Miraloma Park Improvement Club

Miraloma Life: May 2007

• MPIC Spring –  Musical Social Event
• Miraloma Park Garden Club Tour
• Future of Healthcare in California
• Legal Ease 
• Role-Reversal on Coyote Ridge: Cattle, formerly villains, now heroes
• Pavement And Front Yard Maintenance
• Miraloma Park Residential Guidelines
• No Shortage of Programs Ideas for Sunnyside Playground and Park
• Design Matters
• Senator Yee Hosts Community Pancake Breakfast & Town Hall
• Can the Leopard Change His Spots?
• Notice of MPIC Election
• Ingleside Police Station Matters

MPIC Spring –  Musical Social Event

by Jim O’Donnell

The musical program for the Spring Social Mixer on Sunday, May 20 at the MPIC Clubhouse, 350 Del Vale at O’Shaughnessy is now set. We will have the usual socializing and snacking for the first half hour until 3:30 PM.  From 3:30 to 5:00PM, we will feature a string ensemble of accomplished musicians from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. We will have chairs for everyone, so be prepared to listen with rapt attention when the music starts. There will be a program which will list the pieces to be performed and which will include background information on the performers.

As some of you may already know, the Conservatory of Music has recently moved to a new location at 50 Oak Street in the Civic Center area of the City from its former location on 19 Ave. There will be informational brochures about the Conservatory, its History, its Faculty and its Programs  available at the event on  so that you may learn more about this fine institution dedicated to musical performance and education. The Conservatory offers many musical programs both instrumental and vocal that are open to the public.  Hopefully this event will encourage you to attend such wonderful offerings.

Mark your calendars now for this first-time in Miraloma Park event on Sunday, May 20, 3-5PM! You will have the chance to meet your neighbors, share some refreshment, and listen to the finest young musicians in San Francisco.

There is no charge for this event. MPIC considers such occasions a way of enhancing our neighborhood and living up to its mission of providing services.

 

Miraloma Park Garden Club Tour

Make a day of it.  Before coming to the Social, attend the Community Garden Tour on Sunday May 20 from noon to 3 pm.  The Miraloma Garden Club was once a powerful force in garden circles in San Francisco. Connie Freeman and associates are making that happen again.  One part of the tour will be lead by Geof Coffey who writes so well for Miraloma Life. 

Details on the tour:

Miraloma Park Garden Club
Community Garden Tour
Sunday, May 20th,  Noon – 3:00 pm

Noon: Melrose-Detroit Botanical Garden 
Melrose Avenue at Detroit Street

12:40 pm:  Los Palmos Garden
100 Block of Los Palmos Drive at Foerster Street

1:20 pm:   Bella Vista – Sequoia Garden
Bella Vista Way at Sequoia Way
Site of Newly Planned Native Garden

2:00 pm:   Mt. Davidson Park
Geoffrey Coffey – Tour Leader
Meet at Mt. Davidson Park Entrace
Corner of Myra Way and La Bica Way

3:00 pm – 5:00pm:  Miraloma Park Improvement Club
Spring Social/Mixer
Featuring Musicians of the
San Francisco Conservatory of Music

Miraloma Park Improvement Club Clubhouse
Surrounded by its California Native Plant Garden
350 O’Shaughnessy Boulevard at Del Vale Avenue

Tour Contact:  Connie Freeman
email:  ca99freeman@hotmail.com

 

Future of Healthcare in California

The single biggest issue that the State Legislature will address in 2007 is California’s healthcare system. The most significant problems with our current healthcare system are the exorbitant cost and the operational inefficiency.

These factors work to exclude many average working people from having access to essential care. Without affordable healthcare, families are forced to depend on emergency rooms for basic health care and struggle with exorbitant bills, while our entire economy suffers. This has created a growing crisis for patients, healthcare providers, and taxpayers alike.

The Problem
Currently, at least 6.5 million Californians are uninsured, and many more do not have adequate insurance. This means that more than 1 in 5 Californians do not have access to preventative care, medical advice and basic treatments, and do not have a safety net if they become seriously ill or gravely injured. These people are average working people whose employers do not provide healthcare and who don’t make enough money to pay for an individual policy for themselves and their families.

This is due in large part to the rising cost of health care. Health insurance premiums have risen 87 percent since the year 2000. In the same time period, wages have increased by only 20 percent. Even those with health insurance are often surprised to find that their policies do not cover a large portion of their costs. Even with these high costs, people with pre-existing conditions often cannot qualify for coverage, even for issues as minor as having asthma when they were a child. It is a startling fact that a full half of all personal bankruptcies in the U.S. are due to health care costs.

With so many uninsured or underinsured Californians we are jeopardizing the health of our residents and the viability of our economy. Lower productivity and lost income tax revenue are among the consequences of having unhealthy California residents. If the breadwinner of a family without health insurance gets injured, the entire family will suffer. It is a shame for any of us to live in a society where someone who needs treatment will not receive it, even though there is a hospital with the right supplies  down the street.

Our Resources
The problems we have with our healthcare system do not stem from a lack of funding. Californians spend $186 billion a year on healthcare. This is more than enough to cover the needs of every Californian. The problem is that currently 30 percent of every healthcare dollar is spent on administration. There is paperwork for purchasing and maintaining your insurance, paperwork and processing when you arrive at the doctor’s office, more paperwork when your doctor’s office files with your insurance company. Much more paperwork – and the possibility of extra costs being passed on to the patient – if your insurance provider and your doctor disagree about what treatments were actually covered in your insurance policy.

All the other advanced countries in the world are able to provide all their residents with quality care. The only reason the U.S. seems unable to manage universal coverage is because of our excessively inefficient system.

Proposals
This legislative session, many proposals have been brought forward to address these problems.
Insurance market reforms could help to shape the insurance industry and provide better care for a more affordable price. However, these reforms are a piecemeal process and it is difficult to achieve the desired solutions by applying band-aids one at a time to a system with so many holes. Insurance market reforms can help to solve some problems in the short-term, but they do not solve the underlying problems with our system.

Governor Schwarzenegger suggested requiring every Californian to purchase health insurance as is now required in Massachusetts. However, this proposal does not solve the problem of exorbitant premiums and incomplete policies.

It would leave many Californians still suffering from no access to preventative care and uncovered for severe injury or illness.

The President pro Tem of the Senate and the Speaker of the Assembly have also proposed solutions. Both proposals involve shared responsibility between employers and employees. These proposals, like the others, unfortunately don’t fully address the problem of the exorbitant cost of healthcare.

Despite the high cost of healthcare, the U.S. healthcare outcomes rank at the bottom of all industrial nations.

Clearly, there is a problem with our healthcare system, not with who is paying for it or who’s required to have it. We have the money and the resources to fully serve every Californian, and yet even those who have current health insurance are not fully covered and face excessive costs.

The Solution
Single-payer health insurance is the only solution on the table that will address all the underlying problems with our system. Single-payer healthcare means that one entity – the state of California – would be responsible for providing healthcare to its citizens. This eliminates the majority of the paperwork and administrative inefficiencies. It eliminates the power that the drug companies have to charge small medical facilities exorbitant prices for life-saving medicines.

Single-payer healthcare is financially smart. Instead of using 30 percent of every dollar on administration, the state can require that 95 percent of each dollar be spent on care. Instead of wasting billions on paperwork, universal healthcare will save Californians $25 billion a year by simplifying the process.

Single-payer health insurance means that the State of California can leverage economies of scale to provide greater access for all. Costs can be kept low because California will be one large pool of people able to negotiate competitive prices for medical services and life-saving medicine.

Single-payer healthcare means a healthier economy. With this system, California can invest heavily in health education and preventative care. While health providers may benefit from having more sick patients to see, the State would be interested in keeping everyone as healthy as possible to prevent unnecessary illness and injury. And when a person does become ill or injured, there won’t be any questions about what their insurance policy covers or whether they can afford care – every person will be treated.

I am proud to be a co-author of Senate Bill (SB) 840, which will establish a universal, single-payer healthcare system. The Universal Healthcare Act will provide every California resident with healthcare. In a state with such abundant resources, it would be a shame to provide anything less.

California has always been a leader in ideas and progress. It’s time to lead the way once again. Please join me in advocating for the rights of all citizens to have access to our healthcare resources.

Sincerely,
Leland Y. Yee, Ph.D.
Assistant President pro Tempore
California State Senate

 

Legal Ease

by Steven Solomon
Q: I’ve been out of the work force for quite a while, & with my kids heading off to college, I’m looking to jump back into the labor pool. What are some of the major protections for job applicants & employees these days?

A: For job applicants, no employer may ask you a question about your age, religion, sexual orientation, if you’ve ever had a disability, & if you were ever arrested if there was no conviction, plea or guilty verdict & the record of conviction was sealed. Also, as an applicant you will have to take a drug test. As an employee, you can be fired at will, unless your employment contract contains a just cause provision (usually found in union bargaining agreements), except that you cannot be fired on the basis of your age, sex, religion, race, national origin, marital status, medical condition, pregnancy, or for making a complaint about unsafe working conditions. An employer cannot give you an intentionally untruthful job reference.

BIG NEWS DEPT. – The California State Senate just unanimously passed a bill to amend our lemon law so that members of the armed forces stationed here can enforce the manufacturer’s warranty on vehicles they purchase anywhere within the United States. As a historical note, California was the second state in the nation to pass lemon law (Connecticut beat us to the punch), & it passed UNANIMOUSLY in both the Senate & Assembly, & was authored by now-State Treasurer Bill Lockyer..

Steve Solomon is an 18 year resident of Miraloma Park.  His law
office is located on West Portal where he continutes to represent consumers and business groups in a variety of legal issues.
 

Role-Reversal on Coyote Ridge: Cattle, formerly villains, now heroes

by Geoffrey Coffey

Shifting identities and strange alliances occur along the wildland-urban interface, where natural ecosystems collide with cities and the side effects of human industry.  Plants and animals living along these intersections must adapt to changing conditions, or perish. We now raise the curtain on a drama where cows protect rare and endangered butterflies from certain death by automobile, with a dramatis personae of native wildflowers and exotic grasses playing supporting roles.

Coyote Ridge, a large serpentine grassland two miles wide and fifteen miles long, lies just south of San Jose along Hwy 101. Serpentinite is the California state rock; this bluish-green stone was formed in darkness near the center of the earth, heated to a high boil and bubbled up through surface fractures (in this case the San Andreas Fault) to the open light. Most plants cannot grow on serpentine soil – not enough nitrogen, too much magnesium – but a select group of natives evolved in tandem with this infertile habitat, and they can survive it. Such an inhospitable medium also holds off the weedy European annual grasses that have so transformed the rest of our state. The beauty of the serpentine grassland therefore derives not just from its dazzling burlesque of May wildflowers, but because it demonstrates what California looked like 300 years ago, when native grasslands embraced a third of the state; today they cover less than 1%.

Where did all the California grasslands go?  First they were over-grazed by cattle, starting with the Spanish in the late 18th century and then again during the Gold Rush, when a million head of beef were shipped west to feed hungry miners. Many surviving grasslands were soon plowed under for agriculture and paved over for development. 

Those few remaining then suffered from poor fire management policy, where “wildfire suppression” was the only rule – as opposed to the practice of Native Americans, who understood fire’s regenerative power and set “controlled burns” in the grasslands for thousands of years. The final blow was the arrival of European annual grasses better adapted to the above conditions, growing taller and more quickly than the native bunchgrasses, self-seeding so prodigiously as to choke out the competition. 

Right now the 7000 acres of Coyote Ridge are awash  in shimmering colors: rolling yellow carpets of tidy tips and goldfields, bright swaths of purple owl’s clover and red jeweled onion, a vision of nodding white fairy lanterns and blue spikes of western larkspur, an exaltation of cream- and buttercups. Hairy black and yellow Bay checkerspot caterpillars gorge themselves on the low silvery foliage of dwarf plantain, and adult Bay checkerspot butterflies tipple nectar from tidy tips and wild onions.  The proverbial birds and bees visit other wildflowers in plenty, performing their promiscuous duties. The web of biodiversity here includes more than 100 plant species, with an average of 20 species occurring per half-meter-squared (approximately the area you can fit your arms around); this richness of flora in turn supports countless populations of tiny creatures that creep, scurry, burrow, and fly.

The California Native Plant Society (CNPS) reports that Coyote Ridge hosts 14 rare or endangered plant species.  Favorites include the Tiburon paintbrush (Castilleja  affinis ssp. neglecta), an elusive serpentine lover and Bay Area endemic with a yellow to pale-peach bloom; the Santa Clara Valley dudleya (Dudleya setchellii), whose succulent rosettes cling to rocky outcrops and produce subtle golden blossoms; and the most beautiful jewelflower (Streptanthus albidus ssp. peramoenus), an exquisite annual with robust purple flower spikes whose (un)common name says it all.

Cue the organ music: Coyote Ridge is adjacent to San Jose, a major source of air pollution.  From the summit of the ridge, the nearby city is hardly visible through the hazy smudge. This smog, composed of nitrogen (N) and other less-savory ingredients like ozone and carbon monoxide, accumulates on parked cars and downtown storefront windows in a thin brown layer of dust; it also floats in the air into surrounding regions and settles onto the land. Let us recall that most plants need N to prosper; it is the lack of N in serpentine soils that keeps out the exotic invasive weeds and preserves the indigenous grasslands. 

Enter the smog, stage left.  Recent studies by local conservation ecologist Stu Weiss (among others) have revealed that urban air pollution in the Bay Area sends “dry deposits” of N molecules into the soil of adjacent wildlands at the annual rate of approximately 20 pounds per acre, the equivalent of spreading 5 large bags of concentrated industrial lawn fertilizer per acre per year via the tailpipes of our cars. This sobering statistic spells good times ahead for weedy annual grasses like wild oats (Avena fatua), soft chess (Bromus hordaceous), and Italian ryegrass (Lolium multiflorum), the most prolific of all exotic invaders of serpentine.  Italian ryegrass, especially, dominates when enabled by N deposition and left to grow unchecked.  It grows taller and faster than the low native grasses and forbs, shading them out and killing them.  No low-growing natives means no Plantago erecta and no Castilleja exserta, the caterpillar food plants of the federally protected Bay checkerspot butterfly. No food means no more caterpillars, and that means no more butterflies.

Enter the cows, stage right.  Coyote Ridge is privately owned by Castle & Cook, a national real estate development concern.  Prevented from building here by San Jose’s Greenline ordinance limiting urban sprawl, C&C instead leases the land to a cattle rancher, who uses it for pasture. Cows wander among the butterflies and eat Italian ryegrass – when given the choice between that and any native bunchgrass, the cows go Italian every time. What accounts for taste?  Something in the tiny bovine brain learns that the Italian ryegrass is high in N, which of course is healthy for the cow.  By eating the exotic weeds, the cow gives a Darwinistic boost to the low-growing (and low-N) native plants, which in turn sustain the endangered butterflies.

Weiss says that dry N deposition is one of the most serious (if widely unrecognized) challenges facing the future of conservation ecology, and he underscores the need for a moderate grazing policy in contemporary grassland management, especially on serpentine soils near urban centers. He points to a barbed wire fence on the western edge of Coyote Ridge. On one side of the fence, where cows have been, the mosaic of native grasses and wildflowers tells a stirring tale of the interconnected diversity of life; on the other side, a dense monopoly of Italian ryegrass stretches into the distance.  Weiss asks with an ironic grin, “Which ecosystem would you prefer?”
Formerly a villain in the tragedy of California’s devastated  grasslands, the humble cow now takes her place as hero, a leading lady. But the dastardly automobile still growls from offstage, the ominous Iago in cahoots with marauding Italians. Rare and historic plant populations are invested in the drama. Whether or not the endangered butterfly will live to see the curtain call, only time will tell.

Freelance writer, landscape designer, and native plant nurseryman Geoffrey Coffey also prefers to eat Italian.  Visit him online at http://www.geoffreycoffey.com/, http://www.madrono.org/, and http://www.baynatives.com/.

 

Pavement And Front Yard Maintenance

by Sue Kirkham

Spring has arrived, and so have the grasses and weeds.  While the growth is still young, and before the grasses set seeds, it is time to work on front yards, pavements and street gutters to keep them weed free and our neighborhood beautiful.  Remember that a clean, tidy and well maintained neighborhood maintains and enhances your property value.  To remove those pesky weeds in the pavement and gutter use a trowel or pour boiling water on them.  Boiling water kills the weed and the root and works  well when they are small.

 

Miraloma Park Residential Guidelines

The Miraloma Park Residential Guidelines were adopted in 1999 by the City Planning Commission to promote preservation of neighborhood character by encouraging residential design compatible with neighborhood setting. 

Residential Design Guidelines can facilitate the complex and often frustrating process of permit application and design review and can prevent costly and time-consuming Discretionary Review proceedings. Guidelines at http://www.miralomapark.org/.

 

No Shortage of Programs Ideas for Sunnyside Playground and Park

by Andrea O’Leary
On April 10, the small recreation center at Miraloma Playground was filled beyond capacity where enthusiastic residents considered the prospect of great programs returning to Sunnyside Playground and Park. Residents recalled how many childhood mentors were recreation directors in local parks who taught them how to bat a ball, and their wish to emulate those memories in the current generation of children in the neighborhoods.

Sunnyside Park Families & Neighbors (SPFN) hosted this community meeting where Rec. & Park Dept. (RPD) representatives gave an overview of program planning and gathered close to four dozen ideas from participants; most of which focused on the desire to have fun in the neighborhood park. How well parks function and what are the priorities will be an on-going discussion where RPD will solicit input at twice per year meetings.
As much as residents hope to utilize programs in Sunnyside once construction is completed this fall, the reality is that remodeling work on the building may not be finished by the time the rest of the Playground’s construction is. Because this extra work must have construction designs drawn-up, bids collected and work schedules developed, several more months may be required. Families should consider other local park sites as options in case that becomes the circumstance.

Supervisor Sean Elsbernd was in attendance at the meeting and was encouraging in that further budgeting for parks ill be examined by the Board of Supervisors. Because meeting time ran out and discussion on programming was fully engaged, Sean will look into facilitating a separate meeting to discuss park reopening Ribbon Cutting celebration ideas. Suggestions for programming and ribbon cutting can be sent to Supervisor Elsbernd at Sean.Elsbernd@sfgov.org, to RPD at Gilberto.Rocha@sfgov.org, and to SPFN at SPFamilies@aol.com.
 

Design Matters

Peter A. Zepponi, AIA – Architect
This is a monthly column addressing basic residential design and home improvement topics of interest to Miraloma Park residents. If you have a question or topic you’d like considered for a future article please send an email to: pazdesignmatters@aol.com or call 415.334.2868 http://www.zepponi-architects.com/

Q: Where can I add on to my house?
A: Up, down or back.

When you want to add onto a home in Miraloma Park there are basically three directions that you can go: Up, down, or to the back.  Each option has its own advantages and disadvantages.

DOWN:  Usually the easiest and most cost effective way to add additional living space is to infill an existing space in your basement or garage.   As long as you maintain a minimum of an 8’x 20’ space in your garage the remainder of the space can be infilled.  The next limiting condition is ceiling height.  It must be at least 7’-6″ high for a legal addition.  Corridors, hallways, bathrooms, and storage areas can be as low as 7’-0″.  The last major constraint is access to daylight and ventilation.  Habitable spaces require windows for light, air, and ventilation, as well as emergency egress.  Required window area is based upon the square footage of the room, and bedroom window sills need to be a maximum of 44″ above the floor.  If you meet these basic requirements an infill project is fairly straightforward.  The costs and complications increase when you need to make modifications in order to comply with the code.  The most common problem is lack of head height, because garage floors often slope up as they go back.  If you have a down sloping lot with a basement, then there is a lot of design flexibility.  If the lot slopes up and you have a concrete slab on grade, then excavation and foundation reinforcement may be necessary.  Even though this adds complication it’s still a good option because it’s preferred by the MPIC Design Guidelines to develop the undeveloped space within the existing building envelope rather than add onto the existing structure.  The other major advantage is that developing within the existing envelope, allows you to avoid lengthy planning and approval processes and associated expenses.  It also shortens the overall project schedule. 

BACK: The next direction you can add on is within your backyard.  This is called a ‘rear yard extension’, and since it is adding onto the footprint of your house it triggers a number of complicated Planning Code requirements for height, bulk, setbacks and depth into the yard.  In general, you need to maintain 25% of your lot depth as open space.  You also are usually required to setback the walls of the new addition 5’ from the property lines.  This creates the wedding cake effect of the addition being smaller than the existing building width.   Another consideration is the predominant rear yard depth.  It will be difficult to maximize your development if there is a strongly established neighborhood pattern that your proposed addition would disturb.  Rear yard extensions require neighbor notification. (Section 311 process)

UP: The last direction to add on is up.  Adding up is a ‘vertical extension’, and also triggers many Planning Code requirements.  The issues with adding up include making sure the existing structure and foundations can support the weight of the new addition.  The structural capacity of the house and foundation usually requires augmentation to meet the current codes.  Vertical additions over 500 square feet trigger a required ‘second means of egress’ for a third or fourth story.  Habitable roof decks are also considered a ‘story’ and must be included in the 500 square foot total.  A required second means of egress triggers other code requirements which can add complications, costs and delays to a project.  This is why you can see smaller third story additions around the City that look like they could have easily been larger. Homeowners can avoid problems and expense by staying under the 500 square foot limit. 

Third story additions can be the most complicated addition because they have the most restrictions in the Planning Code, Building Code and MPIC Design Guidelines, but with careful attention to the Code and Guidelines, third story additions can be successfully designed.   Some home models are better suited for vertical additions than others, so it would be advised to consult with an architect familiar with the codes and who can give advice on how to integrate any addition into the existing architecture and neighborhood.
 

This column and its content are intended to be a source of general information. Applicability to your specific project should be verified.

Peter A. Zepponi, AIA – Architects, is an architectural firm in San Francisco specializing in residential and commercial architecture. 

 

Senator Yee Hosts Community Pancake Breakfast & Town Hall

Sunday, May 6, 9:00 am – 12:00 pm
Armenian Community Center Hall
825 Brotherhood Way, San Francisco

 

Can the Leopard Change His Spots?
                                                                                                  

A “fit of pique,” that’s what it used to be called in polite society (is there any such thing anymore?) whenever someone, in modern parlance, “lost it.”  Well, I’m afraid that is precisely what happened to dear Mr. Four-paws, who has committed what they used to be known among the refined as a “faux pas,” but now is labeled a “screw-up”(or more likely an unprintable-up). Miss Manners has been called on her urgent action line and will no doubt respond with all due haste. It concerns my poor kitty, who as you may recall was frightened by the sudden descent by chimney of the wily quadruped’s hawk-delivered Holiday missive, but this time had to endure much worse. Yesterday, her demeanor somewhere between outrage and nervous breakdown, she suddenly manifested on my lap with a poignant howl, and what did I find tied to her tail with some bloody discarded butcher’s tape (which she’s now calm enough to be licking), but the following cheeky missive, apparently typed and printed on my own computer! (It had my signature block, a styled graphic I labored over for hours, to be found only on my machine!)

Great galloping gargoyles: some day that coyote will go too far! — Ed

My Dear Editor, 
   
So I now lack ingenuity, yes? Plumb out ideas “for attention-grabbing modes of delivery,” as you so cattily put it? Couldn’t surprise a deaf, blind, one-legged rabbit on a foggy day—I’ll bet that’s what you were thinking. Well I guess I showed you how to be catty—pun absolutely intended. Your silly felis catus couldn’t resist the lovely bit of liver I left for her on the window sill. In fact, she was so busy burying her nose in it that she didn’t even notice the quiet shadow slipping past into your office. Didn’t know I could type, did you? Well, Ms. Editrix, there’s a great deal more you don’t know about W. Coyote, Esq., of that I assure you.
    
You don’t know, for one, that I have become a totally reformed creature with respect to my former, and I freely admit, reprehensible, lust for goat flesh. Oh, yes, I know I paraded this shameful addiction before your reading public last year, serenading that delightful Tuscan roast goat specialty, capritza, but I am now a humbled and transformed being, who would never think of “goat” and “roast” in the same moment (not even in two adjacent moments!).

Not long ago, the goats returned to Stanford Reservoir for the annual gnawing of the Spring foliage. Did I lust, Madame? Did I yearn? Did I dream of succulent and fragrant goatflesh, white and piping hot, heaped juicily at the portal of my den? Did I howl with desolation when I woke to find—none?
  
Let me say most emphatically, I did none of those things. My will was adamantine, my courage flawless, my control impeccable. I listened to the darling bleating of the furry flock and felt only a benign and paternal concern for their well-being. I worried lest they eat one too many rusty cans, choke on blackberry thorns, break a tooth on some discarded junk. My eyes glistened with apprehension and my heart bloomed with a love of all goatkind. Now that I have seen the light, I apologize openly and without reservation for my former goatlust, and promise to guard the little goaties with my very life, like a good doggie, as soon as I am offered the job, from which, I have it on good authority, the current canine guardian is soon to retire.

Dear Goats Are Us, please consider this my application for the position. Have confidence in me, for I mean to be the best goat guardian you ever could hire, I swear upon my faithful canine heart. And from my tawdry past, I know all the tricks any adventurer might apply, the better to nip any carnivorous intent in the bud. They will no more fool me than I could fool you. Believe me, the word “succulent” is erased from my vocabulary; banished too are “tender,” “scrumptious,” “dripping,” “toothsome,” “yummy,” “moist,” “luscious”—all forgotten. Just let me be near my adorable goats, whom I will cherish always, and I promise on my mother’s snout (the most sacred oath a coyote can swear) that I will behave exactly as predicted. I will eat dry dog food, even cardboard and weeds, as they do, rather than touch one hair on their tender, juicy, luscious hides. No, scratch that—inadvertent error, poor word choice, but you know what I meant! Trust me, for if nothing else, I am a creature of my word, and you have my word on that. Honest, or my name is not Wily. I mean Wiley. On my mother’s snout, I swear it. Dear Goats Are Us, give me the job, please, pleeease give me the job, for I am ever

Your trusted and obedient servant—

W. Coyote, Esq.

 

Notice of MPIC Election

Following is the slate for the June 2007 MPIC Officers and Directors election, as presented by the Nominating Committee:

Dan Liberthson Director, Corresponding Secretary, and Acting Treasurer
Kathy Rawlins  Director, Recording Secretary
Gary Noguera  Director
Sue Kirkham  Director
Karen Breslin  Director

Nominations from the floor will be accepted at the MPIC Clubhouse on Thursday, May 17, from 7:30 to 8:00 pm. Thereafter, nominations will be closed.

The election will be held at the General Meeting of Thursday, June 21, starting at 7:30 pm.

To nominate a candidate for Director or Officer, the nominating person must be an MPIC member in good standing as of April 17, 2007. To vote for a candidate in the election, the voter must be an MPIC member in good standing as of May 21, 2007.

 

Ingleside Police Station Matters

Captain Paul Chignell of the Ingleside Police Station has announced that Police Sergeants at the station have been assigned to various communities organizations to be the point of contact for non-exigent inquires.  Sgt. Michael Redmond is the liaison to Miraloma Park and is on duty from 4 PM to 2 AM.

Captain Chignell sends out a daily email describing the activities of the Ingleside force such as criminal activities, arrests, community affairs and other subjects of interest.  If you wish to receive this intriguing document, email Captain Chignell at Paul.Chignell@sfgov.org