› tredmond@sfbg.com
There’s a certain brilliance to the Proposition 90 campaign, perhaps more than the right-wing ideologues who conjured this up even realize. The measure raises a profound, powerful question — and judging from some of the unlikely supporters of this horrible plan, the answer isn’t pleasant.
As we report in this issue (page 20), most people wouldn’t support the measure if they really understood what it meant (no more zoning, no more rent control, no more environmental laws, etc.) But for a lot of Californians and some San Franciscans in places like Bayview–Hunters Point, the real question seems to go like this: do you trust the government to protect you from the private sector — or do you see the government as such a problem, such a threat, so historically untrustworthy that you’ll take your chances with unregulated capitalism?
There are good people, well-meaning people, who are taking the wrong side on this one with potentially terrible consequences, and it’s largely, I think, because they don’t see the public sector as their friend.
I understand how anyone who’s fought redevelopment in the past 40 years can feel that way. Just about everything the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency did in this city, particularly in African American neighborhoods, has been a total disaster. Black support for Prop. 90 is the legacy of generations of corrupt urban politics.
The problem is that Prop. 90, which allows private developers to operate without regulation in urban areas, will be even more of a disaster. And if it passes, it won’t just be Republicans who vote for it. I hope I’m not the only one who finds this deeply frightening. SFBG
redevelopment
EDITOR’S NOTES
PG&E’s candidates
EDITORIAL We’ve seen plenty of allies of Pacific Gas and Electric Co. on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. We’ve seen a few PG&E bagmen, PG&E shills, and PG&E fronts. But there’s never been anyone elected to the board in our 40 years who was actually a paid attorney for PG&E.
This year there’s at least one and possibly two candidates who have worked as PG&E lawyers — and that alone should disqualify them ever from holding public office in San Francisco. The most obvious and direct conflict involves Doug Chan, the former police commissioner who is seeking a seat from District 4. Documents on file with the California Public Utilities Commission show that Chan’s law firm, Chan, Doi, and Leal, has received more than $200,000 in fees from PG&E in just the past two years.
Chan won’t come to the phone to discuss what he did for the utility, won’t respond to questions posed through his campaign manager and press secretary, won’t return calls to his law firm, and thus won’t give the public any idea what sorts of conflicts of interest he’d have if he took office.
This is nothing new for Chan: back in 2002 he put his name on PG&E campaign material opposing public power and earned a spot in the Guardian’s Hall of Shame.
Then there’s Rob Black, who worked as an attorney for Nielsen Merksamer, the law firm that handled all of the dirty dealings for the anti-public-power campaign in 2002. Black worked with Jim Sutton, his former law professor and PG&E’s main legal operative, during that period but insists he did no work on anything related to PG&E or the campaign. That’s tough to believe.
All of this comes at a time when PG&E is going out of its way, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars, to buff up its image — and to fight the city’s modest but significant plans for public power.
As Steven T. Jones reports on page 16, the notorious utility is well aware that its future in San Francisco is shaky. The city is bidding to provide public electric power to the Hunters Point shipyard redevelopment project and preparing to provide public power to Treasure Island. There is a study in the works to look at developing tidal power. The supervisors are moving forward on Community Choice Aggregation, which will put the city directly in the business of selling retail electricity to customers (albeit through PG&E’s grid). And there’s talk brewing of a public power ballot initiative for next November.
PG&E president Thomas King met with Mayor Gavin Newsom this summer and sent him a nice, friendly letter afterward discussing all the ways the city and PG&E could work together.
But in fact, the utility is already opposing even the baby steps coming out of City Hall: PG&E has bid against San Francisco for rights to sell power to the shipyard, and that’s forced the city to cut prices and reduce the revenue it could have gained from Lennar Corp., the master developer. PG&E is trying to stop the city from selling power on Treasure Island and has financial ties to a private company that has rights to Golden Gate tidal power development until 2008. Meanwhile, the utility just hired the former secretary to the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission — a woman who sat in on every closed-session strategy meeting the panel held, including sessions dealing with litigation against PG&E.
In other words, PG&E is gearing up for all-out political warfare — and the mayor and supervisors need to start preparing too. From now on, people should see whatever PG&E does as hostile — and on every front the city needs to adopt an aggressive strategy to move forward toward eliminating the company’s private power monopoly.
For starters, it’s ridiculous that the city should have to fight PG&E for the right to sell power at the Hunters Point shipyard. The Redevelopment Agency should have made public power a part of the program from the start, and the supervisors should examine that plan immediately to see if it can be amended to require Lennar to buy power from San Francisco. Newsom needs to take to the bully pulpit and say that if PG&E gets this contract, nobody on the Redevelopment Agency Commission will ever be reappointed.
Meanwhile, when Chan and Black appear anywhere in public this election season, they need to be asked to fully disclose their ties with PG&E and outline their positions on public power.
And it’s time for the public power coalition to start meeting again, with the aim of crafting a ballot measure that will create a full-scale municipal system, perhaps as soon as November 2007. SFBG
PS PG&E already has one staunch ally on the board, Sean Elsbernd, a Newsom appointee who also worked in the late 1990s for the Nielsen firm. That’s three too many.
PPS If Newsom is really for public power, as he claims, then why is he pushing so hard for two PG&E call-up votes for the board? And why is he not publicly denouncing PG&E’s attempt to scuttle public power and lending his political capital to a new municipalization effort?
PPPS The SF Weekly’s Matt Smith last week all but endorsed Doug Chan — but made no mention of Chan’s PG&E ties. Did that somehow slip through Smith’s investigative reporting net?
Editors notes
› tredmond@sfbg.com
There’s something scary happening in Bayview–Hunters Point, and it’s not the redevelopment bulldozers.
For some reason that I find hard to understand, community leaders like Willie Ratcliff and Marie Harrison, who are opposed to the Redevelopment Agency’s plan for that neighborhood, have signed on with a frightening gang of radical right-wing property rights advocates. The result: Harrison was standing at an antiredevelopment rally last week urging voters to support Proposition 90, almost certainly the worst piece of legislation to face California voters since Proposition 13 devastated local government in 1978.
Prop. 90 would indeed limit the ability of government agencies to seize private land for other private projects. That’s why the redevelopment foes like it. But it goes much, much further. Under Prop. 90, no local government could do anything — anything — that might reduce the value of private land without paying the owner compensation. That means no new tenant protection laws (which could cost a landlord money). No more zoning laws that reduce the maximum development potential of a lot (of course, that means no zoning controls against luxury condos that would displace local business and residents in Bayview). No new environmental or workplace safety laws.
It also places a swift and powerful kick to the midsection of any effort to seize Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s local grid and create a real public power system; under Prop. 90’s rules, that would be prohibitively expensive.
I talked to Harrison about this, and she told me she “didn’t read the law that way.” But this isn’t just a matter of opinion; it’s clear fact, and everyone with any sense realizes it.
It gets worse: I was at a New College event Sept. 29 when Renee Saucedo, the immigrant rights lawyer, asked everyone to vote yes on 90. She told me she trusted Ratcliff and Harrison.
Prop. 90 is almost unimaginably bad. If its supporters can make inroads in San Francisco, I’m very afraid. SFBG
Really scary
By Tim Redmond
I had a really scary moment tonight.
it started well — I was moderating a discussion on immigration politics at New College, featuring Justin Akers Chacon, who has written a new book called “Nobody is Illegal.” Renee Saucedo, a longtime advocate for immigrants and day laborers, was on the panel, too, and we had a great discussion — until the very end, when Saucedo starting talking about how she was trying to build coalitions between immigrants and African Americans in Bayview Hunters Point, organizing around opposition in that neighborhood the the redevelopment plan.
And out of nowhere, she urged everyone to vote yes on Proposition 90.
For the record, Prop. 90 is almost indescribably horrible. It’s a radical right wing property-rights measure that would instantly halt any new environmental laws, any new rent-control laws, any new workplace safety laws, any new zoning laws, any limits on evictions or condo coversions … it would effectively stop government regulation of private property in California.
So why was Saucedo, a smart lawyer and strong progressive, supporting it? Because Willie Ratcliff, the publisher of the San Francisco Bay View, and Marie Harrison, a candidate for supervisor from District 10, are so dead-set against redevevelopment that they’ve signed on with the worst of the right-wing nuts in the state to endorse a measure that claims to be limiting eminent domain but is so much, much more.
I’ve discussd this with Harrison; she totally doesn’t get it. Neither, for now, does Renee Saucedo. I understand their fear of redevelopment seizing people’s homes — and I understand Saucedo’s desire to build ties with and follow the lead of African American community leaders. But get a clue, my friends. This is embarassing.
If people like Renee Saucedo are getting duped into supporting the worst law to come along in California since Prop. 13, we’re in serious trouble.
Editor’s Notes
› tredmond@sfbg.com
So much going on this week: the cops and the San Francisco Police Commission are heading for a battle over secrecy, the cops and the supervisors are headed for a battle over foot patrols — and Mayor Gavin Newsom is heading for a battle with homeless advocates over a new round of sweeps at Golden Gate Park. The mayor and the local gendarmes can’t win any of this without community support and would do far better to stop trying to fight these battles.
Then there’s redevelopment and the city attorney … and we might as well get started:
•The state Supreme Court ruled a couple of weeks ago that all police disciplinary records have to be kept secret. It’s an awful decision, and San Francisco needs to find a way around it if at all possible. Some police commissioners, starting with David Campos, want to do that, but City Attorney Dennis Herrera is interpreting the law very conservatively and not offering the commission a lot of options.
Why not make public all the charges against cops with the individual officers’ names redacted? At least the community would know that some cops are improperly shooting people, giving liquor to minors, beating up people of color, beating up their spouses … and at least we’d all have a way to demand some policy changes. Or why not tell bad cops facing disciplinary hearings that they can plea bargain for a lenient sentence — and waive their rights to privacy — or take their chance in a full commission trial, where they will face termination if they lose? Let’s think here, people: this is too important to just give up. San Franciscans aren’t going to accept a secret police state.
•The mayor and the police chief are still fighting against Sup. Ross Mirkarimi’s plan to put cops on foot in high-crime areas. That’s a loser, Mr. Mayor. Nobody thinks that your current plans are working.
•After visiting Central Park in New York City — which is run by and for a private group of rich people — Newsom has decided to clear all the homeless people out of Golden Gate Park. Let me offer a little reality here: people sleep in the park because they have no place else to go. You cut their welfare payments and let the price of housing skyrocket, this is what you get. Sweep them out and they won’t disappear: they’ll sleep on the streets in the Haight and the Sunset and the Richmond. There’s a great campaign issue.
Besides, Golden Gate Park, homeless and all, is generally a safe, pleasant place, with only minor crime problems. But kids are dying on the streets only a few hundred yards away in the Western Addition. We don’t have enough cops to walk the beat where they could save lives — but we have enough to roust the homeless?
•Herrera, who’s got his hands full of ugly messes this week, tossed a referendum on the Bayview Hunters Point Redevelopment Plan off the ballot because each of the petitions didn’t have the entire plan attached. For the record, the plan is 62 pages. If this is the standard — an entire plan has to be copied and printed with every single petition — then as a practical matter, nobody in California can ever do a referendum on a redevelopment project. I suspect that’s not what Hiram Johnson had mind. SFBG
The 2006 political candidates let loose with us
(For our 2006 endorsements, click here.)
Guardian endorsement interviews are, well, unusual: We bring in candidates for office, set aside as much as an hour or more, and quiz them about local issues. Sometimes we argue; sometimes the candidates yell at us. Nobody pulls any punches. They are lively political debates, fascinating discussions of political policy – and high political theater.
For the first time this year, we’re posting digital versions of these interviews, so our readers can get front-row seats for all the action.
Participants include Editor and Publisher Bruce B. Brugmann, Executive Editor Tim Redmond, City Editor Steven T. Jones and reporters Sarah Phelan, G.W. Schulz and Amanda Witherell. If you’re confused about who’s speaking, here’s a handy guide: If the question is long and involved and about tax policy, it’s probably Tim. If it’s about an incumbent’s record or personal style, it’s probably Steve. George asks about criminal justice a lot; Sarah has a British accent. Everybody knows Bruce’s voice; you can’t miss it. Enjoy.
Sup. Sophie Maxwell
“Redevelopment in the Bay View is different.”
Listen to the Maxwell interview
Sup. Bevan Dufty
“I’m willing to piss people off on both sides of the [landlord-tenant] issue.”
Listen to the Dufty interview
Jaynry Mak, candidate for supervisor, District 4
“I would have to look at it.”
Listen to the Mak interview
Alix Rosenthal, candidate for supervisor, District 8
“We’re going to make it extremely expensive to build market-rate housing, in terms of the community benefits.”
Listen to the Rosenthal interview
Mauricio Vela, candidate for school board
“I probably would lean toward getting rid of [ROTC} … but it would be difficult.”
Listen to the Vela interview
Marie Harrison, candidate for supervisor, District 10
“The one thing I did learn from Willie Brown is that an MOU means I understand that you understand that I don’t have to do a damn thing on this paper.”
Listen to the Harrison interview
Starchild, candidate for supervisor, District 8, and Philip Berg, Libertarian candidate for Congress
“Nobody will invade Switzerland. Everyone has guns, M-16s and AK-47s and grenade launchers in their living rooms.”
Listen to the Starchild-Berg interview
Bruce Wolfe, candidate for community college board
“When you ask where the money is, you want a trail where the money is, the answer you get is it’s in a fungible account.”
Listen to the Wolfe interview
Kim-Shree Maufas, candidate for school board
“My kid was in JROTC …. I like the community, I liked the structure, I liked the commitment to family… I absolutely could not stand the military recruitment.”
Listen to part one of the Maufas interview
Listen to part two of the Maufas interview
Hydra Mendoza, candidate for school board
“There are some schools that are not serving our children.”
Listen to the Mendoza interview
Krissy Keefer, Green Party candidate for Congress
“I’m running against a ghost”
Listen to the Keefer interview
John Garamendi, candidate for lieutenant governor
“Phil Angeledes is wrong [about taxes] in the context of our time.”
Listen to the Garamendi interview
Dan Kelly, school board member
“I don’t think JROTC is a terrific program … it doesn’t teach leadership skills, it teaches follow-ship skills.”
Listen to the Kelly interview
Rob Black, candidate for supervisor, District 6
“Developers have fancy lawyers and they know how to get around things.”
Listen to the Black interview
A vote on Oak to Ninth
In just 30 days, the Oak to Ninth Referendum Committee collected the signatures of 25,068 Oakland residents who want a chance to vote on a massive development project that would bring 31,000 new homes to the Oakland waterfront. But the matter may never be on the ballot: on Sept. 6, Oakland City Attorney John Russo directed the city clerk to invalidate the petition because it didn’t conform to the requirements of state election law.
It’s likely that from a legal standpoint Russo’s determination is correct. Nevertheless, the decision exposes flaws in California’s election system that the state legislature should fix. In the shorter term, the Oakland City Council ought to recognize that there’s strong public sentiment for a referendum on the project and put Oak to Ninth before the voters.
It’s tough to force a referendum vote on an act of local government: you need to gather a significant number of signatures within 30 days of the passage of the bill — and there are no second chances. If the petition doesn’t meet every possible legal standard — and the standards are high, the rules complex — then the referendum is dead forever.
Erica Harrold, communications director for Russo’s office, told us she sympathized with the plight of Oak to Ninth foes and acknowledged that the current rules applying to referendum petitions are “draconian.” Russo, she said, is seeking reforms to the current system, including establishment of a new rule that would not start the 30-day period until the city provides a certified final version of an ordinance to petition sponsors. That was a key issue in this conflict: the Oak to Ninth Referendum Committee apparently had to rush to gather signatures to meet the deadline and for various reasons did not submit the version of the ordinance that Russo and the City Council consider the final draft (additionally, the committee did not include certain attachments to the ordinance that the City Attorney’s Office says were required).
The legislature should follow Russo’s suggestion and change the deadlines. It should also consider allowing petition sponsors to cure unintentional defects in their petitions.
State legislative reform can’t come quickly enough to remedy the current situation involving the Oak to Ninth petition. But the City Council can still act: it’s well within the authority of local officials to simply acknowledge the public interest in (and demand for) a citywide vote on a project that will change Oakland forever — and place the entire matter on next June’s ballot.
There’s no rush to break ground here — in fact, we’ve long argued that the project shouldn’t have final approval until the incoming mayor, Ron Dellums (who has expressed real concerns with the deal), takes office. Legal technicalities aside, the bottom line is simple: Oakland residents deserve a chance to be heard on Oak to Ninth. SFBG
PS Stop the presses: on Sept. 19, San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera ruled that petitions demanding a vote on the redevelopment plan for Bayview–Hunters Point were invalid — on a legal technicality similar to the one that undermined the Oakland petitions. Again, Herrera may well be legally correct (and we’re under no illusions here — the referendum was financed in part by a private housing developer) — but when in doubt, the desire of the voters to weigh in on an issue should be paramount. The supervisors should determine whether it’s possible to put this plan on the ballot anyway.
Reconsidering redevelopment
By Steven T. Jones
My head is spinning after reading both the City Attorney’s Opinion that struck down the successful referendum drive challenging the Bayview Hunters Point Redevelopment Plan, and the redevelopment plan itself. Reading the actual 62-page plan and its supporting documents is what Herrera contends voters needed to be able to do before signing the referendum. I contend that few sane citizens have the stomach or tools they need to glean much meaning from this big pile of governtese. And for wonks like me who have a long history of poring through these kinds of documents, I can’t say that I found much in there to disabuse me of the notion that redevelopment was, is, and will probably always be a tool for displacement of citizens and subsidies for private developers, with only vague and easily waived controls on how the Redevelopment Agency operates. One exception in this plan does appear to be the outright prohibition of using eminent domain to seize houses — a needed protection against a tool the Redevelopment Agency used to cleanse the Fillmore of low-income black people — although other properties can still be seized, despite plan proponents claims that eminent domain is banned by the plan.
But my point here is not to rehash the plan, which you can read yourself (and could have read yourself before signing the petition, whether or not the petitioners had a copy with them for you to spend a couple hours reading on a street corner). No, my main point is that the plan is a big deal, one that should be voted on (at the very least by BHP residents). And it’s sad to see city officials circling the wagons instead of allowing that to happen, particuarly when state law calls for city officials to err of the side of letting people vote, as even this opinion concedes.
Referendum struck down
By Steven T. Jones
San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera has invalidated the referendum that challenged the Bayview Hunter’s Point Redevelopment Plan, ruling that it didn’t include all the documents that the more than 33,000 people who signed it needed to make an informed decision.
“They didn’t have the redevelopment plan itself for voters to evaluate,” Herrera spokesperson Matt Dorsey told the Guardian just after the decision was released Sept. 19.
But Willie Ratcliff, the Bayview Newspaper publisher who helped funded and coordinate the referendum drive, told the Guardian that they carefully consulted with both city officials and their attorneys to ensure the documents complied with state law.
“We expected the city would try to look for a way out and of course we’re going to fight them in court,” Ratcliff said.
The Elections Department had ruled Sept. 13 that the referendum had enough valid signatures to stop the plan. The Board of Supervisors then had the option of repealing it or submitting it to a popular vote. But board clerk Gloria Young is now required by law to invalidate the referendum and only a judge can now make it valid.
The board, which approved the plan on a 7-<\d>4 vote in May (with supervisors Tom Ammiano, Chris Daly, Ross Mirkarimi, and Gerardo Sandoval in dissent), could still act independently to repeal the plan and submit it to a vote, as recall campaign coordinator Brian O’Flynn is urging. “The will of the voters should be respected,” he told us
The plan would put about 1,500 acres in Bayview-<\d>Hunters Point under San Francisco Redevelopment Agency control, set new development standards, and collect all property tax increases into a fund that would go toward projects in the community. Opponents fear the plan would displace current residents and gentrify the area.
More soon
Behind the redevelopment initiative
By Tim Redmond
I just said something nice about Randy Shaw, so it’s time to slap him a fast one. The big story in today’s BeyondChron is a gushing testimonial to the efforts of one Biran Murphy O’Flynn to block the city’s redevelopment plan for Bayview Hunters Point. Shaw calls O’Flynn’s efforts “the Little Engine That Could” (no, really, he does) and says that “O’Flynn’s tenacity in the face of funding problems, and the failure of any single powerful organization to take ownership of the campaign, shows how a single person’s passion and commitment can still make a difference in San Francisco.”
Okay, so there are problems with the redevelopment plan — but O’Flynn is no community hero. He’s the guy, you may recall, who tried to build some condos in what became a North Beach park and got so mad at Sup. Aaron Peskin for opposing the development that he tried to run against him in District Three, with an utter lack of success.
He’s a pal of Joe O’Donoghue and the residential builders, and is pissed at revevelopment, I suspect, not because he worries about the people in Bayview (remember, he ran for supervisor from North Beach, so presumably he lives there), but because the redevelopment plan, for all its flaws, would stop builders like him from turning the southeast neighborhoods into a condo development free-for-all.
The Race is On: Candidates for local Nov. 7 races
By Sarah Phelan
Sixty-six took out papers. Forty-one filed, meaning that over one-third of the potential candidates in local races in the Nov. 7 election, bailed before the train even left the station.
So who’s in the running?
On the Board of Supes front, there are five races.
District 2 incumbent Michela Alioto-Pier, who has not accepted the voluntary expenditure ceiling and does not intend to participate in the public financing program, faces one lone challenger: business management consultant Vilma Guinto Peoro, who has accepted a voluntary expenditure ceiling and intends to participate in the pubic financing program.
In District 4, seven candidates are vying to fill the vacancy Sup. Fiona Ma created as Democratic nominee for Assembly District 12, (where she is running against the Green’s Barry Hermanson.) Mayor Gavin Newsom has endorsed Doug Chan, who lent his name to PG&E’s anti-Prop. D campaign, has not accepted voluntary expenditure ceiling and does not intend to participate in public financing campaign. Chan, who also got Ma’s endorsement and has served on the San Francisco Police Commission, Board of Permit Appeals, the Rent Board and the Assessment Appeals Board, has promised to return SFPD to its legally-required numbers (it currently operates 15 percent below voter-mandated leval), and upgrade policies, practices and technology, and would likely become the establishment conservative on the Board,
Other contenders are business consultant Ron Dudum, who lost against Ma in 2002 and against then Sup. Leland Yee in 2000, anti-tax advocate Edmund Jew, who would also be popular with the district’s conservative base, and San Francisco Immigrant Rights Commissioner and Fiona Ma-supporter Houston Zheng, David Ferguson, Patrick Maguire and Jaynry Mak, though Neither Maguire nor Mak, who has already raised $100,000, had filed papers as of Aug. 11, perhaps because District 4 has a Aug. 16 filing extension, thanks to departing incumbent Ma.
District 6 incumbent Chris Daly, who has accepted voluntary expenditure ceiling and intends to participate in public financing campaign, appears to face the biggest fight—at least in terms of numbers, with seven challengers hoping to fill his shoes. Of these Mayor Gavin Newsom has portrayed former Michela Alioto-Pier aide Rob Black, who has accepted voluntary expenditure ceiling and intends to participate in public financing campaign, as “the best contender to lessen divisiveness in the district.”
Fellow challengers are Mathew Drake, Viliam Dugoviv, Manuel Jimenez , Davy Jones, Robert Jordan and George Dias.
District 8 incumbent Bevan Dufty faces stiff opposition from local resident and Oakland deputy city attorney Alix Rosenthal, who was instrumental in turning around the city’s Elections Department, has worked on turning the former Okaland Army Base over to the Redevelopment Agency and has helped rebuild the National Women’s Political Caucus. Rosenthal, who is running on a platform of affordable housing, sustainability and violence prevention, also wants to keep SF weird.
In District 10, Incumbent Sophie Maxwell, who says a November ballot measure opposing the Bayview Redvelopment Plan is based on fear and unfairness, has five challengers: Rodney Hampton Jr., Marie Harrison, Espanola Jackson. Dwayne Jusino, and former Willie Brown crony Charlie Walker. Of these, the most serious are Harrison, helped shut down the Hunter’s Point PG&E plant and has worked for decades to fight all the pollution that’s being dumped on southeast residents, and Espanola Jackson, who has fought for welfare rights, affordable housing, seniors and the Muwekma Ohlone.
In other races, Phil Ting runs unopposed as Assessor-Recorder.
18 challengers are fighting over three seats on the Board of Education, one of which is occupied by incumbent Dan Kelly, and six candidates are vying for three seats on the Community College Board, one of which is occupied by incumbent John Rizzo.
Olympic dreams
By Steven T. Jones
So, Mayor Gavin Newsom tells the dailies that San Francisco is going to pull out all the stops to snag the 2016 Olympics, using Hunter’s Point to house the athletes and staging the games at a delux Candlestick Park (ie public subsidies for the 49ers new stadium). No wonder so many people worried that the new Bayview Hunter’s Point Redevelopment Area might be used to line the pockets of big corporations and developers instead of benefitting the people of the southeast. But Newsom tries some win-win spin by offering to let poor folks have the 4,000 apartments he wants to build when the athletes are all done — 10 years from now. A question: if we have the resources to build a bunch of publicly subsidized apartments, why don’t we do so now? Make no mistake, this is about our mayor’s ego and political ambitions more than the interests of city residents, particularly those of the southeast, which have already endured more than their share of capitalism’s hidden costs.
Hunters Point plan: Wait for an audit
EDITORIAL The redevelopment plan for Hunters Point was heading for almost certain approval at press time, in part for a pretty dumb reason: It exists.
If you ask supporters of the plan, like Redevelopment Agency director Marcia Rosen, about the harsh criticism in some parts of the African American community, she’ll confront you with a very good question: What’s the alternative?
The area is economically depressed, the city and state don’t have much money to pour into it, and redevelopment at least offers the option of federal money and tax-increment bonds that could generate thousands of jobs, create thousands of units of affordable housing, help new businesses get going (and help old ones prosper), and generally improve the lives of a lot of struggling people.
At least, Rosen says, her agency has a tangible proposal. Even if it’s not perfect — and no economic development plan ever is — it’s something.
And that’s true, but we still have this lingering problem: The San Francisco Redevelopment Agency has never been anything but a disaster for the African American community. Since the 1950s the agency has used its extensive authority to drive black residents out of town, destroy black-owned businesses, eliminate existing affordable housing, and destroy the hearts of black neighborhoods.
And redevelopment has its own expenses — according to the Board of Supervisors’ budget analyst, $100 million of the money the agency raises in tax-increment financing will go to overhead and administrative expenses.
Redevelopment is a powerful tool, which is why some progressives still like it. Despite the abuses of the past, they say, it’s possible to use that tool properly. A redevelopment agency can issue bonds backed not by the city but by the projected increase in tax revenue that will come from the economic revitalization of an area. Those bonds don’t require voter approval, provide immediate cash for things like permanently affordable housing, and have no impact on the city’s credit rating.
In the past, almost nobody has paid much attention to where the bond money actually goes and how much of the tax-<\h>increment financing winds up improving the lives of the people in the project area. That’s a serious problem.
Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, who represents the Western Addition — a neighborhood that still suffers from the ugly scars of redevelopment — argues that before the city launches a new redevelopment project, there ought to be a complete audit of where San Francisco redevelopment money has gone in the past. How much of the tax-<\h>increment money has subsidized the profits of private developers? How much has gone to market-<\h>rate housing? How much has gone to high agency salaries and expenses?
Equally important, how many people of color have been forced from their homes by redevelopment — and how many have ever been able to return? How many minority-<\h>owned businesses have been destroyed, and how many created? How many jobs in redevelopment project areas have actually gone to residents of those areas?
How did the failures of the past happen — and how can we keep them from happening this time around?
Mirkarimi’s proposal makes sense. This has been a long-term process: The city has been discussing Hunters Point redevelopment for some 10 years now. As long as there’s significant opposition in the community — and as long as those q