Alioto-Pier's agenda

Mayor Gavin Newsom has appointed Michela Alioto-Pier to fill his seat on the Board of Supervisors. She was described in the San Francisco Chronicle Friday as arriving "with no overt agenda." Good. Because she is aware of her need for a ramp in the chambers, perhaps she could extend that concern to the even more basic needs of other people with disabilities in San Francisco and throughout the state – those less fortunate than herself, who live in the Mission, Tenderloin, Fillmore, Hunters Point, and North Beach, whose very lives and families could be torn apart very soon due to Governor Schwarzenegger's plans to terminate the entire In-Home Support Services program that many of us have worked hard to develop over the last 15 years.

Now family members and others can care for a disabled person by working for a living wage with some benefits like health coverage, thanks to the development of California Association of Public Authorities and the IHSS program, which provides home care for the poor disabled and elderly. The governor seems oblivious to the fact that he is breaking up families and forcing those of us without families into nursing homes that are more expensive, and grossly inadequate for our needs, if available at all.

He does this in the name of making California accessible to big business but not to those covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act! Our needs are dismissed as "collateral damage" in the struggle to build up the economy for the rich. His plans include cutting back Medi-Cal 10 percent, which literally means that most of the poor would lose what little services we presently have in our broken health care system.

Congratulations Michela! You now have a platform to speak out and support our right to survive even in an economic downturn. Please use it.

Barri Boone
Person with a disability and a home care worker in SEIU, Local 415
Capitola

Recycling and the neighborhood

The editorial on the San Francisco Community Recyclers' center oversimplifies the Duboce Triangle Neighborhood Association's position [Editorial, 1/21/04]. As president, I feel obliged to clarify exactly what we did (and do) support: finishing an honest and comprehensive planning process we started. We do support the SFCR, but the SFCR manager will agree he's had problems running the center. The site seems too small, and bulk loading often spills over on the sidewalk and street. Truck access is confined to one entry. The manager has been forthright in recognizing that some of the problems with past staff have contributed to an unfairly negative perception about the center and has made real improvements as a manager.

We worked together on a fast-track, intense planning process that brought all the players together for the entire block, including the beleaguered public toilet and the bikeway on Duboce. Hayes Valley, the Castro, the Duboce Triangle, the Planning Department, Sup. Bevan Dufty's office, the Department of Public Works, the police, and Safeway were getting somewhere identifying, owning, and solving some of the big problems when the eviction action arose, but Safeway has now suspended the eviction. We hope this will allow us to come to the process conclusion that will ideally keep the SFCR in the neighborhood, improve its operation and access for its clients, enhance the experience for pedestrians and cyclists on Market, and strike an accord Safeway can support. We know it is possible, but only if we all stay the course together.

Peter Albert,
Duboce Triangle Neighborhood Association president
San Francisco

Redmond has no clue

The logical conclusion of Tim Redmond's column [In This Issue, 1/14/04] would be to have everyone working for the government. I don't think either Redmond or Prof. Hacker have a clue about basic economics. Redmond doesn't seem to know that the government gets its funds from one basic source – taxation of the productive elements of society.

It is the efforts of entrepreneurs and small-business people who grow their operations into bigger operations that employ most of the people in this country and pay the taxes which support the current out of control bureaucracy.

State governments are cutting spending because they went crazy during the nineties and didn't save any funds for the "bursting of the bubble." In fact, Gov. Gray Davis added about 40,000 new state employees during the time of the growing budget crisis.

If Redmond keeps looking to the government to provide all the economic "goodies" he desires, he will be stuck in an economic dreamland.