Fair Housing of Marin will hold a free clinic on foreclosures, short sales and loan modifications from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday, Apr. 25 at 615 B St. in downtown San Rafael.
Attendees of the free clinic are asked to bring income, expense data all documents and correspondence involving their case. The clinic is free to attend, please sign up, call 457-5025 ext. 107 or 111 or send email to brader@fairhousingmarin.com or stefanie@fairhousingmarin.com.
The “not in my backyard” attitude seems to have bitten San Rafael’s Lucas Valley residents in the rear end when Lucasfilm, owned by George Lucas, pulls out of their 25-year-long struggle to expand their production studio on historic farmland in Northern California’s Marin County.
Lucasfilm had originally planned to develop the old Grady Ranch, but opposition from neighbors and regulatory delays prompted the movie giant to abandon the project “with great sadness” the Marin IJ reports.
“We have several opportunities to build the production stages in communities that see us as a creative asset, not as an evil empire, and if we are to stay on schedule we must act on those opportunities,” Lucasfilm said in a statement.
“The level of bitterness and anger expressed by the homeowners in Lucas Valley has convinced us that, even if we were to spend more time and acquire the necessary approvals, we would not be able to maintain a constructive relationship with our neighbors,” Lucasfilm added.
While officials and businesses welcomed the potential development, residents thought the project would leave a huge unwanted footprint in their community.
In a statement, Lucasfilim said,
“We plan to sell the Grady property, expecting that the land will revert back to its original use for residential housing,” Lucasfilm said. “We hope we will be able to find a developer who will be interested in low-income housing since it is scarce in Marin. If everyone feels that housing is less impactful on the land, then we are hoping that people who need it the most will benefit.”
Residents of Lucas Valley have fought the Grady project for 25 years.
Prescription Drug Take-Back Day: Saturday Apr. 28
By Elisa Forsgren
Saturday Apr. 28 between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. the San Rafael Police Department will hold a prescription drug disposal event.
Why hold such an event? Most people take medicines only for the reasons their doctors prescribe them. But an estimated 20 percent of people in the United States have used prescription drugs for nonmedical reasons. This is prescription drug abuse. It is a serious and growing problem according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
This Saturday is a great opportunity for the public to clear out their medicine cabinets of unwanted, unused or expired prescription drugs. During the four hour event, bring medications for disposal to the lobby of San Rafael’s City Hall at 1400 Fifth Ave.
Americans are advised that old disposal methods such as flushed down the toilet or tossed in the garbage are potential safety and health hazards. The medicines forgotten in a cabinet could be misused and abused. Prescription drug abuse rates are alarmingly high in the U.S. and the number of accidental poisonings and overdoses climb right along with the abuse. The drugs used were usually obtained from friends and or family.
There is a need to develop a convenient way to rid homes of unwanted or expired prescription drugs on a permanent basis, until that time, this event will assure proper regulations are in place.
A neighborhood group has appealed the Marin judge’s decision supporting a plan to bring minor league baseball to San Rafael… again.
The Albert Park Neighborhood Alliance filed an appeal earlier in April to Marin Superior Court Judge Lynn Duryee’s February ruling that the San Rafael Pacifics playing minor league ball at Albert Park would have no “significant effect on the environment.”
The Gerstle Park neighborhood group had previously filed suit to prevent the team, owned by Centerfield Partners, from playing at the field until an environmental review had been conducted. The city had felt the team’s proposal wouldn’t change the use of the field.
Duryee’s Feb. 28 ruling essentially agreed.
But the Neighborhood Alliance appeal alleges that Centerfield Partners‘ year-long contract with the City is a violation of the park’s grant deed which, they say, bars commercial use of the park for periods longer than a week.
“The trial court erred when it ruled that the one-year Centerfield Use Agreement, executed by the City of San Rafael on Oct. 12, 2011, did not represent a direct violation of the Albert Park grant deed restrictions barring commercial use of the property for periods exceeding one week in duration,” the alliance group said in a statement. “The deed restrictions are the focal point of the lawsuit.”
Centerfield officials say they are proceeding with plans for the Pacifics’ inaugural season—and the team’s Albert Park home opener scheduled for June 4.
City Council Unanimous Approval of Ritter Center’s Module
By Elisa Forsgren
More than a hundred people crammed into San Rafael’s City Council chambers Monday night where council members unanimously approved the Ritter Center’s plans to add a 933 square-foot medical module to the center’s parking lot.
The Planning Commission first approved the modular addition in February, however, Hugo Landecker, a Gerstle Park resident, along with an anonymous donor paid the $350 fee and appealed that decision which advanced the plans to go before City Council.
“Homelessness is something that we all should be held responsible for rather than one agency to take care of the entire problem. It’s just not fair,” said Barbara Heller, council member before her vote.
In Landecker’s appeal, he wrote six objections including the decision in favor of the medical module was premature, the Ritter Center has overextended its existing use permit with the chaos outside the center and the design of the module is visually unacceptable.
“As a community we can’t continue to go on like this. In spite of the good that Ritter Center does, the community has paid a high price for their presence,” Landecker said Monday.
The center’s current medical clinic is in approximately 1,000-square-foot modular building that also includes day services such as bathroom, showers, laundry, mail, email and a waiting area for about four for all services.
The new modular plan will allow clients more room to wait in a dignified manner and add another two rooms to aid those in need of medical care according to Diane Linn, Ritter’s executive director.
Though the center requested an approval to treat 65 clients a day averaged over a five-day period, council decided they should stay at their current 60 client daily average.
Other specific conditions for the approval include monthly and semi-annual reports along with a plan to discuss overflow issues that may occur in the future.
In response to Landecker’s appeal, Ritter Center has hired a full-time outreach coordinator and security patrol to tend to trash pick-up and watch the unruly people who at times meet outside the facilities.
The majority of the people who the Ritter Center serves are not random transient homeless according to Linn. “75 percent of the homeless clients that come to Ritter Center are from Marin,” she said.
“It’s always horribly hard, for any entity who serves the downtrodden to make it. They’re attacked as if they created the problem,” said Gary Giacomini, former Marin supervisor.
Barry Taranto, San Rafael resident, agreed adding, “How would you feel if you had no health insurance?”
The chaos outside the building worries some neighbors who believe the added module will worsen the situation.
William Bellville owns a building near the center said, “We do respect what they’re doing.” However, he says the expansion will only bring more human waste, needles and condoms to his property.
Fortunately some Marin Co. people smacked down by the economic hard times our country wallows in, they will suffer not for medical care thanks to the Ritter Center’s continued efforts to serve those in need.
I seem to continue to stumbled across some good nuggets of news reporting while working on my cinema homework, I never cease to amaze at the coincidental connections all my classes seem to have with each other. Today’s blog accumulates the myriad of interesting tidbits that have surprised me and thus compel me to share my fortune with my colleagues in hopes someone will find equal interest.
One homework chore, which I waited until last-minute to finish, typical, compare commercial radio to public radio when I scavenged this great half hour clip from KCBS. The Homelessness of San Francisco segment interviews Bevan Dufty, a former San Francisco Supervisor, now head of the task force to end homelessness.
Everyone should listen to this, in particular if you are looking for a great story in your neighborhood, this story is recent: February 26, 2012 and teeming with good stories around homelessness, it touches everybody. People know this issue and they can relate. The homeless are human beings and if we forget that small fact, too often, we are the ones that ultimately lose.
The further I fall down the rabbit hole, the more I want everyone to know just what homelessness is and how at the core, it affects us all.
The segment talks of wet housing, panhandling, sit lie laws, criminalizing poverty; find out if there is anything like this supported in your neighborhood. Homelessness is something that there is a severe lack of education for the public. People just don’t want to see “those” people but the longer you pretend the problem is invisible the longer it’s going to take to fix and we can’t begin to fix something we know nothing about. For those of you, who really listen, there are multiple stories within this pod cast to follow-up on, for instance, a stabbing in one of the shelters, it may have been the Mission District.
Another great story lead and could be a beautiful profile, De Marillac Academy is an educational family that provides an innovative, comprehensive and accessible Catholic education in the Lasallian and Vincentian traditions to children from underserved, low-income families in the Tenderloin and other at-risk communities in San Francisco. When a child graduates all the sisters pay for the child to go on to high school.
I wanted to try to embed the player but I’m challenged technically, so until I hire a tech savvy assistant, you’ll have to suffer and click this link or the link below to listen to the podcast. I promise you will not regret this one.
February 26, 2012
An interview with the new czar of San Francisco’s homeless policy, Bevan Dufty, on what he will bring to the table when fighting the problem of homelessness in San Francisco.
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I found a terrific Web site or blog that I would like to share with you: Bob Baker’s Newsthinking. The link bookmarks a piece that I found quite helpful to read and recharge some of the writer trauma issues I’ve experienced lately. I constantly seek to enlarge my vocabulary and one of my Web surfing expeditions returned this as my catch for the search “vocabulary words for journalists” this piece titled ”A vocabulary list for reporters and editors.” I’m so thankful I followed the link, very helpful information on the entire site.
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Another time my search for a good list of action verbs turned up this golden list of verbs. I think I will laminate and memorize but first let me distribute to you.
Ritter Center renews Housing First Contract
By Elisa Forsgren
Ritter Center, a non-profit that offers medical and day services to the homeless, poor and unemployed won a $67,000 county contract to renew the Housing First program. The program works to move homeless from the system into their own single occupancy rooms and apartments.
The program found housing for 14 chronically homeless people during the first run of the contract. In six months, the center saw a reduction in emergency room visits from 24 to just 5 and jail admissions reduced from 11 to none.
Housing First helps to house some of the hardest to house and those that are daily users of the center’s services according to Diane Linn, executive director of Ritter Center.
Take me out to the ballgame
By Elisa Forsgren
What does San Francisco Giants, Atlanta Braves and the Washington Nationals have in common with San Rafael?
The Pacifics, California’s only professional independent team, and Mike Shapiro. He’s the Pacifics’ president, general manager, chief organizer and a 25 year baseball veteran serving a slew of other titles in the industry. That’s a lot of hats to wear but he’s used to it as the Giants former general counsel who left the team in 1993.
North American Baseball League’s new team the Pacifics are preparing for their inaugural season in downtown San Rafael. The team’s home is a 6-decade-old, 750-seat facility located in downtown San Rafael.
“This is the first professional baseball team to call Marin County its home and we believe that it will make a huge impact on the community because of the demographics of the region that are so family based and economically favorable,” Shapiro said.
Although there was a challenge from a neighborhood that held the team process up in court according to Shapiro. After much debate an agreement for free parking, no beer, wine sold or music after 9 p.m.
Now it’s game on for the Pacifics.
The season opens in May and spans over 88 games according to Shapiro. Additional tryouts will be held on March 17 due to inclement weather that cut the first tryout short. All players must RSVP to the Pacifics by phone at (415) 485-1563, or at info@pacificsbaseball.com by 5 p.m. on Wednesday, March 15.
Further details can be found on the Pacifics Website.
Paper or Plastic?
By Elisa Forsgren
Paper or plastic? A common question one considers after goods are bought, but how consumers will carry their goods home has become one of debate recently in San Rafael.
City council and more than a dozen enthusiastic San Rafael residents were in attendance for a special study session on Monday to support council to move forward on an ordinance to ban single use plastic bags and Styrofoam containers.
“Plastic bags are one of the major contaminants in our neighborhoods, in our canals, in our oceans,” said Joe Feria, 16, member of the Canal Youth Concilio, a group that actively cleans San Rafael canal each month.
In order to solve a problem the source needs must be located. In two hours cleaning along the creek leading to the canal, 20 large bags were stuff with the greatest plastic bags according to Feria.
Bag ban ordinances are not big news in California since they’ve been considered and implemented for several years and roughly 19 jour have already passed ordinances. The main aim is to cut environmental harm through less Greenhouse Gas emissions and less waste, which often becomes litter.
The worst offender: the single use plastic bag.
Easy enough, remove the choice and it’s paper from here on out.
But wait, not so fast. Paper costs the retailer far more than a plastic bag, about $.10 paper to $.01 plastic. If the ordinance passed, a consumer would be charged at least $.05 for a recycled paper bag and the retailer keeps the money.
In 2006, the State of California passed AB 2449, which required grocery stores to have plastic bag recycling receptacles, but precluded the city to need a fee for distribution of plastic bags.
Lawsuits for bag bans typically relate to California Environmental Quality Act compliance and are occasionally challenged. Marin County stepped up to the plate and passed an ordinance to ban the bag in Jan. 2011 based on a categorical exemption to CEQA, which asserts that the ordinance did not need environmental review based on a CEQA exemption.
A report that will ultimately cost the city money. A city can’t just pull an Environmental Impact Report off another city or draft off the county since the numbers do change. Alameda just splurged $80,000 on an EIR according to . Ouch, that hurt.
Queue the people who love to file lawsuits.
Bring in the plastic bag activists, yes, there’s an activist for everything. Save the Plastic Bag Coalition, which formed in 2008, claims the anti-plastic bag campaign is “largely based on myths, misinformation and exaggerations.”
The coalition brought a lawsuit against the county must follow the requirements of the CEQA and do an EIR before instituting the ban. Last Sept., Superior Court Judge Lynn Duryee decided that the county’s ban was appropriate.
The coalition has appealed, however the county was able to move ahead based on the first ruling and the ordinance went into practice on Jan. 1, 2012. The coalition maintains, “Paper and compostable bags are significantly worse for the environment than plastic bags.”
“The driver for a good policy should not be the fear of being sued, let alone by the plastics industry,” said Damon Connolly, council member.
“It’s time to get it done. We’ll support you. Bring on the lawsuits,” said Barry Toronto, a San Rafael resident.
Paper bag impact on the environment is the short-term, once people get used to bringing their own bags and charging for the paper will significantly improve. Los Angeles and Long Beach bag ban have shown that 25 percent of their consumers brought their own reusable bag before the ban, now 75 percent bring a bag or don’t take one at all according to Cory Bytof, sustainability and volunteer program coordinator for San Rafael.
“There are real habits that so many of us need to change,” Marc Levine council member said.
Actually the reusable bags last longer and cloth bags can be washed. Besides with the business logo displayed on the bag that’s used over and over, that’s free advertising to a lot of potential eyeballs.
“I’m a bag lady,” said Elissa Giambastiani, local task force EPA and hazardous waste management. “I have about 14 bags that I drag with me all the time,” she brings them into major department stores when she needs to buy something and tells the clerk, “I don’t need their piece of plastic, thank you.”
“We can all take ownership of this problem,” McGuire said.
“As much as we’re concerned about wildlife, I’m very concerned about the downstream impacts of the use of plastic bags,” said Levine. “The wake up call was when I had kids and I realized we’ve got to find a way to hide all these bags,” he added.
“I’ve been given all kinds of anecdotal reasons why a plastic bag ban would be absolutely abhorrent to some people,” Andrew McCullough council member said. “I get the example: how do I clean up after my dog?”
“Anyone want to talk about a dog problem talk to me,” Barbara Heller council member said.
Richard Kalish, San Rafael chamber of commerce board chairman, was in favor of the ordinance but asked council members to consider the businesses affected.
“There are two principles we’d like to ask the council to keep in mind: to understand and mitigate the impact on businesses and to understand and mitigate the impact on consumers,” Kalish said.
Perhaps the bigger picture is missed considering the report conducted by the county found that last year, “128 million bags in Marin County alone. That’s a staggering number,” Mayor Gary Phillips said referring to a city council staff report.
A number that is worth a long look considering the life of a plastic bag survives humans by 900 years.
The ordinance “doesn’t have to be perfect either but we’re going to get there and we’re on the right path,” said Levine.
http://www.marinij.com/sanrafael/ci_20109635/san-rafael-looking-move-ahead-plastic-bag-styrofoam
Unique Little San Rafael Shops: Players Guitars
By Elisa Forsgren
In downtown San Rafael on the corner of B and 3rd streets there is a little tiny shop called Players Guitars. The shop owner, Jim Cucuzzella tells about his business and his unique shop. The music is also Jim Cucuzzella singing and on guitar.
