Online Petition to Save Golden Gate Park from Dark Money Contributors

Please sign the online petition to save  Golden Gate Park from environmental degradation and influence by the Fishers and Charles Schwab, Dark Money contributors to the Koch brothers’ political network. (Clickable link)

I talked to hundreds of voters the Outer Sunset District today.  Sleep deprived, fueled only by caffeine from the really good coffee here in the hood, I set out on my one man show.  Friends and neighbors encouraged me along the way.  I stood and delivered, as I promised that I would to those who advised me to step up and run for public office.  I told the truth about the appointee/incumbent cycle and what token representation means.  I told the truth about the sphere of influence of influential, big money contributors in City Hall (and elsewhere) and how that sphere of influence affects us and the public places in the environment in which we live, work, and play.

I was not surprised to find that the clear majority of those I talked to already knew or agreed with what I was saying.  San Franciscans and those who love this city, in general, are sophisticated when it comes to analysis, and synthesis, of relationships within the intricate web of connections that make up our world.

When I talked about the meadow I want to save in Golden Gate Park, the Beach Chalet Fields, many people expressed their surprise at the status of the project–that the plan was still being litigated and that it was still being considered.  Then, I listened and heard the dismay in their voices when they reacted to the statement of facts I recited to them.  The news is new and, truth be told, I almost missed it today.  The news was that the Fisher gang got busted.  Along with a major contributor, Charles Schwaab, the gang who started, funded, and continue to fund the City Fields Foundation responsible for the toxic Astroturf (Field Turf) installations all over town got busted.  And the news went out, here.

Along the way, amidst my rants, amidst the chorus of complaints, amidst the clamor of the N-Judah, someone asked me what they could do to stop this train wreck in the Park from happening, another asked if there was any way to derail this money train on its way to our most precious of jewels in the City.  I had the idea to make a direct appeal to our mostly elected representatives on the Board of Supervisors.  I said I’d put up an online petition and that I’d take it to City Hall.  I promised to do it by 2am for those who cared to check back.  I’m an hour early.  As promised, here’s the form.  Please sign it.

How to Vote for a Write-In Candidate…in stereovision

Positions and Pictures

Endorsements:

• San Francisco Green Party    www.sfgreenparty.org
• SF Ocean Edge    www.sfoceanedge.org
• Take Back Our Parks   www.takebackourparks.org

Positions:

1. Grassroots democracy.  Stop the revolving door, end the appointment/incumbent cycle.  Take back City Hall.
2. Ecological wisdom.  Safe, well-maintained, grass play fields, not costly toxic turf substitutes.
3. Future focus and Sustainability.  No Wall on the Waterfront.  No on B and C.   No condos for Billionaires on Public land.

We are borrowing our Parks from our children

We are borrowing our Parks from our children.  I want to return them to them in better condition than I got them.  If I have to get a job at City Hall to do that, I will.  Some awful decisions are being made there and that needs to change.

I teach ecoliteracy in an after-school enrichment program.  The program is a model of democratic education.   I start my afternoons helping to get snacks together.  Sometimes we make the food together using ingredients from my gardens–the good stuff.  I help with homework and engage with students in ways that challenge them to use their native intelligence.  They ask me questions that challenge me to communicate not just the answers but the rationale and context for those answers.  After the homework is done, we work on projects that interest them.  These projects are meant to help us come to understand that it is nature that sustains us.  We think about how we should live with that knowledge.  We connect by talking and working with natural elements–flora and fauna, earth, air, water, fire–and our spirits are uplifted.  We unpack our mental backpacks of references, share them, and find correspondence.  We learn from one another.

I tell you this because the free exchange I’m talking about is a matter of no small importance.  In the past few months, I’ve talked to hundreds of people about the toxic Astro Field Turf / lighted soccer stadium project proposed for 7+ acres of Golden Gate Park, a stone’s throw from where the ocean meets the land.  At this point, it’s wearing on me, the cognitive dissonance that happens to me when I think about talking with my young students about wants and needs and what get used and what gets thrown away and wasted and why I should even have to talk about my preference for a well-maintained grass field (very like a meadow) over a plastic mat thrown down over poisonous chopped-up tires.  Then, I think about what my students would think if, in their mid to late teens, they had to look at that toxic waste dump covered with faded fuzzy plastic and the lights on all night.  They would think–what a waste, there are toxins in our drinking water or in the ocean because of that, what a dumb-assed idea.  If I were there while they looked at the wreckage, hopefully we’d recognize one another.  In that sad moment in the future we’d have the memory of our correspondence, and one question they would not ask me would be, “How could you let this happen?”

I won’t.  Let us resolve that it won’t happen. Let’s make sure that the Beach Chalet Astroturf Soccer Stadium project gets canned.

Instead, let’s have really nice grass fields, and more of them.  Right here.  In the City.  San Francisco.  Where there’s no grass fields, let’s grow stuff–food crops, flowers, medicinal herbs, trees, fruit trees.  I am and so are many others.  Let’s tear up pavement and make dirt…

The Millennial generation that I know is smarter.  These are not radical ideas to them.  I can’t take much of the credit but I have proof.  Here’s some…

http://www.earthguardians.org/XiuhBio.shtml

Take Back Our Parks

This week I received a formal endorsement from Take Back Our Parks.  Take Back Our Parks is a coalition of groups and individuals committed to keeping our parks open and accessible to all.  TBOP is opposed to privatization and profiteering in the parks.  They also advocate for retaining the naturalistic character of our parks (are opposed to toxic Field Turf installations), and for reform of our Rec and Park department to include more public input into decisions to be made about our public spaces.  I applaud the efforts of Take Back Our Parks.  Their endorsement is very meaningful to me.  They are a grassroots community-based organization which is worthy of our respect and commendation.

http://www.takebackourparks.org

This endorsement came on very nice letterhead.  I put it up on the old Norge fridge (yes, it still works; icebox, check; needs to be defrosted) in my kitchen.

Endorsed by SF Ocean Edge

I have received a formal endorsement from SF Ocean Edge.

Volunteer grassroots activists from this organization have worked diligently to maintain the character and integrity of Golden Gate Park.  For many of us in the Western Neighborhoods, Golden Gate Park is our big backyard, the lungs of the City, a place that gives us a deep rooted sense of place, peace, and solace in the context of our densely populated urban surround.

Golden Gate Park should truly be the People’s Park.  Faced with the ill-advised decisions of City Managers working to forge private-public partnerships, some of which are good for the private players and bad for the public, members of SF Ocean Edge have fought to maintain the character of the Park.  With good stewardship, the Park is a natural refuge from the stresses of city life, and a place where all who seek might find some connection with Nature and thus find themselves renewed, restored, and present in our San Francisco–one of the most scenic cities in the world.

In recent years, the San Francisco’s Park system has suffered from neglect as money has been siphoned from maintenance and programs to feed capital projects which have received 1/2 billion dollars in bond money in the last 2 decades.  When a toxic artificial turf soccer complex was proposed for the Beach Chalet meadow which would pave over and replace over 7 acres of living grass and illuminate it with high powered lights 365 days a year until 10pm, members of SF Ocean Edge spoke out and hit the streets to inform the public about the proposal.  Over 4000 individuals signed petitions opposing the industrial soccer stadium, the fight continued through the Planning Commission, an appeal, another appeal to the Board of Supervisors, to the Coastal Commission with a record number of appellants, and now as a CEQA suit in Superior Court.

The proposed Field Turf project at the Beach Chalet meadow has become an embarrassment for the City.  Millions spent on a faulty Environmental Impact Report and legal fees to prop up a bad project that would make a landfill of the Western end of the Park–chopped up tires and plastic–and daylight it well into the night.  Millions spent championing hazmats over our aquifer (which will soon be tapped for irrigation and drinking water to meet the needs of residents). Millions spent in partnership with a private foundation–City Fields–which picks the field materials, the contractors, the specialized equipment required for maintenance, and, as the fields wear out, the contractors, the materials…

I have researched this bad partnership well.  The members of SF Ocean Edge know it far better.  Some have fought the good fight against the destruction and closure of Golden Gate Park by Parks Inc. for 5 years.  They have given of themselves, their time, and their resources, to help make our City a better place by keeping it a place where ecological wisdom, grassroots activism, and uncommon common sense can still flourish.  I am humbled and honored to receive their endorsement for District 4 Supervisor.

As Supervisor, I will attempt to bring legislation to the table to place a moratorium on all Field Turf installations and to divert much needed money from capital projects to maintenance.

Why a Write-In?

I’ve been asked on a number of occasions why I am running for the Board of Supervisors, District 4 (D4) as a write-in candidate.  It’s a tough road.  The law doesn’t make it easy for a write-in candidate to win.  A name isn’t on the ballot and voters have to ask for a list of write-in candidates at the polling place–you can’t just write anyone’s name, connect the arrow, and have it count.  It’s another one of those not for the fainthearted things.

There was a little weirdness.  I had been asked early on by a Green Party activist and community organizer if I would consider running for Supe.  I was flattered.  The idea stuck.  I did a lot of heavy soul-searching. I thought it better to spend summer with my son, as much of it as possible.  We’d gotten side-tracked a couple of previous summers and I’d promised myself that I wouldn’t get into any craziness.  Running for public office promised some of that, and a child only has one fifth summer.  A filing deadline got moved back two weeks from prior years.  I missed it and thought–Well, that’s that.  Still, the idea stuck.  Rather, it haunted me. 

Anyone who knows me knows that when I do commit to doing something, I do it.  No flaking, maybe some grumbling depending on my mood, but I do it.  A friend of mine used to talk about that attitude in terms of car batteries.  Who do you call when your car battery dies when you are in the middle of nowhere (and you don’t have AAA, and there’s no cell phone service so you have to walk or catch a ride somewhere to call)?   I get those calls.

This time, it’s our system of government calling.  This time it’s Nature calling (with a capital N, though our system of government sure looks like what happens when other euphemistic calls of nature occur).

I’ll do my part to fix some of what’s broken and to practice good stewardship of what of Nature remains .  No excuses.  I’ve had to deal with rolling eyes, disses and misses from the press, even the beginnings of a lefty firing squad.  I’m not paying some PR firm to do what I can do by looking people square in the eye and telling them what I believe in.  More often than not, I get thank you’s, because something in my expression is on common grounds.  99% of us Occupy a place where we share some common experience.  I am compelled to go there now and do my part, as I have at times in the past with lesser commitments, and as I wholeheartedly wished that I could have, but truly could not, with greater ones. 

I’m paying forward as many of us are.   I feel as if I’m in good company doing that.

h. brown asked me why I was running as a write-in candidate.  He’s worked hard to keep an eye on City Hall and deserved an answer.  This is what I wrote.

Couldn’t let another D4 election go by without drawing attention to the revolving door.  Family commitments and the fact that DOE changed the filing requirements for D4 made the decision for me.  I was encouraged to run as a write-in by a number of community activists.  So I am.  If you need more details, it’s a conversation.

I’m paying forward here…  The system’s broken.  I’m no political hack.  If I succeed as a political hacker, I’m happy.

Endorsement fishing in SF

One of the more interesting things I’ve done this campaign is to put myself out there and look strangers square in the eye to try and convince them they should vote for me.  It’s not really my style.  I’ve found myself politely listening more than talking.  That’s been both instructive and meaningful for me. 

I’ve learned the following things: Mom really did raise me right, I listen; regular people have some really insightful ideas–like putting a Moratorium on construction projects greater than 4 stories in the Outer Sunset; these same people feel like they are not being heard–which is true, most of our elected officials are truly beholden to others; and, not to say things like “even a dog can shake hands” or any of the more colorful aphorisms which have made their way into my head–without strictly qualifying them first.

I was fortunate to receive the San Francisco Green Party’s formal endorsement.   www.sfgreenparty.org

I’ll never forget my first. (Truth be told, I was Green before Green was cool.  I know some of you were too.)  However, our Municipal Elections are supposed to be non-partisan.  In reality, they are not.  So, in thinking about throwing myself, and, hopefully, not my family, into the gears of the machine, I thought about the other gears in my life.  What about bikes?  I made a personal appeal to the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition (www.sfbike.org) for their support. 

Here’s what I sent along to them. Let’s see what they say.   

One of the first things I did when I moved here in ’96 was get a bike.

I couldn’t handle the N-Judah commute from the Inner Sunset to Market and Stuart.

Later, for 3 1/2 years, I made the commute from the Inner Sunset to Sausalito, across the Golden Gate Bridge. I know every rivet on that Bridge and made the ride every day even through a nasty El Nino winter.

I’ve been knocked down and knocked out (I still have the MRI, luckily only the helmet got smashed).

I’ve been cited and nearly arrested (for only sort-of-kind-of stopping at a stop sign in the Presidio where there is no longer one, and then for ignoring the officer when the lights went on, and for getting pissed when she, cut me off with the cruiser, causing me to stop short on a stretch of road with no shoulder, only culvert, got out of the car and unbuckled the strap on her gun…you probably can guess where I went from there), fought the citation in US District Court, and won (judge threw it out).

I made my own bike from a frame I got at the Bike Kitchen.

I have the formal endorsement of the Green Party, if it matters to you.

I will support a change in the MV code to allow cyclists to treat stop signs as yield signs.

I am a real supporter of the City’s Transit First Policy. It should go without saying that I will fully support the goals of the SFBC.

I would like your endorsement. Short of that, I would discourage you from endorsing any other candidates this election. When the revolving door swings as freely as it does here in D4 (as it does all over our town), our voices are not heard and when choices are made between, say, prioritizing the importance of safe streets, looking closely at MOU’s with SFPD versus building Condos for Billionaires and cutting deals with the Port Commission, we know where the political will resides. I will be beholden to no one if elected to office. I ask for your support.

Fond regards,

Mike Murphy

Familiar Themes.

I submitted an OP ED piece at the request of the editor of a real newspaper.  He’s a maverick, a really interesting guy.  He gave me about 24 hours to turn it around and laughed.  I sent it on time.  I called to see if he received it.  He hadn’t.  While on the phone, I checked the email address.  He told me that it went to Canada as he’d lost his original, more intuitive domain name when he went on hiatus a number of years back.  I said that I thought they might have some fun with it in Canada (they have more parties).  I offered to drop off his papers for him as I canvass the neighborhood.  I haven’t had a clipping or deadline in a decade.  Here’s hoping he takes a liking to it. 

I miss newspapers, substantial ones.  I miss getting the Sunday New York Times on a Saturday night in New York.  It was a heavy thing, like a lap dog–kept me company on the way home to Brooklyn from Manhattan.  I had a neighbor whose apartment was filled floor to ceiling with newspapers.  A narrow pathway led from his door which only opened to 90 degrees.  Nice neat stacks lined the path to his secret space somewhere in the interior.  The Chronicle or the Examiner on BART would not compare.  A digression. 

Maybe you’re thinking, “You should go back to New York”.  I don’t want to.  Even if I did, I couldn’t.  That New York is gone.  That neighborhood in Brooklyn is gone.  Last time I was there, I had to work to recognize discreet elements that were there back when.  That place that I lived in had character, some charm, and a diverse population of people who came together when things got rough.  Gone.  Replaced with glassy, modular, expensive boxes.  Millionaire worker housing.  Last time I was there, I got off the subway, looked around, turned around, bought a paper and got back on the train.  If you go to a place you remember and it’s gone the feeling sticks to you.  Maybe that’s what the neighbor with the stacks of papers had going on.  Maybe somehow he was desperately trying to hold on to his sense of place, to orient himself in space and time by collecting reminders of what just happened. 

I love this City.  San Francisco.  It’s changed since I arrived in ’96, lost bits and pieces of its soulfulness. What I’d really hate to see is to see it lost it wholesale.  That’s why when a developer buys off the City by paying a few million into the affordable housing fund and buys off the local political machine, in order to potentially reap $400 million in profit on a project like 8 Washington’s Super Deluxe Condos for Billionaires , and toxic AstroTurf goes in all over town, I get distressed.  Watching a world-class City become a shadowy, plastic version of its former self would do that. So, if you make it to the polls, say to yourself NO on B, NO on C, write my name and connect the arrows. We’ll feel better when the time comes to take in the view, and remember. We won’t be in Generia, we’ll still be home.

Here’s that other thing.

I am Mike Murphy and I am a Qualified Write-In Candidate for District 4 Supervisor.

My wife, my 5 year old son, and I have lived in the Outer Sunset since 2006.  I moved to San Francisco from Western New York State in 1996.  I am not a native San Franciscan, but my son, a 1st grade student at Sunset Elementary School, is.  When I explained to him that I was “applying for a job” at City Hall, he asked if the Mayor would be my boss.  To that I replied, “No.”

I was raised in a household in which interest in civics was encouraged.  I was instructed in the importance of exercising the right to vote.  I never registered as a Democrat or a Republican. I did, however, vote.  When I arrived in San Francisco in 1996, I made the decision to register as a member of the Green Party and have kept that affiliation ever since.

I firmly believe that our future and our children’s future is indeed ours to make.  Now, more than ever, strong, principled leadership is required.  I have made no compromises, nor did I need do any heavy soul-searching to find a belief structure that rests upon the principles of grassroots democracy, community-based economics, social justice and equal opportunity, ecological wisdom, non-violence, gender equity, respect for diversity,  personal and global responsibility, and future focus and sustainability.  These values, for me, were intuitively correct.  They are common sense.  They rest in the hearts of many San Franciscans.

I made the decision to run for District 4 Supervisor with these beliefs and feelings in mind.  It is precisely because many of the principles I mentioned are at stake.

On November 5th, in addition wrapping up a short campaign, I’ll still be voting.  So doing, if prior off-year elections stats repeat, I’ll be in the minority.  I hope that is not the case.  As citizens we should want to have a say in decisions that affect our lives.  In what has become a common downtown practice, the revolving door spins freely.  In what I’ve heard referred to as a common strategy, our Supervisors are promoted before they term out, the Mayor appoints their successor, who is elected, and reelected as an “incumbent” in our one party town.  A million dollars (max) goes to the winner.  The rule is…just don’t disappoint the mayor.  But, as I explained to my son, that’s not my party.

The other major issue which prompted me to run for Supervisor concerns the privatization of our public spaces.  For many of us (especially those with keyhole lots, like my family’s) Golden Gate Park is our back yard.  As an ecoliteracy teacher and an avid gardener, I shudder to think of a future in which I would be called upon to explain to tourists why San Francisco, advertised as the greenest city in the US, would install 7+ acres of artificial turf in Golden Gate Park at the Beach Chalet Fields, and light that industrial park up every night until 10pm.  Nor would I wish to explain the choice of material–Field Turf, a system which incorporates chopped up tires which leach heavy metals and which degrades (in the real game where Nature bats last) into styrene, a respiratory irritant, and butadiene, a class 2A carcinogen.  Worse still I would have to explain the impacts on wildlife and the environment, the absence of darkness, as well as the complex food web of contractors, a private foundation called City Fields, their wealthy donors and corporate supporters, other foundations who conduct lobbying activities in City Hall and, of course, Rec and Park.

This should not come to pass.  If it does not, we have concerned individuals and groups like SF Ocean Edge and the Sierra Club to thank for allowing the project to come to its logical demise with the CEQA suit still in the courts.  That way, none of us will have to explain why it is that we can’t grow grass in San Francisco.

As District 4 Supervisor, I will work to ensure that your voice is heard on these issues and others of concern to you.  I will make my positions on matters of importance public in order to foster interest and debate, and, encourage participation.  I will work to create an atmosphere which informs, illuminates, and, possibly, changes those positions.  San Franciscans deserve representative democracy–one that works on all levels, from precincts to the Mayor’s office, not a trickle-down version that maintains power and control at the top and affords access to the decision-making process to a select few influential investors.  I will continue the discussions about and attempt to bring to the table, or the ballot, as appropriate, legislation intended to quiet the chorus of complaints I hear so often about City Hall–by barring appointees from running in the election subsequent to their appointment, by moving bond money from projects earmarked for capital projects to operating expenses where that money may create good jobs within our communities, and by looking closely at Memoranda of Understanding that create public-private partnerships to eliminate those that are great deals for the private partners and bad deals for the public.  I would prefer to serve as an elected official in the City that Knows How rather than the City that Gave It Away.

There are decisions to be made this election year.  I urge you to exercise your right to vote.  Draw a line.  Connect the arrow.  Write “Mike Murphy” on the ballot.  Reopen the doors at City Hall.