighborhood community preparedness plays an integral role in our ability to remain resilient before and after a major earthquake.

Open to the public – bring a friend

Agenda:

NERT – An overview – Simple solutions
CAPSS – What it is – Advantages & Benefits – How to get involved
Q & A – Future Next Steps

Date: Wednesday, January 30th, 2013
Place: County Fair Building (formerly the Hall of Flowers) -Bring a family, friends, neighbors

Location: Just inside GG Park @ 9th Avenue at Lincoln Way.
Time: 6:30PM to 8:30PM
RSVP at http://www.eventbrite.com/event/5181116860#

(Street parking available – towing on the north side of Lincoln Way – Muni info: http://www.nextmuni.com)

Refreshments, Displays, Handouts, will be available.

Presenters will include:

Lt. Erica Arteseros, NERT Program Coordinator

Lt. Erica Arteseros has been the Program Coordinator for the SF Fire Department’s Neighborhood Emergency Response Team (NERT) since 2004. She supervises the training of people in NERT’s disaster preparedness and response classes and has expanded the advanced training classes offered to NERT graduates so volunteers can maintain skills. Lt. Arteseros has also worked extensively with City agencies, the private sector, and individual citizens in pre-disaster planning and training.

Reuben Hechanova, Architect

Appointed by Mayor Gavin Newsom in 2008 to the Building Inspection Commission (BIC) that oversees policy and administrative governance of SF Department of Building Inspection, Reuben served as the BIC President in 2010 where he helped move the CAPSS (Citizen Action Plan for Seismic Safety) forward stepping down from the BIC in March 2012.

Laurence Kornfield, Policy Development

Chief Building Inspector in SF for 20 years, Laurence has been active in earthquake hazard mitigation, response and recovery since the Loma Pieta earthquake in 1989. He initiated and oversaw SF’s recently completed Community Action Plan for Seismic Safety (CAPSS), and is currently developing long-term implementation plans for that CAPSS project. Mr. Kornfield is active in policy development related to building performance, disability access, sustainability, etc.

http://sfcapss.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/capssworkplan91311.pdf [This is a PDF]

Patrick Otelinni, Director of Earthquake Safety -SF City Administrator’s office

Patrick is a certified building inspector, previously serving on the Mayor’s Soft Story Task Force. Patrick understands SF building issues, codes, permitting and construction. Patrick’s job is to implement a 30 year plan to reduce the city’s most dangerous risks in a future earthquake, including retrofitting, soft-story buildings, private schools, and some concrete building. He will guide the Earthquake Safety implementation plan (ESIP) while implementing the recommendations of CAPSS.

UCSF’s Plans

I attended a Community Action Group (CAG) meeting of UCSF last evening, mainly about their Long Range Development Plan (LRDP), 2014-2035. (It was a follow-up to the previous meetings, one of which is reported HERE.) This meeting covered three broad areas: The Space Ceiling; Parnassus Avenue Streetscape and traffic; and UCSF Shuttle bus operations. But first, an announcement, important for anyone following the Mount Sutro forest battle:

The Sutro Forest Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) will be published on Jan 18th, 2013. Then UCSF will take comments for 45 days; respond to the comments; and then they plan to certify the EIR. There’s a meeting on February 25th, at 7 p.m. during which people can give comments and feedback. (Clicking on the thumbnail picture here will take you to a larger – and hopefully readable version of the notice.)

SPACE CEILING

In that last article, I noted that UCSF had set itself a 3.55 mn square foot “space ceiling” in response to neighborhood anger at their expansion strategies in the 1970s. However, it shot past this space ceiling early on, and currently exceeds it by 8.2%. For many neighbors – especially those in the Inner Sunset – space ceiling compliance is one of the most important issues. They hoped the new LRDP would bring UCSF into compliance.

No such luck. It looks like it will actually go to as high as 9% over the limit when the existing Moffat Hospital is demolished and rebuilt, perhaps 10-12 years from now.

UC Hall, an old and historic building, was originally slated for removal. That would have reduced the excess over limit. But now they plan to convert it to a mix of housing and other uses. Since housing doesn’t come under the space ceiling, this helps – but it doesn’t actually reduce congestion and related concerns. Later, UCSF may convert UC Hall completely to student housing, thus taking it out of the calculation. They also plan a similar housing conversion for Milberry Union towers, which also will be gone from the numbers (though not from the campus).

Other minor reductions in the space ceiling will come from demolishing a bunch of small buildings, including several in the forest, and three blocks of student housing in Aldea campus. I’m finding this counter-intuitive. The main congestion impact is down in the Inner Sunset, so UCSF is demolishing buildings in the lightly-trafficked Sutro Forest, and adding housing along Parnassus?

Anyway, by a combination of housing conversions and minor demolitions, they expect to end 2035 at only 5% over the space ceiling, compared with 8.2% now. The map above shows the actual demolitions in turquoise; the pink buildings will either be demolished and rebuilt, or converted to housing. One building, Proctor, is undecided; it could be made Open Space, or converted to housing.

UCSF are also considering giving up their Laurel Heights space and co-locating those functions at Parnassus or Mission Bay (or both).

PEOPLE AND CROSSWALKS

The people numbers – which were originally supposed to be limited to 13,400 average daily population and then to 16,000 – is already at around 18,000. According to the forecast, it will rise to 18,500-18,900 in 2035. Members of the CAG were rather skeptical about this number.

In addition to construction and changes in use in the buildings along Parnassus, they plan to remodel the road itself to make it more pedestrian-friendly and give it a stronger sense of place. Better sidewalks and a huge cross-walk are in the plans. The tree plan involves removing some 60 trees that are hazardous or “poor quality” and planting around 70. They will also evaluate the redwood grove at Parnassus and 7th at some later date, if they haven’t removed it during their construction work first.

There was also a discussion of shuttle-bus operations, the upshot being that they may be better able to match demand (peak demand exceeds number of trips on some routes, but doesn’t match capacity on others) and supply.

If you want more details, UCSF has its website for the LRDP HERE.

Season’s Greetings and Happy Holidays!

The days are short, the houses decorated, and the year is almost done. It’s too cold for fog. Forest Knolls looks quite romantic

There’s a new restaurant in West Portal, a Greek place called Orexi, where the Round Table Pizza used to be. We ate there one evening. It was already decorated for Christmas, and had an great ambiance and good food.

The wonderful decorations in Midtown Terrace are up again. Greenview is a cul-de-sac where all the residents hang lights on every house each year. Then, at the very end of the road, they put up a display made of painted plyboard cut-outs and lights. They have a menorah that is lit, one painted candle at a time; a dreidl, a creche, and Santa Claus, reindeer and even the North Pole. If you enjoy decorating enthusiasm – I do! – then check it out. It’s a delight.

SEASON’S GREETINGS, EVERYONE, AND HERE’S WISHING YOU A WONDERFUL HOLIDAY SEASON!

Pelican K15 at Pacifica Pier

We’d gone for a walk to Pacifica Pier last month. It’s about 20 minutes from here, but feels like another world. When you walk all the way out and look down at the sea, it’s almost like being on a ship.

It was late in the afternoon, and the fishermen were beginning to think about leaving. Suddenly, a [brown] pelican descended on the railing, quite fearlessly looking around for handouts.

I took a few snaps, then realized it was banded. I moved in closer, and could see the band was prominently marked K15.

It apparently knew the drill. A couple of people gave it their bait fish as they left.

One fisherman told me, as he packed up his gear, that this particular bird was often here. He’d been told, he said, that it was a youngster, and born late in the season. Mortality rates were high for such late-hatched birds.

I wonder if that’s true, and also wonder who banded the bird. It’s clearly meant to be read from a distance.

(If anyone knows, comment here or email me? I tried posting on the SFBirds group of Yahoo, but they only permit San Francisco posts.)

GULL RESCUE

As we were leaving, we saw a couple of wildlife rescue people armed with net and a carry-box, rounding up an injured gull on the beach. I felt like cheering. (If you happen to read this, rescuers, thanks for your work!)

[Edited to Add: Later, I found out about International Bird Rescue. They have a form to report blue-banded birds on their website, so I did. Here’s what they wrote back.

K15 is one of our celebrities. It hangs out at the Pacifica Pier a lot and unfortunately gets fed. He has every ability to care for himself but he likes the snacks. I am attaching some things for you and one is the poster for the banding project. K15 is our poster bird. K15 originally came into our rehabilitation clinic in Cordelia on June 23, 2011 with pouch lacerations and he was in a weakened state. He was a first year bird and was rehabilitated and released on July 26, 2011 in Alameda.

K15 has been reported 10 times since his release. It’s doing really well but I really hate people feeding it. That makes them habituated and that always ends up bad for the bird. Fingers crossed!

Thank you so much for reporting the bird. I love your blog.

Thanks for the work you do! (Here’s the poster – like the one below – as a PDF: BirdRescueBandedPelican)

And if you’re interested in more information about California’s brown pelicans, International Bird Rescue prepared a one-pager (attached here as a PDF): Understanding Brown Pelicans- final ]

Sad Death of Glen Canyon’s Great Horned Owl

Great horned owl in eucs (Photo: Janet Kessler) — Great horned owl, Glen Canyon (Photo: Janet Kessler)

A few weeks ago, the Glen Park group had news of a Great Horned Owl found dead in Glen Canyon. There’s a well-known pair of owls that nest there every year, and typically raise two or three chicks. Neighbors fear this may be the male of that pair.

Of course people were upset, and they raised money for a necropsy – an autopsy for animals. This was ~~conducted~~ arranged by Wildcare, a wonderful organization that rehabilitates injured wildlife. (I’ve written about them before, HERE.)

The result came in today. The owl died from eating poisoned rodents.

According the Wildcare press release,

“Commonly available rodenticides [rat poisons] are consumed by rodents, the basic food source for a number of different predators all the way up the food chain. These poisons kill by making whatever animal eats them bleed to death internally – slowly and painfully. While the poisoned animals – targeted or not – are still alive, they can be consumed by other predators. It is a terrifying prospect; to kill many animals while targeting only one.”

three owlets (Photo: Janet Kessler) — Three Great Horned Owlets (Photo: Janet Kessler)

A Great Horned Owl eats about 5 rodents a day, and much more if it’s feeding young. Its favorite prey is skunk, but it also eats rats and mice, rabbits, and birds. If someone poisons rats to get rid of them, they don’t die right away. Instead they wander around, increasingly weak and slow – and thus particularly attractive to predators. The poison can then kill the bird or animal that eats it – or even the next animal up the food chain. [Edited to add: More HERE about the specific poisons that killed this owl.]

PROTECTING OUR NEIGHBORHOOD OWLS

We have Great Horned Owls in our neighborhood. I’ve seen them in Sutro Forest, up on the hillside, and in trees along Crestmont and Christopher. I’ve seen one on a lamp-post on Clarendon Avenue. We also have barn owls, which are even more vulnerable because they’re not large enough to eat skunks but eat more rats and mice instead. Every time we use rat poison, we’re endangering these birds.

Eucalyptus, fog, Great Horned Owl (Photo: Rupa Bose)

NERT Again – December 2012

I got this message about new Neighborhood Emergency Response Training classes for December. All the information is below.

(There’s also a flyer that you can download here as a PDF file and print: NERT flyer dec 2012 )

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We have one more training in December! Please include this note in your District newsletter and/or add this information to your calendar.

This NERT Training is somewhat central but is for all people who live and work in the San Francisco. People may live and work in different parts of the city. This training may fit their schedule!

And…What a great (early) Holiday gift for someone you love, your relative, your neighbor, or your co-worker! Give them a copy of the NERT flyer (see attached), encourage them to take the training. Tell them the STORY of why to took the NERT training! Tell them how important it is to Prepare, to Mitigate (to make less harsh, less severe and less painful), and let them know that when we face a disaster like the East Coast has just experienced and continues to experience, we will be so much more ready in the Recovery phase and with stronger ability to put our lives back together again! Surely, no one expected this disaster to hit the East Coast such as it did!

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”
–Anne Frank
~

NERT TRAINING:

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Mission District
San Francisco Fire Department Division of Training*
Folsom St. @ 19th Street

Wednesday, 6:00PM – 9:00PM Classes start promptly!!!
December 5: Class 1
December 12: Class 2
December 19: Class 3
January 2: Class 4
January 9: Class 5
January 16: Class 6

To register visit:

http://bit.ly/X4o8CZ,

* Note: You must attend all sessions to gain the full benefit of the training. New students may not join on the second day of class. A Certificate will be issued. Make ups may be approved.
Recertification – Take Class 5 & 6 – Or Call 970-2024 or – http://www.sf-fire.org/index.aspx?page=879
**SFFD DOT (Division of Training): 2310 Folsom Street between Shotwell & Folsom. Enter parking lot on 19th Street and park against masonry wall. DOT is the single-story building located next to Fire. Also see: http://www.nextmuni.com/ to arrive by Muni!

If you have any questions about the NERT program, please contact Lt. Arteseros at 415-970-2022 or email her at: erica.arteseros@sfgov.org,

Best regards and Thank you for Supporting the NERT Program.
Happy, Merry, and Safe Holidays to you and yours,

Diane Rivera
NERT Advisory Board – Coordinator Chair
KG6QLX
415-753-1443
http://www.sfgov.org/site/sfnert

Tank Hill Night with Orange City Hall

We went up to Tank Hill the other night. (Isn’t that one of the perks of this neighborhood? A 15-minute walk takes you to a great vista point – especially at night?)

It was a perfect night, clear and warm. The lights of the city shone below us, and in the sky, laser lights made a dancing pattern of dots on the clouds. I took some photographs… I’ve been mucking with the settings on my camera, so they weren’t really sharp – but somehow they had a painterly look I quite liked. Here they are… and if anyone has better ones they’d like to share, send them on over!

Ocean Beach and “Dump Citizens United”

Some months ago, one of our neighbors participated in a human slogan on Ocean Beach: Tax the 1%.

Recently, the same group “The Other 98%” organized over 1000 people into another slogan: Dump Citizens United. They hired a helicopter and photographer John Montgomery took some amazing shots of the event – and of San Francisco.

For more of these brilliant pictures (in higher resolution), go to their website HERE.

WHAT IS “CITIZENS UNITED” ?

In 2010, the Supreme Court ruled in the case Citizens United v The Federal Election Commission that “it was unconstitutional to ban free speech through the limitation of independent communications by corporations, associations and unions, i.e. that corporations and labor unions may spend their own money to support or oppose political candidates through independent communications like television advertisements.” (Source: Wikipedia).

It’s widely considered to give Corporations the same free speech rights as people. From the website of The Other 98%:

“By defining corporations as people and money as speech, the Supreme Court has undermined ‘government of, by and for actual people,’” said John Sellers, co-founder of The Other 98%, the organization behind today’s event.

River Otter at Sutro Baths

I read the SF Birds Yahoo Group, though I’m an indifferent birder at best. It’s always interesting to know what’s going on with our feathered residents and visitors. Birder Dan Singer recently posted a most unusual sighting.

This visitor, though, isn’t feathered. It’s a river otter, at Sutro Baths. No one on the list remembers seeing one here before, though a sea otter’s been sighted in the area a few years ago.

I passed on the word to Janet Kessler, the photographer who specializes in urban wildlife, and soon she was out there with her camera. With her permission, I bring you these pictures.

Her website is at UrbanWildness.com – if you’re interested in wildlife pictures, most of them taken right here in San Francisco, that’s a treasury.

West Portal Fire at Squat & Gobble

Edited to Add: I was sent this message from the West Portal Merchants Association:

“Many are saddened by the fire that has destroyed the building at the corner of West Portal Ave. The biggest tragedy is that there are over 60 displaced employees. Loss of employment just before the Holidays adds to the stress. An account has been set up with Bank Of America to accept donations. You can walk into any B of A Bank and ask to deposit into the “West Portal Fire” account. ALL money received will be distributed to the displaced employees. All overhead costs are being funded by the West Portal Avenue Association A.K.A West Portal Merchants Association. Please be generous to those most affected by the fire.”

West Portal Merchant’s Association

And the Greater West Portal Neighborhood Association noted that the city is trying to help and they’ll keep us informed.

“The City plans to expedite permits for repairs. In fact, Regina told me that Squat & Gobble already has their permits. They will help with legal and relocation activities. They are awaiting the Department of Building Inspections decision on if the Vin Debut building can be rebuilt or must be torn down.”

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There’s been a large fire at West Portal. Early yesterday morning, a blaze started at Squat and Gobble restaurant, and spread to the wine bar next door as well as an orthodontist’s office. There’s CBS report about it HERE.

I went by around midnight. Squat & Gobble is boarded up, so is the wine shop; and a fire-truck is parked beside them.

People in the bars across emerged from time to time to look. I’m guessing that each time someone new went in the bar, they were being told what had happened. A couple of buses and a train came by. Muni seemed to be running normally.

A white van – fire department surveillance of some kind? – sat in front of the West Portal Tunnel entrance. In front of the Studio Redz salon, a sad pile of debris was cordoned off with yellow tape and a traffic cone.

Even as I left, a few people stood on the sidewalk pointing at the burned out building. A smell of smoke still hung in the air.

[Edited to Add: A few more pictures, showing the damage in the day time. The inside was gutted. I took these on Oct 25th, but did not get around to posting them until now.

Soon, I hope, this will merely be a sad memory.]

CAFE FOR ALL SEASONS COULDN’T WEATHER THIS

In other, non-fire-related news: Cafe for All Seasons is apparently closed for good. The other day, I was surprised to see it shut mid-week and at lunchtime. Expecting a temporary closure, I jumped out of my car to read the note on their door for the dates. Instead, it was an eviction notice. Pity, that. First West Portal Bakery, gone equally suddenly, now this. I hope whoever moves in will be as popular as Goat Hill Pizza, which took West Portal Bakery’s spot.

UCSF and Forest Knolls

I went to UCSF’s long range development plan (LRDP) meeting a couple of days ago. My main interest is in Mount Sutro’s Cloud Forest, but I also wanted to know what the other issues and plans were.

(For more on the Mount Sutro Cloud Forest, go HERE. The meeting report relevant to the forest is HERE.)

UCSF’s plan will be adopted in 2014, and runs to 2035. So they’re looking at issues around UCSF’s growth plans, its impact on neighborhoods, and how to reconcile one with the other. Their full presentation is HERE (as a PDF) on their website.

LIMITS TO GROWTH

First, some background. Back in 1976, UCSF had a strategy of stealth acquisition. It quietly acquired a bunch of houses (mainly in the 4th Avenue and 5th Avenue area in the Inner Sunset), used some eminent domain, and planned to knock them down and expand. It was trashing the neighborhood, and the neighbors revolted. The battle was bitterly fought, and went all the way up to Sacramento.

When the smoke had cleared away, UCSF agreed to limits to growth in the neighborhood. The UC Regents passed a resolution. This had several important impacts on Forest Knolls.

It agreed to maintain the 61 acres of Sutro Forest as an Open Space. They weren’t going to build on it.
They imposed a limit – 3.55 million — on the total square footage in the Parnassus area. If they built something new, they would knock down something else.
They defined an expansion restriction area in which they would not acquire properties (they cannot accept gifts of properties in this area either. This restriction area – the map in the photo above – includes Forest Knolls (the line ends at Clarendon).
Recognizing that the influx of people (with the transport requirements and other pressures they bring) was also impacting neighborhoods, they included a goal of limiting the population to 13,400.

WHERE ARE WE NOW?

UCSF seems to have satisfied conditions 1 and 3. The Sutro Forest is still a forest (for now, anyway). And as far as I know, they haven’t bought anything within the expansion restriction area.

The space ceiling is another story. By 1996, they’d blown through it and were at 3.66 mn sq ft. They planned to reduce the excess by half in the next period, by 2012. That didn’t work. Instead of reducing it, they went even further over the limit. They now have 3.84 mn sq ft, 8.2% over the limit.

The People limit’s also been exceeded. Set at 13,400 in 1976, it had gone to 15,400 in 1996. UCSF adopted a different goal: 16,000 people. They’re well over that now, at nearly 18,000.

So if you’re wondering why Parnassus Avenue seems increasingly crowded every time you go by there – now you know.

WHAT’S NEXT?

The Inner Sunset neighbors were most concerned about traffic and space ceilings. UCSF offered ways to reduce the square footage, the most important being to demolish University Hall. (The UCSF slides discussing those options are HERE as a PDF.)

They are also talking of how to plan for traffic, and for their shuttles. Though we in Forest Knolls aren’t directly affected, it certainly does impact us each time we go down 6th Avenue and through the Parnassus bottleneck.

If anyone wants to get involved, more meetings are planned. The UCSF LRDP website has the details.

Free Neighborhood Emergency Response Training (NERT) October 2012

I got this message from Diane Rivera, NERT Advisory Board – Coordinator Chair (www.sfgov.org/site/sfnert)

October is here and we celebrate the anniversary of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, an important date for all citizens who live and work of San Francisco. As the Bay Area suffered extensive damage from this earthquake, the neighbors in the Marina district requested that the San Francisco Fire Department start a program to help people to be better prepared for just this type of an event. The Neighborhood Emergency Response Team (NERT) was established soon after and active fire fighters continues to train individuals and families in all neighborhoods. The NERT Teams will hold their semi-annual drill in the neighborhoods on October 20, 2012 as we bring continuing training to the NERT community in San Francisco.

The NERT training is a FREE, hands on, 20 hour training for all people who live and work in San Francisco. Our training allows individuals, their families, neighbors and friends to be resilient, to be ready for any emergency with confidence in their training if and when we will need to take care of ourselves and our families.

We bring three new training opportunities at this time and thank you for your support in helping us get the message out so the as many people as possible learn about this training. Please add information to your calendar section!

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So here they are:

1) Potrero Hill: St. Teresa Church, Connecticut @ 19th Street
Tuesdays 6:30PM – 9:30PM
October 9 : Class 1
October 16: Class 2
October 23: Class 3
October 30: Class 4
November 7, Weds:Class 5
November 13, Tues:Class 6
RSVP – REGISTER HERE FOR ANY CLASS http://bit.ly/y4R3nd

2) San Francisco State University, 800 Font Blvd.
Two Day Intensive!
Tuesdays 8:30am-5:30PM
October 9: Class 1, 2, and 3 – (In the Conference Center)
October 16: Class 4, 5, and 6 (In the Tower Conference Center
Parking – Garage 20 on October 9th & October 16th.
RSVP – REGISTER HERE FOR ANY CLASS http://bit.ly/y4R3nd

3) Personal Readiness Workshop
October 24
Wednesday, 6PM – 8PM
Intersection for the Arts, 925 Mission St. (near 5th St.) SF
Tell your family, friends, co-workers to come to this workshop to learn more about the NERT program.
** To enroll -Call 970-2024 or – http://www.sf-fire.org/index.aspx?page=879 and provide Name, Phone & Number.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Lt. Erica Arteseros, Program Coordinator, Neighborhood Emergency Response Team at 415-970-2022 or email her at erica.arteseros@sfgov.org.

Last Voyage: Space Shuttle Endeavour over Golden Gate Bridge

A few days ago – on 22 September 2012, to be exact – the Space Shuttle flew over San Francisco on its voyage to its new museum home in Los Angeles. Neighbor Ingrid Schultz was there with her camera.

Here’s what she writes: “I got up early, Saturday morning, drove down to Crissy Field. A lot of people had the same idea! For a change the fog held off….”

“…The small speck in front of the Endeavor is the spot plane that flew in front…”

Here’s a gallery that includes the original pictures (I cropped the ones above to fit into the column width).

The Inner Sunset Gazillion-Family Flea Market 29 Sept 2012

Here it is again: The indefatigable Barbara with another Inner Sunset event!

The Inner Sunset Gazillion-Family Flea Market
Saturday, Sept. 29th, 10a to 4p
NW corner of Sixth & Irving
28 Families already participating!

To reserve a free table, with a $40 deposit, please call Barbara: 415/246-4748
Just two spaces left!

Come buy handicrafts, used clothing, furniture, junk, tools,
games, treasures, artwork, photography, CDs, plants, cookies,
more junk, kids’ clothing, some bric & some brac!

Earthquakes and Ostriches: The Cutest California Academy of Sciences Exhibit

The California Academy of Sciences has an exhibit about earthquakes, so of course, it has ostrich chicks.

You don’t see the connection? Neither did I, actually, but I had to see the ostrich chicks.

As a member of the Cal Academy, admission is free and I can guiltlessly just drop by. That’s what I did today, just to see the ostriches, and was directed to the end of the building. But the enclosure was empty. The ostrich babies were actually outside, being exercised in a large pen in the sunshine.

These little guys were 20 days old, and as you see here, still fuzzy. The fuzz is actually rather like dry grass in texture, and doubtless helps conceal them on the African plains. Ostriches form harems, with 6-7 females and a male, and lay eggs in a communal nest. The females incubate it in the day, the male in the night. When the chicks hatch, they’re ready to run with the flock. In nature, they’d be chasing their mother around the savanna, much like outsize chickens (or she’d be chasing them).

The Academy chicks are indoors much of the time, and so this outdoor exercise time is important to their development. They came as eggs from a ranch in Escondido, the docent explained, and were hatched in an incubator at the Academy. As they outgrow the exhibit, they’ll be sent to various zoos, or back to the ranch. The Academy hatches a new batch every few weeks.

I’m wondering if these little chicks are going to imprint on humans… I was reading on the internet that they do, sometimes, and then the males will direct its mating displays to its human attendant instead of the female ostriches.

Oh, and the connection with earthquakes? Well, it’s plate tectonics.

As the earth’s tectonic plates separated, they parted related birds onto different continents – emus and rheas and ostriches. They’re all flightless rattites, but each evolved flightlessness separately.

Plate movements also cause earthquakes.

And if the connection still seems a bit far-fetched, it’s a good excuse for a display of fuzzy ostrich-babies.