The annual Booster Dinner, the most social Booster meeting of the year, is all set!
We’re on for Tuesday night, May 27 at 5:30 pm, at the UCSF Mission Bay Conference Center, 1675 Owens Street (near 16th). (Click the link for directions.) Many thanks to Audrey Cole of the Boosters, Barbara Bagot-Lopez of UCSF Community Relations, and everyone at UCSF for hosting us!

Here’s the menu:

5:30 pm - No host bar

7.00 pm - Dinner is served, with complimentary wine

Organic Sonoma Greens with Roasted Beets, Baby Carrots & Pecan Crusted Goat Cheese

Entrées – Choice of:

Grilled “Painted Hills” Sirloin Steak with Whipped Bleu Cheese Mashed Potatoes & Grilled Asparagus

Pan Seared King Salmon with Roasted Ginger-Pepper Sauce on Sautéed Napa Cabbage & Steamed Jasmine Rice

Moroccan Saffron Chickpea & Vegetable Taginewith Toasted Israeli Cous Cous (Vegetarian option)

Brulee Poached Pear Vanilla Crème Anglaise & Fresh Berries

This is always a fun event, where we install the new year’s Executive Committee quickly and efficiently, and recognize some of the hardest working among us for what they do in our community. It’s a great chance to bring a neighbor and show them what the Boosters are all about!

For tickets, mail your check today to Potrero Boosters Annual Dinner, 1459 18th St. #133, San Francisco, CA 94107. Write the number of reservations requested on your check and include a note with dinner choice (steak, salmon, vegetarian). Tickets are $40 per person in advance. Your ticket will be held at the door. Park on the street, or at the UCSF garage — we’ll pay for it!

Many of my friends have asked me why I support the Potrero Boosters Neighborhood Association.  My brief on-the-fly answers never seem very convincing, regardless of my wholehearted belief in the organization.  Hopefully this article will answer that question more eloquently than I usually do in person.

I joined the Potrero Boosters when I first moved to Potrero Hill over 20 years ago.  The Boosters concern themselves with issues that are important to me as a resident of the Hill.  The amount of work some of the members do is PHENOMENAL!  I am not willing to put in nearly this much work to keep up to date on issues that effect the neighborhood, so I am very grateful to, and happy to support from the sidelines, those who are willing to do that work.  The small yearly membership fee is a pittance compared to the efforts the organization makes on my behalf.

Do the issues the Boosters champion affect me directly?  Not usually.  But things like power plants, light pollution from the ball park, density and planning in the Design Center and Central Waterfront affect the neighborhood I love, and because of that it’s important to me.  Not important enough to spend my own nights researching and trying to understand the issues, but certainly important enough to support wholeheartedly those who are willing to do so.

Do I agree with every position the Boosters takes?  No.  But in general the decisions they make and the fights they choose to be involved in are based on a sincere love of the neighborhood and desire to keep it – what? - certainly not “the same”; they’re not that foolish.  To keep it a nice neighborhood where I would want to live.

Do the Boosters win their fights?  They win some and they lose some.  But most of the people I vote for don’t win, either.  I support the Boosters for the same reason I vote – because I can; because I have to.  It’s one important thing I can do with little cost or effort.

Because of the support of neighbors like me, and the hard work of those most involved in the organization, the Boosters is a known quantity in the halls and courtrooms of the city.  It’s important to have at least a little clout so we don’t get completely run over by big developers and others who would profit in our neighborhood at the detriment of those of us who live here.  A strong, active neighborhood organization is a force to be reckoned with.

During one of my discussions with a friend who asked what the Boosters do, he interrupted me, asking “Is all they do fight?”.  He was using my own words.  Yes, they do often fight.  This usually takes the form of trying to keep development down to a dull roar.  They fight big, inappropriate development projects which would seriously degrade the character of the neighborhood we love.  They also fight for - for the parks, for street parking or signs, etc.  They also like to party and are becoming more involved in issues such as support for the local schools and libraries.

I truly appreciate the immense efforts of those neighbors and friends who are willing to spend considerable time educating themselves about important issues and showing up – over and over when necessary - to voice their opinions about things that are important to all of us neighbors on Potrero Hill.  I will continue to support the Boosters in whatever way I can.

Audrey Cole

Tomorrow evening, March 25, at the Potrero Hill Neighborhood House:
7:00 pm Business Meeting
Introductions / Welcome to New Members
Treasurer’s Report
7:20 pm Neighborhood Issues and Updates
— agendas for future Boosters meetings
7:50 pm Break
8:00 pm SF?Planning Director John Rahaim

We’ll be taking time at tomorrow night’s Boosters meeting to set our agendas for the coming months. Just in the last few weeks,
• MUNI came out with the recommendations of their Transit Effectiveness Project (discussed last year at the Boosters): www.sftep.com/docs.html
• the City and the Housing Authority named the developer for the planned rebuild of Potrero Hill’s public housing projects (discussed last year at the Boosters); “The remade projects will include the same number of public housing units they do now, as well as hundreds of new affordable and market-rate rental units and homes for sale to help offset the costs.” www.sfgate.com/ cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/12/BALFVI2P5.DTL
• the City continues to lumber forward with Eastern Neighborhoods re-zoniing; we will discussing that at Tuesday’s meeting with John Rahaim, the City’s new Planning Director.

Join us on Tuesday, and tell us what you want to discuss at Boosters meetings in 2008!

The Executive Committee of the Boosters works year-round to make the Boosters more visible in the neighborhood, and to make the neighborhood more visible in the City. These members of the Boosters are nominated for re-election in 2007:
• Tony Kelly, President
• Dick Millet, Vice President / Advocacy
• Audrey Cole, Vice President / Membership
• Robin Talmadge, Treasurer
• Joe Boss, Corresponding Secretary
• Hilary Cohen, Recording Secretary
• Ellen Kernaghan, Sergeant at Arms
• Jean Neblett and Kuzuri Jackson, Auditors

If you’re interested in serving on the Committee, contact Tony Kelly at president@potreroboosters.org or 415 341 8040.

Nominations are due by the end of the Boosters meeting
on Tuesday, March 25; we’ll have a brief election as
part of our regular meeting on Tuesday, April 29.

As we noted in this newsletter last year, 2007 was a very successful year for the Boosters’ advocacy work for Potrero Hill. A lot of that success is due to a large and vocal Hill community that is aware of neighborhood and City issues. Our crime meetings have had a clear impact on public safety and community policing; our two (or more!) helipad advocacy groups have definitely affected, if not stopped, plans for helipads on top of our local hospitals. If you add up all the neighborhood associations, block groups, homeowners associations, the Merchants and Parents associations and other volunteer groups, you’ll find that nearly 2,000 Hill residents belong to at least one neighborhood advocacy group. With a total Hill population of about 10,000, that is just an amazing statistic; other City neighborhoods envy our awareness and activity. But it always bears repeating: we are only strong if we work together. So get involved!
Choose what is important to you on this list, and call or email Tony Kelly or Dick Millet (phone numbers in the newsletter and at potreroboosters.org).

Plan Potrero Hill – new neighborhood re-zoning
• Showplace Square / Central Waterfront planning
• Public Improvements – new parks, infrastructure, services in new neighborhoods
• Biotech companies in Showplace Square???
• Protecting Dogpatch from large office buildings
• Saving open space possibilities on & around Channel Street
• Historic building preservation in the new neighborhoods
• Cleaning up NC-2 zoning in commercial/residential districts
• Enforcement of the Residential Design Guidelines
• Demolitions, monster homes, and luxury housing

SF General Hospital rebuild and helipad

Closing the Potrero Power Plant

The SF Port
• The AT&T Park parking lot / Seawall Lot 337
• Pier 70 – developing waterfront property
• The Blue/Greenway - public access and parks
• Environmental issues: diesel trucking, cement crushing

Quality of Life
• Neighborhood crime watch / Project SAFE
• Neighborhood Emergency Response Teams
• Parks & Rec – improvements, and more public recreation opportunities
• Homeless and street issues – street camping, clean up, services, etc.
• Underground utilities

Social Stuff
• The Annual Dinner, Potrero Hill History Night, the Holiday Party

Government liaison and support
• Volunteer staff support at Supervisor Maxwell’s office
• Support of Webster, Starr King, and other neighborhood schools

Membership / recruitment
• Outreach to other neighborhood organizations
• New homeowners and new tenants