Politics

Koch brothers and other right-wing outsiders challenge Bay Area minimum wage measures

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In recent months, San Francisco and Oakland have unveiled ballot measures that would raise minimum wage for workers currently struggling with the Bay Area’s rising cost of living. But as November draws closer, a network of right-wing organizations — with ties to the infamous Koch brothers — have been funding campaigns aimed at convincing workers that low wages are actually better for their livelihoods.

“Two of the richest men in the world are spending millions to hold down low-wage workers and that is just immoral,” said Roxanne Sanchez, President of Service Employee International Union Local 1021, who organized Raise the Bay, a series of efforts to raise minimum wage in cities around the Bay Area. 

SEIU leaders and local journalists have chided the Koch brothers and their right-wing ilk for funding campaigns aimed at dissuading the public from voting on higher minimum wages in the area. The Koch brothers are heirs to an oil fortune and are notorious for influencing national and state politics through so called “dark money” groups, which are not obligated to disclose financial information, including their donors.

An initial $200,000 campaign was launched by the Charles Koch Foundation in July. A well-produced advertisement, which ran in Wichita, Kansas, asserts that people earning $34,000 are already on the “road to economic freedom.” Charles Koch later told the Wichita Eagle newspaper that minimum wage is an obstacle preventing workers on limited income from “rising up.”

In the Bay Area, conservative media outlet CalWatchDog — which is funded by a group of right-wing investors, including the Koch Brothers — criticized Oakland politicians for voting down a diluted alternative to Oakland’s primary minimum wage initiative, Raise Up Oakland. CalWatchDog claimed the local leaders’ decisions were largely influenced by labor union contributions, which was later proven to be a case of political chicanery.

Similarly, in San Francisco, conservative lobby group Employment Policies Institute funded a billboard that reads: “With a new $15 minimum wage, employees will replaced by less costly, automated alternatives.” It also advertises a website called BadIdeaCA.com, which shares similar predictions.

Employment Policies Institute receives donations from Lynne & Harry Bradley Foundation, a Wisconsin nonprofit that also contributes to anti-abortion, anti-environment, and anti-LGBTQ campaigns. The Lynne & Harry Bradley Foundation also donates to CalWatchDog.

In San Francisco, income inequality is growing at an alarming rate, and San Francisco’s ballot initiative hopes to help workers survive in the changing economic landscape.

And leaders of SEIU Local 1021 say they will continue to challenge the Koch brothers and their campaigns to thwart Bay Area wage increases. “The Koch Brothers might be billionaires, but they don’t have enough money to hold us back,” said Pete Castelli, executive director of Local 1021. “We challenge them to crawl out from under their rock, shine a light on their plans, and publicly debate workers about raising the minimum wage.”

More time, same crime

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joe@sfbg.com

Roll up a dollar bill, snort a line of coke, sit back and smile: If your cocaine use leads to a conviction, your drug of choice will be spared from the harsher penalties associated with inhaling the substance through a glass pipe. When it comes to busts for cocaine possession and dealing, those caught with a rock instead of the powdered stuff are kept behind bars longer. But that could soon change.

The drug is the same, the punishment is not — and a new bill may soon end that decades-long disparity, one that critics have called racist. But crack cocaine use is now at a historic low in San Francisco, raising a question: What took so long?

The California Assembly voted 50-19 Friday [8/16] to pass the Fair Sentencing Act, which aims to lower the sentence for possession with intent to sell crack cocaine to be on par with that of powder cocaine.

The bill, authored by Sen. Holly Mitchell (D-Los Angeles), is seen as championing racial justice.

“The Fair Sentencing Act will take a brick out of the wall of the failed 1980s drug-war era laws that have devastated communities of color, especially black and Latino men,” Lynne Lyman of the Drug Policy Alliance said in a prepared statement.

Crack cocaine rocks have tended to be more heavily used by African Americans, while powdered cocaine tends to be the province of rich white folks. The bill would lessen the maximum sentence for crack cocaine possession with intent to sell to four years, down from five. It would still constitute a felony.

In California, having a drug-related felony on record can prevent the formerly incarcerated from accessing housing assistance and food stamps, further feeding a cycle of poverty. The Fair Sentencing Act now awaits Gov. Jerry Brown’s pen. But some say this disparity should have been addressed some 30 years ago.

The 1980s gave rise to the “crack epidemic” narrative, a supposedly sweeping addiction promulgated by media reports on crack’s outsized harm to pregnant women and newborn babies. But those health impacts are now understood to be on par with tobacco use during pregnancy, rather than the terrifying danger it was presented to be.

Still, the images and narratives from that era were powerful.

In a television news report that aired in the 1980s, an unnaturally tiny baby quivers and shakes on the screen. Then-First Lady Nancy Reagan appears and hammers the point home: “Drugs take away the dream from every child’s heart, and replace it with a nightmare.” Flash forward to the future, and university researchers have produced studies showing that the babies born to crack-using mothers that so frightened the country were simply prematurely born, and went on to lead healthy lives.

True or not, people were outraged. The change in laws happened “virtually overnight,” Public Defender Jeff Adachi told us. Crack cocaine hit San Francisco hard.

Paul Boden, executive director of the Western Regional Advocacy Project, remembers it well. He had just come out of homelessness in the Tenderloin in the ’80s. Just prior to starting as a staffer at Hospitality House, he saw the worst of it.

“People were killing each other over the stupidest shit. It got really violent,” he said. “What crack cocaine did is it divided a community against itself. I never thought I’d get to a point where I missed heroin.”

But, he added, “I do think the advent of crack and the assumption that every black male was doing crack gave the cops carte blanche for all of their racist patterns.”

According to the Drug Policy Alliance, people of color accounted for over 98 percent of men sent to California prisons for possession of crack cocaine for sale. Two-thirds were black, and the rest were Latino.

Long since the days when cops regularly raided the Tenderloin on a hunt for every glass crack pipe, the SFPD is now a somewhat more lenient beast in the drug realm. Drug arrests in the city dropped by 85 percent in the last five years, according to California Department of Justice data. Police Chief Greg Suhr downsized his narcotics unit, shifting to focus on violent crime.

“People that sell drugs belong in jail because they’re preying upon sick people,” Suhr told the Guardian, although he added, “People with a drug problem need to be treated, as it’s a public health issue.”

Suhr said he supports the lower sentencing for crack cocaine to make it on par with powder.

“Cocaine,” he said, “is cocaine.”

District Attorney George Gascon’s office also prosecutes mostly violent and property crimes as opposed to drug possession, reflecting a rare show of agreement between the Public Defender’s Office, the SFPD, and the DA. San Franciscans battling drug problems are often diverted to drug courts and rehabilitation programs.

Crack cocaine has largely moved on from San Francisco, leaving its ugly legacy. Meanwhile, heroin use is on the rise, but nevertheless carries the same harsh sentence as crack cocaine for possession with intent to sell.

“It’s the pathetic state of politics today that it took this long for this to happen,” Boden told us, on sentencing reform. “Now it won’t cost me anything, I’ll show what a great liberal I am.”

 

Boxing lessons

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arts@sfbg.com

While still a child in early-’80s San Francisco, Boots Riley witnessed something he didn’t quite understand but that would stick with him for the rest of his life. Walking into a theater performance at the venerable Mission District art space Project Artaud, Riley saw actors in body paint writhing around him in apparent agony on all sides. It was meant as a simulation of the AIDS epidemic, with the actors portraying the afflicted. But it didn’t enlighten him much as a kid.

“It just scared the hell out of me,” Riley recalls. “You walk into this place, and it’s like a whole city, with people all around you.”

Given how Riley’s own work with long-running hip-hop group The Coup likewise mixes political activism with overwhelming performance energy, it’s fitting he would look back on this experience as the inspiration for The Coup’s new multimedia project, Shadowbox. Featuring the work of street artist Jon-Paul Bail, videographer David Szlasa, and a host of other bands and performers, Shadowbox casts the Coup’s music in the context of an all-encompassing artwork that attacks the audience from all sides. He’s debuting the project at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts on Aug. 16, but he hopes to eventually take it on the road to wherever an art establishment is willing to fund it.

Riley prefers to remain secretive about what the performance actually entails. He’s described it in the past as featuring puppets, drones and “Guantanamo Bay go-go dancers,” whatever those may be. To Riley, having the audience come in blind is key to maximizing the impact of the show.

“Some of the things that would make people probably want to come to the performance are things I don’t want to talk about before they happen,” Riley says.

What we do know is that it’ll feature multiple stages and a dizzying roster of collaborators, from socialist hip-hop militants Dead Prez to dream-pop duo Snow Angel, comedian W. Kamau Bell, chamber orchestra Classical Revolution, and the New Orleans-style second line unit Extra Action Marching Band. All of it will be encased by Bail’s black-and-white artwork, which will give the audience the impression of being in an actual “box of shadows.”

Bail, a Bay Area street artist perhaps best known as of late for his “Hella Occupy Oakland” poster, was one of Riley’s early heroes on the Bay Area art scene. The two met in the late ’80s amid a wave of neo-Nazi skinhead activity in the Bay Area, which the two of them helped fight to counter.

“When I was in high school I would hang out at Alameda Beach,” Riley recalls. “Back then Alameda was still a navy town and they didn’t like a lot of black folks coming around. Police rolled up to harass us, and the police insignia on the car was covered in a swastika. The first thing I thought was: ‘Who the fuck did that?'”

It turned out to be Bail, and the two artists quickly bonded, putting up anti-Nazi posters around the city. They’ve remained friends through the years, but they haven’t collaborated on a large-scale project until now.

“He was the first artist I ever met who was trying to do something more with art than just make art,” Riley says. “He had a collective at California College of the Arts at the time, which had the slogan — ‘no art for art’s sake.'”

The Yerba Buena Arts Center connected Riley and Bail with videographer (and Theater Artaud collaborator) David Szlasa, who helped design the video elements of the project. Together, they form Shadowbox’s core creative axis, responsible for the aesthetically overwhelming experience Riley hopes the project will be.

Though Shadowbox contains elements of both a gallery exhibition and a theatrical performance, Riley ultimately hopes that Shadowbox will feel more like a show than anything else, in line with the Coup’s high-octane concerts.

“A lot of the time when you’re doing something theatrical people just want to stand around,” Riley says. “But our shows have always been known to be a dance party, and we’re keeping the audience with us and not just watching us.”

The performers and artworks are intended to surround an audience, which will be able to move around and examine the exhibit at first. But as the room fills, Riley hopes the crowd will solidify and focus on the music. The musical element of Shadowbox will mostly consist of Coup songs, but each of the additional musical performers will play one of their own songs in addition to collaborating with the band.

The Coup didn’t write songs specifically for the performance, rather choosing to perform works culled from the band’s six-album, 20-plus-year catalog — including a few unreleased tracks and songs they don’t generally perform live. Though calling Shadowbox an augmented Coup concert would surely sell the event and its collaborators short, it seems as if all the key elements of a Coup show will be there: the songs, the audience-bludgeoning power, and especially the politics.

Though the title Shadowbox primarily refers to the effect Bail’s artwork creates on the performance space, Riley sees multiple meanings to the title. Shadowboxing is the practice in boxing of “fighting” an imaginary opponent to prepare for a match, and Riley sees parallels between this practice and the way in which the Coup “prepares” its listeners to fight real-life injustices. He’s aware political art can’t always change the world on its own, but it can inspire listeners to take action.

This gives rise to a third, even more poignant meaning to the title: that the social issues depicted in the work are only shadows of what’s really happening in the world, contained within the clearly defined “box” of the performance space.

“There are a lot of terrible things happening in the world that we’re talking about in the performance,” Riley said. “But the artwork is just a shadow of what’s really going on.”

THE COUP’S SHADOWBOX

Saturday, Aug. 16, 5 and 9pm, $25-$30

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

(415)978-2700

www.ybca.org

Cubicle cult

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arts@sfbg.com

FILM For anybody who has ever had to put up with a creepy boss, annoying co-workers, or a soul-sucking work environment — and that is most likely all of us, at some point in our lives — Mike Judge’s 1999 comedy Office Space has become a supremely entertaining and highly relatable touchstone for its razor-sharp take on office politics and corporate culture.

Written and directed by Judge, who also created Beavis and Butthead and King of the Hill, along with the recent HBO show Silicon Valley, the movie has gone on to become a cult classic, with a variety of quotable lines (“Yeah, I’m gonna need you to go ahead and come in tomorrow … that would be great”) and cultural references (do you have the requisite pieces of flair?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IwzZYRejZQ

Office Space fans are in for a treat this weekend when SF Sketchfest presents a special 15th anniversary screening in 35mm at the Castro Theatre, with actor Stephen Root — who plays the stapler-obsessed Milton — in person for the festivities.

“I don’t think there’s a set that I go on where some part of the crew doesn’t have something for me to sign from Office Space — it’s its own little animal, much like Rocky Horror was in its day,” says Root.

“For me it’s a constant amazement that it continues to get a new audience; people who weren’t born [when it came out] get it, people who enter the work force get it, and it keeps a life of its own. It’s about the interplay of the people in the office. That’s universal.”

While Root has fond memories of working on the film, he says that bringing the mumbling, mistreated, and bespectacled Milton to life did present some challenges, particularly when it came to wearing the character’s signature glasses.

“They were a nightmare!”, he remembers. “They were about a half an inch thick at least, and I had to wear contact lenses behind those glasses to be able to see at all. I didn’t have any depth perception whatsoever, so whenever I had to reach for something during a scene I had to practice it because I couldn’t tell where it was — just reaching for the stapler and putting it to my chest, I had to practice that, because I could have reached out and missed it by five inches.”

That stapler, the red Swingline that Milton prizes (and loses), has gone on to become a pop culture icon of its own — a fact that still makes Root laugh.

“There was no red Swingline stapler [when the film was made]. I have one of the props, and Mike [Judge] has another one. Who knew it would start a cottage industry for staplers? I see them every week — people want me to sign them. It is what it is, it’s crazy, but it’s great, and it makes me smile.”

While he has appeared in many other films and television shows (including NewsRadioKing of the Hill, and Boardwalk Empire) since Office Space, Root admits that he’s recognized as Milton most of the time — and that’s fine with him.

“I always tell everybody, my obituary will be ‘Milton’s dead!'” Root laughs. “And I’m okay with that!” 2

OFFICE SPACE 15TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION

Sat/16, 9pm, $12

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

www.sfsketchfest.com

 

Guardian Intelligence: August 13 – 19, 2014

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CALLING ALL BEATLEMANIACS

As Beatles lovers and Candlestick fans gear up for Sir Paul McCartney’s show there Thu/14 — a performance that will serve as a farewell to the stadium, and a callback to the Beatles’ last-ever concert, which took place at the park Aug. 29, 1966 — a group of filmmakers led by Ron Howard is asking for help with a new documentary that charts the rise, world domination, and eventual combustion of the Fab Four. The film, which reportedly has secured McCartney, Yoko Ono, Ringo Starr, and Olivia Harrison as producers, is looking for stories from fans who attended that last Beatles show — bonus points if you’re there on Thursday as well. Drop ’em a line at BeatlesLive@whitehorsepics.com.

SQUISHY SUPERSTARS

Certain animals have spiked in popularity thanks to the magic that happens when their cuteness combines with the power of the internet, including sloths, cats that play musical instruments, and pugs. The Pugs for Mutts Summer Carnival (Sun/17 at the perfectly named Dogpatch WineWorks) offers a chance to see Minnie and Max — “YouTube famous head-tilt pugs” — in panting, grunting real life, plus a costume contest, a “Wiggliest Pug” contest, a pug kissing booth, and more. Pugs (and friendly dogs of other breeds) are welcome to join the festivities at this benefit for a very worthy cause: Muttville Senior Dog Rescue. PugsForMuttville.Eventbrite.com

LIT A-QUAKIN’

The lineup for this year’s LitQuake Festival (October 10-18) has been announced, and it’s a real potboiler. Headliners of the 15th annual free literary extravaganza include Chinelo Okparanta, Emma Donoghue, Nicholson Baker, Paolo Giordano, Marc Maron — and dozens of other local and international scribes. Of course, there’s also the raucous Litcrawl, 10/18, which turns everything from Laundromats to your favorite bars and bookstores into 99 buzzing reading spaces — the Guardian will be presenting its annual Celebrity Twitterature event (during which the city’s best known drag queens, led by D’Arcy Drollinger, hilariously break down infamous social media blunders), 7:15-8:15 at the Mission’s Beauty Bar. www.litquake.com

FAREWELL, ROBIN WILLIAMS

It seems like everyone in San Francisco had a Robin Williams sighting at some point. He was an Oscar-winning A-lister who excelled in both dramatic and (especially) comedic roles, but he was also a regular dude who happened to live in and love the Bay Area. He’d be spotted riding his bike, shopping in local stores, attending Giants games, and popping up at comedy shows — his unannounced appearances were legendary, and never failed to delight audiences who were lucky enough to catch him in the act. As we all mourn his passing, we can take comfort in the fact that the performances he left behind will never diminish. Our personal favorites follow:

Steven T. Jones: Good Morning, Vietnam (1987) — a nice early combo of his manic comedy and dramatic acting abilities. And his first comedy album, Reality … What a Concept (1979)

Rebecca Bowe: Mrs. Doubtfire: It’s so much easier to laugh about divorce when there’s a fake boob costume involved.

Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez: Hook (1991). “Bangarang!”

Cheryl Eddy: Mrs. Doubtfire (“It was a run-by fruiting!”); Aladdin (1992); Dead Poets Society (1989)

Brooke Ginnard: Dead Poets Society: A couple of months ago, my friend woke up to find me enraptured by it, and sobbing into her cat’s fur. Also Jumanji (1995), even though I’m still terrified of spiders.

Emma Silvers: Dead Poets Society (1989), The Birdcage (1996), Aladdin (1992). I knew every single word to his songs in Aladdin, including lots of jokes that went way over my head until five or six years later.

Marke B: Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), but recut via the magic of YouTube into a stunning horror movie trailer

PRINCIPAL PUMPS UP THE VOLUME

Ever been sent to the principal’s office? What if you got there and the principal started playing hip-hop? It’s happening. Academy of Arts and Sciences Assistant Principal Joe Truss joined with two friends to form a rap group, Some of All Parts. When kids who get kicked out of class are sent his way, he said, “We’ll talk for 15 or 20 minutes about rap, and then I’ll be like, ‘So. Why did you get kicked out of class? How can we get you back in?'” Truss’ creative approach to reaching kids — even producing a music video for the track “Rappers Ain’t Sayin Nothin'” — follows recent outcry over the number of students facing suspensions at SF Unified School District. “There’s too many African American students failing and getting pushed out of schools,” he said. Now that more educators are seeking to address it, “We’re much more understanding of where kids come from and where they want to go.”

MEMORIAL VANDALIZED

Alejandro Nieto was killed after a hotly debated, horrifying confrontation with the SFPD nearly five months ago. Since his death, his family and loved ones often gather at a memorial on Bernal Hill to remember him. Now, however, Nieto’s memorial has been repeatedly vandalized, and one suspect (who was seen kicking down part of the memorial) was caught on video by a bystander. For more, see the Politics blog at SFBG.com.

TECH BLOWS UP BRIDGE

It isn’t enough for the tech folks to blow up our nightlife and real estate, now they’re blowing up our damn landmarks — again! Gun-happy gamers are frothily anticipating the newest shoot-em-up, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. But the latest iteration of the game franchise that-wouldn’t-go-away (there are almost as many COD games as there are Bond films) is exploring new territory by blowing up the Golden Gate Bridge in its newest trailer. Thanks, Foster City-based developers Sledgehammer Games, we really more symbolism for tech’s destruction of the city like a (digital) hole in the head.

 

Trans former prisoner honored as civil rights hero

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For 38 years, the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club has celebrated queer progressive politics in San Francisco with its annual Dinner and Gayla, held this year at the Mission campus of the endangered City College of San Francisco.

A slew of awards went out to commemorate the contributions of elected officials and advocates who went to battle to save City College from losing its accreditation, a fate that would bring the college’s 79-year history to a grinding halt while leaving 90,000 students in the lurch with few other options. Activists from San Francisco’s Housing Rights Committee also won accolades for organizing to defend long-term tenants from eviction.

The evening’s keynote speaker and guest of honor was CeCe McDonald, a transgender African American woman who served a 17-month prison term for what she’s described as an act of self-defense in response to a transphobic attack. She was with friends in Minneapolis in July 2011 when an attacker made racist and homophobic comments and then assaulted her; in the end, he was fatally stabbed with her pair of scissors.

A campaign clamoring for McDonald’s freedom drew nationwide attention as supporters rallied in her defense, saying she shouldn’t have been incarcerated for surviving a hate crime. Her story is now the subject of a documentary that’s being co-produced by actress Laverne Cox, who portrays an incarcerated trans woman in Orange is the New Black.

Honored with the Milk Club’s Bayard Rustin Civil Rights Award, McDonald gave an emotional speech.

“I never thought I would make it past the age of 16, and to know that I’m here, 10 years later, really means a lot to me,” she said. “It’s really important for me to have a voice. There is a revolution brewing, and I’m so glad that I’m a part of it. … For me, I’ve been through so much, and I would never regret one part of it, because it made me a stronger person. It made me realize that I’m worth something. It made me realize I’m put on this planet for a reason. Nothing is ever going to take that away from me. I swear I’m going to fight the fight to the end.”

Gaza protests this week and next

Activists with Arab Youth Organization and a number of other entities staged a protest Aug. 6 outside the San Francisco Federal Building, where Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco office is located, calling on U.S. government to end aid to Israel.

“We’re here because humans are dying,” said Linda Ereikat, a 17-year-old Palestinian American who was born and raised in the Bay Area and recently spent a month visiting her grandparents in the West Bank.

“We’re not here because we’re part of a political party. We don’t care about Hamas. We care that our people are dying, and our people are under siege. And it’s just crazy. Regardless of politics, regardless of how you feel, humans are dying. And that’s what really gets me.”

Arab youth organizers and other supporters also planned to hold an Aug. 7 candlelight vigil at 7:30pm in San Francisco’s Union Square, in memory of Palestinians who had been killed during the conflict.

And next week, on Aug. 16, a coalition of organizers is planning to move ahead with a protest against violence in Gaza at the Port of Oakland – which could involve blockading a ship.

According to a flier announcing the Aug. 16 event:

“In 2010, after a Turkish flotilla was attacked by Israel for attempting to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza, we built on ILWU’s history [from the movement against apartheid in South Africa] and successfully blocked the Israeli Zim ship from being unloaded at the Port of Oakland – the first time in US history an Israeli ship was blocked. We will be continuing this legacy by organizing to block the Israeli ship once again.”

It seems the exact plans are still under discussion. Asked about it, AYO organizer Samha Ayesh told the Bay Guardian, “We’re trying to work with the port workers to make it successful.”

These events aren’t the only examples of Bay Area street demonstrations held in response to the Israeli-Gaza conflict. A group of demonstrators staged a pro-Israel march in San Francisco last weekend.

Alerts: August 6 – 12, 2014

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THURSDAY 7

 

The Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club’s 2014 Dinner and Gayla

City College of San Francisco’s Mission Campus, 1125 Valencia, SF. milkdinner.eventbrite.com. 6-9pm, $40 and up. Join the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club to celebrate 38 years of progressive politics in San Francisco and proudly honor our City College champions. Honorees include Congresswoman Jackie Speier, City Attorney Dennis Herrera, City College Trustee Rafael Mandelman, Student Trustee Shanell Williams, Former President AFT 2121 Alisa Messer, and Keynote Speaker and Bayard Rustin Civil Rights Award Recipient CeCe McDonald. Enjoy dinner by City College culinary program graduates and celebrate a host of other Milk Club honorees.

 

Rally for Affordability

San Francisco City Hall, SF. 2-3:30pm. Youth Movement of Justice Organizing (aka YouthMOJO) is a youth program of the Chinese Progressive Association that collected over 800 pledge cards in support of a campaign to fight for the $15 minimum wage, and the anti-speculation tax. At this rally, members will share stories about their families’ struggles to live in San Francisco. Featuring guerilla theater performances, and more.

 

FRIDAY 8

 

Book Talk with Tony Serra

Book Passage, San Francisco Ferry Building #42, SF. 6pm, free. Tony Serra, a sometimes resident of Bolinas who’s been in the news recently for defending Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow against the federal government, will talk about his latest book, Tony Serra — The Green, Yellow and Purple Years in the Life of a Radical Lawyer, at an event sponsored by Marin’s Book Passage (at its San Francisco location). This work is billed as “a chromatic, metaphoric autobiography” of Serra’s defense of the Black Panthers, S.L.A., New World Liberation Front, Nuestra Familia, Earth First, Hells Angels, Mafia and Native Americans, intertwined with his anti-establishment ideology. “Forgive my romanticized and self-indulgent propositions in the forthcoming pages,” Serra says of the book. “Recall that such were written at Lompoc Federal Prison camp during my incarceration for U.S. tax resistance. … Mine is not a quest for accuracy. Mine is a flight into whimsy and caprice, a retrospective twinkle in the eyes of memory: In short, confinement escapism.”

 

SUNDAY 10

 

Bay Area Civil Liberties Coalition Meeting & Documentary Screening

First Unitarian Universalist Center Chapel, 1187 Franklin, SF. bayareacivilliberties.org. 6-9pm, free. This meeting of the Bay Area Civil Liberties Coalition includes a free screening of the documentary “The Internet’s Own Boy,” the story of “programming prodigy and information activist” and Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz. There will also be an opportunity to join grassroots efforts against mass surveillance.

Housing balance and neighborhood stabilization

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By Peter Cohen and Fernando Martí

OPINION

The Guardian last week published an editorial on the outcome of the process around the Housing Balance measure. We offer here an alternative perspective from the field.

Since 1990, San Francisco has developed an incredible track record of building close to 30 percent affordable housing — but that ratio is quickly slipping away as new market-rate approvals far outstrip funding for affordable housing.

In many parts of our city, this imbalance in housing affordability is opening the door to displacement and gentrification at an unprecedented level, as long-term residents find they can no longer afford to live in their own neighborhoods.

The Housing Balance measure, developed as legislation for central city neighborhoods and introduced in April, and promoted by CCHO members TODCO and SOMCAN coming out of the West SoMa planning process, was intended to link market-rate development to affordable housing production by setting a goal of at least 30 percent affordable housing and establishing stricter conditions on approvals of market-rate housing whenever the city fell below this minimum balance. The Housing Balance measure was meant to compel all sides to work together to achieve a minimum of 30 percent affordability over time.

In June, Supervisor Jane Kim revised the Housing Balance to introduce it as a measure for the November 2014 ballot, extending the reach of the measure to not only establish a 30 percent affordable housing requirement for District 6, but across the neighborhoods of the city. Perceived as a threat by developers, this new proposal compelled the Mayor’s Office to put its own measure on the ballot — a so-called “poison pill” that would override the conditions placed on market-rate development by the Housing Balance. Since that time, the Mayor’s Office and Sup. Kim’s office engaged in extensive negotiations, which CCHO supported as a pathway to more substantive outcomes than simply a ballot “war.”

On July 29, negotiations produced a compromise measure — a policy statement that was introduced for the November ballot and agreed-upon terms for a work plan to take the policy statement into action. Though “compromise” is often considered a dirty word in politics, this measure represents a real potential win for affordable housing.

By putting the possibility of a housing linkage on the table, the negotiated outcome allowed Sup. Kim and housing advocates to up the ante to 33 percent affordable housing instead of the original 30 percent, and to get more immediate solutions for the housing crisis started immediately. The original Housing Balance was a tool to create leverage, but didn’t create ways to produce more affordable housing. This new measure establishes a package of policies and funding to set the conditions to reach the 33 percent minimum housing balance goal.

If approved by the voters, it will formalize the city’s commitment to maintain a one third affordable housing goal and set expectations on how to get there. While lacking the conditional use requirement “teeth” of the original Balance legislation, the policy and work plan sets up the conditions for a future Balance, compelling the city to do the following:

1) Establish a housing balance report and require public hearings to hold the city accountable to its goal of minimum 33 percent affordable housing;

2) Develop funding and site-acquisition strategies;

3) Develop a strategy to maintain one-third affordability citywide;

4) Make high-rise luxury developments pay their fair share of inclusionary obligations;

5) Establish a funded Neighborhood Stabilization Trust to acquire small-to-large buildings and take them out of the speculative market, preserving them in perpetuity as affordable housing;

6) Create immediate interim controls to protect PDR (production, distribution, repair/service) businesses and artists in SOMA from displacement.

The pieces of this agreement constitute a step towards addressing San Francisco’s ongoing affordability crisis and stabilizing neighborhoods facing rapid gentrification. It may seem less dramatic than the prospect of a ballot battle with developers. But it is a package to work with that was leveraged from the process. That said, we must keep an eye on the larger goal of real citywide affordability. Though 33 percent affordable housing production is higher than what we’ve achieved in the past, we must not forget this is only a floor — realistic given the funding goals of this measure, but an incremental step toward achieving the affordable housing we need to house all San Franciscans fairly.

Peter Cohen and Fernando Martí are co-directors of the Council of Community Housing Organizations.

 

The last Republican

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steve@sfbg.com

BART Director James Fang is San Francisco’s only elected official who is a registered Republican, yet over the last 24 years, he has somehow managed to easily win election after election in a city dominated by the Democratic Party, often with the endorsements of top Democrats.

But this year, Fang is facing a strong and well-funded challenge from investor and former solar company entrepreneur Nicholas Josefowitz, a Harvard graduate in his early 30s. Thanks in part to support from the tech community — Lyft cofounder Logan Green is one of several prominent figures in tech to host fundraisers for him, according to Re/Code — Josefowitz has managed to amass a campaign war chest of about $150,000.

Josefowitz has also secured some key political endorsements, including from Sups. John Avalos, Eric Mar, and Scott Wiener, BART Director Tom Radulovich, former SF Mayor Art Agnos, and the Sierra Club.

After Josefowitz sold his solar company, RenGen, almost two years ago, “I got more and more involved in sustainable community advocacy,” he told us. “Then the BART strike happened and I was like, wow, this shouldn’t be happening.”

Josefowitz cited BART’s history of worker safety violations, last year’s unnecessarily divisive labor contract negotiations, the district’s massive deferred maintenance budget, property devoted to parking lots that could be put to better uses (he sees potential there for real-estate development), corrupt cronyism in its contracting, and lack of cooperation with other transit agencies as problems that urgently need correcting.

Fang is being challenged by well-funded Democratic newcomer Nicholas Josefowitz.

“BART does a terrible job at coordinating with other transit agencies,” Josefowitz told us, arguing the transit connections should be timed and seamless. “James has been there for 24 years, and if he was going to be the right guy to fix it, then he would have done it by now.”

But perhaps Josefowitz’s strongest argument is that as a Republican in liberal San Francisco, Fang’s values are out-of-step with those of voters. “Why is someone still a Republican today? … He’s a Republican and he’s a Republican in 2014, with everything that means,” Josefowitz told us. “He hasn’t been looking out for San Francisco and he’s out of touch with San Francisco values.”

We asked Fang why he’s a Republican. After saying it shouldn’t matter as far as the nonpartisan BART board race is concerned, he told us that when he was in college, he and his friends registered Republican so they could vote for John Anderson in the primary election.

“Some people feel the expedient thing for me to is switch parties,” Fang said, but “I think it’s a loyalty thing. If you keep changing … what kind of message does that send to people?”

Fang said he thought the focus ought to be on his track record, not his political affiliation. It shouldn’t matter “if it’s a black cat or a white cat, as long as it catches mice,” he said. He pointed to programs such as seismic upgrades, completing the BART to the airport project, and instituting a small-business preference for BART contractors as evidence of his strong track record. “I’m a native San Franciscan — I’ve gone through all the public schools,” Fang added. “It’s very important to get people from a San Francisco perspective and San Francisco values.”

Josefowitz supporters say he has perhaps the best shot ever at defeating Fang, largely because of his prodigious fundraising and aggressive outreach efforts on the campaign trail. “He is doing all the things that someone should do to win the race,” Radulovich, San Francisco’s other longtime elected representative on the BART board, told us. “There’s a lot of unhappiness with BART these days.”

But in an interesting political twist, Fang has the endorsement of Service Employees International Union Local 1021, a champion of many progressive causes in San Francisco, after he walked the picket line with striking BART employees last year and opposed the district’s decision to hire a high-priced, union-busting labor consultant.

“It’s a priority for us to elect Fang,” SEIU 1021 organizer Gabriel Haaland told us. “When we needed him on the strike, he walked our picket line.”

SEIU Political Chair Alysabeth Alexander sounded a similar note. “In the middle of one of the most important and highest-profile labor fights in the nation, when two workers had to die to prove that safety issues were the heart of the struggle, Fang was the only board member who took a position for safety,” she said. “Every other member shut out the workers and refused to acknowledge that serious safety issues put workers lives at risk every day. If more BART Board members has the courage of Fang, two workers would be alive today.”

BART got a series of public black eyes last year when its contract standoff with its employees resulted in two labor strikes that snarled traffic and angered the public. Then two BART employees were killed by a train operated by an unqualified manager being trained to deliver limited service to break the strike, a tragedy that highlighted longstanding safety deficiencies that the district had long fought with state regulators to avoid correcting. Finally, after that fatal accident helped force an end to the labor standoff, BART officials admitted making an administrative error in the contract that reopened the whole ugly incident.

“One of the things that really opened my eyes in this labor negotiation is that often we get told things by management, and we just assume them to be true,” Fang said, noting that he’d questioned the agency’s plan to run train service during last year’s strike.

Yet Josefowitz said the BART board should be held accountable for the agency’s shortcomings in dealing with its workers. “It starts with having a genuine concern over worker safety issues, and not just at bargaining time,” he said. “If the board had acted early enough, that strike was totally avoidable.”

Indeed, BART’s decisions that led to the tragedy have been heavily criticized by the National Transportation Safety Board, California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, and the California Assembly Committee on Labor and Employment.

Fang also has the support of many top Democrats, including Attorney General Kamala Harris, US Rep. Nancy Pelosi, and former state legislator and current Board of Equalization candidate Fiona Ma, who told us: “I have endorsed one Republican in my political history, and that is James Fang for BART Board.” Noting that Josefowitz “just moved here,” Ma said, “The BART system is one of our jewels, and I don’t think we should elect first-time newcomers in San Francisco to manage it.”

Radulovich said he was mystified by prominent San Francisco politicians’ support for Fang, saying, “In this solidly Democratic town, this elected Republican has the support of these big Democrats — it’s a mystery to me.”

One reason could be Fang’s willingness to use newspapers under his control to support politicians he favors, sometimes in less than ethical ways. Fang is the president of Asian Week and former owner of the San Francisco Examiner, where sources say he shielded from media scrutiny politicians who helped him gain control of the paper, including Willie Brown and Pelosi (see “The untouchables,” 4/30/03).

But political consultant Nicole Derse, who is working on the Josefowitz campaign, told us that she thinks support for Fang among top Democrats is softening this year, noting that US Sen. Dianne Feinstein and state Sen. Mark Leno haven’t endorsed Fang after doing so in previous races.

“[Fang] has longstanding relationships with folks, but Nick is challenging people in this race to stop supporting the Republican,” Derse told us. “It’s now up to the Democratic Party and it’ll be interesting to see what they do.”

She was referring to the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee, which plans to vote on its endorsements on Aug. 13. While DCCC bylaws prevent the body from endorsing a Republican, Ma and other Fang allies have been lobbying for no endorsement in the race, which would deny Josefowitz a key avenue for getting his name and message out there.

“This is going to be one of the most expensive races in BART’s history. He will kill me on money,” Fang said of Josefowitz. He suggested that his opponent’s candidacy underscores tech’s growing influence in local politics, and urged voters to take a closer look. “People are saying oh, it’s all about Fang. What about this gentleman?” Fang asked. “Nobody’s questioning him at all.”

Derse, for her part, noted the importance of having a well-funded challenge in this nonpartisan race. “It allows him the resources to get his message out there,” she said of Josefowitz. “Most San Franciscans wouldn’t knowingly vote for a Republican.”

 

Mayoral meltdown

95

joe@sfbg.com

When he launched an unexpected mayoral bid in 2011, Mayor Ed Lee campaigned on a platform of changing the tone of San Francisco politics. The appointed mustachioed mayor claimed he put the civility back in City Hall, marking a sharp departure from the divisive tone of city politics as progressives battled former Mayor Willie Brown, followed by Mayor Gavin Newsom.

“We’ll continue the high level of civility in the tone we’ve set since January, and solve the problems with civil engagement,” he told Board of Supervisors President David Chiu, then his mayoral opponent, at a 2011 debate.

Yet over the past two weeks, Mayor Lee has started swinging hard against supervisors who have introduced measures that go against his own priorities. So much for civility at City Hall.

 

COMPROMISE EVERYTHING

When asked about the outcome of her newly revised affordable housing measure, Sup. Jane Kim did not sound enthusiastic.

“It was definitely a compromise,” Kim said. But compromise is a word you use when you find a middle ground. By most accounts, Mayor Lee weakened the measure by hammering the right pressure points.

Kim crafted a novel solution to the city’s housing affordability crisis for the November ballot. Her initial Housing Balance Requirement would have established controls on market-rate housing construction, requiring a reevaluation whenever affordable housing production falls below 30 percent of total construction. The goal was to ensure that a certain amount of affordable housing would be built — but it was unpopular with housing developers.

Lee immediately drummed up a ballot measure in opposition to Kim’s, the Build Housing Now Initiative. The nonbinding policy statement asked the city to affirm his previously stated affordable housing goals. So what was the point?

It contained a poison pill which would have killed Kim’s Housing Balance Requirement. If Lee’s measure was approved, Kim’s would fail. The two politicians were in heated negotiations, trying to diffuse this ballot box arms race up to the very moment Kim’s measure went before the Board of Supervisors for approval at its July 29 meeting.

By the end of that process, Kim’s measure had been gutted.

Mirroring the mayor’s Build Housing Now Initiative, the new Housing Balance Requirement is a nonbinding policy statement asking the city to “affirm the City’s commitment” to support the production or rehabilitation of 30,000 housing units by 2020, with at least 33 percent of those permanently affordable to low or moderate income households.

Kim said she’d won funding pledges and promises for a number of affordable housing projects from the mayor. But Lee did not sign any agreement.

Essentially, the revised measure is a promise to promise, a plan to plan. Kim told us flatly, “We didn’t get the accountability we wanted.”

Political insiders told us the Mayor’s Office put pressure on affordable housing developers, who backed the original measure but later asked Kim to revise it to reflect the mayor’s wishes. The Mayor’s Office allegedly threatened to cut their funding next year, or divert projects to other affordable housing organizations.

Everyone acknowledged the mayor was pissed.

Tenants and Owners Development Corporation, an affordable housing developer in SoMa, sat in on the negotiations. The city paid $170,961 in contracts to TODCO last year, according to the City Controller, and over $250,000 the year before. John Elberling, president of TODCO, and Peter Cohen, co-director of the Council of Community Housing Organizations, denied the mayor influenced them to ask Kim to revise her measure.

“I didn’t hear my phone ringing saying we’ll pull funding for affordable housers if you don’t do X, Y and Z,” Cohen told us. Yet he acknowledged the mayor “brought certain leverages to bear” in the closed-door negotiations to “compromise” on Kim’s ballot measure. Then everything changed.

“Yes,” Cohen said, “we then convinced the lead supervisor to change her position.”

Despite being labeled as a “compromise,” many observers read this as a sign that Lee had prevailed. Now the same hammer is coming down on Sup. Scott Wiener.

 

BALLOT BATTLE

“I agree with the mayor on many things,” Wiener told us. But the mayor is targeting Wiener’s new Muni funding ballot measure, hoping to knock it off the ballot.

“It’s not personal,” Wiener said. “It’s a policy disagreement.”

The mayor has a transportation bond on the ballot, asking voters to pony up $500 million to fund Muni. But Lee already blew a $33 million hole into Muni’s proposed budget when he decided to pull a Vehicle License Fee measure off the ballot. When that measure began to poll badly, he got cold feet, and withdrew it.

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s budget outlined a doomsday scenario if the funding ballot measures failed to pass. It would be impossible to improve transit travel time, reliability, or to fund pedestrian and bike safety projects, the SFMTA staff noted in recent budget presentations.

Seeing the potential fallout due to the mayor pulling the VLF measure, Wiener placed his own measure on the ballot, tying expansion for Muni funding to the city’s growing population. If passed, Muni could see a $22 million bump just next year.

Openly, the mayor told reporters he would hold the supervisors who supported Wiener’s ballot measure “accountable.” Lee then initiated a conversation about slashing funding to city programs, signaling that supervisors’ favored projects could be jeopardized.

“Last week, the Board of Supervisors sent a measure to the ballot that the budget does not contemplate,” Kate Howard, the mayor’s budget director, wrote in a memo. She directed departments to cut their budgets by 1.5 percent, and asked for “contingency plans” including a “revisit” of hiring plans and scaling back existing programs and services.

Wiener issued a statement describing the move as “an empty scare tactic.”

“For whatever reason,” he wrote, “the Mayor’s Office felt the need to issue these emergency instructions now — a full year before the fiscal year at issue, in the middle of an election campaign, without even knowing whether the measure will pass.”

John Elberling, president of TODCO, recalled when then-Mayor Willie Brown used the same schoolyard-bully tactics to ensure his favored measures passed.

“The punchline is there were competing ballot measures, one from our side and one from Willie’s side,” Elberling told the Guardian. “There was an effort to reach a compromise, but that failed. I was in the meeting where he shot it down.”

“He said ‘I will make the decisions,’ quote unquote. ‘There is no compromise unless I say there’s a compromise.’ That was quite memorable,” Elberling recalled.

When things didn’t go his way, “Willie Brown took a housing project away from us,” Elberling said.

But Mayor Lee’s bluster and anger is new, and Elberling said it should be taken with a grain of salt. “Is it a bluff? That’s always a question. Real retaliation like Willie did, that’s a real thing. But huff and puff, that goes on all the time.”

 

Democracy wow!

0

arts@sfbg.com

THEATER From a certain angle, democracy is just one big bout of audience participation. So when playwright Aaron Landsman, director Mallory Catlett, and designer Jim Findlay started kicking around the idea of somehow staging a city council meeting, of all things, the notion that the audience itself should enact it must have come as a eureka moment.

It is indeed the charm and challenge of City Council Meeting that, while conceived and instigated by the New York–based artistic trio, the show is ultimately a collaboration with whoever shows up, plus a few semi-rehearsed locals in on the running of the thing. These latter include a group of “staffers” who help guide participants through an actual city council meeting — or more precisely, a seamless composite of public transcripts of such meetings held around the US in the past couple of years, plus an artistic flourish or two. For the San Francisco premiere (running this weekend at local co-presenter Z Space), the staffers include Claudia Anderson, Awele, Dwayne Calizo, Jennifer Chien, Sarah Curran, and me.

Moreover, the piece always concludes with an original ending crafted specifically for the locale in which it plays (that, so far, has been Houston, Texas; Tempe, Ariz.; and New York City). This time, the play’s unique final movement, a creative response to what has preceded it, was built in partnership with Bay Area director-choreographer Erika Chong Shuch.

As a staffer, your job is to help facilitate the encounter between the play and its audience. Since that’s kind of what a critic does anyway, I reasoned, and given that everyone in the audience is already at least minimally involved in the production, I signed on for a more inside track on City Council Meeting‘s three-day San Francisco run. At the first rehearsal, director Catlett introduced us to our binders, which contained things we’d need, including something like the script of the performance.

(There is no definitive script. The play is an un-distillable architecture of discrete dialogue, directions on note cards, live and recorded video feeds, and whispered cues, not to mention the unforeseeable but pretty much guaranteed contingency. And perspectives and experiences will vary pretty widely depending on the physical and dramatic space one chooses to occupy: council member, speaker, bystander.)

It was a little confusing, frankly. But halfway through a swift two weeks of rehearsal, I’m seeing more clearly the shape of the show as well as appreciating the subtleties in its construction. Like much contemporary participatory performance, or what’s sometimes called “social practice” art, City Council Meeting moves the bulk of the action and agency onto its audience as a way to simultaneously investigate and manifest our social circumstances and potentialities. It is therefore purposely unsettled — participants are always themselves and yet tasked with enacting the words of other real people like, or more often not like, themselves.

The sheer awkwardness of it is really the point. Is this a study, a parody, an incitement, an invocation? In enacting the form, does the piece share in some of its power? A strange combination of sincerity and dry humor runs throughout it all, as the double-consciousness built into the piece throws everything gleefully up in the air, suspended somewhere between the rehearsal of dead forms (whether political or aesthetic) and the activation of new ones.

That’s a salubrious position, encouraged by the context at large. Or so I couldn’t help thinking. Was it merely coincidence that after leaving rehearsal one night I walked directly into road blocks, sirens, and hundreds of cops — the wake left by a president and secretary of state on political shopping sprees? Is the power that creates such disruption, traffic, and annoyance wherever it goes, like some heedless B-movie giant, even related to the power invested in local government? Was it just coincidence that after leaving another rehearsal a few days later, the Chronicle building was papered over in posters reading, “the media lies as Gaza dies,” this time the unsanctioned wake of a protest on behalf of the powerless?

For a moment there, Occupy took back government from representative bodies and held it in the bodies of real people, acting on their own behalf. It was wild, unexpected, and startlingly easy. It was also strikingly creative — and art was everywhere in the movement. It’s become clearer since then that the relationship between art and politics is a much more serious question than many of us had realized. We can’t afford a paucity of imagination in either. We need the room and wherewithal to ask questions. If nothing else, City Council Meeting asks questions. Including these:

“Are we working together? Are we capable of it? Is that why this structure is here? Or is that what the structure prevents?” *

CITY COUNCIL MEETING

Fri/1-Sat/2, 7pm; Sun/3, 2pm, $20

Z Space

450 Florida, SF

www.zspace.org

 

Of borders and love songs

0

esilvers@sfbg.com

LEFT OF THE DIAL The way in which Diana Gameros first came to America is a world away from the heart-wrenching images we’re currently seeing in the news media of children who’ve been sent, on their own, to the U.S. border from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. At 13, she arrived on an airplane from her home city of Juarez, Mexico; the plan was to stay with an aunt who lived in Michigan for the summer. When Gameros visited her cousin’s school there, and saw that it had a swimming pool, among other luxurious-seeming facilities, her aunt asked if she wanted to go to that school and learn English. Gameros couldn’t say yes fast enough. She wound up staying three years, returning to Mexico for the second half of high school, and then moving back to the U.S. for college.

So no, no one ever sent her out on foot for the border, hoping that on the other side lay someone or something that could mean a brighter future.

And yet: “I’m kind of a fanatic when it comes to following this country’s immigration system and its history,” says Gameros, a fixture in San Francisco’s singer-songwriter scene for her thoughtful, melodic story-songs that contain both English and Spanish (she’s been referred to as the Latin Feist).

“I think there’s a lot that most American people don’t know. You hear people judging, calling these parents irresponsible…it’s so much more complicated than that,” she says. “People don’t know how the U.S.’s actions have affected these countries. People are risking their children’s lives because they need to be here. It’s not for the American dream, they’re not here to buy a nice car, a big house. They’re here because they want to eat, have a roof over their heads, fulfill basic necessities. It’s frustrating. There’s so much ignorance.”

Her unique perspective on border issues is one reason Gameros was selected to perform at MEX I AM: Live It to Believe It, a nearly weeklong festival organized by the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in conjunction with SF’s Consulate General of Mexico. Bringing together musicians, actors, visual artists, and academics from throughout Mexico from July 31 through Aug. 5, the festival includes classical, indie, and pop music and dance, lectures and discussion of Mexico’s achievements and challenges, and a meeting of minds around border issues.

The program in which Gameros will perform, on the evening of Friday, Aug. 1, is called “Ideas: North and South of the Border,” and aims to explore innovation in the sciences, arts, and culture in Mexico. Among the other speakers: astronaut Jose Hernandez, who grew up in the Central Valley as the son of immigrant farmers; he’ll discuss his journey from childhood (he didn’t learn to read or speak in English until he was 12) through getting a degree in electrical engineering and eventually being tapped by NASA. Rosario Marin, the first Mexican-American woman to serve as Treasurer of the United States, will also be present, along with Favianna Rodriguez, a transnational visual artist whose work “depicts how women, migrants and outsiders are affected by global politics, economic inequality, patriarchy and interdependence” and the director of CultureStrike, an arts organization that works to organize artists, writers, and performers around migrant rights.

On the afternoon of Saturday, Aug. 2, actress-dancer Vicky Araico will perform her award-winning monologue Juana In a Million, which chronicles an undocumented immigrant’s quest to find home.

The other musical performances throughout the week run the gamut from Natalia Lafourcade, a two-time Latin Grammy winning pop singer, to Murcof + Simon Geilfus, an electronic audio-visual collaboration, the award-winning percussion ensemble Tambuco, renowned composer and jazz musician Hector Infanzon, and more.

Gameros, whose 2013 album Eterno Retorno (Eternal Return) features a song called “SB 1070” (after the racist Arizona law designed to prosecute undocumented immigrants), says she thinks her music can be a subtle form of education, an artistic entry point for people who might not know or think much about immigration issues.

“It’s a topic that touches me deeply, so my protest music is my offering, my way to say I’m with you and I stand with you,” she says. “Though if you listen to my lyrics you might think many [songs] are love songs, or written to a lover who didn’t treat me right.”

Gameros adds that she hopes the Latino community in San Francisco will embrace the festival and show up, a sentiment that carries a particular weight as housing prices in areas like the Mission are changing the local face of the local Latino population. “Unless its the symphony doing something with a Mexican artist, we don’t really have access to events like this that are mainstream cultural celebrations, normally,” she says. “And there’s such a fascinating group of people all here for it — I just hope as many people as possible take advantage of it, that they come and hear these stories we have to tell.”

 

MEX I AM: LIVE IT TO BELIEVE IT

July 31 through Aug. 5, prices and times vary

Most events at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-2700

www.ybca.org/mex-i-am

Housing ballot measures would weaken city policy

47

EDITORIAL Under the misleading guise of encouraging the development of more affordable housing in San Francisco, Mayor Ed Lee and Sup. Jane Kim have sponsored a pair of fall ballot measures that actually weaken existing housing policy in San Francisco. It’s a ruse that shouldn’t fool politically savvy San Franciscans.

Lee has the authority to place his Build Housing Now measure on the ballot, although he may withdraw it under his backroom deal with Kim. But the Board of Supervisors should reject Kim’s City Housing Balance measure, a once-promising proposal that she last week made toothless and counterproductive. What she called a “compromise” was actually a capitulation to developers and the Mayor’s Office [Editor’s Note: The board was scheduled to consider Kim’s measure on July 29 after Guardian press time, which is why we posted this editorial early at sfbg.com, where print readers can check for an update].[UPDATE: The board unanimously approved the amended measure.]

Kim’s original measure called for market-rate housing developers to get conditional use permits and perform additional economic studies on their projects when affordable housing production falls below 30 percent of total production. She then weakened it with several exemptions, yet it was still a check against runaway development of luxury housing.

But her new measure, much like Lee’s, is little more than a wishful policy statement calling for the city to seek the goal of 33 percent of housing affordable by moderate income San Franciscans and below (usually defined as those making 120 percent of area median income or less) and 50 percent by the more vaguely defined “working middle class.”

While neither measure includes any enforcement or funding mechanism to help reach that goal, it’s noteworthy that the goals themselves weaken those the city set for itself in the Housing Element of the General Plan, which call for 60 percent of new housing construction to be affordable to those with moderate incomes and below. The board adopted an amended version of this Housing Element just last month.

This is politics at its very worst: Politicians claiming to be doing one thing in order to score points with voters and appear responsive to their concerns, while they actually do just the opposite and try to disguise that fact with disingenuous rhetoric.

Kim’s allies in the labor and progressive political communities tell us they’re disappointed in her capitulation at such a crucial moment in determining whether San Francisco becomes a city of the rich or whether it can retain its socioeconomic diversity.

We were also disappointed, although we weren’t surprised. There’s an ugly, money-driven brand of politics being practiced at City Hall these days, and Kim has repeatedly shown herself to be more concerned with her future political prospects than living up to the progressive values she has long espoused.

Will San Francisco voters give Muni more money to serve a growing population?

56

Beating up on Muni and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency is a perennial pastime for many San Franciscans, who will be given the opportunity to put their money where their mouths are this November. Will they be willing to give Muni the money it needs to serve its growing ridership, even at the cost of other city programs and priorities?

The Board of Supervisors yesterday [Tues/22] voted narrowly to place Sup. Scott Wiener’s Muni funding measure on the fall ballot. It would increase General Fund contributions to the SFMTA as the city population increase, retroactive back to 2003 when the current rate was set, giving the agency an immediate $20-25 million boost to serve the roughly 85,000 new residents the city has added since then.

“For too long City Hall has been slow to prioritize transit funding,” Wiener said in a press release. “We are a growing city, and we need to take firm steps to ensure that our transportation system keeps up with that growth.  Improving transit reliability and capacity and making our streets safer are key to that goal.”

While everyone says they support Muni — even David Looman, the proponent behind the Restore Transportation Balance initiative that seeks more SFMTA funding for cars, which will also appear on that ballot — Wiener has been the rare strong advocate locally for actually giving the agency more money.

Mayor Ed Lee created a $10 million hole in the SFMTA budget by demanding the repeal of charging for parking meters on Sunday this year, and then he dropped his support for a local increase in the vehicle license fee this year, prompting Wiener to introduce his Muni funding measure, which the mayor would have the authority to terminate if voters approve a VLF increase in 2016.

A $500 million general obligation bond transportation measure backed by Lee and the full Board of Supervisors will also appear on the November ballot, but it will go mostly to cover Muni’s capital needs, not the growing demands on its operating budget.

Wiener’s Muni funding measure yesterday barely got the six votes this charter amendment needed to qualify for the ballot: those of Wiener and Sups. London Breed, David Campos, David Chiu, Malia Cohen, and Jane Kim (Sup. John Avalos was absent).

In recent years, there’s been a rift in the city’s progressive coalition between environmental and transportation activists on one side and affordable housing advocates on the other, who sometimes battle over city funding they see as a zero sum game. So it will be interesting to watch how the politics surrounding this measure shape up going into the fall campaign season.  

This Week’s Picks: July 23 – 29, 2014

0

WEDNESDAY 23

 

 

Man or Astro-Man?

Auburn, Ala.’s Man or Astro-Man? has spent decades perfecting their sprawling surf-rock. Incredibly imaginative and extremely prolific, the group has recorded and toured tirelessly since early 1990s. Drawing diverse influences from the likes of Dick Dale and Link Wray, punk and new wave, and science fiction and a fascination with space and extraterrestrial life, Man or Astro-Man? take surf rock in directions and galaxies previously uncharted. Largely instrumental and entirely captivating, the band’s nine-album catalog is a musically-stunning journey through sound and space. Known for their high-energy live sets, often performed in space-suits complete with astronaut helmets with intricate sci-fi set pieces, musicians Star Crunch and Birdstuff will shred their way into your hearts. (Haley Zaremba)

With The Ogres, WRAY

8pm, $20

The Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

(415) 771-1421

www.theindependentsf.com

 

 

Cymbals

The cooler-than-thou French monologue on UK band Cymbals’s single “The End” might have you in the dark, but the intro’s melancholy melody should be instantly familiar to anyone who’s spent too many hours in a club. The faint, ringing tone stuck in ear the next day (or week), bringing back memories: “It’s the end of the night, you’ve been dancing too much. They’ve got to turn on the lights.” Smartly placed on a stellar album (The Age of Fracture) of arty synth-pop that’s in line with Metronomy, Passion Pit, and David Byrne, it’s a reminder that, for better or worse, some things don’t last as long as you want. (Ryan Prendiville)

With Astronauts, etc., The Wild Wild

8pm, $10-12

Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell, SF

(415) 861-2011

www.rickshawstop.com

 

THURSDAY 24

 

 

CAM & Co. Productions’ Spring Awakening

Once a high school theater kid, always a high school theater kid. After receiving their hard-earned diplomas from San Francisco’s School of the Arts, some of the city’s most talented teens realized they couldn’t abandon the pool of talent at the school. So instead of embracing the idea of a deadbeat summer before college, the members created their own production company. Their conception of Spring Awakening is financed through an online fundraiser they created, and is completely driven by efforts from School of the Arts family members. Support up-and-coming youth theater while wondering why you couldn’t be as cool as them when you were 18. (Amy Char)

Through Sat/26

7:30pm, $20

Phoenix Theatre

414 Mason, SF

(415) 336-1020

www.phoenixtheatresf.org

 

 

 

FRIDAY 25

 

 

RAWdance

With a decade of distinguished work behind the company, RAWdance has every reason to celebrate. Ryan T. Smith and Wendy Rein collaborations draw you in with the integrity of a highly structural approach that yet yields works that resonate emotionally. Their newest piece seems tailor-made to the kind of intelligence that they bring to their work. Turing’s Apple explores both the genius of the British scientist Alan Turing and his tragedy when he came out as a gay man. It will be joined by the final version of Burns that the choreographers describe as Rorschach-test driven, and film-noir inspired. RAWdance will be joined by a guest artists Gretchen Garnett + Dancers in a trio, and a grief-exploring sextet, Nawala (“Lost”) by Tany Bello’s Project B. (Rita Felciano)

July 25-26, 8 pm. July 27, 7 pm. $25-30

Z Space

450 Florida St. SF

866-811-4111

www.zspace.org

 

 

 

This Must Be the Place: The End of the Underground 1991- 2012

Named for an excellent Talking Heads song, This Must Be the Place is an annual summer celebration of rock docs, exploring the birth, life, death, and (depending on whom you ask) near-constant rebirth of punk rock through iconic moments captured on film. This third installment, curator Mike Keegan has announced, will sadly be the Roxie’s last, so get to it. Friday’s ’90s-tastic triple bill sounds too fun to miss, with 1991: The Year Punk Broke (featuring live performances from Sonic Youth and their then-opener, Nirvana), Hated: GG Allin and the Murder Junkies (featuring the never sober, always charming GG Allin, who was dead before the film finished shooting), and What’s Up, Matador? (featuring three-minute bursts of rarely seen excellence from labelmates Guided By Voices, Pavement, Yo La Tengo and more). Don’t forget your flannel. (Emma Silvers)

Through Sun/27, prices and showtimes vary

The Roxie Theater

3117 16th St., SF

www.roxie.com

 

SATURDAY 26

 

 

CoffeeCon 2014

Cursed with the personality of an ogre if you skip your morning coffee? Once you’ve gotten a head start on your caffeine fix Saturday morning, head over to this art gallery — for one day only, it houses an interactive latte art exhibit (arguably just as creatively esteemed as postmodern paintings). The coffee festival features a plethora of other hands-on lessons, including one titled “How to Review Coffee,” and unlimited coffee samples, so you can sound like a pretentious — but educated — coffee snob while you pine over an obscure roast when you’re with your friends at Starbucks. Local bands perform live to simulate a hipster coffeehouse vibe. (Amy Char)

9am – 4pm, $15-$20

Terra Gallery & Event Venue

511 Harrison, SF

(415) 896-1234

www.terrasf.com

 

 

Fritz Montana

The spike in blues-rock appreciation that came with The Black Keys and their various contemporaries may be losing its luster — the Keys’ newest LP, Turn Blue, hardly lived up to their previous releases. But Fritz Montana shows that the blues are alive and well in San Francisco. A blistering three-piece band fronted by high-octane vocalist and guitarist David Marshall, won Live 105’s local band contest last October, which led to them opening for Kings of Leon, Queens of the Stone Age, and Vampire Weekend at the station’s Not So Silent Night. Fritz Montana’s first album, Scaredy Cat, is ready to drop, and the group has chosen the Rickshaw Stop as the spot for their release party. The group will play their new release, along with their celebrated 2013 EPs, and sell copies of their debut full-length hot off the presses. Fritz Montana may not be reinventing the wheel, but the band’s songs pulse with an energy and technical grace that bodes very well for their dreams of airwave domination. (David Kurlander)

$10-13, 9pm

Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell, SF

(415) 861-2011

www.rickshawstop.com

 

 

 

Rick Springfield

One of the biggest surprises in Dave Grohl’s 2013 doc Sound City — about the legendary SoCal recording studio where Nirvana’s Nevermind and other iconic works were recorded — was the inclusion of 1980s hunk Rick Springfield, the General Hospital star turned pop singer. Turns out he recorded the 1981 album Working Class Dog there, thus gifting the world with Grammy-winning radio jam “Jessie’s Girl.” Springfield’s kept busy since his teen-dream days; aside from offering up Sound City memories, he wrote a memoir (2010’s Late, Late at Night) and now, a novel: Magnificent Vibration, about a curious man’s unconventional spiritual journey. Book Passage touts his appearance as “featuring a live musical performance,” so get those lighters ready. (Cheryl Eddy)

4pm, free

Book Passage

51 Tamal Vista, Corte Madera

www.bookpassage.com

 

 

SUNDAY 27

 

 

Waffle Opera

Waffle Opera, founded by a group of young local singers in 2012, has altered the glitzy opera house aesthetic using an unexpected prop: succulent, syrup-covered Belgian waffles. The company, which serves the treats after each of its shows, embraces a remarkably unpretentious approach to legendary works, using minimalistic sets and small houses to bring out the lyrical and musical subtlety of centuries-old classics. The group is presenting a concert version of Cosi fan tutte, the 1789 Mozart opera whose title translates roughly to “Women are like that.” An uproarious comedy about two Neapolitan officers who don disguises and try to woo each others’ fiancées to prove the inconstency of female affection. While still a archaic by the standards of contemporary gender politics, the women (spoiler alert) are presented as smart and capable; they quickly pick up their lovers’ plot, leading to a madcap phantasmagoria of mistaken identities and partially-broken hearts. Waffle’s semi-staged version highlights the soaring arias, clever quips, and intricate plot of Mozart’s funniest work. (Kurlander)

$15-$25, 3pm

Center for New Music

55 Taylor, SF

www.waffleopera.com

 

 

MONDAY 28

 

Andrew Jackson Jihad

In my mind, Phoenix’s Andrew Jackson Jihad is both the quintessential and the essential folk-punk band. With bitingly clever lyrics that toe the line between hilarious and heartbreaking, an unflinching confrontation of social justice issues and a willingness to examine and sing about their own privilege, Sean Bonnette and Ben Gallaty have created some of the most important and tenderly earnest albums in the folk-punk canon. The band’s unsteady, cracking vocals and mediocre musicianship lend a charming naivete, emotional sincerity, and accessibility to their music. The band’s frenetic energy and the fierce dedication of their fan-base make Andrew Jackson Jihad’s live shows a powerful experience. (Zaremba)

With Hard Girls, Dogbreth

8pm, $16

Slim’s

333 11th St, SF

(415) 255-0333

www.slimspresents.com


Wolfmother

Wolfmother came roaring out of Australia in the mid-aughts with its self-titled debut, which went five times platinum in the band’s home country and did well enough abroad to secure them a position as one of the Anglophone world’s most formidable touring acts. Combining a shameless love for ’70s hard rock (Led Zeppelin in particular) with the sharp hooks of stoner rock, the trio struck a chord with both the classic-rock and alt-rock crowds, and just about any guitarist born in the mid-’90s can likely remember learning one of their songs early on. Though the band only records sparsely, Wolfmother has remained a regular on the international touring and festival scene — a position that this year’s New Crown should secure. (Bromfield)

8pm, $28

The Fillmore

1508 Geary, SF

(415) 346-6000

www.thefillmore.com

 

TUESDAY 29

Hundred Waters

Hundred Waters are signed to Skrillex’s OWSLA label, but don’t expect big bass drops from this Florida crew. Rather, they trade in a “digital folk” style that offers an intriguing rural perspective to the retro-futuristic conversation currently taking place in underground electronic circles. Birds chirp in unison with drum machines; Blade Runner synths support Tolkienesque fantasias. At the front of it all is Nicole Miglis, a one-woman choir whose voice seems as perpetually omnipresent as the sun and the sky. Though this year’s The Moon Rang Like A Bell suggests pop ambitions lurking beneath their idiosyncratic exterior, the band is still one of the most unique and fascinating bands in the electronic universe — as well as one of the few that can truly claim to sound like nothing else. (Bromfield)

8pm, $14

The Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

(415) 771-1421

www.theindependentsf.com