By Soleil Ho : sfchronicle – excerpt
On Monday, San Francisco’s Recreation and Parks Department held an open house at Civic Center focused on the city’s plan to revamp the area — a plan that includes the controversial decision to relocate a popular biweekly U.N. Plaza farmers’ market to nearby Fulton Plaza.
About 100 attendees looked at posters depicting stock photos of people doing Zumba in front of City Hall while casually pecking at catered snacks. The hollow plinking of a pingpong ball in play echoed through the room, but the mood was far from leisurely…
Is this what passes for “community engagement” in San Francisco? The big decisions have already been made — and according to advocates, no one knew about the changes to the market until it was too late…
“For them to claim that we’ve been working with them all along? That hasn’t happened,” he said.
Pulliam said it was only after he brought the rumors up to the Civic Center Community Benefit District that the city arranged a meeting with him to share its plan, which he objected to immediately. His suggestion that the market share the plaza with the skate park went unheeded. Since then, city departments haven’t shared any updated maps of the space with him; he had to ask me what they were planning.
The worst part? This quickie play at urban renewal is all just an experiment. If the revamp doesn’t hash out within six months, Pulliam said he was told the farmers’ market can go right back to where it’s been for the past 40 years.
All of this chaos, and all of the people that will have to scramble because of it, is just spaghetti being thrown at the wall by a city that doesn’t seem to give a damn either way…(more)
I’ll bet everyone who ever held a job has experienced a manager who managed by creating chaos. That appears to be the primary goal of our current administration and they are really good at that job.
Unfortunately management by chaos never accomplishes much other than to convince people they don’t need that job. I remember a few times I was trapped and could not wait to leave so I could regain my sanity.
We understand that the city is understaffed and has a long process for hiring that usually takes at least 18 months. That 18 months figure comes up a lot in excuses for the slow process we see in filling empty affordable units and other city programs. How do we get past the 18 months slowdown and management by chaos? Hopefully we will soon have some options in new management styles before we kill off what is left of the “Heart of San Francisco”. The patient needs a transfusion fast. See https://hotcfarmersmarket.org/