Dear Editor,

Once again Rose Tsai is trying to make us take that same bitter Central Freeway pill we wouldn't swallow last year. But there's nothing new in this year's prescription to make it any more palatable. It's the same retrofit scheme we rejected in favor of the Octavia Boulevard plan last year. It includes a provision for a transportation planning process, which the City already does. So that's nothing new. It's even packaged in the same old rhetoric that falsely proclaims this initiative would restore the pre-earthquake freeway. Prior to 1989 the Central Freeway ended at Gough and Franklin not at Oak & Fell.

The only thing new in their measure is a stipulation that a two-thirds-majority vote would be required for repeal should it pass. But that is simply illegal.

In spite of all this, Ms. Tsai and her colleagues are intent on subjecting San Franciscans to a repeat treatment of last year's election. The trauma we will face as a community already polarized on this issue and as individuals having to endure another round in this 10 year debate may be worse than the imagined malady. We chose our cure for the Central Freeway disorder last year. Rather than opening old wounds, Ms. Tsai could really do us all good.

Put away that old medicine, move on and let the patient heal.

Robin F. Levitt, Architect

Closing of Safe Family Centers

Dear Editor:

Three and one-half years ago, the Family Partnership was initiated by the American Red Cross Bay Area Chapters's Social Services Department establishing two offices in San Francisco Public Housing developments of Sunnydale and Potrero. When the federal grant that funded these sites expired in October 1998, our organization leadership funded a nine month "test" to operate the sites as Safe Family Centers. Our focus was to offer more core Red Cross services along with the homelessness prevention case management services we were funded to provide. As of June 30, 1999, our San Francisco Department of Human Services funding for-TANF-focused rental assistance and case management ended. We have decided to close our Safe Family Centers in Sunnydale and Potrero, effective July 15, 1999.

Sixty percent of the residents of public housing are now working. The remainder are enrolled in CalWORKS, our State "welfare-to-work" program. While the sites are closing, please be advised that in keeping with commitment to these communities, "we'll be there" in other ways. We are already meeting with community leaders, residents and organizations in these neighborhoods to maintain our presence and services in a way that continues our "family and community partnership."

In Potrero, we are working to initiate a community instructor training and development program. We are working with the Potrero Family Resource Center to provide an American Red Cross Health and Safety or Disaster Education class monthly and develop a community-based core of instructors. The Center and residents are taking responsibility to conduct outreach and host the classes (at the Center) and staff from the San Francisco Department of Human Services Family Preservation Unit will work with us on outreach and further program development. The first class offered under this program (at no fee) will be the Living with Earthquakes course in August, and is to be followed each month by a selected Health and Safety or Disaster course.

We have or will be scheduling other meetings with the leadership of the Visitacion Valley community organizations (Sunnydale's neighborhood) as well as the City's Homelessness Prevention Programs Consortium. We still serve as the fiscal agent for the Season of Sharing Fund, which provides rental assistance to nearly 1,000 San Francisco families annually. These meetings will be structured as community focus groups as we determine our new niche in service to these communities in support of our mission. We invite you to attend these meetings or work with us to schedule one at your agency also.

With the Centers' closing, Lovely Robinson and Gloria Lee Finney (the Safe Family Center Coordinators) will be leaving the Red Cross as paid staff. On their behalf, as well as Pat Cleage, our interim caseworker for these sites, I would like to thank you for your support of this program and us over the years. We appreciate those of you who were always there with us in service to our community and look forward to continuing to work together in new ways.

Sincerely,
Joan Kelley-Williams
Manager, Social Services

Ingleside Police Station Gets New Captain

Following is a letter sent to the community July 7 by Captain Rick Bruce of Ingleside Station.

Dear Ingleside Resident/Merchant:

Due to recent retirements and promotions, I will be reassigned to the Tactical Company in the very near future. My replacement at Ingleside Station will be Captain Marsha Ashe, who is currently working as the Night Supervising Captain of the entire Patrol Force. I have known Captain Ashe for many years, and have every confidence that she will do an outstanding job as the new commanding officer of the Ingleside District.

I would like to take a moment to thank the hundreds of residents, merchants and community leaders that have provided so much support over the years for the officers assigned to this station. Any success that we have enjoyed over the years, in terms of neighborhood safety and police-community partnerships, would not have been possible without your unending support.

When I came to this district slightly over two years ago, I began to meet the neighborhood people that I variously considered to be my district constituents, clients, liaisons, and representatives. As I prepare to leave this district, I no longer think of you in the same terms. Today, I think of you simply as old friends.

Once again, thank you for your constant support. I know that the Ingleside District will continue on its current path, and that community safety will continue to improve with each passing year. I look forward to seeing each of you in the future, for as anyone familiar with the neighborhoods of this big city will tell you, it's really no more than a collection of small towns, and our paths will likely cross again.

Sincerely,
Captain Rick Bruce,
Ingleside Station

Challenge to the Mayor

Dear Editor:

In July, last year, riding high in the opinion polls and piling up endorsements, Mayor Willie Brown of San Francisco declared, "I don't think democracy is well served with me having an opponent."

The arrogance that the mayor has exhibited will have to suffer. For he has a strong opponent in the November election.
For the past several months, Clint Reilly, a 52-year-old former political consultant, has been greeting San Franciscans at a number of early morning Muni locations all around the City. He personally hands out his book, Riders First!, which contains 48 pages of specific ideas to improve Muni.

From 7 until 9 in the morning, Reilly has been seen at Glen Park station, Balboa Park Station, Market and Castro, Market and Church, West Portal, Forest Hill, 24th and Mission, and 16th and Mission, among others. It's an ideal way to meet and greet voters of the City, and Reilly is ever mindful and respectful of the commuters' need to get to work on time.

"I owe everything I have become to San Francisco, so I feel a deep sense of commitment to the city," Reilly, who stopped running political campaigns in 1995, said recently in an interview. "To be a great mayor, you need to stand up to the special interest groups that are basically carving up the city for their gain, and I think Willie Brown is giving away the city piece by piece to his cronies and special interest groups."

The City, according to Reilly, is being neglected by a mayor who loves pomp and ceremony, but who fails to deliver on nuts-and-bolts issues--like a reliable Muni, an effective homeless policy, clean and safe streets, and a pro-active crime policy that seriously addresses worsening problems like graffiti and drug dealing.

Reilly, who is a Democrat, has spent the past 14 months criss-crossing San Francisco, meeting with community groups and individual citizens who are angry and sick at heart by what they are witnessing in the city. By earnestly discussing the issues with these concerned fellow San Franciscans, Reilly has steadfastly created an army of committed followers who like his leadership and his willingness to tackle civic problems head-on.

As Reilly's enlistment of support is showing true strength in his campaign, money concerns have not been a burden to him. By his own tally, his net worth is considerably more than $10 million, and he oversees buildings with a combined 350,000 square feet of office space. His holdings include the 16-story Merchants Exchange Building in downtown San Francisco and a Seacliff mansion where he lives with his wife, Janet, a former aide to Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan.

Before retiring as a consultant in 1995, Reilly represented many of California's best known politicians, including Riordan, Dianne Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, Kathleen Brown, Nancy Pelosi, Richard Hongisto, Frank Jordan, Louise Renne, and Quentin Kopp.

It was a major role for a man who had been reared in a working class Mission District neighborhood, the eldest of 10 children. At the age of 14, Reilly entered the seminary, attending St. Joseph's High School in Mountain View and later St. Patrick's in Menlo Park, where he received a bachelor's degree in philosophy.

For more than three decades, Reilly has fought some of the most important battles of our era, and he has never been afraid to take a stand on issues that concern San Francisco. Reilly defended farmworkers' rights for Cesar Chavez. He fought for gay rights against Anita Bryant, protected programs for women, children and seniors from Reagan and Deukmejian budget cuts, helped launch California's education reform movement, opposed Proposition 187 and 209, and consistently beat conservative extremists like Howard Jarvis and the NRA.

As a citizen leader in San Francisco, Reilly has devoted his own time and money to pass tough downtown growth controls and has consistently fought for affordable housing. In giving himself over to a life of public service, Reilly has provided services for AIDS patients, poverty-stricken seniors and homeless families. He has been involved in several charities, including serving on the board of directors of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of San Francisco and co-chairing, with his wife, the archbishop's Annual Loaves and Fishes fundraising dinner.

When elected mayor, Reilly will stand up against rampant waste, corruption and mismanagement at City Hall, and he will fight chain stores, strip malls and live-work condos that threaten the character of the neighborhood. He will also implement the most far-reaching open government "sunshine" law in the country.

Felix Ad. Sablad