New Voice Column Debuts Kids Ask Katie is a column in which neighborhood resident and writer Katie Burke gives answers to Noe Valley kids’ questions about their neighborhood. Children and teens ages 3 to 16 can address their questions to Katie. See page 15, for her first effort. In the photo at right, 8-year-old Billie Wagner Hogg joins a lineup of officers at Mission Station. At Billie’s side is Officer Alexandra Medina, who helped to answer Billie’s question. Photo by Art Bodner
Volume XLII, No. 5
May 2018
THE NOE VALLEY VOICE Recycling Clothing Gets a Second Look
Lick Students Rattle 24th Street Merchants, School, Police Respond to Series of Incidents
Meanwhile, Plastic Bags Cleared for the Blue Bin
By Heidi Anderson
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Valley Town Square—celebrated the book’s launch last month. “It’s a modern-day fairy tale about a heroic and very lucky pig, who miraculously escapes an otherwise grim fate and
pring fever seemed to have sprung early for a few James Lick Middle School students a couple of months ago, and more than a few merchants noticed it. “We’d been hearing about students grabbing free lollipops at Chase Bank and throwing them at customers, a scooter stolen in front of Navarrete’s [Black Belt Academy], and that students harassed a woman behind the counter at Happy Donuts,” said Rachel Swann, current president of the Noe Valley Merchants & Professionals Association. Swann said she herself had seen kids on skateboards in the afternoon, swatting at pedestrians as they passed. “Some stores lock their doors when they see kids coming down the block,” said Swann. In fact, the incidents got to the point by mid-March that extra police were dispatched to 24th Street near Church in the afternoons at Swann’s request. “School cars and foot-beat officers from Mission Station are patrolling the corridor in response to merchant complaints,” said San Francisco Police Department spokesperson David Stevenson. Stevenson said police officers had identified several students—all 13 years old and younger—who allegedly had been involved in incidents at local stores. “School officials and parents have been notified by police,” he said. Swann reached out to James Lick
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By Matthew S. Bajko
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n the past, San Francisco residents with old clothing they wanted to clean out of their closets had four options to dispose of it. They could throw it into the trash, resell it through a consignment shop, give it to friends or family, or donate it to any number of local thrift stores that benefit nonprofits. Now, they have a fifth option for clothes recycling. The city is piloting a new program where a Bay Area nonprofit sets up collection boxes for people to drop off their tired threads. The fabrics are then sold wholesale to raise money for sustainable development projects in southern Africa or South and Central America. As noted in the Rumors column in the April issue of the Voice, Recycle for Change will be setting up one of its green clothing collection boxes in the cityowned Harry Aleo public parking lot on 24th Street near Castro. The Richmondbased nonprofit received a $50,000 grant from the San Francisco Department of the Environment to install three of its boxes on public sites around the city. Clothing recycling is now a part of San Francisco’s plan to reach “Zero Waste by 2020.” Set back in 2003, the initiative aims to see that everything tossed into the garbage is either recycled or, if organic matter like food waste or paper plates, turned into compost to be sold to local farmers and wineries. CONTINUED ON PAGE 9
Home on the Range: When she’s not booking events at the Noe Valley Town Square or working with the Farmers Market, Leslie Crawford keeps grounded with the help of her chicken Alice B. Toklas. Crawford recently added book author to her string of titles. Photo by Pamela Gerard
Local Author Breathes Life Into Animal Rescue Stories With Sprig By Olivia Boler
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he true story of a piglet leaping off a truck bound for a factory farm was the inspiration for Leslie Crawford’s debut picture book, Sprig the Rescue Pig (Stone Pier Press). Crawford—freelance journalist, Noe Valley Farmers Market cofounder, and event coordinator for the Noe