City College's moving their John Adams Campus to The Haight to permit seismic upgrades. In what seems like a secret deal (but isn't) they leased the William R. DeAvila elementary school between Haight and Waller in October. Apparently the Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Coalition gave their consent. Or maybe they didn't. As usual, no two people at HANC can agree on anything. City College and the School District operate above or beyond or maybe sideways of the City/County governments. Beyond having to do a traffic study, can do whatever they damn please. So maybe it wasn't secret but it took residents of the neighborhood by surprise.
The very pleasant and charming Chancellor Philip Day met with Haight residents last Thursday to assuage their fears that thousands of students would be clogging the neighborhood and more importantly, taking parking spaces. Dr. Day told his new neighbors that Pacific Heights residents had successfully intimidated City College out of that neighborhood, and that The Haight, which already had homeless people, crime, drug dealing, and is integrated with a diverse population, would be the choice instead. Also because Pacific Heights residents had been tipped off by someone in the School District offices and were getting their lawsuits ready before any announcements could be made. His response to someone mentioning that Haight Street is an international tourist destination and shopping mecca was that there would be no students over the weekends. The poor guy was trying, and promised that everyone would be sent copies of the traffic report, or at least the URL where it could be downloaded. So far: dead silence. Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi was there, too, trying to be charming while telling people, sorry you're fucked, just in not those words. We don't think he was thrilled to be there.
True to his Dr. Day's word, City College employees are not taking parking away from anyone, not even their own white zone. They just park on the sidewalk.