Julian Davis

Approve affordable housing — for youth

Andrew Lam
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1
Approve affordable housing — for youth

OPINION Booker T. Washington, born as a slave, risked his life to learn to read and write and went on to found Tuskegee University. At his core, he believed that economic independence and access to education were the keys to equality. He put it best when he said: “There are two ways of exerting one’s strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.”

Since 1919, the Booker T. Washington Community Service Center has worked to lift up San Franciscans of every background, with a particular focus on the African American community. To continue that vision, the center is embarking on a capital project that will provide 50 units of affordable housing to youth and families, along with new athletic and educational space.

The most critical part of the project is providing housing for transitional-age youth. Many of these young people age out of foster care with no family support, few job skills, and no chance to rent a market-rate apartment in this expensive city. The project represents a real commitment to these youth, who are overwhelmingly people of color. With affordable housing funding under threat at the federal and state levels, it’s essential that shovel-ready projects get the green light from City Hall.

That is why we were thrilled when Sups. Ross Mirkarimi, Eric Mar, and Mark Farrell introduced the necessary legislation to allow this project to move forward. Joining hundreds of community leaders, countless families, and prominent African Americans, these supervisors lent their support for a project that continues the ongoing fight for economic justice.

It’s also why we are concerned that a few neighbors are using their influence to push down on the hopes of San Francisco’s youth. Some neighbors have asked that we add additional parking, even though the site is just a few blocks from Geary Boulevard and most low-income youth don’t have cars. Others have suggested that we cut nine units to make the building shorter, even though San Francisco’s housing needs are so acute. As is often the case in San Francisco, those who support progressive values need to speak up to ensure that we can overcome this campaign of misinformation and fear.

On April 28, the Planning Commission will consider whether to certify the environmental impact report for this project, and whether to approve it. We are hopeful that progressive voices speak out so we can provide hope and a future to youth in our community. As Booker T. often said: “Success is to be measured not so much by the position one has reached in life as by the obstacles one has overcome.” 

Julian Davis is president of the board and Patricia Scott is executive director of the Booker T. Washington Community Service Center, located at 800 Presidio Ave. The Planning Commission hearing is Thursday, April 28 at City Hall, Room 400.

 

Highlights of Ed Lee’s nomination

Mary Magee
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25

An awful lot went down at City Hall today: four Board members were termed out, new Board members were moving into their offices, the old Board nominated Ed Lee as interim mayor, and Gavin Newsom revealed he’ll be gone as mayor by Monday afternoon. Here in no particular order are some of the highlights:


When termed-out D6 Sup. Chris Daly suggested that Rose Pak be nominated mayor, since she apparently managed to broker the Lee deal in three short days, Pak shot back, “I would do it, only if Chris Daly would be my Chief of Staff.”


Pak told me that she persuaded Lee to take the job, over the cell phone, while he was at the airport in Hong Kong.


Pak outlined her reasons for supporting Ed Lee as mayor. “Ed Lee has devoted 35 years to San Francisco. He’s earned his stripes. He’s the most qualified, the most unifying agent, and the most talented.”


 The crowd of seniors from the Self Help for the Elderly non-profit who crammed City Hall today are a likely preview of things to come during the mayor’s race.


 Board President David Chiu’s insistence that there were no back room deals. “Shortly after Gavin Newsom was elected Lt. Governor, I said Ed Lee should be considered as a candidate,” Chiu told me. “There was never a deal.”


The strong sense that Chiu is running for mayor in November, though he hasn’t filed. Asked if he was running, Chiu said. “I’m here at the Board focused on the work.” Asked if he wasn’t running, Chiu said, “I’m here at the Board focused on the work.” (That’s not a very convincing denial, David!)


On being reminded that the Year of the Rabbit kicks off in February, Chiu added,  “Hopefully, this will be a very fortunate year for San Francisco.”


Oakland and San Francisco will both have Asian American mayors—160 years after Chinese immigrants first settled in San Francisco and 129 years after the Chinese Exclusion Act sought to prevent these immigrants from rising to the top.


The rejoicing that reportedly is going in the Asian community, right now.“Chinatown is excited,” a reporter for Sing Tao Daily told me. “Ed Lee is a low-key kinda guy. No one really knows him, but as former DPW director, he was always filling up pot holes.”


The stated hope that Lee will support Sup. Avalos local hire ordinance, which kicks in Feb. 23, implement Sup. David Campos’ due process for immigrant youth ordinance, and enforce the recommendations of the Mayor’s African American Out Migration Task Force.


The growing sense that Sup. John Avalos is a strong contender as new Board President.


Sharen Hewitt’s observation that burgeoning racial tensions between African Americans, Asian Americans and Latinos need to be addressed. Now.


Julian Davis’ observation that while the way Lee was appointed is not something San Francisco should be proud of, the fact that we now have an Asian American mayor with the almost unanimous support of the old Board is (Daly was the lone dissenter).


Newsom’s reminder that the old Board’s vote was symbolic.“Today was an extraordinary historic vote,” Newsom said. “But remember, it’s symbolic. The new Board will make the appointment.”


 Newsom’s description of Lee as a ‘recruitment” as he, too, insisted there were no backroom deals. “There were no deals, no backroom deals,” Newsom insisted. “He’s the right person at the right time.”


Newsom’s claim that this isn’t about Lee (or anyone else who’d been nominated.) “It’s not about you,” Newsom said, recreating a conversation he allegedly recently had to convince Lee, who’d just been guaranteed five more years employment as City Administrator, to become interim mayor for the rest of 2011. “You are that something more, that something better. You’re the one guy who can pull it altogether, including if disaster strikes, which is my biggest fear.”


Newsom’s relief that he only needs to prepare a 3-page budget brief. “Someone who understands so much of the process doesn’t need 20 pages,” he said.


Newsom’s claim that ideologues make terrible mayors.”If this city gets off track, plays some ideological game, it impacts the entire region,” he said. “I love that Lee is not even in the country. If he had been here, he’d probably have been convinced not to do it. Ideologues make terrible mayors, and mayors make terrible ideologues.”


Newsom’s explanation of how Lee will be able to get back his job, though the charter prohibits people who served in elected office from working for the city for at least a year.
”Hopefully, the Board will make it easy for him. Four members of the Board can put a charter amendment on the ballot. Or Lee can do it himself.”


Newsom’s revelation that he will be sworn in as Lt. Governor at 1:30 p.m, Jan. 10, and San Francisco will find out who the next District Attorney is by then.


Newsom’s claim that 2010 was an “incredible” year. “The Shipyard, Treasure Island, the America’s Cup, Doyle Drive, the Transbay Terminal. All these things are groundbreaking,” he said.


 


 

Mirkarimi and mayoral hopefuls launch D5 Dem Club

Sasha Cuttler
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4
Mirkarimi and mayoral hopefuls launch D5 Dem Club

Democratic Party clubs are one of the most basic political building blocks in this basically one-party town, so it’s odd that politically active District 5 (the Haight and Western Addition) didn’t have one. But that changed last night with the launch of the District 5 Democratic Club, with fuel provided by current D5 Sup. Ross Mirkarimi and mayoral contenders Leland Yee and Dennis Herrera and with several potential Mirkarimi successors on-board.

“We saw it was a huge opportunity this year to get people engaged and involved,” newly elected D5DC president Jen Longley, a progressive activist who calls herself a “campaign gypsy,” told a gathering of about three dozen people at Cafe Divis. And she thanked Mirkarimi, who switched from the Green to Democratic parties about a year ago, for supporting the club’s creation. “This party would not have happened if not for the help of Ross Mirkarimi.”

And it wouldn’t have met its $1,000 fundraising goal if Yee and Herrera didn’t kick in big as they court D5 voters as part of their mayoral campaigns. Mirkarimi gave the keynote speech, calling D5 the “hippest district in the city” and one of its most progressive, something he wants to see the club help project onto the rest of the city. “I’m delighted to be a part of it,” he said, urging attendees to contribute financially.

In addition to being active in next year’s mayor’s race, the club will also play a role in determining who will succeed Mirkarimi in 2012, and there were some likely contenders for that slot on hand, including City College of San Francisco Trustee John Rizzo, progressive activist Julian Davis, and club owner Michael O’Connor, with labor activist Gabriel Haaland also supporting the club’s creation.

Longley noted that D5 has lots of very active neighborhood association, but few political organizations, and she said that she feel honored to be leading one at such a pivotal political moment.

Local hire, Steve Kawa, and the Americas Cup

Mary Magee
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2

Unemployed workers and community advocates hoping to secure Mayor Gavin Newsom’s support for Sup. John Avalos’ groundbreaking local hire legislation rallied at City Hall December 14 to meet with Newsom’s chief of staff Steve Kawa. But Newsom and Kawa were said to be in intense negotiations over the Americas Cup bid. So, James Richards, founder of Aboriginal Blacks United, waited until Kawa could see him, along with Florence Kong of the Bayview-based Kwan Wo Ironworkers. Joshua Arce of the Brightline Defense Project, and a group of local residents.

“‘Living in the city is so expensive,” Kong observed. “It’s not fair that a lot of local work is being done by workers from outside the city.”

Kawa finally emerged and shepherded folks out of the Mayor’s Office and into a meeting room close to the supervisors’ office. He was uncomfortable with having media at the meeting. But Richards said the group was OK with a reporter. And then he asked Kawa if Newsom would sign Avalos’ local hire law later that day.

“This is a very complex piece of legislation, and if it does become law, that’s when the work begins,” Kawa said, noting that Newsom will have ten days to review it, after its Dec. 14 reading. “Some folks are still concerned about it, partly on the trades union side,” Kawa added.

But Richards pressed his point. “After the Board acts today, we want to talk to the mayor,” Richards said. “We don’t want to wait around another ten days. We want him to assure us.”

But Kawa refused to give assurances. “At the end of the day, 42,000 San Francisco don’t have a job,” Kawa said, claiming the best local jobs program was Jobs Now, under Newsom.  “But the federal government is refusing to extend that program, and now we can’t hire anybody at City Hall and we have to get this economy growing,” he said.

When Joshua Arce of Brightline expressed concern that folks had met privately with Newsom to exert pressure against Avalos’ legislation, Kawa replied that Newsom had concerns that some folks could lose their jobs around San Francisco airport, because, technically, it’s in San Mateo.

“And are we sure this legislation will be successful?” Kawa continued. “The worst thing a government can do is over promise and under deliver. Our question is, you tell me how it will not fail. Because, yes, we want to have local hire, but don’t mislead anybody by saying, we pass this legislation, she gets a job. Our issue is making sure that we are not misleading anyone. Those are the concerns that people have. Will it be successful, as written? Because we can’t mislead your members, James.”

“Tell the mayor, we are here,” Richards said.
And then Kawa was shaking his hand and heading back to the Mayor’s Office, presumably to talk about cups and America.

“It’s a good thing, we are here today,” Richards said to the workers who remained sitting in the meeting room long after Kawa was gone. Many of them were young, black and male–and in search of a job. “Give a round of applause for your own self,” Richards continued. “It’s a good thing to let them know you come down here to take care of your own business.Because don’t nobody…”

He paused and the ABU members in the room immediately picked up the “don’t nobody give a damn” refrain, their voices ringing as one.

“Some times when we push too hard, when we get what we want, he get on a roll and tell all the reasons why he not going to sign. ‘I want to do this, but…” Richard added.

And then Richards turned to the issue of local hire at UC Mission Bay.“They gotta know today that we are hot on their trail,” he said. “Let them go tell that. Let Steve go tell that. Then they know we are fighting that.”

An hour later, when the Board gave Avalos’ legislation a veto-proof majority, Richards, Kong and the rest of the group burst into applause.
“It’s been quite a road to get here,” Avalos said.

“This is the most substantive policy San Francisco has passed in a generation,” Julian Davis observed, as local hire supporters rejoiced by the Tree of Hope, outside the Board’s Chambers.

Inside the Chambers, the Board was voting unanimously to support the city’s Americas Cup bid.

“To win a sailing race, every member of the crew has to work together,” Board President David Chiu said.  And his words could equally have applied to Avalos and the community’s effort to navigate treacherous political seas, get local hire legislation passed and, hopefully, lift everyone’s boat, in the process.

Election 2010: Progressives keep D6 seat

Sasha Cuttler
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14
Election 2010: Progressives keep D6 seat

While the outcome of the D6 supervisorial race won’t be known until all the ranked choice ballots get counted, it is clear that the seat will stay with the progressives as Jane Kim and Debra Walker vie to see how many voters liked them second best. And that was good enough news for Board President David Chiu.
“Given where Debra and Jane are, I’m glad that we’re going to keep this a progressive seat,” Chiu, a Kim supporter, told us at their election night party in the new club Public Works, which is right next to Kim’s Mission Street campaign headquarters.
The latest results show Kim with 3,780 votes (31.3 %), Walker with 3,337 votes (27.7%), and downtown-backed Theresa Sparks with 1,985 votes (16.5%), and the rest divided among 11 other candidates.
“I feel good,” Kim told the Guardian, although she seemed a little weary from running a strong campaign, noting that they had 400 volunteers on the street today, most of them wearing the bright red T-shirts that read “See Jane Run” on the back. “What I’m really happy about is we ran a really good campaign.”
Kim supporters on hand included Sup. John Avalos, transit activist Dave Snyder, progressive activists Julian Davis and Sunny Angulo, Chiu board aides Judson True and Cat Rauschuber, and a large group of young Asian-American activists.
“I really want to encourage people to get to get to know each other,” Kim told the crowd. “We live in a big city and a really diverse district.”

Cake throws down to bring solar to Telegraph Hill

Sasha Cuttler
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0
Cake throws down to bring solar to Telegraph Hill

The high-water mark in the unsuccessful 2008 campaign to pass Proposition H, the Clean Energy Act – a partial public power measure that Pacific Gas & Electric buried with a deceptive, $10 million propaganda blitz – was arguably when the hit band Cake played a benefit concert for the measure at The Independent.

Tonight (July 1), the ever eco-conscious Cake returns to that venue with a similar mission, this time dubbed Climatepalooza 2010, with the goal of building a solar roof at the Telegraph Hill Community Center, honoring a request by Telegraph Hill political powerhouse and San Francisco Democratic Party chair Aaron Peskin and Prop. H campaign manager Julian Davis, who has a personal relationship with some band members.

“Climatepalooza 2010 promises to be a wonderful event. It give folks a chance to hear some great music and do the right thing for the environment, and it also supports Tel-Hi, a vitally important neighborhood institution,” Peskin said in a statement released by the nonprofit group One Atmosphere, which has also been involved in organizing the event.

That group, which has worked Al Gore, Nancy Pelosi, and other party bigwigs also got a quote from Mayor Gavin Newsom (who opposed Prop. H): “It’s great to see San Francisco putting together events like Climatepalooza. It combines the best of San Francisco – caring for your neighbors, doing something positive for the environment, and having a great time. Everyone needs to help in the fight against global warming. This is a terrific way for people to get involved.”

Apparently Cake and the power of the sun can create unlikely bedfellows.

“The State of Black SF”

Sasha Cuttler
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2

By Adrian Castañeda

To support those living in public housing, the Osiris Coalition is hosting an event called The State of Black SF this Sunday (Feb. 28) at the Main Library’s Koret Auditorium from 2-4:30 pm. It will feature a short film and a panel discussion on the plight of the city’s African American population, a topic discussed in this week’s Guardian cover story.

One of the items the panel is sure to discuss is the mayor’s Hope SF initiative to renovate eight public housing projects around the city. City officials, residents, and developers agree that housing projects like Hunter’s View and Alice Griffith are dilapidated. But while plans have been made for revitalization and rebuilding, some community groups are worried that current residents, an already marginalized population, will be overlooked.

With this in mind, the Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco is drafting The Right to Remain Act that aims to assign accountability and protect current tenants during the construction process.

If passed by the Board of Supervisors, the ordinance would provide for the establishment of a monitoring committee comprised of residents and community leaders to approve plans and keep the public informed.  The aim, says Julian Davis of the San Francisco Housing Development Corporation, is to guarantee that current residents benefit from revitalization and will be allowed to remain in their neighborhoods. “They’re all just stated policy goals at this point,” he said of the effort to provide stronger guarantees.

Under the ordinance, existing provisions in the Hope SF plan would be enforced by limiting city funding for future projects until appropriate conditions for relocation and construction are met. The current Hope SF plan includes specific one-to-one placement and phased development provisions, where residents will be moved to on-site housing if possible.

However, there is no guarantee the developers will abide by these plans, so the Right to Remain Act will fill in gaps in federal and state housing laws and hold the Hope SF plan to its goals by ensuring every resident will receive a contract for their home and can sue if their rights are not upheld. Sara Shortt of the HRCSF told us, “No matter what kind of rhetoric is thrown around by officials during all of this, there’s something real on paper that can be enforced.” Shortt, who served on the mayor’s Hope SF task force, says there is a long history of broken promises in communities like Hunter’s View and tenant’s fear being pushed out of their homes.

Many city officials, including District 10 supervisor Sophie Maxwell and those in the Mayor’s Office of Housing, are receptive to the general idea behind the act but few have assured their support. “I don’t think the mayor’s office is particularly keen on it,” Davis said of the proposed residential committee. Shortt said, “It’s not just about logistical issues. We believe you can’t guarantee that without having accountability and oversight.” She adds that the act should be “in the spotlight,” for the November District 10 elections, “so all the candidates are aware this is something that they’re going to have to take a position on.”

The act is still being drafted, but the relocation of residents at the Hunter’s View projects has already begun. The pre-existing surplus of hundreds of empty units has made the on-site relocation simple, and Jack Gardner of the John Stewart Company says demolition will begin in March. While the Right to Remain Act would not retroactively cover current projects, it will protect residents in future redevelopment plans.

“Wouldn’t it be great to have it happen like Hunter’s View at the other sites?” says Davis.

Best of the Bay 2009: Local Heroes

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ANGELA CHAN

As staff attorney at the Asian Law Caucus, Angela Chan has been at the forefront of a yearlong effort to ensure that all undocumented juveniles have the right to due process in San Francisco.

That effort began last summer, shortly after Mayor Gavin Newsom, who had just decided to run for governor, announced that undocumented juveniles henceforth would be reported to federal authorities the minute they are booked on suspicion of having co

mmitted a felony — and before they can access an immigrant-rights lawyer.

These changes primarily affect Latino youth, but Chan, whose Cantonese-speaking parents ran a restaurant in Portland, Ore., sees the broader connections to other immigrant communities.

“I grew up in an immigrant community in a white working-class neighborhood,” Chan explained. “I saw the barriers — language, culture, racism, xenophobia — and I realized that there was not a lot of power and awareness. I learned to appreciate civil rights.”

As a teenager, Chan was determined to become an attorney. The temporary passage of California Prop. 187 — prohibiting undocumented immigrants from using social services, health care, and public education — intensified her determination. Chan graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School, and has been able to focus on this particular juvenile justice battle thanks to a Soros Justice Fellowship and the ALC’s “innovative, fluid, creative, and client-centered vision.”

449-chan.jpg

“I’ve tried different ways of challenging inequality — direct confrontation, anger — but I’ve found the best way is through policy, and being very educated and strategic,” Chan said.

She said she’s hopeful that Sup. David Campos has the votes this summer to pass veto-proof amendments to the city’s undocumented-youth protection policy. As she put it: “People are starting to understand the difference between the juvenile and adult justice system and the issues around due process.” (Sarah Phelan)

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449-davis.jpg

JULIAN DAVIS

Take a look at just a few of the things Julian Davis has done: He ran the 2008 public-power campaign. He’s on the board of San Francisco Tomorrow. He’s president of the Booker T. Washington Community Service Center. He’s a founder of the MoMagic Collaborative, which fights youth violence in the Western Addition. He’s on the board of the San Francisco Housing Development Corporation. He’s been appointed by the Board of Supervisors to serve on the Market-Octavia Citizens Advisory Committee. He’s a founder of the Osiris Coalition, which is working to ensure that public-housing tenants have the right to return to their homes after renovations. He’s hosted countless events for charities and political campaigns.

Then think about this: he’s only 30.

Davis grew up in Palo Alto, and moved to the corner of Haight and Fillmore after getting bachelor’s and master’s degrees in philosophy from Brown University. Philosophers weren’t exactly in demand at the time, so he wound up “playing my guitar on the streets for burrito money” while starting a PhD program at Stanford.

He also saw three people shot to death on his corner. “And I realized,” he explained, “that the academic life wasn’t going to be for me.”

Davis started organizing against community violence, and, inspired by Matt Gonzalez’s mayoral campaign, ran for supervisor in 2004. That got him started in local politics. He’s headed to law school at Hastings this fall, and it’s a safe bet that he’ll be a leader in the progressive political community for years to come. (Tim Redmond)

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449-Schooley.jpg

DAVID SCHOOLEY

“He’s a visionary. He’s very determined. He never gives up.”

That’s how Ken McIntire, executive director of San Bruno Mountain Watch, describes David Schooley, who founded the Mountain Watch nonprofit four decades ago.

“For many years, David led every Sierra Club hike, organized every restoration party, and even took the bus to community fairs up and down the Peninsula so he could set up a table and distribute fliers about San Bruno Mountain,” McIntire recalls.

Now snowy-haired and allegedly semiretired, Schooley, 65, remains as nimble as a goat when it comes to hiking across his beloved mountain, which rises and cuts across the Peninsula just south of San Francisco in San Mateo County — and whose ecosystem has been identified as one of 18 global biodiversity hotspots in need of protection

Schooley’s love for the mountain — which is covered with low-growing grasses, coastal sage, and scrub year-round and is dotted with wildflowers each spring — led him to found SBMW in 1969 and fight the expansion of the Guadalupe Valley Quarry and the growth of nearby Brisbane. Both were threatening to destroy the biggest urban open space in the United States and the habitat of rare butterflies, including the San Bruno elfin.

As Schooley explains, while the mountain is often hit with strong gusty winds and enveloped in thick fog, it is a great butterfly habitat and the last fragment of an entire ecosystem — the Franciscan region — the rest of which has been buried beneath San Francisco’s concrete footprints.

Two years ago, Schooley had the pleasure of once again finding the tiny raspberry-colored elfin caterpillars on some sedum (its host plant) on the north-facing upper benches of the quarry.

“It’s a miracle,” Schooley told me at the time, delighted by this living example of nature’s ability to overcome human-made damage on the mountain.

At the time, Schooley was hoping the state park system would annex the property where the elfins were found. That hasn’t happened yet. But as McIntire says of Schooley (who dreams of a wildlife corridor that runs from the bay to the ocean), “David is always pushing for more open space around the mountain, for more nature and less development, and trying to reach a bigger audience.” (Sarah Phelan)

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SAN FRANCISCO MIME TROUPE

The San Francisco Mime Troupe is the conscience of the city, our proudest export, and — as it celebrates its 50th year — perhaps our most enduring sociopolitical institution. That’s a lot of kudos to heap on an artists’ collective, particularly one that delivers its theatrical social satire with such over-the-top comedy and music, but it isn’t a statement that we make lightly.

The SFMT embodies the very best San Francisco values — limitless creativity, a hunger for justice, courage under fire, an uncompromising commitment to creating a better world, and a progressive missionary zeal — and offers a powerful and entertaining reminder of those values every July 4, when it presents its new show in Dolores Park.

After it sings (and preaches) to the progressive choir of San Francisco, the troupe hits the road, visiting such less-than-enlightened outposts as the Central Valley and rural Northern California, delivering important messages to audiences that need to hear them most. “First of all, it’s humorous, so that breaks down a lot of barriers from the get-go,” SFMT general manager Jenee Gill tells us.

But even here in the early ’60s, the San Francisco Recreation and Park Commission tried to use obscenity laws to ban the SFMT from performing in public parks. The troupe successfully fought the commission in court, setting an important free speech precedent. Modern San Francisco has grown up with the SFMT showing us the way forward with its uniquely high-stepping, knee-slapping, consciousness-raising style, and we’re a better city for it. (Steven T. Jones)

All local heroes photos by Pat Mazzera

Best of the Bay 2009: Local Heroes

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>>BEST OF THE BAY HOME

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449-chan.jpg

ANGELA CHAN

As staff attorney at the Asian Law Caucus, Angela Chan has been at the forefront of a yearlong effort to ensure that all undocumented juveniles have the right to due process in San Francisco.

That effort began last summer, shortly after Mayor Gavin Newsom, who had just decided to run for governor, announced that undocumented juveniles henceforth would be reported to federal authorities the minute they are booked on suspicion of having committed a felony — and before they can access an immigrant-rights lawyer.

These changes primarily affect Latino youth, but Chan, whose Cantonese-speaking parents ran a restaurant in Portland, Ore., sees the broader connections to other immigrant communities.

"I grew up in an immigrant community in a white working-class neighborhood," Chan explained. "I saw the barriers — language, culture, racism, xenophobia — and I realized that there was not a lot of power and awareness. I learned to appreciate civil rights."

As a teenager, Chan was determined to become an attorney. The temporary passage of California Prop. 187 — prohibiting undocumented immigrants from using social services, health care, and public education — intensified her determination. Chan graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School, and has been able to focus on this particular juvenile justice battle thanks to a Soros Justice Fellowship and the ALC’s "innovative, fluid, creative, and client-centered vision."

"I’ve tried different ways of challenging inequality — direct confrontation, anger — but I’ve found the best way is through policy, and being very educated and strategic," Chan said.

She said she’s hopeful that Sup. David Campos has the votes this summer to pass veto-proof amendments to the city’s undocumented-youth protection policy. As she put it: "People are starting to understand the difference between the juvenile and adult justice system and the issues around due process." (Sarah Phelan)

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449-davis.jpg

JULIAN DAVIS

Take a look at just a few of the things Julian Davis has done: He ran the 2008 public-power campaign. He’s on the board of San Francisco Tomorrow. He’s president of the Booker T. Washington Community Service Center. He’s a founder of the MoMagic Collaborative, which fights youth violence in the Western Addition. He’s on the board of the San Francisco Housing Development Corporation. He’s been appointed by the Board of Supervisors to serve on the Market-Octavia Citizens Advisory Committee. He’s a founder of the Osiris Coalition, which is working to ensure that public-housing tenants have the right to return to their homes after renovations. He’s hosted countless events for charities and political campaigns.

Then think about this: he’s only 30.

Davis grew up in Palo Alto, and moved to the corner of Haight and Fillmore after getting bachelor’s and master’s degrees in philosophy from Brown University. Philosophers weren’t exactly in demand at the time, so he wound up "playing my guitar on the streets for burrito money" while starting a PhD program at Stanford.

He also saw three people shot to death on his corner. "And I realized," he explained, "that the academic life wasn’t going to be for me."

Davis started organizing against community violence, and, inspired by Matt Gonzalez’s mayoral campaign, ran for supervisor in 2004. That got him started in local politics. He’s headed to law school at Hastings this fall, and it’s a safe bet that he’ll be a leader in the progressive political community for years to come. (Tim Redmond)

———–

449-Schooley.jpg

DAVID SCHOOLEY

"He’s a visionary. He’s very determined. He never gives up."

That’s how Ken McIntire, executive director of San Bruno Mountain Watch, describes David Schooley, who founded the Mountain Watch nonprofit four decades ago.

"For many years, David led every Sierra Club hike, organized every restoration party, and even took the bus to community fairs up and down the Peninsula so he could set up a table and distribute fliers about San Bruno Mountain," McIntire recalls.

Now snowy-haired and allegedly semiretired, Schooley, 65, remains as nimble as a goat when it comes to hiking across his beloved mountain, which rises and cuts across the Peninsula just south of San Francisco in San Mateo County — and whose ecosystem has been identified as one of 18 global biodiversity hotspots in need of protection

Schooley’s love for the mountain — which is covered with low-growing grasses, coastal sage, and scrub year-round and is dotted with wildflowers each spring — led him to found SBMW in 1969 and fight the expansion of the Guadalupe Valley Quarry and the growth of nearby Brisbane. Both were threatening to destroy the biggest urban open space in the United States and the habitat of rare butterflies, including the San Bruno elfin.

As Schooley explains, while the mountain is often hit with strong gusty winds and enveloped in thick fog, it is a great butterfly habitat and the last fragment of an entire ecosystem — the Franciscan region — the rest of which has been buried beneath San Francisco’s concrete footprints.

Two years ago, Schooley had the pleasure of once again finding the tiny raspberry-colored elfin caterpillars on some sedum (its host plant) on the north-facing upper benches of the quarry.

"It’s a miracle," Schooley told me at the time, delighted by this living example of nature’s ability to overcome human-made damage on the mountain.

At the time, Schooley was hoping the state park system would annex the property where the elfins were found. That hasn’t happened yet. But as McIntire says of Schooley (who dreams of a wildlife corridor that runs from the bay to the ocean), "David is always pushing for more open space around the mountain, for more nature and less development, and trying to reach a bigger audience." (Sarah Phelan)

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449-mime.jpg

SAN FRANCISCO MIME TROUPE

The San Francisco Mime Troupe is the conscience of the city, our proudest export, and — as it celebrates its 50th year — perhaps our most enduring sociopolitical institution. That’s a lot of kudos to heap on an artists’ collective, particularly one that delivers its theatrical social satire with such over-the-top comedy and music, but it isn’t a statement that we make lightly.

The SFMT embodies the very best San Francisco values — limitless creativity, a hunger for justice, courage under fire, an uncompromising commitment to creating a better world, and a progressive missionary zeal — and offers a powerful and entertaining reminder of those values every July 4, when it presents its new show in Dolores Park.

After it sings (and preaches) to the progressive choir of San Francisco, the troupe hits the road, visiting such less-than-enlightened outposts as the Central Valley and rural Northern California, delivering important messages to audiences that need to hear them most. "First of all, it’s humorous, so that breaks down a lot of barriers from the get-go," SFMT general manager Jenee Gill tells us.

But even here in the early ’60s, the San Francisco Recreation and Park Commission tried to use obscenity laws to ban the SFMT from performing in public parks. The troupe successfully fought the commission in court, setting an important free speech precedent. Modern San Francisco has grown up with the SFMT showing us the way forward with its uniquely high-stepping, knee-slapping, consciousness-raising style, and we’re a better city for it. (Steven T. Jones)

All local heroes photos by Pat Mazzera

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PG&E attacks consumer choice

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rebeccab@sfbg.com

A ballot initiative backed by Pacific Gas and Electric Co. could amount to a death sentence for community choice aggregation (CCA) and expanded public power in California.

Dubbed the Taxpayers Right to Vote Act, the proposed initiative would require a two-thirds majority vote at the ballot before any local government could establish a CCA program, use public funding to implement a plan to become a CCA provider, or expand electric service to new territory or new customers.

The new hurdle would make it very difficult for a local government to move forward with a CCA, while at the same time making it much easier for a utility to defeat public power at the ballot.

Signed into state law in 2002, CCA allows local governments to buy up blocks of power to sell to residents, making it possible for cities and counties to set up alternatives to private utilities such as PG&E and, in many cases, to offer electricity generated by clean, renewable power sources.

The initiative is in its earliest stages, and it likely would not be placed on the state ballot until the June 2010 election. At this point, "it’s unclear how much of a campaign it’s going to be," according to Greg Larsen of the Sacramento public relations firm Larsen Cazanis, a spokesperson for the effort. "It’s a long way off."

That hasn’t stopped local CCA supporters from sounding alarm bells. "Urgent/Bad! PG&E State Ballot Measure To Kill Public Power & CCA," public power activist Eric Brooks wrote in the subject line of a widely disseminated e-mail last week. "It’s red alert time boys and girls," he wrote, saying the proposal "will kill all new Public Power and Community Choice Aggregation projects statewide."

Brooks isn’t alone: everyone the Guardian spoke with who is involved in the creation of San Francisco’s CCA voiced concern that the proposal could kill any future community choice efforts.

The proposed initiative was submitted to the California Attorney General’s office May 28 with the contact listed as the Sacramento law firm Nielsen, Merksamer, Parrinello, Mueller & Naylor, a powerful player with a long history of working with PG&E on ballot initiatives. Larsen confirmed that PG&E had provided the $200 filing fee, the only amount spent so far on the embryonic proposal.

The official proponent of the initiative is Robert Lee Pence, apparently the same person who was listed as an opponent of Proposition 80, a 2005 ballot measure that dealt with utility regulation. Opposition to Prop. 80 was heavily funded by PG&E and other utilities, and the initiative failed by a wide margin.

Pence’s group, Californians for Reliable Electricity, listed Steve Lucas as a contact on 2005 campaign documents. Lucas is also listed as the point person at Nielsen, Merksamer, Parrinello, Mueller & Naylor for questions regarding the Taxpayers Right to Vote Act.

The address listed for the organization is the same as that of Townsend, Raimundo, Besler and Usher — a Sacramento political consulting firm that also has a long history of working with PG&E on political campaigns. When asked about the PR firm’s role in the Taxpayer Right to Vote Act, Larsen acknowledged that they "may be involved as the campaign goes forward," but cautioned that any discussion so far has been preliminary.

The rationale behind the initiative is to protect taxpayers, Larsen said, because CCA programs "are major issues that communities undertake and require millions or billions of public dollars." The proposed initiative, he said, seeks to "ensure that voters — and frankly, their descendents — who will wind up being responsible for these programs have a say." If the measure passes, Larsen added, voters could still approve CCA programs — but with two-thirds of the vote, a supermajority that he contends is "staying in line with many other California requirements."

California Sen. Mark Leno, however, has a very different opinion. "I would hope that Californians would have come to understand that two-thirds vote thresholds are probably more responsible for damage to the state of California in the past 30 years than any other single factor," he said. "To hand a small minority controlling power is anti-democratic. This must be defeated." Leno also said he believes that the initiative would have drastic consequences for CCA programs if it passes.

Meanwhile, local CCA supporters say there is more to this than merely sticking up for taxpayers’ rights. If programs like Clean Power SF — the CCA initiative currently being developed in San Francisco — are fully implemented, then PG&E, which makes good money from its monopoly status, would face some actual competition. Naturally, the powerful utility would have an incentive to eliminate the alternative altogether.

Under the current system, PG&E "has to rely on the elected officials to kill CCA, and its much harder … to do that," says John Rizzo of the San Francisco Bay Chapter of the Sierra Club. But if the Taxpayers Right to Vote Act is enshrined in state law, "they could just pour in money and spread propaganda. Particularly the two-thirds requirement is just outrageous — it basically makes it impossible" to secure approval for any step toward CCA implementation.

"It’s a nasty ballot initiative," Mike Campbell, director of San Francisco’s CCA at the Public Utilities Commission, told us. "I think it’s clearly aimed at the heart of CCA." Campbell added that while he has been in discussion with SFPUC staff and others involved in hammering out Clean Power SF, he wasn’t at liberty to discuss a strategy for fighting the proposed initiative just yet.

Ross Mirkarimi, who chairs the city’s Local Agency Formation Commission — the body tasked with working in tandem with the SFPUC to implement San Francisco’s CCA — called the proposal "heinous — and yet I expect nothing less from PG&E.

"They can try to win by well-funded misinformation blitzkrieg," Mirkarimi noted. "If they’re able to spend $10 million without blinking here in San Francisco [on defeating a public power measure], they’re poised to spend tens of millions on this. As a state battleground, this elevates the fight that much more. We have to act in solidarity with other municipalities. We should be well-armed in repudiation of this effort."

There may be ways to attack the initiative in advance. The CCA legislation bars private utilities from seeking to undermine local CCA efforts. Assembly Member Tom Ammiano told us that the Legislature should look at how PG&E could be blocked from mounting a statewide effort to kill CCAs. "I think there’s some potential there," he said.

Julian Davis, who chaired the Prop. H campaign for public power last year, said he found the proposal very worrisome. "If you shut down community choice, you’re shutting down one of the major vehicles for clean energy," he said. To Davis, the initiative highlights "a disturbing trend of corporate America finding ever-more clever ways of tying the hand of local government in general. You know they’ll dump millions into this," he added. "The ultimate irony here is that none of us have the right to vote on anything PG&E does. None of us has a seat at the PG&E board table. It’s doublespeak."

Rachel Buhner contributed to this report.

Recurrent debacle

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By Julian Davis

(Julian Davis is on the board of San Francisco Tomorrow, an urban environmental organization. He chaired last November’s Clean Energy campaign, prop H.)

In the wake of Tuesday’s vote on the Recurrent solar power deal for the Sunset Reservoir, long time progressive activists have to ask themselves, what happened?

A widespread commitment to positive government courses through the veins of San Francisco’s political community. Whether it’s defending the public health care system against cuts or the perennial advocacy of public power, one thing that unites progressives is a belief that government should work for the people and that corporate special interests have no place dictating or writing the terms at City Hall.

The solar project heads for a vote

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By Tim Redmond

Lots of talk about the Sunset reservoir Solar proposal over the weekend; the Chron weighed in with a fairly weak story that just did the he-says-she-says without getting into any of the real issues. And Julian Davis has a pretty detailed analysis here, at Fog City Journal.

The simple point is that the contract the supes are about to sign off on isn’t a great deal for the city. We’re going to be paying a lot of money to a private company to do something the city ought to be able to do itself.

I had conversations last week with a number of supervisors, and it’s looking like some of the progressives — John Avalos and Eric Mar, for example — are leaning toward supporting the project. Mar told me he’s been listening to the Sierra Club, which is often a good thing to do when it comes to alternative energy, but in this case I think the traditional enviros are so thrilled that there’s actual a viable solar project on the horizon that they’re not spending enough time on the details.

In fact, I spoke with John Rizzo, the Sierra Club’s point person on the project, and he told me that “The Sierra Club doesn’t care about the details of the contract. We’re not contract experts. We just want to see this happen.”

He agreed that it’s infuriating that so much of the federal alternative-energy money is going to the private sector, and said he’d support legislation that would give public agencies access to the same sort of money private companies get in tax breaks. “But global warming isn’t waiting,” he said. “Let’s build this one with this kind of a deal, and try the have the city build the next one.”

I with Rizzo in spirt, but the truth is, we’re going to regret this deal.

The only reason it makes sense to pay Recurrent Energy to do this is that Recurrent gets a $12 million tax break, and the city, as a public agency, doesn’t qualify for that money.

Let me make a humble suggestion. Rep. Nancy Pelosi is, I believe, still the speaker of the House. She’s managed to get San Francisco something like a billion dollars for the Chinatown subway. I’m willing to bet a case of Bud Light (and I don’t make bets that valuable easily) that if the mayor of San Francisco called Rep. Pelosi and told her that the difference between building a five-megawatt solar project and not building it was $12 million in federal money — so little in terms of federal spending that it’s what Mirkarimi calls “decimal dust” — San Francisco would have a promise of that cash so fast that Newsom couldn’t even find a shovel to break ground before the check arrived.

And the thing that frustrates me is that nobody’s even trying.

The supes ought to send this deal back to committee and take a real look at ways the city can do the same project, and own it, for less money. I refuse to believe that’s not possible.

And if Gavin Newsom wants to say he can’t make this work, then he’s going to have a hell of a time convincing any of us that he has the ability to run the State of California.

Celebration, cigars, and a bloody nose at Mirkarimi baby bar crawl

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Text by Steven T. Jones, photos by Tim Daw
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Friends, colleagues and supporters of Sup. Ross Mirkarimi gathered last night to celebrate the recent birth of his son, Theo Aureliano Mirkarimi, with an event dubbed the Mirkarimi Man-Baby Shower and Bar Crawl that started at Molotov’s in Lower Haight.

Among those taking part in an event centered around drinking, cigar smoking, carousing, congratulatory support, wearing custom trucker’s caps, and general male bonding were Board of Supervisors President David Chiu, his predecessor Aaron Peskin, City Attorney’s Office spokesperson Matt Dorsey, Chiu board aide David Noyola, former mayoral candidate Quintin Mecke, Mirkarimi aide Rick Galbreath, Guardian publisher Bruce Brugmann, former Santa Monica mayor Mike Feinstein, Entertainment Commissioner John Wood and local political activists Julian Davis, Andy Blue, Dan Nguyen-Tan, Amandeep Jawa, and Boris Delepine.
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Macanudos and Mecke

Powerless

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> amanda@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY Sup. Sophie Maxwell, who represents a disproportionately polluted district that is host to the city’s only fossil fuel-burning power plant, has introduced legislation to change the way energy flows into and around the city.

The ordinance collates some past resolutions already affirmed by the Board of Supervisors — to close the Mirant Potrero Power Plant as soon as possible and to request that the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission conduct a transmission-only study to update the city’s Electricity Resource Plan (which is currently based on building a new peaker power plant in the city in order to shutter Mirant’s older, more polluting facility).

Maxwell’s legislation further calls on the city to provide 100 percent clean energy by 2040 — a mandate lifted directly from Proposition H, a clean energy and public power act that was voted down in November.

But the three elements of the ordinance, which was co-signed by outgoing Sup. Aaron Peskin, are somewhat lacking.

The clean energy goals outlined by Maxwell only apply to the SFPUC — not to anyone who gets a Pacific Gas and Electric Co. bill — and SFPUC power is already almost 100 percent clean, consisting mostly of Hetch Hetchy hydroelectric, solar, biomass, and a small amount of cogeneration. (Large hydro and cogeneration do not meet the state’s definition of renewable, but they are considered among the greenest kinds of "brown" power.)

Prop. H would have required the city to conduct an energy study, and specifically stated that the option of city-owned and operated power be considered as part of the study. Subject to board and mayoral approval, the city could have public power if it was determined to be the most efficient and economic way to provide 100 percent clean energy to all citizens by 2040.

Neighborhood and environmental activists, including Julian Davis, who ran the Prop. H campaign, Tony Kelly of the Potrero Boosters, and John Rizzo of the Sierra Club, said they weren’t consulted or even clued in that the Maxwell legislation was being introduced. Rizzo called the clean energy goals "window dressing," and said, "It doesn’t accomplish what Prop. H does."

"I was surprised by the Maxwell ordinance," said Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, one of the authors of Prop. H, which Maxwell, Peskin, and six other supervisors endorsed. "We hadn’t learned of it until the day it was introduced. I believe it’s going in the right direction but I’d like to see it more committed to its insistence on public power — not just elements of Prop. H, but public power so that we are able to be clear about what forms of energy independence, clean energy, renewable that the city should administer."

Maxwell’s aide, Jon Lau, said they did reach out to Mirkarimi’s staff, as well as Mayor Gavin Newsom’s office, and the legislation was written broadly so that there was "something here for everybody if you’re interested."

"The ordinance she introduced is sort of agnostic toward public power," he said. "But it could and should be part of the analysis to the extent that we study residential needs in the city. It’s totally relevant to have a public power analysis." He called public power a "flash point," and said, "The whole conversation would be about that."

Rizzo said the legislation doesn’t demand anything of PG&E, in terms of clean energy goals, but Lau said they don’t have the authority to legislate a private company’s energy procurement. "We can’t just dictate goals for PG&E."

The board doesn’t have the authority to close Mirant either — the gas and diesel power plant operates with a Reliability-Must-Run contract and the state’s grid operator, California Independent System Operator (Cal-ISO), has said Mirant must run or be replaced by some other in-city, instantly available power generation.

The plant also operates with a water permit from the Regional Water Quality Control Board, and though City Attorney Dennis Herrera, Maxwell, and Peskin recently sent a letter urging no renewal of the permit, which expires Dec. 31, the water board seems to be waiting for the plant to close by some other means rather than taking up the issue. "I’m currently reworking the permit reissuance schedule without Potrero because Potrero’s status is really more like ‘to be determined’ at this point," wrote water board staff member Bill Johnson in an e-mail to the Guardian. Because the board hasn’t acted on it, the permit will automatically be extended on Jan. 1, 2009, meaning the plant will be operating indefinitely until the water board makes a final decision or some other way to close it is found.

There’s almost unanimous approval throughout the city that beefing up transmission lines would be better than building a power plant or allowing Mirant to keep operating. Transmission is also one way the city could gain more control of energy resources and potentially save, and even make, some money.

On Dec. 15, Barbara Hale, assistant general manager for power, sent a request to Cal-ISO asking that two new SFPUC transmission proposals be considered as part of the state’s regional planning. They include upping the voltage of existing lines between the Hetch Hetchy dam and Newark, and adding a new line between Newark and Treasure Island, which would allow Hetch Hetchy power to travel exclusively on city-owned lines. The city currently pays PG&E $4 million per year to carry Hetch Hetchy power from Newark into the city — a fee San Francisco has been paying since 1925 when the city, during construction of the transmission lines between Yosemite and the Bay, mysteriously ran out of copper wire just a few miles shy of PG&E’s Newark station.

The new line would run under the bay, using an existing SFPUC water pipeline right-of-way. "This pathway will allow transmission lines to traverse the environmentally sensitive Don Edwards Regional Wildlife Preserve [in Newark] that is likely to be a bottleneck between PG&E’s pivotal Newark substation and the substation serving the Peninsula," the letter states. The SFPUC also predicts some possible cost recovery from Cal-ISO for building the Newark line because it would improve regional reliability. The agency also says it’s exploring partnerships with other municipal utilities for joint ownership.

Prop. H: $10 million and it’s this close

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By Tim Redmond

Well. Prop. H, the Clean Energy Act, is going down to defeat. But the public-power campaign — against very little money, with $10 million in PG&E cash against it — made a remarkable showing. In the end, Yes on H will have about 45 percent, which demonstrates both the ability of the organizers (great job, Julian Davis) and the willingness of nearly half of the voters to defy the most expensive campaign in San Francisco initiative history. It appears the progressives will still have control of the Board; this isn’t going away.

The Green Energy Revolution

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A well-thought-out piece by the manager of the Yes on H campaign:

By Julian Davis

The United States of America and the Planet are teetering on the edge of economic and environmental collapse. We are now well aware of the threat of global warming and the catastrophic climate change it is causing. We know we have to curtail greenhouse gas emissions to heal the planet and sustain life on Earth. We are also in the midst of a serious financial crisis the depths of which we are coming to understand more and more as the days go by. But the economic instability we are experiencing is not just a result of toxic mortgage backed securities and the credit crunch. It’s not just the folly of Wall Street, it’s the folly of Big Oil, it’s the folly of our energy policy, and it is the folly of war.

We borrow trillions of dollars, mainly from China, to violently secure fossil fuel energy resources in the Middle East. This is not only environmentally unsustainable, it is economically unsustainable. Our current energy consumption and geo-political existence are destroying the planet and the American economy.
We are actually amazingly fortunate that there is one answer to our biggest problems. Clean Energy. We cannot save the planet from environmental disaster without developing clean and renewable sources of energy and we cannot save our economy in the long-term without becoming energy independent. Building a massive renewable energy infrastructure will heal the planet, stabilize the economy, create jobs, lift people out of poverty, and relieve us from war.

Our generation has a responsibility to figure this out now. San Francisco has the immediate opportunity with Proposition H to lead the world in the fight against global warming and lead the nation in the quest for energy independence.
Let’s not underestimate what one city can do. San Francisco has been out in front on so many issues in the past, from gay marriage to the most progressive minimum wage in the country. Two years ago a bunch of young workers in San Francisco past a paid sick days measure and now Barack Obama is talking about implementing it nationally. Just a few months ago a rag tag group of San Francisco activists put a 100% Clean Energy initiative on the ballot. A few weeks later, Al Gore issued his now famous energy challenge to America. If San Francisco passes Prop H, other cities and other states and countries around the world will follow.

We now face the biggest economic crisis since the great depression. It has become glaringly apparent that the free market and unregulated rule by private profiteering financial institutions and corporations is not a model that will sustain a healthy economy in this country. Wall Street’s greed has been matched only by Big Oil companies that have made windfall profits while moving at a snail’s pace towards developing alternative energy sources. In San Francisco, financial mismanagement of the private-investor owned utility PG&E has left us with skyrocketing electric rates for natural gas and a paltry supply of renewable energy. It’s time for the public accountability and stewardship of our energy resources and infrastructure that we will get with Proposition H.

At this pivotal moment in history we are faced with profound choices about our place in the world and our future on the planet. We can continue with the folly of national debt, oil profiteering and war or we can create a new clean energy economy, a fearless new ‘new deal’ that builds the next great public works projects, employs the next generation of workers, and ensures peace and stability in the 21st century. With Proposition H, San Francisco will be ready to work with the next President and the federal government to lead the clean energy revolution and build the renewable energy infrastructure that we need to sustain life on earth.

Wind turbines? On PG&E’s headquarters?

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The Clean Energy campaign (Prop H) is heating up and PG&E is now running more scared than the company has ever been about any initiative campaign. Here’s the latest media advisory from the campaign’s Julian Davis and Aliza Wasserman:

For Immediate Release Contact: Aliza Wasserman
510-717-6599

MEDIA ADVISORY Tuesday October 28, 2008

PROP H WIND TURBINES INSTALLED ON PG&E HQ

PG&E’s record-breaking $9.9 million opposition to Prop H said to be obstructing San Francisco’s chance for renewable and cheaper energy

SAN FRANCISCO — In front of PG&E’s downtown headquarters at 77 Beale St. at Market, three twelve-foot wind turbines will be constructed by citizens eager to see Prop H pass and begin a green jobs and affordable green energy future. On Wednesday, October 29 from 12:00 to 12:30pm over three-dozen citizens wearing green hard hats and worker overalls will promptly descend on PG&E’s headquarters and construct the wind turbine art installations. PG&E provides the City with only 2% wind energy, and 1% solar, for a total of 14% renewable energy, while Prop H would develop thousands of green jobs and move San Francisco’s energy provider to 51% renewable and clean energy in a decade, 75% by 2030 and will maximize all available and affordable renewable energy possible by 2040.

Saturday rally to support Proposition H

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WHAT: Hundreds of California students who are participating in the 6th Annual Fall Convergence of the California Student Sustainability Coalition (CSSC) will be rallying to show support for Proposition H – The San Francisco Clean Energy Act – at the MUNI stop on 19th Ave/Holloway St. next to San Francisco State University. Prop H will bring 100% clean energy to San Francisco. Students will first hear a speech by “Yes On H” Campaign Chair Julian Davis about why he supports Prop H and what it means for the future of San Francisco and the movement for clean energy. Everyone will move out to the MUNI stop to perform call-and-response with about 75 students standing on the MUNI platform and the rest on campus across the street, chanting, “What do we want? Clean Energy! When do we want it? Now!”

WHEN: Saturday, Oct. 25 from 9:45 am to 10:45 am.

WHERE: Jack Adams Hall at 9:45am, then photo opportunity and speakers at 19th Ave/Holloway St. MUNI platform at 10:15am – 10:45am.

WHO: 400 students from 30 California colleges, Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi, Assemblywoman Fiona Ma, San Francisco Supervisors Ross Mirkarimi and Aaron Peskin

VISUALS: Hundreds of students with a 12 ft. windmill dressed in green shirts, green hard hats, coveralls, and bearing signs supporting Prop H standing on campus across the street from the MUNI platform. When the 10:41am MUNI pulls up, the students on the platform will distribute information to riders.

WHY: Proposition H will convert San Francisco’s energy sources into 100% clean and renewable energy, and will make San Francisco a leader in the clean energy revolution. Prop H is a local link to Power Vote, a project of the Energy Action Coalition, of which the CSSC and Global Exchange are founding partners. Power Vote is a national, non-partisan campaign to harness the political power of young people by collecting 1 million pledges to vote for clean and just energy. “Millennial Voters” comprise about 25% of the electorate and the Power Vote platform reflects the priorities of young voters.

For more information, visit
www.sustainabilitycoalition.org
http://www.globalexchange.org/
http://www.powervote.org

Elsbernd argues Yes on H

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A great moment at the Miraloma Park Improvement Association meeting last Sunday night. The No on H team, including Hunter Stern, the flak for PG&E’s house union, showed up to make the case against the Clean Energy Act, but because of a scheduling confusion, Julian Davis of the Yes on H campaign wasn’t there.

So the head of the neighborhood group turned to Sup. Sean Elsbernd. You’re the supervisor, he said; why don’t you make the case for H?

Well, Elsbernd said, I’m not supporting the measure, but if nobody else is here, I’ll go ahead and explain what the Yes on H people are saying. He then proceeded to make an eloquent, effective and persuasive argument for clean energy and public power.

“Hunter Stern told me that was the best Yes on H argument he’s heard all season,” Elsbernd told me.

So there is hope for the supervisor for D7.

Greener than thou

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> news@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY Mayor Gavin Newsom has made a high profile push for several new green initiatives in recent weeks, a concerted political move that comes just as he and his political team are aggressively working to subvert a city ballot measure that would make far bigger gains in combating climate change and greening the city’s energy portfolio than anything he’s proposing.

"San Franciscans should be ashamed that they have a mayor who is greenwashing and gay-washing his way to the governor’s mansion," Julian Davis, campaign manager for Proposition H, the Clean Energy Act, told the Guardian.

Newsom opposes Proposition H, which would direct the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission to figure out how to provide clean and renewable energy to the city, and Pacific Gas & Electric Co. has hired Newsom’s chief political strategist, Eric Jaye, to lead the multimillion dollar campaign to defeat the measure.

Davis said the steady stream of green initiatives from the Mayor’s Office are simply a means to make up for the mayor’s severe deficiency in environmental credibility. "You can’t call yourself a green mayor when here is a genuine green measure and you’re against it," Davis said.

The array of press releases issued from the mayor’s office include a partnership with the Clinton Global Initiative to transform the Civic Center into a green model of sustainability by reducing water and energy use, and installing solar panels as well as living roofs.

Further green city visions include installing solar paneling on 1,500 commercial buildings within one year, and giving building owners rebates of as much as $10,000 as part of the solar rebate program launched in July.

But some supervisors take issue with the direction of the program, which they say would only make solar installation companies become rich people overnight. "There are a lot of flaws in that thing," said Sup. Jake McGoldrick. "It should’ve been steered toward low-income folks, nonprofits, schools — stuff like that."

Sup. Gerardo Sandoval said the mayor’s program would lead to an unequal distribution of wealth with an already small pool of resources — something he is trying to combat with a loan program that would offset the cost of solar installation for residences. "If we don’t help residences, families will be left to their own devices," he said.

Moreover, the mayor has set aside $1 million for the Environmental Service Learning Initiative (ESLI), which would integrate environmental community service into K-12 schools, and hired a Director of Sustainability, with $150,000 salary, to develop curriculum and help the district become more energy efficient and environmentally conscious. And last week the Mayor’s Office promoted rainwater harvesting for the purposes of outdoor irrigation and indoor toilet use, and sent out press releases touting the SFPUC’s Big Blue Bucket eco-fair held Oct. 11 to educate people about this concept.

Brad Johnson, legislative coordinator at the Sierra Club, called on Newsom to do more than use green events for media opportunities, stating that the mayor’s initiatives are "not a truly visionary policy, like Prop. H is a visionary and sweeping policy."

When the Mayor’s Office was contacted about the statements made by the supervisors and the Sierra Club as well as the contradiction in policies, Nathan Ballard, Newsom’s director of communication, replied tersely: "They’re not experts." Attempts to elicit further clarification yielded no reply from Ballard.

But Jared Blumenfeld, director of the San Francisco Environment Department, and interim director of the Recreation and Park Department, provided broader insight to the mayor’s environmental politics, insisting that the green calendar of events is nothing out of the ordinary.

"Every week we do a great number of events around the environment. The pace has been pretty unrelenting for the past year," Blumenfeld told us.

But experienced environmental leaders remain suspicious of the timing and correlation of the mayor’s green photo and media opportunities while he wages an aggressive war against Prop. H.

"I think they’re related, and he’s trying to cover his bases should Prop. H win and he finds himself on the losing side of a major initiative," said John Rizzo, a board member of the Sierra Club.

Yes on H benefit sells out in one hour!

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By Bruce B. Brugmann

Amazing. Tickets for the Cake concert at The Independent , a benefit for the Yes on Proposition H campaign, went on sale today. Julian Davis flashed the word: they sold out within an hour.

VIP tickets still available. Click here to learn more.

YesOnH.jpg

Switch on clean energy, B3

Extra! Extra! Exposing PG&E’s Big Lies

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By Bruce B. Brugmann

For connoisseurs of PG&E’s Big Lies in political campaigns, the company’s early massive carpet bombing against the Clean Energy Initiative is most revealing. They are panicked.

Most likely, PG&E will not attack the fundamental premise of the pioneering measure (after all, clean and renewable energy is in this year). But, as our editorial this week notes, PG&E’s theme is to try and scare voters into thinking that the Clean Energy Act is too risky and too expensive in these difficult times. (The last time out, PG&E just used the phrase “too risky, too costly.”)

And they use just plain Big Lies, repeated endlessly in mailers, ads, astroturf campaigns. The reason they often get away with the ads is that they spend millions of dollars to push them and the local media retails them allegro furioso and does little to correct them. and even, in the case of the San Francisco Chronicle, just leaves the initiative out of the news and has yet to do a decent story or insert the local clean initiative angle on their energy stories.
For example, take David Baker’s otherwise creditable front page story in the Saturday (Aug. 2) Chronicle, “”Utiliies To Miss Energy Deadline, PUC says providers are failing to harness 20% from sun, wind.”

Baker doesn’t says nothing about the initiative, which sets ambitious goals for renewable energy. He didn’t quote its sponsors (Sups. Ross Mirkarimi and Aaron Peskin). He didn’t talk to any of the campaign leaders (chair Julian Davis, the Sierra Club’s John Rizzo et al). He didn’t point out that other studies, including one for the California Energy Commission, gave higher marks to public utilities. Why did he ignore the hottest issue on the fall ballot that tied directly into his story? I put the question to him in an email. No answer.

The point: since the local mainstream media don’t correct PG&E’s Big Lies, we’ll do so on a regular basis. .
Let us know if you spot one we haven’t covered. On guard, B3

P.S. A Potrero Hill martini to Matthew S. Bajko, who corrected a PG&E whopper in the Bay Area Reporter blog.
He noted that PG&E got “glowing media coverage” for its $250,000 shareholder donation to the campaign to defeat Proposition 8, the anti-gay marriage ban on the November ballot. The news, he said, was “just the latest in a string of pink steps the company hs taken this summer.”

However, he reported that the pro-gay moves “strike some San Francisco officials as suspect, as the company is locked in a fierce battle with state and local officials over two similar clean energy bills on the fall ballot.”
Some are questioning “PG&E’s altruism in the marriage fight” to shield it from the company’s “homophobic smear campaign” this spring against openly gay Assemblyman Mark Leno in his successful primary victory and that PG&E was behind the mayor’s ouster of Susan Leal as general manager of the PUC.

And he did what Chronicle reporters have not done: called the Clean Energy Campaign for comment. Spokesperson Julian Davis had a good one, “I think addition to greenwashing, PG&E is engaged in gay washing.”

Summing up SF’s historic rally for clean energy

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By Bruce B. Brugmann and Janna Brancolini (Scroll down for Jean Dibble’s photo essay of the rally and comments by the speakers)

It was a historic rally Tuesday on the City Hall steps to kick off the third initiative aimed at bringing clean energy and public power to San Francisco.

As our photo essay shows, there was a formidable and diverse array of politicians and environmental and social justice organizations lined up with their signs and speeches to support the measure.

Five supervisors, including the board president, spoke at the rally (Ross Mirkarimi, Aaron Peskin, Tom Ammiano, Bevin Dufty, and Gerardo Sandoval) and then went into a board meeting in City Hall and hours later voted with two other colleagues (Sophie Maxwell and Chris Daly) to put the pioneering initiative on the November 2008 ballot. The vote was 7-4, with Sups. Sean Elsbernd, Michaela Alioto-Pier, Carmen Chu, and Jake McGoldrick voting against. The rally and the vote were cannon shots heard round the city, the state, and the nation.

Susan Leal, former general manager of the SF Public Utilities Commission, made her first public appearance since her dismissal by Mayor Newsom, at the urging of PG&E, for her moves toward public power. The Sierra Club, which fought the damming of Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park a century ago and still wants to tear the dam down, was standing tall with the group (John Rizzo).

All in all, it was one of the most impressive starts to a tough initiative campaign that i have seen in 42 years of covering City Hall for the Guardian. More: having covered the clean energy/public power beat since l969 and our first expose of the PG&E/Raker Act scandal, I think this initiative and this emerging campaign has an excellent chance of winning in November. Remember: when the public power movement revved up in the late l990s, it faced a PG&E-friendly mayor (Willie Brown), a PG&E friendly City Attorney (Louise Renne, whose husband worked for a downtown law firm getting big PG&E money) and a PG&E-friendly Board of Supervisors (only Tom Ammiano and the late Sue Bierman were pro-public power) and had to go around City Hall by going the route of a Municipal Utility District (MUD) ala the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (MUD). This time around, the board turned against PG&E and the city attorney’s office drafted the initiative for the board president and an emerging mayoral candidate.

The November ballot is filled with the juicy issues that bring out the voters: Obama, seven supervisorial races, and a raft of good initiatives aimed at dealing with major city problems (an affordable housing plan, two new tax plans focused on bringing in revenue from the wealthy, a big bond act to rebuild San Francisco General hospital, and the green energy and public power plan.) This time around, clean energy and public power are in the news and the media carried the story widely. PG&E is more worried than ever before and is already launched an early carpet bombing campaign and setting up astroturf and greenwashing operations allegro furioso. And their operatives are out and about and lurking everywhere. On guard!

The Jean Dibble photo essay

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Julian Davis, campaign chair, leads off the event and introduces the speakers.
The group stretching across the steps from left to right: representatives from the SF Green Party, the Green Guerrillas Against Greenwash Network, the Sierra Club, Mark Sanchez, president of the San Francisco Board of Education, Julian Davis of San Francisco Tomorrow, John Rizzo of the Sierra Club (speaking), Mirkarimi,
Sierra Club, Green Action, Green Guerrillas Against Greenwash, League of Young/Pissed Off Voters, more Sierra Club, Global Exchange, Power Vote, and League of Young Voters. (Not pictured in this photo were some l5 people from ACORN.

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Another overview of the group with Davis at the microphone.

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Assemblyman Mark Leno: “Jimmy Carter predicted 30 years ago that by 2000 we could be down from 40 per cent dependence on foreign oil to 20 per cent dependence. We didn’t listen. Instead we were up to 60 per cent by 2000 and now we’re pushing 70 per cent…This measure will take our fate out of PG&E’s hands and put it into the hands of our communities, who have a profound stake in providing clean, sustainable, reliable, and reasononably priced electric services.”

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Former PUC General Manager Susan Leal: “This initiative is about protecting the environment and the rights of San Franciscans and their ratepayers…It’s 167 miles (from San Francisco) to Hetch Hetchy (valley.). The first 140 miles of movement is cheaper than the last 27 miles because PG&E controls it. There’s an economic piece and an environmental piece. We have the technology–geothermal and solar trough. How are you going to move that power? We aren’t going to be able to make it (financially) because PG&E jacks up the rates on the last 27 miles. In 20l5 they’re jacking them up again…this is taking back what is ours.”

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Sup. Ross Mikarimi, co-author of the initiative: “This is not a ‘hostile’ take over,”he said. This is a “meaured way to make the city l00 per cent green and clean in 20 years. This act mandates a feasibility study on how we can provide green and clean energy…otherwise PG&E has a monopoly here until the planet dies.”

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Sup. Aaron Peskin, board president and co-author of the measure: “It’s a very profound thought. This is a time when people (and San Francisco) can change the destiny of the planet…As goes San Francisco, so goes California. As goes California, so goes the nation.”

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Sup. Tom Ammiano, author of two previous public power initiatives: “This issue has a sordid history….500 missing ballots (in the first election), where did they go? …It involves environmental justice. Some have called the (green movement) the Queenhouse effect.” He then said PG&E is avaricious, immoral, and takes homophobic measures. “It wants to shoot the messenger.” He concluded, “This is our time. We’re going to win. We’ll keep the lights on for years.”

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Sup. Bevin Dufty: PG&E’s utility undergrounding system is “an example of PG&E mismanaging things.” He said people in his district were without electricity for 24-48 hours. “This is a referendum for change.”

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Sup. Gerardo Sandoval: “As we’re leaving office, a lot of us want this to be our crown jewel. ..Government works. Government works well because government is better able to assume risk. There is still a lot of risk in renewwable energy, investments, and so on. The private industry is not going to take that risk. It’s always going to take the cheap way out, which is fossil fuels.”

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Mark Sanchez, president of the San Francisco Board of Education, said that children in our schools were affected by the ramifications of PG&E’s monopoly.

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John Rizzo of the Sierra Club: “(Al) Gore said the future of civilization is at stake. Gore’s challenge is a moral one–one that we’ve embraced in San Francisco.” He said that “renewable energy and the green movement will change the world’s economy. Not in Japan, China, or Germany. It will be here.”

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Another overview photo.

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Aliza Wasserman of the League of Young/Pissed Off Voters: She warned of PG&Es propaganda campaign claiming to be green. “Take a step back and think about where they’re investing. PG&E is not investing one dollar in renewable energy beyond state mandates and they lobby against measures to raise those mandates.
PG&E is one per cent solar, one per cent wind, and 98 per cent hot air.”

Nicholas Perez, my l4-year-old grandson from Santa Barbara, attended the rally with his dog Charlie.
Early on, as the speakers warmed up on PG&E, Charley summed up PG&E’s position eloquently. He made a timely deposit on the sidewalk in front of the rally. (Nicholas cleaned it up quickly.) Much more to come,

B3, still watching the fumes from the Potrero Hill power plant from my office window at the bottom of Potrero Hill, courtesy of PG&E and Mayor Gavin Newsom

P.S. Incidental question: how can Newsom pretend to be the “green” mayor and be the “green” candidate for governor when he buckles under to PG&E so ignominously? He’s buckled twice to PG&E, first by flip flopping on the Potrero Hill peakers, then on coming out so strong and so quickly against the Clean Energy Act initiative.
Brugmann’s Law: you can’t be a “green” mayor or a “green” anything if you knuckle under to PG&E on the big green issues.

P.S.: A tip of the Potrero Hill martini glass to the seven supervisors who defied PG&E and voted for clean energy: Aaron Peskin, Ross Mirkarimi, Bevin Dufty, Tom Ammiano, Gerardo Sandoval. Sophie Maxwell, and Chris Daly.
The opposition four will be known from now on as the PG&E Four (Sean Elsbernd, Carmine Chu, Michaela Alioto-Pier, and (gulp) Jack McGoldrick). Jake? Jake? What happened to you? Can you please explain? It’s not too late to change your position.

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