February 2006 Action Alert - Huntersview Mothers Committee Needs Us!

[IfasehunReincarnated]

FEBRUARY 2006 ACTION ALERT

Main Page of this alert: http://assatashakur.org/0206.htm



Title: Support the Huntersview Mothers Environmental Health and Justice Committee.

Time Frame: 1 Month

Plan of Action: Provide resources that will enable the Bayview Huntersview Mothers Environmental Health and Justice Committee to continue it's work as well as notify political figures to not retaliate against this organization.

PURPOSE OF ACTION: In a public meeting held at Milton Meyers Auditorium in Hunters Point, Mothers Committee members unveiled a year-long effort entitled "Pollution, Health, Environmental Racism and Injustice: A Toxic Inventory of Bayview Hunters Point, San Francisco." The 40-page report exposed the dirty truth about the sources of water and air pollution in BVHP and provides detailed accounts of toxic waste sites in the community and the health problems that the residents are suffering. The full report can be read or downloaded at here. Despite these findings the City intends to expand the presence of environmentally hazardous plants in the community.

For all of their courageous and tireless efforts, the Mothers Committee find themselves under constant attack by the City. In retaliation the Housing Authority is attempting to evict them from public housing and bar these MOTHERS from the community!

At present, these dynamic Sistas are providing services to their community wherever they see the need, (with little or no financial help) which includes an after school program; parenting skills for young mothers, food assistance. They have also begun to seeking training so they can provide certified supportive services to young drug-addicts.

These women activists need our help!

Read More
http://www.sfbayview.com/091504/thecrises091504.shtml
http://www.greenaction.org/hunterspo...90204Final.pdf
http://www.sfbayview.com/010406/moredirtyair.shtml

What You Should Do Now:

1. CONTACT THE SAN FRANCISCO HOUSING AUTHORITY ASAP. Ask the Director to please stop trying to evict Organizer Tessie Ester from her public housing.
   
   Executive Director Gregg Fortner
   San Francisco Housing Authority
   440 Turk Street - San Francisco, CA 94102
   415.554.1296
   fortnerg@sfha.org
   
   Director of Public Housing Operations Anthony Ihejeto
   San Francisco Housing Authority
   440 Turk Street - San Francisco, CA 94102
   415.920.2600
   ihejetoa@sfha.org
   
   Complete SFHA Contact Info at http://www.sfha.org/contact/index.htm
   
2. MAKE A FINANCIAL DONATION.
   Checks and Money Orders to:
   Huntersview Mother's Committee
   Attn: Marie Harrison & Tessie Ester
   20 West Point
   San Francisco, CA 94124.
   
3. DONATE SUPPLIES. The Huntersview Mother's Committee needs two (2) new or reasonably used computers, a printer/fax, xerox machine and office supplies. The youth program requires paper, pencils, snacks, as well as donations of food and clothing for all those community residents so desperately in need.
   
4. CONTACT THE ORGANIZERS. Interview Sis. Marie Harrison and keep these issues on the front burner! We must stay in touch with these wonderful women and keep abreast of how best we can continue to support them. Contact her by phone at (415) 720-3139 or by e-mail at marie@greenaction.org.

Fliers/Letters
Letter of Support (WORD DOC.)
(includes instructions and who to mail it to)


Goals

• Convince Housing Authority to stop trying to evict Sis. Tessie Ester
• Increase public exposure of the Huntersview Mother's Committee
• Increase supplies and financial donations to the Huntersview Mother's Committee

Outcomes

• Huntersview Mother's Committee organizers can continue work without harassment.
• Increase awareness of housing & environmental hazards in low-income communities.
• Inspire community activism in low-income areas around world.
• Huntersview Mother's Committee will have resources to provide services.

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News Coverage
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[QueenWarriorNefertari]

I got this on letters and seeing what I can do for the financial.

Give infinite thanks for the information. Incessant Peace & Respect...

[IfasehunReincarnated]

Letter of support added. includes instructions and mailing addresses.

[Kweku_Omowale]

wow i cant believe those people ifa! iam gonna print and send this around,also can u send to me to my email
modupe

[nattyreb]

We gotta get behind, in front, and on both sides of these Sistas! Please understand that they are under DIRECT ATTACK and yet are still courageously committed to standing strong, so please ACT LIKE YA KNOW and SHOUT OUT with the action you've taken!!

[Erzulie Danto]

Originally Posted by nattyreb

We gotta get behind, in front, and on both sides of these Sistas! Please understand that they are under DIRECT ATTACK and yet are still courageously committed to standing strong, so please ACT LIKE YA KNOW and SHOUT OUT with the action you've taken!!

ONAMOVE Nattyreb! i'm sending my letters out Monday and will spread the word esp to my Bay Area fam. these Nanas are engaging in the real grassroots activism and we should look to them for guidance and strength. give thanks for giving us the opportunity to assist these Warrior Mamas!!

[IfasehunReincarnated]

Bump this.

[IfasehunReincarnated]

100 views and 8 participants so far. We are going for 5,000 participants! But if we get 100 letters in from around the world, the local politicians, including the Mayor's Office, will revisit the topic. This is any easy one to support. Support the empowerment of Mothers that care enough to advocate for their neighborhood.

[Chaos]

1.) Emails sent.
2.) Phone calls made.

[Im The Truth]

I emailed a complaint to the S.F. Human Rights Commission against the San Francisco Housing Authority.

And I call Anthony Ihejeto, Director of Public Housing Operations, and he said he never heard of it so I emailed him, Executive Director Gregg Fortner, and BBC'd Sis. Marie Harrison a copy of the Action Alert.

Let's Get it!!!

[nattyreb]

Right on, y'all! My m.o. is in the mail, every *little* bit helps! Don't ever feel like you can't do *something*!!

WHERE THE REST OF Y'ALL AT??!! SPEAK NOW!!
=====

FROM sfbayview.com 2/8/06
Eviction notice served on Bayview Hunters Point
Editorial by Willie Ratcliff

The cop who supervised the gang of police who beat and molested five children in Hunters Point on Martin Luther King Day 2002 gave us notice: “As long as you people are here, we will act like this,” he told the children’s terrified parents.

Now we have our notice in writing. In Monday’s mail came a “Notice of Public Hearing of the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency Commission on the Proposed Bayview Hunters Point Redevelopment Plan Amendment” announcing that on Tuesday, March 7, at 4 p.m. in City Hall Room 416, “any and all persons having any objections to the proposed Redevelopment Plan Amendment may appear before the Agency and show cause why the Redevelopment Plan Amendment should not be approved.”

Notice of another boring meeting? No, not this time. This is an eviction notice to nearly everyone who lives in Bayview Hunters Point, San Francisco’s Black heartland.

The word “amendment” doesn’t sound like a threat. But this “amendment,” according to the notice, “proposes to add approximately 1,361 acres of new land as ‘Project Area B’ to the existing 137-acre Hunters Point Redevelopment Project Area.” The map on the back of the notice designates nearly our entire neighborhood as the proposed Project Area B, dwarfing the existing project area that covers much of Hunters Point Hill. The proposed “amendment” stretches from Cesar Chavez Street south to the county line and from Highway 101 east to San Francisco Bay.

If we allow the Redevelopment Agency Commission, whose strings are pulled by Mayor Gavin Newsom, to declare our neighborhood a “project area,” we are consenting to our own eviction from the most valuable land – considering we have the best views and the most sunshine – in San Francisco, the city with the most valuable land on earth.

Property in a project area is subject to the city’s seizure by eminent domain. In horror, Black San Franciscans watched it happen a generation ago when the world-renowned Fillmore district became Fill-no-mo’, when Redevelopment bulldozers destroyed 200 Black-owned businesses and the homes of 5,000 Black families. They even tried to bulldoze our memories by renaming the neighborhood the Western Addition.

And, 13 years ago, Redevelopment admitted in writing that the purpose of declaring the Fillmore a project area was to drive Black people out of San Francisco, validating the nickname “Negro removal” for the official term “urban renewal.”

I doubt a land grab this big is being proposed anywhere in the country outside New Orleans. Will the people of Bayview Hunters Point and the people of the Lower Ninth Ward accept our eviction notices and quietly disappear? Or will we stand shoulder to shoulder and say, “No way! This land is our land!”

Eminent domain may be legal, but it’s not fair. It gives the city the power to grab our land – our homes, our businesses, even our churches – away from us and give it to big outside developers. The threat is nothing new. Long time Bay View readers will remember my angry editorials whenever City Hall made a menacing move over the past dozen years or more.

Lately the pressure to sell out has intensified, especially along Third Street, our main commercial corridor, which is still mostly Black-owned. Black property owners get “friendly” visits from brokers who sympathize with our plight: “Oh, how sad! You’re redlined and can’t borrow money against your equity to fix your place up? Don’t worry. We have buyers ready and waiting. They won’t pay you what your property’s worth, but it’ll be more than you’d get if you wait for the city to take it by eminent domain.”

We know what’s what. Buildings that need a coat of paint are the “blight” that gives the city its excuse to declare our neighborhood a project area and subject us to eminent domain. Loans against our equity – loans available in other San Francisco neighborhoods – would enable us to erase the “blight” overnight.

Because we won’t budge, the gentrification pressure intensifies another notch. Recently, building inspectors, always accompanied by well-armed police, have been visiting property owners on Third Street finding code violations, whether they exist or not. “Oh, how sad,” they say. “These repairs will cost more than your building is worth. Since you can’t borrow the money to rebuild, why not let Mr. Big take over? He’ll give you enough to get out of town.”

Being in business on Third Street is no way to get rich quick. Muni has had the street torn up building the light rail line for most of the past five years, hindering customer access and denying our people the construction jobs that would give them the money to be good customers. I’ve been told that Muni even refused to apply for available federal funds to cover Third Street businesses’ losses during construction – that’s how badly City Hall wants us gone!

Gentrification wears many disguises. It’s the sale of the old Coca Cola bottling plant on Third Street – the building sheathed in shiny red tiles – to a developer who’s replacing it with 375 million-dollar condos.

And it’s the cops. Echoing the “as long as you people are here …” threat from MLK Day 2002, the Chronicle, starting on Sunday, has filled its front page daily with an amazing – and courageous – series about the SFPD called “The Use of Force,” http://sfgate.com/useofforce/. Among the facts cited in the first installment:

l “In the years 2001 to 2004, San Francisco officers were the subject of more force allegations than officers in San Jose, Oakland, San Diego and Seattle combined.”

l “In most years, blacks have accounted for more than 40 percent of cases where officers used force.”

l “Mayor Gavin Newsom, who has ultimate responsibility for the department, did not make himself available for an interview despite repeated requests. Members of his staff helped the department prepare a plan to ‘defuse possible negative public reaction’ to the investigation, according to documents The Chronicle obtained through a public records request.”

And what is Mayor Newsom’s solution to rampant police brutality? “the hiring of as many as 700 additional officers over four years,” according to this morning’s Chronicle.

While our friends in Congress prepare to impeach Bush and our brothers and sisters in New Orleans and the Katrina Diaspora threaten to evict FEMA, let’s get ready to evict Newsom and any official complicit in plans to evict us and give Bayview Hunters Point to the big developers.

Don’t sell! Stand and fight for all we hold sacred. That’s our heritage: When threatened, we have always fiercely defended our community.

This year, 2006, marks 40 years since the Hunters Point uprising in September of 1966, when tanks rolled up and down Third Street and the SFPD lined up like a firing squad and shot their rifles into the Bayview Opera House where children had taken refuge. Less than a month later, in October 1966, the Black Panther Party was born. 2006 also marks 30 years since the Bay View newspaper, then called the New Bayview, was founded by Mohammed Al-Kareem and 14 years this week since I became publisher.

So tune up your best testimony – spoken or written – to convince Redevelopment commissioners on March 7 that they’d be crazy to approve the “amendment,” declare Bayview Hunters Point a project area and subject us to eminent domain, another word for eviction. We’ll pack the hearing and shout loud enough to shake City Hall: “We shall not be moved.”

Email Bay View Publisher Willie Ratcliff at publisher@sfbayview.com.

[Kweku_Omowale]

iprinted and did some faxing and called told dem i was calling from kanada

[Nesayem]

I'm signing off on this one. The letters are sent, got a money order, and sometime this week I'll be sending one of my family members to drop off snack items and such for the youth program.

Let's get it

[Nesayem]

I got a response from the District 10 Supervisor, City and County of San Francisco. She basically said she busy, will take my comments into consideration, and I can call her to follow up. I expect to get some more responses today so I will keep everyone updated on that.

[Kentake]

Hotep family!,
I called both the numbers below 4 the San Francisco housing authority and asked to speak to the names indicated/Gregg Fortner and Anthony Ihejeto...the 1st receptionist asked me what it was concerning and i told her...i was immediately transferred to voice mail both times!!...i did tell the receptionist dat i am a concerned member of the African community in Canada. Anthony Ihejeto was in a meeting apparently, he is def. an Afreekan man (based on his accent i believe dat he is from the continent, probably Nigeria). i think that we should all put xtra pressure on him as well...if he is Afreekan, which i am sure he is, then he should be pressured in2 thinking and behaving more in favour of these sistahs and their work. i will do my best to email them 2morrow also...right now my prince is not giving me a chance to do anything except feed him...however, i have 2 say based on the vibe i got when i made the calls i know dat the more pressure the better cause the reception i got from the 1st receptionist was like "who gives a damn about what you are talking about"....