I would like to see Visitation street get some much needed curb appeal. I would like to see no empty storefronts. We could have a nice family style resturant that serves America comfort food. Open for lunch and dinner with breakfast/brunch on Sundays. Or maybe a soda fountain ice cream stores. We could use a tea house that offers high tea for lunch and weekends. Or maybe a multipurpose shop that might have a flower, wine, cheese, dessert and gifts shop featuring our local artists. Maybe it could be a storefront and an online Internet sales company.
We could use a quality grocery store or maybe even a Traders Joe's so we don't have to get into our cars every time we need to do our weekly shopping for our households. It would be nice for our seniors to have a store they could get out and walk to. We could use a pharmacy store.
I go to Half Moon Bay, or other small towns around us, Millbrae, San Bruno, South SF. They all have a main downtown street with little shops and restaurants or services on them.

Maker Spaces are facilities which host tools and workshop space for the community. These spaces are an outgrowth of the larger Maker Movement - perhaps the best known aspect of which is the annual Maker Faire held annually in San Mateo (and across the nation).

What makes the Maker Movement important is that at its heart, it is a force for giving people the confidence and skills to create - whatever. It is the embodiment of "Do it Yourself" (DIY) or even better "Do it Together" (DIT) culture.

Makers make to learn, create, and have fun all for their own sakes. Like shop class without a grade. Or rather, the grade is "did your idea work or not?" And even if it didn't, you still probably learned something incredibly valuable.

There are many examples of Maker Spaces all around us. They come in all shapes and sizes. Tech Shop for example, is a for profit model not unlike a gym membership. Noisebridge in San Francisco, is a non-profit that depends on volunteers. Tinkering School, also in San Francisco, is amazing. The Berkeley Adventure playground is also a sort of Maker Space. If Brisbane copied this model, I have no doubt it would attract a strong following throughout the Peninsula.

My belief is that a small scale Maker Space, ideally in downtown, hopefully in the former Teen Center, would be a very cheap investment in the future of Brisbane's children, its broader citizenry, and the town itself.

Here are some reasons:

1. A Maker Space would fill in large gaps in our educational system.

College costs have risen 500% since 1985, and employment rates among college graduates (25 and under), are abysmal. "Knowledge worker" jobs, once considered the saving opportunity for middle class aspiration, are increasingly sent offshore, or automated. We could have the best schools around, and they would still over-emphasize performing well on tests, not solving real-world problems.

2. A Maker Space provides a forum for building community

They are a rallying point for exchanging ideas and bringing them to life. The bigger the better. Nothing brings people together like an old fashioned "barn raising" event. Think about how valuable this could be, especially for teens with idle hands. Maker Spaces literally teach "hands on" learning. But since its rare for any of us to have all the tools and knowledge to build something novel, we must seek to fill in these gaps directly from our immediate community. That's what the Maker Space is for.

Consider our annual derby. A Maker Space would be a perfect resource for bringing together families to help make their carts. Tools could be shared. Ideas exchanged. Parts re-used. Pride in workmanship taught. People getting out from behind their computers and isolated garages, and coming together.

In conclusion, I hope you consider this idea. A Maker Space can be scaled to the resources available. We can start small, with a simple tool lending library, and/or a small space, and some folks will to share what they know about building anything from houses, to robots. Brisbane seems to have an abundant number of people like these.

Thanks,

David Fraser

Brisbane walkability would be increased significantly if the sidewalks were cleared of parked cars. By strategic conversion of certain streets or blocks to one-way traffic flow, you can narrow the driving surface (reducing from 2 lane to 1 lane width) and continue to allow emergency vehicle and local access while benefiting from moving parking from the sidewalk and into the street. This would not reduce the amount parking available. It would give us the ability to have a clear walking surface, options for plants and trees in the 'parking strip' and potentially increase property values due to the increased livability. Not all streets would be chosen. Only those that are potentially wide enough to benefit (such as Mendocino and Klamath west of Visitacion).

A lot of artist communities have whole weekends where they publish a map and people can go to artists' spaces and see their work. It can be quite a big event. It seems like we have a large artistic community that may (or may not :)) be interested in doing something like this. It would be an event that would draw outsiders (which I know is always controversial) but could help present Brisbane as an artistic community to the wider world. You could also have the Lions do bbq, and have entertainment in the park, etc. It could be a pretty cool thing and goes along with enhancing our image as a arts-positive town.

With inclement and brutal winter weather threatening closure of the Farmer's Market, it might be a great idea to relocate it indoors into the Community Center for the season. This would keep the Market open, and provide a central location that would be a bit more convenient and just as recognizable.

I never shopped outdoors on Thursday Market days after work when it was dark and cold and windy, but I'd go to the well lit, warm and comfortable CC, for sure. Being able to get indoors to shop on a Sunday morning would be much more pleasant, too.

There are places to offload product for the vendors both in front and in the back of the facility, with room for seating for coffee and cookie sales by MOB or food from the Lions or whatever organization wanted to vend (like the Girls Scouts or the fund raisers sponsored by BEST). That "cracker barrel" space would increase community interactions and would add to our already robust home town charm.

In addition, it would likely increase ancillary sales at Midtown Market.