This Post from 7.14.2021 is a precursor to the Post of 5.19.2022 putting out the Call to Fight to save the beautiful New Zealand Christmas Tree in the northwest corner of San Francisco. Whether it be wildlife, graphically photographed by Liz, or a priceless Tree our natural wildlife, animal and bird populations are at risk in San Francisco. City Hall bureaucrats must be innovative and proactive in preserving and maintaining these precious resources for current and future generations.
San Francisco’s ideologically charged politics ensnares even its wildlife denizens in an endless Darwinian battle for survival among competing interests.
The automobile established dominance in the city by claiming almost exclusive access to public space.
Raccoons on the move by Chain of Lakes in Golden Gate Park
The Motorists’ vitriolic and emotional refusal to adapt stymies progress to limit automobiles and exposes deeply ingrained turf wars over who has the rights to the City’s public spaces.
Red tail hawk atop a tree on car free JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park
Red tail hawk takes flight from tree on car free JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park
Despite gains by livability and climate advocates – such as The Great Walkway along the Pacific Ocean, Car Free JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park, and Slow Streets in strategic neighborhoods – automobiles dominate San Francisco.
Subject: Appellant Brief re Appeal – February 24, 2022, Decision to Approve Application to Remove One Street Tree (With in lieu Replacement) On Clement Street at 39th Avenue
The Decision to remove a healthy, well established New Zealand Christmas tree to install an irrigation system to benefit a privileged class, the golfing community, is an egregious, selfish unwarranted action against residents, our tree community, and our urban wildlife.
An “in lieu” replacement of a decades old historic tree is unacceptable. Its destruction is driven solely by a desire to accommodate a privileged few and by the City’s apathy towards natural urban spaces that meet the needs of all users and not just golfers.
My wife and I have lived near 39th Avenue and Clement Street over 40 years. We are well familiar with the topography, the golf course, and the buildings adjacent to it.
The beautiful fully-grown New Zealand Christmas tree serves as a canopy and a roosting place for songbirds, mourning doves, and neighborhood wildlife. Looking at it, we see it in its essential role supporting a threatened tree canopy growing alongside a residential street.
Equally important, The New Zealand Christmas tree serves as a shield to absorb toxic fumes from cars, buses, trucks, and motorcycles which use Clement Street as a daily thoroughfare going to and from the nearby Veterans Administration Hospital.
Since involving ourselves early this year opposing the proposed destruction of this beautiful tree, we have inspected and photographed the site of the New Zealand Christmas tree on several occasions. It has grown there for decades.
This beautiful integral part of the neighborhood landscape does not need to be destroyed or tampered with to accommodate the needs of a privileged class of resident – Golfers.
It must be preserved and maintained for the benefit of all.
There is a way to preserve this asset while accommodating the privileged class of golfers.
A cement path runs just yards from the tree routing north from Clement Street to a fence adjacent to an auxiliary structure next to the Lincoln Park Golf Course.
SFPUC lacks ingenuity in the face of bureaucratic inertia.
It would be a basic engineering matter to construct a work-around and install the proposed piping so that it avoids the tree while meeting the City’s specious goal of watering the lawns of a privileged class.
Hewing a healthy well-established tree to water a golf course is a misuse of public green space.
This purpose destroys habitats for urban wildlife.
The Lincoln Park Golf Course contains significant areas which erode natural habitat – eg. sand pits – and requires heavy pesticide use and fertilizer to maintain.
IN DANGER OF DESTRUCTION BY SFPUC – New Zealand Christmas Tree – 39th Avenue and Clement Street
The removal of this beautiful New Zealand Christmas Tree further documents SFPUC’s dismal history in NOT: beautifying public spaces, preserving our dwindling tree canopy, buffering residents from traffic noise and auto pollution, ensuring roosting/living places for our urban wildlife, and all of the multiple “lovelies” Joyce Kilmer talks about in her poem “Trees”. (see attached)
Attached is a spreadsheet showing clearly the SFPUC track-record in recent years for simply destroying trees without replacing them.
It needs to make a clear and unambiguous statement to the people of San Francisco who care deeply about the environment in a time of environmental degradation and climate change – that the SFPUC respects and protects the health of the residents and the environment.
Included are photos of the beautiful New Zealand Christmas Tree at 39th Avenue and Clement Street.
Shameful are Recall endorsements by two local politicians. One a former Assistant District Attorney. The other currently an Assistant District Attorney.
Both must realize it is unethical and blatant political expediency to join in this attempted political Coup d’etat against the sitting San Francisco DA. Chesa Boudin.
Both are on Mayor London Breed’s short list should the Recall succeed.
San Francisco Board of Supervisor member Catherine Stefani, a one-time Assistant District Attorney in Contra Costa. She now represents the wealthy Pacific Heights neighborhood.
ex-Acting DA Suzy Loftus, Nancy Tung and DA Chesa Boudin at candidates night – 2019
It is truly depressing and exasperating that San Francisco, whose reputation for Progressive politics is clearly overblown, may be living up to the reputation that real San Franciscans know exists. Parochial, conservative, biased, racist and pro Cop.
San Francisco has now been seduced by the MAGA crowd with its millions of dollars which spent 1.4MM on mercenaries to qualify for the ballot. Spending millions more on false and misleading ads, recruiting what can only be called collaborators in their MAGA campaign in San Francisco.
Excerpted from The San Francisco Examiner 5.17.2022
If voters recall DA Chesa Boudin, San Francisco would be placed well to the right of many American cities and counties on issues of criminal justice and, indeed, civil rights.
A signal that San Francisco’s drift rightward has accelerated.
So, as the June 7 recall approaches, the district attorney faces a recall attempt due to a crime wave that doesn’t really exist and that — if it did exist — would be due to factors such as The City not having enough police, the opioid epidemic and the rising cost of living in the Bay Area, all of which are beyond Boudin’s control. To state the obvious, the recall attempt is about politics, not crime.
Catherine Stefani. Assistant District Attorney turned politician. Turned political Myrmidon.
Chesa Boudin is American progressive royalty. So it is no surprise conservative groups and individuals cannot abide him. But the days when the DA was tough on crime and always sided with police are over in America — and Boudin is a reflection of that.
The easiest way to understand these politics is as a battle between moderates and progressives in San Francisco.
Recalling Boudin is not a moderate position. It is a reactionary one — an attempt to overturn an election and push out a district attorney who, while clearly progressive, does not exactly stand out among big city district attorneys in the third decade of the 21st century.
Boudin presents as more of a left-wing outlier than he is. It is true that no other big city DA has Boudin’s radical lineage. His mother, Kathy Boudin, who was a member of the group Weather Underground, was incarcerated due to her role in the robbery of a Brinks Security truck by Weather Underground and the Black Liberation Army that resulted in the death of a security guard and two police officers. In addition to her own activities, Kathy Boudin was the daughter of a progressive attorney who represented the Cuban government and Paul Robeson. Kathy Boudin died of cancer earlier this month.
In major cities across the country, progressive prosecutors are remaking the job of district attorney in much the way Boudin is. For example, Manhattan’s new DA, Alvin Bragg, sent a memo to his staff on his first day on the job instructing them to explore alternatives to incarceration and cut back on pretrial incarceration to avoid sending youths to adult courts. Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia and Brooklyn are among the places that have, or have had, prosecutors well to the left of Bragg who share Boudin’s approach to the job.
This would be a big symbolic victory for the right, celebrated at Fox News and in conservative San Francisco circles. However, a successful recall would do little to decrease crime. Boudin’s successor might push for longer sentences and prosecute more people who are arrested, but given that Boudin’s prosecution rates are pretty much in line with most of his predecessors, crime rates would be only very marginally impacted.
Lincoln Mitchell has written numerous books and articles about The City and the Giants. Visit lincolnmitchell.com or follow him on Twitter @LincolnMitchell
The disturbing photo of American basketball Brittney Griner star hooded and handcuffed in a Moscow courtroom on May 13 is sad, barbaric and reprehensible.
Detained by Vladimir Putin’s Police State for allegedly possessing hash oil since February, the 31 year old is looking at 10 years in Putin’s gulag. Brittney Griner has become a pawn in Putin’s aggression against Ukraine.
Excerpted from The New York Times 5.14.2022
A court in Russia on Friday extended the pretrial detention of the W.N.B.A. star Brittney Griner until June 18, her lawyer said.
While Ms. Griner was arrested one week before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Russian authorities did not reveal her detention until days after the war began, raising fears she could be used as a bargaining chip in the overall crisis.
Brittney Griner on the basketball court is now in the Putin Court
Ms. Griner, one of the most decorated athletes in women’s basketball, has been in Russian custody since mid-February on drug charges that can carry up to 10 years in prison. The charge is based on allegations that she had vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her luggage when she was stopped at the Sheremetyevo airport near Moscow in February.
Ms. Griner appeared in court in the town of Khimki near Moscow for a procedural hearing on Friday, according to her lawyer, Aleksandr Boikov.
“She is OK,” Mr. Boikov said in an interview, adding that the court denied his appeal to have Ms. Griner transferred to house arrest. He said he expects the trial to begin in about two months.
The U.S. State Department has said it had determined Ms. Griner was “wrongfully detained,” signaling its intention to get more actively involved in the situation.
Brittney Griner and Cherelle Griner in happier times
Ms. Griner’s team and family have been relatively quiet about her situation.
A two-time Olympic gold medalist, Ms. Griner is one of several American players who compete for international teams in the off-season period to supplement their W.N.B.A. paychecks. She has played for the UMMC team in Yekaterinburg, Russia, since 2014.
The entire World is shocked and appalled by the wanton murder of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in territory occupied by Israel by a member of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).
Ms. Abu Akleh was clearly identified with a PRESS vest. The Israeli Defense Force assassin murdered the journalist from a distance shooting her through the back of the neck and head.
Shireen Abu Akleh lay dead in the West Bank
This totally cowardly and indefensible act calls for swift condemnation and action against the Israeli government, Israeli Defenses Forces and those responsible for this murder.
The American government cannot stand by and treat this as business as usual with the Israeli government. There must be an accounting and ramifications for this murderous act against a Palestinian-American journalist.
Excerpted from Al Jazeera 5.11.2022
Calls for an independent investigation into the killing of veteran Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh grow amid global outrage.
The 51-year-old was covering an Israeli army raid on the Jenin refugee camp when she was shot in the face by a single bullet, despite wearing a press vest.
Another Palestinian journalist, Ali al-Samoudi, was wounded in the back but is in a stable condition.
Al Jazeera, in a statement, said Abu Akleh was “assassinated in cold blood” and called on the international community to hold Israeli forces responsible
Shireen Abu Akleh – January 3, 1971 – May 11, 2022
US Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib has called on the American government to investigate the killing of Abu Akleh, saying that Washington should not allow “the same people committing those war crimes to do the investigation,” referring to Israel.
“We need to investigate, ourselves, the killing of an American citizen. Somebody that was out there being a guardian of truth and doing her job was murdered by an apartheid government that we continue to fund with unconditional aid,” Tlaib told Al Jazeera in a TV interview.
Angry and outraged mourners carry the body of Shireen Abu Akleh
Supervisor Catherine Stefani needs to explain herself.
Now that The Supervisor has come out in favor the District Attorney recall on June 7 her past actions are fair game.
In 2020 The Supervisor pushed back on the District Attorney’s request for additional funding to hire more staff. At the same time Stefani was advocating for an increase in police staffing.
Supervisor Stefani, who fashions herself as a future DA, is undoubtedly earning political points with Room 200 at City Hall. The following is a blog post from November 2020.
San Francisco Supervisor Catherine Stefani representing the toney Pacific Heights neighborhood tells DA Chesa Boudin to deal with it.
His office, overwhelmed in its case load, particularly in a year of increasing domestic abuse during the pandemic is getting short shrift. Supervisor Stefani, herself a one time Assistant District Attorney in a neighboring county, told the DA to “budget within his means to deliver public safety for all San Franciscans.” Stefani knows, absent adequate funding, it’s an impossible task.
If DA Boudin does not prosecute crime he will be pilloried for neglecting the citizenry. It takes money and personnel to do the job. Stefani knows this all too well.
Stefani’s comments are just typical San Francisco political posturing.
San Francisco Chronicle 11.13.2020
San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin said his office is inadequately funded and unable to fully staff units that investigate homicides and domestic violence cases — a situation…
It was a joyful Saturday on JFK Promenade in San Francisco’s historic Golden Gate Park, celebrating its 150th birthday.
A large crowd gathered on a breezy sunny windswept afternoon as Mayor London Breed signed into law legislation designating a 1.5 strip of land car free forever. There was music, roller skating, dragon dancers, people of all ages, City officials who soaked in this momentous victory.
It took decades of tireless advocacy. The People prevailed and put San Francisco on the map as a leader in listening to the desires of people who want an oasis free of cars.
Following is a photo montage which conveys the victory better than words.
Car-Free for You & MeSkating in celebrationGranny Loves Car Free JFKJFK Promenade on Bill signing dayMayor Breed addresses the crowd telling The City that JFK Promenade is receiving praise and favorable reviews worldwide.Umbrella under the sun on JFK Promenade.Recreation and Parks Director Phil Ginsburg and David Miles, Undisputed King of Skate and tireless 40 year advocate for JFK Promenade.Skating in tandem near JFK Promenade.Bikes Bikes Bikes.Young San Franciscan takes in the action.Skating in celebration with a bubble wand. Lion Dancers entertain the crowd.The AIDs QuiltMayor Breed presents the signing pen to a young San Francisco resident.Trees Not Cars! – says it all‘Granny Loves Car Free JFK’ at the de Young Museum observation tower after JFK Promenade victory celebration.
I posted this Blog less than three weeks after Chesa Boudin was sworn in as District Attorney on January 8, 2020. From Day One the San Francisco Police Officers Association (POA) has waged a vicious campaign to bring down this Progressive DA. Now, with the assistance of the most right wing wealthy contributors appealing to a paranoid and fearful electorate, the POA and their law and order followers are pushing hard for their Political Coup d’etat.
I just watched the SFPD video of the Jamaica Hampton shooting. At 3:45 into the video someone shouts, “Get a POA rep out here!!!” The video is available on Youtube. It is disturbing.
DA Chesa Boudin is doing what a fair minded prosecutor should do. He is reviewing all the evidence before reaching a prosecutorial decision.
This drives the POA into a state of apoplexy. Its current boss, Tony Montoya, is in a tough reelection fight. Mr. Montoya is rallying his Base with a continuing assault on the new DA.
During a December fracas with SFPD in the Mission District Jamaica Hampton, 24, struck an officer with a glass bottle and fled. For this Mr. Hampton has been maimed for life. For now DA Boudin is not pressing charges against either Mr. Hampton or the cops who shot him.
POA has undertaken a scorched earth policy to undermine the District…
The chaos at the Hall of Justice on Friday is illustrative of what’s at stake as reactionary forces try to bring down Progressive District Attorney Chesa Boudin.
Boudin ran and was elected on a platform of Justice for all. Which means holding renegade cops accountable for their law breaking.
The forces of law and order are spending millions to oust Boudin and give free rein to the cops, once again.
Excerpted from Mission Local 5.6.2022
On Friday San Francisco Superior Court Judge Russell Roeca pushed back the preliminary hearing of former SFPD Officer Chris Samayoa, who shot dead Keita “Icky” O’Neil in 2017.
The hearing was delayed until July, a decision that caused outrage among O’Neil’s supporters, who were thrown out of court for the outburst.
“I’m so emotional, this is affecting me more than I thought it would,” said April Green, O’Neil’s aunt who attended Friday’s hearing at the Hall of Justice. “I was believing in a system that I thought was fair. I don’t know how to respond to this.”
“Oh my God,” Green loudly said from the second row, appearing in disbelief. “Oh my God, oh my God.”
A sheriff’s deputy on the opposite side of the room told Green to quiet down.
James Conger, an attorney with the District Attorney’s office who is prosecuting Samayoa, argued the defense is “doing District Attorney shopping. In other words, the recall is in June, and they hope it succeeds and they’ll get a better deal with a different District Attorney,” he said during the hearing.
“April, please,” Conger told her quietly from his podium.
The side of the courtroom where O’Neil’s supporters sat then began speaking frustratedly. One young man in the third row said something to a deputy, causing a deputy to approach and chastise him. “Step outside,” he ordered. Green and another woman seated in the row ahead began calling to the deputy, telling him to bother them instead of the young man. Suddenly the court erupted in chaos, with O’Neil’s supporters talking over each other and four deputies swarming the area.
Keita O’Neil shot dead by SF cop Chris Samoya 12.1.2017
“You’re fucking with us, you fuckin’ pigs,” O’Neil’s supporters said as they left the courtroom.
“The judge has ordered the court closed,” another deputy yelled. “If you fail to leave, you will be detained.”
“Are you serious?” O’Neil’s supporters said. One woman at the front said, “You are evil. Evil. Evil!”
O’Neil’s group walked out, and a deputy locked the door. Meanwhile, Judge Roeca told Samoya’s defense attorney Julia Fox the hearing would occur on July 14.
Green stood out in the hallway of the Hall of Justice in a ring of supporters with Conger, looking forlorn. She bemoaned that without a district attorney who presses charges on police officers, Black and Latino men would be vulnerable to police use-of-force and killings.
“I believe the judge already made his mind up,” Green told Mission Local. “Did you notice how extra police officers appeared just before he gave the decision?”
She worries the case will change with the postponement. The first time Boudin called her to let her know that he pressed charges, she was “in disbelief. A white man in a position of power cares for a minority man and brought charges. They know if he is not in office, [Samayoa] is walking.”
DA Chesa Boudin in San Francisco Superior Court
O’Neil’s supporters fear that postponing the matter to July may alter the case, since District Attorney Chesa Boudin’s office is prosecuting Samayoa, and he faces a recall election in June.
On Dec. 1, 2017, Samayoa shot O’Neil, who was unarmed, video footage showed. O’Neil was pursued as a potential carjacking suspect. In November 2020, District Attorney Chesa Boudin filed felony criminal charges against Samayoa for voluntary and involuntary manslaughter, excessive force, and assault with a firearm. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors granted O’Neil’s mother a $2.5 million settlement.
Top photo – April Green, the aunt of Keita O’Neil, talking to supporters after she and others were thrown out of the courtroom in the Hall of Justice. Attorney James Conger, right, is prosecuting Officer Chris Samayoa for the shooting of O’Neil in 2017.
For the latest manifesation of the Far Right extremists increasing their judicial and political power in America one need look no further than the pending Supreme Court decision taking away a woman’s right to control their bodies.
The United States is going to extremes to thwart anything deemed liberal and progressive.
In my home City of San Francisco wealthy reactionaries, tapping into fear and paranoia, want to overthrow the progressive District Attorney in a Recall election. It will take place on June 7.
This is one battle being waged by fervent reactionaries attempting to destroy anything which resembles progressive thought and action.
San Francisco Recall reactionaries racist red baiting campaign to destroy progressive District Attorney Chesa Boudin
Taken to its most severe manifestation this totalitarian way of governance manifested itself in Hitler’s Nazi Germany. The German government, 80 years after the destruction of the Nazi regime, plans to make permanent a living memorial so people never forget the assualt on humanity.
The Voice of America reported Antisemitic incidents reached an all-time high in the United States in 2021, the Anti-Defamation League said in its annual assessment released in late April.
There were 2,717 incidents last year, representing an increase of 34% over 2020 and the highest on record since the New York-based Jewish civil rights group started tracking such cases in 1979. The ADL divides antisemitic incidents into harassment, assault and vandalism.
One day in the future America may be creating a similiar memorial for its legacy of genocide, racism, discrimination and abolition of individual rights.
Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 5.5.2022
In 2020, the German Bundestag advocated creating a documentation center for the victims of the German war of extermination and the Nazi occupations.
The center aims to shed light on how the devastating Nazi dictatorship with its war, destruction and extermination, including the atrocities of the Holocaust, affected all of Europe. Its focus will be placed on victims in Poland, the Baltic States, the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Greece.
Art Spiegelman’s world-famous comic about the Nazi era was published in 1991. In it, Jews are depicted as mice and Germans as cats. In the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel, the American author tells the story of his father, an Auschwitz survivor, and does not spare the suicide of his mother and the family’s tense relationship.
Two years later, the federal government approved a proposal by Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth for the realization of the “German Occupation of Europe in the Second World War” (ZWBE) documentation center, which was designed by the German Historical Museum (DHM).
The new documentation center’s goal is to contribute to a better understanding of the present. “Above all, this remembrance should be directed toward the future and make clear how important democracy, the rule of law and active diversity are for the European project and for our country in the heart of Europe, how crucial our commitment is in and for Europe,” Roth said.
“Valentin,” a 2019 graphic novel by Jens Genehr, is based on the diary entries of a French man, Raymond Portefaix, who as a concentration camp inmate was assigned to the construction of the large-scale armaments project. Commissioned by the Nazis, Valentin was a submarine bunker in Bremen. More than 1,000 forced laborers lost their lives during the vessel’s construction.
The idea is to illustrate the dimension of the Nazis’ reign of terror across Europe. With its decision to establish another memorial and documentation site in Berlin, the German government is advancing key remembrance policy projects decided on in the previous legislative period.
The Bendlerblock building in Berlin was the headquarters of a military resistance group. On July 20, 1944, a group of Wehrmacht officers around Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg carried out an assassination attempt on Hitler that ultimately failed. The leaders of the conspiracy were summarily shot the same night in the courtyard of the Bendlerblock. Today, it’s the German Resistance Memorial Center.
The World War II Documentation Center is not the only memorial in need of a home — three other memorials are supposed to be built in the German capital: for the victims of communist tyranny, the Polish victims of war and Nazi terror, and Nazi victims among Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Top photo – 1943 photo shows Jewish women and chaildren being deported from the Warsaw Ghetto
Raccoons on the move by Chain of Lakes in Golden Gate Park 
Red tail hawk atop a tree on car free JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park 
Red tail hawk takes flight from tree on car free JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park 
Lee's Perspective 