Plan C San Francisco

11th Annual Plan C Fundraiser Event-June 13, 2012

admin — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 01:30:20 +0000

Please join Plan C board members and friends at the 10th anniversary of our annual fundraiser on Wednesday, June 13, 2012 from 5:30pm to 7:30pm to learn more about this year’s achievements and our plans for the rest of 2012 – especially efforts to create a “condo bypass” for the hundreds of TIC owners stuck in the deeply unfair and financially destructive lottery system.

We are honored that Supervisor Scott Wiener from District 8 will be our lead speaker, and we will present Craig Dawson, head of the Mt. Sutro Stewards, with our annual Quality of Life Hero Award for 2012.

By joining us on June 13th, you can help us build upon our recent successes. Much depends on this coming November’s Supervisorial races. We must ensure that usually moderate District 7 doesn’t slip away to one of the “center-left” candidates poised to replace Sean Elsbernd. We nearly won swing District 1 last time, and have an opportunity to win that district back in November. As usual, we will be in the thick of things, working to elect moderates in San Francisco.

As always, you can count on Plan C, as San Franciscans have since 2001, to provide you with the city’s most widely used moderate voting guide.

Please join us as a sponsor for our 11^th annual fundraiser on June 13. Organizational and individual sponsors will be listed as co-hosts, hosts and premier hosts on event invitations, email reminders and signage. Hosts at all levels will receive tickets to the event, the quantity commensurate with donation level. Individual hosts at all levels will receive a one year paid Plan C membership with voting rights.

For more details about giving levels and benefits, click on this link below to sign up for our Host Committee today:http://plancsf2012fundraiser.eventbrite.com

We must hear from you no later than Friday, May 18, 2012 to be listed as a “host” on the invitation that will be mailed to thousands of Plan C and partner organization members.

Or, send a check (together with address, employer and occupation information) to the following address, made out to Plan C San Francisco, with “6/13 Fundraiser” on the memo line:

Plan C San Francisco
P.O. Box 26286
San Francisco, CA 94126

The Details:

Date: Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Time: 5:30 – 7:30 PM
Location: Vanguard Properties
2501 Mission at 21st Street
San Francisco, CA

Thank you for your support!

Plan C Election Endorsements – June 5, 2012 Consolidated Primary

admin — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 00:01:55 +0000

Plan C publishes one of San Francisco’s most widely read moderate voter guides. Our endorsement process is based on votes by our members. The following are Plan C’s endorsements for the June 2012 election. We encourage you to support these moderate candidates and ballot measures and help common sense to win at the ballot box!

Democratic County Central Committee:
-Assembly District 17-
Chiu, David*
Cohen, Malia
Dufty, Bevan
Dunning, Zoë
Hinckle, Warren
Katz, Leslie Rachel*
Mendoza, Hydra
Mondejar, Maria Marily
Smith, Stuart M. (Stu)
Torres, Joaguin
Vasquez, Christopher
Wiener, Scott*

-Assembly District 19-
Anderson, Kat
Fazio, Bill*
Hseih, Tom*
Jung, Mary*
Kott, Suki
Levitan, Meagan
McNeil, Trevor
Smith, Arlo*
Weixel, Jim
Wong, Jason

San Francisco Ballot Measures:
Proposition A: Competitive Bidding for Garbage Collection and Disposal -OPPOSE
Proposition B: Coit Tower Policy Statement -OPPOSE

Annual Plan C Membership Meeting

admin — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 02:00:49 +0000

Join us for our Annual Plan C Membership Meeting on April 16 from 6pm – 8pm at the Swedish-American Music Hall at 2174 Market Street.

Featured Speaker: Supervisor Mark Farrell. Mark is the Supervisor for District 2 and a former Plan C board member. Mark will discuss the latest happenings at City Hall and how moderates can influence city policy.

Mayor Lee addresses Condo lottery bypass legislation

admin — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 20:23:22 +0000

Mayor Lee discusses condo lottery bypass legislation

Click on the link above for a YouTube version (iDevice compatible)

Our thanks to Supervisor Farrell, for raising the important issue of condo reform at the Board of Supervisors “Question Time”on February 14th.

2012 Condo Lottery and Rally

admin — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:15:13 +0000

Ticket sales for the 2012 Condo Conversion Lottery end this Friday, January 20th, 2012 at 4:45PM (additional information can be found here). The lottery itself will be held on Wednesday, February 1, 2011, at 9AM in Room #400 of City Hall.

Plan C San Francisco, in conjunction with the Small Property Owners of San Francisco, will be sponsoring a rally for condo conversion reform on the steps of City Hall at 8:15AM prior to the lottery. We need your attendance to make an impact. The rally lasts no longer than 30-45 minutes, so if you can be late to work one day in February, this is the day! Mark your calendars now.

The rally is one of your primary opportunities to bring attention to the fact that City Hall has failed to support homeownership for the thousands of people that seek it as a means of solidifying their place in our community.

If you are a first-time homeowner, or TIC owner, please take the time to attend this important event and to spread the word! Let’s show our city’s elected leaders that those seeking housing stability through ownership are the lifeblood of our city. You are the teachers, healthcare workers, public service employees, first responders, even members of our very own Board of Supervisors that are seeking to put down roots in our community. Public policy should be helping you to stay in San Francisco not harming you.

If you are not able to attend, we encourage you to contact the Mayor and city supervisors through our website. Write a note identifying yourself and tell them your story. Tell them that you support overall reform of the completely broken condo conversion process. Tell them that your only path to homeownership was through the purchase of a TIC but that the financial stability you seek won’t fully come until you can convert your shared interest into a condominium. Tell them that as a former renter you are tired of being ignored and vilified for pursuing the American dream.

You can e-mail the Mayor and city Supervisors from our website by clicking here. After you have written your e-mail, only click “submit” once. Although it may look like you message has not been sent, it has!

The Need for Condo Reform

admin — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 01:03:31 +0000

As our recent press release indicates, the need for condo conversion reform has never been greater. In this year’s condo lottery, almost 2400 applicants will vie for only 200 spots. Hundreds of middle income, first time homeowners are being hurt by San Francisco’s outmoded restrictions on condo conversion, for no good reason.

This year, Plan C is advocating a solution that is a “win-win” for TIC owners and for the affordable housing community. The “condo bypass” would allow TIC owners to condo convert outside the lottery process, if they paid a fee (expected to be in the range of $10,000 to $15,000 per unit for most owners) to help fund the City’s affordable housing programs. This would help thousands of TIC owners convert to condo status, and would also provide up to $25 million to help fund affordable housing in San Francisco (and provide thousands of construction jobs). Funding affordable housing through condo reform is particularly important in 2012, when affordable housing programs have been hit by the loss of redevelopment funding. This is a rare opportunity for the City to raise millions for affordable housing, without taxes, while helping first time homeowners.

We hope that the Board of Supervisors and the Mayor will support the condo bypass – there would be no ballot measure needed; the measure can be approved by a vote of the Board and the signature of the Mayor. If this solution does not find support at City Hall, then we must begin looking at solutions that would involve the ballot box. We believe that there are a number of ballot initiatives that could be crafted would allow for additional conversions, while providing adequate protections to tenants.

We can achieve condo reform, and we can do it soon – if we have help from those who care about this issue. If you want to help Plan C advocate for condo reform, please sign up to receive emails (it’s free), consider becoming a paid member, or email us (info@plancsf.org) to let us know this is an issue you care about. With your help, we believe that now is the time to end the City’s broken condo conversion system!

Wednesday’s Condo Lottery & Plan C Rally

admin — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 16:00:33 +0000

This Wednesday, February 1st, Plan C San Francisco, in conjunction with the Small Property Owners of San Francisco, will be sponsoring a rally for condo conversion reform on the steps of City Hall (Polk St. side) at 8:15AM prior to the lottery. We need your attendance to make an impact. The rally lasts no longer than 30-45 minutes, so if you can be late to work, this is the day!

Plan C November 8 Election Endorsements

admin — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 09:00:41 +0000

This November brings another important election to San Francisco. In 2010, moderates made significant progress at City Hall, swinging the political pendulum closer to its stable center. This year is no different: with a crowded mayoral field and eight ballot initiatives, we need your help to continue our momentum and promote a moderate slate of candidates and ballot measures.

Below are Plan C’s formal endorsements that will appear in our Plan C Voter Guide. Please be sure to print it out and take it with you to the polls. Our endorsement process is based on votes by our members, so if you are not a member already, we encourage you to join our cause.

Mayor:
Ed Lee-First Choice
Bevan Dufty- Second Choice
Dennis Herrera- Third Choice

District Attorney:
George Gascon-incumbent

Sheriff:
Chris Cunnie- First Choice
Paul Miyamoto- Second Choice

Ballot Measures:
Proposition A: Schools Bond – YES
Proposition B: Streets Bond – NO
Proposition C: City Pension and Retiree Healthcare Reform – YES
Proposition D: City Pension Reform – NO
Proposition E: Initiative Amendment Reform – YES
Proposition F: Disclosure Requirements for Campaign Consultants – YES
Proposition G: 0.5% Dedicated Sales Tax Increase – NO
Proposition H: Neighborhood Schools Policy Statement – YES

Neighborhood Schools and Prop. H

admin — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 22:15:55 +0000

We invite you to read this great piece written by Byron Thurber, a San Francisco parent, on the importance of neighborhood schools.

The Case for Neighborhood Schools – from a Parent

Have your children been denied access to your local neighborhood school? Mine have. I have two children who attend a public elementary school in San Francisco. When our oldest was entering kindergarten, we filled out our application forms truthfully, and hoped for the best. The school we were assigned to was not one of our seven choices – we were one of the unlucky twenty percent who got zero of seven choices. The school we got is far from where we live. To try to gain a spot at the neighborhood school that’s two blocks from our home, we went through the “Round Two process”, wait pools, and appeal letters, but to no avail.

The school my children do attend is a nice enough place. But it’s very inconvenient. Getting back and forth each day is an unnecessary burden. We have to drive each way – there is no District bus route from our neighborhood to that school – and both my wife and I work full time. It’s a half hour round trip in the car, which is a waste of money and bad for the environment. For the kids, this lost hour per day is also a waste of precious time; time that could be better spent on homework, family dinner, practicing musical instruments, and getting adequate sleep. Multiply that times the number of families in our situation, and you begin to get the picture.

For the past two years, the Board of Education has been deliberating publicly about how to redesign the Student Assignment System. They heard loud and clear that the current system was confusing, time-consuming, complex, unfair, and a lot of other bad words. I attended most of the Student Assignment System Redesign meetings, both at the Board of Education and at community schools. What I heard from my fellow parents is that while some advocate a random lottery or a socioeconomically weighted system, the vast majority of parents simply want to send their kids to the local neighborhood school, and they want that school to be of high quality. They want Quality Neighborhood Schools For All.

After many long meetings and deliberations, a new Student Assignment System was approved by the Board of Education in March 2010. It replaces the former “Diversity Index”, which is four or five socioeconomic factors that are specific to the applicant’s family, with a single socioeconomic factor: Census Tract Integration Preference or “CTIP”. CTIP gives a student top preference if the student’s home address is in a census tract whose students score in the lowest 20% on standardized tests. This new factor has two serious flaws: first, it’s approximate – it asks “do you live generally near low-scoring students” and not “is your family actually disadvantaged”; and second, it is not all that difficult to “game”. I won’t state exactly how, but you can probably imagine, or read about it in the blogs. In the new Student Assignment System, CTIP trumps local residence for seats in elementary and middle schools, and local residence is completely left out of the high school selection process.

Denying neighborhood kids access to neighborhood schools has bad consequences. Besides driving many families completely out of the system, scattering kids across the City has severe negative impacts for those who stay in the system, as my family has:

Time, money, and carbon footprint of car trips. Even if you don’t have kids and don’t care about school issues, if you commute during rush hour and you breathe air, think of how much better it would be for traffic and air quality to have all those cars off the road.
Playdates – the social lives of kids outside school. It’s difficult when none of your schoolmates live anywhere near you; just ask my kids. One of ours recently told my wife, “You know what I don’t like about our neighborhood? No kids live here.” Of course that’s not true, many kids live in our neighborhood, but that’s her impression. And it certainly is true that no kids from her school live in our neighborhood, and no other kids from our neighborhood attend her school. How do you explain that to a kid?
Informal afterschool care. With two working parents, wouldn’t it be great, if both parents need to work late, to be able to call a trusted neighbor and ask if they can watch your kids until 7:00? We simply cannot do this – one of us needs to rush out of work to pick them up.
Parental involvement. This is big. When kids attend the neighborhood school, families are much more likely to get involved in PTA, various improvement efforts, and the like. I am guilty of being not very involved in my kids’ school. I attended a few PTA meetings at the beginning, but haven’t kept up because, frankly, it’s too much trouble driving back and forth. I would be much more apt to do so if I could walk a few blocks to the school.
Community. This is the biggest negative consequence of scattering kids across the City – the lost sense of neighborhood community belonging. In a city whose residents are, in many other aspects, passionate about defining and preserving neighborhood character, doesn’t it seem ironic that the Student Assignment System encourages the opposite? Strong neighborhood attendance at the local school builds community ties that extend beyond parental involvement in many ways, to local parks, shops, restaurants, and other places that families go. Parents and kids can walk the neighborhood together, get to know their neighbors and small business owners, and everyone can look out for one another.

Prop H is promoting a Student Assignment System that places local residence near the top of the list of preference factors – second only to siblings. Increased local attendance in neighborhood schools will build better communities, strengthen parental involvement, make playdates and afterschool care easier, and reduce our carbon footprint. And – in a city with one of the lowest percentages of families with children and one of the highest percentages of private school attendance – it will encourage more San Francisco families to choose public schools.

If you agree, please vote “YES” on Prop H, and help us take the first step towards Quality Neighborhood Schools For All.

- Byron Thurber

Footnote: these remarks were written in spring 2010 at the kickoff for Prop H. Subsequently, Mr. Thurber’s children were accepted off the waitlist in November 2010, and received a spot in their neighborhood school (in their third year of trying). They are now much happier – and wish that other San Francisco families could also have the opportunity to attend their local school.

Action Alert

admin — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 21:27:46 +0000

This Friday the San Francisco Board of Supervisors will be addressing a proposed amendment by Supervisor David Campos to “Healthy San Francisco” – the City’s mandatory healthcare law. We believe that this amendment, if passed, will severely harm San Francisco’s small businesses, and result in the loss of jobs in the City. Overall, it is estimated that the changes in the law could cost local businesses up to $50 million. For more information on this measure, click here.

We need you to make your voice heard at City Hall about this issue – especially during this time of economic adversity, the last thing we need is additional burdens on small business. Please send an email to Mayor Lee and the Board of Supervisors by CLICKING HERE to email the suggested copy shown below to the Mayor and the Supervisors on this important topicclicking here. Be sure to sign your name and add your address at the bottom before sending! Feel free to use the copy built into the email or delete and compose a personal message sharing your individual views.

Alternatively, you can use our webform (copy and paste the suggested copy below into the form).

Also, if you can take a moment to call your Supervisor or the Mayor’s Office, that will help. Even better, come to City Hall tomorrow at 1 PM (Friday, Sept 30) in Room 263 for a special hearing on this issue.

Thanks for your help!

Plan C Board of Directors

Dear Mayor Lee and Board of Supervisors:

As the Board of Supervisors considers amendments to Healthy SF relating to unspent money in Health Reimbursement Accounts, please consider the interests of small businesses, who will be hurt the most by burdensome mandates. Supervisor Campos’ legislation could have a very severe impact on jobs in San Francisco, which is the last thing we need in this time of economic adversity.

Please consider a different approach when it comes to changing “Healthy San Francisco.”

Sincerely,
[Insert name and address]

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