Lakeside Village’s Kath Tsakalakis Has A Plan For Ocean Avenue

After five years of leading Friends of Lakeside Village, Kath Tsakalakis is continuing her community-building momentum as the Ocean Avenue Association's newest board member.

Tsakalakis has always had a passion for volunteer work. She currently sits on the Political Action Committee for the gun violence prevention group Brady and is a commissioner on the city’s Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District Public Financing Authority No. 1.

When the United Kingdom native first partnered with the association in 2023, she wondered if the community benefit district’s services could be extended to Lakeside Village. From there, she began to volunteer for the nonprofit and helped with the group’s renewal process, which would later include Lakeside Village in its coverage zone.

“I think the thing about the CBD and what’ve been doing here in Lakeside Village for the last five years, it’s a series of details that all add up to something big, beautiful and important,” Tsakalakis said.

The Lakeside Village resident brings a strong consulting background to the board, having retired from Bain & Company’s consulting firm in 2008. Tsakalakis also joins the other five new board members and already has big plans for the nonprofit’s new era. She said she has confidence in the organization, which is undergoing challenges, and is excited about its bright future.

“What I want to do is listen to everybody, what are their priorities, what do they want to see done differently, and then I want to make sure that we have a balanced program of really delivering the benefits to the people who are on the corridor,” Tsakalakis.

The Ingleside Light caught up with Tsakalakis to hear her vision for the association.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How does it feel to officially be on the board?a

I'm really excited about next year. With my Bain experience, one of the things I love doing is working on strategy and implementation of strategy. The last strategic plan that the OAA board did was in 2021, and I was like, Well, look at this, it's perfect timing. That's one of the projects I'm working on that we'll review as a board in the first board meeting next year. We had our kickoff standing committee meeting for fundraising and events, which had three or four board members come, and staff were there, just a really great kickoff to set goals for next year, and talk about an event schedule. [I’m] just really happy to be rolling up my sleeves and getting started. I feel like last year, a lot of last year, what I was doing was helping with the renewal and the expansion, whereas now we can focus on the businesses and the property owners.

What do you envision for tackling various projects throughout the corridor, like storefront vacancies and empty tree wells?

There was a massive tree right out where that sidewalk garden is [in front of Ambrosia Bakery], but it blocked the stop sign. Part of the beautification was also a safety improvement to make the intersection safer. It was a constant thorn in [the owner’s] side, because his customers were always like Nobody's stopping. So similar to what we’ve done here, we will raise money through grants for some of these one-time projects.

That new island that's right [in front], they’re almost done with the project. They’re going to move the stop sign from where it is, where drivers don’t notice it, and put it right on the island so you can’t possibly not see it if you’re driving. Same on the other side. It’s projects like that that say, “OK, this is a dangerous intersection. This is an accident waiting to happen.”

What are the safety hotspots? Where can streetscape really help to improve both beauty and safety? We can get grants and help from District 7. Some of these projects take years, but some grants, for instance, with Avenue Greenlight, we've been able to replace the dead trees and the empty sidewalk gardens.

I think [for storefront vacancies] what we're going to do is the same thing that we have done here, which is just continue the activation, the beautification, the cleaning. When we first started, there were loads of empty storefronts down here, and now there's a dry cleaner on the corner, and there's Villa d'Este. I think there are already encouraging signs. El Rey is sold to The Father’s House San Francisco. They are going to be fantastic tenants. They have a ministry center in the old Walgreens that closed, and they bring people, they bring life, and they volunteer. I think there are already signs of the re-emergence of Ocean Avenue. I think some of the services that the OAA provides, that we’ve tacked onto, are the vacancy report. I can’t tell you the number of times I get calls from people saying, “What spaces are open?” Now, I just direct them to the OAA website. There are some resources like that that the OAA provides really well, but as volunteers, we have never done and I think that’s going to help Lakeside Village and the [Ocean View-Merced Heights-Ingleside].

With your dual roles, as a leader of Friends of Lakeside Village and as a board member for the association, how do you plan on being fair or unbiased in your decision-making?

Oh, it's really easy because we already know exactly the budget allocation for our number of blocks. We're about, let's call it, 15% of the budget, so even yesterday when we were going through the event and activation and programming, I said, “OK, here's Lakeside Village, we're going to do a spring hop. It’s really popular and a candlelight celebration. That's it. OK, now let's talk about the OMI. We have like ten things on the other side. We will get the cleaning and the maintenance, and the graffiti management proportionate to the size of our corridor, so I don't foresee a problem with that at all.

What is one piece of advice you have for someone who wants to get involved with community organizations?

Just volunteer. Show up. Be friendly. Help.