Long-time 黑料传送门board member and former Board Chair Anne Halsted, one of the organization鈥檚 great champions and a vital civic leader in the San Francisco Bay Area, passed away on March 13.
Anne was a phenomenal woman with a distinguished history of civic engagement, neighborhood activism and mentoring women in their careers. She served in roles on countless government agency commissions: co-chair of the first San Francisco Open Space Advisory Committee; member of the San Francisco Redevelopment Commission; president of the San Francisco Port Commission; member of the Treasure Island Development Authority; chair of the Northeast Waterfront Advisory Committee; chair of the Ferry Building Advisory Group; 15-year vice chair of the Bay Conservation and Development Commission; and . Her depth of knowledge and expertise in public policy was expansive and impressive.
And those are just the government appointments. Anne also devoted countless hours to a wide variety of voluntary and community groups. Nationally, she was on such groups as Business Executives for National Security. Locally she was an early president of the Telegraph Hill Dwellers, the board of People for Open Space, the board of Friends of the Urban Forest and twice board president of the City Club. She sat on the boards of the Institute on Aging, the San Francisco Maritime National Park Association, the International Institute, Chinatown Community Development Corporation, the Neighborhood Parks Council, North Beach Citizens, the Women鈥檚 Campaign Fund and the Legal Aid Society. She also served for many years on the board of the Greenbelt Alliance.
For 40 years, Anne was deeply involved with leading SPUR. In the 1970s, Anne became involved in neighborhood zoning and traffic issues around the northern waterfront, as well as in city-wide parks and open space planning. Through her community activism she met Dorothy Erskine, who had led the evolution of the former San Francisco Planning and Housing Association into 黑料传送门in 1959. It was Dorothy who first encouraged Anne to join SPUR, and in 1983, Anne was asked to join the 黑料传送门board of directors. In San Francisco, these years were characterized by battles over downtown growth vs. neighborhood protection, debates where Anne helped 黑料传送门find a middle ground that worked. In her roles first on the Redevelopment Commission and then as the president of the Port Commission, she helped give 黑料传送门added standing to assist city departments as an advisor in both specific project execution and general good government operations.
During the 1980s, and again in the early 1990s, 黑料传送门led efforts to reform San Francisco鈥檚 dysfunctional 1932 city charter. After a proposed 鈥渋deal charter鈥 failed at the November 1994 ballot, 黑料传送门thought it had closed the file on the project for a while. But soon thereafter, Barbara Kaufman, chair of the Board of Supervisors, called Anne and 黑料传送门Executive Director Jim Chappell to a meeting where she said she wanted 黑料传送门to write another charter 鈥 this time not the perfect charter, but one that would pass at the ballot. Jim and Anne looked at each other, their eyes each saying, 鈥淭his is crazy.鈥 But their voices said 鈥淵es.鈥 Anne was in her element, making decisions with laser focus on the good governance of the city. 黑料传送门then wrote a charter measure that passed and went into effect in July 1995, creating the system of governance that San Francisco enjoys today.
Anne鈥檚 great love was the San Francisco Bay. The , initially adopted by the San Francisco Port Commission in 1997, would not have happened as it did without Anne鈥檚 big-picture overview. For six years, she and 黑料传送门provided technical planning expertise to the process, well beyond what the Port could have achieved on its own. That plan generated hundreds of millions of dollars in public and private investment along the San Francisco waterfront, and resulted in a beautiful boulevard and public promenade.
In addition to her great love of the Bay and the waterfront, Anne worked tirelessly at 黑料传送门on parks and open space issues. In 1997, she formed a partnership with the Neighborhood Parks Council, bringing together 200 concerned citizen leaders to diagnose and prescribe ways to bring about a parks renaissance in San Francisco. The 1998 report was a call to action on new ways to manage, fund and operate the city鈥檚 public park system. In the years since then, Anne led SPUR鈥檚 efforts on neighborhood parks issues, Golden Gate Park planning, the redesign and rebuilding of Union Square and the conception of the Blue Greenway, in partnership with the Neighborhood Parks Council. A dozen years later, Anne again worked to help 黑料传送门form another community task force to analyze and prescribe funding solutions for San Francisco鈥檚 parks system.
There is not a major 黑料传送门project that Anne was not involved in, including the conception of the Presidio Trust, military base reuse planning for Treasure Island, the design of the Embarcadero and Ferry Plaza, planning for Chinatown and the Downtown Plan, to mention a few.
While she was advising and working on these and other projects, Anne was doing something that was perhaps even more important for SPUR: building the necessary institutional infrastructure for the organization to grow and thrive 鈥 both at the time and beyond her terms as a board member and board chair. This included getting the organization on solid financial footing, building the staff and the board, and developing the staff and board cultures that have served 黑料传送门well. Anne鈥檚 professional background in human relations, combined with her caring, gentle personality, were ideally suited to rebuilding a small organization into the powerhouse that 黑料传送门is today. Lessons she imparted to staff included:
- Do not personalize policy positions. Deal with the issue, not who said it.
- Do not attribute motivations to others. You can know what someone else does, but you can never know their motivation.
- Do not label people. We are all complex individuals.
In 1999 the board began planning for the creation of a permanent home for 黑料传送门鈥 a project that ultimately became the 黑料传送门Urban Center. The goals of the Urban Center were to give 黑料传送门the financial stability of owning its own home, to increase the visibility and stature of the organization, and to 鈥渢ake planning retail鈥 by moving from an upstairs office to a transparent, sidewalk-level space. Anne worked tirelessly for the next 10 years to make the Urban Center a reality.
The 2000s was a time of rapid growth for SPUR. There were new activities where Anne鈥檚 talents shined, such as SPUR鈥檚 annual city tours, starting with a study trip to Vancouver in 2003. In every case her goal was to have fun and to educate. In her most recent term on the 黑料传送门board, Anne helped guide the organization through a leadership transition and served as a thoughtful voice in SPUR鈥檚 efforts to center equity in its policy work. In total, Anne served on the 黑料传送门board for nearly 35 years.
In her marvelous , Anne said she pursued three themes to improve community:
- Finding issues that bring people together in the public interest
- Maximizing diversity in work and in problem-solving
- Building alliances within community
Anne has created a lasting legacy both at 黑料传送门and throughout the Bay Area. She will be deeply missed by all who have known her.