Behind the Process: What Our Engagement Reveals
This section outlines our direct engagement with City agencies and offices over the past two years. It is based on public correspondence, meeting notes, and documented interactions –not speculation. The purpose is to help the public understand how a neighborhood issue became a political project and why that context is critical ahead of this renewal.
1. SFMTA: Delay, Deflection, and Denial of Tools
- Two formal meetings were held in spring 2025 with the Shared Spaces program manager and ISCOTT manager.
- A continuous email thread dating back to November 2023 reflects a pattern of non-responses and procedural deflection.
- SFMTA repeatedly stated they would “address violations at renewal” rather than take corrective action during the permit term.
- Staff later acknowledged they lack clear enforcement tools, despite having authority to suspend or revoke under Shared Spaces guidelines.
- Repeated requests to meet with Director Julie Kirschbaum were either denied or redirected to her Chief of Staff, Judson True, who acted as the primary point of contact while the Director remained unavailable.
- Most responses from program staff (Monica) have been evasive or perfunctory, acknowledging receipt but declining to address substance. Taken together, this pattern reflects institutional inertia — a culture of delay dressed up as due process.
2. Supervisor’s Office: Political Shielding and Private Coordination
Meeting with Supervisor Bilal Mahmood (March 2025):
The Supervisor arrived late and appeared unprepared to address the substance of our concerns. When the topic of the Entertainment Zone came up, he assumed it would be well received — it wasn’t. Rather than engage with the documented economic, procedural, and equity issues surrounding the Hayes Street closure, Mahmood brushed aside feedback and offered no commitments. He stated that a permanent closure was “not imminent,” yet his subsequent coordination with HVNA and City departments to advance permanence told a different story. The exchange left the impression of an official out of his depth, unwilling to confront the realities of harm occurring due to the closure. That contradiction remains evident today: when we recently exchanged emails this month, the option to restore Hayes Street was explicitly ruled out, confirming that the direction was already decided months earlier.
Recent Attempted Re-Engagement (October 2025)
- On October 6, 2025, Supervisor Mahmood and his staff reached out about “next steps” on Hayes Street, referencing an agenda centered on the Public Life Study—a process already scoped toward permanence.
- Our coalition’s reply made clear that the agenda reflected a predetermined outcome, not an open discussion. We reiterated that when we met in March, the Supervisor had dismissed restoration as an option and ignored subsequent concerns/correspondence.
- Rather than acknowledge that record, Mahmood’s response accused our group of “not wanting to engage.” This inversion of facts underscores the pattern evident since spring — his office defines participation as agreement.
- The episode illustrates how “outreach” has been used to create the appearance of dialogue, while the policy direction—permanent closure—remains non-negotiable.
- Pattern of Political Shielding:
- SFMTA staff have indicated reluctance to act for fear of “running up against the Supervisor,” allowing political optics to override enforcement.
- The Supervisor’s office has coordinated privately with HVNA and HVMC, including management plan development, press events, and selective business outreach while excluding many impacted stakeholders.
- Despite multiple public-records requests, the office has failed to disclose internal communications within statutory deadlines, demonstrating a troubling disregard for transparency.
- Public statements have misrepresented community consensus, citing support from the same insiders who orchestrated the process.
3. Mayor’s Office: Limited Responsiveness, Ongoing Work
The Mayor’s staff has been receptive and professional, but follow-through remains limited. Policy contradictions persist between stated commitments to small-business recovery and tolerance of politically protected closures. We view the Mayor’s current efforts as a work in progress — with potential to correct course if transparency and enforcement are prioritized over optics.
4. Why It Matters
The Hayes Street renewal is not an isolated permit issue; it is a case study in governance drift –where procedure bends to politics and “pilot programs” are sustained indefinitely without metrics. It reveals how City departments and elected offices have confused HVNA’s position with community consensus, mistaking alignment with one organization for public approval. Our opposition is not emotional; it is procedural, evidence-based, and grounded in direct experience.
Event Privilege and Unequal Impact
Under the current permit, HVNA has carte blanche to host events on the closed block, operating without input or coordination from residents or merchants outside its circle. Many of these events directly compete with surrounding retailers, diverting weekend sales toward vendors or promoters operating under HVNA’s umbrella. This imbalance reinforces a two-tier economy: one group gains subsidized visibility while long-standing storefronts absorb the losses. It also highlights the broader failure of oversight — public space managed as private turf, absent transparency, equity checks, or accountability.
A Note on Public Life and Place
We expect renewed claims that the closure brings “joy,” “activation,” and “European-style community life.” No one is against joy or events that bring neighbors together. But real community is inclusive, not curated. The images of crowded evenings and staged gatherings tell only one side of the story. We believe activation should take place in existing open spaces –parks, plazas, and shared courtyards designed for that purpose not through the indefinite closure of a vital neighborhood street. After four years, the 400-block experiment has become less a community space than a controlled corridor …a public right-of-way repurposed for a few, while others are asked to mistake exclusion for community.
The Human Toll
Beneath the hearings and headlines is a quieter story — one of fatigue, loss, and disconnection. For years, the closure has exacted a real emotional cost on the people who make Hayes Valley work: the merchants who open their doors every day, the residents who navigate a street that no longer feels like theirs, and the neighbors who simply wanted a fair process. There are parts of the neighborhood that truly need re-imagining (the underused living alleys, the broken flow along Octavia) but Hayes Street was not one of them. It was a functioning, thriving corridor that did not need to be reinvented. What’s being imposed now is an ideology of control and a belief that public space can be rebranded as community, even when it divides the very people it claims to unite. Long-time operators who helped define the neighborhood’s character have closed their doors, and those departures have been met with celebration by the permit holder instead of reflection –a painful measure of how far empathy has fallen away. Those who remain are left defending something simple yet fundamental: that a public street should belong to everyone. Instead, energy that could have gone toward rebuilding genuine community has been consumed by the need to correct a process that refuses to listen. This is more than a permitting dispute. It is the story of a failed policy and a broken process — one that allowed a public road to be converted into a playground that serves the few while claiming to speak for the many.
Further Reading