 Mission Terrace residents opened their homes to the public on Sunday, May 6, for the second annual Mission Terrace Garden Tour, featuring 21 households, homemade treats and good company.
Each participating household was numbered on a map and made available both online, as well as printed for visitors at some of the highlighted homes. The map recommended one possible route along the tour, however visitors were encouraged to forge their own paths. “This is a community-building event,” said participant Kerry Evensong. Evensong stood with her friendly dog, Mr. Jake, at the end of a brick path marked with a colorful banner and chalk. Her husband, David Rew, enthusiastically offered visitors homemade pizza from a miniature pizza oven nestled among the plants and darted in between his cooking spaces. Her garden patio splits the property’s bedrooms from the kitchen and dining areas. Miner’s Lettuce and other local varieties of vegetation are liberally displayed in pots in every corner of the yard. “It’s truly the open living home,” Evensong said. Evensong is also in charge of social media for the annual tour and other Mission Terrace community events. She described the small neighborhood as a surprisingly active community. “One little girl has even opened a lemonade stand at one of the houses in the tour,” Evensong said, explaining that the young Mission Terrace local wishes to donate some of her modest proceeds to the community to help fund further events. The tour was started by longtime Mission Terrace resident Martha Arnaud, who was inspired by the annual garden walk in San Francisco’s Portola neighborhood. “I made fliers and knocked om people’s doors,” Arnaud said, describing how she first began reaching out to her neighbors. As many members of the neighborhood began new gardens fairly recently, Arnaud expects the number of gardens in the tour next year to grow. Arnaud’s own entryway was open to the public and led tour goers through her kitchen to a brightly lit patio with stairs leading down to a cozy terraced garden. A miniature meditation labyrinth sits perfectly placed at the top of a mossy brick stairway and a swing lies tucked in the overgrown vegetation. Arnaud hopes to see the tour continue to gain momentum long into the future. Among those who hosted their gardens for the first time this year, was Audrey Tatsuno. Tatsuno’s backyard garden is lined with colored blown glass spheres and flowers, using some plants from the previous residents garden, explained Tatsuno. It also featured a trough style water fountain filled with goldfish that sat neatly in the shad of the sprawling trees surrounding the yard. Tatsuno explained that her garden space was mainly used by her husband, but as visitors flooded her backyard she relished in the conversations starting in her space. By 2 pm. Her yard was bustling with activity as more people joined the tour. Another interesting home, hosted by Scott Cataffa, leads through an art studio to a dense Spanish-inspired garden, overlooking the Outer Mission’s rolling hills. Cataffa, a landscape architect, described every plant in the garden with detail revealing diverse assortment of unique plant species varying from San Pedro cactus to a unique lemon tree sourced from Africa. “The planting is a handpicked collection of exotic species from comparable climates around the world,” said Cataffa. Among those walking the garden tour were friends Julia Jung-Amesand Mimi Lo, who came to support their friend and fitness instructor who joined the garden tour for the first time this year. For more information, email tour organizers at missionterracegardentour@gmail.com.
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 For years, the residents of Mission Terrace would take their furry family members to Balboa Park, so that they could run free and play with the other dogs in the community. It's always been a great place for neighbors to meet up and get to know one another, while sharing that special bond with their dogs. And occasionally you might even see a dog birthday party! Only within the last few years, there would be occasions when officers would hand out tickets to guardians of off-leash dogs. Because of the decades-long practice of having a place for our dogs to play, and a location that created a true sense of community, the neighborhood (lead by Abigail Nguy and Supervisor Ahsha Safai, helped push through a change. This change was the official recognition of the triangle area behind the Balboa Pool (off of Havelock Street), as a mixed-use off-leash play area. This change is not a change to a "dog park" (which would have required the area to be fenced and would dramatically changed the character of the space.) Instead, this change codifies what was already in place for the friendly dog-guardian Mission Terrace community. On March 22nd, a ribbon cutting ceremony was held to help celebrate the change. SF Recreation and Park was on hand with bags for attendees, photos were taken, and dogs celebrated with their furry friends. SF Rec & Park will be installing more benches in the park, along with a low "barrier" to demarcate the off-leash area. Thanks to everyone who helped make this mixed-use off-leash play area a reality.
 The seed for this project was the idea that with so much negativity in the world, perhaps we could instead, spread some love and start right here in our own neighborhood.
Participants filled out a short form to let us know where to deliver a card on February 14th, so we could deliver the card with the message "Love having you in the neighborhood." Participants also had the option to add additional messaging if they so wished. This year there were about 11 neighbors who received cards, and we area looking forward to expanding the program next year. <3  The votes are in and Nextdoor has published their "Neighborhood Favorites" list. (full list here) So without further ado, here are the winners for Mission Terrace.:
REPRINTED FROM INGLESIDE-EXCELSIOR LIGHT On Oct. 21, Jack Hart, an 18-year member of the San Francisco Police Department took over Ingleside Police Station, the second largest district in the city. We talked with Capt. Hart about his background, his first month in charge and the challenges he expects to face.  What is your background with the San Francisco Police Department?
My great-grandfather, Charles W. King, was a streetcar driver going up and down Market Street. He and his wife, Georgia King had their first son right around April 1906. When the Great Quake hit on April 18, the hospital they were in collapsed and [King] joined the Police Department immediately. His star number was 596, the same star number I wear. He served for 25 years and was hit and killed by a drunk driver while acting as a crossing guard for school kids on Alemany Boulevard in 1931, which is in the Ingleside Police Station District. My father grew up on Jersey Street, which is in the Ingleside District. I grew up in Diamond Heights and I currently live on Flood Street in Sunnyside, which are both in the Ingleside District. Generations of my family have lived in the Ingleside District and yet I have never policed the area because I have worked at four of the other stations: Southern, Tenderloin, Mission and Bayview-Hunters Point. Those were my main patrol assignments. I’m also an attorney, so I spent several years in our legal office acting as an attorney on behalf of the Police Department in civil, criminal, state and federal courts. As a sergeant-lieutenant I was in charge of Candlestick Park. I managed an NFC Championship game in 2012 against the Giants. I had 210 cops working for me and we were policing 70,000 people in the pouring rain. I joined the department in June 1999, so I’m relatively new in the department but I have a lot of family experience. I was a Police Cadet with the Police Activities League when I was 14. With all of those connections, it’s not just a professional accomplishment to be the captain of Ingleside Station, it’s also a personal mission because I’m so connected to this district. I want this place to be great too. How have you spent your first month on the job? I’ve spent the entire month trying to figure out the cops, the community and the crime –– and not necessarily in that order. As an instructor in the San Francisco Police Academy, I’ve taught about 52 recruit classes about constitutional law, criminal law and so on. Since our department is very young –– about 70 percent of our department has less than five years on the job –– I know all of them or at least they all know me because I was one of their instructors in the academy. Since I already knew them, it didn’t take long to get up to speed with all of them. I’ve probably been to about 30 community meetings so far. It’s been great because everyone is so motivated to fix these neighborhood issues. I’d be really concerned if there were only three or four people showing up to these meetings, but most of them have 30 or 40, which is great. Even if they’re yelling at me, it shows me they care. What are some of the unique features of Ingleside Station and what do you think will be some of the biggest challenges? One of the challenges of the Ingleside is that it’s a big district. I think we’re about 25 percent of the city, about the size of Daly City with the population of Daly City, basically shoved into one police district. It’s a lot of real estate to cover and there are a lot of streets that stop and start and are winding streets. All of that creates this challenge that we are really relient on our police cars to cover the distance, which kind of sucks, to be frank. In the Tenderloin District at least there’s a flat topography. It’s a densely-populated area, but at least you can kind of cover it on foot. In Ingleside, our challenge is that our cops are all in their cars. They put an average of 50-60 miles a day on the car. One of the challenges is getting officers out of their cars to engage on a block-by-block basis so that they can understand the unique challenges and strengths of each neighborhood. Especially in areas that have violence issues like Visitacion Valley in the Sunnydale neighborhoods. We’re spending a lot of time down there and other neighborhoods are not necessarily getting the same investment on a day-to-day basis. The biggest challenge is that we need more cops. We’re probably a good 25 to 30 cops short of where we should be in terms of all our responsibilities and all the things we need. Besides having more cops, it’s important to make space for our cops to understand how important it is to get out of their cars and talk to people when they get the chance to do so. What was your motivation for going to law school? I initially went to law school because the police department wasn’t hiring. I graduated from Santa Clara University with a bachelor’s degree and the department wasn’t hiring yet. So I thought to myself, ‘What could I do with this time to make it meaningful?’ So I applied to law school and got into University of San Francisco. I’m so glad that I did. Education is hugely important in policing these days because we’re expected to be so much and know so much. There’s 20-20 hindsight on what we should have done, so we have to know what we’re doing. So I’m glad that I went to law school and passed the BAR exam, and I love it that officers still call me at 3 in the morning with questions about how we should handle a particular case. I think we want to be more informed as officers and want to get it right, and that law degree helps to facilitate that.
On Friday, November 17th, 2017, a coyote was spotted at Balboa Park, and later the same day at 203 Cotter St.
Coyotes are part of the ecosystem here in San Francisco, and it's not uncommon for them to be seen traveling between larger parks, such as McLaren Park and Glen Park just to the east and northwest of Mission Terrace. This story in SFGate talks about their history and the reasons behind coyote policies in our city. Here is further information from SF's Animal Care & Control, about how what to do when you see a coyote.
 Every few years, the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) likes to do some command staff rotations, and it seems that it's our turn here in Mission Terrace, for a switcheroo at the Balboa Park/Ingleside police station, effective Saturday, October 21, 2017.
Captain "Joe" McFadden is a 4th-generation San Franciscan who has had a wide breath of policing experience in everything from patrols, to SWAT, to Homeland Security, to CSI, to training at the police academy. He's often expressed how much he has loved to serve our neighborhood, and is known to be a very approachable, responsive, and active in our community. Cpt. McFadden will be moving on to a city-wide investigative unit. He will certainly be missed. In his stead, we welcome Captain Jack Hart. The Captain also a native San Franciscan and USF law school graduate, who wears the same badge number that his great-grandfather had. He's reported to be intellectually curious, reflective, a good listener, and holds offers to a standard of fairness, looking for their "heart set" dedicated to service, justice, compassion, and accountability. His work with Blue Courage emphasizes these values. Please welcome Cpt. Hart when you see him! Please pay attention to the air quality index, as both humans and pets may be particular sensitive to the smoke coming over from the North Bay fires. It is recommended that those who are particularly sensitive, stay inside with the windows and doors closed, as much as possible.
 Smoke from Wine Country fires billows into Bay Area, prompting air quality warnings  On Saturday, September 30th, over 200 people gathered in Balboa Park, for our first Movie In The Park event. Disney's "Wreck It Ralph" was shown, and is a story about video game characters who are misunderstood, and the perceived villain ends up being the unlikely hero for this delightful family movie.
In addition to enjoying this hilarious movie, the event also included; popcorn, raffle prizes, and an all-around good time with the community. Thanks to Sean and Andrea of the Dark Horse Inn and the Excelsior Outer Mission Merchants and the office of Supervisor Safai for making this event such a great success. |
Please Note: NMTIA maintains a “good neighbor” policy in our online presence. We have a fantastic community with a variety of perspectives, beliefs, and feelings about many topics. We believe that differing opinions should not interfere with being good neighbors to each other. We encourage civility and mutual respect, and we remove any posts or comments that are belittling, show hostility, or are discriminatory in nature.
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