Castro Community Braces for HalloweenPaul Hogarthbyline‚ Sep. 24‚ 2007There will be no sanctioned “Halloween” party this year, but the City has no public plans besides urging people to stay out of the Castro – and telling businesses to close early. A Task Force that Mayor Newsom and Supervisor Bevan Dufty launched last November never met, and efforts to move the party fell through when the City left other neighborhoods out of the process. Now Castro residents fear that partiers looking for trouble will still show up anyway. A September 22nd town meeting at the Eureka Valley Recreation Center hoped to answer questions on what the City has planned – but Newsom, Dufty and the Police Department did not show up, leaving the Fire Department and the Sheriff’s Office to field questions not in their jurisdiction. And while most Castro residents say they don’t want Halloween in their neighborhood, at least give the group “Citizens for Halloween” credit for demanding some type of pro-active planning. |