At the third and final meeting Thursday night to discuss plans for renovating Garfield Pool, swimmers continued to oppose renovation plans that will mean shorter laps. The beloved public indoor pool located at 1271 Treat Ave. currently measures 100 feet in length. The architects spearheading the redesign project have proposed shortening its length to 75 feet by sectioning off a 25-foot area with...
A 17-year vision to transform an empty parking lot at 17th and Folsom streets into a recreational park is months away from completion and all that remained to do at Thursday’s final community meeting was to vote on a name. “The park is almost there,” announced Paulina Araica, the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department’s project manager, who briefed community members...
Women’s Day came early for Eden Stein. On Tuesday, the curator and owner of Secession Art and Design was distinguished by the city with a total of six awards for her leadership in the burgeoning Mission Bernal Neighborhood. On Tuesday evening, after having returned from a day at City Hall, Stein stood inside her storefront at 3235 Mission St. at the...
As Community Program Manager at Bi-Rite Market, Shakirah Simley married her passion for “good food” and social justice, helping to nourish San Francisco’s underserved communities. On Tuesday, Simley announced her departure from the health-food market after five years and on Thursday, she celebrated her farewell at the Women’s Building on 18th Street. Champagne flowed and warm words were exchanged, but...
We started with a toast to a good neighbor, six of us strangers seated around pushed-together café tables inside Robin’s Cafe at the ODC Theater. At the corner farthest from me, Anita Won, an architect and student at California College of the Arts, told us about a woman who lived in her Chinatown apartment building in Manhattan with whom she...
Terrorized by a string of shootings that claimed the life of one man and left two more injured in January, Bernal Dwellings residents implored local police at a public safety meeting on Thursday to ramp up prevention efforts and improve relations with the affordable housing community. “It seems like every time you turn around [the police] leave, and people are...
Organizers, politicians, and young people rallied at 24th and Mission streets on Friday night, calling for a 60-day moratorium on street violence and enlisting local political leaders to pledge to create policies that would divert young people from crime. “We don’t want any mothers, fathers, sisters or brothers crying. We want everyone to go to the holidays and every family...
A police officer involved in the fatal shooting of a mentally ill man at Stern Grove in October was also one of the officers who pulled the trigger on Alex Nieto in 2014, according to police. After police released this information last week, organizers who work with at-risk youth came forward and told Mission Local that they had raised concerns of...
Local band Soltron will play at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts this Friday to mark the release of its self-titled album celebrating the Mission District’s culture and exploring themes of gentrification and displacement. Soltron began as a trio of drummers in 2014 after percussionist Anthony Sierra went to Cuba, where his father is from, to study the batá,...
Activists at a police meeting on Thursday that sought input from Mission District residents on the appointment of the next San Francisco police chief said they were being strung along by police commissioners who were not looking for community involvement. “This is a dog and pony show,” said David Carlos Salaverry, a member of the newly formed group San Franciscans...
Activists and community members gathered in front of Mission Police Station on Monday afternoon called on the San Francisco Police Department to prohibit its officers from using weapons and force of any kind against civilians for the next 90 days. Representatives of organizations advocating for homeless rights and against police brutality supported the moratorium and also called for a state...
Activists in the Black Lives Matter movement, Mission community organizers and newcomers, many of whom were tech workers, met Wednesday night to discuss ways to confront racial inequality that included collecting data, investing in communities and questioning the diversity within the rank-and-file of tech workers. “What sparked this for me was seeing the number of Facebook posts [following last week’s...
Leaders from three different communities razed by displacement shared their experiences and offered ideas on policy-based strategies to thwart gentrification in a day-long workshop hosted at the Mission’s Galeria de la Raza on Monday. Though separated by hundreds of miles, the struggles of Los Angeles’ Boyle Heights, San Diego’s Logan Heights, and San Francisco’s Mission District run parallel, agreed community...
The Guerrero Street median will get a thorough grooming on April 2, and community members are invited to participate in a day of maintenance and beautification organized by the Mission Dolores Neighborhood Association. The Department of Public Works plans to cone off both inner traffic lanes on Guerrero Street from 17th to 18th streets as participants work to remove weeds and prune existing plants, re-populate empty...
El miércoles 6 de enero un edificio nuevo de 55 unidades que se planea se construya en las calles Misión y 25 generó ira, en medio de una reunión de la comunidad plagada de comentarios homofóbicos, e interrupciones frecuentes. La gente hablaba sobre un tema principal: La construcción de viviendas de precio 100 por ciento accesible. La reunión tenía que...
