Eric Mar

Starving in a boom

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On the day before Christmas Eve, a line of hungry San Franciscans winds its way to the second floor of the Women’s Building on 18th Street. There, in a sunlit room, people take their pick of free food: fresh fruit, chicken, canned goods and pasta. This pantry is one of over 200 in the city supplied by the San Francisco and Marin Food Banks.

Acacia Woods-Chen, the pantry’s coordinator, calls off enrollment numbers in broken Cantonese and Spanish as she directs them to the needed sustenance.

Most of the clients are elderly, and one woman said she’s lived in the Mission 50 years. Yet she is facing eviction from her Mission District apartment.

“My income is very low, I don’t even make the rent,” she told us.

A new report, from the city’s Food Security Task Force, found that 19,000 seniors in San Francisco struggle to afford groceries. Many of qualify for Supplemental Security Income benefits, or SSI, yet are ineligible for federally supplied food stamps.

hungerinfographicThe problem goes beyond seniors. The report found that one in four San Franciscans lacks sufficient resources to purchase nutritious food, causing many to turn to food pantries for assistance.

Those pantries are now well beyond their capacity, Food Bank representatives told us, and the system is bursting at the seams.

Awareness of the problem is growing. On Dec. 10, the Board of Supervisors approved a resolution to end hunger and food insecurity in San Francisco by 2020.

“It is unacceptable that in one of the richest cities on earth, so many of our fellow residents should have to go to bed hungry or worried about their children’s nutrition every day,” said District 1 Sup. Eric Mar, who authored the resolution.

It calls on bringing together disparate city agencies, from the Planning Department to those tasked with aiding youth, seniors, and the homeless, to collaborate on addressing San Francisco’s hunger problem.

Just 14 percent of those who face food insecurity are homeless, the report found. Many are actually low-income people who have jobs, but cannot always put food on the table.

Food insecurity isn’t just about hunger, according to the task force’s report, but also manifests as struggling consumers buy only cheaper and nutritionally inadequate food, or ration meals.

Mar’s resolution calls for the creation of a workgroup that will be tasked with, among other things, finding ways to solicit greater enrollment in California’s federally backed food safety net program.

“The biggest opportunity by far, casting a shadow over everything we do, is to get everyone who’s qualified for the SNAP program signed up,” said Paul Ash, executive director of the Food Bank.

SNAP is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, administered under the name CalFresh in California. It’s more commonly known as food stamps.

Less commonly known is that California has the lowest enrollment rate for SNAP in the entire United States, according to federal data. A report by California Food Policy Advocates, titled “Lost Dollars, Empty Plates,” cast this as an economic loss as well. San Francisco is losing $129 million per year in lost economic activity due to low participation, the advocacy organization found.

In San Francisco, an estimated 84,000 people are eligible for CalFresh — yet only about half as many are enrolled.

Boosting CalFresh enrollment is no easy task.

Liliana Sandoval, CalFresh outreach program manager at the Food Bank, spends her days recruiting enrollees at farmer’s markets and homeless shelters. “A lot of our work is myth busting, educating, and finding people who would never go to a county office to ask for assistance — even if they desperately need it,” she told the Guardian.

In the meantime, the problem of feeding San Francisco persists.

“Compared to other food banks in the nation, we’re at the top,” Ash said, referencing the volume of food it distributes to the hungry. “But you can’t give yourself an A when there are thousands of people who need help who don’t get it.”

And if everyone eligible for CalFresh were enrolled, would the city be on its way to tackling hunger?

“We’d be pretty darn close,” Ash said.

To volunteer with the San Francisco and Marin Food Bank, visit www.sffoodbank.org. The holiday brings an influx of help to food pantries, but they experience a dramatic drop off in January and February — and could use more help then.

Homeless for the holidays

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news@sfbg.com

As temperatures dropped in recent weeks, those who care for San Francisco’s homeless snapped into action.

Shelters stopped requiring reservations, making any beds still open after 8pm available to anyone who needed them. General Hospital’s Emergency Room treated the annual uptick of hypothermia cases, working closely with the city’s Homeless Outreach Team. Seven people in the Bay Area died as a result of cold weather in the last month — mercifully, none in San Francisco.

“Just one homeless person passing from being cold is way too many,” Carol Domino, program director at Mother Brown’s Drop-In Center, told the Guardian.

When the cold hit, Mother Brown’s staff could be found scouting encampments near its location in Bayview. Besides a respite from the weather, it offers bathrooms, showers, access to case management services, and other resources, as well as two hot meals a day in its dining room. But there’s one thing it can’t offer: a warm bed.

But that may change. A proposal for a 100-bed homeless shelter next door to Mother Brown’s gained political footing this year, despite controversy and a divided neighborhood.

 

SHELTER IN BAYVIEW

Behind the shelter effort is Gwendolyn Westbrook, director of the United Council of Human Services. Westbrook says the idea didn’t come from her, but from Barbara J. “Mother” Brown, the local legend who served hot meals out of the back of a Cadillac Seville before founding Bayview Hope Homeless Resource Center and Mother Brown’s Dining Room in 2001.

“People have come in here needing a place to sleep for as long as it’s been open,” Westbrook said. Brown’s solution was to set out folding chairs where people could sleep. Nowadays, 80 people rest in the chairs on a typical night.

Before Brown died in 2005, Westbrook remembers, she made it clear to her successor how much she wanted shelter beds where clients could lie down.

Of her clients, Westbrook says, “it’s a lot of people who are from this area, grew up in this area. Some people never leave this district. Their homes might have gone into foreclosure, or somebody died that set them back and triggered something mentally, and now they’re on the street. So this is a safe haven for them. This is a place where they can come and just relax.”

Even as the cost of living soars and the neighborhood changes, Westbrook says, her clients hold on.

“Most of our clients won’t leave the Bayview,” she said. “Some of them have told me, ‘well if I die, just cremate me and put my ashes up on Third Street. Spread them on Third Street.’ That’s how much they love this neighborhood.”

Human Services Agency (HSA) director Trent Rhorer witnessed the chair arrangement during an August 2011 visit to Mother Brown’s. He called the sight “simply not acceptable from a view of humanity.”

When Rhorer learned that a warehouse next door had recently been put up for rent, the shelter idea was born. The HSA applied for a forgivable loan from the state’s Emergency Housing and Assistance Program (EHAP). In January 2012, the project was approved for $978,000.

On Nov. 19, the Board of Supervisors voted to accept the grant, and on Dec. 10, it assigned the next two steps: city adoption of the lease for the property and creation of a special use district. The rezoning process could take six months to a year at the Planning Commission, and if the shelter ultimately goes through, construction is not likely to begin before 2015.

Until then, shelter options in Bayview-Hunters Point will stay slim. There is no single adult shelter with beds in the neighborhood. The closest thing is Providence Baptist Church at 1601 McKinnon. There, staff lay out mats on the gym floor each night.

“In Bayview-Hunters Point, that’s it. Providence is the shelter,” said Nick Kimura, shelter client advocate with the San Francisco Coalition on Homelessness.

In Mayor Ed Lee’s 2013 State of the City address, he said he was “proud to support” efforts to expand services for the homeless in Bayview—specifically “Sup. Cohen’s effort, aided by a federal grant — to build a new 100-bed shelter”

The only problem: that was the first Cohen said she had heard of it.

“My first concern was how the proposal came about,” Cohen told us. “I wasn’t made aware of it until it was announced.”

 

SHIFTING POLITICS

After Lee’s announcement, there were two community meetings, one in March at the police station and one in April at the YMCA. The idea gained support from the Southeast Community Facility Commission and the San Francisco branch of the NAACP.

A wave of opposition also grew, including the neighborhood organization Bayview Residents Improving Their Environment (BRITE), and a handful of businesses led by David Eisenberg, president of Micro-Tracers, a food testing company next door to Mother Brown’s.

On July 16, Cohen herself came out against the shelter. Cohen said her decision came after “meeting with residents about their concerns and fears.”

Neighborhood residents are a shifting demographic. The African American population has declined by 10 percent since Mother Brown’s was founded in 2001. The Asian population increased slightly in the same time period, and the white population has more than doubled.

Homelessness in the neighborhood has also increased. According to the city’s biannual homeless count, the number hovered around 400 until January 2011, when the number jumped to 1,151. It had 1,278 homeless people in 2013.

After Cohen declared her opposition, the meetings went back behind closed doors. In September, David Curto, director of contracts at the HSA, said that “[city homeless czar] Bevan Dufty and other folks in the Mayor’s Office are trying to revive it.” On Oct. 9, Lee met with a group of neighbors. And on Oct 30, the shelter proposal made its public reappearance.

Sups. John Avalos, Eric Mar, and Mark Farrell of the city’s Budget and Finance Committee heard the issue. They were tasked with voting on whether to accept the EHAP loan, a question that would be put to the Board of Supervisors if it passed.

Out in the gallery, the two sides sat divided down the aisle like squabbling families at a wedding. House left were the shelter’s supporters, a mix of residents and community leaders and staff of Mother Brown’s and their clients, some with their shoes pulled on only half way over feet swollen from sleeping in their chairs. On the right, BRITE members, an ad hoc group called Protect MLK Pool and Playground, Eisenberg, and other community members in opposition.

The shelter became a vehicle for a debate about larger changes in Bayview. BRITE member David Armagnac saw no need for shelter beds in the neighborhood that he has “seen transform and emerge into an ever-increasing vibrant area.” Bayview business owner Carla Eagleton wanted economic and quality of life impact reports on the proposed shelters “as it relates to the city’s only remaining blue collar industrial area, MLK Park, surrounding neighborhoods and the Third Street corridor, which the city of San Francisco has spent billions of dollars to revitalize.”

Meanwhile, resident Sandy Thompson testified that “for you guys to move in and make yourself comfortable,” many of her neighbors have been displaced. “Make the homeless comfortable, just like you guys are making yourself comfortable, because they need a place too,” Thompson said.

A client of Mother Brown’s talked about being homeless in the neighborhood her family had been in for generations. “My grandparents are the ones that migrated from the south, that came up here to work on those shipyards,” she said. “Think about that parent who is working at McDonalds, or working a low, minimum-wage job. They can’t afford the new housing that’s coming in, that’s being developed. Yes, we love it. We love to look at the property that we cannot live in.”

Both sides made passionate pleas, but shelter supporters won over the Budget and Finance Committee.

“It’s very rare that I get moved from hearing public comment. I hear a lot of public comment, and sometimes I feel like my heart is hardened to everything. But not today,” Avalos said.

Farrell agreed: “It’s rare that you get touched here, because we do hear so much public comment all the time. And the personal stories are pretty incredible.”

 

INSIDE MOTHER BROWN’S

Inside Mother Brown’s cool blue walls, there’s no shortage of incredible personal stories. Lonnel McCall took a break from helping to cook dinner at Mother Brown’s kitchen to describe what the place has meant for him.

“I didn’t have nothing, not even ambitions. I felt I was a loser. I had no self-esteem,” he remembers. “I was smoking crack under the bridge and all that stuff.”

He now has a job as a hotel chef and lives in a HOPE House home. He rolled up his sleeves to reveal cuts and burns, the battle scars of a chef.

“These are my cook wounds,” he said, “instead of dope wounds.”

But for a period, McCall slept in the chairs. “It’s hard. Your ankles swell up,” he said.

Wade Verdun also slept in the chairs and went through HOPE House.

“I’ve got my own place now, got my own car. I’m no longer on drugs. And I’ve got a two-year-old son,” Verdun said. “This place saved my life, to tell you the truth.” Smiling, he patted his belly. “I’ve never been this fat. Trust me.”

If the shelter does get built, Westbrook hopes, it can lead to more happy endings like McCall’s and Verdun’s.There are already too many sad stories.

On Dec. 19, candles lit the dusk on the steps of City Hall in a vigil for the homeless people who have died in San Francisco. The vigil was organized by Night Ministry, a crisis intervention and counseling service that operates in the Tenderloin from 10pm to 4am. Reverend Lyle Beckman, director of Night Ministry, said that he got the names of 22 deceased homeless people from the Department of Public Health, but knew it was low. During the vigil, attendants came forward with the names of more dead, until the number reached 100.

Beckman said the crisis line gets busy this time of year. “We always see more conversations around holiday time,” he said. “When people have memories of it being a family time and then they’re not connected with their family in some way, it can bring isolation and loneliness.”

In a city of chosen families, Mother Brown’s “children” have found a way to heal that kind of loneliness. Perhaps McCall put it best when he described the first time he came back to his native Bayview and found Mother Brown’s after decades of isolation.

“When I came in through the door — this is God’s truth — I felt like I was at home,” he said. Soon, people like McCall may find a bed, too, when they walk through that door. Maybe for Christmas 2015.

SF Board of Supervisors approves new tenant protections

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The Board of Supervisors today (Tues/17) gave unanimous final approval to legislation aimed at giving renters in the city additional protections against being displaced by real estate speculators, and initial approval to legislation protecting tenants from harassment by landlords, both part of a wave of reforms moving through City Hall to address rising populist concerns about gentrification and evictions.

The anti-eviction legislation, created by Sup. John Avalos and co-sponsored by Sups. Eric Mar and David Campos, seeks to preserve rent-controlled and affordable housing by restricting property-owners’ abilities to demolish, merge, and convert housing units, three of the most common ways that affordable housing units are being eliminated in the city.

There was no discussion of the Avalos legislation today as it was approved on second reading, belying last week’s initial discussion, which got a little heated at times. “San Francisco is facing a crisis,” Avalos said last week as he conveyed the importance of passing the ordinance before the end of the year. “We’ve been called on by our constituents to declare a state of emergency for renters in the city.”

Last month, Campos held a high-profile hearing at the board on the city’s affordable housing and eviction crisis, and won approval for his legislation to double how much tenants being evicted under the Ellis Act receive. Today’s board meeting also includes a first reading of legislation by Campos to help protect tenants in rent-controlled apartments from being harassed by landlords seeking to force them out and increasing rents.

“We have heard about tenants being locked out of their apartments. We have heard about loud construction work being done…for the purpose of forcing the tenants out,” Campos said today of his legislation to allow targetted tenants to have complaints heard by the Rent Board rather than having to file a lawsuit. Later, Campos said the legislation sends the message “that is not something that is going to be tolerated in San Francisco.”

Campos’ legislation also received unanimous approval and little discussion, even by supervisors who generally side with landlords over tenants, perhaps including just more potent this issue has become. Board President David Chiu also today introduced a resolution to support his work with Mayor Ed Lee and Sen. Mark Leno to amend the Ellis Act at the state level, hoping to give the city more control over its rent-controlled housing. 

Avalos last week said he is so convinced of the urgency of the current situation that he responded to concerns voiced during the Land Use and Economic Development Committee Meeting on Dec. 9 about how the new legislation would work in the cases of temporary evictions and residential hotels by immediately making amendments to the ordinance without objection.

Nonetheless, further questions arose during the Dec. 10 meeting. Sups. Norman Yee and Katy Tang expressed reservations about the legislation applying in the case of owner move-in (OMI) evictions.

“I would love to support the piece, but this part just doesn’t make sense to me,” Yee concluded. “I’m not getting how it hurts the tenants.”

While Avalos explained that OMI evictions still take affordable housing off the market, he agreed to compromise by reducing the ordinance’s 10-year moratorium on demolishing, merging and converting housing units to five years.

Then, Sup. London Breed spoke up.

“This might not be popular for me to say as a legislator, but I’m very confused,” she began. “I know we have this crisis of Ellis Acts around the city, but I really feel pressured, and that this legislation is being rushed. I can’t support something that I don’t completely understand the impacts of. I just need more time.”

While Breed did not have the chance to review the legislation before the meeting, she had found the time to prepare speeches about President Nelson Mandela’s passing last week and her alma mater Galileo High School’s recent football victory.

Concurring with Breed, Cohen stated, “I understand that we are in a crisis of protecting our rental stock units, but I’m hesitant. Connect the dots for me, how does this save rentals? Or conserve affordable housing? What are we trying to do here?”

Kim reprimanded her fellow board members for not attending the meeting prepared, then stated, “I would support moving the ordinance forward today. The situation we are facing here in the city is extremely challenging…and this legislation is one of the tools we have for it.”

Sup. Scott Wiener and David Chiu echoed Kim’s support, commending Avalos for promptly addressing their former issues with his amendments and additions.

When Cohen used her time on the floor to respond to Kim’s admonition by stating, “I certainly do my homework. I don’t want to be made to feel bad for not getting it on the first time,” Campos suggested that it might be a good time to put the discussion on hold and open the floor for public comments.

While members of the community stepped up to the visitors’ podium, Yee and Campos met at the back of the room while Breed conversed with Sophie Hayward of the Planning Department, who had reviewed the ordinance before it was presented for recommendations. After further discussion with Avalos himself, Yee returned to his seat to speak with Tang. Satisfied with what she learned from Hayward, Breed came over to discuss the ordinance with Campos and Avalos. Cohen remained seated for the duration of the time, speaking with no one.

After the conclusion of public comments, Avalos reiterated the importance of passing the ordinance as soon as possible. “We have been called on by scores, hundreds of people, to preserve this stock,” he stated. “This legislation will help keep families in San Francisco.”

The ordinance was passed unanimously in its first reading, but the fight is not over. Breed for one made it clear that, while she understood the ordinance better after her preceding discussions, she was only giving it her support because she knew the legislation would be up for further review in a week, when all the supervisors will have had time to study it more closely.

With the affordable housing and displacement issues only generating more heat in the last week, today there was only prompt, unanimous approval and no discussion. 

Alerts: December 4 – 10, 2013

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WEDNESDAY 4

Fight Richmond evictions Richmond Recreation Center, 251 18th Ave, SF. 7pm, free. The San Francisco Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), the Housing Rights Committee, and Senior & Disability Action will host this forum to discuss strategies to fix the city’s affordable housing crisis, particularly as it affects in the Richmond District. Sup. Eric Mar is expected to attend.

 

THURSDAY 5

 

Celebrate the Holidays! (With Less Stuff) Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists Hall, 1924 Cedar, Berk. 7-10pm, $5-10 suggested donation. Join Transition Berkeley, Sticky Art Lab and Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Univeralists for a screening of Annie Leonard’s famous animated documentary, “The Story of Stuff,” about the environmental and social problems created by our excessive consumption patterns. The night will also feature a screening of “The Story of Solutions,” showcasing creative responses to these problems. The night will also feature talks by Allison Cook, from The Story of Stuff Project, and Rachel Knudson from Sticky Art Lab on University Avenue, who’ll speak about this innovative new center for art and creative reuse.

 

FRIDAY 6

 

Book reading on migrant journeys Modern Times, 2919 24th St, SF. 7pm, free. El Salvadoran journalist Óscar Martínez, winner of Mexico’s Fernando Benítez National Journalism Prize and the José Simeón Cañas Central American University Human Rights Prize, will appear at Modern Times bookstore for a reading from his new book, The Beast: Riding the Rails and Dodging Narcos on the Migrant Trail, published by Verso Books. The writer spent two years riding freight trains between Central America and the Southern US border, and documented accounts of a mass kidnapping and other harrowing stories.  

Meet CCSF’s new chancellor Saint Philip Church, 725 Diamond, SF. 7:30pm, free. The Noe Valley Democratic Club, San Francisco for Democracy, and the Upper Noe Neighbors will host the new Chancellor of City College of San Francisco, Dr. Arthur Tyler, for a conversation with community members. Join in to listen to his remarks and participate in a question and answer session. MONDAY 9  

Talk with Chelsea Manning’s lawyer Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakl. www.couragetoresist.org 6:30-8:30pm, $5-10 suggested donation. David Coombs, the attorney of Chelsea Manning, formerly Private Bradley Manning of the US Army, will speak about Manning’s status following her sentencing in August 2013. The whistleblower, who published classified information about US military activity in Iraq and Afghanistan on the website WikiLeaks in 2010, leaked the largest set of classified documents in US history. Coombs will discuss what’s being done to support the prisoner of conscience since she was sentenced to 35 years in prison for her actions, which were charged as violations of the Espionage Act and other offenses.

Serial evictors named in mapping project

The San Francisco Anti-Eviction Mapping Project – the same tenant advocates who produced this time-lapse of Ellis Act evictions – have published a new interactive data visualization, displaying locations of properties where seniors and disabled tenants were ousted by no fault of their own.

Showing data over the last three years, the map plots locations of where tenants were evicted under the Ellis Act, and displays the identities of the responsible landlords for each affected unit.

“Waiting lists for public senior housing take years. Often senior and/or disabled tenants are forced to leave San Francisco altogether, or end up on the street homeless,” Anti-Eviction Mapping Project organizers wrote in a statement accompanying the interactive map. “If dispossessed from the city, they often lose access to vital city-subsidized healthcare and community support that they had been reliant upon.”

At today’s (Tue/26) Board of Supervisor’s Meeting, legislation seeking to assist seniors affected by Ellis Act evictions won preliminary approval by the full board. Called the Ellis Act Displaced Emergency Assistance Ordinance, it prioritizes evicted seniors when they seek to access affordable housing programs administered by the city.

“We need this measure to keep residents who have no other means of permanent housing from becoming homeless,” said Board President David Chiu, who cosponsored the legislation along with Sups. David Campos, Jane Kim, Eric Mar and London Breed.

The Anti-Eviction Mapping Project also released a time-lapse plotting the total number of no-fault evictions from 1997 to 2013. A counter that starts when you hit the play button breaks down the number of units where evictions were carried out under the Ellis Act, via owner move-in evictions, and through demolition.

The grand total for that timeframe is 11,766 no-fault evictions. That’s counting units, not individual tenants. Owner move-in evictions made up the lion’s share, with 6,952 units affected. Watch the visualization here.

Meanwhile, tenant advocates who are developing these data-driven presentations are also conducting a survey to gather information for another mapping project in the works.

Driving us crazy

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STREET FIGHT Parking reform is one of the most radically important elements of making San Francisco a more livable and equitable city.

In this geographically constrained city, parking consumes millions of square feet of space that could be used for housing, especially affordable housing in secondary units. Curbside parking in the public right of way impedes plans to make Muni more reliable for hundreds of thousands of transit riders. Parking in new housing and commercial developments generates more car trips on our already congested and polluted streets, slowing Muni further while bullying bicyclists and menacing pedestrians.

Fundamentally, parking is a privatization of the commons, whereby driveway curb cuts and on-street parking hog the public right-of-way in the name of private car storage. The greater public good — such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions and enhancing public safety through bike lanes, wider sidewalks, public green spaces, and transit-first policies — is subsumed to narrow private interests. These are among the many reasons why, for over a decade, parking reform has been a key part of progressive transportation policy.

Yet lately, it has been disappointing to watch progressives, especially on the Board of Supervisors, retreat from that stance. In Potrero Hill and North Mission, a vitriolic reaction has slowed rollout of nationally acclaimed SF Park, which raises revenue for Muni and is a proven sustainable transportation tool. Yet there are murmurings that some progressive supervisors might seek an intervention and placate motorists who believe the public right-of-way is theirs.

On Polk Street, some loud merchants and residents went ballistic when the city and bicycle advocates proposed removing curbside parking to accommodate bicycles. The city, weary of Tea Party-like mobs, ran the other way, tail-between-legs. Progressive supervisors seem to have gone along with the cave-in.

Along Geary, planning for a desperately needed bus rapid transit project drags on. And on. And on. And on. The lollygagging includes bending over backward to placate some drivers who might be slightly inconvenienced by improvements for 50,000 daily bus riders.

One thing that is remarkably disturbing about this backpedaling is that, in an ostensibly progressive city by many measures (civil rights, tolerance, environmentalism), the counterattack is steeped in conservative ideology. That is, conservatives believe that government should require ample and cheap parking, whether in new housing or on the street. This conservative ideology, shared by many car drivers and merchants — and even by some self-professed progressives — is steeped in the idea people still need cars. This despite the evidence that cars are extremely destructive to our environment, socially inequitable, and only seem essential because of poor planning decisions, not human nature.

Progressive backpedaling has become more confusing with the recent debate over 8 Washington, defeated at the polls Nov. 5, and on the same day of a convoluted Board of Supervisors hearing on a proposed car-free housing development at 1050 Valencia. Both of these projects highlight the muddled inconsistency emerging among progressive supervisors.

Enough has been written about how 8 Washington was a symbolic battle for the soul of San Francisco. But during the campaigns, the lack of attention to parking was curious. Notably, progressive-leaning transportation organizations like the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, Walk SF, and Transform sat out the election despite the project’s excessive 327 underground parking spaces, which violated hard-fought progressive planning efforts to make the waterfront livable. The Council of Community Housing Organizations also sat it out, despite benefitting from the progressive parking policies that 8 Washington violated. It appears that despite their transit-first rhetoric, progressives made a tactical calculation to keep parking out of the campaign.

The progressive victory came with a Faustian bargain which involved ignoring parking. To ensure 8 Washington was defeated, conservative voters were folded into the opposition. Groups like Eastern Neighborhoods United Front (ENUF), the Coalition for San Francisco Neighborhoods, and the Republican Party came out against 8 Washington and yet, ironically, all are opponents of progressive parking reform.

Moving forward, whatever happens at the 8 Washington site must include progressive parking policies. Don’t expect this from the unimaginative leadership at the Port, which speciously demanded the excessive parking. Don’t expect it from the developer, who steadfastly insists that the rich must have parking. And don’t expect conservatives to latch on to a waterfront scheme that is both publicly accessible and genuinely transit-oriented. It is progressives who will need to muster political will for a zero-parking project at the waterfront and set the tone for consensus among the other factions in the waterfront debate.

Meanwhile on the same day 8 Washington went down, 1050 Valencia barely made it out of a tortuous Board of Supervisors hearing in which progressives seemed to be the antagonists. As the first car-free market-rate housing proposal on Valencia under progressive parking reforms, this 12-unit mixed use building seemed an obvious win for progressives. It would be a walkable, bicycle-friendly urban infill mixed-use project with on-site affordable housing, all of which the city needs more of.

Yet since 2010, when the project first went to the Planning Commission, conservative rhetoric has been deployed to stop the project. Significantly, the Liberty Hill Neighborhood Association objected to the transit-oriented characterization of the project. It claimed that the 14 Mission and 49 Mission/Van Ness are filthy, crime-ridden, and unreliable and so 1050 Valencia must have parking.

Unlike progressives, who also decry shortfalls with Muni but propose solutions, the Liberty Hill opponents offered only secession from public transit, insisting on driving in secure armored cocoons instead of addressing Muni reliability, and they also expect free or cheap parking in the public right of way.

You would think that progressives at the Board of Supervisors would see through this thinly veiled bigotry against the 14 and 49 buses. But instead, four self-professed progressive supervisors — John Avalos, David Campos, Jane Kim, and Eric Mar — voted against 1050 Valencia.

They may argue that they were more concerned about the neighboring Marsh Theater, which has concerns about construction noise (and also parking). The noise issue can be worked out, and why the progressive supervisors did not work this out in advance is a mystery. But if you watch the hearing closely, the Marsh basically opposed the development — period — and thus a modest car-free development that included affordable housing at an appropriate location. And so did four progressive supervisors. It’s baffling.

At the end of the day, 1050 Valencia moved forward, barely. But it can still be stopped at the upcoming Board of Appeals hearing. Meanwhile, it’s time for progressives to make a frontal response to the Muni-bashing coming out of Liberty Hill.

The SFMTA is offering a bold and ambitious proposal for these buses on Mission between 13th and Cesar Chavez. This includes a transit-only lane, restricting automobile traffic, rearranging loading zones, and removing curbside parking so that 46,000 daily 14 and 49 passengers have better reliability and less crowding.

This plan will make life easier for San Franciscans who rely on these buses, but will require progressive supervisors to openly and sincerely advocate for removal of on-street parking, to support SF Park, and push for car-free housing development in the Mission, rather than knee-jerk posturing for a few political points in future elections. Progressives, stop screwing around.

Street Fight is a monthly column by Jason Henderson, an urban geography professor at San Francisco State University.

UPDATED: Board narrowly approves closing city parks at night

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The San Francisco Board of Supervisors today narrowly approved Sup. Scott Wiener’s legislation to close parks and large plazas from midnight to 5am, a measure that Wiener said was about preventing vandalism but which progressive activists called an attack on the homeless.

The vote was 6-5, with Sups. John Avalos, London Breed, David Campos, Jane Kim, and Eric Mar voting against the proposal. The key swing votes in the decision were Breed — who wrote an op-ed for this week’s Guardian (posting soon) explaining her position — and Sup. Norman Yee, who was elected last year in Dist. 7 with progressive support.

To address the homeless issue, Kim asked for an amendment to make an exception for sleeping in the parks. Without the amendment, “we are criminalizing poverty and issuing fines people will never pay, and not getting the results we wanted,” she said. 

Hundreds of homeless lay their heads to rest in the parks of San Francisco every night as the city struggles to meet housing demand, which is already illegal under city law. Kim’s amendment says those sleeping in parks are to be cited under previously existing codes against sleeping in parks and not double-fined under this ordinance. Wiener supported the amendment and it was inserted into the legislation, although that didn’t end the debate over the legislation or win over its main opponents.

As the legislation was first introduced, Wiener made the argument he’s made many times before. Closing the parks at night is about vandalism, he said. 

“We need to establish a clear baseline that establishes hours for the park to combat vandalism and dumping,” Sup. Scott Wiener told the board. He made the case that most major cities in the U.S. have laws closing their parks and playgrounds at night, and that even New York City had them on the books.

Wiener also directly and flatly denied that his legislation was an attack on the homeless. 

“If the police wanted to remove people sleeping and camping in parks, they already have the tools to do that. This legislation does not give them those tools beyond what they have,” he said. 

But opponents of the measure, who have been organizing against it for weeks, said it will target the homeless and be selectively enforced. As Mar said at the hearing, “I think this is a really mean-spirited ordinance.”

And that’s when the avalanche of arguments began. Campos, Mar, Avalos, and Kim all  passionately defended the homeless that sleep in the parks. But no one brought more facts to the argument than Breed.

“We have 1,339 shelter beds and 6,000 people in San Francisco with nowhere to sleep,” she said. “I’ve been told again and again this will not target the homeless. But if it doesn’t target the homeless or the investment banker or the firefighter, who will this law target? Suspicious looking people in hoods? Teenagers?” 

The room took on a chill as she evoked echoes of Trayvon Martin and others who have been selectively targeted in the name of justice. Enforcement was her next bone of contention. There are only a handful of park police, often only two, that patrol over 220 parks in San Francisco, she said. 

If the ordinance is supposed to combat vandalism, it doesn’t even do that effectively, she said to the board: “We don’t have a legislative problem, we have an enforcement problem.”

To that end, Yee amended Wiener’s proposal to identify more funding for the park police. Everyone on all sides of the argument acknowledged that two to three officers to cover over 4,000 acres of San Francisco parks was woefully inadequate. 

It’s still unclear where that funding will come from, and how much it will be. 

After the meeting the Guardian asked Police Chief Greg Suhr, who was present for the meeting, if the homeless would be targeted under the ordinance.

“We’re not that Police Department,” he said. But he also said the controversial Sit/Lie Ordinance doesn’t target homeless people either, a claim that homeless advocates would dispute. “We’re a reasonable suspicion detention department.” 

An audio interview with Police Chief Greg Suhr just after the park closure legislation passed, where we asked Suhr, “Will the homeless be targeted?”

Tom Temprano, president of the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club, disagreed. 

“I think that anyone who tells you the homeless will not be targeted in legislation that closes our parks at night are lying to you. There’s no other way to read this legislation,” he said. Temprano was one of the lead organizers of the sleep-in protest of the ordinance, which we previously covered.

When we asked if the ordinance would spur increased law enforcement in the parks, Suhr referred us elsewhere. 

“I leave the deployments to the station captains… certainly [the captains] have a pulse on what’s going on in the parks,” he said. 

So we called Captain Greg Corrales at Park Station, which oversees one of the most populous sections of Golden Gate Park, filled to the brim with campers. Corrales told us he didn’t imagine this ordinance would spur him to increase patrols or enforcement.

“There will not be more officers. The hours of the park have been posted on signs in the park, and past closing time people were cited for failure to abide by the signs,” he said. 

They cite 10-20 people for sleeping in the park per night, he said. As Kim noted, often these don’t lead to any prosecutions at all. 

But as for vandalism, Corrales said that there was recently a vandal throwing rocks through the windows of the Conservatory of Flowers and McLaren Lodge in Golden Gate Park. Would the ordinance help curb people from that kind of behavior?

“We’re already enforcing park closure,” he said. “It really doesn’t have much impact on us.” 

 

Red herring or not, park closure vote delayed while supes seek police input

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There is only one police chief in this town, and no law regarding the usage of public parks shall pass without him. Or so they said yesterday when Sup. Scott Wiener continued for a week consideration by the Board of Supervisors of his controversial proposal to close the city’s parks and plazas at night.

Wiener – champion of the legislation that homeless advocates say specifically target the City’s homeless population — motioned for continuance on the hotly contested agenda item after Police Chief Greg Suhr was unavailable to discuss how the measure might be enforced. The motion was seconded by Sup. Malia Cohen and passed without objection. 

But the continuance request means that Wiener will have to deal with what he calls an “epidemic of vandalism” for another week as well. The legislation would amend the “Park Code to establish hours of operation for City parks from 5am to midnight, with certain exceptions; and make environmental findings.” 

“It’s long been illegal to sleep or camp in parks,” said Sup. Wiener. “[Police] don’t need another law.” 

“This. Is. About. Vandalism,” Recreation and Parks Department General Manager Phil Ginsburg told the Guardian. “The homeless won’t be thrown out. The laws are already on the books, man.”

And while Wiener and those in the RPD have continued their insistence that that the legislation was written explicitly to target late-night vandalism, illegal dumping, and other nefarious activities not related to homelessness, opposition to the legislation say it’s “red herring” legislation that, on its face, claims to combat vandalism, but underneath is actually a bill targeting the homeless.

Wiener disagrees with this stance, however, and actually called the argument made by the legislation’s opposition — that the bill is a “red herring” ostensibly aimed at vandalism, but that really targets the homeless — a “red herring” as well. A red herring, historically, is a distraction. It’s a Trojan Horse, a magician’s assistant, a tool designed to confuse and obfuscate actual information or intent. 

It is a term that first found a foothold in the hunting world, but made it’s transcendental leap into the world of politics. Politicians have employed the use of “red herrings” in the past. But why would a group called the Coalition on Homelessness actually support vandalism, as the supervisor’s “red herring” comments would suggest?

When this fact was pointed out, Wiener told the Guardian that he “wasn’t going to speculate.” (And neither will we, at least as to why the supervisor chose to use the phrase “red herring” to describe the COH’s argument in the first place.)

But regardless of rhetoric, next week’s vote promises to be close. COH Executive Director Jennifer Friedenbach told the Guardian last week that she had the support of the four most progressive supervisors — John Avalos, Jane Kim, David Campos and Eric Mar — and needed just two of the three swing votes to shoot down the legislation. Those three undecided votes rest in the hands of Sups. London Breed, Katy Tang and Norman Yee.

“This is going to be a close vote,” said Wiener.

But a vote that will have to wait a week.

 

Homeless advocates fight Wiener on park closures

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The Coalition on Homelessness has launched a campaign to defeat Sup. Scott Wiener’s legislation to close down all city parks and most major plazas from midnight to 5am, which the Board of Supervisors is set to consider on Oct. 29. Activists are targeting three swing votes who could decide the controversial issue: Sups. London Breed, Norman Yee, and Katy Tang.

In an email blast to supporters, COH urged people to contact those three supervisors to raise their concerns, even suggesting a script that includes these arguments, “It further eliminates access to public space for all, it will displace homeless people, and is a waste of city funds.” [UPDATE: To protest the proposal, the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club is hosting a “sleep-in” protest at Dolores Park tonight (Mon/28) starting at 9pm.]

COH Executive Director Jennifer Friedenbach told the Guardian that she has the support of the four most progressive supervisors — John Avalos, David Campos, Jane Kim, and Eric Mar — and that she just needs two of the three swing votes that COH is targeting to kill the measure outright and avoid the kind of compromise that has become Board President David Chiu’s specialty this year.

She said the measure would be particularly harmful to the homeless LGBT community and other vulnerable populations that seek refuge at night in Golden Gate Park and other hidden spots, but that it’s bad for everyone. “It forces them out into the storefronts and streets and neighborhoods and nobody will be happy with that,” she said.

Wiener denies that the measure is aimed at the homeless, telling the Guardian that his intent is to address graffiti, illegal dumping, and damage done to park facilities overnight. “We’ve had an epidemic of vandalism in our parks and it’s getting worse,” Wiener told us. “It’s a significant problem and it absolutely degrades people’s ability to use the parks.”

Friedenbach said she appreciates that Wiener isn’t aiming his rhetoric at the homeless, even though she said that’s who will be most effected by it.

“It’s great in terms of not bashing homeless people, but we know every time something like this comes up, it increases public anger toward homeless people,” she told. And she notes that the measure is being trumpeted by people who do want to use it to go after the homeless, including Mayor Ed Lee, who went off script last month and told the Examiner that he hopes the measure will be a tool to clear the homeless from Golden Gate Park.

“The mayor said it was a great idea because we need to get the homeless people out of the park,” Friedenbach told us, noting also that, “Wiener has had a thing of going after homeless people.”

Wiener denies that this is about the homeless, and he responded to Lee’s comments by telling us, “I can’t speak for anyone else.” He also said that it’s already illegal to sleep in the parks and “to the extent the police want to do sweeps in the parks, they can already do so.”

The measure would apply the closing hours to all property controlled by the Recreation and Parks Department, which includes every city park and the city’s largest plazas, including Civic Center Plaza, Justin Herman Plaza, and Union Square.

“One thing people don’t think about is this also applies to the plazas,” Friedenbach told us. “A lot of our plazas are hangout spots late at night, and there’s no reason they shouldn’t be.”

Wiener said that small plazas, such as Harvey Milk and Jane Warner plazas in the Castro, aren’t under RPD jurisdiction and therefore aren’t effected by his legislation. And he said the ordinance was already modified to allow people to walk through the affected plazas without stopping, and that he’s open to further amendments.

As for his chances of success in the face COH’s activism on the issue, he told us, “I’m not sure what’s going to happen on the 29th.”

Supes approve funding request for jail construction

“A Costco warehouse with metal bunk beds” is how Matt Freeman of the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department described one of the county’s outmoded jail facilities, speaking at a meeting in City Hall today (Tue/22). At its meeting, San Francisco Board of Supervisors cleared the way for the Sheriff and the Department of Public Works to request $80 million in state funding to be put toward the construction of a modernized jail.

The new facility would replace seismically vulnerable 1950s era jails that are slated for demolition as part of a larger Hall of Justice overhaul. However, some supervisors voiced reservations about the plan.

As the Guardian recently reported, plans for the $290 million jail rebuild have drawn criticism from community advocates who question the use of resources that could be spent on programs to help people stay out of the criminal justice system.

Sup. Eric Mar, who refused to endorse the grant application at a recent Budget & Finance Committee meeting, piped up at the beginning of this meeting to say he’d had a change of heart. Evidently, Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi and some others from the Sheriff’s Department took him on a tour of the San Bruno jail, the county’s most modern facility, to show him the difference between an outmoded jail and one designed with rehabilitative programming in mind.

“I see now that the need is really critical, for safety for inmates but also … a seismically safe and modern jail,” Mar said. “I’m convinced now that it’s really about … supporting anti-recidivism and rehabilitation programs. I really appreciate the sheriff and his staff for opening my eyes.”

But Sup. David Campos was not yet entirely sold on the need for a new jail. “I am not in a position to say that I support the building of this facility,” he said, but said he could be open the possibility after studying the details. “I do acknowledge that I have a bias – I would rather spend less money building a jail than building other things that I think are better investments for our city. That’s not to say I don’t want the jail population to be taken care of. I clearly do.” His office has requested a hearing on this topic, which will be held in early December.

Sup. John Avalos said he too had found it “difficult to support a jail altogether,” but noted that a debate on that decision would come at a later time. “This is just making sure that we have an opportunity to receive state funding if we decide to rebuild,” he said.

In the end, the request to submit an $80 million grant application for state funding was approved without opposition. But the preliminary discussion suggests that a broader debate over San Francisco’s jail rebuild is on the horizon, and it’s an issue where typical political allies won’t necessarily see eye-to-eye. At the same time, it’s a big financial commitment. According to City Controller Ben Rosenfield, the total cost could be in excess of $500 million after financing is factored in.

Homeless advocates fight Wiener’s effort to close parks at night

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The Coalition on Homelessness has launched a campaign to defeat Sup. Scott Wiener’s legislation to close down all city parks and most major plazas from midnight to 5am, which the Board of Supervisors is set to consider on Oct. 29. Activists are targeting three swing votes who could decide the controversial issue: Sups. London Breed, Norman Yee, and Katy Tang.

In an email blast to supporters, COH urged people to contact those three supervisors to raise their concerns, even suggesting a script that includes these arguments, “It further eliminates access to public space for all, it will displace homeless people, and is a waste of city funds.”

COH Executive Director Jennifer Friedenbach told the Guardian that she has the support of the four most progressive supervisors — John Avalos, David Campos, Jane Kim, and Eric Mar — and that she just needs two of the three swing votes that COH is targetting to kill the measure outright and avoid the kind of compromise that has become Board President David Chiu’s specialty this year.

She said the measure would be particularly harmful to the homeless LGBT community and other vulnerable populations that seek refuge at night in Golden Gate Park and other hidden spots, but that it’s bad for everyone. “It forces them out into the storefronts and streets and neighborhoods and nobody will be happy with that,” she said.

Wiener denies that the measure is aimed at the homeless, telling the Guardian that his intent is to address graffiti, illegal dumping, and damage done to park facilities overnight. “We’ve had an epidemic of vandalism in our parks and it’s getting worse,” Wiener told us. “It’s a significant problem and it absolutely degrades people’s ability to use the parks.”

Friedenbach said she appreciates that Wiener isn’t aiming his rhetoric at the homeless, even though she said that’s who will be most effected by it.

“It’s great in terms of not bashing homeless people, but we know everytime something like this comes up, it increases public anger toward homeless people,” she told. And she notes that the measure is being trumpeted by people who do want to use it to go after the homeless, including Mayor Ed Lee, who went off script last month and told the Examiner that he hopes the measure will be a tool to clear the homeless from Golden Gate Park.

“The mayor said it was a great idea because we need to get the homeless people out of the park,” Friedenbach told us, noting also that, “Wiener has had a thing of going after homeless people.”

Wiener denies that this is about the homeless, and he responded to Lee’s comments by telling us, “I can’t speak for anyone else.” He also said that it’s already illegal to sleep in the parks and “to the extent the police want to do sweeps in the parks, they can already do so.”

The measure would apply the closing hours to all property controlled by the Recreation and Parks Department, which includes every city park and the city’s largest plazas, including Civic Center Plaza, Justin Herman Plaza, and Union Square.

“One thing people don’t think about is this also applies to the plazas,” Friedenbach told us. “A lot of our plazas are hangout spots late at night, and there’s no reason they shouldn’t be.”

Wiener said that small plazas, such as Harvey Milk and Jane Warner plazas in the Castro, aren’t under RPD jurisdiction and therefore aren’t effected by his legislation. And he said the ordinance was already modified to allow people to walk through the affected plazas without stopping, and that he’s open to further amendments.

As for his chances of success in the face COH’s activism on the issue, he told us, “I’m not sure what’s going to happen on the 29th.”

Lock-up shake up

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rebecca@sfbg.com

Should San Francisco spend $290 million on a modernized jail to replace the old ones that will be demolished when the Hall of Justice comes down?

That’s been the plan for years, but the Board of Supervisors Budget & Finance Committee started to ponder that question at its Oct. 9 meeting, setting the stage for a larger debate that hinges on questions about what it means to take a progressive approach to incarceration.

The Department of Public Works, in collaboration with the Sheriff’s Department, is preparing to submit a state grant application for $80 million to help offset the cost of rebuilding County Jails 3 and 4, outmoded facilities that are located on the sixth and seventh floors of the Hall of Justice.

That building is seismically vulnerable, and slated to be razed and rebuilt under a capital plan that has been in the works for the better part of a decade. With a combined capacity of 905 beds, Jails 3 and 4 were built in the 1950s and are in deplorable condition.

At the hearing, when supervisors considered whether to authorize the $80 million grant application, Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi said the current state of affairs is so bad that his department had to convert a bathroom to a visitation area because there was nowhere else for inmates to spend time with their kids in the same room. In other areas of the jail, temporarily vacant holding cells sometimes double as classroom space, since the department lacks dedicated areas for conducting classes.

The new jail would be built with somewhere between 481 and 688 beds, based on a lower calculated projected need, and more space would be devoted to programs like substance abuse education, parenting programs, or counseling.

San Francisco currently has five jails, but only one — a San Bruno facility built in 2006 — has what the Sheriff’s Department considers to be adequate space for rehabilitative services. Inmates there can opt to earn a high school diploma or take a course in meditation, and the department wants to build on that design in the new facilities.

Mirkarimi urged committee members to sanction the funding request as a first step toward that goal. “Whether it’s parenting programs or something that goes much deeper, then we need that space to make it happen,” he said.

At the same time, some community advocates questioned the very premise of spending millions on a new jail, arguing that scarce public resources could be better spent on services to prevent people from winding up in the criminal justice system to begin with.

In late August, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area called for the plan to be reexamined. “We agree that Jails 3 and 4 in the Hall of Justice should be torn down,” they wrote, “[but] we question the need to replace them with a new facility.”

Micaela Davis, criminal justice and drug policy attorney at the ACLU of Northern California, told the Guardian that advocates are seeking to reframe the debate by questioning why a new jail should even be built, rather than focusing on what kind of jail should replace the old ones.

She and other advocates are pushing for the county to explore alternatives to jailing arrestees who haven’t yet gone to trial, or look at ways of reorganizing housing for existing inmates. Given that the jail has been in the capital plan for so many years, she said, “it just seems necessary to reevaluate before moving forward with this project.”

While Sup. David Campos hasn’t taken a position so far, he submitted a request at the Oct. 1 board meeting for a hearing “to have an open discussion about what is being proposed, and to really examine if what is proposed makes sense,” he said. It’s expected to take place in early December at the Neighborhood Services and Safety Committee.

If San Francisco is awarded the $80 million in state funding, it must agree to dedicate $8.9 million of its own funds toward the project, which would be spent on preliminary designs, studies, environmental review, and other early costs, according to a board resolution approving the request.

Speaking at the Oct. 9 committee hearing, Sup. John Avalos responded to activists’ concerns by saying: “The last thing I want to do is build out the prison industrial complex. … I’ve always wanted to make sure we were minimizing what would lead to incarceration of more people.” While he did support the idea of applying for the grant, he did so with a caveat. “I would certainly want to uphold the right to vote against a jail in the future,” Avalos said.

Sup. Eric Mar, on the other hand, would not consent to allowing the funding request. “I can’t, under clear conscience, support this,” he said. In the end, the committee authorized the grant application with Avalos and Sup. Mark Farrell supporting it, and Mar opposed.

Activists try again to stop Jack Spade

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The fight to keep suspected formula retailer Jack Spade out of the Mission resumes this evening (Wed/9) when The Stop Jack Spade Coalition lays out it’s case against the men’s clothing chain before the Board of Appeals in an attempt to force the business to go through a conditional use permit hearing. [UPDATE: Activists say they won a big victory last night, not just winning that vote but maybe convincing Jack Spade to withdraw its application completely. We’re working on confirming things now and we’ll have more details soon.]

The new push against Jack Spade comes less than two months after an original appeal found the retailer not to be in violation of the neighborhood’s formula retail ban, with the opposition campaign getting written support of Sups. Eric Mar, John Avalos, and David Campos. They join a growing list of those opposed to the retailer, one that currently features former Board of Supervisors presidents Matt Gonzalez and Aaron Peskin and Assemblymember Tom Ammiano.

If the coalition is granted a rehearing, it will be the second time an appeal is heard on the matter. On Aug. 21, the Board of Appeals ruled against the retailer in a 3-2 majority decision, but the decision still lacked the four votes required to revoke the building permits.

Jack Spade — currently slated to rent the former Adobe Bookshop storefront at 3166 16th Street — was originally granted its business and building permits sans conditional use hearing, an act that was supposed to be unheard of for a prospective national retailer inside a neighborhood with a formula retail ban.

The 2004 formula retail ordinance requires a businesses to get a conditional use permit before moving into certain San Francisco neighborhoods if they meet the “formula retail” criteria. Part of that criteria states that a store can have no more than 11 “retail sales establishments located in the United States.” Jack Spade, pre-Mission store, has just 10 unique stores, which allowed them to circumvent the hearing process.

But according to 5th & Pacific’s public records, the holding company (formerly known as Liz Claiborne) that owns Jack Spade, the high-end men’s clothing store is not an independent business but rather a sub-brand of Kate Spade; a women’s clothing store with 94 locations in the United States alone.

The coalition opposing Jack Spade’s now-imminent Mission migration is using this piece of information as Exhibit A in their fight against the retailer. The coalition is claiming that by not acknowledging the fact that Jack Spade itself was part of a far larger corporation, the retailer violated the formula retail ban by claiming “independent business” status.

As the move-in date for the Mission’s unwanted addition grows near, the coalition has taken up the cause once again, mustering support from nearly every constituency available.

It will be bringing its revamped case to the Board of Appeals, this time with testimony seemingly focused on the misleading nature of Jack Spade’s classification as an “independent business.” That should prove to be an effective move for the coalition, because Jack Spade isn’t an independent business, and they don’t try to classify themselves as such outside of San Francisco.

In fact, according to 5th & Pacific’s 10-K filings with the SEC, the “Kate Spade brand offers fashion accessories for women under the Kate Spade and Kate Spade Saturday trademarks, and for men under the Jack Spade trademark.” The two brands even share the same CEO: Craig Leavitt. Declaring that the two companies are independent of each other based on product offering is like saying beef and milk are independent of  other because they come from different parts of the cow.

Now, armed with an updated defense, the Coalition is taking a second stab at the appellate process, one they feel good about. In a letter to the Board, executive director of the Valencia Corridor Merchant Association (VCMA) Luis Granados said, “If the findings section were fully taken into account [last time], we believe the Board will see that Jack Spade is formula retail, as set forth under the law.”

Or as Gonzalez wrote in a letter to the Board of Appeals: “Issues of corporate ownership and/or corporate structure have been a matter of debate in previous hearings regarding Jack/Kate Spade’s permits.  While nowhere in the planning code does it require the consideration of corporate ownership/structure, neither does the ordinance forbid a consideration of corporate ownership/structure.  Indeed, in order to fulfill the clear intent of the law in a common sense manner, it will be necessary, in some cases, to consider corporate ownership/structure.

I urge you to grant the VCMA’s request for a rehearing of Jack/Kate Spade’s permits in order to prevent manifest injustice.”

And considering the momentum that the anti-Jack Spade movement is now gaining, the optimism isn’t unreasonable.

Activist Andy Blue, who helped organize the protest, acknowledged the high bar needed to overrule the flawed ruling by the Planning Department, telling us, “We’re cautiously optimistic, but it’s a long shot.”

Cyclists testify to SFPD bias as supervisors call for reforms

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The cyclists of San Francisco were angry. Sup. Jane Kim was skeptical. Sup. Scott Wiener was unconvinced. Sup. Eric Mar said bikers were “pissed.” Deputy Chief of Police Mike Biel said he was too, but his anger could have just as easily been attributed to the 35 minutes he spent at the stand, acting as a whipping post for frustrations with the SFPD, as it could be to the department’s mistreatment of San Francisco cyclists.

Either way, the cyclists ruled the day.

During Thursday’s (10/3) Board of Supervisors Neighborhood Services and Safety Committee, Sup. David Campos called for a joint Board of Supervisors-Police Commission hearing regarding SFPD investigation protocol for bike accidents, but no immediate timetable has been set for the matter.

Without Police Chief Greg Suhr in attendance — his chiefly presence was required “reading to the children,” as Biel noted multiple times — Biel was left to stand solo in front of both frustrated supervisors and an incensed public.

At one point, following a particularly ambiguous response from Biel regarding accident checklists, Wiener asked bluntly, “Do you think there’s enough traffic cops in San Francisco? I don’t see bike cops, personally.”

To which Biel responded, “I’d like to see more.”

In fact, there was little defense on the part of Biel — and by extension, the Police Department — when it came to the seemingly lax (at best, malicious at worst) approach the SFPD has taken toward bike accidents in the past four years.

He even echoed Mar’s “pissed” comment, saying, “I was pissed too,” in regards to both what Mar called the “supposed investigation” of the Aug. 14 death of 24-year-old Amelie Le Moullac and the flippant attitude some in the department had taken towards cyclists in the days and weeks following. But he also stated that he didn’t think there was a negative bias in the SFPD.

The board’s decision to continue the conversation was bolstered by nearly 40 often-horrific testimonials regarding police treatment of cyclists in the City. And nearly all the stories could make the average person cring with the frustration, anger, and outrage they had the power to illicit.

Leah Shahum, executive director for the San Francisco Bike Coalition, told a story of a woman who was unable to make it to the hearing due to the injuries sustained in an April accident.

The woman, whom she didn’t identify, was biking in Golden Gate Park with her husband and son — the son was on the back of the woman’s bike — when she was hit from behind by a car, while she was stopped in the designated bike lane.

Witnesses stated that the driver was at fault. Her husband said the same thing. The police insisted on questioning the two of them more about their helmet usage — “which they were wearing,” according to Shahum — than they did about the actual events of the accident. Incidentally, adults aren’t required to wear bike helmets in California.

Robin Levitt, a Hayes Valley resident, talked about the strange “culture of blaming the victim” that has seemingly been propagated in the City, and how “in Germany, it’s immediately assumed that the vehicle is at fault, so drivers are safer.”

(And for what it’s worth, when Biel denied that same sentiment’s existence earlier with the committee, supervisors didn’t seem too convinced either. Mar even asked Biel, “Is there a bias or blame-the-victim attitude in the San Francisco Police Department?” which Biel promptly denied.)

And then there was Edward Hasbrouk, a former professional cyclist who has “never owned a motor vehicle.” He was biking home from work one evening when his progress in a Valencia Street bike line was impeded by a double-parked car in line for a valet service.

(Wiener has called for increased police enforcement of laws against double-parking. During today’s (Tues/8) Board of Supervisors meeting, he asked Mayor Ed Lee to support the effort, noting that SFPD rarely issues tickets to double-parkers despite “its impacts on traffic, Muni, cycling, and pedestrians.”)

Hasbrouk said that after a somewhat heated back-and-forth between the valet drivers, he flagged down a police officer to help him resolve the dispute, but the officer instead made Hasbrouk “carry [his] bicycle to the sidewalk.” Hasbrouk then said, “What would I have to do to get you to ticket these cars double-parked?” That comment got him arrested for felony vandalism, according to Hasbrouk. Expunging the arrest cost him nearly $3,000 and a night in jail.

But given the SFPD’s lack of pragmatism when it comes to investigating these accidents (for instance, Biel said SFPD doesn’t require a continuing education for officers assigned to traffic enforcement, despite what Shahum says are complex issues surrounding a rapidly growing population of cyclists), and it’s boorish behavior following the Le Moullac tragedy in August, it’s high time for change.

And a joint hearing could be just the place to start.

Community not criminalization

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By María Poblet

OPINION San Francisco is poised to break ground in defense of immigrants, an important step towards turning the tide against the criminalization of communities of color.

In a unanimous vote on September 24, the Board of Supervisors supported a due process ordinance that, after final approval, will reduce deportations by setting strict limits on collaboration between federal immigration enforcement and local authorities. Our city will make history by refusing to implement the federal Secure Communities program, which allows US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to request an immigration hold detention without cause, regardless of immigration status, at local expense.

This victory didn’t trickle down like fog from the “progressive Bay Area bubble.” It was hard fought, from the bottom up. Immigrant and undocumented people most impacted by the problems led the fight, and they built a movement too strong to ignore. Causa Justa::Just Cause helped organize the groundswell, as part of the San Francisco Immigrant Rights Defense Committee, a broad grassroots collaboration. We had support from progressive champions John Avalos, Eric Mar, David Campos, and five additional co-sponsors on the board.

This movement builds on the fights in the 1980s to make San Francisco a Sanctuary City, welcoming survivors of the wars in Central America. We build on the fights in the ’90s to re-commit to those values in the face of a new wave of migration, when economic refugees arrived, fleeing the hunger caused by US-imposed Free Trade Agreements. We build on the very personal fights of everyday people, like a woman we’ll call Silvia, a domestic violence survivor who met with the District Attorney repeatedly, demanded that he lead those meetings in Spanish so she could participate fully, advocated for herself and her community, and ultimately won his commitment of support for this ordinance. This victory belongs to the hundreds of community leaders who, like Silvia, overcame intimidation, organized their families and neighbors, and showed our elected officials the way forward.

In a national context, where states like Georgia, Alabama and Arizona hunt down immigrants, we in California, a majority immigrant, majority people of color state, have the opportunity, and the responsibility, to follow Silvia’s leadership. It’s time to reject criminalization, and build community.

Every time there’s a new way to label someone a “criminal,” more families and communities are torn apart. Millions of black and Latino people are behind bars already, thanks to criminalization policies like the war on drugs, structural unemployment, decades of divestment from working class communities, and racial discrimination. Creating new immigration violations only makes that problem worse, trapping whole new sectors of our society in the prison dragnet. This advance in San Francisco should inspire our state as a whole not only to reject S-Comm, but also to take bold action to address the profoundly problematic prison system, and challenge the racism and poverty it depends on.

But, for our state to stand up like that is going to take a serious transformation. Gov. Jerry Brown recently announced plans to expand the prison system with revenues from Prop. 30 — the grassroots progressive tax passed last year to support public schools and social services. Causa Justa::Just Cause, as part of California Calls, through SF Rising and Oakland Rising, was one of hundreds of community groups that helped pass this progressive tax. We are outraged to see the governor literally betting on the criminalization of the next generation, with money that was supposed to support their success.

Policies like S-Comm manufacture the need for more detention facilities, ultimately benefitting corporate interests like the GEO private prison group. Its lucrative business depends on criminalization, and a culture of fear. If politicians aren’t brave enough to survive the accusation that they are “soft on crime” in order to champion real change, then we the people will have to take it into our own hands. Immigrant communities, black communities, communities of color, and poor communities need to keep building the solidarity and the movement that will allow us to win, from San Francisco to Sacramento to DC. There is much more to be done, and we can only do it together.  

María Poblet is executive director of Causa Justa::Just Cause.

LAFCo should launch CleanPowerSF

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OPINION Last month, the Mayor’s Office and San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) — largely at the mayor’s behest — refused to launch CleanPowerSF, a program which is absolutely crucial to leading the country and the world to reverse the climate crisis (see “Power struggle,” Sept. 18).

The Board of Supervisors must now use its state-granted authority to activate San Francisco’s Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) to launch CleanPowerSF, regardless of SFPUC.

CleanPowerSF plans currently waiting to be implemented would create 1,500 jobs a year for the next 10 years, and install over 400 megawatts of local clean electricity projects. By 2024, 50 percent of our electricity would be generated by such local clean installations.

The newest proposed rates for CleanPowerSF are now fully competitive with PG&E, and the SFPUC’s staff (before the mayor intervened) was making unprecedented progress on the local clean energy installation plans. So at the SFPUC’s Aug. 13 hearing on CleanPowerSF rate-setting, community and environmental advocates stood unanimously to urge that the program be launched.

For the mayor and SFPUC of what is supposed to be one of the most environmental cities on Earth to completely ignore those community advocates, and throw a monkey wrench into the launching of CleanPowerSF, is simply beyond the pale.

Thankfully, in its wisdom, when the 2002 California Legislature passed the Community Choice law that made CleanPowerSF possible, it put city councils and county boards legally in charge of such programs (not mayors).

So is not up to the Mayor’s Office whether or not CleanPowerSF is launched. It is instead the job of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. And in a resounding 9-2 vote on Sept. 17, the Board of Supervisors raked the SFPUC (and by extension, the mayor) over the coals for not initiating CleanPowerSF. The vote was in favor of Sup. London Breed’s resolution demanding that the SFPUC obey the will of the board and launch CleanPowerSF immediately.

That’s a great first step, but the board now needs to go beyond resolutions and take decisive action through LAFCo, its most powerful tool for moving CleanPowerSF. LAFCo is independent of city government, is funded and tasked to oversee new enterprise programs like CleanPowerSF, and four of its five members are elected supervisors.

 

This independent supermajority can check mayoral overreach, and the LAFCo’s current board commissioners are John Avalos, David Campos, Eric Mar, and London Breed, all advocates of CleanPowerSF.

LAFCo was specifically given the budget and authority to act on CleanPowerSF when SFPUC fails to do so, and has already done this successfully in the past. When CleanPowerSF was first created in 2004, SFPUC refused to draft an implementation plan. In response, LAFCo stepped in with its own implementation plan and SFPUC, not wanting to lose influence, got back to work.

In 2011, SFPUC tried to sidetrack CleanPowerSF into only purchasing (but not building) clean power, refusing to fund planning work to establish a local installation and green jobs program. LAFCO stepped in to fund that work itself, and again SFPUC came back to the fold and hired Community Choice experts Local Power to do the work.

Now, yet again, SFPUC is refusing to do its job. Six months ago, it abruptly halted work on the local buildout and green jobs plan, and last month SFPUC put the whole program on hold by not setting rates.

LAFCo must now use its authority and leverage to both remove the rate-setting road block, and get the CleanPowerSF local buildout planning back on track. Eric Brooks is the sustainability chair of the San Francisco Green Party.

Evictions and gentrification fuel widespread concern in the Mission

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A mix of neighborhood merchants, community activists and a couple City Hall staffers met for a community forum Sept. 23 on Mission gentrification, voicing anger and frustration about rising displacement in the face of soaring rents.

Arranged by organizer Andy Blue, the forum was hosted by Rose Aguilar of Your Call Radio and held at the Eric Quezada Center for Culture and Politics on Valencia Street.

The recent controversy stemming from a bid by high-end retailer Jack Spade to move into a 16th Street storefront catalyzed the discussion, but many addressed the overarching transformation of a neighborhood that has been flooded with high-salaried residents who can afford to pay top dollar.

Gabriel Medina, policy manager of the Mission Economic Development Agency, said he’s troubled by the displacement of Latino-owned businesses. About 80 percent of Latino-owned businesses are passed onto proprietors’ children, he said, representing critical assets in a pricey city like San Francisco. “It’s getting cheaper to be able to start a business than to buy a house,” he pointed out.

Erick Arguello of Calle 24 (formerly the Lower 24th Street Merchants and Neighbors Association) said he’d seen a similar trend along his strip of the Mission, where some Latino-owned businesses have managed to hold strong since they bought their properties years ago.

Nevertheless, Arguello said, the pressure is on. “There’s been an onslaught of realtors and prospectors on 24th Street,” he said. “They ask about the neighbor next door: Do you know when their lease goes to?”

Nor are businesses the only ones impacted. “We’re seeing a lot of evictions of residents along the corridor,” he noted. “The majority of them are Latino families.”

Laura Guzman, executive director of the Mission Neighborhood Resource Center, decried a lack of funding for affordable housing and dedicated units for the homeless and impoverished.

She said many individuals living on the streets in the Mission lack options, leading them to pass the time in the BART plaza. “Support the people in the plaza. They’re human beings,” Guzman said.

Nick Pagoulatos, a legislative aid to Sup. Eric Mar who was previously involved with mid-90s anti-gentrification campaigns in the Mission, said he himself wasn’t sure if he would be able to remain in the city.

“I’m a partner to a woman who was born in the Mission,” he said, acknowledging the deep ties her family has to the neighborhood. “We know that when we lose our housing” – it is likely a question of when, not if, Pagoulatos said – “we’re not going to be able to stay in the Mission. And we’re probably not going to be able to stay in San Francisco.”

Some activist efforts have emerged. A direct action group called Eviction Free San Francisco has staged protests outside the doors of real-estate speculators. At the upcoming Dia de los Muertos 2013 celebration, curator Martina Ayala said at the meeting, “We are building altars to remember the life that we once enjoyed.” La Llorona, a Dia de los Muertos exhibit that will be held at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, is subtitled “weeping for the life and death of the Mission District.”

A similar transformation happened 10 years ago when the first dot-com boom flooded the Mission with deep-pocketed residents, Pagoulatos noted. Back then, “there was an organized reaction,” he said. “To be honest with you, we fought the good fight, we were at it for a long time and we didn’t win.”

This time around, “Our level of disgust for what’s been going on has been numbed,” he said. But he called for reaching out to engage unlikely allies, and for tapping into collective anger about displacement to bring about change.

“Get pissed, folks,” Pagoulatos said. “Anger is a good thing, especially in the face of injustice.”

Fight to save City College grows teeth and bites back

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Saving City College of San Francisco became a bigger battle yesterday when the California Federation of Teachers announced a lawsuit in San Francisco Superior Court to keep CCSF open.

The suit is directed against the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges, which pronounced the college’s death sentence July 3 by promising to revoke its accreditation in a year, without which a school cannot receive state funding and its students cannot get federal loans. 

Now, the ACCJC finds itself the institution under investigation by the feds and even City Attorney Dennis Herrera, and the CFT lawsuit is the latest legal challenge to the accreditors. 

The CFT charged the accrediting commission with using unfair and illegal business practices in its efforts to abolish City College. When asked for a statement about the impending lawsuit, ACCJC representative Tom Lane declined to comment.

“The ACCJC must be held accountable for their reckless, irresponsible and illegal actions,” CFT President Joshua Pechtalt explained at the Sept. 23 press conference held on the steps of City Hall, where the suit was announced. More importantly, Pechtalt said, winning this lawsuit could potentially stop the closure of CCSF.

A group of students, faculty, and elected officials stood with Pechtalt on the stone steps. One by one, they enumerated the improper activities that will be the basis of their lawsuit against the ACCJC: failing to adhere to its own policies and bylaws, violations of state and federal laws, and sanctioning CCSF without just cause.

Assemblymember Tom Ammiano said that the illegal behavior must stop here and now.

“The blatant lack of transparency, the loose interpretation of the rules, all seen through a lens of hubris and elitism, cannot continue,” he said. “San Francisco is our backyard and the college is our treasure.”

While Ammiano admitted that CCSF is not without its flaws and areas in need of improvement, he was quick to assert that closing the college was not the solution. “Stay out of our backyard unless you have something constructive to say,” he declared.

CCSF Student Trustee Shanell Williams assured the crowd that the lawsuit would be won. “The diverse population of the San Francisco Bay Area, including working families, single parents, new immigrants and others, depends greatly on this college being here,” she said. “If we lose City, we are going to be on our way to being an indentured, working class state.”

If the ACCJC succeeds in San Francisco, it will pave the way for identical treatment of other schools across the state, Williams said. Likewise, CCSF triumphing over the commission would be a victory for every community college in California.

Sup. David Campos also recognized the vital importance of CCSF’s continued existence. “We cannot have the American dream alive in San Francisco if City College closes,” he said. “This fight is about the soul of our city. ”

The US Department of Education has cited the ACCJC for failing to follow its own rules and procedures. A month ago, the Joint Legislative Audit Committee began investigating the commission. The following day, Herrera filed a lawsuit against the ACCJC, claiming it had illegally allowed its advocacy and political bias to prejudice its evaluation of college accreditation standards.

A new report released by the city’s Budget and Legislative Analyst on Sept. 16 detailed the economic impact to San Francisco if City College were to close. The report was requested by Supervisor Eric Mar. We’ve detailed some of the report’s findings in the infographic below. 

ccsf closure infographic