Empty News Racks on Castro Street
In response to my post yesterday about the temporary removal of two useless and unnecessary empty news racks cluttering up the sidewalk fronting the Bank of America plaza on Castro Street, Grace Moore who is head of the Department of Public Works' news rack program, contacted me.
She said that the news racks are scheduled to be reinstalled at that location in two-three weeks. I don't know why this would happen when these pieces of street furniture generally were empty of any publications. Is anyone clamoring to see this clutter return to that narrow piece of public sidewalk at Castro and 18th Streets?
If you agree that reclaiming public space for the public and pedestrians, and limiting the over-commercialization of our sidewalks, is important for both the Castro neighborhood and the city at-large, then please contact DPW's Moore.
Send polite, but firm, emails to this addy: Grace.Moore(at)sfdpw.org. You can also leave her a message here: 415-554-5892.
There's other related news to share today. Over at Jim Herd's SF Citizen blog, where he is also calling for removal of the empty green monsters, he's noticed my campaign and put a humorous cinematic spin on it:
Back to the racks. Herd reports:
Anyway, Petrelis was nosing around, as he’s wont to do, and then one of DPW’s webpages evolved a bit. So, first it was all like this:
“The NAC [Newsrack Advisory Committee] meets regularly to discuss policies and procedures and to make recommendations to the Director of Public Works to amend the Guidelines Regarding News Racks and other progam [sic] needs.”
That’s what it [said] yesterday. But now it’s all like this:
“Advisory committee members are newspaper distributors and concerned citizens appointed by the Director of Public Works.The NAC meets regularly to discuss policies and procedures and to make recommendations to the Director of Public Works to amend the Guidelines Regarding News Racks and other progam [sic] needs. Meetings are scheduled on the 2nd Tuesday of each month.”
Who’s doing what now? Were the relevant policies wrong before? Are they right now? I know not. Let’s hope Michael can get to the bottom of this soon.
Thanks Jim Herd, for the praise. Let's all do our part to stop DPW's plan to put back on Castro Street the two superfluous news racks, and get this damn blight off our beautiful streets.
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