February 5, 2026
Hayes Valley Community – Formal Notice
Regarding: Pattern of Disparaging and Delegitimizing Communications by HVNA/MC Affiliated Actors to City Agencies
This notice is issued on behalf of Hayes Valley Safe (HVS) and affected residents and small businesses in Hayes Valley.
For several years, City agencies have engaged with the Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association and related merchant entities (HVNA/MC) as primary and often exclusive interlocutors for neighborhood matters. During this period, we have documented a recurring and escalating pattern in which individuals affiliated with HVNA/MC have transmitted disparaging, accusatory, and delegitimizing characterizations of non-HVNA/MC residents, merchants, and civic participants to City officials and staff.
These communications have included, but are not limited to:
- portraying non-HVNA/MC stakeholders as “negative,” “failing,” or acting in “bad faith”
- characterizing routine civic participation, documentation, or inquiry as “harassment” or “obstruction”
- questioning the legitimacy or motives of residents and businesses who do not align with HVNA/MC positions
- framing parallel civic organizing as improper or harmful rather than as protected participation
This notice follows a formal communication sent to City agencies in March 2021 that raised concerns about exclusionary engagement practices and the treatment of non-HVNA stakeholders. At that time, we requested broader, more balanced engagement. The issues identified then have not only persisted, but intensified.
This pattern is not speculative. It is documented through contemporaneous emails, disclosures, and correspondence now in the public domain. In multiple instances, the same individuals have communicated with City agencies while representing or speaking on behalf of HVNA/MC, reinforcing a consolidated and exclusionary gatekeeping role rather than distinct or independent stakeholder representation. The effect has been cumulative and damaging.
This conduct crosses an important line.
When disparaging characterizations are conveyed privately to City agencies by a favored neighborhood organization, they do not remain mere opinion.
They shape:
- access to meetings and decision-makers
- whose input is treated as credible or dismissible
- which stakeholders are included or excluded from public process
- how opposition is framed and discounted before it is heard
City agencies have an independent obligation to ensure fair, inclusive, and evidence-based engagement. Allowing one private organization to repeatedly undermine the standing of other community members without independent judgment or balance compromises that obligation and corrodes public trust.
For context, during the prior supervisory administration, concerns raised by HVS and non-HVNA/MC stakeholders were met with direct, respectful engagement, demonstrating that inclusive and balanced process was both possible and practiced. Under the current supervisory administration, by contrast, exclusionary practices have been tolerated and, in some instances, reinforced through continued reliance on disparaging representations from HVNA/MC-affiliated actors.
We are therefore formally placing City agencies on notice of the following:
- This pattern exists and is documented. It is not an isolated incident. It reflects a sustained governance failure affecting representation and process integrity.
- Disparagement transmitted to City staff has real consequences. These communications have influenced participation, access, and outcomes in matters of public policy, permitting, and neighborhood planning.
- Continued reliance on HVNA/MC as a singular or privileged voice is no longer tenable. Doing so in the face of documented exclusionary and delegitimizing behavior is reckless and inconsistent with public-interest obligations.
- City agencies must exercise independent judgment. Assertions about community consensus, stakeholder legitimacy, or motive must be evaluated critically and corroborated, not accepted at face value based on organizational proximity or convenience.
This notice is issued to document and correct an ongoing governance failure that has distorted civic process in Hayes Valley for years. The resulting harm to small businesses, residents, and public trust has been significant and preventable.
We expect City agencies to:
- cease treating HVNA/MC communications as presumptively representative
- ensure equitable engagement with all affected stakeholders
- refrain from relying on disparaging characterizations in decision-making
- and take active steps to restore fair process going forward
This notice is public because the consequences have been public.
Final note:
It is particularly important to note that HVNA/MC operate as funded nonprofit entities, supported through grants, sponsorships, memberships, and event revenues. By contrast, many affected residents and small business stakeholders including HVS participate without compensation, funding, or institutional support, engaging in civic advocacy on a volunteer basis and at personal cost. HVS emerged during COVID as exclusionary decision-making intensified across neighborhood governance, leaving everyday residents and small businesses without any independent, unfunded civic voice willing or able to question process, representation, and accountability. What began as a response to exclusion has grown into sustained, policy-focused civic participation centered on process integrity and fair representation.
When City agencies rely primarily on funded nonprofit intermediaries as the default or preferred community voice, they risk entrenching a structural imbalance that excludes unpaid participants from meaningful representation. Fair process requires heightened care to ensure that access, credibility, and participation are not determined by organizational funding or proximity to City resources.
Respectfully,
Hayes Valley Safe (HVS)
This correspondence has been edited for clarity and conciseness. Routine greetings and contact details have been omitted; the substance of the communication remains unchanged.