Everything below is for the press. Pull quotes are taken directly from the public site. Benjamin is the organizer and is available for interviews on short notice — the fastest path is email.
SoMa Parks is a neighbor-organized civic campaign asking San Francisco to permit off-leash dog use of the fenced ballfield at Victoria Manalo Draves Park during unbooked hours, and to redirect park-ranger enforcement to the open drug use happening fifty feet from the Bessie Carmichael Elementary School playground.
Victoria Manalo Draves Park is a SoMa neighborhood park adjacent to Bessie Carmichael Elementary School in San Francisco. For roughly three years, a self-organized community of neighbors has used the unbooked corners of the park, including the fenced ballfield, for off-leash dog play — cleaning up after their animals, picking up other trash, and working around the field’s booked schedule. In recent weeks, park rangers have begun citing those dog owners while open drug use continues within fifty feet of the elementary-school playground. The contrast — uniformed city employees enforcing against responsible park users while ignoring the most visible public-safety issue on the same patch of grass — is the question the campaign is putting to City Hall.
1. Off-leash use during unbooked hours. Permit off-leash use of the fenced ballfield during unbooked hours. The field is enclosed, the community already self-coordinates around bookings, and a formal policy would let neighbors use the space they already use — without the threat of fines for doing what every reasonable observer agrees is harmless.
2. Redirect ranger enforcement. Redirect ranger enforcement to actual public-safety conditions. Drug use within fifty feet of a schoolyard is not a 311 problem to be shrugged off — it is exactly what park rangers exist to address.
When the ranger was asked about the drug use, his response was to ask whether 311 had been called. It has. Repeatedly.
This is not a competing-priorities problem. This is a city employee, on the clock, choosing in real time to enforce against the people picking up dog waste while ignoring people smoking drugs in front of children.
Benjamin will give additional on-the-record quotes by email or phone — reach him at the press contact above.
The campaign is deliberately narrow. It does not ask the City to solve homelessness, expand off-leash policy to other parks, change ranger personnel, or stop enforcement generally. It asks for two specific changes at one specific park. Framings beyond that are not the campaign’s.
Additional photos of the park, the school adjacency, and the off-leash use — taken by Benjamin — are available on request.
The campaign is organized by Benjamin, a SoMa resident and three-year daily user of Victoria Manalo Draves Park. He filed the original formal complaint to Mayor Lurie, Supervisor Dorsey, and Rec & Park leadership before building this site to make it easy for other neighbors to send their own letters. The campaign is not affiliated with any official organization, advocacy group, or political campaign.
Email hello@somaparks.org for interviews, additional materials, or fact-checks. Benjamin typically responds within 24 hours.