Dear Members, Merchants and Friends,

Russian Hill Neighbors has been privileged since its founding in 1981 to be led by a stellar group of past presidents. Bittersweet for us, Emily Harrold, RHN president for the past year and a half, joins that illustrious group with the gratitude of the entire Board for her time, her grace, her enthusiasm, her devotion and her ability to recruit young new leadership to our organization. In July, Emily and her family moved to the East Bay. She promises to stay in touch! Thank you Emily!

Meanwhile, RHN continues its many activities under the guidance of an active and committed Executive Committee, Board of Directors and Committee Chairs. The Nominating Committee, led by past president Tina Moylan, is in the process of reorganizing the leadership team to complete the year until new officers are elected at the Spring Annual Meeting. The Board Retreat in July focused on leadership development and recruitment, an important emphasis for all volunteer organizations. If you would be interested in a leadership position yourself, please contact Tina – serving is a unique opportunity to make a difference on Russian Hill while being part of a wonderful group of people.

Speaking of new leaders, we welcome Monique Olivier to the Board as our new Secretary. Monique is a commercial real estate attorney by profession, married to Gonzalo and the mother of a three year old son. She has lived on Russian Hill for ten years, does ballet as a hobby and (in addition to English) is fluent in French, Spanish and Italian.

Also, long-time Board Adviser Jovanne Reilly is “shadowing” current Treasurer Ian Maddison and will take over that position next month. Jovanne served as editor of the RHN newsletter (then a print publication) for five years in the early 2000s. A sixteen year resident of Russian Hill, Jovanne and her husband James enjoy travel, local cultural offerings, an occasional Giants game and dining at the many restaurants in our neighborhood.

Over the past few weeks, we have received many comments and questions from members and non-members regarding the Medical Cannabis Dispensary (MCD) proposed for Polk Street at Filbert. As is our longstanding policy, RHN is doing due diligence on this issue and we thank you for your feedback. We have not taken an official position one way or the other on the proposal, but continue to follow its progress and encourage all interested parties to do so as well.

RHN committees regularly address a wide range of neighborhood issues including cleaner streets, appropriate land use, historic preservation, traffic, parking, local merchants, parks, support for families with children and neighborhood safety.  The latter, safety, is of particular and growing concern to our membership. Please be assured that we are working with our district Supervisors and Police Captains to inform and collaborate with them and other city agencies in identifying both problems and solutions. If you would like to serve on our Safety Committee, or help organize specific efforts under the aegis of RHN, please email one of the Executive Committee members. We welcome your input and involvement.

Meanwhile, don’t forget to join us for some fun! The RHN Book Club meets monthly and is a great way to meet others who live in the neighborhood. The Families with Children Committee will be organizing a back to school playground event in early September. Attend one of our periodic Cheers events or a Wine and Dine. Make a habit of going to our website at www.rhnsf.org to see what’s coming up and make sure RHN has your correct email address to receive our monthly eblasts with news and events.

Thank you for being part of our very special neighborhood!!

RHN Executive Committee

Dear Members, Merchants, and Friends:

Russian Hill Neighbors kicked off the summer with a major Street Sweep beautification event along Polk Street and fun Neighborhood Picnic at Hyde Street’s Teepee Park on Saturday, June 24. Thank you to Greg Polchow, Sarah Taber, and Joyce Kucharvy for leading the planning, and to all of the members who joined us! Please keep an eye on our Events Calendar for upcoming activities, including a Community Safety Forum, later this summer.

On a personal note, I am stepping down as President of Russian Hill Neighbors this week. It has been an incredible experience serving on the board since 2015 and as President for the past 14 months. The best part was getting to know so many of you, our resident and merchant members, as we addressed important issues in our community. My family and I are relocating and we will certainly miss the beautiful parks, vibrant Polk and Hyde Street shops, and friendly neighbors of Russian Hill. Thank you for your engagement and support during my tenure. It was a team effort!

The RHN membership is in very good hands with the current Board of Directors. Later this month, the Board will meet for its Annual Retreat and will discuss the leadership plan. If any of you are interested in joining the volunteer board, which entails participating in a dinner/meeting once per month, please be in touch. The board works hard for the community but certainly has fun doing it.

I wish you all the best. Enjoy the summer!

Warmest regards,

Emily Harrold
President

Dear Members, Merchants, and Neighbors:

As many of you may know, Russian Hill Neighbors’ Design, Zoning, and Land Use (DZLU) committee is one of the most active aspects of our organization. This team of volunteers partners with city agencies to ensure excellence in the design of the built environment Russian Hill, encourage preservation and restoration of significant structures, and works to understand how planning and building codes will affect our community. With all of the construction you see around our neighborhood, you can imagine it is no small feat to stay on top of these projects!

Since 2012, Richard Cardello has served as Chair of DZLU. An interior designer by day, he has dedicated hundreds of hours to closely analyzing building projects in Russian Hill and furthering RHN’s commitment to historic preservation. This spring Richard decided to step down as Chair of DZLU and we are incredibly grateful for all of his hard work and dedication over these past five years. Luckily for RHN, he will stay on as a member of the DZLU committee and as a Director on the RHN Board.

The Board of Russian Hill Neighbors is thrilled Bob Bluhm will take over for Richard as Chair of DZLU. Bob moved to Russian Hill in 2010 and lives on fabled Macondray Lane with his wife Claudia. Professionally he is an architect with a specialty in research labs (think big kitchens) and capital project management. He joined DZLU in 2011 and enjoys the group’s camaraderie and its wide range of backgrounds and expertise–and appreciates the challenges of maintaining what is so special about Russian Hill while embracing and managing change.

Thank you for your contribution to Russian Hill, Richard! And congratulations on your new position of DZLU Chair, Bob!

Please read about DZLU’s latest activities in the committee reports here and contact the committee with questions via email.

Warm regards,

Emily Harrold
President, Russian Hill Neighbors

Ps. Do you like the new format of our e-blast newsletter? A big thank you to Rachael Maddison Creative for the design. Please send any feedback here!

Dear Members, Merchants, and Friends:

At our April Board Meeting this week, RHN’s Safety Committee Chair, Tina Moylan, kindly invited SFPD Commander David Lazar to join us so we could congratulate him in person on his promotion from Captain of Central Station to Commander of the Community Engagement Division. We were thrilled he attended along with his wife, Julie, and their daughter. On behalf of the RHN membership, we thanked Commander Lazar for his incredible responsiveness to our community, for being a welcome fixture at Halloween trick-or-treating and other events, and for the steps he took to address crime in our area, including assigning a patrol car to the blocks around the crooked section of Lombard Street to deter car break-ins. We are glad we will continue to interact with Commander Lazar in his new role in the Community Engagement Division.

Tina Moylan had also arranged for Captain Paul Yep, the new head of Central Station, to stop by our Board Meeting. We were excited to meet Captain Yep and share a bit about RHN’s activities and the safety issues of concern to our members. He echoed Commander Lazar’s focus on the issue of car break-ins and he is eager to gather more input from our community. Welcome, Captain Yep!

I hope you received an email invitation from RHN for our Annual Members’ Meeting on Thursday evening, April 20 at the San Francisco Art Institute. We will host a lovely reception where you can meet your neighbors and near from non-profit and issue-related organizations in our area, as well as speakers including Captain Paul Yep. See more information further down in this e-blast about the Annual Meeting. The RHN Board looks forward to this event as an opportunity to share our activities with all of you and solicit your feedback for the year ahead. I hope to see you there!

Warm regards,
Emily Harrold
President
president@rhnsf.org

Dear Members, Merchants, and Neighbors;

We were thrilled to learn that Cole Hardware, the third-generation, family-owned hardware store with one of its locations at 2254 Polk Street in Russian Hill, was awarded Legacy Business status by the City and County of San Francisco in January of this year. This designation recognizes Cole for its value as a cultural asset in our city and as a signifiant contributor to the history and identity of our area. As so many of you who shop at Cole know, their diversity of products, support of our local community events and initiatives, and, most importantly, the friendly and welcoming approach of their staff, makes them a true gem. Congratulations, Cole!

I also recently became aware that Russian Hill Bookstore at 2230 Polk Street is applying for the same Legacy Business status. This is another treasure of our neighborhood, offering a welcoming atmosphere to browse vintage books, toys, gifts, and an incredible selection of notecards in a warm, community-focused atmosphere. To support their application to the city, Russian Hill Bookstore would appreciate letters from community members describing how the store has positively contributed to the fabric of our area and what we would lose without its presence. Letters should be addressed to the Office of Small Business, but please drop them off at Russian Hill Bookstore or email them to rssnhllb@pacbell.net so that the bookstore can compile everything in their application packet. Letters should be received by Friday, March 24. They are grateful for our support.

In other news, please mark your calendars for the Russian Hill Neighbors’ Annual Members Meeting on Thursday, April 20. This is a chance for you to hear about what our organization has been working on and our goals for the coming year. We are organizing this year’s meeting at the beautiful San Francisco Art Institute at 800 Chestnut Street, home of an extraordinary Diego Rivera mural from 1931. We will host a reception with food and drinks from 6-7pm and the meeting from 7pm on. District Attorney George Gascón is our keynote speaker and we are grateful for our Supervisors and SFPD leaders who are confirmed to attend and provide you with the latest city news and answer your questions. It is sure to be an informative night and chance to interact with your Russian Hill community. Please join us!

I look forward to seeing you around the neighborhood. Please be in touch with any questions or ideas on how RHN can support or get involved with a neighborhood initiative you care about.

Best,
Emily Harrold
President
president@rhnsf.org

Dear Members, Merchants, and Neighbors;

As many of you know, Russian Hill Neighbors has a long history of historic preservation. When our organization was formed in the 1980’s, we worked hard to ensure three notable areas of Russian Hill were added to the National Register of Historic Places: the Vallejo Crest, the 1000 Block of Green Street (the “Paris Block”), and Macondray Lane.

In keeping with our mission to preserve the character of Russian Hill, we are re-doubling our efforts on historic preservation in 2017. We now believe it is vital for historically and architecturally-significant buildings and landmark areas of Russian Hill to achieve San Francisco’s Landmark Designation as outlined in Article 10 of the SF Planning Code. This process allows for the collaborative identification and codification of the important character defining features of a neighborhood. This in turn ensures the appropriateness of proposed changes in these Landmark Districts through additional reviews by the Planning Department and the Historic Preservation Commission.

At our Russian Hill Neighbors’ Board Meeting on February 6, we established an Historic Preservation Fund to make it easier for members to earmark donations to fund this important work, which often includes hiring of experts for historic evaluations. We also committed to supporting neighbors, including the Lombard Hill Improvement Association, in their landmark and historic preservation projects.

Carol Ann Rogers, RHN’s Board Vice President and member of the Design Zoning Land Use Committee (DZLU), has worked successfully for more than 30 years on historic preservation in Russian Hill. She was instrumental in restoring the Vallejo Stairway Gardens, among other projects, and she is leading our efforts again. Please get in touch with Carol Ann via email if you would like to join us.

I hope to see you around our beautiful neighborhood this month!

Warm regards,

Emily Harrold
President
president@rhnsf.org

P.s. Please mark your calendars for our Annual Members Meeting on Thursday evening, April 20. More details to come!

Dear Members, Merchants, and Neighbors:

As I reflect on 2016, I am so proud of all that Russian Hill Neighbors accomplished. Together, we organized or supported more than 40 community events last year. From 10 Neighborhood Sweep events, 5 family get-togethers at Helen Wills Park, and a persimmon tree planting at Michelangelo Park, to a seminar for parents on applying to SF Public Schools, the Alhambra Art Event, Cheers happy hours, Wine & Dine events, monthly book club meetings, safety panels with the SF’s top law enforcement experts, and our largest holiday party yet this past December. Wow! 2016 was incredibly productive and I am grateful for the energy of the volunteer Board of Russian Hill Neighbors who organized it all.

In 2016 we also partnered closely with the merchants in Russian Hill. In September we joined the Polk District Merchants Association in hosting a meeting with Supervisor Aaron Peskin, SF Public Works, and SFMTA to ensure our merchant community could understand how the Polk Streetscape construction project may impact their businesses. We also co-hosted the fun Pumpkin Parade along Polk at Halloween and the Polk Street Wine Walk on Small Business Saturday. We look forward to supporting these events again in 2017. A thriving merchant community, supported by residents, is a key priority of RHN. On this note, we are thrilled to have our largest number of Merchant Members ever and encourage all of you to patronize these wonderful businesses.

Many of the activities I just mentioned above required funding to produce and I wanted to express the RHN Board’s appreciation for all of you who made generous contributions to our organization in 2016. We are ahead of our budget in this regard and we are grateful.

Our membership drive continues as we want to ensure our membership numbers are as strong as possible. Please, if you have not yet renewed your tax-deductible membership, please take a few minutes to do so via our website here. Also, encourage any new neighbors or merchants to join us!

I am confident that 2017 will be another strong year for Russian Hill Neighbors. We recently formalized a Parks Committee and the new Chair, Christine Welland, is looking closely at specific improvements RHN can support which will help to make our area parks even more enjoyable. (If you have any ideas or suggestions, please be in touch with Christine.) Beyond the active work of the other RHN Standing Committees  we are also closely monitoring the Polk Streetscape and Van Ness Improvement Projects, the Crooked Lombard Street project, and the Friends of the Urban Forest’s Russian Hill tree planting initiative. And we still love hosting social events so we can all meet more of our neighbors and enjoy our beautiful corner of San Francisco!

Please do not hesitate to be in touch with me if you have any questions, would like to get more involved, or have concerns you feel RHN may be able to help with.

Before signing off, I wanted to give a special note of appreciation to Mike Moylan, our Communications and Marketing Chair, who manages our website and edits our regular e-blast newsletters throughout they year. These are important and labor-intensive projects which he produces promptly and thoughtfully. Thank you for all of your hard work, Mike!

Best wishes for 2017 and I look forward to seeing you around our beautiful neighborhood.

Warm regards,
Emily Harrold
President
president@rhnsf.org