Editor:

Let us peer into San Francisco’s future. While mutual funds might warn that “past performance is no guarantee of future results,” one can predict how things will progress in our area by looking at the way such matters have gone in the past.

Let us consider the state of Golden Gate Park  The Recreation and Park Commission will continue to represent elites and ignore the needs of residents. This is not surprising as they take the job in exchange for free tickets with the tacit understanding that they will rubber-stamp neoliberal policies, including park privatization, in return. Authoritarian director Phil Ginsburg will continue his tradition of never meeting with neighborhood residents. We can expect to see Ben Davis exercise continued horrendous bad taste on JFK and in the Concourse, having been granted hegemonic authority in both places. Loudspeakers will continue to blast overly loud music from the Spreckels Temple of Music. Ironically, the structure will continue to have the stanza “Lift Every Voice” inappropriately attached to it, even though the voices of our elites always override those of grassroots community here in San Francisco.

Entry costs at the three privatized, once-public spaces will continue to skyrocket, and the San Francisco Botanical Garden Society will continue to use these pay-to-play spaces as cash cows and exclusive enclaves. The museums, especially the Academy, will continue to be unaffordable. Once commenced, construction of the unnecessary and sterile new entrance to the park at Ninth and Lincoln will drag on and on, as such projects always do. The giant boulder, scheduled to be engraved with “Golden Gate Park” (in case anyone might think they were in Bolinas) will be a target for graffiti.

The outrageous extension of Outside Lands for two more weekends, the first of more to come, will pass our co-opted Board of Supervisors, and the distasteful, ferris wheel with its diesel generator will be made permanent at the end of its four- year contract extension. The park will have more ads and more anti-environmental LED light displays.

Graffiti will continue to plague our neighborhoods while no extra trash cans will be installed. Muni service will continue to deteriorate, and double parking (especially in front of “parklets”) will continue without sanction. Bicyclists and rental scooter riders will continue to zoom down our sidewalks. Street congestion will increase as parking spaces are removed. More hideous murals and security cameras will be installed in public spaces, and more streets will be allocated to corporate-style commercial events. Elites will find a way to manipulate the vehicular closure of the Upper Great Highway 24/7, leading to higher real estate values but a highway largely empty of any vehicle most of the time.

Supervisor Engardio’s vision of turning the Sunset into “Paris” will come to fruition, resulting in ugly new high-rises (with correspondingly high rents) further gentrifying the area, as local businesses and low-income residents are displaced. The Outer Sunset and Inner Richmond’s Chinese markets will eventually all close to be replaced with chains and franchises.

Barring significant citizen rabble rousing, this forecast of an unsavory future will come to fruition. Will you call your legislator about any of these issues which concern you today? It is never too late to save what little is left and to demand substantive democratic governance in lieu of time-wasting, outcome-manipulated “town halls.”

Harry S. Pariser