Save the Upper Great Highway

Proposition G on November’s ballot is for the Upper Great Highway, the scenic roadway near Ocean Beach where generations of San Franciscans have traveled to the Cliff House, V.A. Hospital, the San Francisco Zoo and numerous other points north and south.

Prop. G would allow up to 20,000 vehicles a day to once again traverse one of the most scenic drives in the City from Lincoln Way to Sloat Boulevard – at least from Monday through Friday.

A “yes” vote on Prop. G would restore a compromise initiated by former District 4 Supervisor Gordon Mar after the COVID-19 pandemic struck in March 2020. The compromise allowed residents space to recreate and commiserate during weekends, while allowing vehicle traffic along the Upper Great Highway during the week.

West side residents have an opportunity to restore trust in their elected officials and to rebuff unethical attempts to circumvent the electorate in an ugly land grab to benefit developers and billionaires who endanger the quality of life residents have always enjoyed in the Richmond and Sunset districts.

A Nefarious Plot

A nefarious plot was hatched in 2024 by an unscrupulous politician, an unethical lawyer and a clueless billionaire when Prop. K was snuck on the ballot at the last possible moment, without any feedback from west side residents negatively impacted by the secret cabal.

The politician from D-4 has been recalled and cast to the footnotes of history, but the lawyer and billionaire are still working to undermine public safety and our quality of life.

Today, those 14,000 to 20,000 vehicles a day, including commercial trucks, are speeding through our neighborhoods and jamming up the few roads crossing Golden Gate Park. There is anecdotal evidence that there has been an increase in injury accidents in the Sunset and slower ambulance response times as a result of the Great Highway’s closure. Public safety has been sacrificed for the almighty buck – it’s clear proponents of the permanent closure of the Great Highway only want to develop more housing at the highly desirable beach location.

State Senator Undermines Local Governments

The politician, lawyer and billionaire have California State Sen. Scott Wiener working hard in Sacramento to undermine the authority of the state’s planning departments by cutting them out of decision-making authority. Wiener’s bills allow developers to significantly increase the size of projects without previous levels of environmental scrutiny and to circumvent local authority under the guise of a “builder’s remedy.”

Wiener even tried to get the California Coastal Commission’s oversight of housing along Ocean Beach removed, so there would be one less obstacle to rampant development of multi-million dollar homes.

Wiener and other “build, baby, build” acolytes, like YIMBY Action, have never shown that building more housing units would lower prices and make housing “more affordable” for our children and working-class residents. Their logic is a smokescreen for profit-driven developers.

It’s an extreme leap of faith to think building a modest amount of new market-rate housing units in San Francisco will significantly lower prices for rents or homes. The rent for a one-bedroom apartment has gone up by about $1,000 a month just in the past year.

Wiener, who is running for Conress against District 1 Supervisor Connie Chan, thumbed his nose at a majority of west side residents by becoming the leading opponent to Prop. G.

Great Highway Aptly Named

There’s a reason it is called the Great Highway, and not the “mediocre highway.” City planners recognized the special features of the coast side roadway and its soothing effect on drivers traversing the Sunset, much like the Pacific Coast Highway through Malibu in Southern California.

Although almost two out of three west-side voters rejected Prop. K in 2024 to permanently close the Upper Great Highway, a majority of voters on the east side of the City voted for the measure. That was, in part, because Prop. K. proponents outspent the mom-and-pop defenders of the Great Highway by a three-to-one margin.

When Prop. G qualified for the ballot, the forces of evil filed a lawsuit to invalidate the measure. On Aug. 21, the court sided with “Yes on G” supporters but fighting the baseless lawsuit set local Great Highway supporters back $20,000.

To reach east side voters and tell them the truth of what’s going on, it is going to take a large fundraising effort. We don’t have billionaire supporters like Yelp’s Jeremy Stoppleman, who has already donated $25,000 to stop the grass roots effort to partially open the Upper Great Highway.

To volunteer or make a donation to the “Yes on Prop. G” email info@greathighwayforeveryone.com.

And please vote “yes” on Nov. 3. It’s the right thing to do.

Richmond District Native Writes Exciting Novel

Raymond Pesce was raised and hell-raised in the Richmond District. Now he’s channeling that upbringing in a new true-life novel – “Rhythm and Risk: The Last Smuggle.”

Pesce grew up at California Street and 32nd Avenue and attended St. Monica’s Elementary School, Presidio Middle School and George Washington High School.

Pesce ended up quitting high school and went to work at Sunset Scavenger, where his father and brothers worked. Later, he became a professional musician and traveled internationally. After a life on the road, he settled in Cloverdale and became owner of the Hamburger Ranch and Pasta Farm. Today he is retired – working for the Cloverdale Lions Club, writing books and playing golf.

“‘Rhythm And Risk’ made me feel as if I was a character in his tumultuous story of western San Francisco and the Haight-Ashbury in the late 1960s and early 1970s,” said San Francisco author Jim Toland.

“Rick Peters (protagonist) struggles to finance and develop his rock band – and that’s where Rhythm meets Risk and the lure of easy cash becomes the real adventure: smuggling kilos of weed, at first, from Mexico into the U.S. His operation eventually takes him to South America and Asia to wheel and deal tons of superior marijuana along with high-grade hashish,” Toland continued.

“Along the way Rick encounters nerve-wracking flights, specially designed smuggling transportation and sinister characters, including Frank the Iguana, Joe the Surfer, The Doc, Baja Don, The Backpacker and Tar Baby.

“If you were there at that time; then, much of this is your story too. The adventures, relationships, humor, troubles are absolutely, spot-on familiar. There is no hype here; just an accurate look back into the past, recalling the most exciting, eventful time of our lives.”

“Rhythm and Risk” ($17.95) is available at Green Apple Books on Clement Street or at Rhythmandrisk.bigcartel.com.

Paul Kozakiewicz is the founder of the Richmond Review and Sunset Beacon newspapers. He is currently a copy editor for the publications.