It’s your house, so go ahead and paint it

Hoodline recently reported that Ruben Flores, an Inner Sunset resident who had emblazoned a deep retaining wall at the back of his hillside home with the words “No Ban, No Wall,” had painted over the message. He said that someone had complained to the city, and that he’d received a letter from authorities asking him to cover it, or the city would paint it over and charge him. When he learned he needed a permit, he decided to cover it up for now. Flores, born in Mexico and living in the United States for nine years, expressed disappointment that what he considered an act of conscience had been thwarted.

The city’s Department of Public Works confirms that a blight notice was issued in late February. The DPW’s Rachel Gordon says, however, that the property owner did not respond by telling DPW he wanted to retain the work. “He could have informed us that he wanted it to remain (no permit required), and the blight notice would have been removed.”

So this is a public service announcement: If it’s your own property, paint away, San Franciscans.

The highlight of The Chronicle’s Visionary of the Year dinner on Thursday, March 30, was winner Priscilla Chan’s heartfelt response to her award. In a voice roughedged by emotion, the pediatrician-philanthropist said she never could have imagined where her life would lead. “In San Francisco,” she said afterward, as admirers swarmed around, “you can make amazing things happen.”

The event, described in Bob Egelko’s news story, was marked not only by a sense of community, but also by a lack of the political commentary that has so often dominated public occasions in recent months. It was a feel-good night.

That said, on the way out, I encountered Fine Arts Museums Board of Trustees President Dede Wilsey, usually a defender of the Republican party, who started our chat with a one-liner ( “Trump went to Washington and thought he could play Monopoly, but he ended up playing Sorry”). She went on to express anger about proposed federal budget cuts to the National Endowment for the Arts, especially focusing on the threatened abolition of the government’s Arts and Artifacts Indemnity Program that insures art sent from abroad to be shown in U.S. exhibitions.

Cutting the program would be devastating to our museums, she said, and she is setting out for New York and Washington to “talk to every politician I’ve ever given money to. I’m calling in my markers. It’s a no-brainer. There’s no downside” to the program. “And the NEA can’t go away.”

The scheduled April 11 appearance of political trickster Roger Stone at the Commonwealth Club is off. This was not due to criticism from locals who’d complained about his tactics and his vulgar responses to political adversaries. The cancellation came from Stone himself, who is the subject of a Senate Intelligence Committee investigation about connections between Russia and the Trump campaign. He tweeted: “I have canceled my speech at the Commonwealth Club in SF — death threats. Shame. Was looking forward to lunch with my pal Willie Brown.” (Incidentally, the April 19 program with former Mexican President Vicente Fox, mentioned herein a few days ago — still on — is a Commonwealth Club event, too.)

PUBLIC EAVESDROPPING “A cane is like a training bra: It provides temporary support and then, hopefully, you outgrow it.” Elderly man to elderly man, overheard at Moonstone Restaurant in Cambria (San Luis Obispo County) by Steve Abney

The San Francisco Symphony’s tribute to Brent Assink, the executive director who left that job at the end of March, was, as Joshua Kosman has written, a perfect evening, during which much polished language — “unquestionably the finest ... simply the best ... highest standards,” said event chair John Goldman — was employed to describe the honoree.

Tall and lanky Assink has a kind of Midwestern grace, and while of course he was pleased to be so honored at an all-out admiration-fest, modesty is his natural mode. When past board President Nancy Bechtel presented him with a custom-made leather jacket with “Eagle-Eye Assink” on the back (because he was noted for catching typos in symphony paperwork), he modeled it but didn’t strut.

Assink was lauded as a smart and effective administrator, but there was more to be said: When it was maestro Michael Tilson Thomas’ turn at the microphone, he recalled a longago gig conducting the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. Upon arrival, “I was met by a young man who was an artistic liaison. He was very tall and very good-looking. I am happy to say that I behaved in a most respectful manner. Even though he told me that he was an organist.”

I thought it would be rude to turn around to see whether Assink was blushing.