Meeting Minutes

MDNA Meeting Minutes – Feb. 14, 2019

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MDNA meeting, Feb 14, 2019

Meeting start

  • motion to pass the minutes 
  • 11 board members present

Peter talked about the historic district and its back story

  • Supervisor Mandelman is strongly in favor of the Castro Cultural District, and is willing to compromise with community groups about the district boundaries. He will work to set up a historical district in Mission Dolores, which has been a primary goal of our neighborhood association. A small part of our district (up to Church St) would become part of the new Cultural District.
  • He is going to get the city to approve a historical district with Tim Fry at the city. 
  • Voted unanimously in favor of comprise outlined by Peter.

645-647 Valencia St — Previously the Elbo Room bar

  • New owner/managers talked about why they bought the Elbo Room. They are renaming it to the Valencia Room since the Elbo Room name has moved to Oakland. 
  • Jazz, rock, DJ music will be the norm at this venue. Different genres will be showcased, depending which are most popular.
  • They need a new live entertainment license despite the venue use not changing its use much.
  • Unrelated to the live entertainment license, they are planning to change their liquor license hours slightly. They hope to be able to open at noon on weekends and Fridays. They don’t expect to start live music at noon, but the live entertainment license doesn’t specify the hours of performance — that is limited by the liquor license.
  • We voted to approve a letter in support of them obtaining a live music license, under current operating hours. 

Mission Dolores GBD

  • Peter gave overview of GBD history and our votes of previous votes of opposition to it.
  • Hans and Robert spoke in favor of the GBD. Hans asserts that the something needs to be done to help the area around Dolores Park, and the city won’t fix the issues.
  • The board spoke out against the GBD, while recognizing the good intentions of the formation committee. Stated issues are:
    • the seemingly secretive process of its formation,
    • that the city is using its clout to bring these organizations into existence, possibly to shirk its own duties,
    • that the property owners will end up paying for what others decide,
    • the cost of the program in terms of taxation,
    • the inefficiency of paying a high percentage towards administration for its operation,
    • the governance structure of the proposed organization,
    • that this will be double taxation for duties that the city should already be performing, taking pressure off our existing government,
    • that the boundaries of the new organization will extend to a different geographical set of boundaries, encompassing a large part of our district and diluting control over local issues.
  • Patricia spoke in support of a green organization, because the end product of more green space is such a benefit.
  • We voted in support of posting a letter against formation of a new GBD on our website, and our opposition. The vote was 9-2.
  • Roger said that the city votes in favor of the GBDs with their large land holdings. He said that there hasn’t been obvious improvement in Dog Patch with their GBD, above and beyond what the city was accomplishing over the years.

MDNA Board Meeting Minutes – Sept. 12, 2018

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MDNA Minutes – Sept 12, 2018

Board members present: Peter, Donna, Reuben, Lucia, Alex, Robert, Sahar, Siamak, Stephen, Marius, and Patricia.

Motion passed to take away last line of April minutes.
Motion passed to approve the May minutes as long as they clarify that an additional the reason why the board didn’t approve of a proposed Castro LGBTQ Cultural District that would include part of Mission Dolores is because it went go against our mission statement that clarifies the Mission Dolores is a sub area of the Mission District. 

Motion passed to never post minutes on website, until they are approved by board.

MDNA Opposed green benefit district (GBD) 2 years ago. We voted on this. Robert Brust is asking us to reconsider our previous vote.

Robert was given 15 minutes to speak in favor of GBD

  • Ned, concerned citizen in favor of green benefit district. Wanting to be “responsibly additive” to neighborhood groups. 
  • Described as a “neighborhood HOA”. Services and assessments are chosen by the people in the neighborhood.
  • They would like to form this because they see difficulty in getting official action on local problems.
  • They don’t want to define an agenda. They want to take the input from from residents and have the residents define the agenda, including additional taxation rates.
  • Alex asked what they are trying to raise in terms of money. 
  • Donna asked about the boundaries of the district they want to create.
  • Member of public asked what services could be provided. 
  • Robert responded about greening around medians, maintaining steps, ambassadors in community, trash pickup in park. 
  • Donna asked about why the city wouldn’t cut services if GBD provides them. 
  • Ned responded that it’s legislated that the city must provide same services regardless of GBD.

Against GBD, Steve Bartoletti

  • Cost is too significant — administration is 1/3 of the cost in existing SF GBD’s.
  • Special tax assessments should be for urgent / underfunded needs
  • “Bad government” – GBD’s are inequitable because richer areas that can afford more tax focus on themselves and allow city to neglect its services.
  • GBDs are a “threat” to neighborhood associations like MDNA, by attempting to replace them. He summed up the idea as, “We don’t like what the governments are doing, so we want to collect our own taxes.”

John Hooper, ex- president of BVNA

  • GBD in Buena Vista bypassed NA
  • He gave MDNA advice to file a public ordinance request ASAP
  • $66k grant from the city is funding for Mission GBD. That was found out through the public records request.
  • placement consultant Placelab was paid $220k to make the GBD happen. 
  • Example from existing city of tax usage breakdown: $400k raised per year. $100k on salaries, $50k on advertising.
  • City (DPW) wants GBD to happen and votes using their significant land ownership. They want to stop as much of the city budget for parks maintenance, and GBD would help paper over problems with their services.
  • Lucia asked whether the city has to pay taxes too, or whether they get a vote without paying in to GBD. John said that isn’t clear.
  • Generally, developers like GBD’s so they help fund for their formation.

Kimberley Leong SFMTA 

  • SFMTA is looking at other bike way designs. Asking for Public feedback about them now.
  • They found using data that a lot of collisions related to loading and unloading along the Valencia corridor.

Alex (SFMTA), curb management team

  • Making parking managed better. 
  • Double parking is prevalent on Valencia St: Uber/Lyft, personal vehicles, delivery services, taxis, etc
  • They are looking at painting curbs for more commercial loading, including outside business hours.
  • Robert asked about whether Lyft picking up off Valencia helped. Apparently it just moved the problem, and Lyft pickups are only a piece of the puzzle.
  • 6 months until curb changes

Peter started Board-only part of meeting

  • No one else wants to take over as President, or we want him to continue in the role.
  • He feels strongly that the new President needs to follow the mission statement.
  • Donna changed schedule to work as VP. Motion passed to appoint Donna as VP. 
  • Reuben is nominated secretary and webmaster. Motion passed.
  • Peter nominated for president. Motion passed. 
  • Robert asked about process to pass the torch and thinks we should come up with a plan.
  • Rafael Mandelman will be at next meeting.
  • Peter added rules to the bylaws to ensure everyone agrees with the mission statement. 
  • Peter went through Bylaw edits.
  • We don’t have a treasurer. All donations are sent to account at SF Study Center. They take 10% and we don’t have to do accounting or deal with audits. 

Note: Reuben will add mission statement back to website. 

  • Alex wanted to codify how board members are elected, for example, which motivated the new bylaws.
  • Donna wanted them the bylaws discussed to be addenda instead of separate bylaws. Motion passed.