Small Business

A really dumb article about bookstores

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You never know what you’re going to get on Slate, which tends toward the neo-liberal and sometimes libertarian, but I just read a particularly awful piece by technology writer Farhad Manjoo, who thinks that local bookstores are economically inefficient and should just go away:

Compared with online retailers, bookstores present a frustrating consumer experience. A physical store—whether it’s your favorite indie or the humongous Barnes & Noble at the mall—offers a relatively paltry selection, no customer reviews, no reliable way to find what you’re looking for, and a dubious recommendations engine.

For a tech writer, Manjoo has a remarkably shoddy understanding of economics:

After all, if you’re spending extra on books at your local indie, you’ve got less money to spend on everything else—including on authentically local cultural experiences. With the money you saved by buying books at Amazon, you could have gone to see a few productions at your local theater company, visited your city’s museum, purchased some locally crafted furniture, or spent more money at your farmers’ market. Each of these is a cultural experience that’s created in your community. Buying Steve Jobs at a store down the street isn’t.

He conveniently ignores that fact that money spent a locally owned, independent business stays in the community — and thus creates more local economic activity and more jobs (not to mention tax revenue for local government). Money spent at Amazon goes to an out-of-town operation that doesn’t even pay state sales tax. You want to read about the well-documehted economic value of shopping at a local story, you can find plenty here and here and here.

And let’s talk about the One Percent — would you rather that your money helps the owner of a small local store buy food for his or her kids, or see the money go to one of the richest people in the world?

But there’s another point here. Like local coffee shops, local bookstores are places where people gather and have actual human interactions. I see my neigbors there; we talk about what we’re reading. When I’m done with books, I can sell them back — and someone else can buy them, used, and I can use the money to buy another new book. Which is a pretty efficient economic system.

And there are things you can’t put a price on: At Red Hill Books, the allegedly inefficent, overpriced local bookstore in Bernal Heights, the employees know me and my kids — and when my daughter, who is a voracious reader, finishes one series of books, they know what to recommend next.

That’s not a “recommendations engine” — that’s a live person.

If Farhad Manjoo wants to live in robo-world where a machine tells you what to eat, drink and read, fine — but I still think human beings, inefficient as we are, do a better job at selling books.

 

Ed Lee and “job killers”

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Every time I hear the word “job killer” I think of the California Chamber of Commerce, which loves to affix the label to anything that might hurt corporate profits. Most environmental legislation, most pro-labor legislation, most financial regulations, anything that improves employer requriements for health insurance — the Chamber dubs it “job killers.”

And now Ed Lee is using that word to slow down progressive taxes, regulations or business mandates. He’s proposing a Charter Amendment to send any bills that might cause job losses to the Small Business Commission for a “jobs impact” public hearing.

That would give another weapon to downtown interests who want to kill, say, improvements to the Healthy San Francisco law, or any changes in the business tax.

Here’s what kills me: How many jobs were destroyed by the LACK of regulations over the U.S. financial industry? How many jobs were destroyed by a tax system that keeps most of the wealth concentrated in the top one percent? How many jobs were destroyed by cutbacks and layoffs in the public sector (which were a direct result of a failure to seek new revenues that business leaders would have called “job killers”?)

But we don’t have a special commission weighing in on tax cuts and tax breaks that cost the city money and kill city jobs.

Assemblymember Tom Ammiano, who has to deal with the California Chamber and its lackeys, told me that Lee “is talking like a Republican, or like the moderate Democrats in Sacramento.” That’s not where the mayor of San Francisco ought to be.

 

 

Impertinent questions to Sup. Sean Elsbernd

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 At Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, Sup. Sean Elsbernd voted against a sensible resolution supporting regulated and safe patient access to medical cannabis in San Francisco.

He was on the losing end of an an 8-3 vote, with Sups. Carmen Chiu and Mark Farrell also voting against.

I was curious why, in San Francisco in November of 2011, he would vote against what I and many others considered a sensible but restrained resolution supporting local small businesses that are regulated and paying taxes and about the only business showing growth in the city.

So I emailed him some Impertinent Questions:

“Why do you continue to support a federal crackdown on medical marijuana? Why do you do this as a purported advocate of small business and bringing in more tax revenue to the city?”

I  also asked Elbernd who he now supported for mayor, since the last time I heard from him he said he would support Mayor Ed Lee only if there were no other candidate who could beat State Sen. Leland Yee. He replied that had not endorsed a candidate for mayor, but if I contacted him after the election he would tell me who he voted for. “Rest assured,” he said, “the Bay Guardian endorsements will certainly influence my decision making process.”

On the marijuana issue, Elsbernd objected strenuously to my statement that he “supported the federal crackdown. Please send me the recording, clip, reporter’s notes, or any other documentation you have that demonstrates t hat I specifically said I supported the federal crackdown.”

Elsbernd asked if I was referring to his note vote on the resolution. (B3 answer: I was.)

“Are you erroneously extrapolating an opinion of mine based on my ‘no’ vote. Is that journalism or is that political spin? Would not a journalist simply ask the question like this, ‘Why did you vote no” on the resolution Making assumptions without any fact to back it up seems a bit irresponsible and lazy for a journalist. While you e-mail me under the guise of being a constituent, and your certainly live in District 7, we both know that this email discussion will be posted very soon on your Bay Guardian website (hello to all of who have time in your day to read Bruce’s blog) with additional edits and snide comments to which you will not me the opportunity to respond. (B3 comment: Elsbernd knows that I send him Impertinent Questions from time to time and that the Q and A will appear on my blog. And he knows he can answer in the blog comments or in a letter to the Guardian. To his credit, Elsbernd always answers me and I enjoy hearing from him. And I keep inviting him to talk things over at tapas night on Thursday night at the Que Syrah wine bar in West Portal in his district. I even offer to buy the first flight, but alas  he never shows.)

Elsbernd then says he will answer my real question. “Why did I vote ‘no’ on the resolution?

Did you read the entire resolution? (B3 answer: yes.) Did you agree with every ‘whereas’ clause and every ‘resolved’ clause? (B3 answer: Yes.) Elsbern continued, “I do not. In particular, I strenuously object to the ‘whereas’ clause on page l, line 12-16, which implies that all licensed medical cannabis dispensaries in San Francisco are ‘clearly acting in good faith,’ and that they ‘take every measure possible to be safe and professional members of the community.’

Elsbernd then gets specific: “I suggest you talk to your neighbors on the other side of Portola/Junipero Serra who live near the dispensary on Ocean Avenue and ask them if ‘every measure’ has been taken to to be safe and professional members of their community. I suggest you read the police reports in and around the area over the last five years and compare those same reports o before the opening of the dispensaries and ask whether or not ‘every measure possible’ has indeed been taken. If you take the time and do that work, I think you’ll understand, why, as the representative of those neighborhoods, I voted against that resolution. (B3 answer: I am always take note  when Elsbernd purports to represent his constituents in his district. But he could have amended the motion in committee (he was absent on the committee vote) or at the board. Instead, he used this single example to justify his opposition to a timely resolution putting the city squarely on record as being opposed to the ridiculous, expensive, job-killing, and tax-killing crackdown by the federal government on medical marijuana and its use in treating debilitating diseases and chronic pain in thousands of patients in San Francisco and throughout the state. The resolution also resolved that the supervisors “encourage the President and Congress of the United States to enact legislation requiring federal law enforcement to respect state medical cannabis laws.”)

Elsbernd also argued that the resolution called “for a massive tax reduction for all dispensaries in its resolved clause to support HR 1985, a bill by Rep.Stark granting a tax exemption for all such businesses? I know the Guardian typically opposes all business tax exemptions. Do you guys support this one.” (B3 answer: The Stark bill is not a a tax reduction bill. It is a bill aimed at reversing an IRS crackdown on many large dispensaries—including Harborside Health Center in Oakland, the largest in Northern California, that they cannot write off normal business expenses and must pay a 35 per cent levy on those claims going back for three years. Harborside’s Steve DeAngelo told the Guardian that this IRS attack would put Harborside—or any company with high overhead costs—out of business.  http://www.sfbg.com/2011/10/11/feds-crack-down

Stark’s bill would reverse that IRS decision and allow dispensaries to deduct expenses according to state law just like all other businesses in California.
http://americansforsafeaccess.org/downloads/Stark_bill_2011.pdf

And so my original Impertinent Question remains: why is Elsbernd (and Chiu and Farrell)  supporting in effect a federal crackdown aimed at killing off marijuana dispensaries and killing off a growing sector of small business and a valuable source of tax revenue? If he isn’t supporting the federal crackdown with this vote, what is his position on medical marijuana dispensaries?  Wine and tapas, Sean?  B3)

Lee benefits from vetoing health care reform

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Downtown groups that pressured Mayor Ed Lee to veto legislation that would have prevented businesses from raiding their employees’ health savings accounts have been funneling big bucks into independent expenditure campaigns formed to keep Lee in the Mayor’s Office.

Meanwhile, the Board of Supervisors today strengthened a weak alternative to the vetoed legislation by Board President David Chiu, which it then continued for two weeks. The amendments by Sup. Malia Cohen were unanimously approved by the board, but her five allies in supporting the vetoed legislation – David Campos, John Avalos, Ross Mirkarimi, Jane Kim, and Eric Mar – preferred that the measure be returned to committee for more analysis, losing on a 6-5 vote.

“We need more time to understand the implications of the amendments. We’re not sure if it actually closes the loophole,” Campos, the vetoed measure’s sponsor, said of provisions in the Health Care Security Ordinance – the city’s landmark measure that required employers to provide some health coverage to employees – that allowed businesses last year to pocket more than $50 million from health savings accounts they created for their employees.

One Cohen amendment specifically addressed one of the more egregious violations – restaurants that charge customers at 3-5 percent surcharge for employee health care and than pocket that money at the end of the year – which Chiu had addressed only by calling for more scrutiny of the tactic by the Office of Labor Standards. She also would require businesses to keep two years worth of contributions in the account, rather than the one year sought by Chiu to address the so-called “January problem” of businesses draining the account at the end of every year and leaving nothing for employees who get sick or injured at the start of the year.

It was perhaps a sign of the heat that Lee took from labor and consumer groups for his veto that he quickly issued a press release today praising the supervisors for addressing the issue. “I applaud President Chiu, Supervisor Cohen, organized labor, small business owners, and the Department of Public Health for finding the solutions to this important public policy that can strengthen our City’s landmark Health Care Security Ordinance. By closing the loophole through these proposed amendments, we can increase access to health care, protect jobs in our small businesses and protect consumers while growing our economy at the same time,” it read.

But Lee appears to have already benefited from heeding the demands of downtown – particularly the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce and Golden Gate Restaurant Association (GGRA) – who made defeating the Campos legislation a top priority, casting it as a new “fee” that would drain $50 million from the local economy.

The San Francisco Alliance for Jobs and Sustainable Growth PAC, created by notorious downtown bagman Jim Sutton, is the best-funded on the four independent expenditure groups that are supporting Lee, taking in $390,000 this fall, including $27,000 from the GGRA and $25,000 from the Chamber’s SF Forward group. Both groups also support the Committee on Jobs, which kicked in $110,000 to the Alliance campaign. GGRA also gave another $10,000 to the pension reform campaign that Lee is pushing, support the Chamber had threatened to withhold if the Campos measure was approved.

GGRA Executive Director Rob Black denied this was pay-to-play politics, noting that the Alliance is also supporting DA George Gascon, Sheriff candidate Chris Cunnie and two ballot measures. “But absolutely, the mayor’s name is on there and the organization voted to endorse him,” Black said.

GGRA voted in August to endorse Lee, Chiu, and Michela Alioto-Pier for mayor. Black said the organization is “generally supportive of Sup. Chiu’s approach to reforming the Health Care Security Ordinance,” and Black specifically said it supports improving requirements that businesses notify employees about the health savings accounts and how to use them.

The GGRA led the original fight against the HCSO in 2006, which was sponsored by then-Sup. Tom Ammiano, who lined up a veto-proof majority on the progressive-dominated board and eventually persuaded then-Mayor Gavin Newsom to support it. The measure created the Healthy San Francisco program and required employers to spend a minimum amount per employee on health care, although federal ERISA law bars cities from prescribing how that money is spent.

GGRA challenged the employer mandate all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court on the grounds that it violated ERISA, losing the case. Many of its members restaurants then opted to use health savings accounts rather than paying into Healthy San Francisco or private health insurance, even though health experts say such accounts are the worst option.

Campos and his allies have maintained that money in these health savings accounts belongs to employees and that businesses that use and raid them gain an unfair competitive advantage at the expense of their employees, customers, and city taxpayers, who are often forced to foot the bill for the uninsured.

Campos and the coalition that supports him has said they may take this issue to voters if the Chiu/Lee legislative fix doesn’t address their concerns.

Lee’s talking points sound familiar

Interim Mayor Ed Lee released a 17-point jobs plan last week as part of his bid for mayor, prompting City Attorney Dennis Herrera to accuse the interim mayor of “plagiarism” since Herrera, also a contender for mayor, issued a 17-point jobs plan himself earlier this year.

Herrera’s campaign also criticized Lee for ending his plan with Herrera’s signature slogan, “a city that works.”

But Herrera isn’t the only mayoral candidate for whom Lee’s campaign rhetoric rings a bell. Board President David Chiu, who attracted a great deal of attention earlier this year for his statement that supervisors are elected not to take positions but to “get things done,” seems to have served as a muse to the campaign consultants who thought up Lee’s campaign slogan: “Ed Lee Gets it Done.”

(Which — is it just me? — or does having that phrase plastered everywhere bring to mind something more like this?):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnDO5VTge6w

Lee’s “new era of civility in City Hall,” meanwhile, closely echoes language Chiu has used on the campaign trail. At a campaign stop in June, Chiu told a room of supporters that before civility was restored this year, “City government was frankly pretty dysfunctional.” Politicians from different political factions bickered with one another, he said, and “they literally couldn’t even sit in the same room.”

At an Aug. 11 rally, Lee told supporters, “We have changed the tone in which we run government,” and added, “I still have in my mind the screaming and the yelling” that the city family used to engage in. 

A few more striking similarities, taken from the candidates’ respective campaign websites:

*  David Chiu says he’ll “Prioritize hiring of local residents.”
*  Ed Lee says he’ll “Hire San Franciscans.”

*  David Chiu says he’ll “Invest in community institutions and infrastructure.”
*  Ed Lee says he’ll “Invest in infrastructure jobs.”

*  David Chiu says he’ll “Support the continued growth of the technology sector.”
*  Ed Lee says he’ll “Attract & grow the jobs of the future.”

*  David Chiu says he’ll “[Expand] the impact of SFMade.”
*  Ed Lee says he’ll “Revive local manufacturing – ‘Made in San Francisco.’”

*  David Chiu says he’ll “Fill vacant storefronts.”
*  Ed Lee says he’ll “Improve blighted areas.”

*  David Chiu says he’ll “Reform our broken business tax. San Francisco is the only city in California that levies a tax on businesses exclusively on payroll.”
*  Ed Lee says he’ll “Reform the Payroll tax  … Mayor Lee knows that San Francisco’s current business tax structure punishes job creation when it should reward it.”

Asked to comment on the remarkable similarities in campaign materials, Lee spokesperson Tony Winnicker told the Guardian, “It’s just another baseless attack from Dennis Herrera’s campaign, only this one sounds like he’s in the third grade.

“Mayor Lee has been giving small business loans and recruiting new jobs to San Francisco from his first days as Mayor,” Winnicker continued. “His economic plan builds on the good work and projects underway and includes many genuinely new ideas to create even more jobs for the future.”

Winnicker added, “As for President Chiu, it’s no surprise that he and Mayor Lee would share many views on how to create jobs for our City as they’ve worked together closely on many issues throughout the year. He thinks President Chiu has many good ideas in addition to Mayor Lee’s own new proposals in our 17-point economic plan. Mayor Lee looks forward to continuing to work with Board President Chiu to create jobs for every neighborhood of our City.”

Guardian forum: Everybody loves public power

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The Guardian candidates’ forum was a blast — standing room only at the LGBT Center, a great, lively crowd, and most of the candidates for mayor showed up. Not Ed Lee, though — we invited him, but he was a no-show. That’s typical — he’s skipped the vast majority of the mayoral debates and events, and when he does show up, he leaves early.

We set out to pin the candidates down on five key issues that came out of the Guardian’s summer issues forums. Shaw San Liu, our moderator, forced the mayoral contenders to give us yes-or-no answers, and our all-star celebrity panel of answer analyzers (Sue Hestor, Corey Cook and Fernando Marti) weighed in and raised signs to tell us whether the candidate had said Yes, No, or Waffled.

The questions:

1. Will you support the creation of a municipal bank to offer access to credit to small business instead of relying on tax breaks for economic development?

 2. Will you support a freeze on condo conversions and the development of new market-rate condos until the city has a plan and the financing in place to meet the General Plan goal of 60 percent of all new units available at below market rate — and then index new market-rate housing to the creation of affordable units?

3. Do you have a viable plan to bring $250,000 a year in new revenue into the city to address the structural budget deficit?

4. Will you agree to opt out of the federal secure communities program and will you reverse Mayor Newsom’s policy and direct all local law-enforcement agencies not to cooperate with immigration authorities?

 5. Will you support a proposal to either buy out PG&E’s San Francisco facilities or build a new city grid through a bond act so that San Francisco will control its own energy distibution system?

Only John Avalos answered Yes to all five. But it was remarkable how many of the candidates supported most or all of the progressive agenda we’ve developed. Every single candidate voiced support for a municipal bank. And every one of them said Yes to buying out PG&E’s distribution system so the city could run it’s own electric utility.

They had a lot more trouble with the notion of a freeze on new market-rate housing and condo conversions, and not all of them could explain how they would bring in $250,000 in new revenue. But I give them all credit for showing up and facing the tough questions and saying that, for the most part, they wanted to promote a progressive agenda.

Here are the scores:

John Avalos: Y, Y, Y, Y, Y

David Chiu: Y, W, Y, Y, Y

Bevan Dufty: Y, N, Y, Y,Y

Dennis Herrera: Y, W, Y, Y, Y

Phil Ting: NA. NA, Y, Y, Y (He came late and missed the first two)

Joanna Rees: Y, N, N, Y, Y

Leland Yee: Y, W, W, Y, Y

Jeff Adachi: Y, W, Y, Y, Y

Terry Baum: Y, Y, N, Y, Y

So five waffles on housing policy; nobody wants to stand up and say that we’re building too much housing for the rich and that it has to stop until we catch up with affordable housing. (At least Dufty was honest and told us he doesn’t want to cut off TIC and condo conversions).

I’m waiting for the video and I’ll post it when I get it.

SF restaurants cheat on health care

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For years, I’ve wondered about those “health-care surcharges” that pop up on menus at local restaurants. The owners say they have to charge extra to pay for the city’s health-care ordinance, which always struck me as odd: You don’t see “avocado price hike surcharge” or “rent-went-up” surcharge or “PG&E rate hike” surcharge — restaurants, like other businesses, typically roll those factors into their normal prices.

This is political: A lot of restaurants opposed the law, which requires employers to pay for health insurance, and they’re sticking that little sign out there to make San Franciscans think the government is driving up the price of a meal.

Now: I would actually be willing to pay an extra 3 percent or even 5 percent for a nice dinner if I thought that money was going to make sure the cooks and waiters and bus staff could go to the doctor when they get sick. But it turns out, according to the Wall Street Journal, that we’re getting scammed — the surcharges often don’t go for health care at all. The restaurants just pocket the money.

In an investigation of 40 local restaurants — most of them high-end places where dinner for two can cost $100 or more — the Journal found that the vast majority of the money collected for health care never goes to the employees:

One Market, which says its annual revenue exceeds $5 million, is one of at least 40 San Francisco restaurants identified by The Wall Street Journal that tell customers they are charging extra in the name of health-care benefits, but which end up spending less than a third of what they allocate. The data come from forms that restaurants filed with the city, which the Journal obtained under California’s public records law. No restaurant mentioned in this article disputed the data.

Wayfare Tavern, the downtown restaurant owned by celebrity chef Tyler Florence, says on its menu that it adds 3.5% to every bill to cover health-care costs. Last year, it earmarked $63,724 for health care but only spent $6,013, the city data show. Café Flore, which adds 35 cents to every bill in the name of health care, spent nothing on health expenses for its employees last year. Trademark, which has a 3.5% surcharge, also spent nothing on employee health expenses last year, the data show.

Worse, this appears to be an intentional way to skirt the law:

In most cases, the plans are administered by a third party. Some of these companies tout how HRAs are a loophole around the San Francisco Heath Care Ordinance. “If the funds are not needed (And many are not!!!) the employer wins because the unused funds stay with them…not the City,” says a brochure from BeneFlex HR Resources Inc.

BeneFlex ensures restaurants inform workers about the HRA to “make sure it’s handled the way it’s supposed to,” says Mark Schmersahl, the firm’s vice president. Still, he says, “There are going to be times when the employer comes out ahead.”

I recognize that the city puts a lot of demands on small business, and a lot of them are expensive — and again, if a restaurant owner has to raise prices a few percentage points to pay for health insurance, I’ll pay — that’s the price of eating out in San Francisco.

But this isn’t how the health-care law was supposed to work — and it’s the reason Sup. David Campos is trying to change it. Campos has a bill that would stop employers from keeping money that was supposed to go for health care. “It’s also a consumer-protection law,” Campos told me. “People are being defrauded here.”

Editor’s notes

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tredmond@sfbg.com

If you want to put more money in the pockets of working people, cutting the federal payroll tax — which, for many, is a larger tax burden than the income tax — makes perfect sense.

If you want to create jobs, cutting the payroll tax for businesses is a risky proposition.

Most new jobs in the United States are created by small businesses — and the payroll tax, while significant, isn’t a dramatic hindrance to job growth.

I work for a small business, and I ran the numbers with our controller, and if the Obama stimulus bill passes, the Bay Guardian will probably have enough extra money to hire one part-time employee — as long as we don’t pay that person much more than the city’s minimum wage. That’s something, I suppose. But even multiplied by the millions of small businesses in the country, there’s no guarantee it will lead to millions of jobs — particularly since so many small businesses in this country are deeply in debt, scraping for profits and likely to use the extra money for something other than hiring.

And a lot of big businesses already have the cash on hand to hire new workers, but they aren’t doing it.

That’s because businesses don’t make hiring decisions based just on taxes and cash — they hire people when they need workers to fill demand for their products and services. And the fundamental problem with the American economy today is that the very rich, who don’t spend most of their money, keep getting more of it, and the middle class doesn’t have enough to stimulate demand.

Here’s what makes me crazy: The government knows how to create jobs. If that’s what Obama wants to do, why not just .. do it?

Let’s say you want to create a million new jobs that pay a living wage (say, $50,000). If, instead of hoping that the private sector will be the middleman, Obama directed federal, state, and local governments to hire people to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure, teach in public schools etc, that would cost …. oh, about $500 billion.

So for $447 billion, you might only get 800,000 jobs. But that increased economic activity, and the demand it would create, would almost certainly lead to more jobs, probably at least another 400,000 jobs. That’s more than a million; the unemployment rate just dropped a full percentage point, and the recovery is well under way.

Why is nobody even talking about this?

A new progressive agenda

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Over the past three months, the Guardian has been hosting a series of forums on progressive issues for the mayor’s race. We’ve brought together a broad base of people from different communities and issue-based organizations all over town in an effort to draft a platform that would include a comprehensive progressive agenda for the next mayor. All told, more than 100 people participated.

It was, as far as we know, the first time anyone tried to do this — to come up with a mayoral platform not with a few people in a room but with a series of open forums designed for community participation.

The platform we’ve drafted isn’t perfect, and there are no doubt things that are left out. But our goal was to create a document that the voters could use to determine which candidates really deserve the progressive vote.

That’s a critical question, since nearly all of the top contenders are using the word “progressive” on a regular basis. They’re fighting for votes from the neighborhoods, the activists, the independent-minded people who share a vision for San Francisco that isn’t driven by big-business interests.

But those of us on what is broadly defined as the city’s left are looking for more than lip service and catchy phrases. We want to hear specifics; we want to know that the next mayor is serious about changing the direction of city policy.

The groups who endorsed this effort and helped plan the forums that led to this platform were the Harvey Milk LGBT Club, SEIU Local 1021, the San Francisco Tenants Union, the Human Services Network, the Community Congress 2010, the Council of Community Housing Organizations, San Francisco Rising, Jobs with Justice, and the Center for Political Education.

The panelists who led the discussions were: Shaw-san Liu, Calvin Welch, Fernando Marti, Gabriel Haaland, Brenda Barros, Debbi Lerman, Jenny Friedenbach, Sarah Shortt, Ted Gullicksen, Nick Pagoulatos, Sue Hestor, Sherilyn Adams, Angela Chan, David Campos, Mario Yedidia, Pecolio Mangio, Antonio Diaz, Alicia Garza, Aaron Peskin, Saul Bloom, and Tim Redmond.

We held five events looking at five broad policy areas — economy and jobs; land use, housing and tenants; budget and social services; immigration, education and youth; and environment, energy and climate change. Panelists and audience participants offered great ideas and the debates were lively.

The results are below — an outline of what the progressives in San Francisco want to see from their next mayor.

 

 

ECONOMY AND JOBS

Background: In the first decade of this century, San Francisco lost some 51,000 jobs, overwhelmingly in the private sector. When Gavin Newsom was sworn in as mayor in January 2004, unemployment was at 6.4 percent; when he left, in January 2011, it was at 9.5 percent — a 63 percent increase.

Clearly, part of the problem was the collapse of the national economy. But the failed Newsom Model only made things worse. His approach was based on the mistaken notion that if the city provided direct subsidies to private developers, new workers would flock to San Francisco. In fact, the fastest-growing sector of the local economy is the public sector, especially education and health care. Five of the 10 largest employers in San Francisco are public agencies.

Local economic development policy, which has been characterized by the destruction of the blue-collar sector in light industry and maritime uses (ironically, overwhelmingly privately owned) to free up land for new industries in business services and high tech sectors that have never actually appeared — or have been devastated by quickly repeating boom and bust cycle.

Instead of concentrating on our existing workforce and its incredible human capital, recent San Francisco mayors have sought to attract a new workforce.

The Mayor’s Office has, as a matter of policy, been destroying blue-collar jobs to promote residential development for people who work outside of the city.

There’s a huge disconnect between what many people earn and what they need. The minimum wage in San Francisco is $9.92, when the actual cost of living is closer to $20. Wage theft is far too common.

There is a lack of leadership, oversight and accountability in a number of city departments. For example, there is no officiating body or commission overseeing the work of the Office of Economic and Workforce Development. Similarly the Arts Commission, the chartered entity for overseeing cultural affairs, is responsible for less than 25 percent of the budget reserved for this purpose

There’s no accountability in the city to protect the most vulnerable people.

The city’s main business tax is highly regressive — it’s a flat tax on payroll but has so many exceptions and loopholes that only 8,500 businesses actually pay it, and many of the largest and richest outfits pay no city tax at all.

 

Agenda items:

1. Reform the Mayor’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development to create a department with workforce development as a primary objective. Work with the San Francisco Unified School District, City College and San Francisco State to create sustainable paths to training and employment.

2. Create a municipal bank that offers credit for locally developed small businesses instead of relying on tax breaks. As a first step, mandate that all city short-term funds and payroll accounts go only to banks or credit unions that will agree to devote a reasonable percentage of their local loan portfolios for small business loans.

3. Reform procurement to prioritize local ownership.

4. Link economic development of healthcare facilities to the economic development of surrounding communities.

5. Link overall approval of projects to a larger economic development policy that takes as its centerpiece the employment of current San Francisco residents.

6. Enforce city labor laws and fund the agency that enforces the laws.

7. Establish the Board of Supervisors as the policy board of a re-organized Redevelopment Agency and create community-based project area oversight committees.

8. Dramatically expand Muni in the southeast portion of the city and reconfigure routes to link neighborhoods without having to go through downtown. Put special emphasis on direct Muni routes to City College and San Francisco State.

9. Reform the payroll tax so all businesses share the burden and the largest pay their fair share.

10. Consolidate the city’s various arts entities into a single Department of Arts & Culture that includes as part of its mandate a clear directive to achieve maximum economic development through leveraging the city’s existing cultural assets and creative strengths and re-imagining San Francisco’s competitive position as a regional, national and international hub of creative thinking. Sponsor and promote signature arts programs and opportunities to attract and retain visitors who will generate maximum economic activity in the local economy; restore San Francisco’s community-based cultural economy by re-enacting the successful Neighborhood Arts Program; and leverage the current 1-2 percent for art fees on various on-site building projects to be directed towards non-construction-site arts activity.

 

 

LAND USE, HOUSING AND TENANTS

Background: Since the office market tanked, the big land-use issue has become market-rate housing. San Francisco is building housing for people who don’t live here — in significant part, for either very wealthy people who want a short-term pied a terre in the city or for commuters who work in Silicon Valley. The city’s own General Plan calls for 60 percent of all new housing to be below-market-rate — but the vast majority of the new housing that’s been constructed or is in the planning pipeline is high-end condos.

There’s no connection between the housing needs of city residents and the local workforce and the type of housing that’s being constructed. Family housing is in short supply and rental housing is being destroyed faster than it’s being built — a total of 21,000 rental units have been lost to condos and tenancies in common.

Public housing is getting demolished and rebuilt with 2500 fewer units. “Hotelization” is growing as housing units become transitory housing.

Planning has become an appendage of the Mayor’s Office of Economic Development, which has no commission, no public hearings and no community oversight.

Projects are getting approved with no connection to schools, transit or affordable housing.

There’s no monitoring of Ellis Act evictions.

Transit-oriented development is a big scam that doesn’t include equity or the needs of people who live in the areas slated for more development. Cities have incentives to create dense housing with no affordability. Communities of concern are right in the path of this “smart growth” — and there are no protections for the people who live there now.

Agenda items:

1. Re emphasize that the Planning Department is the lead land-use approval agency and that the Mayor’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development should not be used to short-circuit public participation in the process.

2. Enact a freeze on condo conversions and a freeze on the demolition of existing affordable rental housing.

3. Ban evictions if the use or occupation of the property will be for less than 30 days.

4. Index market-rate to affordable housing; slow down one when the other is too far ahead.

5. Disclose what level of permanent affordability is offered at each project.

6. Stabilize existing communities with community benefits agreements before new development is approved.

 

 

BUDGET AND SOCIAL SERVICES

Background: There have been profound cuts in the social safety net in San Francisco over the past decade. One third of the city’s shelter beds have been lost; six homeless centers have closed. Homeless mental health and substance abuse services have lost $32 million, and the health system has lost $33 million.

None of the budget proposals coming from the Mayor’s Office have even begun to address restoring the past cuts.

There’s not enough access to primary care for people in Healthy San Francisco.

Nonprofit contracts with the city are flat-funded, so there’s no room for increases in the cost of doing business.

The mayor has all the staff and the supervisors don’t have enough. The supervisors have the ability to add back budget items — but the mayor can then make unilateral cuts.

The wealthy in San Francisco have done very well under the Bush tax cuts and more than 14 billionaires live in this city. The gap between the rich and the poor, which is destroying the national economy, exists in San Francisco, too. But while city officials are taking a national lead on issues like the environment and civil rights, there is virtually no discussion at the policy level of using city policy to bring in revenue from those who can afford it and to equalize the wealth disparities right here in town.

Agenda items:

1. Establish as policy that San Francisco will step in where the state and federal government have left people behind — and that local taxation policy should reflect progressive values.

2. Make budget set-asides a budget floor rather than a percentage of the budget.

3. Examine what top city executives are paid.

4. Promote public power, public broadband and public cable as a way to bring the city millions of dollars.

5. Support progressive taxes that will bring in at least $250 million a year in permanent new revenue.

6. Change the City Charter to eliminate unilateral mid-year cuts by the mayor.

8. Pass a Charter amendment that: (a) Requires the development of a comprehensive long-term plan that sets the policies and strategies to guide the implementation of health and human services for San Francisco’s vulnerable residents over the next 10 years, and (b) creates a planning body with the responsibility and authority to develop the plan, monitor and evaluate its implementation, coordinate between policy makers and departments, and ensure that annual budgets are consistent with the plan.

9. Collect existing money better.

10. Enact a foreclosure transfer tax.

 

 

YOUTH, IMMIGRATION, AND EDUCATION

Background: In the past 10 years, San Francisco has lost 24,000 people ages 12-24. Among current youth, 5,800 live in poverty; 6,000 have no high school degree; 7,000 are not working or attending school; 1,200 are on adult probation.

A full 50 percent of public school students are not qualified for college studies. Too often, the outcome is dictated by race; school-to-prison is far too common.

Trust between immigrants and the police is a low point, particularly since former Mayor Gavin Newsom gutted the sanctuary ordinance in 2008 after anti-immigrant stories in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Some 70 percent of students depend on Muni, but the price of a youth pass just went from $10 to $21.

Agenda items:

1. Recognize that there’s a separate role for probation and immigration, and keep local law enforcement from joining or working with immigration enforcement.

2. Improve public transportation for education and prioritize free Muni for youth.

3. Create family-friendly affordable housing.

4. Restore the recreation direction for the Recreation and Parks Department.

5. Implement police training to treat youth with respect.

6. Don’t cut off benefits for youth who commit crimes.

7. Shift state re-alignment money from jails to education.

 

ENERGY, ENVIRONMENT AND CLIMATE CHANGE

Background: When it comes to land use, the laws on the books are pretty good. The General Plan is a good document. But those laws aren’t enforced. Big projects get changed by the project sponsor after they’re approved.

Land use is really about who will live here and who will vote. But on a policy level, it’s clear that the city doesn’t value the people who currently live here.

Climate change is going to affect San Francisco — people who live near toxic materials are at risk in floods and earthquakes.

San Francisco has a separate but unequal transportation system. Muni is designed to get people downtown, not around town — despite the fact that job growth isn’t happening downtown.

San Francisco has a deepwater port and could be the Silicon Valley of green shipping.

San Francisco has a remarkable opportunity to promote renewable energy, but that will never happen unless the city owns the distribution system.

 

Agenda items:

1. Promote the rebirth of heavy industry by turning the port into a center for green-shipping retrofits.

2. Public land should be for public benefit, and agencies that own or control that land should work with community-based planning efforts.

3. Planning should be for the community, not developers.

4. Energy efficiency programs should be targeted to disadvantaged communities.

5. Pay attention to the urban food revolution, encourage resident owned farmers markets. Use unused public land for local food and community gardens.

6. Provide complete information on what parts of the city are fill, and stop allowing development in areas that are going to be inundated with sea level rise.

7. Prioritize local distributed generation of electricity and public ownership of the power grid.

8. Change Clean Energy San Francisco from a purchasing pool system to a generating system.

Shuttle wars at SFO

1

news@sfbg.com

It’s a misty morning at San Francisco International Airport, with the fog breaking into a slight drizzle. At the ground transportation area, travelers were repeatedly running in to each other in their head-down dash across packed taxi lanes.

The biggest bottleneck wasn’t the cars, though; it was the confused populace staring up at multicolored, multiarrowed transportation-related signs. Taxi? No. Shuttle? Yes, but which shuttle — reserved, hotel, or shared-ride?

I watch the collective confusion from the shared-ride zone, itself a tricolor ménage. A small sign shows that the red, yellow, and blue zones each correspond to a set of shuttle companies, but it takes some time to figure out which is which. Someone (official or not, I can’t tell) has crossed out and reassigned companies with a permanent marker. Good thing I don’t actually need a ride.

I ask a curb coordinator on duty, Carlos Marenco, about the colored zones. He explains that there are eight small shuttle companies that share the yellow zone — they rotate every five minutes. Two companies use the red zone and rotate every seven minutes. And one company, SuperShuttle, has its own blue zone. Why are the zones distributed like this, I ask?

“SuperShuttle and Lorrie’s (a red zone company) are bigger. More people know them, so they need more space,” Marenco said.

Just then a bewildered couple approached the shared-ride zone. They began talking to the driver of a small yellow zone company who is about to finish his allotted five minutes.

“No,” a coordinator shouts as he comes bustling toward passengers. “You need to go down to the blue zone.”

“Why?” the man asks.

“It is not this driver’s turn. You need to go to the blue zone,”

The coordinator takes their bags from the driver and begins wheeling them to the blue zone.

“They want to ride with me!” he shouts.

The couple is already down the sidewalk though, guiltily following their bags to a waiting SuperShuttle — and the next yellow zone driver idles nearby waiting for their spot at the curb. The driver curses, slams his door, and drives off empty.

 

AT THE CURB

Curb space at SFO is prime real estate, and a battle is underway between the giant SuperShuttle — owned by a French conglomerate — and a group of small, locally owned airport shuttle companies that say that they’re being pushed aside.

It gets heated out at the curb — when I talked to him after the unlucky driver left without his potential passengers, Marenco explained that the coordinators are often yelled at by enraged drivers.

“They think we cheat them, but we do not,” Marenco said. He says his job is to make sure drivers do not solicit passengers and that each zone gets an equal number of walk-up customers. He has come up with his own system — three large rectangular red, yellow, and blue magnets he puts on a pole at the front of the line to show drivers who gets the next passenger.

But Aaron Chan, owner of Advance Airporter, a small company stuck in the yellow zone, said that “the drivers are always telling me that the curb coordinators give many more passengers to SuperShuttle, even when it is not their turn.” And some small companies say that the big outfit pays the coordinators for more favorable treatment.

Marenco insists he never took money (which you can call tips or bribes, depending on your attitude). But Matt Curwood, San Francisco SuperShuttle general manager, acknowledged that “there have been a number of situations where our drivers are forced into circumstances where coordinators will only escort passengers to their shuttle if they are provided with payment of some form.”

There are no shining angels here. Both parties blame the other side; both deny bribery themselves (but claim the others do it), and the coordinators deny it happens at all.

And the whole mess is getting dropped in the lap of the Airport Commission, which in the past has been very friendly to SuperShuttle.

 

GET RID OF THE LITTLE GUYS

When the new Terminal 2 opened in April, airport staff asked each shuttle company to submit a letter discussing how zoning should be organized at the new curb. SuperShuttle responded — and took the opportunity to push a topic it has been trying to get SFO officials to adopt since the early 1990s: limiting the number of shuttle companies allowed to serve SFO to no more than two or three.

Curwood says that of the airports SuperShuttle operates in, SFO is the most difficult for customers to navigate. In the letter, he proposed the solution of “a competitive RFP process [that] enables competition and improves the quality of service the customer currently experiences. The essence of the problem SFO faces is that it is trying to accommodate too many substandard operators at the jeopardy of the public’s experience and safety.”

Gil Sharabi, general manager of Airport Express, a yellow zone company his father started in 1979, told me that his company has a perfect safety record and is just as qualified to serve the public as SuperShuttle. Sharabi says that SuperShuttle is really aiming to eliminate local business competition.

SuperShuttle’s corporate offices are in Illinois, and it serves 36 airports in the United States.

Curwood says it’s unfair to make this about the big company versus the little guy. “When you see one of those SuperShuttles on the road, that’s its own business. That’s its own franchise. I want that to be clear because we talk about small companies, and in fact what we are is a franchise for over 100 small companies.”

SuperShuttle may be made up of franchises, but the company itself is owned by Veolia Transportation, part of French multinational company Veolia Environment. Veolia is a Fortune 200 company with four divisions — water, energy, environmental services, and transport — and is the 34th-largest employer in the world. Its website boasts that it is the leading private water service provider in the world and the “No. 1 private transportation operator in Europe and North America.” So much for the little guy.

Sharabi says that aside from monopolization threats, the real problem is the special treatment SuperShuttle is given by airport staff.

The current tricolor system began in 1993 when the airport tried to terminate space in the yellow zone. The issue went to the Board of Supervisors, which directed the airport to give yellow zone companies their space back.

Since then, the companies in the yellow zone have been forced to share their space eight ways, which means fewer customers for them. If each colored zone gets one-third of walk-up customers, a company in the yellow zone — if it’s lucky — one out of every 24. SuperShuttle, on the other hand, gets all blue zone customers and can wait to pile in passengers, saving on gas and time. Furthermore, the eight yellow zone companies pay more of the third-party curb coordinator’s salaries than SuperShuttle.

 

A FREE BILLBOARD

Ray Sloan-Zayotti of the local lobbying firm Public Policy Advocates, which has represented the eight yellow zone companies since 1993, said that by not making SuperShuttle rotate, “they essentially have a free billboard right outside the terminal — and they don’t have to pay the fees the others pay to loop through the airport.”

Sharabi said the situation at SFO is unusual. “There are even more shuttles at Oakland Airport, but no one complains there,” Sharabi said. “It’s because everyone over there is treated fairly — and that’s all we’re asking for.”

Indeed, Sharabi said, one of the most aggravating parts of this debate is that the day after airport staff received SuperShuttle’s letter, it led to a long discussion at the Airport Commission. He said his and other yellow zone companies have been trying for years to get the commission and staff to listen to their complaints of unequal treatment.

“They don’t want to listen to us,” Sharabi said. “They have decided that they want SuperShuttle here, and not us. And they haven’t given us a reason why.

“We’ve been sending letters and doing proposals and lots of work for years,” he added. “And they have not only never cared for us, they have never forwarded anything to the commission,” Sharabi said.

In exasperation, the eight yellow zone companies sent a response letter directly to the Airport Commission outlining their position. “For nearly two decades a majority of companies — many that have been around much longer than SuperShuttle — have sent letters to SFO and the commission that have been received with little or no interest,” it stated. The letter went on to ask the commission to consider giving all 11 companies equal time at the curb.

 

A MATTER OF SURVIVAL

Sharabi and Sloan-Zayotti both point out that SuperShuttle hired Platinum Advisors, a well-known local lobbying firm. Curwood confirmed that SuperShuttle has hired the company, adding that it’s common for businesses dealing with the city to hire lobbyists. (Indeed, yellow zone companies have a lobbyist of their own.) He said SuperShuttle’s proposal will benefit passengers, but that it is ultimately up to the commissioners and airport staff.

“The system is right now catering to the small companies to ensure their survival rather than catering to the public,” Curwood said. “[The letter is] not saying ‘I want to kick everyone out of business,’ it’s saying that these are serious issues our customers say they face and proposing a way to put standards in place that will change it.”

“In all honesty, we understand what SuperShuttle is doing — and that’s reducing the competition for them,” Sharabi said. “It’s business, right? But what’s not right is that unelected officials get to make decisions that affect small business owners like us without having to answer to the public. That right there is the problem.”

“I do not know where that’s coming from,” said Michael McCarron, director of the SFO Bureau of Community Affairs. “We listen to everyone. We can’t make everyone happy, but we try to listen to everyone and work out the best possible arrangements for all the operators.”

Sharabi disagreed. “Everybody drops the line ‘You know we support the local people.’ But it couldn’t be further from the truth.”

 

Will Amazon be the next PG&E?

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The giant retailer is pulling a Prop. 16, seeking to get the voters to overturn a measure forcing online retailers to collect sales tax. Of course, the law simply levels the playing field for smaller businesses and brick-and-mortar stores — but Amazon’s got plenty of cash, and anyone with enough cash can put anything on the California ballot.


Brian at Calitics points out that Amazon can campaign by asking people to vote against taxes — always a good strategy in this strange state where a majority of the populace seems to believe it can have it all for free:


Beating back such a referendum will be a very tough fight on some uphill terrain.  That isn’t to say that there won’t be those who will try.  Some of the biggest backers of the Amazon legislation in the first place have some pretty big pockets, like, um, Walmart, Barnes & Noble, and Best Buy.  And it is true that the legislation benefits big box stores, but it also benefits the few remaining small retailers. And while the big box stores are (very, very) far (extremely far) from perfect, at least they do provide jobs to local communities.


So we may have a campaign that puts some big, awful corporations on the side of every small business in California — all of them supporting a tax increase. I wonder where the California Chamber of Commerce will go on this one.


At any rate, it’s going to be a huge, expensive, bloody battle, one that will get national attention. And that may not be the best thing for Amazon. PG&E got hammered when it tried to do a blatant self-interested campaign. Amazon could get hammered, too. And there will be plenty of legislators in other cash-hungry states watching the result very carefully.

Feelmore510 is bringing sexy back to Oakland

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The Bay’s east side can seem a little prudish, especially when compared to its slutty sister city. Until February, Oakland’s only retail resources for sex were a couple of trashy adult “superstores.” Those places can be fun and functional, but it’s safe to bet the cashier probably isn’t too concerned about answering a list of questions and making you feel comfortable with your purchase. Nenna Joiner, the owner of Oakland’s new sex-positive shop, Feelmore510, is quite the opposite and simply can’t wait to start friendly conversations about sex with everyone in her community.

Joiner, a sex educator and adult film director, has been dreaming about opening an Oakland shop for years, but her ideas go far beyond retail. From terminology to etiquette, Joiner says her community needs to start at the beginning, birds and bees style. “I love talking to people. People teach me new things everyday. I’m open and not judgmental. I’ll talk about anything,” she says after ushering a couple ladies out the door who had spent their lunch break browsing. 

From basic questions to the personal, Joiner is educating from the inside out. “A guy came by the other day asking if it was gay for him to want to play with his girlfriend’s butt,” she says. “San Francisco takes its sexual openness for granted — the community there is so exposed, probably overexposed,” she laughs, a playful swipe at the close-knit kink communities and accessible sex-positive resources she loves.

Joiner says Oakland residents may attend erotic events like Folsom or shop for dildos west of the bridge, but when they return home, the conversation goes flaccid. She puts partial blame on years of serious bedroom talk: preventative health and safe sex practices have been a priority due to the high number of HIV cases in the area. No one is contesting the importance of these topics, but in terms of fast, slutty fun they can be total Debbie Downers. Joiner wants to put the spunk back into conversations about sexuality. 

Before the shop opened, the surrounding neighborhood seemed nervous about the addition of a sex shop on the block, but Joiner has been extra careful to make sure people understand that her intentions are purely rooted in the revitalization of Oakland. She keeps up on local politics, attends city meetings, directs tourists to other neighborhood businesses, and even watches high school band concerts. She waves at people from across the street and welcomes anyone inside to chat and enjoy the space. Joiner feels supported by the city around her, which she thinks is happy to recognize her role as a successful business owner. She regularly gets friendly calls from the Alameda Small Business Association, casual check-ins to make sure she’s doing well.

“They know I’m a young woman of color, working my ass off. Maybe they don’t watch porn or have interest in the products I sell, but they support me because they know how hard I’m working.”

Nestled between downtown office buildings on Telegraph Avenue, Feelmore510 lures in its share of curious customers during the day with a modest store front that looks more art gallery than porn hub. Inside the store, Joiner loves to play her late grandmother’s vinyl collection, including Sinatra and Perry Como, which perfectly compliment the space’s glowing chandeliers and velvet curtains. The shop stays open until midnight, way past the bedtime of most of her neighbors’, but with the Fox Theater nearby and a collection of bars and clubs in walking distance, Joiner likes providing the night owls some after-party options.

“I stay open late because I want to help more people have great sex.” Getting people off the streets and under the sheets with body-safe, pleasurable accessories– now that’s community activism!

 

Feelmore510

1703 Telegraph Avenue, Oakland

(510) 891-0199

www.Feelmore510.com

 

SFBG Radio: Small business and jobs in SF

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Today we talk about jobs in San Francisco — how the giant mega-employers of yore have left and how the public sector and small business are now the big employers in town. Listen after the jump.

TheLittleGuyWins by endorsements2010

The problem with the yellow pages

5

 


Editors note: We ran an opinion piece this week opposing Sup. David Chiu’s proposal to limit delivery of yellow pages phone books. It’s gotten a lot of comments. Chiu asked if his supporters could respond.


By Michelle Myers and Janet Pomeroy
 
Tired of getting stacks of yellow pages books delivered to your front steps every year when you didn’t ask for them? Most people are.
 
Phone companies distribute 1.6 million phone book directories in San Francisco every year, which is two for every man, woman and child – producing 3,600 tons of waste annually, and costing residents as much as $1 million dollars a year. There are approximately 350,000 residential units in San Francisco and 80,000 businesses. If we had a single phone book in every home and office we would only need a third of what is currently being produced. That doesn’t even take into account the fact that many individuals no longer use the yellow pages to get information, and non-English language speakers don’t use the English print directory.
 
Does anyone in San Francisco need two five-pound yellow pages phone books delivered every year? No. So why does the industry do this? According to the Green Chamber of Commerce and independent research, the companies do it to pump up ad sales, which are based on inflated circulation numbers.
 
San Francisco’s attempt to restrict the mass over distribution of yellow pages, and to force an honest look at the industry, marks some of the most important environmental legislation of the last several years.
 
Supervisor David Chiu’s Yellow Pages legislation is supported by the Sierra Club, Rain Forest Action Network, The Green Chamber of Commerce, the Product Stewardship
Institute, Californians Against Waste, Senior Action Network, numerous small businesses, the San Francisco Small Business Commission, homeowners, tenants, and landlords.
 
The San Francisco city economist did an independent economic impact analysis of the legislation and found that this pilot program was good for business, good for the environment and would create 111 jobs while pumping $12 million dollars back into the local economy. The legislation is considered a no-brainer by serious economists, climate change experts and environmentalists who have examined it.
 
If you oppose this simple legislation, you are inviting a major corporation to come in, dump garbage on our front steps, and then volunteer to pay for the clean up. The financial loss of cleaning up over produced yellow pages is passed down to the residents and businesses of the city. And since the yellow pages are not produced locally the majority of the economic benefit of this industry accrues elsewhere.
 
The legislation will create a three year pilot program to reduce the waste of unwanted yellow page phone books. Under this legislation, anyone who wants a yellow page book can get one — but those who don’t want one won’t be responsible for the disposal of the books. Because this innovative and historic legislation is being set up as a test pilot for the nation, if San Franciscans see any negative impact we can adjust the program or end it altogether.
 
The paper industry is a massive polluter. It is the single largest consumer of water, has a toxic by-product, destroys trees we need to absorb carbon, and is the fourth largest manufacturing source of carbon dioxide in the United States. If we only distributed half as many yellow pages in San Francisco – to the people who actually need and want them — we would save 6,180 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year.
 
Rather than being a good steward of the environment, the yellow page industry is producing far beyond the demand for their product. The companies do this as a way of inflating the amount they charge to the businesses that advertise with them. Today, this business model is wasteful and unnecessary. It is time to demand that these paper directories are only distributed to the people that want and need them.


Michelle Myers is with the Sierra Club and Janet Pomeroy is with the Green Chamber of Commerce.

Small Business Awards Ceremony wrap-up

2

The Bay Guardian’s annual Small Business Awards party packed the upper room at Public Works May 11, with the winners and assorted friends and allies (including Sup. Ross Mirkarimi) enjoying the celebration of entrepreneurship and community. The hit of the night was Virginia Ramos, the Tamale Lady, winner of the Spirit of the Streets Award, who had the room spellbound as she talked of her life and her love for San Francisco. And it was clear that the diverse group of individuals and businesses all shared a strong belief that small, locally owned businesses make San Francisco great.

Guardian poll: Do we still need the yellow pages?

34

Sup. David Chiu is pushing legislation to restrict the delivery of yellow pages phone books in the city. His proposal: If you want the books, you should ask for them. Right now you get the stuff piled up on your door whether you like it or not — and that creates a fair amount of waste.


But some small business groups say that local independent businesses still use the yellow pages (and there are a lot of plumbers and locksmiths who clearly agree) — and consumer groups like The Utility Reform Network worry about seniors and people without internet access, many of whom might not understand that they have to opt in to keep getting the books.


Too much trash? Public service? You can vote after the jump.






Free polls from Go2poll.com

On the Cheap Listings

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On the Cheap listings are compiled by Jackie Andrews. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

WEDNESDAY 4

Asterisk zine party Public Works, 161 Erie, SF; www.publicsf.com. 8pm, free. Celebrate one year of Asterisk, the fabulous print and online magazine highlighting all things San Francisco, with a party catered by Charanga and drinks specials courtesy of Blue Angel Vodka. Plus, the amazing soul group Nick Waterhouse and the Tarots will be performing and Erik Otto art displayed for you to enjoy while DJs get you dancing. There’s so much going on tonight, it’s hard to believe the party is free, but be sure to donate a few bills to benefit Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center, the non-profit that does a lot of good things for small business here in the city.

Zyzzyva spring celebration The Booksmith, 1644 Haight, SF; www.booksmith.com. 7:30pm, free. This art and lit journal (named after the last word in the dictionary, a genus of weevil, but you already know that, right?) has gone through some changes recently. When founder Howard Junker announced he would be stepping down as editor after 25 years, Laura Cogan jumped at the opportunity and has been busy cleaning house in the form of sprucing up the website and adding a blog, among other things. Joining her at tonight’s celebration. Reading selections from their work, will be Robin Ekiss, Tom Barbash, and Vanessa Hua.

THURSDAY 5

Craft bar Museum of Craft and Folk Art, 51 Yerba Buena Lane, SF; www.mocfa.org. 6-8pm, $5, t-shirts and totes are an extra $5. Make Sister Corita-style posters, t-shirts, and tote bags in honor of her messages of love and peace during the social upheavals of the 1960s and ’70s. The museum will have silk screens set up with inks prepared in advance to match her period colors – think day-glo – as well as all of the supplies needed. Also, enjoy a special live performance from Coconuts and free-flowing Trumer Pils courtesy of the Berkeley brewery.

FRIDAY 6

Bikes and Beats Public Works, 161 Erie, SF; www.publicsf.com. 10pm-3am, $6-10. Check out this new collaborative that merges Bay Area bike and music scenes at a party that benefits Sunday Streets and the urban sustainability guerrillas known as the Wigg Party. They’ve got bike-themed crafts and screenprinting planned, as well as food vendors, art, fashion, raffle prizes, and more. And it wouldn’t be a party without music, so they went ahead and wisely reserved, not one, but two rooms for DJs, live performances, and video installations.

SATURDAY 7

Mother’s Day book Sale Adobe Books, 3166 16th St, SF; www.adobebooksbackroomgallery.blogspot.com. 11am-5pm, free. Get lost in the organized-by-color bookshelves today at Adobe. This little gem of a bookstore will be selling all of their stock at a discount in honor of mothers everywhere. Books outside are all one dollar while everything inside the store is marked 25 percent off. Plus, check out the current exhibition in the backroom gallery for artwork related to the publication of Berkeley-based Allone Co. Editions’ From the Golden West Notebook, a work inspired by the ACE Double books of the fifties.

El Cerrito city-wide garage sale Various locations, El Cerrito; www.el-cerrito.org. 9am-3pm, free. Holy moly, this event is every collector and spendthrift’s dream come true – 67 garage sales all happening at once, carrying everything from furniture to household items to records and vintage clothing. Plot your route in advance – download the map complete with listings and take it with you on your meticulously planned hunt for one-of-a-kind bargain treasures. Rent a Zip Car – no, rent a U-Haul if you have to – because you’re not gonna want to miss this.

SUNDAY 8

Mother’s Day rose show Hall of Flowers, Golden Gate Park, SF; www.sfrosesociety.com. Noon-12:30-4pm, free. Score some serious bonus points with Mom this year and treat her to a lovely afternoon among the roses. The San Francisco Rose Society continues its annual Mother’s Day tradition of filling Golden Gate Park’s Hall of Flowers with spectacular rose exhibits of all varieties. Stroll along the fragrant and breathtaking paths between noon and 4pm, after which the public is invited to take home free roses!

TUESDAY 10

Emperor Norton history lesson Cafe Royal, 800 Post, SF; (415) 641-6033. 8pm, free. Attend this informal history lesson from historian Peter Molan, and learn all about the once celebrated San Francisco character – the self-proclaimed “Emperor of these United States” and later, the “Protector of Mexico”. Though considered insane by his fellow San Franciscans, he was well-loved and his regal decrees often humored. The day after he collapsed and died on a street corner in 1880, 30,000 people packed the streets to mourn his death.

 

 

Editor’s notes

6

tredmond@sfbg.com

The candidates for mayor of San Francisco are already lining up endorsements — the Sierra Club held its interviews April 23, which seems awfully early to me, since some of the most interesting contenders in this town (Tom Ammiano, Matt Gonzalez) have a tendency to jump in at the last minute. And the filing deadline isn’t until August.

But the sooner the big names and organizations are lined up and the money is locked in, the harder it will be for anyone to pull off an August surprise. So unless the redistricting commission seriously messes with Mark Leno’s state Senate seat or Ed Lee bows to the pressure from Willie Brown, Rose Pak, and their allies and decides to go back on his promise and seek a full term, we’re probably looking at a rough approximation of what the voters will face in November.

With John Avalos in the race, the ballot’s become a lot more attractive to progressives. It’s not as if the other major candidates don’t have a lot to offer, and in some cases, they have a lot to offer to the left. There are smart, experienced, qualified people running.

But let’s be honest here: David Chiu, Dennis Herrera, Phil Ting, Leland Yee, and Bevan Dufty all operate somewhere in the squishy political center, a place where tax breaks for corporations are okay, where “homeownership opportunities” tend to trump the needs of tenants, where deals with big private developers are sculpted around the edges but never rejected outright, and where cuts in services are a larger part of the budget solution than taxes on the rich.

Michela Alioto-Pier is off on the far right of the San Francisco political world, and if she looks at all credible and gets any significant traction (and that’s a big if) she’ll be downtown’s favorite candidate. But until now, there was nobody holding the solid progressive banner.

I don’t think that means Avalos’ appeal is limited to the left; he’s in a swing district, and he’s very popular there, and he can talk about small business and community development and open, honest government. He doesn’t sound like a crazy radical; he’s polite and respectful and listens to people.

But I’m glad we have a candidate who won’t try to argue that 25 percent affordable housing at Treasure Island is something to be proud of, or that the Twitter tax break will create jobs, or that social inequality can’t be addressed through local policy. I’m glad there’s someone who can push the discussion and debate out of the middle, can force some of the others who want progressive support to take strong stands, and can liven things up a bit. Because without him, all of the candidates were sounding a lot alike — and I really don’t want to be bored this fall.