These refurbished branch libraries are really nice to visit and use. I often spend an afternoon in the new Glen Park branch before going downstairs to do my grocery shopping. A fresh, clean library is so inviting.

[Tip via Curbed SF.]

If you’ve ever wanted City Hall to work like tech support, your dream has sort of come true. A new website, SeeClickFix, will take your complaint and create a trouble ticket. More than that, in San Francisco they’ll automatically forward the problem to the appropriate SF Supervisor’s office.

Though the site is based in New Haven, Conn., they have a local volunteer who coordinates San Francisco issues. The site already has more than 500 open issues and over 200 closed ones. I think that’s for the whole site, not just San Francisco, but statistics are a little hard to come by.

ow all those open tickets get closed is a little more vague. According to an email from site founder Ben Berkowitz, just as anybody can open a ticket, anybody can close one — or reopen it.

Clearly it’s an idea requiring a certain amount of cooperation and good will. I was concerned that some crank could overload the system with dozens of complaints a day, rendering it useless, but Berkowitz said they have “human moderators to control excessive and possibly fraudulent clicking.”

But hey, I’ll give it a try. Huge semi trucks get lost on my block all the time, because they turned the wrong way on Cesar Chavez and now they’re trying to get back across the freeway… maybe some enhanced signage would help them find their usual destination, the San Francisco Produce Market in the Bayshore industrial district.

SF Carpet Recycling is a collection site for post consumer carpet and carpet pad for the San Francisco Bay Area. Conveniently located in the 3rd Street corridor in the southeast part of San Francisco, we accept used carpet for the purpose of recycling.

For every 10 million pounds of post-consumer carpet recycled:

• 50,000 cubic yards of landfill space is saved

• 70 million pounds of GHG emissions are avoided (CO2 equivalents)

According to the 2006 CARE Annual Report

Most carpet is recycled into carpet padding, not really optimal, but Raynor is trying to find new products that could be manufactured with the recycled carpet. She has already prototyped a smallish, lightweight, seemingly very durable wheel that could be used for many applications. And therein lies the challenge in this business, finding new consumers of the raw materials produced by carpet recycling.

More detail from a recent article in the Chron on Carpet recycling:

Old carpet is just a sliver of the overall waste stream, 1.6 percent of all trash collected in San Francisco by Norcal Waste Systems. But that still adds up to more than 16 million pounds each year in San Francisco and 5 billion pounds nationally. And historically, nearly all of that used carpet has gone into landfills.
“It’s a big deal because of its weight, and because it doesn’t break down,” said Ken Stewart, operations manager for San Francisco Recycling & Disposal, Norcal’s recycling division.

And happily, Proposition 98 was soundly beaten statewide. It seems that few Californians were fooled by that transparent attempt to screw renters. I lived for years in a mobile home park, and I understand the plight of the owners — they are probably the one group most negatively affected by rent control — but revoking rent control for all renters under all circumstances throughout the entire state was just a blatant grab for money. They need to work out a different approach that would be acceptable to both parties; perhaps that could be accomplished by limiting future proposals to just the tenants and owners of mobile home parks. There must be a way to leave rent control basically in place while granting a bit more flexibility in setting rates to the owners. In other words, a compromise: that seemingly rare animal in modern politics.

By chance the other day I met Kevin Gordon, the filmmaker behind the 11-minute documentary Tellin’ It Like It Is: The Work of Elouise Westbrook. Mrs. Westbrook has been active on behalf of the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood since she moved there in 1949, and it’s clear that even at the age of 92 she remains a force to be reckoned with. She was thrust onto the national stage when, in 1973, city officials failed to get the release of allocated federal funds to tear down the old barracks at Hunter’s Point and build housing there. In response, Mrs. Westbrook took a delegation to Washington, determined not to leave without getting the funding her neighborhood was due. Eventually she succeeded, and the city received its $30 million for the project.

However, Mrs. Westbrook’s greatest ongoing success probably lies in the clinic she helped to found, the South of Market Health Center, which now has three active facilities. A fourth facility is in development, with plans to break ground in the fall: Westbrook Plaza. The Plaza honors Mrs. Westbrook’s vision of affordable healthcare and affordable housing for all, by combining the two in a single development.

The short screens tonight at 9:00 at the Kabuki, and opens for the feature Faubourg Tremé: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans. Tickets available at the theater.

Earlier this afternoon I got Mr. Gordon on the phone and we talked a bit about this film and his aims as a filmmaker. Our Q&A starts below and continues after the jump.

So, how did you learn about Mrs. Westbrook in the first place?

Well, I totally lucked out: I was actually approached with the film. Another filmmaker I’d just met called me about how the South of Market Health Center wanted a tribute made for their founder, and that she (the other filmmaker) was too expensive for them, but thought I might do it for a lot cheaper. Of course, that was the case. But when I met Mrs. Westbrook, I knew that I had no choice but to make the movie. She struck me immediately as an amazing person and an amazing subject, but it wasn’t until I was really into the research that I realized how significant she really was. So everything kind of happened backwards to how you’d normally expect it to happen.

Is Mrs. Westbrook still in good health today?

Her health is good; she’s definitely weakened since we did the interview this summer, but she’s still as sharp as ever.

I read on the website for the film that your background is in “social history and human rights.” Are you coming to filmmaking from another career?

I had a prior career in activism, in the nonprofit sector, and I was getting frustrated with the different tools for change that were available, so I started to look towards media as an alternative. At first I just got my feet wet and tiptoed in, but eventually I realized that this was really what I wanted to do. Then I completely jumped into it. I did an apprenticeship with a filmmaker for a few months, and then worked on a few other projects. This is the first film I’ve worked on from start to finish as director.

So, speaking for yourself as a filmmaker: what is your ambition for your films? What do you hope they will do?

You know, this film—obviously it had a different purpose originally: it was originally intended as a tribute to Mrs. Westbrook. So actually, there was kind of an audience of one. We wanted her to see it and really feel like she was finally getting the props that she’s deserved for so long. We got as many voices in it as possible, not just to establish credibility, but also because we really wanted her to hear it. It’s the kind of thing that people usually only hear at a funeral, and by then it’s kind of too late. So, for this film, that was definitely the original goal. And we kind of achieved that at the first viewing. It was commissioned for an event in her honor, and that was the first time that she saw it, and she was in tears—especially that footage from 1971—I don’t know that she’d ever seen that since it first aired on TV that night.

You’re referring to the groundbreaking at Hunter’s Point?

Yeah. But then we thought her story would interest other people as well. For me, it’s about—I feel like our generation is fairly cynical. We’re highly educated on the issues, we really know what’s happening, and we’re concerned about it, but we don’t really take to the streets. It seems that we don’t feel as empowered. Whereas Mrs. Westbrook comes from a generation that has no doubt about their ability to produce change, and have an impact. And they did that. And that’s really the message that I want people to hear.

Certain to be a topic of interest is the ongoing buzz about “redevelopment” of Bayview Hunters Point, where according to Ethics Commission Documents mega housing contractor Lennar has spent $850,000 greasing consultants, lawyers, and other interested palms in it’s proposed HP Superfund site landgrab.

Meanwhile local community activists have raised about $4000 and with volunteers garnered over 11,000 signatures in just 10 days for a ballot initiative to fight the east coast based mega builder’s master plan, and are demanding a 50% affordability quotient in any new housing built.

Should be an interesting event…

It recently became apparent to Hunters Point activist Dr. Ahimsa Sumchai that she too is not on the “A” list, noticeable especially if one steps out of line against the local Democratic Politburo. While her candidacy and convictions are certainly sincere, (clip of last month’s announcement at City Hall below the jump), one has to wonder about her possible naivety.

Sumchai rallying against the Mayor’s redevelopment partners Lennar in a recent SF Bayview newspaper pic

The longtime Health and Environmental Science Editor of the award winning SF Bayview Newspaper was shocked that she was refused admittance to a press conference/photo op Nancy Pelosi was having at the Bayview Child Health Center with Supervisor Sophie Maxwell this week. Do you think Grasshopper Kaplan or even Chris Daly would have been welcomed?

Sumchai seems surprised by the rejection of a Democratic Party machine that in addition to criminal “fundraisers” & dubious “consultants”, includes numerous nepotism ridden relatives of elected representatives. She perhaps has no idea why they would somehow find her an undesirable at one of their incestuous affairs?

Sumchai has long campaigned against Lennar Corp.’s redevelopment of Hunters Point , and is she totally clueless that Lennar’s president of acquisitions was Pelosi’s nephew? Does she not know that when she’s railing against the quality of the local “environment” this might piss off our local “Commission on the Environment” President who just happens to be Paul Pelosi, Jr., Nancy’s Pelosi’s son and Gavin Newsom’s cousin?

The Lennar “land grab” at Hunters Point Naval Shipyard is highly inconvenienced by attention getting activists like Sumchai, and why would she expect red carpet treatment at one of their dog & pony shows featuring the pretty darn powerful pork barrelling princess Ms. Pelosi ?(Uh, who do ya think is one of the prime architects of federal land giveaways and previously arranged for The Presidio to be privatized ?).

You can meet and discuss that sort of stuff with Dr. Sumchai at 3rd & Palou this Saturday from 10 am – 12 noon where she’ll be doing a live community radio broadcast and get her account of being barred from a Pelosi Press conference after the jump…

I am a licensed physician, Health and Environmental Science Editor of the SF Bayview Newspaper,
a filed candidate for Mayor, a former elected member of the shipyard RAB
and a DPH physician specialist who founded children’s health clinics in OMI, Sunnydale and Visitacion Valley.

I received about five emails alerting me to the press conference. I arrived
at about 9:40am and called Dr. Nadine Burke yesterday to confirm my attendance.

I signed in with a black woman representative from Pelosi’s office. When it
was time to go in I was obstructed from entering through the front door of a
medical clinic by a white male who said

“Miss Sumchai…this is for invited guests only.”

He then shut the door in my face.

He later came out and called someone on his cell phone as if to alert them
that I was still present.

I remained standing at the front door and gave Ms. Pelosi a copy of the SF
Bayview and my campaign literature when she arrived.

I gave information to every press person who entered. I waited for about an
hour.

Ms. Pelosi, Supervisor Maxwell and Dr. Burke entered the waiting room and I
stood next to them as the press cameras took photos.

Dr. Ahimsa Porter Sumchai NSCA-CPT

The group is dedicated to helping young bright minds actualize their potential. The event is open to anyone who loves Hip Hop and chess, nonviolence, and learning. The Hip Hop Chess Federation doesn’t care about your faith, race or landbase. Come kick it!

More info, time and location after the jump

San Francisco is blessed with a magnificent skyline. The Bay Bridge to the East and the Golden Gate to the West make for a lovely frame to the glowing city in between. I really love SF, some day the wife and I plan on moving back up here, maybe once she is done with nursing school. Don’t get me wrong, LA is a fun city, but SF has a certain charm that calls me back when I’m away.

You can check the rest of the HDR San Francisco from Treasure Island set here.