[Sustain] NO To Corporate Sponsorship Of Sunday Streets

[Eric Brooks]

Susan King and all,

Susan, I am concerned.

Here are excerpts from a Guardian blog report by Steve Jones on Sunday 
Streets, including a quote from you..

"-- it's unsettling to see Sunday Streets brought to you by some of the 
most villainous corporations in town, including PG&E 
<http://www.sfbg.com/entry.php?catid=77&entry_id=1927>, Lennar 
<http://www.sfbg.com/entry.php?entry_id=6843&catid=4>, WebCor Builders 
<http://www.sfbg.com/blogs/politics/2007/10/procar_crowd_draws_first_blood.html>, 
and Clear Channel Entertainment, and laid out as a promotional tool for 
the very Fisherman's Wharf merchants who opposed it last year.

Yes, it costs money to close streets, money that the city and community 
event promoters just don't have right now. But what does it say about 
San Francisco when we need to rely big corporations in order to use and 
enjoy our public spaces?

Of course, that's not the only way to look at this, particularly when 
one's goal is to push the envelope on seizing back space from cars. 
Susan King, a Green Party member helping to organize Sunday Streets for 
Livable City, acknowledged my point-of-view but said that it's a step 
forward when institutional powers are willing to help with progressive 
goals.

"It really mainstreams the concept of carfree spaces," she told me, 
noting that directing traffic through and around the street closures is 
a complicated effort that will cost between $40,000 and $50,000 per 
event. "The costs are associated with how difficult it is to take a 
roadway and repurpose it.""

I was grudgingly willing to go along with this dubious Newsom initiated 
program when it clearly had some merit. But now that Newsom is simply 
using it as yet another tool to greenwash corporations that are 
destroying our city, like PG&E and Lennar, I am vehemently opposed to this.

Furthermore, I am sure that very few Greens agree that partnering with 
evil corporations mainstreams them with supporting public goals. On the 
contrary, it helps them to co-opt and destroy those goals and make it 
easier for them to plunder our environment and community, and control 
our politicians, while they make themselves look good to the public; 
thereby making it easier for them to kick our ass in ballot measure 
battles like the recent props F and H.

And as to the events themselves, I have completely stopped attending 
street parties in San Francisco because they have become such a tawdry, 
dingy, corporate controlled joke. The last thing we need is for the same 
ugliness and cheapness to descend on our Sunday Streets events.

This experiment has now gone too far.

We need to find a way to nix the corporate sponsorship of these events 
pronto, so that this takeover doesn't ruin the Sunday Streets project.

I would like to see this agendized at the next GM so we can make clear 
that the SF Green Party does -not- support corporate sponsored Sunday 
Streets events.

sincerely

Eric B

-- 
"I am not a liberator. Liberators do not exist. The people liberate themselves." -- Che Guevara

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