Why Bayview Hunters Point wants to Recall Maxwell

WHY THE BVHP DRIVE TO RECALL THEIR SUPERVISOR?


We, the residents of Bayview Hunters Point, the most distressed community of the City, are fed up with being ignored and having no representation at City Hall.

The City, its Agencies and Elected Officials have inflicted serious harm on this community for decades. They, the people we elect and the appointed City functionaries, are responsible for the ongoing poverty, ill health, infant mortality, inferior education, joblessness, addiction, homicides, and violence born of hopelessness that plagues our neighborhood.

People are asking us, “Do we think ANY supervisor can solve the problems in Bayview Hunters point?”

Our answer is “YES. The City Government in collaboration with the Redevelopment Agency, which is endowed with privileged power from the State of California and through their policies of continuous gentrification and removal of poor people and people of Color, have created this ‘ghetto.’ These same people must undo their deadly programs against the people who live here.

City politicians in their efforts to serve the will of big business and their own political ambitions destroy the lives and families of low-income working and poor people.

When district elections were instituted we were hopeful that we would have a better chance at being heard in City Hall.

Instead, Supervisor Maxwell “servant of the people” has done NOTHING to seek remedies and redress of grievances for this brutalized and deprived community. As a matter of fact, she has furthered plans, which will destroy, disperse and destabilize this community even more, well into the future.

Residents have run out of patience at being ignored.

Life and death issues have no forum in the office of Supervisor Maxwell. Police are complicent with the abuse of youth. Gun violence goes on unchecked and homicides remain unsolved.

Supervisor Maxwell cynically says, “That situation has existed for years out there with THOSE people. What do you expect me to do about it?”

We say THOSE people are HER people and they are angry about her horrible betrayal.

Big business and the Redevelopment Agency treat people whose homes are in public housing with utter contempt. The Housing Authority is so corrupt that it is in receivership and therefore, is now working with the Redevelopment Agency and their scheme to remove whole neighborhoods surrounding the Shipyard. Why? Well, to benefit for-profit developers and their stock holders.

The theft of the Shipyard, (public land belonging to the people who have been most negatively affected by its former military use and closure) and its hand over by the SF Redevelopment Agency to Lennar Corporation is a criminal act. Only the most compliant of residents are seated on the Shipyard “Citizens Advisory Committee, (CAC)” and Supervisor Maxwell defies Federal and State Law to facilitate the deception of the people with false promises of a rosy tomorrow brought about by this private Corporate project.

Supervisor Maxwell, who gives speeches about the tragedy of environmental illnesses in BVHP, displays helpless confusion before PG&E and other power brokers of fossil fuel. She lets promises to shut down the old PG&E power plant fall by the wayside with no real closure in sight. She shows no leadership or support of resident activists’ efforts to repel energy Corporation’s ruthless dominance over the citizens of her District.

Our neighbors, hungry for work, witness jobs and contracts for City work constructing the Third Street Light Rail being given to outside contractors who bring in their own laborers. Businesses along this corridor have been bankrupted and forced to close. Small businesses, instead of being protected, supported and sustained, are driven away.

Our children are bussed all over the city to far away schools where the stress of their minority status is amplified and long bus rides make school work more challenging. Please read the recent Civil Grand Jury’s Report on educational resources in Bayview Hunters Point to see the shocking inequality and inferior educational conditions foisted on our youth.

Our health clinics are only open part time. We have no descent supermarket. Bus service is inadequate and dangerous and the Highway Patrol descends on our neighborhoods to cite people for mechanical problems with their old cars.

Our Supervisor does NOTHING.

Pride in “diversity” in San Francisco is a blatant lie. This City grows whiter and richer with each passing day and is proud of that. Our Mayor says our recall effort is a trivialization of the process and declares our supervisor innocent of malfeasance. Then he uses our predicament with a dysfunctional Supervisor as a way to discredit district elections.

We say Supervisor Maxwell IS guilty of malfeasance. In a country where justice and equality is supposed to be a core value in the creation of laws, an elected representative who violates these principles with regard to a specific class and particular neighborhood, thereby denying equal services and access to this class is committing an illegal act in our so called Democracy.

What is the solution? We say fair and equal representation in City Hall of all neighborhoods and classes and ethnicities in District 10 is the solution.

Our petition to recall our Supervisor is a last resort in our efforts to make our difficulties known to her and to the rest of district 10. She has stated that she does not know “who THOSE people are who are demanding her recall.” Ironically this remark states exactly what our problem is.

We are sounding the alarm that our Supervisor has failed to fulfill the duties of her office. We declare that all other means to appeal for just representation have been exhausted. We have experienced repeated denials of requests for her attention. Without compensation from the City we have worked tirelessly to advocate for remedies and creative solutions to vexing life threatening injustice in law enforcement, housing, jobs, and environmental health only to meet with refusals of serious and respectful consideration. The situation of our neighbors and ourselves has become desperate and urgent, and this is why we demand a recall.

We are well aware that we are a minority and may be out-voted by the dominant class in this wealthy City. We know that Ms Maxwell enjoys the loyal support of other neighborhoods and people who are blessed with privilege and money. With this in mind we intend to make our desperate situation caused by inadequate representation, known to the whole City whatever the outcome of this recall effort. It does not matter to us weather Ms Maxwell remains in office or the Mayor appoints someone to replace her. We have nothing to loose. We will amplify our calls for justice and equality until they are heard by the entire City.

To those of you who are worried about the consequences of another Mayor appointed Supervisor replacing Ms Maxwell on the Board, we suggest that you use your influence and energy to help the people of Bayview Hunters Point bring the crises of ongoing Civil Rights abuses to the attention of the entire Board and the Mayor. Call upon Politicians to acknowledge the harm done to them by this City’s continued fostering of the delusional and unimaginative belief that the private investment community functions in the public interest. Dare them to look at the obvious social costs of this fallacy.

Kevyn Lutton
Manager of the Recall Supervisor Sophie Maxwell effort.
kevyn11 [at] yahoo.com