Volume 43 Number 21 Archives — Page 2 of 2 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

Hear, here

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February 17, 2009

› johnny@sfbg.com

As I walk into City Hall, I hear a horn from the street — not a car horn, but a single trumpet. Further inside, what might be a few notes from a harpsichord hover in the air, followed by the twitters and chirps of swooping birds. A man sits on the steps at the foot of the rotunda stairs, looking up in slight bewilderment, wondering where in the hell the trees and small jungle might be. The source of these sounds is above him, by the rotunda’s dome — eight transducers installed by sound artist Bill Fontana that employ echolocation as part of a site-specific sound sculpture titled Spiraling Echoes.

A few days later, I step out of the rain and onto a wet 22 Fillmore bus, with a persistent hum, drone, or whine in my ears. I’m wearing headphones and listening to Jacob Kirkegaard’s latest recording, Labyrinthitis (Touch Music/Fonik). I hear hearing: Kirkegaard produced the piece by inserting tiny microphones into his ears to record the frequencies — otoacoustic emissions — produced by hairs within the cochlea. Labyrinthitis is both a recording and a live performance, and the live version, during which the audience’s ears are transformed into an orchestra conducted by Kirkegaard, might be even more radical and inventive.

While one work might seem vast and exterior and the other almost infinitely interior in nature, these two sound projects have more than a few things in common. The CD version of Kirkegaard’s Labyrinthitis includes a short piece by the composer Anthony Moore, who conducted an extended interview with Fontana in 2005 that surveyed Fontana’s projects. Labyrinthitis comes with a more extensive essay written in San Francisco by Douglas Kahn. A deeper resonance, however, stems from audio and visual correlations between City Hall’s rotunda and the human ear. Photos of the rotunda’s dome visibly echo the images of the spiraling interior roof of the Medical Museion in Copenhagen, where Kirkegaard created Labyrinthitis, a roof that plays a central role in the recording’s material packaging. Both structures evoke the interior of an ear.

Spiraling Echoes is a more playful work. It’s in keeping with some of Fontana’s other pieces in iconic sites — through sound, he’s taken apart Big Ben’s timekeeping, replaced the traffic noise around the Arc de Triomphe with sea ambience, and brought Niagara Falls to New York City’s Whitney Museum. For more than thirty years, Fontana has made a practice of bringing the "natural" into man-made realms — there is a potent current of environmentalism within his aesthetic. This is true of Spiraling Echoes‘ quicksilver collage of bird chatter, trickling water, and streetcar and church bells, which darts up and down four public-access floors of City Hall in a manner that magnifies the beauty of the architecture and plays with historical markers, such as the smile on a statue of Harvey Milk. (One can imagine Milk enjoying this piece and, eventually, being driven batty by it.) The infusion of nature is a subtle hint to not trash monuments, and in turn the environment, in order to create newer architecture. It’s tempting to suggest prankish unauthorized versions of Fontana’s project in commercial sites such as downtown malls.

Another characteristic that Spiraling Echoes and Labyrinthitis share is the ability to produce disorientation. Fontana’s piece brought out the Scotty Ferguson in me through its combination of surprising sound and potentially dizzying height. Kirkegaard incites a similar lack of balance no matter where one is standing — the title of Labyrinthitis refers to a balance disorder that can be related to tinnitus. It’s easy to imagine a Pekingese ripping out its owner’s jugular upon encountering the recording’s relentless low-key yet high-pitched intensity, what musicologists might refer to as "Tartini tone." With Labyrinthitis, Kirkegaard has given new and revelatory meaning to the idea of a cochlear implant. I hope he performs his piece in San Francisco one day. Recombinant Media Labs, for one, would be an ideal setting.

SPIRALING ECHOES

Through May 8, free

City Hall

www.sfacgallery.org

Notes from the Politics blog

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February 17, 2009

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If you’ve been reading the Guardian‘s Politics blog, you know that battles between and within some major California labor unions — including Service Employees International Union, SEIU’s United Healthcare Workers, the newly formed National Union of Healthcare Workers, and the California Nurses Association — are dividing the movement at a crucial time for progressive politics.

From important federal legislation such as the landmark Employee Free Choice Act to state legislation like the single-payer healthcare bill that Sen. Mark Leno plans to reintroduce in the coming months, philosophical and turf battles between unions have hurt labor’s ability to successfully counter corporate power.

"The fight inside SEIU [involving all four unions mentioned above] is one that is going to hurt our ability to pursue and pass legislation important not just to health care workers but workers in general," labor writer David Bacon told the Guardian. "There’s lots of energy going into jurisdictional battles and I think employers will use this fight against us … Sometimes it feels like we’re going backward."

But the battles continue. On Feb. 18, NUHW plans to picket outside UHW’s Oakland offices, protesting SEIU’s efforts to hinder NUHW organizing efforts (which we discuss more online). Philosophical differences between SEIU (which has close relationships with national corporate and political leaders) and unions like NUHW and CNA (which take more adversarial roles with employers and push for fundamental reforms such as single-payer health care) animate the debate.

Meanwhile, even more radicalized unions such as the International Longshore Workers Union have increasingly taken strong stances on immigrant rights and social justice issues like the BART police shooting of passenger Oscar Grant, which they discussed at a Feb. 14 rally that featured UC Santa Cruz professor and activist Angela Davis.

For more on the unfolding labor movement battles and what it means for progressive politics, keep reading the Guardian‘s Politics blog.

The wheels come off

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February 17, 2009

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› sarah@sfbg.com

Criticism of Mayor Gavin Newsom’s handling of the city’s budget crisis has intensified since the mayor refused to attend consensus-building sessions at City Hall, instead choosing to promote his gubernatorial bid and push a flawed "local economic stimulus package" that will only make the deficit larger.

The wheels began to come off Newsom’s public relations machine when news hit that Newsom refused to attend roundtables that board president David Chiu convened to discuss the city’s financial emergency. These meetings marked the first time business and labor leaders were brought together since the mayor announced the city’s $575 million deficit two months ago.

"I’ve asked the mayor to convene these meetings, but obviously that hasn’t happened," Chiu told the Guardian last week. "He has said he plans to convene them soon."

Insiders say Chiu was told that the mayor, his chief of staff, and his budget analyst will not attend the roundtables until a June special election is off the table, but that Newsom is open to considering revenue measures for a November election. As a compromise, Chiu proposed moving the election to late summer.

Mayoral spokesperson Nathan Ballard told the Guardian that the mayor has been holding a series of meetings with labor, business, elected officials, and community leaders on the budget, but Ballard hasn’t yet fulfilled the Guardian‘s Sunshine Ordinance request for details and documents connected to those meetings.

"Some of those meetings have included Supervisor Chiu and other supervisors," Ballard said. "However, the mayor is not scheduled to attend meetings about a summer special election to raise taxes, which he opposes."

That position places Newsom squarely with the business community, which continues to maintain that it is too early to develop revenue measures and that structural budget reforms should be considered first.

On Jan. 29, Steve Falk, executive director of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, wrote to Chiu that "Any action to call a special election without the specifics of proposed tax measures and Charter amendments would be premature and doomed to failure. City government can take steps that either help to stimulate a quick recovery or, through the wrong actions, extend the downturn by placing greater burdens on local employers."

But labor groups believe that revenue boosts are necessary if San Francisco is to weather the economic tsunami, and that it’s unreasonable to demand that their members give back millions in negotiated pay raises while forgoing revenue options. These concerns, attendees report, are publicly aired at Chiu’s roundtables, and Newsom’s refusal to participate has left city workers feeling alienated.

"He wants Labor to come to the table, but the problem is, his whole approach is all stick and no carrot, all doom and gloom and no hope that there is revenue on the horizon," SEIU Local 1021’s Robert Haaland told the Guardian.

Noting that labor anticipates 2,500 layoffs in the coming year, on top of the 400 city workers who were laid off this month, Haaland said, "Our people provide frontline services. This is about the wheels of government coming off."

Sup. Bevan Dufty, who participated in Chiu’s roundtables with Sups. John Avalos and Sean Elsbernd, praised Chiu for bringing together stakeholders, even as he extended hope that Newsom will assume the leadership role. "It always helps to have people face-to-face," Dufty said. "David primed the pump, got people to start talking. I’m looking forward to the mayor taking it to the next level."

Dufty said Newsom was "disappointed with the board’s override of his veto [of the June special election], doesn’t see a June election working, and doesn’t understand why the board is reluctant to let it go…. But from our point of view, it’s hard to ask employees to give back $90 million in negotiated benefits if they are going to be laid off in three months anyway."

Falk, who represents almost 2,000 local businesses, wrote that "The business community recognizes that a $500 million budget shortfall can only be bridged through a combination of reductions in the size of city government, program consolidations, work-rule reforms, and new fees and revenues. However, any solution must be the product of discussions with all affected parties at the table. To date, these meetings have not happened."

Chiu replied to that letter by inviting key business and labor groups to his Feb. 8 City Hall roundtable. Attendees report that a productive dialogue ensued, and two days later, when the board overturned Newsom’s veto of its special election legislation, the impacts of that first roundtable were palpable.

"I respect the mayor’s perspective, but I believe that by getting on with the election, less damage will be done," Chiu explained as the supervisors pushed ahead with their plans to hold a special election this summer.

Elsbernd opposed the election but expressed frustration with the current situation: "The city is facing a multi-year problem. People are missing the big picture here. I don’t want to be part of brokering a deal that is simply going to be a Band-Aid. Let’s fix the problems now. "

"You could tell the impact of Sean having sat in on the discussions," Dufty observed. "Instead of ‘Get over it, this is the way it’s going to be,’ he understands that we have to work together."

Falk told the Guardian that he found Chiu’s roundtable "very productive."

"Everyone is feeling the pain of this recession," Falk continued. "People are losing jobs, businesses are losing sales, which results in layoffs, which results in a bigger strain on the city’s services. It’s all connected."

But he also noted that a special election on taxes requires a two-thirds vote. "That is a very difficult hurdle," Falk noted, "which is why we have to consider all the pieces, and as we do, the more we realize that June is out of the question."

Chiu continues to reach out to his critics, countering arguments that a special election will cost $3.5 million — and will be impossible to do by summer — with the observation that, done right, it could result in $50 million to $100 million in additional revenues and thereby spare some vital jobs and programs.

"We’re facing a $565 million budget deficit, so if we can raise $100 million, we’ll still have to cut $465 million. But it would save us from making the most painful cuts," Chiu said, noting he would support pushing the election to no later than Aug. 31 "if there were more firm agreement on elements of a plan that must include structural reforms, layoffs and wage concessions, and new revenues."

But Ballard said, "The mayor doesn’t support more revenue without real reform," while promising that Newsom would shortly announce "new cost-saving reforms."

Unveiled the next morning, Feb. 11, during a mayor’s breakfast with business leaders, Newsom’s so-called local economic stimulus package included more spending on tourism marketing, targeted reduction in the payroll and property taxes, a $23 million interest-free revolving loan program for local businesses, and tax relief for Healthy San Francisco participants. The package, which must be approved by the board, would actually increase the city’s budget deficit.

Chiu says he is open to discussing most ideas in Newsom’s economic stimulus package, but that he’s concerned about widening the deficit, telling us, "That is why this needs to be done in the context of an overall revenue package and not in a vacuum."

Wrecked park department

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February 17, 2009

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› news@sfbg.com

On Feb. 13, in a fourth floor hearing room in City Hall, large crowds of San Francisco Recreation and Park Department workers and supporters showed up on short notice to hear how the department was going to be gutted by deep budget cuts.

Overflow crowds of spilled into adjacent rooms to hear interim department director Jared Blumenfeld announce impending cuts to staff and hours. Although the department’s Web site stresses that "all parks, playgrounds, recreation centers, pools, golf courses, gyms, art centers, senior centers, and clubhouses will remain open," the cuts are so deep that all involved knew that the services and facilities will be shadows of their former selves.

Many people told the Guardian that they are also concerned that the process is intended to facilitate privatization of many Rec and Park functions, giving city jobs to contract workers who will not be able to duplicate the experience or connection to communities of the city workers they replace.

The Rec-Park Commission will have another hearing on the cuts at 2 p.m. Feb 19 in City Hall, Room 416, with more time for public comment. Activists working for more equitable cuts will stage a protest rally beforehand across from City Hall at 1 p.m.

At the meeting, numerous youngsters and their parents spoke of recreation directors mentoring kids who have few other positive influences in their lives. Many of these Rec and Park workers will be on the receiving end of pink slips at the end of the month. Blumenfeld announced that 51 full-time equivalent recreation director positions would be cut (the actual number of layoffs will be even higher given than many of the workers are part time).

Blumenfeld explained that $11.4 million needs to be cut from Rec and Park’s budget of the total budget about $140 million. He described some new ways to raise revenue, including charging entrance fees for the Botanical Garden, increasing pool fees, and charging the SF Public Library rent for the 32,000 square feet where local branches operate on public park land.

But even critics of the department say Blumenfeld is more accessible than his predecessor, Yomi Agunbiade, who was forced out last year after he came under fire for some of his privatization schemes and personnel issues. But raiding library funding, which is protected by voter-approved budget set-asides, is likely to create a backlash from the public.

Blumenfeld said he regretted tapping library funds, but said the move is being forced by budgetary realities. "Ultimately, this is a Lord of the Flies situation," he said.

Leah Grant of the group Friends of Potrero Hill told the Guardian at the hearing that the playground near where she lives was recently chained shut, leaving at-risk kids locked out. In an e-mail after the meeting, she wrote that it is "very, very difficult to accept that the programs for the disabled and at-risk children are going to be thrown under the bus while the privatization continues to the advantage of the wealthy and the taxpayers of San Francisco are literally being robbed of our public parks."

Grant also expressed concern that the City Fields Foundation, backed by Gap, Inc. founder Donald Fisher, a controversial funder of conservative causes in San Francisco, has essentially been taking over parks across the city and would further benefit from this year’s restructuring by filling the void with privatized services.

Blumenfeld insisted that "rumors" of privatization were unfounded, but admitted that Mayor Gavin Newsom’s nonprofit public-private partnership Rec Connect model is a key part of the mix in the new budget arrangements. As the Guardian reported ("Connect the connects," Oct. 17, 2007), the Rec Connect model is "private, funded by undisclosed corporate donations, staffed by volunteers who are often city employees or [Newsom’s] campaign donors, and unaccountable to any internal controls or outside scrutiny."

One department employee, who spoke off the record due to concerns about job security, told the Guardian that "there is not the same level of accountability for those in the Rec Connect program. If they leave the building where they are working, there is not necessarily anyone who is watching them."

Sources within the department say there will be 10 new Rec Connect sites opened to offset the budget cuts, a move that comes at a time when Newsom is trying to raise significant money for his nascent gubernatorial campaign.

"I feel like they’re using the financial crisis to push something they’ve been trying to accomplish for a long time," the source said. "And with this model, there are three to four layers of paid bureaucracy before these monies get to the kids. What they aren’t telling the public is that it is actually cheaper to allow Rec and Park workers to do our job than to pay the nonprofits, even though the workers the nonprofits contract out are making a lower hourly wage."

Lorraine Hanks, a recreation director who has worked with Rec and Park for 16 years, shared similar dissatisfaction with the Rec Connect program. In a phone interview, Hanks told us that "Rec Connect was supposed to come in and create innovative programs. They didn’t do that. They wound up doing the same things we were already doing."

Rec Connect spokesperson Jo Mestelle didn’t return Guardian calls for comment by press time.

Hanks also noted that "under Proposition J, 50 percent of funding was supposed to go to Rec and Park, and 50 percent was supposed to go to DCYF [Department of Children, Youth and their Families]. If we had that original 50 percent, we wouldn’t have to lay anyone off."

On the way out of Friday’s meeting, Betty Traynor of Friends of Boeddeker Park told us that many seniors and youngsters in the Tenderloin will have no park or safe public space to go to if the proposed cuts to hours go through, and that important programs for kids and seniors will be eliminated. Traynor added that the cuts "will also reduce hours for adult users of the park who have no other open green space in the Tenderloin."

Rec and Park employee Brando Rogers said the cuts would hurt youth who have developed relationships with employees and value these after school programs. "These are long-term relationships," she told us. "They can’t be replaced by seasonal contract workers. I’m worried that if these precious mentors have their jobs eliminated, the neighborhoods will just be decimated."

Is inequality making us sick?

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February 17, 2009

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OPINION The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and the middle class gets squeezed. It’s gone on so long, we hardly get angry anymore. But we do get sick.

Several recent studies indicate that the life expectancy gap between the most and least deprived Americans has widened since the early 1980s, paralleling the growing economic inequality during the same period. And, if the past is an accurate gauge, today’s economic crisis will only make things worse.

The wealth-health gradient is evident everywhere, even here in San Francisco. According to the SF Department of Public Health, rates for congestive heart failure are 42 percent higher in the Sunset than St. Francis Wood/West Portal; 131 percent higher in Mission/Bernal Heights, and 279 percent higher in Bayview/Hunters Point.

Contrary to myth, it’s not the CEOs who are dropping dead from heart attacks; it’s their subordinates. And it’s not violence or drugs that are the biggest killers in poor neighborhoods but chronic diseases.

Some point the finger at our broken health insurance system. But studies suggest medical care accounts for only about 15 percent of our health gap. That’s because health care repairs our bodies when they break down; it doesn’t affect what makes us sick in the first place.

What about making healthy choices? Don’t the poor smoke more and eat unhealthy foods? True — it’s hard to eat well if you live in a food desert like the Bayview, where there are no supermarkets. But even after correcting for individual behaviors, health inequalities remain. Poor smokers are more likely to get sick than rich smokers.

Many factors affecting health have little to do with individual behaviors. They include exposure to lead and other toxics; the quality of schools; the outsourcing of jobs; proximity of parks; the wages and benefits companies pay; exposure to discrimination; secure, quality housing; affordable preschool … When these conditions are distributed unequally, so is our health.

A century ago, U.S. life expectancy was about 48 years. Much of the 30-year increase since is due not to new drugs or medical technologies, but to improved living conditions. The abolition of child labor, the eight-hour workday, housing and sanitation codes, and other reforms won working Americans a bigger share of our growing prosperity.

By 1976, thanks to civil rights, Medicare, and other progressive policies, economic inequality had reached a 20th century low. The health gap between rich and poor, as well as that between whites and African Americans narrowed between 1966 and 1980.

Then we reversed course. While most European countries were providing paid parental leave, universal preschool, four or more weeks of paid vacations, and guaranteed health care, the United States, starting with the Reagan administration, cut taxes on the rich, slashed social programs, and deregulated business and banking. Economic inequality in the U.S. is now greater than it’s been since the 1920s. The consequence? The health gap is growing again too.

The wide class and racial inequities in the U.S. and the health inequalities they drive are not natural. They are the products of social policies that we as a society have made — and can make differently. We once did. Solutions lie not with new drugs or technologies, but our political priorities.

Larry Adelman is executive producer of the documentary series Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick? (www.unnaturalcauses.org ) Find out more about the health of San Francisco neighborhoods at www.thehdmt.org and www.healthmattersinsf.org.

Compostmodern

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February 17, 2009

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› news@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY The easier a compost bucket is to use, the more people will use it. But Compostmodern ’09 isn’t about compost at all — it’s about design. This annual event is a collaboration between the American Institute for Graphic Artists (AIGA) and the Academy of Art University that examines the intersection of design and environmental sustainability.

This weekend’s conference, held at various locations around San Francisco, features talks and slide shows by local designers, art installations, workshops, and demonstration projects proving that brown is the new green.

"I’m interested in helping people get a good grounding in what designing for sustainability means. The reality is that this industry is still so new," Nathan Shedroff wrote on the Compostmodern blog (compostmodern.wordpress.com). Shedroff chairs the Design Strategy MBA program at California College of the Arts, and will discuss sustainability frameworks at the conference.

Local graphic designer Amy Franceschini (futurefarmers.com) presented some of her work at Compostmodern in 2006. Inspired by all things green, she posed a question that only a designer would ask: if earth-bound plants lean toward light naturally, might design liberate plants to move about freely? There were mixed results to her experiment, but the question alone gets at the spirit of the conference: bridging the gap between the possible and the possibly possible by challenging designers to be environmentalists.

Autodesk brings sustainable design into the world of software by incorporating powerful new analytical tools into 3-D modeling programs used in architectural and other design. "Full-on energy analysis used to be really challenging and expensive," said program manager Dawn Danby, a featured speaker at Compostmodern this year. "We’re making software that empowers designers to make a case for sustainability, to make better decisions, decisions that have huge impacts on things like water or energy use. We need to make design a solution, not just a bonus when times are good."

Michael Gelobter, another of this year’s Compostmodern presenters, told the Guardian that the Bay Area’s unique combination of companies, researchers, and activists all living together is what makes it the epicenter of the clean-tech revolution. Even though he’s a climate strategist, Gelobter is optimistic about the future: "We have to own this change, and in the process solve a lot of other problems like wars and financial waste.

"A lot of our relationship with climate change and fossil fuels has to do with the built environment, the designed environment — our cities, buildings, schools. and the way we design our day-to-day interactions with products," Gelobter continued. "All of those include assumptions about energy use, where we get the energy, and the form that energy comes in. And designers are really the front line in redrawing that. They’re the cutting edge of how we make the world different, so they have to be informed about policy and economics, but also [about] people’s day-to-day lives, their lived experience of how change might happen. They have to be able to design to those kind of criteria."

That’s why Gelobter founded Climate Cooler, shifting his work from policy to shopping and "changing the choices consumers have so that they can take action." He insists that cleaning up the economy is good business. "You stop smoking crack, and you suddenly have all this money to spend on things that are a whole lot healthier. That’s true with fossil fuel use and the other things that cause global warming as well."

Gelobter’s latest project will equip Intuit’s popular QuickBooks accounting software with a carbon-calculator. It’s a partial redesign to help small businesses know the impact of their purchasing patterns on global warming, and to "start using that information to make better choices, to save money, save energy, and reduce their [carbon] footprint."

Taking on Herculean problems is not for everyone. But Compostmodern seeks to engage top designers with the task of making the seemingly impossible a little more likely. It’s a goal that is essential to achieving sustainability on a grand scale and using this economic meltdown as an opportunity to redesign our world.

COMPOSTMODERN ’09

Herbst Theatre, SF

Feb. 21

8:30 a.m.–5:00 p.m.

www.compostmodern.org

Editor’s Notes

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February 17, 2009

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› Tredmond@sfbg.com

Two noteworthy meetings took place in the past couple of weeks. One was led by David Chiu, the president of the Board of Supervisors, the other by Ryan Chamberlain, a downtown political consultant. Other than the sfbg.com politics blog, no local media have been paying much attention. But both ad hoc gatherings could have tremendous political significance.

Chiu was trying to solve the budget crisis, or at least get a handle on it. He called together the major stakeholders in the hope that some sort of consensus, or at least reluctant, unhappy common ground, could be found on the worst fiscal crisis in 80 years.

Chamberlain invited a group of downtown power brokers and moderate-to-conservative political candidates to try to map out a strategy to oust the progressives from control of the board in 2010.

If Chiu succeeds, and crafts a budget compromise that most of the competing interests can accept, it will be a huge victory for the freshman supervisor — and a big win for the progressives he’s aligned with. Governing — actually making tough choices in tough times and finding workable solutions — is much harder than simply leading the opposition. And if the left in this town can show that we can run things better than the Newsom camp, Chamberlain and his big-money crew won’t do much better in 2010 than they did in 2008.

Chamberlain’s group is looking for new approaches and new strategies, and they’ll focus on things like "quality of life" (read: homeless people on the streets). Chiu ought to be able to tell the downtown folks (who, interestingly, are probably going to both meetings) that the Newsom administration’s budget cuts are going to make the homeless problem way worse.

So all this political and policy debate is going on quietly in San Francisco. And what’s most interesting is that the person who should have the most at stake in both areas isn’t even at the table. He’s too busy running for governor.

Budget talks, without the mayor

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February 17, 2009

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EDITORIAL The president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, David Chiu, is doing something Mayor Gavin Newsom should have done a long time ago. He’s putting the key stakeholders in the budget debate — labor, small business, downtown, nonprofits, etc. — in the same room and talking about solutions.

And while none of the participants want to talk publicly, it’s clear that all sides think they are making progress. The most likely outcome ought to be a winner for everyone: a special election, delayed until July, when the public can vote on some revenue measures that would blunt the awful impact of a half-billion dollar budget deficit.

For this to work, everyone is going to have to give up something. The city employee unions will have to be willing to reopen contracts and accept either reductions in raises or some layoffs. Some political leaders’ pet projects and highly paid patronage employees will have to go. Downtown will have to accept some new taxes on the wealthy; small business will have to stomach a sales tax. And the supervisors will have to hold hearings on and negotiate a budget this summer before they know for sure that the money will be there to pay the bills.

We have actively pushed for a June election, to make sure the money is there when the budget is approved — but July is a perfectly acceptable compromise. In fact, it has a certain amount of political synergy. The mayor will present a bloody, brutal, budget in May that includes devastating cuts to essential programs. The supervisors can then offer the voters a clear choice: accept those cuts — or vote to approve a package of revenue measures on a special election ballot.

The effort will be a whole lot easier if the mayor stops being such an obstructionist — and if his allies on the board are willing to join with what could be an emerging consensus. Under state law, any new taxes San Francisco enacts this year would require a two-thirds vote of the people — a tough threshold. But if the supervisors and the mayor agree unanimously to declare a budget emergency (and a deficit that equals half the discretionary money in the general fund is by any standards an emergency), then a simple majority can approve a tax hike.

So far the mayor has been almost entirely missing in action here. Although his press secretary, Nathan Ballard, told us the mayor has been meeting with budget stakeholders, that’s news to many of the people in Chiu’s group. Even business leaders, who in the past have been loyal to the mayor, are now openly criticizing his absence from the discussions. It’s crazy — Newsom is running around the state, working on his campaign for governor, while the work of keeping his city from a total meltdown is going on without him. Newsom absolutely must engage here, and start attending Chiu’s meetings. He’s been insisting he won’t support a June election, allegedly because there’s no broad coalition calling for it. But that coalition may be coming together to talk about an election in July — and Newsom isn’t even paying attention.

Meanwhile, three of the supervisors — Sean Elsbernd, Michela Alioto-Pier, and Carmen Chu — have also opposed a special election, and they’re going to have to change their tune. Even Republicans in the state Legislature — who signed a pledge never to support any tax increases — worked with the governor on a budget plan that includes some significant tax hikes. The Democratic moderates on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors shouldn’t be able to get away with refusing to look for new sources of revenue — soon, as part of the next year’s budget — to keep the city from fiscal calamity.

Money talks

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February 17, 2009

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› news@sfbg.com

The economy’s a mess, and the housing crisis, financial meltdown, and skyrocketing unemployment rates have left a lot of San Franciscans short of cash. But the flow of big downtown money into political campaigns hasn’t slowed a bit.

In fact, a tally of all 2008 monetary and in-kind political contributions logged in the SF Ethics Commission Campaign Finance Database shows that even in the face of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, money spent on local political campaigns in the city swelled to a whopping $20.6 million. That grand total, which does not include loans or so-called "soft money" like independent expenditures, is higher than that of any previous year recorded in the Ethics database, which tracks campaign spending back to 1998.

A review of the entire database paints of picture of how influence money flows in San Francisco: Six of the top 10 donors over the past 10 years are big businesses and downtown organizations that promote the same conservative political agenda. The campaign cash often wound up in the same few political pots — a handful of supervisorial campaigns and some coordinated political action committees.

And despite spending ungodly sums of money, downtown lost more races than it won.

More than half the total money spent in 2008 came from one source: Pacific Gas and Electric Co., which plunked down $10.2 million last fall for the No on Proposition H campaign against the San Francisco Clean Energy Act. That November ballot measure, which lost under PG&E’s barrage, would have paved the way for public power, initiating a process to make the city the primary provider of electric power in San Francisco with a goal of 50 percent clean-energy generation by 2017.

The powerful utility wasn’t only the biggest spender last year — it claims the No. 1 slot on a list of all campaign contributions spanning from 1998 to 2008, which the Guardian compiled using Ethics data. PG&E dropped a juicy $14.7 million into local political campaigns over that period, beating out runner-up Clint Reilly by more than $10 million.

Below are brief introductions to the 10 biggest spenders, 1998-2008.

They’ve got the power. The colossal sums PG&E has forked over to influence ballot measures over the years puts the utility in a category all its own. SF isn’t the only municipality where the company has poured millions into defeating a public power proposal. In 2006, when Yolo County put measures on the ballot to expand the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD), which would have edged PG&E out of the service area, the utility spent $11.3 million to try and keep it from happening.

Pay to the order of Clint Reilly. Reilly, the former political consultant, now runs a successful real estate company. While his name routinely comes up on the roster of campaign contributors, he owes his status as No. 2 to his 1999 campaign for SF mayor, into which he poured some $3.5 million of his own money. "Most of the money we give is for Democratic candidates or progressive politicians, or neighborhood-oriented issues," said Reilly, who also served as president of the board of Catholic Charities.

Committee on really high-paying jobs? Third in line is the Committee on Jobs, a political action committee that aims to influence local legislation affecting business interests. The PAC is bankrolled in part by the Charles Schwab Corporation, Gap, Inc., and Gap founder Don Fisher — all of whom surface on their own in our Top 30 list. With a grand total just shy of $3 million, the committee coughed up about $100,000 in campaign-related spending in 2008. Much of that funding went to similar political entities, including the SF Coalition for Responsible Growth, the SF Chamber of Commerce 21st Century Committee, and the SF Taxpayers Union PAC (see "Downtown’s Slate," 10/15/2008). This past November, the COJ also backed the Community Justice Court Coalition, formed to pass Proposition L, which would have guaranteed first-year funding for Mayor Gavin Newsom’s small-crimes court in the Tenderloin. Prop. L failed by 57 percent.

Bluegrass billionaire. San Francisco investment banker and billionaire Warren Hellman has dropped nearly $1.2 million over the years into local political campaigns, our results show. Dubbed "the Warren Buffet of the West Coast" by Business Week for his sharp financial prowess, Hellman co-founded Hellman and Friedman, an investment firm, in 1984. Hellman is known for putting on Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, an annual SF music festival. While he tends to contribute to downtown business entities such as the Committee on Jobs and the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, in 2008 he devoted $100,000 to supporting a June ballot measure, Proposition A, that increased teacher salaries and classroom support by instating a parcel tax to amp up funding for public schools.

Fisher king. Don Fisher, founder and former CEO of Gap, Inc., is another one of SF’s resident billionaires. While Gap, Inc. turns up in 17th place in our results, Fisher himself has poured more than $1.1 million into entities such as the Committee on Jobs, SFSOS, the San Franciscans for Sensible Government Political Action Committee, and other conservative business groups. Fisher’s total includes money from the "DDF Y2K family trust," a Fisher family fund that shows up in Ethics records in 2000. In that year, $100,000 from that trust went to support the Committee on Jobs’ candidate advocacy fund, and another $40,000 went to a pro-development group called San Franciscans for Responsible Planning.

Not a very affordable campaign, either. Sixth up is Lennar Homes, the developer behind the massive home-building project at Hunters Point Shipyard, which the Guardian has covered extensively. The vast majority of its $1 million reported spending was directed to No on Prop. F, a campaign sponsored by Lennar to defeat a June ballot measure that would have created a 50 percent affordable-housing requirement for the Candlestick Point and Hunters Point Shipyard development project. The measure failed, with 63 percent voting it down.

Chuck’s bucks. Charles Schwab Corp., which set up shop in San Francisco in the mid-1970s, is an investment banking firm that reports having $1.1 trillion in total client assets. The corporation ranks seventh in our Top 30 list, with some $973,000 in donations. In 27th place is Charles R. Schwab himself, the company’s founder and chairman of the board (and the guy they’re referring to in those "Talk to Chuck" billboards posted all over SF). If Schwab’s individual and corporate donations were combined, the total would be enough to bump Warren Hellman out of fourth place. Schwab’s dollars are infused into the Committee on Jobs, the San Francisco Association of Realtors, the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, SF SOS, and other downtown-business interest organizations. "We’re a major company here in the Bay Area and a major employer," company spokesperson Greg Gable told the Guardian. "We’re interested in political matters across the board — it’s not limited to any one party." But it’s limited to one pro-downtown point of view.

The brass. The San Francisco Police Officer’s Association is another major player, spending some $913,000 since 1998 on political campaigns. The organization backed candidates Carmen Chu, Myrna Lim, Joseph Alioto, Denise McCarthy, and Sue Lee for supervisors in 2008, contributions show. All but Chu lost.

At your service. SEIU Local 1021 and SEIU 790 crop up frequently in Ethics data, with a grand total of about $860,000 in spending over the years. SEIU representatives recently turned out en masse at a Board of Supervisors meeting to urge the supervisors to support a June 2 special election to raise taxes in order to boost city revenues and save critical services from the hefty budget cuts that are coming down the pipe.

Friends in high places. No real surprises here: the Friends and Foundation of the San Francisco Public Library contributed its money to, well, ballot measures that would have affected the library. In 2000, for example, the F and F plunked $265 thousand into an effort called the "Committee to Save Branch Libraries — Yes on Prop. A."

Top 30 San Francisco campaign donors, 1998-2008

1. Pacific Gas & Electric $14,831,486
2. Clint Reilly $4,138,089
3. Committee on Jobs $2,970,857
4. Warren F. Hellman $1,191,970
5. Don Fisher (incl. Don & Doris Fisher Y2K trust) $1,164,286
6. Lennar Homes $1,002,861
7. Charles Schwab Corporation $973,176
8. S.F. Police Officers Association $913,834
9. SEIU Local 1021 & SEIU Local 790 $860,979
10. Friends & Foundation of the S.F. Public Library $858,082
11. California Academy of Sciences $818,154
12. Residential Builders Association of S.F. $753,857
13. Steven Castleman $665,254
14. S.F. Association of Realtors $647,299
15. S.F. Chamber of Commerce $614,824
16. SEIU United Health Care Workers West & Local 250 $585,937
17. Gap, Inc. $573,959
18. California Issues PAC $556,238
19. Corporation of the Fine Arts Museums $541,474
20. Wells Fargo $464,899
21. Building Owners & Managers Association of S.F. $464,027
22. Bank of America $429,316
23. Golden Gate Restaurant Association $422,685
24. SF SOS $407,491
25. AT&T Inc. and affiliates $404,704
26. Clear Channel $391,783
27. Charles R. Schwab (individual) $362,250
28. Yellow Cab Cooperative $344,907
29. S.F. Apartment Association $280,376
30. San Franciscans for Sensible Government PAC $279,009

Hear, here hed

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February 17, 2009

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Rue Saint Jacques

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February 17, 2009

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› paulr@sfbg.com

If clothes make the man, then does the bistro make the neighborhood, or the other way around? This is a trick question, because the answer is: both. Part of the magic of any bistro is its neighborhood, which becomes part of the experience. And — the obverse — in a city of neighborhoods like ours, no neighborhood is quite complete without a bistro.

For neighborhood atmospherics, it’s hard to match the cloud village that floats on the back-country streets behind Grace Cathedral. A cable-car line, a shop or two, a run of handsome townhomes with a certain Parisian feel and a twinkling cityscape in the background — and, at the edge of things, a bistro, a quite convincing one, Rue Saint Jacques.

Don’t bother looking for a street named Saint Jacques, because you won’t find one — although you will find an authentic-looking Paris street sign in the restaurant’s front window. Don’t bother looking, either, for the strangely enchanting Uzbek restaurant called On Jackson, which until about four years ago could be found on Jackson, at Taylor. It’s in that snug corner spot that we find Eric Lanvert’s Rue Saint Jacques, with an appealing paint treatment (like butter washed with cognac), a distinct upgrade in furniture quality from Uzbek days (including rather Arts-and-Craftsy-looking chairs), and, of course, some first-rate French cooking.

By "French cooking" I don’t mean the haughty, haute kind with all the rich, intricate sauces, but the earthy kind, the bistro kind. Rue Saint Jacques’ menu is mostly an exercise in this sort of heartiness, carried off with considerable style. The dishes rely on a timeless appeal and are very much the ones you’d find in countless neighborhood bistros in Paris. They also rely on high-quality (often organic ingredients) and thoughtful, though not fancy, preparation.

For those of us who love the prix-fixe, Rue Saint Jacques is as good as it gets. A flat fee of $35 buys you three courses: any starter, any main dish, and any dessert. Some of the more luxe possibilities, such as lobster risotto and the very formidable cassoulet, do carry a surcharge, but these are the exceptions. The sans surcharge appetizers are not exactly shabby anyway; a gently beefy beef tartare is made from freshly ground Niman Ranch filet mignon and subtly spiced up with a bit of mustard, while charcuterie is presented as a duo of rich, housemade pâté slices, one of duck, another (and coarser, country-style) of pork. Meaty, chewy snails are served Catalan-style, in a chunky sauce of sausage, bacon, and melted cherry tomatoes in an earthenware crock.

The French onion soup is the color of espresso: a sign that the onions have been patiently and repeatedly caramelized for maximum intensity of flavor before being sealed under a cap of melted cheese. A pistou-style soup of winter vegetables, including cabbage, carrots, turnips, and white beans, is paler — pleasantly pale, really, though roasting the roots might have added some depth and weight. I did wonder about the addition of the out-of-season basil, which lacked its midsummer pepperiness.

The main courses, like their opening acts, are mostly familiar. Skirt steak (from Niman Ranch) is pan-roasted, sliced, slathered with a sauce of caramelized shallots, and plated with a stack of wonderfully slender, crisp herbed frites. Breast of local duck is roasted (to medium and perhaps then some), sliced, fanned over a bed of wild rice, and sauced with an ambrosial blend of cognac and green peppercorns.

The cassoulet is so heavy-duty that it reaches the table in a cast-iron skillet, complete with handle that must be oriented in an acceptable direction so as not to catch a passing thigh and send the whole thing flying. Within the skillet we find (in addition to a wealth of white beans lightly crusted with bread crumbs), confits of lamb and duck leg (the duck still on the bone), along with an entire boudin blanc and chunks of fatback. You pay an extra $7 for the cassoulet (or $26.75 à la carte), but the dish could easily feed two hungry people.

The one offering I hadn’t seen before was mijoté de porc, described by the menu card as "slow-cooked pork belly with a ragout of vegetables." Since pork belly is the source of bacon, I was expecting something rather fatty, in fact problematically fatty, but what turned up instead resembled a pot roast: chunks of tender meat in a thick, dark, slightly sweet sauce laced with wild mushrooms.

Rue Saint Jacques’ desserts are very much in the bistro mainstream and include a solid chocolate mousse and a creditable vanilla bean crème brûlée. The unconventional choice is probably the strawberry soup, which drew my eye in part because of its unexpectedness and in part because I hoped, after some heavy going through the savory courses, that it would be relatively light, despite the promise of Chantilly cream.

Dessert soups I’ve had in the past have been served in broad bowls, like regular soup, but this one arrived in a parfait glass: a base layer of soup, not too sweet and quite chunky, almost like runny preserves, with a thick cap of Chantilly cream, which is basically sweetened whipped cream. The boundary between the layers quickly became blurred, and the cream more or less self-folded into the soup, with a luxurious result.

The service staff is swift, professional, and proper, in the best French tradition. They do not fawn or make chitchat, but if something goes wrong — your order slip temporarily ends up on the kitchen floor, say, causing a delay — you’re likely to be comped a glass of wine or a shareable dish, and maybe even some excellent port to finish. Or was that Banyuls?

RUE SAINT JACQUES

Dinner: Tues.–Sun., 5:30–10 p.m.

1098 Jackson, SF

(415) 776-2002

www.ruesaintjacques.com

Wine and beer

MC/V

Moderately noisy

Wheelchair accessible