Walker and Meko differ on Prop. DBy Steven T. Jones
Proposition D – which would overturn the voter-approved billboard ban on Market Street between 5th and 7th streets as a means of raising money to rehabilitate the neighborhood – has divided the progressive community, a division that is also playing out in the District 6 supervisorial race to replace Sup. Chris Daly (who is neutral on the measure).
The two leading progressive candidates in the race, Debra Walker and Jim Meko, differ on the measure. Walker, an artist who serves on the Building Inspection Commission, supports the measure and has actively campaigned for its passage. Meko, who serves of the Western SoMa Citizens Planning Task Force, opposes the measure.
“Billboards aren’t a cure for blight. They are blight,” Meko said, noting that his opposition stems from property owner David Addington’s placement of the flawed measure on the ballot without a proper vetting process: “The special use sign district might be a good thing, but I’m offended at the lack of process.”
Walker said she shares some of the concerns about process and the flaws in the measure – such as the unchecked fiscal authority given to the self-appointed Mid-Market Community Benefits District board – but she thinks they’re easily mitigated by the Board of Supervisors and the measure brings needed revenue to the area: “At some point, you’ve got to try it and see what happens.”
As I wrote in my story in this week’s Guardian, opposition to the measure has been led by Tom Radulovich, executive director of Livable City. On the other side, the Yes on D campaign has hired as its consultant Jim Stearns, a favorite of progressive candidates, which Radulovich believes is a factor in the progressive rift: “Stearns has done a lot of great work to elect progressives, so now he’s a progressive insider.”
But Walker said her position stems from a desire to experiment with this run-down, two-block stretch of Market. “I actually kind of like digital signs because they can be used by artists for visual arts,” Walker said. “I’m not one to say art will save the world, but it does create some organic traffic and life that everyone needs.”
Meko raised the concern that the Central Market Community Benefits District will have no incentive to refuse to accept signs that are excessively large or don’t fit into the neighborhood: “It would be such a large revenue stream that the CBD just accepted it.”
But Walker believes the CBD will be responsive to community concerns and said it is “incredibly non-confrontational about everything…I have some of the same concerns that Tom Radulovich expressed, with the CBD making the decisions,” Walker said. “I understand people not wanting to do this, but I don’t agree.”
Meko has always been a stickler for transparent public processes and has been a strong critic of Mayor Gavin Newsom’s unilateral approach to running the city, including the traffic diversion measures he recently enacted on Market Street, which Walker and many progressive groups (including Livable City) supported.
“All Newsom wants is a photo op and he doesn’t care about the damage he causes in the process,” Meko said. “We’re trying to do planning for the next 20 years and he’s doing pilot projects to help him in the governor’s race.”
Yet Walker said she likes the idea of doing more pilot projects on Market Street and other areas to see how changes will work. “There’s a lot we can do on Market Street to make it better for everybody,” Walker said. “I would like to close Market to cars. I’d like to see it a boulevard.”
But Meko said Prop. D isn’t about the community as much as it’s about the owners of the 52 buildings in the affected area who will profit from it: “For every $2 going to the community, property owners like Addington will make $8.”
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Comments (3)
As a former board member of the Central Market CBD and as a attendee on a regular basis, this prop has had a public vetting. It was on the agenda of CBD regular open to the public meetings.
http://www.central-market.org/index.php?p=minutes&PHPSESSID=6523d9b2a6f0e8f9fddf3f8dfa4ea4ec
I even believe that it was brought forth through the Alliance for a better district 6 meeting, that is also open to the public, prior to David's placement of the prop on the ballot. And then there was the gathering of signatures that made it even more public.
As for the CBD's concerned their books are pretty much open to the public, so It will be easy to track the monies. At every meeting that I have every attended they always have a spreed sheet made available.
As a resident of the CBD area I like the idea that property owners took it up on them selves to tax them self's to make up for the lack of services being provided by the city. And the monies that the CBD will expand theses services.
Posted by Jerry Jarvis | October 15, 2009 04:11 PM
The problem with Prop D is like so many other efforts along this corridor, the failed Mid Market Redevelopment effort, for one, is that SoMa is being divided from the Tenderloin instead of being knit together with the adjoining neighborhood.
Similarly, the Central Freeway has divided SoMa from the North Mission. The people who conceptualized Octavia Boulevard could have cared less about folks South of Market so long as Hayes Valley got gold plated treatment after the black folks were gentrified out. Perhaps we'll see the Central Freeway come down once the North MIssion is ethnically cleansed like HV was.
One way to ensure that we see the kind of development and progress that puts San Franciscans first is to prevent these "urban walls," be they freeways or an "theatre districts" that just happen to pierce and divide the poverty district, and to take care that development and entitlements are not used as racist weapons.
So long as SoMa is viewed as the utility closet that can adsorb all of the City's "experiments," such as freeway ramp traffic sewers on city streets like 8th, 9th, and 10th streets, the Central Freeway to the south, and now this effort at upscaling Market Street, our communities will be cannibalized.
Hey, how about instead of "experimenting," we try some comprehensive, participatory urban PLANNING that does not have predetermined outcomes?
-marc
Posted by marcos | October 16, 2009 08:31 AM
Because digital billboards are so lucrative, there's every reason to believe that property owners in other parts of the city will want their own sign districts if the one for Market St. is approved. And if those property owners come forward with the same arguments for passage, what grounds will the city have to say no?
Regardless of the merits of the Market St. revitalization plan, sign districts are a Pandora's box. For example, there are currently more than 20 lawsuits challenging the off-site sign ban in Los Angeles, almost all citing a provision allowing sign districts as unfairly discriminating against property owners and sign companies who want digital and supergraphic signs outside those districts.
Posted by Dennis Hathaway | October 16, 2009 11:50 AM