Andrew Bennet rides his bike through the Mission daily but on Wednesday what started as a usual bike ride turned into the scariest day of his life when he and his 4-year old son became the victim of a hit and run.

Bennet regularly rides bike with son Robby

The San Francisco Police Department is close to making an arrest, but want corroborating witnesses to come forward.
At 11:30 a.m. Bennet,  followed by son Robby,  was riding north bound on Valencia Street in route to a father-son day at the Academy of Sciences when a silver PT cruiser runs a red light going west on 18th and hits Bennet’s front wheel.  “The car gunned it and ran us over,” he said.

The car struck the steel frame bike with a tandem attachment- designed to teach kids how to pedal—and both Bennet and his son went flying.

Bennet remembers seeing the car with a female driver hesitate when they hit the ground. Then she  speed away.

He  turned to his son. “I thought he was hurt seriously or, worse yet, fatally. Then he ran over to where I was laying on the ground moaning and calling for help and began to scream.”

Robby who’s helmet split on impact was left with minor scrapes and bruises.

“It was like an act of god he landed on his helmet and scraped only his right elbow,” said Bennet.

Paramedics and the San Francisco Fire Department showed up at the scene and took both father and son on stretchers to be treated at San Francisco General Hospital. After 12 hours in the emergency room Bennet found that among his injuries, he  fractured his spine.

Injuries will keep Bennet off the bike and out of work as the Technical director for Moscone Center for up to three months and this concerns him. “ I am the single earner for family of four,” he said.

But Bennet says despite the accident he is not afraid to ride. When asked what he thinks about bike safety in San Francisco he said, “The problem is that a motorist by virtue of the size of their car or SUV make accidents lethal when they break the law.”

Bennet said he is aware of the safety concerns for bike riders in the city. He and  his son were both wearing helmets and the bike  had a orange safety flag attached at the time of the crime.

Bennet is asking people present at the time to help. “Many people witnessed the accident and gave aid but when the SFPD got interviews, the only people present had incomplete information. Bennet is hoping that someone who wrote down the car’s plate number will come forward.

If you have information about this case and would like to help contact Andrew Bennett.

p. 415. 939. 4700,  email.  mailandrewbennett@gmail.com

Incredible.  I’ve always hated those cruisers.

Lots of openings last night at Chile Lindo’s on 22nd Street (between Valencia and Mission) where the crowd seemed to be full of many of the older (not too old) Mission District luminaries such as the poet and professor Manuel Murgia, in his lovely white suit and hat.  Many were here  years ago, when Paula sold empandas on 16th Street, but now she’s opened with a new place and new life on 22nd Street between Valencia & Mission.  The empanadas were deliciosas.

Grab one and then consider the state budget and once again the Gov. and the legislators are deadlocked on how much or how little to give to the poor. Check out these two stories on the Mission District’s health clinics and seniors to see how really bad things could get even with the stimulus or the vanishing stimulus as it turns out.

But these are the kind of days that one turns to art (or icecream) for uplifting.  So for SAFARI uses who can’t get our feature today that profiles one of three artists chosen to vie for the Valencia Street Project, here it is.

But for neighborhood archeologists, there’s a lot of action going on behind the wooden facade of Cine Latino on Mission Street.  Workers are unsure of what will go there….maybe several projects…

And if you’re wondnering what city will have fireworks to watch, SFGate will let you know.

First, watch the video of Misako Inaoka who was chosen for her “sense of space.”

BY STEFANIA ROUSSELLE

But in the meantime, here’s an OMG video on a Capp St. strangling attempt from missionmission.  Amazing . Also a Kitty Genovese moment,  and I’ve just linked you to a fascinating report questioning the initial and follow up stories by the NYT.  Interesting for those in media because in many ways it’s a harbinger of what happened in the build-up to Iraq.

But, back to the Mission.

For SAFARI users, the link for today’s feature:  MIXED MEDIA Central American Protests Return to 24th Street.

SF Appeal has an excellent sum up of the SF budget. Sorry, I missed it yesterday, but darn, it’s still good reading today. Thank you.

Burrito Justice has another new mural/ad up and an update on Pi–the pizza place that will replace Suriya Pi.

Odd moment stopping in at Rafael’s Tailoring at 3292 22nd Street right next to Boogaloos. We talked about Rafael immigrating from Mexico 40 years ago and being on 22nd Street for nearly as long.

Rafael

Then, I walked out, turned west

Yotopia, organic frozen yogurt

and saw this soon-to-be-

opened a couple of doors down.

Oh, and want to remind everyone that there’s an opening tonight at Artillery Apparel from 6-10 p.m. on Misison St. Ivan Lopez is the not so new kid on the block.

UPDATE: Another opening tonight at the new Chile Lindo on 22nd between Mission and Valencia-right across from Rafael and Yotopia.  Today they were still putting up the sign, but the empanadas will be ready by 6 p.m.!

We’ll be there.

Late morning addition:  California’s not the fattest state in the nation–Alabama gets that–and I would have linked to SF Gate for this, but it doesn’t tell us about California (we’re No. 41) so I’ll link you to the site with the report, which has some incredible other figures about where the state ranks No. 1 including health professional shortages and Alzheimer’s Estimated Cases, 65+ (2010). Oh dear.

Unlike similar protests of the 1970s that established the Mission District as a nexus of Central American solidarity groups in opposition to U.S. foreign policy, this time around, the protesters were in the mainstream.  President Barack Obama, the United Nations and The Organization of American States have called for Zelaya’s return.

Those at today’s Mission District protest included Alejandro Murgía, who in his memoir The Medicine of Memory, recalls the neighborhood’s early solidarity with the leftist movements in Central America.

The first demonstrations in the 1970s were against the Somoza dynasty in Nicaragua.   “There were maybe 30 of us at that march,” he writes. “We carried these beautiful back and red posters of Sandino silk-screened by La Raza Silk Screen Center, and we waved them at passing traffic and stood outside EL Tico-Nica bar exchanging insults with Somoza sympathizers.”

As of 2000 Central Americans make up 53 percent of the Mission District’s  Latino Population and Hondurans account for 3 percent of that total according to the Census.

Although absent from the demonstration Mission District Board of Supervisor David Campos authored a city resolution denouncing the coup. The resolution will be voted on next Tuesday and would encourage the U.S government to push for the restoration of democratic rule in Honduras. It has already gained support from the following Supervisor; Avalos, Daly, Mar, Maxwell, and Mikarimi.

Video By AMANDA MARTINEZ, Photos By RIGOBERTO HERNANDEZ

The OAS  has threatened to expel Honduras from the OAS if the military refuses to let  Zelaya  return to finish out his four- year term that ends in January.  If suspended from the OAS, Honduras loses access to millions of dollars in foreign aid.

The exiled president, who made much of his admiration for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez,  had further alienated the military and the conservative business class with a plan for a referendum to permit him to run for a second term.

That vote was scheduled to take place on Sunday, June 28.  Instead troops converged on the presidential palace, woke  Zelaya, and flew him, still in his pajamas to Costa Rica.

A new addition to Today’s Mission: For those of you who use Safari and can’t click on that big rectangular feature every morning–or even see the headline, which means you must be thinking WTH, we’re going to give you the link and the headline.  Today’s: Migra Buster’s, A cop watch group takes community policing seriously.

On to other news:   Once again the military in Central America is in coup mode.  This time President Manuel Zelaya in Honduras is toast. Or at least that may have been his last meal in Honduras.  The papers described him as still in his pajamas when the military sent him on his way.

That reminded me, wasn’t the former president of Guatemala Jacobo Arbenz still in his pajamas when the CIA-backed coup let him out of Guatemala in 1954?

Trivial, but telling. Few people in either country have the dinero to buy pajamas. At any rate, if any of this upsets you, the Mission District’s Central American community and supporters will gather at 24th Street@ Mission St. tonight at 6 p.m. to protest the Zelaya’s overthrow.

You can also follow our reporter, Armand’s,  twitter’s from the 14 Mission or visit him as he seems to have fallen asleep. (Update: He’s awake. Fascinating twitters.)

Given the new Muni and BART rates of $2 on Muni and $1.75 for the least expensive ride on BART, it may be time to buy a bike and Betty Bastidas leads us through all of the Mission District bike shops.  There’s one more to come.

SF Gate’s Michael Bauer adds to the list of late night dining places on Mission St–alas all so south they cannot be considered the Mission District.

But my favorite bit of advice to try is Andres Garcia’s on where to go for after hour drinking on Mission St. !Pasale¡

Oh, and before you go in for that drink, Leef (great name) Smith, thank you for your donation to our Empty Storefront project.  Only $502 to go.

Time to go to work.

Take a stroll down Mission Street and you’re  likely to see see police rolling down the street by car, foot or bike. Chances are you have occasionally felt compelled to stop and watch and maybe even hoped to witness an escalation of drama.

A group of four young Mission District residents meet regularly to do just that – watch the cops. And for eight months their weekly ritual has evolved into a commitment they have made to each other and the Mission District community called Cop and Migra Busters.

Far from the stylish Guardian Angels or the beefy Minute Men, the Migra Busters at times seem almost hapless. None of the 20-somethings quite know how to use their police scanner, and the video camera needs repair, but the team of four to seven members meet faithfully twice a week to patrol the Mission District.  If they see an immigrant or anyone who needs help with the police,  they step in to assist with translation, or if necessary, to document arrests with pictures or video. 

“It makes a difference when cops know they are being held accountable by witnesses,” said group member Lacie Johnson, who like the others favors black clothing with a political message.

On a recent Thursday evening they met at the 24th Street BART station to begin the week’ walk. With the police scanner in hand and the video camera still in need of repair, they also had a stack of fliers in English and Spanish that read Know your rights.

The flier warns, “remember you have rights but many police may not respect your rights,” and it offers advice on arrest situations such as “ Say repeatedly I don’t want to talk until my lawyer is present.”

As the group folded last minute pamphlets, changed batteries in the scanner and thought about a plan of action it became clear that the cop and migra busters are also shy.

Migra buster Pati Zapatista works the scanner

“ I think I will only pass out flyer to those that are at least as tall as me,” said Ralowe who stands more than six feet tall.  He was also adamant that others should pass out Spanish language pamphlets.  His own language skills, he said, would not get him far.

As they walked, some were quick to hand out a flier, but then quickly kept moving, almost fearful of conversation. “Thank you, I appreciate it,” one man who had just received a flier said to the group after they had left.

Nervous and unsure of their route, the walk turned into a paranoid conversation about undercover cops, capitalism and updates on the number of various activist actions each of the members has planned with other organizations that week. Lots.

When a business owner was seen talking to a cop near an alley, a member pointed him out as a possible snitch, while another quickly noted the importance of building relationships with the authorities.

A combination of events, they said, inspired them to start the patrol:  the increase of immigration raids in the Bay Area last fall, accounts of racial profiling, and the shooting of Oscar Grant.

The discussion of police authority could easily turn radical but it also became clear that the migra busters  know their stuff.  Members, most of whom have already finished college, can effortlessly rattle off details on gang injunction laws, sanctuary policy, and the new hire of Police Chief George Gascón.

At times, their timidity disappeared.  They walked into places like Carlos’s Bar, for example, to distribute handouts, but generally a retreat or quiet time followed such moves.

patron at Carlos Bar on 24th Street and Mission reads a pamphelet

At the end of the hour’s walk Pati Zapatita, a theater teacher at different schools and organizations in the Mission, realized their flier had the wrong e-mail address printed on it. (The correct email is copbusters@riseup.net)

They’ve  had more successful days, she said.  In December the group created a rapid response list to notify people via text messages when they saw agents from Immigration Control and Enforcement Agency known as ICE. They signed up 50 people who get their texts.

“ We have been lucky that we have not confronted an intense situation yet,” Zapatita said at the end of the walk in a voice that suggested she was both disappointed and relieved.

Other walks have been different.  A week earlier, Zapatita and Eddie, who preferred not to give his last name, helped translate when  police pulled over a Spanish –speaking recycling truck driver for parking in a red zone near Café de Tazo. With their help, she said, his car was not towed.

And at the beginning of the month a simple walk home ended with Zapatita translating for a man surrounded by 15 cops at the 24th Street BART.  It’s a scene Eddie has ready to show on his video cell phone.

“I understand I have a privilege being bilingual and the ability to help out,” said Zapatita. “ I have seen situations that could have been worse if we hadn’t been there.”

If the infrastructure of the group appears weak, they know it.

Every week they call for a community meeting and when I attended, I turned out to be the only outsider.  No matter.  Do you have access to a printer or paper so that we can create more pamphlets, one of them asked.

And when I leave the group after their patrol, “Will you be back next week? We need more members!”

TO GET INVOLVED
Weekly Cop and Migra Busters meetings are being held Friday, 7p.m at Café de Tazo on 16th Street between Mission and Valencia
Email. copbusters@riseup.net
Phone. 1.877.878.7721

know-your-rights-pocket-guide_english

know-your-rights-pocket-guide_-spanish1

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]

The Board of Supervisors put aside the budget Tuesday to pass four ordinances that protect tenants from huge rent increases and expand the definition of affordable rent.

But it was largely a symbolic gesture as the 6 to 4 vote was two votes short to override the mayor’s promised veto.   Sophie Maxwell was excused because she is also a landlord.  Supervisors Carmen Chu, Sean Elsbernd, Bevan Dufty, and Michela Alioto-Pier voted no.

“Most San Franciscans are renters.  We know that families are struggling,” said District 6 supervisor Chris Daly, who was in favor of the package.  “If and when the mayor says no, what else is he going to say no to?”

The first ordinance would amend housing code section 503(d), extending affordable housing to any persons sharing housing by deleting the word “families” from the language.  This means roommates who fall into other affordable housing criteria would get the same benefits as a family.  A second ordinance prevents a landlord from applying rent increases if tenants add roommates unless the landlord can prove that the costs have increased.

Landlords would also be unable to bank increases so that no one hike could be more than eight percent of the tenant’s base rent that year.

And finally, a rent increase would be disallowed if it cause a tenant’s rent to exceed 33 percent of the tenant’s gross income.

Some 80 percent of Mission District residents are renters—the highest in the city where 65 percent of the residents rent.

“This is a time when tenant protections are needed the most because of where the economy is,” said District 9 supervisor David Campos.

The meeting heated up when an item concerning a $388 million general obligation bond for streetscaping and road repair came to the table.

The resolution adopted concerned using borrowed money in the form of a bond that would be paid off through property taxes, as opposed to money from the General Fund to repair sidewalks and street structures and to do road resurfacing and  curb ramps.

“I’ve had the fiscal gun pointed to my head many times—‘if you don’t say yes it’s never going to happen’—I’m not going to accept it this time,” said District 7 Supervisor Sean Elsbernd, who was most passionate about rejecting the resolution.  “It’s just not acceptable to say this is the only way we can do this.”

Carmen Chu, District 4 Supervisor, who joked that she and Elsbernd are hardly ever on opposite sides of a bill, expressed concern for failure to pass the bill.  She said that if they did not include some sort of resurfacing of San Francisco streets it would cost more in the long term, according to the Department of Public Works.

Supervisor Daly was visibly upset with his colleague District 2 Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier, who originally co-sponsored the bill but decided to vote against it because it excluded the expensive process of putting utilities such as electricity underground.  Supervisor Chu said that while doing so would be a beneficial step—it’s better to put utilities underground while streets are already being fixed—the city has about 400 miles of such work to complete–too many to accomplish with the available funds.

Representatives from the mayor’s office implored the supes to support the bill, saying the issue was about providing 2,600 jobs. Supervisors Alioto-Pier and Elsbernd remained the only opposition in the 9 to 2 vote.

Already lost one slipper? Me too–both.  But we all have to find some extra change ’cause we’ll need it to get to work on the Muni or BART.

But, look at this this way, at least you’re not a certain Mission Loc@l reporter who will spend the first 24-hours of the New Fiscal Year riding the 14 Mission.

If you’re simply at home browsing Craigslist for jobs, catch the piece on old theater’s at Burrito Justice, a longish post he apologizes at the end, but well worth the read. Great photos too.

And sure, everyone had their Pride Weekend audio slideshow, but Shalwah Evans used her time to offer a more intimate look at District 9 Supervisor David Campos.

More later, it’s way too early to call it a day.

And, before I forget, we’re moving our request that you contribute to our empty storefront series down because we want to move other things up so please do contribute.  We only have to raise $522 more dollars. Click here to go to our pitch.

We’ve raised $978.00 thanks to David Cohn, the spot.us team and all our wonderful donors including Tanja Aitamurto, A.B. Daniel Egnor, Ariel Vardi, Mark Rabine, Masahiko Hayasaka, Antony Brydon, Francisco Barradas, and Megan Casey.  Thank you. It’s so wonderful to get your support.

“I became very aware that as a writer of color in the United States, skin privilege is for real,” said Junot Díaz, the author of the Pulitzer-prize winning novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. It is now being staged as a play, Fukú Americanus at Intersection until July 12. 

Related Story Review of Fukú: See here

Eggers, who made a splash with his first novel A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius when he was 21 years old,  also co-founded 826 Valencia, a tutoring program in the Mission District that now has similar enterprises in six other cities.

Fans of both authors packed Glide Memorial Church and listened intently to the one-hour conversation in which Eggers praised the visiting writer.  For his part, Díaz delighted them by offering his views on everything from awards to  the way in which the literary community looks at writers of color.

Díaz said that after winning the Pulitzer, reporters asked, “How do you feel your ‘Dominicance’ influences you as a writer?”

“Why are you asking me that?”  he replied. “Why aren’t you asking white writers how their whiteness influences their writing?”

Díaz, however, acknowledged that writing about a “nerdy” Dominican boy is what made his book a success.

“You should always write to the most specific audience imaginable, and from there it becomes universal,” Díaz advised.

Although Díaz criticized the gentrification in the Mission District, which he referred to as “economic violence,” he acknowledged San Francisco’s early support of his work.  Seven months before winning the Pulitzer, readers here put his novel on the best seller’s list — the only city in the country to do so in advance of the prize.

The 40-year-old writer also stressed the importance of a diverse writing community.

“I don’t just want to read writing from 27-year-old hipster dudes,” he said of the homogeneity of writing schools. “We all lose out — the literature itself loses out.”

He was talking to the right man.  Eggers has masterminded several collaborations between established writers,  such as Amy Tan, community volunteers and high school students in San Francisco that have drawn on the rich immigrant experiences of students here.

Díaz, who teaches writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said he also worried about creating a readership for diverse authors.

“I am going to have 25 writers of color fighting for one person who is going to buy one of the books,” he said. “We are basically in a crisis of the arts … young people are not being encouraged on an institutional level to go to museums, to see dance or even to read.”

Later Deborah Cullinan, the executive director for Intersection of the Arts,  agreed.

“Art culture is at risk more than ever,” she said. “This is the first time we’ve been on the chopping block — the things that are taken for granted. If you like an arts organization, support it. If you like artists, support them. If it’s Intersection, great. If it’s Glide great. But just do it now — it’s the time to do it. “

Cullinan added, “We need arts and culture in our community, in our neighborhoods more than we ever have. “

Terry Hwang shares her Writings with Junot Díaz.

Fellow educator and audience member Jennie Gray said she liked the tenor of the interview and that Eggers and Díaz were “honest without getting inflated with ideas about themselves.”

Others, like City College student Terry Hwang, said she had also been able to talk to Díaz after the interview ended.

“He is so humble, “ Hwang said. “He knows his roots and knows who his people are.

Eggers had his own thoughts after the interview.

“[Díaz] expresses very complicated things about writing better than I can,” Eggers said. “He was exactly what I thought — except he cursed more.”