I don't like the Gavin photo op part, but he's the mayor and will get whatever photos he wants. But I don't see using city resources to put in a temporary demo garden as bad, as long as part of it is aimed at putting in more permanent gardens in the neighborhoods. I found Naomi Starkman's case persuasive, and only hope they will allow the garden to bear harvest before it is taken up. Or at least allow people to adopt the plants to take home. One day, when the whole city is a bio-garden, it will come back. Don At 01:23 PM 7/11/2008, you wrote:
Hi all,
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.
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!
Please forward this alert widely!
peace, Eric
A hollow victory for urban gardening movement
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 <http://slowfoodnation.org/>Slow Food Nation -- 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. 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. 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.
"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). 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. "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. 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 <http://www.sfbg.com/printable_entry.php?entry_id=3337>ripped up 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.
By Steven T. Jones: July 11, 2008 12:16 PM
Comments (1)
Eric Brooks:
Right On! We should all contact Alice Waters through Slow Food Nation <http://slowfoodnation.org/contact-us>http://slowfoodnation.org/contact-us and ask her to insist that the garden be situated in a permanent location.
This absurd and typically hollow Gavin Greenwash moment should be challenged vociferously!
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