Following is a letter sent Aug. 15 by the Visitacion Valley Asian's Alliance to Dara Kovel of Mercy Charities Housing who is project manager of a senior development currently being proposed for 500 Raymond Ave.

Dear Ms. Kovel:

I am writing about the increasing concern of many people in Visitacion Valley regarding the proposed senior center at 500 Raymond Ave.

First, I must emphasize that every group in the community wants to have an expanded center for our growing senior population, but its planning and development must include the diverse ethnic and ratio representation of Visitacion Valley residents because this is mainly a public-funded project intended for our community.

At the March 18, 1997 meeting I requested on behalf of the Asian residents, Amy Bayley, who represented Mercy Charities, received a list of ten written questions and concerns plus oral queries from about 100 of those who were in attendance at 50 Raymond Avenue. Through her interpreter, Ms. Bayley promised to respond to them in a timely manner. Then when the Visitacion Valley Task Force met on March 21, 1997, Mr. King surprised me by saying he knew nothing about this said meeting. I readily offered him the same list and also asked him for his response in writing. Five months have elapsed and neither of you has given me any oral or written indication as to what you have done to address the 10 or more concerns we submitted to you. I am retyping the same list at the end of this letter for both of you so you can respond more readily this time.

When I had phone conversations with Ms. Annie Chung of Self-Help for the Elderly and Ms. Jennie Chin Hensen of On Lok Senior Center, both CEO's told me that neither of your organizations had contacted them about any of the concerns and recommendations our group made on March 18, 1997 via Amy Bayley. In subsequent community meetings community meetings in March and April, I had personally approached Dara and Amy and asked for translated minutes (because of the very sizeable number of English-handicapped residents in Visitacion Valley). Again, none of us received any communications from either of your organizations since. In the meantime, there have been reports in our community newspaper, the grapevine, that you have ongoing developmental meetings about this senior project.

Please respond to the following additional questions including the 10 others we gave you on March 18, 1997:

1) We want to know why you have not involved active Asian community members at the decision-making and especially at the developmental and administrative levels.

2) Given that this is a multimillion dollar project, there must be real and meaningful dialogues amongst active community people for an extended period of time. Since there have not been any minutes (with Chinese translations) from any of the meetings, how can participants provide meaningful input for this process?

3) Has either of your organizations conducted any bilingual surveys to find out the real needs of the elderly in Visitacion Valley?

4) When will you involve other senior centers from Chinatown because they have better understanding of our bilingual seniors?

5) Since no senior program in Visitacion Valley has any bilingual outreach, what plans do you have to provide this important service?

6) Last year, when our ESL program was funded by the Enterprise Community for Visitacion Valley, we set aside a major portion of our budget to provide transportation especially for our seniors. David Wiener, the former Beacon director, and Julie Kavanagh, director of Visitacion Valley Community Center, have both approached Mr. King to provide such services but with no result. Why? Unfortunately, we have been told to use only neighborhood resources. As a result of safety problems and the lack of much needed transportation, our student enrollment drops every year around late September. It is a great pity because senior students have to fend for themselves every night on their way home, and so many of them desperately need to learn English to pass the Citizenship exams.

7) Since there is no bilingual outreach from senior programs in Visitacion Valley, many of our ESL students and residents are relying on me and my assistant for non-academic help. It is not fair that there have not been any real attempts to access and outreach such a sizeable group of non-and-limited English speakers, yet public funding is leveraged using our low-economic status.

8) None of the ESL seniors we serve have ever been able to use the van service of the John King Senior Center even for para transit services. His center is said to have the largest fleet of vans serving seniors in San Francisco. Do you have bilingual dispatchers? If not, how can those who qualify (but are English handicapped) access the service?
At this time I also want to clarify and emphasize two pertinent points:

a) There was a malicious accusation that I was the one who started a petition in January, 1997 against the proposed senior center at 500 Raymond Avenue. The truth is, I never knew about the neighbors who opposed this project until we met at the first community meeting at the Visitacion Valley Elementary School in February of this year. Apparently, they agreed with many of the issues we presented to you. Then we began to work in collaboration. Of course, if both of your organizations insist on ignoring our concerns, we will generate strong opposition that will attract national attention!

b) Supervisor Leland Yee phoned me last year because he was given the impression by someone from your groups that I knew about the plans for the senior center, and that I was involved with it. This is a lie!! I have never been personally contacted, orally or in writing, about anything involving this senior center all these years!! At the meeting at the Village this year, I double-checked with Supervisor Yee in front of Dara about this totally misleading information and he was told that I would be told about the matter later!! Supervisor Yee said that by so doing it would be like putting the cart before the horse because I should be informed first!! I will be very persistent to pursue anyone or group who uses my name to lend support to any of their activities without my consent. If this constitutes fraud, I will gather evidence to prove this.

I am retyping the list of 10 concerns and questions we presented to Amy Bayley and John King in March, 1997.

Informational Meeting on March 18, 1997 at 50 Raymond (reprint):

1) Since Asians constitute the majority od residents in Visitacion Valley and we have a sizeable senior population, we welcome a senior center provided we have full input of all stages of the development and programs specifically planned for the non-and-limited English seniors and handicapped individuals.

2) Since the John King Center is involved with this proposed development, we want to know what kind of bilingual personnel and programs he has in his present facility. If there is no good tract records, how can we count on his group to plan for us?

3) Since Mr. King has been a member of the Visitacion Valley Task Force from the beginning, he should have kept the community informed of his proposal from the start and to make genuine and effective attempts to solicit our input. If we only found out through the newspapers and during the Task Force meeting in January, 1997, then we cannot understand his proposal enough to give input. Therefore, we ask that Mr. King involve a senior center from Chinatown because any of these organizations has a better understanding of the Asian needs. If these groups are involved, we feel confident that they can better plan for us.

4) The proposal site at 500 Raymond is not a good choice because of the street slopes. It is not close to public transportation nor is it in a safe location.

5) We want to have bilingual minutes of every meeting so we can follow the development and input by the attendees. If we write our input in Chinese, will you give us feedback also in Chinese?

6) Since Dara told us at the March 15, 1997 meeting that out of 280 surveys to former Geneva Towers residents, your group only received 30-35 responses so far, this means not many of these residents are interested in returning to our community. Then all future housing developments must involve our residents as well. How many senior citizens from Geneva Towers have expressed interest in returning?

7) How many of your developmental team members are Asians? How many active Asian board members will you invite to serve from our community? What are the criteria for your selection?

8) If $9.6 million dollars are from federal, state and City funding, why is Mr. King's name proposed for this center? Our community must select our own name!!

9) This meeting is only an informational meeting for us to hear your proposal and to hear your responses to some of our questions. Please do not plan to use our responses as an agreement to any specific plan locations or ideas. We do not have enough information to give the appropriate suggestions until we hear from an organization that represents seniors from Chinatown. Again, we don't want this meeting to indicate we have heard and approved of any plans until we get the right representation for our group.

10) Besides this meeting, we heard you also planned others on Saturday mornings. This is not a convenient time for many of us because many work at least six days a week. Can you give us bilingual surveys so we can respond accordingly?

We hope that you will address the content of this letter and discuss it between your organizations very seriously. Please send us your written responses within 1 days from the date of this letter. We have waited five months, and we do not intend to wait indefinitely. By ignoring our repeated requests, you will give residents more doubt that your organizations will be able to handle this multimillion dollar project to the satisfaction of our community and the different funding sources.

Yours sincerely,
Marlene Tran
VVAA spokesperson

Sunnydale and Valley Forgotten in Press?

Editor:

I have come in contact with many of the residents of Sunnydale housing and find that no one is aware of your newspaper. From what I gather, the papers never leave the office. I know you can't make anyone read the paper but if they are made aware, I am sure some of the residents would like to read them. I have taken it upon myself to make sure that those interested got your latest paper dated August. There were articles I felt the residents needed to be aware of on Geneva Towers.

It is really sad that Sunnydale is never mentioned in your paper and it seems to me that they have truly been forgotten. Not only have they been forgotten by the papers, they have also been neglected by the City. The needs of Sunnydale residents are not pretty buildings on the outside but better yet, what changes welfare reform is going to have on their lives and families.

Talking with the residents and seeing that no one is interested in assisting the mothers that cannot leave their homes to have a resume set up and have access to some type of job listing that could assist them is what I am interested in doing.

I have faxed memos to the Mayor's Office and received a call from his secretary. She informed me what to do as far as getting started with my project. I began by tacking up flyers and putting them in mailboxes around the neighborhood. There are a lot of residents interested in what I am trying to accomplish and I would like to be able to assist in this matter.

So why is Sunnydale forgotten, as well as the Visitacion Valley area?

Mrs. Joann Sereal

Grapevine staff applauds Mrs. Sereal in assisting her neighbors in need as well as directing copies of the newspaper, which is readily available at dozens of locations in Visitacion Valley and at Sunnydale Tenants Assocation. We feel neither Visitacion Valley nor Sunnydale are forgotten areas of a City which has, and continues to assist many local programs in the neighborhood.