MAYOR NEWSOM IRATE WITH SAN FRANCISCO HOUSING AUTHORITY
26 August 2007
The mayor took the Sentinel on a tour of the playgrounds at the Sunnydale public housing projects Saturday and became angry at the conditions that have been allowed to deteriorate since his last visit to the area. He is pictured here with Daniel Homsey, Director of Neighborhood Services.
This structure which, according to the mayor cost taxpayers several hundred thousand dollars, was burned.
PHOTOS BY DAVID TOERGE
Sentinel Photography Editor
Copyright © 2007 San Francisco Sentinel
BY PAT MURPHY
Sentinel Editor & Publisher
Copyright © 2007 San Francisco Sentinel
Mayor Gavin Newsom Saturday lashed Housing Authority Director Gregg Fortner performance as pathetic disrespect shown residents.
The mayor pledged that assessment in a telephone call to Fortner later that afternoon, following a tour of the Sunnydale Housing Project which Newsom said revealed maintenance “disgraceful.”
Playground and park renaissance, mostly funded privately through sponsorship by the Mayor’s Office, is in shambles.
“We put all this money in — $600,000, $700,000 — brand new and it looks like it’s 50 years old, and it’s a year old.
“This is not acceptable. This just is not acceptable.
“We put a lot of energy into raising the money to do this, to give these guys dignity, and look around. You can’t even water the damn trees.
“Let’s put it this way, you do not want to be the Director of Housing in the next ten minutes when I get on the phone,” the mayor shouted to residents.
FORTNER
“I’m sorry about this. This is totally unacceptable. This is pathetic. I’m sorry.
“We raised this money privately. We got it through Dave Mathews Band and we’re very proud of it.
“We do a lot of community work out to plan all this stuff, and I’m directly involved, and it shows how much these (Housing Authority) guys value the work we put into it.
“We raised money for dozens of parks, for athletic fields, through the (Don) Fisher dollars — $40 million — Silver Terrace, Garfield, Crocker Amazon, South Sunset, Franklin is going to get some new lighting.
“Look at this.
“This just says to the neighborhood that we don’t value you, we don’t care about you. You’d think I’d been mayor 50 years and came back. This is just embarrassing.
“Pathetic. All the money we put in all the time. That’s the respect these guys are giving us to keep and maintain. It’s a disgrace that people live in conditions like this.
“It’s disgraceful that the federal government keeps getting out of the business of investing in housing.
“Shame on them, all these politicians all talking all that talk. If you want to see real life this is it — this is HUD. This is your great Housing and Urban Development. This is federal HUD, thank you very much.
“And then, ‘why aren’t these people doing better? What’s wrong with these people?’, and then you have that attitude. We need tax breaks for the wealthiest one percent.’ Give me a break.
“We do have a plan to rebuild all this. We actually funded the plan this year with $95 million seed money. That’s real and that’s happening, and that’s the ultimate solution here but in the interim here this is an embarrassment.
“Don’t tell me you can’t clean up the God damn garbage. Don’t tell me you can’t keep the graffiti off.
“And don’t tell me you can’t keep a playground, that the City came in and sponsored and supported, that you can’t keep that clean and safe. It’s disgraceful.
“The only guys that are doing their jobs, I swear to you, are the police.
“They’ve done an amazing job here. This is one of their first community policing efforts and they’ve done an incredible job, truly. Crime stats bear that out.
“But that should be basic. I mean that’s where everything else begins but that’s not a solution in of itself, ‘Boy, crime’s down,’ that’s not a solution.”
“Sometimes we don’t want to go home. We just want to hang out here to make a difference,” said Police Officer Craig Wilson assigned to Sunnydale Housing.
“No one was born this way. They all have choices to make and we just want to help them make the right choice.”
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DAVID TOERGE
Sentinel Photography Editor
When David Toerge left a career in photojournalism that had spanned over twelve years and started in a new direction of commercial photography he blended the editorial style with a more corporate look. David led the way in that new style garnering many awards for his work. Communications Arts has honored him over six times. Based in San Francisco, David shoots projects on location all over the US for various corporations and a multitude of magazines and always brings back great images. He has a keen sense of light, color, and composition and delivers to his clients assignments done with passion. He has climbed bridges hundreds of feet in the air, shot in caves hundreds of feet below, dived with sharks and driven the track with Indy drivers. He has shot earthquakes and firestorms but loves walking the streets with his camera just photographing the everyday life of his city.
PAT MURPHY
Sentinel Editor & Publisher
In his youth, Pat Murphy worked as a General Assignment reporter for the Richmond Independent, the Berkeley Daily Gazette, and the San Francisco Chronicle. He served as Managing Editor of the St. Albans (Vermont) Daily Messenger at age 21. Murphy also launched ValPak couponing in San Francisco, as the company’s first San Francisco franchise owner. He walked the bricks, developing ad strategy for a broad range of restaurants and merchants. Pat knows what works and what doesn’t work. His writing skill has been employed by marketing agencies, including Don Solem & Associates. He has covered San Francisco governance for the past ten years. Pat scribes an offbeat view of the human family through Believe It or What.
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