It was a sunny day and the die hard fans of the festival put their best foot forward. I did see many children and this bodes well for the Portola District. As always - the Asian community turnouts in force every year and as one that lives in the Portola District - we welcome everyone.

It would be wise for the Portola Neighborhood Steering Committee to continue the best practice of selling the T-shirts with the Portola Festival Logo as they did last year. A memento such as the well designed T-shirt allows one to take away something to return every year. Just a suggestion to the one novice volunteer who insisted that the T-shirts were only for volunteers and not for sale.

The Portola District and the businesses on San Bruno contribute millions of dollars in business taxes and home taxes to the City and County of San Francisco. So the measly $3000 we get from the San Francisco Arts Commission and the little if nothing from the Mayor's Office of Economic does not do justice to the Portola District, Annual Portola Festival.

The sunny day brought out the many children who were having fun. The mini-zoo is always a hit and it was a delight to see the twinkle in the eyes of the children as they rode the donkeys and fed the chickens and other animals. There were the rides and even one that reached the sky.

I have posted some photographs of the many booths - there were lots of booths serving one of a kind food and other booths with clothing, art, and the many things that festivals attract.

Some of us look forward to better outreach and we should demand that the City and County of San Francisco not only fleece us by taxing us but giving us our just due. We can do better with this recently resurrected Portola Festival.