A sign uncovered when crews knocked down a branch library in the Bayview was likely painted before 1921, when the building that covered it for almost 90 years was built.
But history buffs should hurry: The sign, which advertises Boss of the Road Overalls and Workshirts, a long-defunct clothing provider, will be covered again when the construction on the library is finished.
"It's been preserved by a building since somewhere in the 1920s," said Michelle Jeffers, spokeswoman for the library system. "And now we'll just preserve it for the next 100 years."
The sign sits on the wall of a vacant building near the corner of Third Street and Revere Avenue. Because it is on private property, the library has no obligation - or authority - to preserve it, said Dan Sider of the Planning Department.
"I don't know how we would classify that sign under the Planning Code," he said with a laugh. "It isn't really advertising. Maybe I would call it art?"
The city recently decided they wanted to protect vintage signs after an uproar over an old Coca-Cola sign in Bernal Heights. Planners found that sign to be illegal and ordered it painted over, until the Board of Supervisors created a new process to protect vintage signs.
- Will Kane
Yee plan: You don't have to wander far around City Hall to hear grumbling about the "toothless" or ineffective Ethics Commission, the local campaign finance watchdog.
Leave it to state Sen. Leland Yee, a mayoral candidate who has made open government one of his staples and always has a finger in the political wind, to unveil his "Plan for an Independent City Hall," complete with an overhaul of the commission. The 21-point proposal, part of his campaign policy statements, also calls for open hearings on ethics complaints and a crackdown on unregistered lobbyists.
That all sounds pretty good from a transparent government perspective, but it struck us as a tad ironic coming from the guy who spent more than $1 million last year getting re-elected to the state Senate despite having no viable challenger, a move criticized as a way to prepay for the mayor's race and effectively circumvent tougher city campaign finance laws.
Yee wants to remove the power of appointing ethics commissioners from elected officials and model it after the State Citizen Redistricting Commission, where applicants are evaluated on their qualifications and independence and then selected largely at random.
He also wants to take the commission's budget out of the mayor's hands and let the commission decide itself what its needs are, although it will still have to go through the budget process. Complaints, which are currently confidential, would be public, and hearings would be televised.
- John Coté
Library suit: Two groups are suing multiple city agencies to stop the plan to rebuild the North Beach library branch.
The Coalition for a Better North Beach Library and Playground, along with Friends of Appleton-Wolfard Libraries, filed a lawsuit together last week in San Francisco Superior Court, alleging that the city did not do enough to save the 1959 building from demolition.
The construction plan, which the Board of Supervisors unanimously approved in June, calls for the library branch to be rebuilt on a triangle-shaped space at the corner of Lombard Street and Columbus Avenue. A block of Mason Street from Lombard to Columbus would be closed off, turning that area into a park that would connect the new library with the nearby Joe DiMaggio Playground.
"We feel there was no real evaluation of all the best options for the site, which includes keeping the open space on the triangle and restoring the historic building and expanding the historic building," said Howard Wong, a retired architect who is leading the lawsuit.
The complaint alleges that using the triangle space would violate the terms under which it was bought, which was for open space.
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