taxes

Shareable, smearable

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After writing critically about problems in the business models of so-called “shareable economy” companies in last week’s issue — including our cover story on Airbnb and other companies that facilitate short-term home rentals (“Into thin air“) and a story on the rideshare company Lyft (“Driven to take risks“) — the topic continued to dominate the sfbg.com Politics blog, with fresh posts and lots of reader comments:

AIRBNB PILE-ON

The excellent bilingual newspaper El Tecolote covered some of the same ground we did in its Aug. 1 cover story, “Unregulated Rental Business Takes Over Housing,” focused on how Airbnb is contributing to gentrification and displacement in the Mission District.

Reporter Jackson Ly found a couple that turned a rent-controlled apartment on 24th St. into a $249 per month de facto hotel room, booking it for 24 nights in August and making $5,976 in just one month, on top of the $3,069 they’re making in August renting out the guest room in the apartment where they actually live for $99 per night.

“It’s cheating the people that pay taxes,” Maria, who lives in the unit below this couple’s investment apartment and is tired of the rotating stream of tourists in her building, told the newspaper.

I got ahold of El Tecolote Managing Editor Iñaki Fdez. de Retana, who said that housing issues like this one are extremely important to the Latino community that lives in the Mission, and he’s been surprised that Mayor Ed Lee has been unwilling to address the impacts of Airbnb and other tech community contributors to the problem.

“It is very important,” he told us, noting that visiting European tourists are changing the character of the neighborhood. “In particular on 24th Street, which was once seen as the heart of the Mission, it’s changing overnight and [Airbnb and other housing rental websites] is a big part of that.” (Steven T. Jones)

 

UBER UGLY CRASH

Uber’s policy on insuring its drivers will soon be taken for a test drive, as the company that runs the mobile app-based ride requesting service and a driver were served with a court summons last week from a woman severely injured after a crash near a San Francisco intersection.

Those insurance policies were said to meet brand new regulatory requirements on rideshare services introduced by the California Public Utilities Commission on July 30, which was meant to solve the longtime regulatory battle between rideshare services and local governments.

The plaintiff in the suit, Claire Farhbach, was a bystander, not a customer, and that unique twist in the injury suit has experts from the taxi industry waiting to see if Uber will step up to the plate to pay for Farhbach’s injuries, or if Uber will leave driver Djamol Gafurov on the hook for the bill.

Fahrbach was walking up Divisadero street near Hayes at quarter of midnight March 12 when Gafurov’s black town car, operating as a private taxi, collided with another car on Divisadero while turning left. One of the cars then collided with a fire hydrant, and in the words of the civil suit, “this impact caused the fire hydrant to be violently sheared from its base and propelled through the air a number of feet northbound…when the fire hydrant struck (Farhbach) with a tremendous amount of force.”

Gafurov’s private taxi was operating as a “partner” of Uber, which is how the company defines its relationship to the network of drivers on its website. No private taxis or drivers are considered to be employees of Uber, as the company has repeatedly maintained, claiming that the drivers, and their actions, are not its responsibility.

Uber spokesperson Andrew Noyes told us repeatedly that drivers are not employees of the rideshare company: “Our legal team took a look at the files you sent. This is not an ‘Uber’ driver, they’re not employed by us. They’re employed by their licensed and insured limousine company.” (Joe Fitzgerald)

 

MAKING CABS BETTER

For all the (justified) grumbling about the business models of ridesharing services like Lyft and Uber, the so-called ridesharing revolution may prove to be a catalyst for a taxi industry overhaul.

“We’re adding hundreds more taxis, and our board has approved regulations for each vehicle to provide real-time locational information,” San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency spokesperson Paul Rose told us.

“One of our goals is to move forward with making the data available to our customers to hail a cab with an app,” Rose added, referencing a plan unveiled by the transit agency several weeks ago. Faced with stiff competition from random vehicles adorned with garish pink mustaches, the taxi industry is taking a stab at evolution, or at least imitation.

To be a cab driver right now, paying off the pricey medallion they must purchase in order to operate while oblivious new transplants rake in the cash without following the same set of rules, must be infuriating.

At the same time, let’s be honest here: There’s a reason people are ditching conventional cabs and climbing into cars with random strangers who may be beckoned with the tap of a smartphone. And it has nothing to do with passengers’ sentiments about government regulation or newly minted tech millionaires.

The taxi industry lags far behind the lightning-speed reality many Bay Area residents have come to inhabit, but if it weren’t for the competition, they might not have any incentive to change.

Rideshare services might be your quintessential rogue tech companies backed by nauseating sums of venture capital, but at the end of the day, people also want taxi service that does not suck. (Rebecca Bowe)

Community-based journalists also raising Airbnb’s issues in SF

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Mainstream media outlets in San Francisco may be slow to pick up on how Airbnb and other online home rental companies are violating local laws and dodging local taxes — the subject of our cover story this week — but both international and community-based journalists are paying attention to this growing problem.

The excellent bilingual newspaper El Tecolote covered some of the same ground we did in its cover story this week, “Unregulated Rental Business Takes Over Housing,” focused on how Airbnb is contributing to gentrification and displacement in the Mission District.

Reporter Jackson Ly found a couple that turned a rent-controlled apartment on 24th St. into a $249 per month de facto hotel room, booking it for 24 nights in August and making $5,976 in just one month, on top of the $3,069 they’re making in August renting out the guest room in the apartment where they actually live for $99 per night.

“It’s cheating the people that pay taxes,” Maria, who lives in the unit below this couple’s investment apartment and is tired of the rotating stream of tourists in her building, told the newspaper.

I got ahold of El Tecolote Managing Editor Iñaki Fdez. de Retana, who told me, “it seems like we’re on the same page,” noting the Guardian has also recently written about the prison hunger strike and some other issues that his paper has covered.

He said that housing issues like this one are extremely important to the Latino community that lives in the Mission, and he’s been surprised that Mayor Ed Lee has been unwilling to address the impacts of Airbnb and other tech community contributors to the problem.

“It is very important,” he told us, noting that visiting European tourists are changing the character of the neighborhood. “In particular on 24th Street, which was once seen as the heart of the Mission, it’s changing overnight and [Airbnb and other housing rental websites] is a big part of that.

Meanwhile, we’re still waiting for a substantive response from Airbnb to the issues that we and a handful of other journalists are raising. CEO Brian Chesky, who was an amateur competitive bodybuilder before founding Airbnb in 2008, would apparently rather flex his muscles than deal directly with the community where his company is based.

Get tough with defiant disrupters

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EDITORIAL It may sometimes seem like we at the Bay Guardian don’t like the technology industry, but nothing could be further from the truth. We tweet, click, post, and share, playing with all the hot new tech toys that spring from the innovative minds of Bay Area residents. This is an important sector of the local economy, one that often empowers people who were just getting by to remain in expensive San Francisco.

Yes, we do regularly criticize tech (and some of its biggest neoliberal cheerleaders in City Hall), as we do to Airbnb, Lyft, and other so-called “shareable economy” companies in this issue. But that’s only because we strongly believe in open and transparent discussions about public policy and the needs of city residents.

And frankly, that’s not happening these days.

Instead of engaging directly and honestly with the people and our elected representatives, Airbnb has chosen to duck its obligations to the city of its birth and dodge attempts to create a public dialogue about its dangerously flawed business model. Same thing with Lyft, another company that acts as if it’s entitled to undermine civic institutions without so much as a public conversation first.

Yes, these companies have come up with cool ideas that have become popular with Bay Area residents. In a city where it was tough to find a cab on Saturday nights, Lyft made it easier to find rides and allowed people to make some extra cash off their cars. Airbnb was also a great idea that makes travel cheaper and more personal.

The beauty of these ideas is their simplicity — but that is also their main flaw, because San Francisco isn’t a simple city. It’s a complex, dynamic city with difficult landlord-tenant dynamics, and a congested city that tries to achieve the right balance of cabs on the roadways, both systems that are the products of decades-long struggles that have spawned reams of regulations.

These tech-savvy fortune hunters, who don’t understand or appreciate that history, think it’s enough to have a good idea and some rich venture capitalists willing to back it. They espouse vaguely libertarian ideas about “disruptive” technologies empowering people, but then they wait for government officials to solve the problems with their business models, raking in millions of dollars in profits in the meantime and delaying their day of public reckoning as long as possible.

For example, in a May interview on KQED’s Forum, Airbnb’s David Hantman was asked why the company was defying a city ruling that it must pay the transient occupancy tax, he said they were waiting for the city to adopt a new regulatory structure first.

That’s not an acceptable or defensible position, and it is only continuing because Mayor Ed Lee has publicly supported the company’s defiance of city law and rulings. Mr. Mayor, if these are the types of “jobs” you’re creating — part time jobs with no benefits in an underground economy that cannibalizes other industries, breaks city laws, and won’t pay local taxes — then this city is in real trouble.

We’re happy to see Board President David Chiu trying to solve Airbnb’s problems, but he needs the support of other top city officials who are willing to put pressure on the company to bargain in good faith. And yes, we’re talking to Mayor Lee, Tax Collector Jose Cisneros, and City Attorney Dennis Herrera, among others.

If you make the city appear impotent to enforce its own laws or too willing to go easy on wealthy corporations, it will only embolden more young opportunists to disrupt the city’s regulatory authority and its social fabric. You work for us, not the venture capitalists, and it’s time to show some spine.

 

Under fire again

0

rebecca@sfbg.com

At a recent hearing on San Francisco’s Health Care Security Ordinance — once-controversial legislation that is now in the business community’s crosshairs once again — a nursing student stood at the podium to address members of the Board of Supervisors Neighborhood Services & Safety Committee.

She told them about her mother, who battled illness but did not have access to healthcare for 14 years due to her immigration status, recalling a day when her mother explained why she wasn’t seeking medical attention: “If I go to the hospital, I’ll bury you in debt.”

For the uninsured and undocumented, going without medical care or going into insurmountable debt could be the only options if it weren’t for Healthy San Francisco, a medical services safety net that was created by the HSCO in 2006. The program is expected to continue to provide care for undocumented enrollees who won’t be eligible for federal assistance once the Affordable Care Act, also called Obamacare, takes effect early next year.

The HCSO’s mandate that businesses provide some healthcare coverage for their employees was fiercely opposed by the business community, which challenged it all the way to the US Supreme Court. Now, those same powerful forces are gearing up for a fresh challenge that could jeopardize HCSO’s potential to fill coverage gaps that will be created under Obamacare.

Under federal health care reform, two-thirds of the enrollees in Healthy San Francisco will become ineligible to continue receiving coverage because they will automatically gain eligibility for some form of federal assistance. Those earning up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level will be guaranteed coverage under Medi-Cal. But for low-income earners whose wages hover around $14 an hour, things are far less certain because they will be eligible to enroll in the federally created health benefit exchange, Covered California, although they won’t necessarily be able to afford it. For someone earning around $30,000 per year before taxes, the estimated monthly cost for a health insurance plan under Covered California hovers at more than $200 per month, in many cases making it too much of a stretch.

As things stand, uninsured San Francisco employees who earn too much to qualify for Medi-Cal, but not enough to afford enrollment in Covered California — despite being eligible — can still access funds set aside for them in medical reimbursement accounts under the HCSO. This option may provide enough of a financial boost for low-wage earners to take advantage of federally subsidized health insurance after all.

“For working people, the implementation of the Affordable Care Act actually makes the Health Care Security Ordinance more important,” explains Ian Lewis, research director at UNITE-HERE Local 2. “There are many consequences of the ACA … and the Health Care Security Ordinance is a buffer against them.”

As it stands, the local law “makes Covered California actually work in a high-cost city like ours,” Lewis added.

Under HCSO, San Francisco employers are required to contribute toward employees’ health care on a per-hour basis for each employee working more than eight hours per week, regardless of immigration status or city of residence, amounting to an estimated $255 per participant per month.

This mandate, known as the Employer Spending Requirement, has been the target of multiple lawsuits brought against the city by the Golden Gate Restaurant Association since the landmark health care ordinance, authored by then-Sup. Tom Ammiano, was first enacted in 2006.

That same requirement also makes the local ordinance stronger than the federal law when it comes to worker protections, because the federal mandate only requires employers to offer coverage for workers who put in 30 hours a week or more. That has prompted businesses nationwide to reschedule their workers down to 29 hours per week in a gesture of opposition to health care reform, but no such incentive exists in San Francisco because of the hourly contribution requirement.

Now that federal health care reform is poised for implementation, with enrollment set to begin in October and a transition to the new system slated for early next year, GGRA and the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce are urging the city to open up a new policy dialogue about employer requirements under the local health care law — and Mayor Ed Lee has been receptive.

“We question whether Healthy San Francisco should continue in its current form with the ACA coming in,” Small Business California President Scott Hauge told the San Francisco Business Times (“Healthy San Francisco, related program to shrink dramatically, but not price tag,” July 16). Hauge has met with Jim Lazarus, the Chamber’s senior vice president for public policy, and GGRA Director Rob Black on the issue, the article noted.

Reached by phone, Black emphasized to the Guardian that GGRA employers are merely seeking guidance on how businesses should comply with the local and federal mandates. “It’s important that we really focus on getting together, and getting together quickly,” Black said, to ensure “San Franciscans have access to the full benefits and subsidies of the Affordable Care Act.”

Longtime advocates of Healthy San Francisco and progressive policymakers are watching closely. “They’ve been trying to get out of their responsibility to provide worker’s health care since the law was passed,” Hillary Ronen, a legislative aide for Sup. David Campos, said of business interests who are airing complaints about employer requirements.

Once the federal law takes effect, San Francisco employers will have the option of either providing coverage, or contributing to a city program that establishes medical reimbursement accounts for employees administered by city government, Ronen explained. A third option, “standalone health reimbursement accounts,” under which employers manage reimbursement funds for employees, will be rendered illegal under Obamacare. That system generated controversy in recent years because employers were placing undue restrictions on the use of those funds, and in some cases even pocketing the money after neglecting to inform their workers that it was available (see “Check, please,” 4/23/13).

On July 25, Lee announced that the city’s Universal Health Care Council, a body previously tasked with guiding local health care policy, would be reconvened to “examine San Francisco’s implementation of the Federal Affordable Care Act (ACA) and engage stakeholders in identifying necessary local policies” to support the transition.

In response to signals that the business community is gearing up for a fresh challenge to the city’s health care law using the ACA as ammunition, Campos convened a hearing July 25 to discuss the importance of the HCSO in relation to the federal law.

For several hours, advocates of Healthy San Francisco — many of them members of the immigrant community who would have no other options if it weren’t for the program — delivered passionate defenses of the current program. Campos emphasized that federal health care reform stood to be a great success in combination with the local health care ordinance, which would serve to fill in any gaps in coverage.

Deputy Director of the Department of Public Health Colleen Chawla explained during the hearing that of the 60,000 San Franciscans currently enrolled either in Healthy San Francisco or SF Path, a second medical assistance program, roughly 40,500 will automatically become eligible to enroll either in Medi-Cal or Covered California under federal health care reform come January. The remaining 19,500 won’t be eligible, however, mostly due to immigration status. Healthy San Francisco is expected to continue providing a safety net for those who would otherwise fall through the cracks. But when it comes to the two-thirds who are eligible for federal assistance, but may not be able to actually afford it, things would be thrown into uncertainty if the Employer Spending Requirement were altered or eliminated. “Folks in the business community would be happy to say, the Affordable Care Act is enough, and businesses shouldn’t be complicated with an additional burden,” notes Le Ly, program director at the Chinese Progressive Association. But the HCSO “is an important pillar of the total continuum of care,” he said. “We see it as continuing to complement and strengthen health care coverage.”

Privatizing the Botanical Gardens

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news@sfbg.com

The Board of Supervisors last week voted to continue the collection of “non-resident fees” at the Botanical Gardens in Golden Gate Park for a minimum 10-year period. Then it approved a companion measure to allow construction of a new, privately run nursery that will be the home of corporate parties and members-only activities, giving a private group unusual control over a public space.

The proposed plan will replace the existing nursery with a new Center For Sustainable Growth, funded as a “gift-in place” from the San Francisco Botanical Garden Society, a nonprofit that has supported the gardens since 1955, when it was known as Strybing Arboretum.

“This vote means we are basically privatizing 55 acres of Golden Gate Park and handing it over to a nonprofit with no public accountability,” Harry Pariser, a longtime resident of the Inner Sunset, activist, and author told the Bay Guardian. “Essentially we’re allowing the government to make us show an ID to come onto public land. It’s also going to be a space where there’s going to be a lot more commercial activity. I think inevitably there is going to be fees for everyone.”

The new agreement consists of demolishing an existing 4,600 square foot greenhouse, which will be replaced by a new 9,800 square foot nursery. A real estate evaluation report on the nursery project performed by Clifford Advisory, a limited liability corporation, compares the project to allegedly positive public-private development efforts such as the Hunter’s Point Shipyard project.

The lease agreement between the Botanical Garden Society and the City of San Francisco allows the society to use the premises for “special events,” designate members-only hours for the facility, and waive the non-resident fee for those events. According to the lease, the city shall avoid interfering with the Society’s “quiet use and enjoyment of the premises,” namely by allowing them to throw private parties.

“The Botanical Gardens is an incredible asset to the city, it’s a great place for families and kids, and now they’re no longer treating it as a public asset,” Sup. John Avalos, who recently voted against the non-resident fees and the lease agreement, told the Guardian. “They’re making it more exclusive.”

 

LAND GRAB

The SFBGS has a history of campaigning for private exclusivity on public land as well as generating new revenue sources. In 2010, Avalos pushed a plan to replace the revenue brought in by non-resident fees with $250,000 pulled from the city’s real estate transfer tax.

SFBGS, backed by London Breed before she was elected the supervisor of District 5, which includes the Botanical Gardens, opposed Avalos’ effort and helped shoot down the proposed plans, continuing the fee collections.

A large part of the board’s approval is derived from the lobbying efforts of Sam Lauter, a lobbyist hired by SFBGS who has continually pushed for permanent fees and the new conservatory. Lauter also helped support and fund Breed’s supervisorial campaign last year.

While the lease and management agreement purports that the SFBGS’s management shall be subject to the city’s definition of the gardens as a public space, it offers an exception in cases of SFBGS-sponsored special events, circumventing its status as a public space. The lease also allows the Society to use other buildings on the premises, such as the County Fair Building, for special events, free of charge.

Although the SFBGS is essentially taking over operation of the gardens, the city will continue to pay for utilities and offer a “rent credit” that requires the Society to pay just $100 in rent annually. Additionally, SFBGS will be reimbursed for non-resident fee collection expenses.

“We understand the logic of providing benefits for people who donate to the facility,” Breed legislative aide Conor Johnston told us. “It’s very important to remember all San Francisco residents have free access and [organized groups of] youth from outside the city have free access. This structure allows the arboretum to stay open.”

While San Francisco residents still have free access, the agreements with the SFBGS strongly limit this access by instituting members-only hours, forcing residents to show identification at security gates, and renting out buildings for exclusive corporate parties.

Another part of the Botanical Garden’s master plan consists of providing food services in a new visitors center. Consequently, the “public” gardens will enforce a rule barring visitors from bringing in outside food. The plan also details the SFBGS’s plan to bring in new revenue streams through corporate events.

“This is about weeding people out, controlling people and deciding who has access to this place,” said Pariser. “They put up a wall that must cost thousands of dollars and they destroyed this meadow that even London Breed was appalled by. They control this place like it’s a domain and you’re not allowed to say anything.”

 

QUIET TRANSFER

The lack of public outreach and input on the SFBGS’s buyout has left residents like Pariser feeling robbed of public land that their taxes pay to support. Nancy McNally, founder of the San Francisco AIDS Grove, voiced similar concerns regarding the misplaced priorities of both SFBGS and the Recreation and Parks Department, which in recent years has been under growing criticism for monetizing public spaces (see “Parks Inc.,” 7/12/11).

“For me, I can’t even be in the same room as Recreation and Park Director Phil Ginsburg. I think he has done so much harm to the parks,” McNally told us. “He’s created a ton of positions in the marketing and PR department. What do they need four people for to run public marketing for a public space?”

Frederick Law Olmsted, the co-designer of Central Park, is said to have influenced the style of Golden Gate Park. Olmsted’s theory was to bring wilderness into the city. For McNally, this non-manicured, rustic aspect of Golden Gate Park is what makes it so appealing.

“They’re taking away the basic foundation of the park, which is wildness,” said McNally. “The new building is so big, obtrusive, and unnecessary. It’s only about income for the Botanical Society’s select group.”

McNally views the RPD and SFBGS as predatory entities who target residents attempting to use the land by charging egregious fees for weddings, memorials, and other events.

McNally recalled a friend who wanted to have a memorial for another gardening enthusiast in the Arboretum. For 10 people, the RPD wanted $1,000 and to hire a security guard for a group of elderly gardening enthusiasts.

SFRPD did not return the Guardian’s phone calls regarding the management under the SFBGS, which also did not return our call.

Jane Glasby, an ex-librarian for the SFBGS, whose job was terminated in 2010 due to widespread cuts to the garden’s education program, expressed her inside views on the changing tides of park’s atmosphere in a letter written to “friends and garden lovers” as her tenure came to an end.

“Over the last few years, the library budget has been slashed, the children’s program cut back, and the adult education program all but eliminated,” Glasby wrote at the time. ‘With money available to pay a firm to lobby for an entrance fee $10,000 every month for at least the last seven months, it looks very odd to close the library [that was at the Arboretum] with the excuse of saving just $10,000 a year. Charging admissions would put the garden in danger of becoming an exclusive but shallow and flashy entertainment (I am thinking of the Tea Garden and the Academy [of Science]), rather than the living museum that we all love and respect.”

While Glasby’s comments refer to cutbacks dating back to 2010, her experience denotes what is seemingly becoming the protocol of SFBGS. Three years later, the Society has succeeded in charging non-residents indefinitely and turning what was once a public place of solitude for residents and non-residents alike into an increasingly privatized hub for members willing to pay extra for exclusivity of an allegedly public space.

McNally, who is now retired, has taken it upon herself to document the decreasing local attendance of the arboretum, which was once a frequent lunch spot for residents and nearby UCSF students. “On a sunny day at noon it used to be to be carpeted with people having lunch. It’s not anymore,” said McNally. “I have four years of documentation of that empty lawn at high noon, showing it completely empty, with just geese shitting everywhere.”

 

Corrections: The permit fee for the gardening club was corrected. We also added the parenthetical to Johnston’s quote to clarify visitor fees.

 

 

 

New Zealand’s Cup

7

news@sfbg.com

A few weeks ago I was walking down the dock in the marina where I live, in Wellington, New Zealand, when I passed a woman and a young boy. I’d never seen them before, which is uncommon here in this municipal marina — about 100 boats — in a small suburb of the country’s capital.

The boy was walking from berth to berth pointing out certain rig and hull features and expounding on them as only a future aficionado can. “Lots of different boats, huh?” I asked as I passed.

“Different than America,” he confirmed in an accent the same as mine.

The kid is sharp, I thought, or maybe it’s just obvious, even to an eight-year-old from Chicago. The New Zealand sailing scene is vastly different than its American counterpart, which is not to say there’s no comparing — they’re not exactly navigating carved logs with gunnysack sails down here.

But the boats in my marina are, in fact, mostly homebuilt from steel, cement, aluminum, and wood. They appear a motley crew compared to the cookie-cutter production fiberglass Beneteaus, Catalinas, and Hunters, with their identical pacific blue sail covers lined up in San Francisco’s South Beach Marina.

In New Zealand, a boat is rarely a status symbol — it’s part of the middle-class way of life, the home base for holidays and weekend fishing trips and lots and lots of competitive racing. If I’ve noticed one thing since I arrived in this country (aboard a sailboat, after leaving San Francisco and my job as a Bay Guardian staff writer), it’s that every little harbor town has a yacht club and an awful lot of Kiwis own boats — and they sail the shit out of them.

Which is part of the reason why the New Zealand government is willing to invest NZ$36 million (US$27 million) to compete in the 34th America’s Cup against some of the richest men in the world in a race that has become so elite there’s barely any competition.

Small as the field is, Emirates Team New Zealand (ETNZ) is quickly shaping up to be the team to beat if you’re on a high-speed, air-catching AC72 catamaran. If they succeed, it will show that developing an America’s Cup team doesn’t have to come from having deep pockets in your Nantucket Red pants — it comes from having the sport ingrained in your culture, filtered through affordable local boat clubs, city-run facilities, volunteer programs, publicly accessible shorefronts, and an innovative marine industry.

In fact, without New Zealand’s maritime way of life, Larry Ellison wouldn’t have much of a team: of the 27 sailors and management crew aboard Oracle, a third are Kiwis. Another third are Australians. If you count Ellison, there are only three Americans aboard. Just one of them — tactician and grinder John Kostecki — grew up sailing on San Francisco Bay.

Ellison’s boat is mostly a Kiwi production, too — the fixed-wing sails and structural components for Oracle’s two AC72s were made in New Zealand, as were the boats, sails, and rigs for ETNZ and Luna Rossa. The only other syndicate competing, Sweden’s Artemis, in the wind since the death of crewmember Andrew Simpson, is the outlier, but they still have eight New Zealanders on board.

America’s Cup is looking more and more like it owes a lot to New Zealand. Is the Cup doing as much for San Francisco as it is for this little island nation, with a population just a tenth of California’s?

“If it wasn’t called Team New Zealand, we wouldn’t get a lot out of it,” says Sven Pannell, a competitive dinghy racer and employee of the economic development agency Grow Wellington. “The numbers of boat builders, carbon fabricators, sail makers, yacht designers coming out of New Zealand are the reason we’re still at the top of the global game. If we can bring the Cup home that means a lot for our country.”

It may also save America’s Cup from becoming even more out of touch with reality.

 

IT’S THE CULTURE, STUPID

It’s June 8, summer in San Francisco but winter in Wellington. The first race of the 2013 Winter Series at Evans Bay Boat Club hits hypothermic seas beneath steely overcast skies and 20-30 knots of wind — “perfect conditions,” one sailor enthuses. Tame, actually, for Wellington. A week ago, wind blew out the fifth story windows of a building downtown.

Sven Pannell has just finished racing a 12-foot skiff, a super lightweight, often homebuilt boat that probably originated in Australia and is almost exclusively raced in the Southern Hemisphere, though an 18-foot version will be showcased in San Francisco this September alongside the America’s Cup finals. Weighing about 100 pounds, with no class restrictions on sail area, they rooster-tail around Wellington harbor, bow high, barely in the water. They seem to require a similar caliber of nerve as the AC72s.

Which Pannell, who won today, evidently has. He grew up sailing as a kid, as did his crew, Craig Anderson. Neither of them can think of anyone who didn’t get into sailing as a child.

“A lot of people around the world think yachting is a well-heeled sport, but not in New Zealand,” he says. “There’s a reason that half those [America’s Cup] boats are full of Kiwis and Aussies. Go out and see the number of eight-year-olds in Optis in all kinds of weather here. A high number of people sailing at that age creates a deep pool of sailors in demand.”

“America’s Cup is about stretching the limits, but it starts here, when you’re eight years old,” he adds.

Eager to get out of the icy Antarctic wind, I enter the boat club where about 35 people are gathered at the bar, buzzing from adrenalin, barefoot and wet from spray or capsizes, gripping ginger beers and green bottles of Steinlager, the Budweiser of New Zealand. It’s a humble looking crowd — no flash gear or cashmere.

I’m introduced to Mike Rhodes, 26, wearing a blue sweatshirt and camo pants. He’d love to race an America’s Cup boat, but he also satisfies himself with a 12-foot skiff, which he stripped and rebuilt, fashioning the stainless steel fittings himself — he’s a sheet metal worker.

“New Zealand sailing is all about learning and moving forward,” he says. “The boats we’re sailing are always changing. We have set rules for weight, width, and length. After that it’s wide open. You can put up as much rig as you can handle. We went out in 50 knots last weekend. It was insane. We probably had boat speeds of 30 knots.”

The speed and innovations are what appeal to Rhodes and also connect to the America’s Cup, which has been an historic proving ground for leaps forward in boat design. “Who thought New Zealand could make the boat fly first?” he says of ETNZ’s proficiency at foiling the AC72 — going so fast the hull actually lifts off the water.

We’re soon joined by Laura Hutton, a 30-year-old from Cape Cod. She’s raced dinghies, coached and taught sailing for years. Now a speech therapist, she moved to New Zealand three months ago and immediately hooked into the local yachting scene. It’s palpably different than what she’s used to in the States. Here, she says, “It’s a lot more laid back. It’s more inclusive than exclusive. I used to go to events at New York Yacht Club in Newport and I felt so uncomfortable there. It’s the most elite, snobby place.”

“You can’t get coaching in the US unless you’re part of a yacht club or go to a school with a racing team,” she adds, and there’s often a huge cost to enter the sport. “Here, I can join the local yacht club for $35 a month,” she deadpans.

I spend more money riding the bus, I tell her, but I wouldn’t in San Francisco, where it’s cheap to catch a bus but where most people rarely board boats.

The American yacht club tradition has a certain “if you have to ask how much it costs, you can’t afford it” attitude. Ellison is one of 300 members of Golden Gate Yacht Club, official host for the Cup. Its neighbor, St. Francis Yacht Club, 2,300 strong, also has a role in the festivities. Both are exclusive, members-only clubs and neither would tell me what their members pay for the club’s privileges.

However, they’re officially nonprofit organizations and filings with the IRS show St. Francis made nearly $13 million in 2011. Golden Gate Yacht Club took home $660,000 the same year. Ironically, both clubs are on public lands, leased from San Francisco’s Recreation and Parks Department for $231,125 and $64,000 annually respectively.

Both clubs run learn-to-sail programs for kids — $350 for St. Francis and $200 for GGYC — which seem affordable, but what’s the next step? Joining the club, but apparently it’s too rude to query the price.

By contrast, Wellington’s Evans Bay Boat Club charges NZ$281 (US$210) to join and Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club, which is a sister club to St. Francis, costs NZ$160 (US $120). The Bay Area is lucky — Berkeley and Treasure Island both have affordable clubs, however one could argue that if St. Francis and GGYC are on public lands, they should be paying more in dues to the city.

If there’s a posh club in Auckland, it’s ETNZ’s home — the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron. “But it’s a Kiwi version of posh, nothing like some of the yacht clubs I have been to in places like England, where women aren’t allowed to order drinks at the bar,” says Ben Gladwell, a journalist for Boating New Zealand who will be racing an 18 foot skiff in San Francisco in a regatta concurrent with the Cup finals. “At the Squaddy, there are obviously rules, like no cell phones, and dress codes and such like, but the fees are still only a few hundred dollars per year and it is much more inclusive than other yacht clubs around the world.”

Gladwell explored the health of New Zealand’s sailing culture in a story called “State of the Racing Nation” for Boating New Zealand. He found that although there is a drop-off in interest during university years, many yacht clubs have created partnerships to keep kids in the sport, there are mobile learn-to-sail units roaming the country, and lots of accessible city-run programs for kids. Couple that with low lifetime fees to stay in the sport and you see healthy clubs like Evans Bay, where people of all ages are out racing every weekend, all year round.

“Having so many people involved in sailing is a major reason we are successful,” he says. “Children are introduced to it at such a young age…by the time they come to competing at youth international regattas, they are hugely experienced and winning becomes a habit.”

 

“AMERICA’S CUP IS NOW NEW ZEALAND’S CUP”

In 1995, when Black Magic smoked Dennis Connor’s Stars and Stripes in a five-race shut-out, commentator Peter Montgomery famously quipped “America’s Cup is now New Zealand’s cup,” a line that’s gone down in Kiwi history like the “I have a dream” speech.

For the first time, the Auld Mug would be defended in New Zealand. Back then, Auckland’s Viaduct Harbor probably looked a lot like parts of San Francisco’s waterfront does today — dilapidated piers and old industrial buildings crumbling on their pilings. It would cost of NZ$58 million (US$29 million at the time) to dredge the harbor and spruce up the waterfront for the Cup.

The city made its money back. Hosting for two years, in 2000 and 2003, brought NZ$1 billion (US$500 million, at the time) in economic benefits to the country, about 85 percent of that going to Auckland’s local businesses, mostly from visiting megayachts and the services required for the nine syndicates that competed — twice as many as are in San Francisco today.

And Auckland made a lot less than the US$900 million predicted for San Francisco, already trimmed from the US$1.4 billion initially estimated. What the city actually gains from the $22.5 million investment they’ve been forced to make remains to be seen. Meanwhile, Auckland continues to benefit from the race.

It’s been estimated that the four Cup contenders have collectively spent half a billion on their campaigns and a decent chunk of that has been in Auckland, particularly during the AC72 design, build, and testing phases. Already, taxes paid by ETNZ employees amount to NZ$22.4 million (US$16.5 million). That doesn’t include the employee payroll taxes of all the businesses doing Cup-related activity, like the boat builders, riggers, and sailmakers.

ETNZ CEO Grant Dalton has netted sponsorships from more than 100 companies and argues that the Cup efforts have kept many marine businesses afloat that would have otherwise shuttered. Kiwis have not been immune to the world financial situation: the high New Zealand dollar hurting exports and the NZ$30 billion (US$22.5 billion) price tag for the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake have stressed the country’s coffers.

Because of that, funding ETNZ has been as contentious here as hosting Ellison’s party has been to San Franciscans. The agreement was signed in 2007 by a Labour Party-led government and when National Party’s John Key won the Prime Minister’s seat in 2008, he looked into breaking the contract, a move supported by other parties. “Funding the America’s Cup is surely a ‘nice to have’, rather than essential spending, in the current economic climate,” said Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei at the time.

The government was advised they’d still be legally on the hook for the money if they broke the contract, so ETNZ proceeded, but proof of economic return was a contingency and Dalton has taken pains to keep the public good in the conversation, a sharp contrast to Ellison’s attitude toward San Francisco. Dalton has said if New Zealand wins, the world should expect a sharp scaling back of costs. “We stand for nationality rule and we stand for real budget numbers that real people can raise,” he has said.

There’s definitely a sense that this could be New Zealand’s last chance to bring the Auld Mug home. If they don’t, the America’s Cup also loses. Who else will save it from American-style exclusiveness?

Did the Hayes Valley Farm occupation help or hurt the cause of liberating urban space?

16

Did the recent activist occupation of a temporary urban farming plot help “liberate the land,” as they claimed, or might it actually make property owners less likely to allow community-based temporary uses on land awaiting development? And did the farmers of this once-fallow land inadvertently provide a new toehold to challenge a proposed housing project?

Promptly after Hayes Valley Farm ended its three-year stint to make way for long-planned housing that would be built on the lot, a group of activists (many from Occupy San Francisco) calling itself Liberate the Land took residency for nearly two weeks, renaming it Gezi Gardens in solidarity with protesters at Gezi Square in Turkey. At 2am on June 13, Gezi Gardens was raided by police and the activists ejected.

The rise and fall of Gezi Gardens has had some people within the San Francisco urban agriculture community questioning whether or not the occupation was helpful in promoting the cause for more green space in the city. For some involved in the urban agriculture community, the end of Hayes Valley Farm reflects a not-so-distant future for other green spaces in the community.

Pastor Megan Rohrer is executive director of Welcome: A Communal Response to Poverty and project coordinator for The Free Farm, a community garden on St. Paulus Lutheran Church’s land on Gough and Eddy Street. That plot, temporarily turned into green space with permission from the landlord, St. Paulus Lutheran Church, is scheduled to end its three-year stint in December to make way for housing construction, much like Hayes Valley Farm.

The Free Farm’s land will sprout a housing project with all low-income housing units, whereas the project being built on the Hayes Valley Farm site will have 40 low-income units out of 180 total condos. Regardless, the possibility of a similar situation to what happened with Hayes Valley Farm has Rhorer on edge.

“I have a nervous feeling that what happened with Hayes Valley Farm may happen with my garden. I just want everything to end smoothly and peacefully,” Rohrer said. “I respect what the Occupy folks are doing in bringing awareness, but feel that what they did was a little disingenuous. Since the start of Hayes Valley Farm, there was an understanding that condos would be built over it. It was going to happen eventually.”

Longtime San Francisco activist Diamond Dave Whitaker was one of the people that occupied Gezi Gardens. He’s not sure if the occupation will be prove helpful to the urban agriculture movement in San Francisco.

“I’m not sure. What I do know is that Gezi Gardens was one of the few wild spaces left here,” Whitaker said. “Not everything has to be done within the law. Time will tell if what happened there helped urban agriculture here.”

Katy Broker-Bullick, a site steward at the 18th and Rhode Island community garden, told us the occupation of Gezi Gardens served to spark a dialogue about green spaces in San Francisco.

“I appreciate what the Occupiers are doing at Hayes Valley Farm in so much as it draws attention to innovative, community-based green spaces in San Francisco, and serves to foster a balanced, open discussion of the function and importance of such sites for community connection and innovation in urban spaces,” Broker-Bullick said.

Assemblymember Phil Ting (D-SF) is also weighing in on the discussion of urban green spaces in the city. Although he does not have a stance on the occupation of Gezi Gardens, he has made strides in trying to make urban agriculture more accessible with San Francisco’s Urban Agriculture Incentive Zones Act, Assembly Bill 551. It calls for property owners to sign a contract that would zone their land strictly for agriculture for 10 years in exchange for decreased property taxes.

Ting doesn’t necessarily support those who occupied Gezi Gardens, but said this: “What I do believe is that we should be doing what we can to keep green spaces in San Francisco.”

Some groups in the city may respect what the Liberate the Lands attempts at occupying Gezi Gardens, but the politically active Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association wasn’t one of them.

On June 7, nearly a week before the raid of Gezi Gardens, HVNA President William Bulkley penned a letter to Mayor Ed Lee, pleading to end the occupation of that land: “The HVNA board of directors feels that the current situation on Parcels O and P places a health and safety risk to both the participants and our neighbors. We respectfully request that, as mayor, you direct your staff to take appropriate action in a swift and timely fashion.”

Yet Rohrer also said Occupy activists are a much-needed part of San Francisco’s urban agriculture community. “It’s because of the hard work from people who have been connected to Occupy that spaces, like the Free Farm, are running,”  Rohrer said. “We have a lot of Occupy folk who volunteer that put their hearts and souls into the soil.”

There are efforts to halt building on Gezi Gardens, though many of the people who had occupied the lot have “scattered to the wind,” Whitaker said.

Mona Lisa Wallace, an attorney working with Liberate the Land, is attempting to halt construction based on the grounds that an accurate environmental impact report was not done because the land was found to be exempt from a more current report. Wallace said the last report was done five years ago when Parcels O and P were classified as “disturbed land.” Since then, plants and wildlife have flourished on Hayes Valley Farm.

She said an appeal to the exemption from a current environmental impact report will be filed at the the Board of Supervisor’s office on Friday. “Over the years a habitat has been created for hummingbirds, bees, crows, and quail,” Wallace said. “The exemption from the environmental impact report does not free them from being in compliance with federal and state law.”

 

 

 

Stop meddling

10

The mega flap over the National Security Administration’s electronic surveillance rages on this week. The chief leaker, Edward Snowden is hied away in Hong Kong, President Obama has assured the American people that he’s “only do this to protect the people”, which is apparently how most Americans see it. Civil libertarians are outraged, the Republican “gotcha” media overjoyed and as there has been relative peace post 9/11 on the homefront (plus the realization that “online privacy” is mythical in and of itself), this too shall pass.

Too bad that it will. Not just because government snooping (and its corporate twin) are an ugly intrusion but really because the underlying story–also the story of 9/11 itself–will fade. The actual cause of Middle Eastern nationalism and the terrorism that comes with it isn’t that “Muslims are crazy” or “they don’t know how to be free and we must show them” but is actually the ceaseless meddling in the affairs of these nations that has characterized US and the UK’s dealings with same for 100 years.

Overthrowing popular regimes hostile to American interests like Iran, 1953 or propping up the Shah, Mubarak, Saddam (a former “ally”) or Assad has created legions of pissed off Middle Easterners (that at various points admired the US as the #1 nation in the world). High unemployment among the young plus ceaseless anti-American propaganda from their state run media’s is part of it, but were it not for a few incontrovertible facts–The US’ automatic backing of Israel in all matters as well as fealty to the Saudi royal family’s autocracy has convinced millions of people that America is no friend to them at all. 

Drone bombing ain’t helping, either.

It isn’t like they don’t know why, either. Protecting the interests of petroleum companies has been priority #1–used to be called “protecting the oil supply” (the “Carter Doctrine”), but at this point, that is a major league load of bovine poop. The US gets less than 13% of the oil it uses from the Persian Gulf and is now a net exporter of petroleum. Therefore, the protection in question isn’t for the US consumer or its security, but for oil company’s revenues and profits–all subsidized by (you guessed it) American taxpayers.

Stop fucking meddling. Stop fucking meddling in their affairs–remove the US military from the Gulf (let the oil companies create their own security minus the military that’s paid from our taxes), stop the bowing and scraping to Al Qaeda backing Saudis, stop reflexively assuming “Israel good, Arabs, bad” and acting accordingly and guess what? Out of sight, out of mind—the notion that “Muslims hate our way of life and want to wage a holy war against us” is belied by the simple fact that the world’s largest Muslim nation has so far ignored most things American. “Live and let live” is the sanest philosophy one can embrace in one’s personal life, why not in one’s political life as well? 

The adulation of the technoriche

31

It’s hardly news at this point that billionaire tech mogul Sean Parker tore up a public campground to build the sets for his $10 million fantasy wedding in Big Sur. And it’s been widely reported that Parker paid a $2.5 million fine to the Coastal Commission, which he tried to spin as a wonderful environmental gift to improve the state park system.

But I read with interest in the Chron that both Lite Guv Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Kamala Harris were reportedly at the wedding. Both are very smart people; both have the ability to observe the world around them. So I have to wonder:

Didn’t either Newsom or Harris think it was a little bit odd to see all this new development in a protected area? Did it occur to either of them that their richy-rich-rich pal, who has a history of snubbing laws he doesn’t like, might have done the same thing here?

Could the state’s top law-enforcement official and a member of the state Lands Commission really look at artificial ponds and large new structures, which involved bulldozers to create, and not say:

Huh? Aren’t there rules against this sort of thing?

Okay, it was a wedding, and nobody wants to be the one to throw the turd in the punchbowl. The politician guests were there to celebrate with a person who is capable of helping to fund future campaigns (and since both Harris and Newsom are considered possible candidates for governor when Jerry steps down, I bet they had a great time together).

But didn’t either of them feel at least a little weird about it?

I called Newsom’s office and left a message for Dierdre Hussey, his press person. She hasn’t called back. Nick Pacilio in Harris’s office told me someone would get right back to me; hasn’t happened yet. So we don’t know what the two were thinking.
But I do know this: The level of adulation of the technoriche has reached levels we haven’t seen since the Gilded Age.

Technology columnist James Temple puts it this way:

To the outside observer, Parker’s actions look like contempt for the piddling rules that we non-billionaires can’t buy our way around. And they certainly do nothing to alter the increasingly popular local view of the tech class as selfish and aloof, conspicuously relishing their venture capital rounds and IPO winnings, as a growing portion of the Bay Area population struggles to make the skyrocketing rents.

And politicians seem to adore the most selfish and aloof (and clueless) among them.

Take Mayor Ed Lee’s comments about Airbnb. The company is clearly cheating on its taxes. The city treasurer investigated the situation and ruled unequivocally that airbnb needs to collect and remit the Transit Occupancy Tax money that should be charged on its rooms.
When Michael Krasny asked the mayor on Forum about the issue, Lee defended airbnb (which is funded by his buddy Ron Conway), saying that the company is just “making arguments” about whether it owes the tax.

But that’s just false: The arguments are over. The company argued with the tax collector and lost. And it isn’t arguing anywhere anymore — not in court, not in the political sector. It’s just …. not paying. And because it’s a tech company, and Conway is nurturing it, the mayor seems just fine with that.

It appears that big corporations are big corporations. They may claim that they won’t be evil, and they may be headed by people in their 20s who dress like hipsters, and they may make really cool products — but their operating just like the robber barons of old. And the great wealth they’ve created has, to a great extent, also created great arrogance.

Before the trolls accuse me of fomenting class warfare, let me repeat: I didn’t start this war. I didn’t rig the political and tax systems so that the middle class would be wiped out as all of the net new wealth in a generation goes to the top 1 percent. I’d much prefer we all share in the bounty, as the middle class and working class did in the post-War era.

Meanwhile: Does anyone really need a $10 million wedding in a state park?

No security

3

rebeccab@sfbg.com

To qualify for his job as a security officer, Jerry Longoria had to obtain a license, undergo a background check, and take a drug test. He’s required to wear a suit to work. He’s stationed at a downtown San Francisco high rise that houses Deloitte, a multinational consulting, finance, and real-estate firm that reported $31.3 billion in revenues last year. His employer is Universal Protection Services, a nationwide security contractor with a slick online marketing pitch emphasizing that all guards are “electronically supervised around the clock,” and “kept accountable on the job through our 24-hour command center.”

If an intruder showed up at his office building brandishing a firearm, it would be Longoria’s problem; that’s the job. Nevertheless, he says he doesn’t earn enough to cover rent for an apartment in San Francisco. Instead, he stays in a single room occupancy hotel near Sixth and Mission streets, an area known for a high rate of violent crime. Walking home still wearing the suit makes him stand out on the street.

He’s lived in the 150-unit building, which has shared bathrooms and a shared basement-level kitchen, for 11 years. “It’s affordable for me, and it allows me to be closer to work,” he explains. He can’t afford a car, and says a public transit delay could prove disastrous if he relocated outside the city. “If you’re late to your post, you get fired.”

At press time, about 7,000 security officers throughout the Bay Area and Los Angeles were gearing up for a strike that could begin any day. Members of United Service Workers West, affiliated with Service Employees International Union, authorized their bargaining committee to call for the work stoppage because officers have been without a contract since the end of 2012.

The starting wage for a security officer is $14 an hour in the city, which comes to slightly more than $29,000 a year before taxes. In some places that would be sufficient to meet basic needs. In San Francisco, where the median market rate on rental units recently peaked above $3,000 a month, it doesn’t go very far. “With the cost of living here in San Francisco, $14 an hour is simply not enough to make ends meet,” Kevin O’Donnell, a USWW spokesperson, told us.

The security officers’ threats to strike coincided with a second worker action in the Bay Area last week. Despite lacking any form of union representation, Walmart associates from stores in Richmond, Fremont, and San Leandro affiliated with the nationwide organization OUR Walmart joined 100 employees from across the country in walking off the job and caravanning to Bentonville, Arkansas to raise awareness about their poverty-level wages and insufficient benefits at Walmart’s annual shareholders’ meeting. But first, they paid a visit to the Four Seasons in downtown San Francisco, which houses the 38th floor penthouse apartment of Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, a Walmart director.

Despite seeking full-time working opportunities and staying with the company for years, a handful of associates we interviewed said they can’t earn enough at Walmart to cover basic needs, so they rely on government assistance or help from extended family to make ends meet. Some said they had witnessed their coworkers get fired after participating in OUR Walmart activities.

Walmart associates in the Bay Area are in a considerably more precarious situation than the security officers, earning lower hourly wages. But in the pricey Bay Area, security officers, Walmart employees, and scores of other low-wage private sector workers all share something in common. Despite reporting to work every day and working long hours in many cases, they’re forced into impoverished conditions due to economic circumstances, while a middle-class existence remains far out of reach.

FIGHTING FOR STABILITY

ABM Security and Universal Protection Services are the largest employers in the private security contractor industry; in the Bay Area, the majority of guards are stationed at office buildings in downtown San Francisco. On May 30, Supervisors John Avalos, David Campos, David Chiu, Jane Kim and Scott Wiener all voiced support for the guards at a rally outside City Hall. “Better working conditions for security officers mean more stable, family-supporting jobs, less turnover, and more ability to handle challenges at work,” Avalos said.

Matt Roberts has been working as a security officer for years, and originally moved into his unit in a San Francisco SRO in a financial pinch. “I figured, I’ll get out of this rut eventually. And here I am, seven years later, still paying $1,000 a month for a space that’s really not much bigger than a walk-in closet,” he told us. Roberts was terminated recently, and believes it’s because he spoke up to his site director about workplace issues his fellow guards felt needed to be addressed.

In Roberts’ view, the situation he’s found himself in is reflective of the broader erosion of the middle class, which is particularly acute in an area with a soaring cost of living. He was born and raised in San Francisco’s Crocker Amazon district, with a father who worked as a firefighter and a mother who worked as a clerk typist at the Cow Palace.

“They were able to achieve the American dream,” he said. “They had a house, they paid their mortgage off in 25 years, they were able to send me and all my three siblings to good schools. I realized when I was still in my 20s that I’m probably going to be a renter the rest of my life. The American dream is totally eclipsing my generation.”

Keven Adams, a security officer of 23 years who lives in Oakland, also attended the City Hall rally on May 30. “We’re fighting for wages, health care, and stability in the workplace,” Adams said. “We’re in a city we love so very much, but the community and the middle class is shrinking.” Adams said he was once held at gunpoint for four hours during a work shift. He’d love to live in San Francisco, he said, but can’t afford it.

According to a June 3 media advisory, unions throughout the Bay Area were preparing to demonstrate support for the security officers as they geared up to strike. “The support could come in the form of workers attending rallies, non-violent civil disobedience or perhaps even non-security workers refusing to cross picket lines,” according to USWW, “and walking off their own jobs in solidarity.”

‘STAND UP, LIVE BETTER’

Among the small group of protesters who had assembled on the sidewalk far below Mayer’s San Francisco penthouse on May 29 were associates who had taken the drastic and unusual step of going on strike from Walmart — the nation’s largest private employer. Clad in bright green shirts and waving signs, they chanted, “stand up, live better,” a play on Walmart’s slogan, and also, “What do we want? Respect.”

Dominic Ware, who works part-time at a Walmart in San Leandro, led chants and sounded off on a megaphone about the need for greater respect in the workplace. Ware, who’s been involved with OUR Walmart activities on a national level, said he earns $8.65 an hour and stays with his grandmother, since his paycheck isn’t enough to cover rent. He estimated that roughly half his earnings go directly back to Wal-Mart, where he purchases groceries and other basic items. Asked what motivated him to strike, Ware mentioned his daughter, who turned eight on June 1. “What if she has to work there some day?”

He added that some elderly colleagues were experiencing problems such as being unable to get a shift changed so as to catch a bus home at the end of the night. Another one of his coworkers was let go after it became clear to management that he was participating in OUR Walmart activities, Ware said.

While only a tiny fraction of Walmart’s 1.4 million workers took action to strike, their campaign appears to resonate in high places. A report recently released by the Democratic staff of the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce seized on Walmart’s low wages, emphasizing that so many of its workers are forced to turn to government assistance that it is resulting in a collective drag on taxpayers.

“Rising income inequality and wage stagnation threaten the future of America’s middle class,” the report notes. “While corporate profits break records, the share of national income going to workers’ wages has reached record lows. Walmart plays a leading role in this story. Its business model has long relied upon strictly controlled labor costs: low wages, inconsiderable benefits and aggressive avoidance of collective bargaining with its employees. As the largest private-sector employer in the U.S., Wal-Mart’s business model exerts considerable downward pressure on wages throughout the retail sector and the broader economy.”

I agree with a three-star General

15

I don’t find myself in agreement with military leaders that often, but Lt. General Karl Eikenberry and historian David M. Kennedy have a fascinating piece in the New York Times that I have to say makes a lot of sense.

I was in college when Jimmy Carter brought back draft registration, and we all went batshit: We were just a half-step behind the Vietnam Generation, and I had friends and relatives who faced geting drafted (and the very high likelihood of being sent to die in the jungles in an utterly pointless war) and the notion of “the draft” was repugnant. We protested; we formed collectives; we met late into the night and organized. Nobody outside of the college campuses paid much attention.

That’s because it was pretty clear to political leaders that, registration or no, there wasn’t going to be a return to the draft anytime soon. Congress is happy with the all-volunteer Army: It guarantees that most recruits will be poor people, that very few sons and daughters of the wealthy and powerful (or the members of Congress) will ever have to go to war, and that the upper-middle classes will feel no pain whatsoever when other people’s children become cannon fodder.

If every young American risked getting drafted to go to Iraq, that war might never have happened — and certainly wouldn’t have lasted as long. The general notes:

The Congressional Research Service has documented 144 military deployments in the 40 years since adoption of the all-voluntary force in 1973, compared with 19 in the 27-year period of the Selective Service draft following World War II — an increase in reliance on military force traceable in no small part to the distance that has come to separate the civil and military sectors. The modern force presents presidents with a moral hazard, making it easier for them to resort to arms with little concern for the economic consequences or political accountability. Meanwhile, Americans are happy to thank the volunteer soldiers who make it possible for them not to serve, and deem it is somehow unpatriotic to call their armed forces to task when things go awry.

The officer corps is made up, to a significant extent, of sons and daughters of military officers, making war a “family business.” The rest of the nation is insulated — both from the experience of military service and the impacts of deployments.

I’m not (exactly) in favor of mandatory military service for all (although it would have a huge impact on Washington’s desire to use force every time there’s a foreign policy issue), but I like what Eikenberry says, not only about the draft but about the cost of war:

Congress should also insist that wars be paid for in real time. Levying special taxes, rather than borrowing, to finance “special appropriations” would compel the body politic to bear the fiscal burden — and encourage citizens to consider war-making a political choice they were involved in, not a fait accompli they must accept.

A military that operates outside of the civilian world isn’t good for the country. A civilian population that sees war as an abstract problem happening somewhere else in the world involving someone else’s family isn’t good, either.

So yeah, here I am agreeing with a three-star. Enjoy it; that doesn’t happen often.

 

 

Planning for displacement

70

tredmond@sfbg.com

The intersection of Cesar Chavez and Evans Avenue is a good enough place to start. Face south.

Behind you is Potrero Hill, once a working-class neighborhood (and still home to a public housing project) where homes now sell for way more than a million dollars and rents are out of control. In front, down the hill, is one of the last remaining industrial areas in San Francisco.

Go straight along Evans and you find printing plants, an auto-wrecking yard, and light manufacturing, including a shop that makes flagpoles. Take a right instead on Toland, past the Bonanza restaurant, and you wander through auto-glass repair, lumber yards, plumbing suppliers, warehouses, the city’s produce market — places that the city Planning Department refers to at Production, Distribution, and Repair facilities. Places that still offer blue-collar employment. There aren’t many left anywhere in San Francisco, and it’s amazing that this district has survived.

Cruise around for a while and you’ll see a neighborhood with high home-ownership rates — and high levels of foreclosures. Bayview Hunters Point is home to much of the city’s dwindling African American population, a growing number of Asians, and much higher unemployment rates than the rest of the city.

Now pull up the website of the Association of Bay Area Governments, a well-funded regional planning agency that is working on a state-mandated blueprint for future growth. There’s a map on the site that identifies “priority development area” — in planning lingo, PDAs — places that ABAG, and many believers in so-called smart growth, see as the center of a much-more dense San Francisco, filled with nearly 100,000 more homes and 190,000 new jobs.

Guess what? You’re right in the middle of it.

The southeastern part of the city — along with many of the eastern neighborhoods — is ground zero for massive, radical changes. And it’s not just Bayview Hunters Point; in fact, there’s a great swath of the city, from Chinatown/North Beach to Candlestick Park, where regional planners say there’s space for new apartments and condos, new offices, new communities.

It’s a bold vision, laid out in an airy document called the Plan Bay Area — and it’s about to clash with the facts on the ground. Namely, that there are already people living and working in the path of the new development.

And there’s a high risk that many of them will be displaced; collateral damage in the latest transformation of San Francisco.

CLIMATE CHANGE AND “SMART GROWTH”

The threat of global climate change hasn’t convinced the governor or the state Legislature to raise gas taxes, impose an oil-severance tax, or redirect money from highways to transit. But it’s driven Sacramento to mandate that regional planners find ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in California cities.

The bill that lays this out, SB375, mandates that ABAG, and its equivalents in the Los Angeles Basin, the Central Coast, the Central Valley and other areas, set up “Sustainable Communities Strategies” — land-use plans for now through 2040 intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 15 percent.

The main path to that goal: Make sure that most of the 1.1 million people projected to live in the Bay Area by 2040 be housed in already developed areas, near transit and jobs, to avoid the suburban sprawl that leads to long commutes and vast amounts of car exhaust.

The notion of smart growth — also referred to as urban infill — has been around for years, embraced by a certain type of environmentalist, particularly those concerned with protecting open space. But now, it has the force of law.

And while ABAG is not a secret government with black helicopters that can force cities to do its will — land-use planning is still under local jurisdiction in this state — the agency is partnering with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, which controls hundreds of millions of dollars in state and federal transportation money. And together, they can offer strong incentives for cities to get in line.

Over in Contra Costa and Marin counties, at hearings on the plan, Tea Party types (yes, they appear to exist in Marin) railed against the notion of elite bureaucrats forcing the wealthy enclaves of single-family homes to accept more density (and, gasp, possibly some affordable housing). In San Francisco, it’s the progressives, the transit activists, and the affordable housing people who are starting to get worried. Because there’s been almost zero media attention to the plan, and what it prescribes for San Francisco is alarming — and strangely nonsensical.

Under the ABAG plan, San Francisco would approve 92,400 more housing units for 280,000 more people. The city would host 190,000 more jobs, many of them in what’s called the “knowledge economy,” which mostly means high tech. Second and third on the list: Health and education, and tourism.

The city currently allows around eight cars for every 10 housing units; as few as five in a few neighborhoods, at least 10 in many others. And there’s nothing in any city or regional plan right now that seeks to change that level of car dependency. In fact, the regional planners think that single-occupancy car travel will be the mode of choice for 48 percent of all trips by 2040 — almost the same as it is today.

And since most of the new housing will be aimed at wealthier people, who are more likely to own cars and avoid catching buses, San Francisco could be looking for ways to fit 73,000 more cars onto streets that are already, in many cases, maxed out. There will be, quite literally, no place to park. And congestion in the region, the planners agree, will get a whole lot worse.

That seems to undermine the main intent of the plan: Transit-oriented development only works if you discourage cars. In a sense, the car-use projections are an admission of failure, undermining the intent of the entire project.

The vast majority of the housing that will be built will be too expensive for much of the existing (and even future) workforce and will do little to relieve the pressure on lower income people. But there is nothing whatsoever in the plan to ensure that there’s money available to build housing that meets the needs of most San Franciscans.

Instead, the planners acknowledge that 36 percent of existing low-income people will be at risk for displacement. That would be a profound change in the demographics of San Francisco.

Of course, adding all those people and jobs will put immense pressure on city services, from Muni to police, fire, and schools — not to mention the sewer system, which already floods and dumps untreated waste into the Bay when there’s heavy rain. Everyone involved acknowledged those costs, which could run into the billions of dollars. There is nothing anywhere in any of the planning documents addressing the question of who will pay for it.

THE NUMBERS GAME

Projecting the future of a region isn’t easy. Job and population growth isn’t a straight line, at best — and when you’re looking at a 25-year window in a boom-and-bust area with everything from earthquakes to sea-level rise factoring in, it’s easy to say that anyone who claims to know what’s going to happen in 2040 is guessing.

But as economist Stephen Levy, who did the regional projections for ABAG, pointed out to us, “You have to be able to plan.” And you can’t plan if you don’t at least think about what you’re planning for.

Levy runs the Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy, and he’s been watching trends in this state for years. He agrees that some of his science is, by nature, dismal: “Nobody projects deep recessions,” much less natural disasters. But overall, he told me, it’s possible to get a grip on what planners need to prepare for as they write the next chapter of the Bay Area’s future.

And what they have to plan for is a lot more people.

Levy said he started with the federal government’s projections for population growth in the United States, which include births and deaths, immigration, and out-migration, using historic trends to allocate some of that growth to the Bay Area. There’s what appears at first to be circular logic involved: The feds (and most economists) project that job growth nationally will be driven by population — that is, the more people live in the US, the more jobs there will be.

Population growth in a specific region, on the other hand, is driven by jobs — that is, the more jobs you have in the Bay Area, the more people will move here.

“Jobs in the US depend on how many people are in the labor force,” he said. “Jobs in the Bay Area depend on our share of US jobs and population depends on relative job growth.”

Make sense? No matter — over the years it’s generally worked. And once you project the number of people and jobs expected in the Bay Area, you can start looking at how much housing it’s going to take to keep them all under a roof.

Levy projects that the Bay Area’s share of jobs will be higher than most of the rest of the country. “This is the home of the knowledge industry,” he told me. So he’s concluded that population in the Bay Area will grow from 7.1 million to 9.2 million — an additional 2.14 million people. They’ll be chasing some 1.1 million new jobs, and will need 660,000 new housing units.

Levy stopped there, and left it to the planners at ABAG to allocate that growth to individual cities — and that’s where smart growth comes in.

For decades in the Bay Area, particularly in San Francisco, activists have waged wars against developers, trying to slow down the growth of office buildings, and later, luxury housing units. At the same time, environmentalists argued that spreading the growth around creates serious problems, including sprawl and the destruction of farmland and open space.

Smart growth is supposed to be an alternative: the idea is to direct new growth to already-established urban areas, not by bulldozing over communities (as redevelopment agencies once did) but by the use of “infill” — directing development to areas where there’s usable space, or by building up and not out.

ABAG “focused housing and jobs growth around transit areas, particularly within locally identified Priority Development Areas,” the draft environmental impact report on the plan notes.

The draft EIR is more than 1,300 pages long, and it looks at the ABAG plan and several alternatives. One alternative, proposed by business groups, would lead to more development and higher population gains. Another, proposed by community activist groups including Public Advocates, Urban Habitat, and TransForm, is aimed at reducing displacement and creating affordable housing; that one, it turns out, is the “environmentally preferred alternative.” (See sidebar).

But no matter which alternative you look at, two things leap out: There is nothing effective that ABAG has put forward to prevent large-scale displacement of vulnerable communities. And despite directing growth to transit corridors, the DEIR still envisions a disaster of traffic congestion, parking problems, and car-driven environmental wreckage.

THE DISPLACEMENT PROBLEM

ABAG has gone to some lengths to identify what it calls “communities of concern.” Those are areas, like Bayview Hunters Point, Chinatown, and the Mission, where existing low-income residents and small businesses face potential displacement. In San Francisco, those communities are, to a great extent, the same geographic areas that have been identified as PDAs.

And, the DEIR, notes, some degree of displacement is a significant impact that cannot be mitigated. In other words, the gentrification of San Francisco is just part of the plan.

In fact, the study notes, 36 percent of the communities of concern in high-growth areas will face displacement pressure because of the cost of housing. And that’s region wide; the number in San Francisco will almost certainly be much, much higher.

Miriam Chion, ABAG’s planning and research director, told me that displacement “is the core issue in this whole process.” The agency, she said, is working with other stakeholders to try to address the concern that new development will drive out longtime residents. But she also agreed that there are limited tools available to local government.

The DEIR notes that ABAG and the MTC will seek to “bolster the plan’s investment in the Transit Oriented Affordable Housing Fund and will seek to do a study of displacement. It also states: “In addition, this displacement risk could be mitigated in cities such as San Francisco with rent control and other tenant protections in place.”

There isn’t a tenant activist in this town who can read that sentence with a straight face.

The problem, as affordable housing advocate Peter Cohen puts it, is that “the state has mandated all this growth, but has taken away the tools we could use to mitigate it.”

That’s exactly what’s happened in the past few decades. The state Legislature has outlawed the only effective anti-displacement laws local governments can enact — rent controls on vacant apartments, commercial rent control, and eviction protections that prevent landlords from taking rental units off the market to sell as condos. Oh, and the governor has also shut down redevelopment agencies, which were the only reliable source of affordable housing money in many cities.

Chion told me that the ABAG planners were discussing a list of anti-displacement options, and that changes in state legislation could be on that list. Given the power of the real-estate lobby in the state Capitol, ABAG will have to do more than suggest; there’s no way this plan can work without changing state law.

Otherwise, eastern San Francisco is going to be devastated — particularly since the vast majority of all housing that gets built in the city, and that’s likely to get built in the city, is too expensive for almost anyone in the communities of concern.

“This plan doesn’t require affordable housing,” Cindy Wu, vice-chair of the San Francisco Planning Commission, told me. “It’s left to the private market, which doesn’t build affordable housing or middle-class housing.”

In fact, while there’s plenty of discussion in the plan about where money can come from for transit projects, there’s virtually no discussion of the billions and billions that will be needed to produce the level of affordable housing that everyone agrees will be needed.

Does anyone seriously think that developers can cram 90,000 new units — at least 85 percent of them, under current rules, high-cost apartments and condos that are well beyond the range of most current San Franciscans — into eastern neighborhoods without a real-estate boom that will displace thousands of existing residents?

Let’s remember: Building more housing, even a lot more housing, won’t necessarily bring down prices. The report makes clear that the job growth, and population boom that accompanies it, will fuel plenty of demand for all those new units.

Steve Woo, senior planner with the Chinatown Community Development Center, sees the problem. In a letter to ABAG, he notes: “Plan Bay Area and its DEIR has analyzed the displacement of low-income people and explicitly acknowledges that it will occur. This is unacceptable for San Francisco and for Chinatown, where the pressures of displacement have been a constant over the past 20 years.”

Adds the Council of Community Housing Organizations: “It would be irresponsible for the regional agencies to advance a plan that purports to ‘improve’ the region’s communities as population grows while the plan simultaneously presents great risk and uncertainty for many vulnerable communities.”

Jobs are at stake, too — not tech jobs or office jobs, which ABAG projects will expand, but the kind of industrial jobs that currently exist in the priority development areas.

Calvin Welch, who has been watching urban planning and displacement issues in San Francisco for more than 40 years, puts it bluntly: “It is axiomatic that market-rate housing drives out blue-collar jobs,” he said.

Of course, there’s another potential problem: Nobody really knows where jobs will come from in the next 25 years, whether tech will continue to be the driver or whether the city’s headed for a second dot-com bust. San Francisco doesn’t have a good record of building for projected jobs: In the mid-1980s, for example, the entire South of Market area (then home to printing, light manufacturing, and other blue-collar jobs) was rezoned for open-floor office space because city officials projected a huge need for “back-office” functions like customer service.

“Where are all those jobs today?” Welch asked. “They’re in India.”

TOO MANY CARS

For a plan that’s designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by moving residential development closer to work areas, Plan Bay Area is awfully pessimistic about transportation.

According to the projections, there will be more cars on the roads in 2040, with more — and much worse — traffic. The DEIR predicts that a full 48 percent of all trips in 2040 will be made by single-occupant vehicles — just slightly down from current rates. The percentage of trips on transit will only be a little bit higher — and there’s no significant increase in projected bicycle trips.

That alone is pretty crazy, since the number of people commuting to work by bike in San Francisco has risen dramatically in the past 10 years, and the city’s official goal is that 20 percent of all vehicle trips will be by bike in the next decade.

Part of the problem is structural. Not everyone in San Francisco 2040 is going to be a high-paid tech worker. In fact, the most stable areas of employment are health services and government — and hospital workers and Muni drivers can’t possibly afford the housing that’s being built. So those people will — the DEIR acknowledges — be displaced from San Francisco and forced to live elsewhere in the region (if that’s even possible). Which means, of course, they’ll be commuting further to work. Meanwhile, if current trends continue, many of the people moving into the city will work in Silicon Valley.

Chion and Levy both told me that the transit mode projections were based on historical trends for car use, and that it’s really hard to get people to give up their cars. Even higher gas prices and abominable traffic delays won’t drive people off the roads, they said.

If that’s the case — if auto culture, which is a top source of global climate change, doesn’t shift at all — it would seem that all this planning is pointless: the seas will rise dramatically, and San Franciscans ought to be buying boats.

“The projections don’t take into account social change,” Jason Henderson, a geography professor at San Francisco State University and a local transportation expert, told me. “And social change does happen.”

Brad Paul, a longtime housing activist who now works for ABAG, said these projections are just a start, and that the plan will be updated every four years. “I think we’re finding that the number of people who want to drive cars will go down,” he said.

Henderson argues that the land-use policy is flawed. He suggests that it would make more sense to increase density in the Bay Area suburbs along the BART lines. “Elegant development in those areas would work better,” he said. You don’t need expensive high-rises: “Four and five stories is the sweet spot,” he explained.

Most of the transportation projects in the plan are already in the pipeline; there’s no suggestion of any major new public transit programs. There is, however, a suggestion that San Francisco adopt a congestion management fee for downtown driving — something that city officials say is the only way to avoid utter gridlock in the future.

SIDELINING CEQA

ABAG and the MTC have a fair amount of leverage to implement their plans. MTC controls hundreds of millions of dollars in transit money; ABAG will be handing out millions in grants to communities that adopt its plan. And under state law, cities that allow development in PDAs near transit corridors can gain an exemption from the California Environmental Quality Act.

CEQA is a powerful tool to slow or halt development, and developers (and some public officials) drool at the prospect of getting a fast-track pass to avoid some of the more cumbersome parts of the environmental review process.

Under SB 375 and Plan Bay Area, CEQA exemptions are available to projects that meet the Sustainable Community Strategy standards and are close to transit corridors. And when you look at the map of those areas, it’s pretty striking: All of San Francisco, pretty much every square inch, qualifies.

That means that almost any project almost anywhere in town can make a case that it doesn’t need to accept full CEQA review.

The most profound missing element in this entire discussion is the cost of all this growth.

You can’t cram 210,000 more residents into San Francisco without new schools, parks, and child-care centers. You can’t protect those residents without more police officers and firefighters. You can’t take care of their water and sewer needs without substantial infrastructure upgrades. And even if there’s state and federal money available for new buses and trains, you can’t operate those systems without paying drivers, mechanics, and support workers.

There’s no question that the new development will bring in more tax money. But the type of infrastructure improvements that will be needed to add 25 percent more residents to the city are really expensive — and every study that’s ever been done in San Francisco shows that the tax benefits of new development don’t cover the costs of public services it requires.

When World War II and the post-war boom in the Bay Area brought huge growth to the region, property taxes and federal and state money were adequate to build things like BART, the freeways, and hundreds of new schools, and to staff the public services that the emerging communities needed. But that all changed in 1978, with the passage of Prop. 13, and two years later, with the election of Ronald Reagan as president.

Now, federal money for cities is down to a trickle. Local government has an almost impossible time raising taxes. And instead of hiking fees for new residential and commercial projects, many communities (including San Francisco) are offering tax breaks to encourage job growth.

Put all that in the mix and you have a recipe for overcrowded buses, inadequate schools, overstressed open space (imagine 10,000 new Mission residents heading for Dolores Park on a nice day), and a very unattractive urban experience.

That flies directly in the face of what Plan Bay Area is supposed to be about. If the goal is to cut down on commutes by bringing new residents into developed urban areas, those cities have to be decent places to live. What would it cost to accommodate this level of new development? Five billion dollars? Ten billion? Nobody knows — because nobody has run those numbers. But they’re going to be big.

Because just as tax dollars have been vanishing, the costs of infrastructure keep going up. It costs a billion dollars a mile to build BART track. It’s costing more than a billion to build a short subway to Chinatown. Just upgrading the sewer system to handle current demands is a $4 billion project.

And if the developers and property owners who stand to make vast sums of money off all of this growth aren’t going to pay, who’s left?

The ABAG planners point out, correctly, that there’s a price for doing nothing. If there’s no regional plan, no proposal for smart growth, the population will still increase, and displacement will still happen — but the greenhouse gas emissions will be even worse, the development more haphazard.

But if the region is going to spend all this money and all this time on a plan to make the Bay Area more sustainable, more livable, and more affordable in 25 years, we might as well push all the limits and get it right.

Instead of looking at displacement as inevitable, and traffic as a price of growth, the planners could tell the state Legislature and the governor that it’s not possible to comply with SB375 — not until somebody identifies the big sums of money, multiples of billions of dollars, needed to build affordable housing; not until there are transit options, taxes, and restrictions on driving.

Because continued car use and massive displacement — the package that’s now facing us — just isn’t an acceptable option.

Sarah Palin = REO Speedwagon

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One of the more remarkable components of the so-called “Right Wing Entertainment Complex” (Fox/AM Radio/a gazillion reactionary websites) is the agonizing and complete predictability of its content. Barack Obama is the most evil, traitorious, illegal usurper, Muslim, Kenyan Socialist dictator alive and the besieged heroes of American patriotism are outnumbered and will be outgunned when Obama seizes their weapons, Obamacare will kill every member of your family assuming they haven’t committed suicide after it bankrupted them, Benghazi was worse than 9/11, Iraq and the 1962 Mets combined and the IRS only hates the brave and fierce Republican Party. Who are the only ones that can keep you safe against the fifth column of baby-killing Hollywood liberals that will brainwash your son into marrying a barnyard animal.

(Also remarkable is however much you try to lampoon their cray-cray, they’re inevitably more out there than even a parodist can dream of).

Flip on any of these mediums and this is what you get and if I know this in advance, so do their fans and they like it that way. Like a soothing wash of a New Age mixtape in the foyer of a yoga studio.Except that the whoosh of the mixtape is familiar in form and not content.

Nope, the real parallel between the RW Entertainment Complex and its musical equivalent would be the aging classic rock dinosaurs of the 70’s and 80’s and the state fair/shitty casino/low rent rally circuit. Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, the battery of Sunday morning news show dildolatry and especially the Mega MILF of Moosery Sarah Palin are completely and totally identical to the slog it out warriors of faceless corporate FM rock–Foreigner, Journey, Styx, Nightranger and REO Speedwagon.

Think about it–what do Kevin Cronin (REO), Mick Jones (Foreigner, not the Clash’s Mick Jones) and whomever is left in the other bands do for a living? They mount the boards and play their hits–period. And vamoose off to the next hellhole whose main fiscal purpose at this point is alimony, child support and back taxes. 12 tunes, maybe, paycheck and screw. They try not to think about their better days, one imagines, and just do their jobs–which consist now of rote recitation. In that, they are exactly like Palin or Glenn Beck–who hit all the talking points, massage the prejudices of their chosen audience and remind them that only they understand their plight (and then batter them with ads for merchandise and books). Like peas in a pod.  

Except that at one time, these bands were cranking out hit songs and even if you don’t like their hits, writing a hit is hard to do. Regurgitating “the best of Joe McCarthy” only replacing “Communists” with “Muslims” or “libs” is all these verbal midgets need do to cash in. “Hot Blooded” or “Don’t Let Him Go” or “Babe” may sound trite and brittle and overwrought to some, but they had to be concocted, recorded with care and sung in tune. That is a hell of a lot more than these repulsive mountebanks on the right are capable of. 

(And there is, of course, the gent that straddles both worlds with ham-handed, blockheaded glory, the Nuge himself–except he’s third on the bill beneath REO and Styx this summer and is but a mere guest on FOX at best. Sorry, Ted).

Lastly, the rock bands who are on rickety stages this summer outside Lincoln NE or Bakersfield or Dothan Alabama next to livestock and ferris wheels are fucking honest men and women. They travel endless hours for vastly less pay than they used to get. They have seen their expected annuities disappear via digital downloading and YouTube. They look into the smaller crowds and see their reflections in the once fist pumping but now worn looking fans. And they still have enough pride to deliver the goods, because that’s what they do–not chauffered from their expensive mansions to TV and radio studios to spew out the party line that has been focus group and poll tested to perfection. And then home to mansion. I may not like the dino bands but I respect ’em–I have no respect for these reactionary carny barkers at all.

 

Airbnb is still snubbing SF, even after a NY judge rules it illegal there

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Now that a judge in New York has ruled that Airbnb is illegal there, a model that violates city tenant laws and state law, that should put pressure on the San Francisco-based company to finally stop snubbing cities and find a way to exist within local regulatory frameworks and finally start paying its taxes.   

It was good to hear KQED’s Forum discuss Airbnb this morning – it was getting lonely as the only local reporter highlighting the company’s open defiance of San Francisco’s ruling that it should be paying the city’s Transient Occupancy Tax, just like hotels – and to finally question an Airbnb executive on an issue the company has been refusing to address publicly (yes, they still aren’t returning my calls).

But the answer that David Hantman, Airbnb’s global head of public policy, gave this morning was pretty astounding in its hypocritical arrogance. He acknowledged the tax ruling by San Francisco and the company’s lack of compliance, and said the company was waiting for clarification on the various issues related to the questions of the legality of some of the short-term rentals it facilitates before paying its taxes.

In other words, this company is making tens of millions of dollars annually in San Francisco alone on a business model that it developed – one that often runs afoul of local land use and tenant laws, and in violation of people’s leases – and it’s up to city officials to find a solution to this company’s problems before it will pay taxes?!?

To his credit, Board of Supervisors President David Chiu has been trying to do just that for months, slogging through a number of complex and difficult issues that arise from this business model, and he has been clear throughout that Airbnb should be paying its taxes to the city, which it isn’t.

“It’s reasonable to ask people who benefit from the economic transactions we’re talking about to pay their fair share,” Chiu reiterated on Forum, citing the cost to the city of serving the 16 million tourists who visit the city each year.

Coincidentally, there’s a German television crew from ARD (Germany’s equivilent of the BBC) in San Francisco this week doing a story on Airbnb and the shareable economy, interviewing me about my coverage of the company, as well as others, including Airbnb co-founder Nathan Blecharczyk.

The ARD reporter told me this afternoon that Blecharczyk was animated and expansive when discussing how wonderful his company is and how it’s changing the world, but he became terse and unresponsive when she raised the issue of local taxes and regulations.

As I said on camera today, Airbnb and other shareable economy companies are cool, I’ve used them myself, and they’re certainly here to stay. But I just don’t understand their unwillingness to be good corporate citizens and to pay the taxes they owe to support the city services that their customers use.

Chiu has clearly said that Airbnb should pay the TOT — which my reporting has shown would bring $1.8 million annually into city coffers — and that paying its taxes will be a part of the regulatory package he’s working on. But sources have also told me that negotiations have been hard slog, largely because of Airbnb’s unwillingness to play by the rules and because of the unqualified support the company has from Mayor Ed Lee, whose main political fundraiser, Ron Conway, is also a major investor in Airbnb.

Hopefully the New York ruling and growing media scrutiny will prompt the young executives at Airbnb to finally become good faith partners in a city that has been so good to them — a city whose leaders seem anxious to return the favor and legalize Airbnb’s operations in San Francisco.

 

Stage listings

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Stage listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com.

THEATER

OPENING

The Beauty Queen of Leenane Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; www.marintheatre.org. $36-52. Previews Thu/23-Sat/25, 8pm; Sun/26, 7pm. Opens Tue/28, 8pm. Runs Tue, Thu-Sat, 8pm (also June 1 and 15, 2pm; June 6, 1pm); Wed, 7:30pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through June 16. Marin Theatre Company performs Martin McDonagh’s award-winning black comedy about a dysfunctional mother-daughter relationship.

By & By Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-30. Previews Wed/22-Thu/23 and May 29-30, 7pm; Fri/24-Sat/25, 8pm; Sun/26, 5pm. Opens May 31, 8pm. Runs Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through June 23. Shotgun Players presents a new sci-fi thriller by Lauren Gunderson.

Hanging Georgia, a play with music about Georgia O’Keefe Pear Avenue Theatre, 1220 Pear, Mtn View; www.thepear.org. $10-30. Previews Thu/23, 8pm. Opens Fri/24, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm (no show Sat/25; additional shows June 1 and 8, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through June 9. Pear Avenue Theatre marks its 75th show with Sharmon J. Hilfinger and Joan McMillen’s world premiere, a co-production with BootStrap Theater Foundation.

ONGOING

Arcadia ACT’s Geary Theater, 415 Geary, SF; www.act-sf.org. $20-95. Opens Wed/22, 8pm. Runs Tue-Sat, 8pm (also Wed and Sat, 2pm; May 28 show at 7pm); Sun, 2pm (additional show Sun/26, 8pm). Through June 9. American Conservatory Theater performs Tom Stoppard’s literary romance.

Birds of a Feather New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through June 29. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs the San Francisco premiere of Marc Acito’s tale inspired by two gay penguins at the Central Park Zoo.

Black Watch Drill Court, Armory Community Center, 333 14th St, SF; www.act-sf.org. $100. Tue-Sat, 8pm (also Wed and Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through June 16. American Conservatory Theater presents the National Theatre of Scotland’s internationally acclaimed performance about Scottish soldiers serving in Iraq.

Boomeraging: From LSD to OMG Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Tue/28, 8pm. Comedian Will Durst performs his brand-new solo show.

Burqavaganza Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th St, SF; www.brava.org. $20. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through June 2. Brava! For Women in the Arts and RasaNova Theatre present Shahid Nadeem’s Bollywood-style “love story in the time of jihad.”

Dirty Dancing: Live! Dark Room, 2263 Mission, SF; dirtydancinglive-fbe.eventbrite.com. $20. Fri/24-Sat/25, 8pm. Watermelons will be carried, lifts will be attempted, eyes will be hungry, and nobody better put Baby in a corner.

Foodies! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.foodiesthemusical.com. $30-34. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. AWAT Productions presents Morris Bobrow’s musical comedy revue all about food.

Krispy Kritters in the Scarlett Night Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor, SF; www.cuttingball.com. $10-50. Opens Thu/23, 7:30pm. Runs Thu, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm; no shows June 8); Sun, 5pm. Through June 16. Cutting Ball Theater performs Andrew Saito’s Howl-inspired portrait of San Francisco.

The Merry Wives of Windsor Buriel Clay Theater, African American Art and Culture Complex, 762 Fulton, SF; www.african-americanshakes.org. $10-35. Sat/25, 8pm; Sun/26, 3pm. They might be two of the town’s most respectable matrons, but Mistresses Page (Safiya Fredericks) and Ford (Leontyne Mbele-Mbong), the titular Merry Wives of Windsor, at the African-American Shakespeare Company, are nobody’s fools. When the bawdy, ne’er-do-well Falstaff (a cross-dressing Beli Sullivan) tries to woo the two at the same time (as much for money as lust), they easily turn the tables on his plotting, and further dampen his ardor by having him tossed in a ditch. Their husbands, in particular the suspicious yet constantly flummoxed Master Ford (Armond Edward Dorsey), fare not much better against the wonder-twin powers of their BFF wives, and for anyone keeping score, the entire female population of Windsor generally makes out better than their slow-on-the-uptake menfolk, and they do it in style thanks to Linda Tucker’s astute, 50s-era costume design. Under Becky Kemper’s direction, the attitude skews sassy, and each character — from the befuddled town elite to the simplest servant — is a broadly-painted stroke of buffoonery, one part Desperate Housewives melodrama and one part Marx Brother’s farce. Kemper calls her rowdy take on this battle-of-the-sexes comedy “a guilty pleasure,” reminding us that however hallowed the name of Shakespeare might remain in posher circles, a good portion of his canon was written not for the austere glory of posterity, but for the base enjoyment of the general populace. (Gluckstern)

“PlayGround Festival of New Works” Various venues, SF and Berk; www.playground-sf.org. $15-40. Through Sun/26. The long-running short-play contest and development lab marks its 17th season with an evening showcasing the best of the previous year. The six plays come from six (familiar and new) playwrights out of a pool of 36 new short plays developed by PlayGround since October (and those were drawn from over 190 new original scripts created). The best of the best receives a rotating cast of strong Bay Area actors under six accomplished directors (including PlayGround founder Jim Kleinmann) but is a mixed affair, nevertheless. Katie May’s The Spherical Loneliness of Beverly Onion is a sometimes funny but generally tepid short story about a lonely mortician’s assistant (Carla Pantoja) who confronts her handlers, the natural forces of Fate (Jomar Tagatac) and Luck (Anne Darragh). Simple and Elegant, by Evelyn Jean Pine, is an ocean-side fairytale whose themes don’t sound too deeply, about the titular pair of sisters (Rebecca Pingree and Pantoja) who have a near-fatal falling out over a gold coin salvaged from the belly of a fish (Dao) who may be a handsome prince for one of them or just a nice hideaway bed. In Ruben Grijalva’s Value over Replacement, a major league player (Tagatac) confronts a career-jeopardizing accusation from a journalist-guest (Delzell) on his talk radio show in a somewhat prosaic but dramatically compact, carefully written and well-acted piece. Significant People, by Amy Sass, follows two docents (Darragh and Delzell) through the preserved home of two significant others who seem to be the same people. It’s a quirky conceit that doesn’t quite produce the necessary dramatic tension, the stakes feeling too low. In My Better Half, by Jonathan Spector, quirkiness goes full-bore as a wife (Pingree) with a justifiable complaint against her obliviously self-centered, what-me husband (Dao) looks to have him rubbed out by a reluctant hit man (Tagatac) and his couples-therapist colleague (Darragh). Finally, Symmetrical Smack-Down is William Bivins’ funny and nicely orchestrated foursome, in which the dynamic between two antagonists in the wrestling ring (Tagatac and Delzell) overlaps (literally and dramatically) with that between a long-term lesbian couple (Pingree and Pantoja) on the brink of a break-up and/or rumble. (Avila)

Sex and the City: LIVE! Rebel, 1760 Market, SF; trannyshack.com/sexandthecity. $25. Wed, 7 and 9pm. Open-ended. It seems a no-brainer. Not just the HBO series itself — that’s definitely missing some gray matter — but putting it onstage as a drag show. Mais naturellement! Why was Sex and the City not conceived of as a drag show in the first place? Making the sordid not exactly palatable but somehow, I don’t know, friendlier (and the canned a little cannier), Velvet Rage Productions mounts two verbatim episodes from the widely adored cable show, with Trannyshack’s Heklina in a smashing portrayal of SJP’s Carrie; D’Arcy Drollinger stealing much of the show as ever-randy Samantha (already more or less a gay man trapped in a woman’s body); Lady Bear as an endearingly out-to-lunch Miranda; and ever assured, quick-witted Trixxie Carr as pent-up Charlotte. There’s also a solid and enjoyable supporting cast courtesy of Cookie Dough, Jordan Wheeler, and Leigh Crow (as Mr. Big). That’s some heavyweight talent trodding the straining boards of bar Rebel’s tiny stage. The show’s still two-dimensional, even in 3D, but noticeably bigger than your 50″ plasma flat panel. Update: new episodes began May 15. (Avila)

Steve Seabrook: Better Than You Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thu, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Extended through June 29. Self-awareness, self-actualization, self-aggrandizement — for these things we turn to the professionals: the self-empowerment coaches, the self-help authors and motivational speakers. What’s the good of having a “self” unless someone shows you how to use it? Writer-performer Kurt Bodden’s Steve Seabrook wants to sell you on a better you, but his “Better Than You” weekend seminar (and tie-in book series, assorted CDs, and other paraphernalia) belies a certain divided loyalty in its own self-flattering title. The bitter fruit of the personal growth industry may sound overly ripe for the picking, but Bodden’s deftly executed “seminar” and its behind-the-scenes reveals, directed by Mark Kenward, explore the terrain with panache, cool wit, and shrewd characterization. As both writer and performer, Bodden keeps his Steve Seabrook just this side of overly sensational or maudlin, a believable figure, finally, whose all-too-ordinary life ends up something of a modest model of its own. (Avila)

Talk Radio Actors Theatre of San Francisco, 855 Bush, SF; www.actorstheatresf.org. $26-38. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through June 15. Actors Theatre of San Francisco performs Eric Bogosian’s breakthrough 1987 drama.

Tinsel Tarts in a Hot Coma: The Next Cockettes Musical Hypnodrome, 575 10th St, SF; www.thrillpeddlers.com. $30-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Extended through June 29. Thrillpeddlers and director Russell Blackwood continue their Theatre of the Ridiculous series with this 1971 musical from San Francisco’s famed glitter-bearded acid queens, the Cockettes, revamped with a slew of new musical material by original member Scrumbly Koldewyn, and a freshly re-minted book co-written by Koldewyn and “Sweet Pam” Tent — both of whom join the large rotating cast of Thrillpeddler favorites alongside a third original Cockette, Rumi Missabu (playing diner waitress Brenda Breakfast like a deliciously unhinged scramble of Lucille Ball and Bette Davis). This is Thrillpeddlers’ third Cockettes revival, a winning streak that started with Pearls Over Shanghai. While not quite as frisky or imaginative as the production of Pearls, it easily charms with its fine songs, nifty routines, exquisite costumes, steady flashes of wit, less consistent flashes of flesh, and de rigueur irreverence. The plot may not be very easy to follow, but then, except perhaps for the bubbly accounting of the notorious New York flop of the same show 42 years ago by Tent (as poisoned-pen gossip columnist Vedda Viper), it hardly matters. (Avila)

Vital Signs: The Pulse of an American Nurse Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sun, 7pm. Through June 16. Registered nurse Alison Whittaker returns to the Marsh with her behind-the-scenes show about working in a hospital.

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Sun, 11am. Through July 21. Louis “The Amazing Bubble Man” Pearl returns after a month-long hiatus with his popular, kid-friendly bubble show.

BAY AREA

The Medea Hypothesis Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, Berk; www.centralworks.org. $15-28. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Central Works performs Marian Berges’ reconfiguration of the Euripides classic.

Pericles, Prince of Tyre Berkeley Repertory Theatre, 2025 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-77. Wed/22 and Sun/26, 7pm (also Sun/26, 2pm); Thu/23 and Sat/25, 2 and 8pm. Mark Wing-Davey directs Berkeley Rep’s take on the Bard.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

“Acting Out — For the Health of It” Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th St, SF; bcaction.org/events/actingout/. Wed/22, 7pm. $35-75. Breast Cancer Action benefits from this evening of comedy, author readings, bluegrass tunes, and more.

“Alonzo King LINES Ballet Training Program Spring Showcase” ODC Dance, 351 Shotwell, SF; www.odcdance.org. Fri/24-Sat/25, 7pm; Sun/26, 2pm. $20. Dancers in training (ages 17-24) perform works by Kara Davis, Gregory Dawson, and others.

“Dionysian Festival” Mary Sano School of Duncan Dancing, 245 Fifth St, Studio 314, SF; www.duncandance.org. Sat/25, 8pm; Sun/26, 5pm. $20. Celebrating the 136th anniversary of Isadora Duncan’s birth with works by the pioneering choreographer.

“Dream Queens Revue” Aunt Charlie’s Lounge, 133 Turk, SF; www.dreamqueensrevue.com. Wed/22, 9:30pm. free. Drag with Collette LeGrande, Diva LaFever, Sophilya Leggz, and more.

“Improvised Murder Mystery” Bayfront Theater, B350 Fort Mason Center, SF; www.improv.org. Sat/25, 8pm. $20. BATS Improv performs one of its most popular shows.

“Kunst-Stoff Arts Fest 2013” Kunst-Stoff Arts, One Grove, SF; www.kunst-stoff.org. Through June 7. Most events $10-15. Morning classes, afternoon workshops, and evening performances are the focus of this festival of dance, film, music, and more.

Lady Rizo Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.ladyrizo.com. Sat/25, 8pm. $20. The NYC cabaret star performs.

Lily Cai Chinese Dance Company Lily Cai Dance Studio, 301 8th St, SF; lilycaidance.brownpapertickets.com. Fri/24-Sat/25, 8pm; Sun/26, 3:30pm. $15. The company’s 2013 studio concert includes three works, including 2013’s Xing.

“Love and Taxes” Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.zspace.org. Wed/22-Thu/23, 8pm. $25-70. Josh Kornbluth performs his hit stage show as a benefit for Z Space.

“Mariko Passion’s Whorrific Popcorn Theatre Bus and Cabaret” Center for Sex and Culture, 1349 Mission, SF; www.sexworkerfest.com. Fri/24, 7pm (cabaret); 9:30pm (bus tour). $15-30. Performance followed by a bus tour “visiting the haunts and landmarks or SF whoredom.” Part of the SF Sex Worker Fest.

“Mission Position Live” Cinecave, 1034 Valencia, SF; www.missionpositionlive.com. Thu, 8pm. Ongoing. $10. Stand-up comedy with rotating performers.

“Performance Research Experiment #2: Paradox of the Heart (Phase 1)” CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF; www.counterpulse.org. Fri/24-Sun/26, 8pm. $15-20. Jess Curtis/Gravity presents a “performance/science experiment” in collaboration with French-German dance and circus artist Jörg Müller.

Red Hots Burlesque El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; www.redhotsburlesque.com. Wed, 7:30-9pm. Ongoing. $5-10. Come for the burlesque show, stay for OMG! Karaoke starting at 8pm (no cover for karaoke).

“San Francisco Magic Parlor” Chancellor Hotel Union Square, 433 Powell, SF; www.sfmagicparlor.com. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Ongoing. $40. Magic vignettes with conjurer and storyteller Walt Anthony.

Shaping Sound Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, 3301 Lyon, SF; www.shapingsoundco.com. Wed/22, 8pm. $30-85. This touring company includes dancers featured on reality competitions All the Right Moves and So You Think You Can Dance.

“Tickled Pink!” Café Royale, 800 Post, SF; (415) 441-4099. Thu/23, 8pm. Free. Comedy showcase with Mike Cappazola, Nina G., Greg Asdourian, and more; this month’s theme is “Grown Up.”

“Union Square Live” Union Square, between Post, Geary, Powell, and Stockton, SF; www.unionsquarelive.org. Through Oct 9. Free. Music, dance, circus arts, film, and more; dates and times vary, so check website for the latest.

Wasatch Collective Dancers Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St, SF; www.dancemission.com. Fri/24-Sat/25, 8pm; Sun/26, 7pm. $12. The Utah company makes its Bay Area debut with “Aggregate,” an evening of original and commissioned work.

“When You’re In Love, The Whole World is Jewish” Marines’ Memorial Theatre, 609 Sutter, SF; www.worldisjewishtheplay.com. Fri/24-Sat/25, 8pm (also Sat/25, 2pm); Sun/26, 2pm. $45-66. Seinfeld‘s Jason Alexander directs this musical comedy revue.

“You Killed Hamlet, or Guilty Creatures Sitting at a Play” Main Street Theatre, 915 Cayuga, SF; youkilledhamlet.brownpapertickets.com. Fri/24, 8pm. $15-25. Naked Empire Bouffon Company and the International Home Theatre Festival present an even more outrageous version of their Best of the Fringe-winning show.

BAY AREA

Big Moves Laney College Theater, 900 Fallon, Oakl; www.bigmoves.org. Sat/25, 8pm; Sun/26, 2pm. $17. The company performs En Masse, a new music and dance spectacular featuring resident dance company emFATic DANCE.

“City Ballet School Spring Showcase” Showcase Theater Marin Civic Center, 10 Avenue of the Flags, San Rafael; www.cityballetschool.org. Sat/25, 1-5pm. $25. Student dancers ages 6-19 perform.

“Jewish Chronicles” Cabaret at the Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Shattuck; www.themarsh.org. Wed/22, 8pm. $15-50. Songwriter and storyteller David Canier performs.

Smuin Ballet Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, Mtn View; www.smuinballet.org. Wed/22-Sat/25, 8pm (also Sat/25, 2pm); Sun/26, 2pm. $52-68. Also May 31-June 1, 8pm (also June 1, 2pm). $54-70. Lesher Center for the Arts, 1601 Civic, Walnut Creek. The company presents the West Coast premiere of Helen Pickett’s Petal and Darrell Grand Moultrie’s JAZZIN’, among other works.

“Swearing in English: Tall Tales at Shotgun” Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. June 3 and 17, 8pm. $15. Shotgun Cabaret presents John Mercer in a series of three stranger-than-fiction dramatic readings.

Senate goes after tax-cheating Apple

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Glad I’m not the only one who thinks its an outrage that the world’s most valuable company, with vast revenues and huge cash surpluses, is looking for ways to avoid paying federal taxes. A US Senate committee is going after Apple, with the chair, Carl Levin, saying the company created “ghost corporations” in Ireland to hide profits and cheat the US out of $9 billion.

Now, just for the record: What Apple is doing is probably legal. The federal tax code is, to put it mildly, all fucked up, and it allows US companies to get away with all sorts of gimmicks.

But remember: Somebody has to pay for all the debt that GW Bush racked up in his foolish wars, and all the other (much smaller) expenses that the federal government incurs. So if Apple hids $9 billion, then you and me — or, as the late, great Jonathan Kwitny put it, “the millions of lathe operators, clerks, computer programmers, dirt farmers, druggists, and hod carriers who are harnessed collectively as the American taxpayer” — have to make up the difference.

I’m glad Sen. Levin is on this.

 

Behold! Highlights of ArtPadSF and artMKT

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In this week’s issue, Guardian visual arts Matt Fisher singled out some highlights of the big ArtPadSF and artMKT shows, which open tonight and run through Sun/19. Here’s a slideshow that shows you what he was talking about. Artist descriptions after the jump: 

ARTPADSF:

Andrew Benson, Johansson Projects

Benson’s sometimes gooey, sometimes crunkly digital video/experimental software work breathes some ragged, frenetic energy into the standard trope of “relationships between the body and technology.” His piece is scheduled to be projected from the Phoenix onto the six-story building next door at 8pm, Thu/16-Sat/18.

Justine Frischmann, Unspeakable Projects

Frischmann’s paintings look like something that one of those spiders on Benzedrine would make. If it lived inside an Etch A Sketch. And used neon spray paint. During a dust storm. Trust me, these are compliments.

David Hevel, Marx & Zavattero

Hevel makes collaged sculptures and sharp pop abstract paintings, usually riffing on American celebrity. His work at the fair will be very MTV 1983.

Scott Hove, Spoke Art

Will Oaklander Hove be showing one of his intensely drugged up fanged wall cakes, a knotted rope work installation, or a surrealism-on-meth painting? Yeah, it all sounds good to me, too.

Jason Kalogiros, Queen’s Nails Gallery

Kalogiros makes edgy, dense, cerebral, photo-based works, lately by manipulating found commercial images. I’m hoping to see a couple from his series of Cartier and Bvlgari watches.

Ed Loftus, Gregory Lind Gallery

Loftus does photorealism pretty much the right way, by marrying intense attention to detail with an obsessive and neurotic subject matter that crawls under your skin ever deeper the more time you spend with it. While you’re in Gregory Lind’s space, also check out Thomas Campbell and Jovi Schnell.

Matt Momchilov, Unspeakable Projects

Momchilov queers punk and rock fandom in the traditional sense of the word, meaning his paintings and sculpture snatch and redirect standard accoutrements of punk fanboys and girls to point that hardcore laser focus in new directions and at more fey subjects.

Gregg Renfrow, Toomey-Tourell

I won’t blame you one bit if you try to lick Renfrow’s luminous, vibrating color field abstractions. His meticulous, precise, wondrous paintings are like visual everlasting gobstoppers, and I fully expect that by the time I see ’em, they’ll have a layer of saliva all over.

Jonathan Runcio, Queen’s Nails Gallery

Runcio makes incisive 2 and 3D work that takes traditional hardedge abstraction in the art concrete vein, shacks it up with remnants of urban architecture, and has a post-formalist lovechild.

 

ARTMRKT

Johnna Arnold, Traywick Contemporary

The fair’s Collector’s Lounge will be showing Arnold’s video created to accompany the richly saturated, haunting landscape photos that will be showing offsite at the gallery.

Carol Inez Charney, Slate Contemporary

harney’s complex photographs were the single most outstanding thing I saw last year at ArtPad. That’s complex like a personality, not like your taxes. A year later, I’m prepared for the brainfreeze again.

Amanda Curreri, Romer Young

Curreri’s precisely conceived conceptual color and abstract works are subtle in that they tend to yield only small nibbles at first pass, but they’re deceptive that way, and usually end up smacking you around by the time it’s all over.

Lauren DiCioccio, Jack Fischer Gallery

DiCioccio has recently been applying her super-meticulous needlework to fastidiously x-ing out individual letters in pages of books, as an act of both scrutiny and physical redaction of the received, mediated world.

Joshua Hagler, Jack Fischer Gallery

Somewhere in the Hamptons summer home where Glenn Brown and Lucian Freud are renting with Mark Tansey and Matthew Day Jackson, Hagler is stoned on the couch making fart noises with his armpits. That is also a compliment.

Claire Rojas, Gallery Paul Anglim

Sure Gallery Paul Anglim shows Barry McGee, but I’ll be looking at the Rojas paintings, whose hard edge and off-kilter abstractions of interior architectural spaces are spot-on and mesmerizing.

Diane Rosenblum, Slate Contemporary

Rosenblum switches up hyperanalytical and conceptual works that incorporate research, crowdsourced interactions, and photography. I’m hoping to see images from a series of recent photos that work Flickr comments into the image.

Dana Hart Stone, Brian Gross

I can’t wait to examine Hart Stone’s paintings up close, which in the past have been made by repeatedly transferring or printing antique images in rows onto canvas. Also at Brian Gross are Bay Area stalwarts Roy de Forest and Robert Arneson.

Esther Traugot, Chandra Cerrito

Traugot combines found organic objects with crochet. I know what you’re thinking, but this is not a Portlandia skit. She does it the right way, promise.

Brown raids cap-and-trade funds, delaying action on climate change

5

Greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere continue to rise to dangerous levels, but still our political leaders delay taking meaningful actions to address the looming crisis. The latest example: Gov. Jerry Brown is borrowing $500 million from the state’s new cap-and-trade program — money designated specifically for efforts to address climate change — to help balance the revised state budget proposal that he released today.

And the worst part was that Brown is raiding these funds even though there was no good reason to do so. “The Governor’s Budget reflected California’s most stable fiscal footing in well over a decade,” was the first sentence in the budget document, which admirably begins to restore education funding, partly because voters approved the Prop. 30 tax package last year.

While Brown said that the $500 million raid is just a loan that will be paid back with interest, the action highlights the short-term thinking that animates our political and business leaders, who seem content with hollow gestures and symbolic actions that fall far short of what’s actually needed to minimize climate change and sea level rise (even the cap-and-trade system itself is a business-friendly half-measure; simply capping then decreasing emmissions would have been far more effective).

There are a multitude of immediate needs for that “borrowed” money that would have big impacts to the carbon emmissions that our state continues to spew into the atmosphere, such as helping Muni and other urban transit systems overcome budget deficits that hamper their ability to provide good alternatives to private automobile use, which is one of the top sources of greenhouse gas emmissions.  

Environmentalists and advocates for social and economic justice — who have fought to direct some of these funds to reducing emmissions in low-income communities, where it is an acute public health issue on top of the long-term climate change threat — immediately criticized the governor’s move.

“The governor is playing a dangerous game that could wreck California’s push toward clean energy,” Greenlining Institute Legal Counsel Ryan Young said in a press release. “Voters of color turned out in force to protect AB 32, the clean energy law, when it was under attack by Prop. 23 [last year’s effort to repeal it], and they did it based on the promise that it would bring clean energy investments to polluted and struggling communities. These are the same voters who provided Jerry Brown’s victory margin when he ran for governor. Seizing these funds for other uses will hurt our state’s neediest communities, and it’s simply not necessary.”

Longtime Sierra Club legislative director Bill Magavern, who works with the Coalition for Clean Air, told Capital Weekly that the money is urgently needed for a variety of programs to reduce pollution in communities of color: “These important goals are now shunted aside as broken promises. The Governor has spoken of the urgency of addressing our climate crisis, but he has not put his money where his mouth is. It’s important to remember that none of the dollars in the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund come from taxes, and they were never intended to go to the General Fund.”

Another gauge is also telling: how do the polluters feel about the governor’s new budget? Well, here’s another press release we got on the governor’s new budget, from a conservative business organization that has long opposed meaningful efforts to address climate change: “California Manufacturers & Technology Association president Jack Stewart made the following media statement after Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposed ‘May Revise’ budget: ‘We congratulate Gov. Jerry Brown on a proposed balanced budget that will help California provide important government services. We appreciate that the Governor proposes the addition of a statewide sales tax exemption on the purchase of manufacturing equipment.  This will make California a more competitive place to scale up production.”

Same as it ever was.

Fair play

4

arts@sfbg.com

VISUAL ART It’s art fair time again. Last year there were three, this year there are only two, though it looks like artMRKT, which is taking over now defunct SF Fine Art Fair’s slot at Fort Mason, has pretty much absorbed the former’s area galleries. ArtPadSF, the more festive of the two fairs, will again be renting out all the rooms at the Tenderloin’s Phoenix hotel. (Both fairs run Thu/16-Sun/19). I can’t help but wonder, will there be synchronized swimming again in the pool this year?

>>View a slideshow of our fair picks here

Say what you will about whether or not art fairs are a reasonable way to actually engage artworks in a serious way (read: they’re not), they do offer exposure to people that are worth knowing more about. With that in mind, here’s our locals only guide to Bay area artists — some emerging, some established — whose work you can catch at the fairs.

 

ARTPADSF

Andrew Benson, Johansson Projects

Benson’s sometimes gooey, sometimes crunkly digital video/experimental software work breathes some ragged, frenetic energy into the standard trope of “relationships between the body and technology.” His piece is scheduled to be projected from the Phoenix onto the six-story building next door at 8pm, Thu/16-Sat/18.

Justine Frischmann, Unspeakable Projects

Frischmann’s paintings look like something that one of those spiders on Benzedrine would make. If it lived inside an Etch A Sketch. And used neon spray paint. During a dust storm. Trust me, these are compliments.

David Hevel, Marx & Zavattero

Hevel makes collaged sculptures and sharp pop abstract paintings, usually riffing on American celebrity. His work at the fair will be very MTV 1983.

Scott Hove, Spoke Art

Will Oaklander Hove be showing one of his intensely drugged up fanged wall cakes, a knotted rope work installation, or a surrealism-on-meth painting? Yeah, it all sounds good to me, too.

Jason Kalogiros, Queen’s Nails Gallery

Kalogiros makes edgy, dense, cerebral, photo-based works, lately by manipulating found commercial images. I’m hoping to see a couple from his series of Cartier and Bvlgari watches.

Ed Loftus, Gregory Lind Gallery

Loftus does photorealism pretty much the right way, by marrying intense attention to detail with an obsessive and neurotic subject matter that crawls under your skin ever deeper the more time you spend with it. While you’re in Gregory Lind’s space, also check out Thomas Campbell and Jovi Schnell.

Matt Momchilov, Unspeakable Projects

Momchilov queers punk and rock fandom in the traditional sense of the word, meaning his paintings and sculpture snatch and redirect standard accoutrements of punk fanboys and girls to point that hardcore laser focus in new directions and at more fey subjects.

Gregg Renfrow, Toomey-Tourell

I won’t blame you one bit if you try to lick Renfrow’s luminous, vibrating color field abstractions. His meticulous, precise, wondrous paintings are like visual everlasting gobstoppers, and I fully expect that by the time I see ’em, they’ll have a layer of saliva all over.

Jonathan Runcio, Queen’s Nails Gallery

Runcio makes incisive 2 and 3D work that takes traditional hardedge abstraction in the art concrete vein, shacks it up with remnants of urban architecture, and has a post-formalist lovechild.

www.artpadsf.com

 

ARTMRKT

Johnna Arnold, Traywick Contemporary

The fair’s Collector’s Lounge will be showing Arnold’s video created to accompany the richly saturated, haunting landscape photos that will be showing offsite at the gallery.

Carol Inez Charney, Slate Contemporary

Charney’s complex photographs were the single most outstanding thing I saw last year at ArtPad. That’s complex like a personality, not like your taxes. A year later, I’m prepared for the brainfreeze again.

Amanda Curreri, Romer Young

Curreri’s precisely conceived conceptual color and abstract works are subtle in that they tend to yield only small nibbles at first pass, but they’re deceptive that way, and usually end up smacking you around by the time it’s all over.

Lauren DiCioccio, Jack Fischer Gallery

DiCioccio has recently been applying her super-meticulous needlework to fastidiously x-ing out individual letters in pages of books, as an act of both scrutiny and physical redaction of the received, mediated world.

Joshua Hagler, Jack Fischer Gallery

Somewhere in the Hamptons summer home where Glenn Brown and Lucian Freud are renting with Mark Tansey and Matthew Day Jackson, Hagler is stoned on the couch making fart noises with his armpits. That is also a compliment.

Claire Rojas, Gallery Paul Anglim

Sure Gallery Paul Anglim shows Barry McGee, but I’ll be looking at the Rojas paintings, whose hard edge and off-kilter abstractions of interior architectural spaces are spot-on and mesmerizing.

Diane Rosenblum, Slate Contemporary

Rosenblum switches up hyperanalytical and conceptual works that incorporate research, crowdsourced interactions, and photography. I’m hoping to see images from a series of recent photos that work Flickr comments into the image.

Dana Hart Stone, Brian Gross

I can’t wait to examine Hart Stone’s paintings up close, which in the past have been made by repeatedly transferring or printing antique images in rows onto canvas. Also at Brian Gross are Bay Area stalwarts Roy de Forest and Robert Arneson.

Esther Traugot, Chandra Cerrito

Traugot combines found organic objects with crochet. I know what you’re thinking, but this is not a Portlandia skit. She does it the right way, promise.

www.art-mrkt.com/sf