Long time Board member Jack Barry, spouse May Pon, and SHARP  again hosted SHARP’s annual  Winter solstice luncheon buffet.

In 2016, Woody LaBounty won an ovation from a full house when he came to SHARP to present the history of Sunset Heights until the 1920s. He returned in 2017 and packed the house again with an equally appreciative audience as he charted the development of Sunset Heights to the present.

District 7 Supervisor Norman Yee answered questions on a wide variety of topics, including: housing, homelessness, crime, Airbnb in the neighborhood, expansive home renovations that may change the character of the neighborhood, sharply restricting robots on sidewalks, the potential for increased traffic from autonomous vehicles, first responders not living in San Francisco, and bikes and Segways endangering pedestrians in Golden Gate Park.

Ana Herrera, Niloufar Khonsari, and Esperanza Cuautle discussed the federal government’s immigration policy and resistance to it at the local level, including their own work. Ana is the Managing Attorney of the Deportation Defense and Legal Advocacy Program at Dolores Street Community Services, a multi-dimensional housing and social services organization. The Deportation Defense and Legal Advocacy Program provides legal representation to low-income immigrants, including those facing deportation, and works to increase the collective power of the city’s immigrant communities. Niloufar Khonsari founded Pangea Legal Services in 2012 to provide legal representation, community empowerment, and policy advocacy for low-income immigrants who face deportation and may have lawful avenues to legal status. Nilou serves as the executive director of Pangea as well as a staff attorney there. Esperanza Cuautle works at Pangea, particularly in its community empowerment activities.

Neighborhood resident Victor Hwang came to SHARP eight months after being sworn in as the newest judge on the San Francisco County Superior Court. He was elected in November 2016 by a nearly 2-1 margin. He is personable, patient, and an excellent lawyer, all of which he needs to be in his new job. Among other topics, he spoke about how judges are selected and trained, the funding crisis in San Francisco courts, and how it affects their operation. He gave us the rare opportunity to see the justice system from the perspective of one of the more important people charged with the difficult task of making it work.

Jim Billings began the evening by giving us a 10-minute introduction to San Francisco Beautiful.  He is SF Beautiful’s Development Manager.

Don Bechler of Single Payer Now advocated a single payer health care system for California.  He was followed by Eden Nagash-Powell and Don Stump, both representing Christian Church Homes, the developer proposing to build 150 housing units for low-income seniors at the site of Forest Hill Christian Church and its childcare center, 250 Laguna Honda Boulevard.

We cancelled the June 26 meeting because the scheduled speaker had a scheduling conflict that arose too late for us to find a substitute speaker. The speaker was to have been Connor Letourneau, the beat writer who covers the Warriors for the Chronicle.

After her full-house debut at SHARP in July 2015, Jeanne Snyder returned with another talk and demo about plant-based cooking, including free samples for all.  A Warriors playoff game diminished  the attendance but not the satisfaction of the attendees.  As gifted a presenter as she is a cook (check out her beautiful website), Jeanne again took us step by step as she prepared her dishes. This time they were: spicy tomato-chickpea soup (served with bread), basil pesto (served on bruschetta with fresh tomato), and lemon-doodle cookies.  Show, tell, eat, yum.  See full writeup for the recipes.

James Dixon gave a dynamic, richly informed talk about San Francisco’s residential housing styles from 1920 to the present. In addition to describing the housing styles themselves, he explored the historical, cultural, and architectural influences that produced them. He also gave us an architect’s understanding of the workmanship the styles called for. He was not shy about evaluating them. He spoke for close to 90 minutes, then stayed to answer questions. When the evening was over, we had enjoyed a college-level seminar from a brilliant professor, without the homework and exams.

Nick Josefowitz came to SHARP in September 2014, when he was running for election to the BART Board of Directors. Among other things, he said that BART should be a “world class transportation” system. He won the election. Now he returned to present a progress report.

Corey Smith, a new staff member at the San Francisco Housing Action Coalition (SFHAC), spoke about the housing crisis in the Bay Area—the importance of it, its history, and solutions to it.  SFHAC “advocates for the creation of well-designed, well-located housing, at all levels of affordability. . . .”  SHARP is a member of SFHAC.

Ben Tulchin, one of the city’s foremost political pollsters and consultants, was supposed to speak about how the Trump presidency is likely to affect San Francisco.  Instead, Tulchin spent most of his time reviewing the national election in November, explaining how and why the Democrats lost the Presidency and made only minimal gains in Congress. Tulchin briefly reviewed the November election in California and, equally briefly, looked ahead to what California and San Francisco can expect in the age of Trump.

In two golden periods a millennium and a half apart, Sicily led western civilization. First as part of ancient Greece and Rome, then as part of the medieval Arabic-Norman empire, Sicily pioneered history, psychology, art, ethics, society, governance, and literature. A uniquely gifted guide explored those eras of Sicilian civilization with us. Douglas Kenning is a classical scholar and president of Sicily Tour, a company that offers tours of the island with an emphasis on its history and culture. Kenning’s lively, insightful, and richly illustrated talk captured the beauty and significance of a brilliant, important place, the repository of some of the most impressive structures and artifacts of the foundations of western civilization. And we served cannoli. . . .