Monica Roberts dies
06
05
New ED at OFC
Supe candidates speak out
12
ARTS
03
Chanticleer
The
www.ebar.com
Serving the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer communities since 1971
Vol. 50 • No. 42 • October 15-21, 2020
Castro CBD postpones surveillance camera vote by John Ferrannini
Senny Mau
Fishbowl Collective members, from left, Poison Oakland, Cristian Woman, Claude’, Dangerous Rose, Allergiene, FKA Supernovagirl, Terra Bull, Veda Superstar, St.Nastine, Avocado Jones, Beverly Chills, and Bussy Dad.
Preston supports Red Vic collective in tenant dispute by John Ferrannini
A
collective of queer and trans people who put on an in-person weekly drag show from the former hotel on Haight Street where they reside fear eviction after they received a notice from their landlords. Supervisor Dean Preston, a tenants rights advocate, told the Bay Area Reporter that he stands with collective members. Members of the Fishbowl Collective have been subleasing the former home of the Red Victorian Hotel at 1665 Haight Street for some See page 10 >>
T
he Castro/Upper Market Community Benefit District board postponed a vote October 8 about whether to accept private funds to install surveillance cameras in the neighborhood, after the Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club strongly urged the group to reject the initiative. The Milk club had sent a letter to the CBD just hours before its board meeting, asking that the camera item be rejected or at the very least, a vote postponed. “Surveillance technology has been used repeatedly in the Castro to target and harass the LGBTQ community,” the club’s executive board wrote in the letter. Andrea Aiello, a lesbian who is the executive director of the CBD, responded to the letter in a statement to the Bay Area Reporter October 9 in which she wrote “as frontline stewards for our neighborhood, Castro CBD welcomes stakeholder input from everyone in our community. Consideration of the SafeCity camera program came from concerned residents and a real need to address public safety issues in our district.” As the B.A.R. previously reported, the Castro neighborhood has been plagued by petty crime in recent months, from breakins to window vandalism. “Since COVID we’ve seen a real uptick in concern from neighbors around public
San Francisco slow to landmark LGBTQ sites
Rick Gerharter
Some are looking at designating the rainbow flag at Castro and Market streets as a San Francisco historic site.
by John Ferrannini
W
ith LGBTQ History Month underway, Castro neighborhood leaders are discussing how best to preserve the heritage of the city’s most visible queer neighborhood. Just three of the district’s LGBTQ historic sites have been granted city landmark status by San Francisco officials, while local preservationists have identified a host of other proper-
Untitled-1 1
ties they would like to see be added to the list. In the adjacent neighborhood of Noe Valley, which also has a sizeable LGBTQ population, gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman is seeking to landmark the house of the late lesbian iconic activists Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin, as the Bay Area Reporter recently reported. It will be taken up by the Board of Supervisors land use committee this month and, if passed by the full board, then sent to the city’s historic preservation commission for a vote before being sent back for a final vote by the supervisors. But efforts won’t stop there. Terry Beswick, a gay man who is the executive director of the GLBT Historical Society, said that a citywide historic context statement was published five years ago that gives “the definitive survey of all of San Francisco’s LGBTQ history.” A lot of sites that are not currently designated by the city “come to mind personally,” Beswick said, including the rainbow flag at Castro and Market streets and “the Castro itself as a historic district.” While the city recognizes the area as the Castro LGBTQ Cultural District, local preservationists for years have talked about also seeing See page 2 >>
A screengrab of the Castro Street Cam the afternoon of October 13.
safety issues,” Aiello told the B.A.R. in an October 9 phone interview subsequent to her statement. “People don’t feel comfortable in the district and that is a concern for us. We have launched a public safety initiative.” One proposed part of that initiative is cameras. Aiello said “residents in the Castro” on the neighborhood social media website Nextdoor were excited about a New York Times article that appeared in July about tech mogul Chris Larsen, who is paying CBDs to install cameras around San Francisco. “I don’t know if it was a proposal, it was more of a ‘let’s look at this,’” Aiello said, adding that Larsen would, through his foundation, give a grant of $695,000 for the installation and maintenance over two years of 125 cameras in the Castro neighborhood. Larsen did not respond to a request for comment.
Aiello told the B.A.R. that after the Milk club’s letter, the CBD board moved the discussion about whether to accept the grant back to its services committee where it will be heard October 22 at 10 a.m. That committee will decide how to conduct community outreach, Aiello said. “We want to make sure if it does happen that people feel safe,” Aiello said. “The whole point is to feel safe.” Aiello said there would be instituted policies as to who would have access to the footage and that police would only be allowed to see video recordings if they had a police report. Hopefully, she said, merchants would replace their currentlyinstalled cameras with these cameras. According to Hoodline, Larsen has paid for over 1,000 cameras surveilling people in the Fisherman’s Wharf, Lower Polk, MidMarket, Tenderloin, Union Square, and Japantown neighborhoods. Applied Video Solutions would maintain them. Aiello said the location of the cameras would depend upon police advice and which property owners would be willing to have them on their buildings. “Beyond deterring bad actors and providing evidence for investigators, this program creates a platform for community empowerment with innovative tools to take ownership over public safety,” Aiello’s statement continSee page 10 >>
B.A.R. ENDORSEMENTS
CALIFORNIA GENERAL ELECTION
President / Vice President: Joe Biden, Kamala Harris State Senate Dist. 11: Scott Wiener SF Supervisors District 1: Connie Chan District 3: Aaron Peskin District 5: Dean Preston District 7: Myrna Melgar District 9: Hillary Ronen District 11: Ahsha Safaí
State Assembly (Bay Area) Dist. 15: Buffy Wicks Dist. 18: Rob Bonta Dist. 16: Rebecca Bauer-Kahan Dist. 25: Alex Lee Dist. 28: Evan Low State Senate (Other) District 5: Susan Talamantes Eggman District 9: Nancy Skinner District 17: John Laird
SF City College Board Shanell Williams Tom Temprano Aliya Chisti Alan Wong
Congress (Bay Area) Dist. 2: Jared Huffman Dist. 3: John Garamendi Dist. 5: Mike Thompson Dist. 10: Josh Harder Dist. 11: Mark DeSaulnier Dist. 12: Nancy Pelosi Dist. 13: Barbara Lee Dist. 14: Jackie Speier Dist. 15: Eric Swalwell Dist. 17: Ro Khanna Dist. 18: Anna Eshoo Dist. 19: Zoe Lofgren
BART Board District 9: Bevan Dufty District 7: Lateefah Simon
JUDGES Alameda County Superior Court Office 2: Mark Fickes
State Assembly (SF) Dist. 17: David Chiu Dist. 19: Phil Ting
Bay Area (Other) Oakland City Council, At-Large: Rebecca Kaplan District 3: Lynette McElhaney Alameda City Council: Jim Oddie
SF School Board Mark Sanchez Jenny Lam Michelle Parker Kevine Boggess
Fremont Mayor: Justin Sha San Ramon City Council, Dist. 3: Sameera Rajwade AC Transit, At-Large: Victoria Fierce AC Transit, Ward 1: Ben Fong Livermore City Council, Dist. 3: Brittni Kiick Morgan Hill City Council, Dist. C: Rene Spring Santa Clara City Council, Dist. 6: Anthony Becker South San Francisco City Council, Dist. 4: James Coleman Santa Clara County Board of Education Trustee, Area 4: Ketzal Gomez San Jose-Evergreen Community College Trustee, Area 7: Ali Sapirman Palo Alto Unified School Dist. Board of Education: Katie Causey Pinole County Council: Devin Murphy SAN FRANCISCO PROPS Yes on: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, RR CALIFORNIA PROPOSITIONS Yes on: 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 25 No on: 20, 22, 23, 24
REMEMBER TO VOTE BY NOV. 3!
10/13/20 11:44 AM