<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
</head>
<body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
Hi all,<br>
<br>
Gavin Newsom is about to get the most hypocritical, fake enviro photo
op of his entire term in office and we must challenge him -hard- on it
this time.<br>
<br>
Please read the Guardian blog below and then call the Mayor's office of
neighborhood services at 415-544-7111 to express your outrage at this
sham, and demand that the City Hall local organic Victory Garden be
made permanent, not ridiculously ripped out two months after it is put
in!<br>
<br>
Please forward this alert widely!<br>
<br>
peace, Eric<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.sfbg.com/blogs/politics/2008/07/a_hollow_victory_for_urban_gar.html">http://www.sfbg.com/blogs/politics/2008/07/a_hollow_victory_for_urban_gar.html</a><br>
<br>
<h3 class="entry-header">A hollow victory for urban gardening movement</h3>
<div class="entry" id="entry-3464">
<div class="entry-content">
<div class="entry-body">
<p><br>
When I first heard about current plans to build a "Victory Garden" in
Civic Center Plaza -- which will be officially planted tomorrow at 10
a.m. in a ceremony featuring Mayor Gavin Newsom and Alice Waters, the
pioneering restaurateur who founded <a
href="http://slowfoodnation.org/">Slow Food Nation</a>
-- I thought it was a really cool idea. Here was the city of San
Francisco giving some of its most prime and high profile real estate
over to the urban gardening movement, which seeks alternatives to the
fossil fuel dependent industrialized food system. <br>
And the Victory Garden concept is great, conjuring up the collective
commitment to our national interests that inspired patriotic citizens
to
plant gardens during the two world wars. Sure, the logistics of tending
and securing the garden might be tough, but Newsom seemed to be making
a commitment to put city resources behind this important symbolic
statement. <br>
Then I heard that they're going to rip out the garden in a couple
months, in my mind reducing the garden to a mere photo op for our jolly
green would-be governor. Ick. Just what this country needs, another
hollow gesture toward environmental sustainability rather than the bold
collective action that we actually need to tackle serious problems like
climate change, resource depletion, and a wasteful, polluting, and
ineffective global food system. </p>
</div>
<div id="more" class="entry-more">
<p>"While
we would love for the garden to be permanent,it is true that the
Victory Garden is temporary, and is being used as a demonstration and
educational centerpiece for Slow Food Nation, taking place over Labor
Day Weekend," event spokesperson Naomi Starkman wrote to me when I
asked about the temporary garden (the mayor's press office still hasn't
responded to my inquiry).<br>
She said the Victory Garden project will seek out about 15 diverse
households to plant more permanent gardens, something that it will be
incorporate into the event in August. And she sees value to even having
a temporary garden in Civic Center Plaza, for which her group is
covering the roughly $180,000 in costs. <br>
"The goal and mission of the Victory Garden is to spur to action the
future of urban food production. By having the support of the City, and
presenting a garden in City Hall's backyard, we intend to inform,
educate and inspire citizens to learn to grow their own food and to get
involved with local organizations doing just that. It is a huge civic
statement that we hope translates into city-wide programs, indeed, into
a national trend for cities to support this type of agriculture,"
Starkman wrote.<br>
Indeed, if Newsom and other city officials wanted to make a real
commitment to support this effort, they would pursue a citywide program
of supporting community gardens (which keep getting <a
href="http://www.sfbg.com/printable_entry.php?entry_id=3337">ripped up</a>
these days) and doing a survey of what surplus city properties could be
turned into gardens that might still be there after the television
crews have gone.</p>
</div>
<!--
<div class="entry-tags">
<h4 class="entry-tags-header">Tags:</h4>
<ul class="entry-tags-list">
<li class="entry-tag"><a href="" rel="tag"></a></li>
</MTEntryTags>
</ul>
</div>
</MTEntryIfTagged>
-->
</div>
<p class="entry-footer"> <span class="post-footers"> By <strong>Steven
T. Jones</strong>: July 11, 2008 12:16 PM </span> </p>
</div>
<div id="comments" class="comments">
<div class="comments-content">
<h3 class="comments-header">Comments (1)</h3>
<div class="comment" id="comment-147314">
<div class="comment-inner">
<div class="comment-header"> Eric Brooks: </div>
<div class="comment-content">
<p>Right On! We should all contact Alice Waters through Slow Food Nation<br>
<a href="http://slowfoodnation.org/contact-us" rel="nofollow">http://slowfoodnation.org/contact-us</a><br>
and ask her to insist that the garden be situated in a permanent
location.</p>
<p>This absurd and typically hollow Gavin Greenwash moment should be
challenged vociferously!</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
"I am not a liberator. Liberators do not exist. The people liberate themselves." – Che Guevara</pre>
</body>
</html>