When the Exploratorium reopened at Pier 15 earlier this year, tech wizards Obscura Digital transformed the historic waterfront building’s façade with an ultra-high definition light projection show, dazzling nighttime gazers who flocked there with an array of spectacular, nature-themed dreamscapes. Enormous blooming crystals, fast-forward budding plants, time lapse microorganism interactions were all brought to life, precisely projected in a way that contained them within the lines of the building’s architecture — yet totally screwed with viewers’ perception. It wasn’t the first time this 13-year-old design studio has treated San Francisco audiences to surreal sound-and-light shows in public spaces. Its “Corazon Under the Dome” exhibit at downtown’s Westfield Centre dazzled shoppers with convex architectural mapping, and Obscura’s “Digital Arts Panorama” at the new San Francisco Public Utilities Commission building offers visitors a dynamic virtual tour of the regional watershed.
Waterfront
Best of the Bay 2013: BEST LITERARY BYWAY
Though the neighborhood can fascinate in a historic sense, sensory overload is a constant threat among the chain stores, tour buses, and souvenir sweatshirts of Fisherman’s Wharf. One can always head to Richard Henry Dana Place for a brief respite, however. Incongruously tacked onto the waterfront edge of Leavenworth Street, the quiet dead end — placid in a sea of tourist turbulence — was renamed in 1988 as part of a City Lights Bookstore proposal to name a dozen streets after local artists and authors. Richard Henry Dana Jr.’s renowned contribution to our canon, Two Years Before the Mast, contains some of the first accurate descriptions of the West Coast from aboard a merchant vessel. (Melville famously wrote of it, “But if you want the best idea of Cape Horn, get my friend Dana’s unmatchable Two Years Before the Mast. But you can read, and so you must have read it. His chapters describing Cape Horn must have been written with an icicle.”) Dana’s namesake street therefore manages to combine both literary and sea-faring history in one charmingly ramshackle locale.
Leavenworth and Jefferson, SF.
Best of the Bay 2013: BEST BART STRIKE BENEFIT
We all got a four-day taste of Bay Area life without BART during the labor strike in early July (with another one coming in October, or so it seems at press time) — and it was hardly a transit flavor we savored. But amid all the bitter, there was a sweet worth noting, for anyone who used the opportunity to finally try commuting by San Francisco Bay Ferry. What a way to go! For instance, did you know we actually live on a bay, with water and everything? It’s true! With the ferry, you’re out on that very water, viewing the Bay’s waterfront cities from new vantage points, traveling in comfort, usually right on schedule — with access to an on-board bar serving reasonably priced beer and cocktails, no less. Plus, the ferries travel to Marin County, that land considered so inaccessible for adherents of non-aquatic public transportation. It’s almost enough to avoid the underground for good. Almost.
Best of the Bay 2013 Editors Picks: City Living
CITY LIVING
EDITORS PICKS
Editors picks are chosen by Guardian editors for special recognition for brightening the Bay Area experience.
BEST RENEGADE RECITAL
And then one day in June, a piano appeared. Not a tiny Schroeder model, but a full-size, stand-up set of ivories, plopped on top of Bernal Hill with an open invitation attached for giggly renditions of “Chopsticks” and gorgeous, soul-stirring Chopin scores alike. Bernal Heights being the magical neighborhood it is, a full-on recital was planned and performed for a grinning crowd of over 200 very lucky folks. The Bernal Heights piano lineup of skilled musicians sent sassy jazz numbers and symphonic pleasures into the breeze and charmed the perching crowd, as the sun set over the city below. The piano may not be a permanent fixture on the Bernal bedrock — indeed, the instrument used for the recital was a replacement, hastily lugged up by the same start-up workers who donated the first, after it disappeared. (“One does not simply get rid of a piano,” one of the gifters wrote in a blog post. “[We] concocted a plan to bring it to a public place so that it could be enjoyed by many.”) All the more reason to hike to the top and play sweet, sweet songs for the city you love.
BEST BART STRIKE BENEFIT
We all got a four-day taste of Bay Area life without BART during the labor strike in early July (with another one coming in October, or so it seems at press time) — and it was hardly a transit flavor we savored. But amid all the bitter, there was a sweet worth noting, for anyone who used the opportunity to finally try commuting by San Francisco Bay Ferry. What a way to go! For instance, did you know we actually live on a bay, with water and everything? It’s true! With the ferry, you’re out on that very water, viewing the Bay’s waterfront cities from new vantage points, traveling in comfort, usually right on schedule — with access to an on-board bar serving reasonably priced beer and cocktails, no less. Plus, the ferries travel to Marin County, that land considered so inaccessible for adherents of non-aquatic public transportation. It’s almost enough to avoid the underground for good. Almost.
BEST SUPERGENIUS BAR
Look, we’ve all done it: accidentally spilled a tall glass of vodka on our laptop keyboard, but kept watching our Breaking Bad marathon anyway. Sure, a few of the keys have stopped working, but we’re far too engrossed in the saga of Walter White to shut down, wipe down, and store that sucker in a bag of rice for a couple days until it dries out. Uh oh, though — the next morning it won’t turn on at all, or the morning after that. No need to hover around the Apple Store’s genius bar in dismay, hoping for a shot at paying $750 for a basic diagnostic — and who knows how much to actually repair the thing. The superfriendly, incredibly attentive folks of Keane Mac Repair can save the day quickly, professionally, and far more cheaply. (Recently they charged us $150 for an out-of-warranty diagnostic.) Full-service, fully licensed, and located somewhat incongruously in the gorgeous historic Flood Building — no wonder were keen on Keane.
870 Market, SF. (415) 835-9800, www.keanesf.com
BEST COMMUNITY CENTERING
As San Francisco’s Mission District undergoes rapid rent increases and neighborhood demographic change, spaces like the Eric Quezada Center for Culture and Politics become fewer and farther between. We need spaces like this, where artists and activists come together to share stories of their fights for economic and social justice, or deliver stirring performance through music, poetry, art, and dance. Named for beloved Mission dweller and Guatemalan activist Eric Quezada, who lost his battle with cancer in 2011, the space seeks to be a cultural gathering spot that is both affordable and accessible — just blocks from 16th Street BART, and in the middle of a stretch of Valencia more known for spendy restaurants and hipster bars than progressive candidate forums and multicultural celebrations. An apt setting for those seeking to retain their sanity in a shifting SF.
518 Valencia, SF. www.518valencia.org
BEST LADY-LOVING BIKE GANG
Roll up hot and cruise in the cool company of other bike-loving women who make up Fixed With Out Dix—a nonexclusive weekly ride for female-identified folks and their two-wheeled BFFs. The crew meets every Wednesday at the Lake Merritt BART station and pedals around parks, crushes hills, and rolls through town with the wind in its grinning faces. Whether you straddle a flashy fixie, speedy road bike, rusty cruiser, or your aunt’s muddy mountain ride, FWOD welcomes your wheels and the company. Share a snack, make new friends, and discover fresh trails for adventure. They’re pumped to empower women and encourage cycling, and these badass biker babes want others to feel good, be safe, and revel in camaraderie on the move.
Weekly rides meet Wednesdays, 6:30pm, free. Lake Merritt BART station, Oakl. fwodoakland.tumblr.com
BEST REPAIR GRAND CENTRAL
Should you need a custom cabinet, a staircase rehab, perhaps a new cupola on your clock tower, you can turn to Clipper Construction’s Mathieu Palmer. But 501 Waller, the storefront Palmer owned and used as storage space — as he told local blog Haighteration — wasn’t the best use of a neighborhood-facing corner shop. Enter Palmer’s friend Dan Daniel, who created Clipper Repair from this clutter, a friendly place for fixing up, designing, or refurbishing anything you could imagine: lamps, cabinets, antique furniture, electrical things. The interior is a gorgeously organized wonderland of screws, nails, tools, gears, and random curiosities. And then! Garret Peters turned Clipper’s back storage room into a bike shop called Wiggle Bikes, conveniently located off the Wiggle, our crosstown thoroughfare for the two-wheeled. Could there be a more useful stop-off for lovers of sustainable transportation and reuse than the Clipper Repair-Wiggle Bikes complex?
501 Waller, SF. (415) 621-4733, www.clipper-construction.com
BEST ROLLING TWEETS
This is the Bay Area — of course our most ubiquitous meteorological feature has a Twitter, and that Twitter belongs to Karl the Fog. Also of course: Karl trains CrossFit, Karl writes poetry about Folsom Street Fair, Karl creeps the “young, new, and pretty” eastern span of the Bay Bridge (although he’s gentlemanly enough to shout out the “babe” western span as well). Oh, and as befits a major part of our cultural landscape, Karl gets political, too. “The Tea Party and I have a lot in common: we’re great at obstruction, we’re really dense, and we’re almost entirely white,” Karl quips. And yet, like a silver-skinned Barry White, this smooth mover rolls a comforting blanket of seduction over all our areas, high and low, uniting and reminding us that there’s no place like home.
BEST EXCUSE TO ORGANIZE
Earlier this year, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission adopted Plan Bay Area, a regional recipe for funneling an influx of new residents into San Francisco and the Bay’s other urban cores. It calls for San Francisco to somehow absorb 280,000 new souls, who will live in 92,000 new housing units and drive 73,000 more cars, by the year 2040 (see “Planning for displacement,” 5/28/2013), while doing little to preserve the homes of current residents, expand public transit, or discourage driving. In other words, it’s a free pass for developers, masquerading as environmentalism. Though the plan been challenged in court, activism is our best hope at mitigating the worst parts of it. To get involved, visit sfbay.sierraclub.org, www.cbecal.org, www.earthjustice.org, and the websites of other good activist organizations — and keep reading the Guardian.
BEST ANTI-GENTRIFICATION ELECTRO-PUNK SINGLE
It certainly touched a nerve. “Hey gurl, where you moving to? Moving to the East Bay, living life the broke way. SF keep your money. FUCK YOUR MONEY!” Esta Noche drag star Persia and local electro duo Daddies Plastik’s “Google Google Apps Apps” single came bouncing through the Web early this summer and ricocheted off hyperlocal blogs, paradoxically gaining speed through the power of social media. A bouncy yet sardonic party track that seriously skewers the tech industry and its effects on the San Francisco cost of living, the song (and wacky-genius video featuring the whole freak posse) successfully captured the rage of a city caught up in a tragic transition. It was an anger Persia herself felt when Esta Nocha, the Mission’s Latino gay bar, was in danger of closing. But she took that rage and turned it into summer anthem gold. Hey girl, could you tag me in that pic?
BEST TIP-TOP SPIFF UP
It has been remarked that West Portal is quite the happy village in the middle of this teeming city. We concur. Tucked into the side of a hill topped by a Twin Peak, slung happily along a leafy central promenade, the neighborhood is not the worst model for Main Street, USA. Tip and Top Vacuum & Shoe Service, particularly seen in this light, is an all-American gem. Bring in your dirt sucker for a fix-me-up and the capable staff will get it back to dirt bunny-busting in two shakes of a dusty rug. And like any good member of a small community, Tip and Top is a multitasker, as evident from the boots in the window. The shop also repairs shoes, and will even custom-cobble you a boot or slipper. To recap: Tip and Top fixes vacuums and shoes, it’s cute as a button, and you kind of need to check it out.
173 W Portal, SF. (415) 664-9320
BEST LITERARY BYWAY
Though the neighborhood can fascinate in a historic sense, sensory overload is a constant threat among the chain stores, tour buses, and souvenir sweatshirts of Fisherman’s Wharf. One can always head to Richard Henry Dana Place for a brief respite, however. Incongruously tacked onto the waterfront edge of Leavenworth Street, the quiet dead end — placid in a sea of tourist turbulence — was renamed in 1988 as part of a City Lights Bookstore proposal to name a dozen streets after local artists and authors. Richard Henry Dana Jr.’s renowned contribution to our canon, Two Years Before the Mast, contains some of the first accurate descriptions of the West Coast from aboard a merchant vessel. (Melville famously wrote of it, “But if you want the best idea of Cape Horn, get my friend Dana’s unmatchable Two Years Before the Mast. But you can read, and so you must have read it. His chapters describing Cape Horn must have been written with an icicle.”) Dana’s namesake street therefore manages to combine both literary and sea-faring history in one charmingly ramshackle locale.
Leavenworth and Jefferson, SF.
BEST TWERK QUAKE
Long before Miley irrevocably shifted the national conversation in the direction of feverishly jiggling glutei, there were the Twerking Girls. This unabashedly trio of bootylicious women joyfully — but with hilariously straight faces — rapidly oscillated that which their mothers gifted unto them up and down the city. They shimmied through the Apple Store and all around Union Square. They headstood on cable cars and cafeteria tables, invaded laundromats and tiny GoCARS, stunned ’em on BART and at Macy’s. In the sight of God and 2Chainz, they twerked their way right down the veggie aisle at the Safeway. The hypnotically undulating hijinks of Cherry Red, Dollface, and Tastee were captured this summer in a viral video, “Twerking in San Francisco Prank” by the Simple Pickup crew (a trio of dudes made infamous by filming themselves aggressively hitting on unsuspecting women; this celebratory video proved there is a spark of good in everyone). At first watch, you can’t stop laughing at the befuddled, bewildered, or frozen faces of some of the people shocked by the Twerking Girls’ hypnotic undulations. But then a larger, deeper point takes over: damn, San Francisco’s gotten mighty uptight. Thank you, Twerking Girls and friends, for shaking some soul in the city’s face.
BEST PLACE TO PADDLE AND WADDLE
The de Young Museum and the California Academy of Sciences have the giant advertising budgets and thus get all the press, but Golden Gate Park’s hidden gem lies just down JFK from those twin attractions: the Stow Lake Boathouse, perched alongside the built-in-1893 lake. The historic, recently renovated boathouse (it was getting a little creaky) contains a café stocked with handmade piroshkis and serves as the launch spot for Stow Lake’s fleet of boats, including the iconic paddleboats so beloved by tourists — and locals who aren’t too cool to admit it. If hanging out on the water’s not for you, stroll around the lake, dodging rapidly waddling geese and ducks on the paved path. More ambitious hikers can cruise to Strawberry Hill atop Stow Lake’s tiny, wooded island. On days when the fog lifts, the view there is well worth the huffing and puffing.
50 Stow Lake Dr. E., Golden Gate Park, SF. www.stowlakeboathouse.com
BEST PUBLIC ART-CHITECTS
When the Exploratorium reopened at Pier 15 earlier this year, tech wizards Obscura Digital transformed the historic waterfront building’s façade with an ultra-high definition light projection show, dazzling nighttime gazers who flocked there with an array of spectacular, nature-themed dreamscapes. Enormous blooming crystals, fast-forward budding plants, time lapse microorganism interactions were all brought to life, precisely projected in a way that contained them within the lines of the building’s architecture — yet totally screwed with viewers’ perception. It wasn’t the first time this 13-year-old design studio has treated San Francisco audiences to surreal sound-and-light shows in public spaces. Its “Corazon Under the Dome” exhibit at downtown’s Westfield Centre dazzled shoppers with convex architectural mapping, and Obscura’s “Digital Arts Panorama” at the new San Francisco Public Utilities Commission building offers visitors a dynamic virtual tour of the regional watershed.
BEST HOME RUN
If you’re a local baseball fan and you haven’t yet run the Giant Race, you’re missing out, and not just because race entry includes a bobblehead (this year: sparkle-eyed Sergio Romo decked out in running gear) and a shiny medal (also this year: an homage to the World Series ring … with glitter, because WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS). The late summer race, which benefits Project Open Hand and offers nearly pancake-flat 5K, 10K, and half-marathon distances, begins just outside AT&T Park but ends on the field. Sure, certain parts of the sacred grass are roped off, but the bulk of the diamond is open for post-race stretching, hydration, and field-of-dreams fantasies galore. Die-hards take special note: There are companion Giant Races in San Jose and Scottsdale, too. No AT&T Park finish, obviously, but think of the superfan bragging rights!
BEST SCHOOL OF THRASH
Between competing coffee shops and obscured by the whirl of growing foot traffic on Divisadero Street sits an old Victorian, surrounded by a fence, upon which hangs a hand-painted sign. The SF Skate Club‘s mission says it all: “[The club] strives to provide a safe, positive, and fun environment for youth of diverse backgrounds to pursue their passion to skateboard.” Skate Club creators, skateboarder Shawn Connolly and educator Thuy Nguyen, are on their grind to use skateboarding as a medium of youth empowerment and community building, and their school is a hub of fast friendship and solid ollies. Summer, weekend, and after-school programs for kids of most ages are offered which teach the basics and tricks. The school also organizes mobile outings, and hosts drop-in visits from professionals. If its pupils’ enthusiasm is any indication, after just a few months it’s already on a roll.
635 Divisadero, SF. (415) 572-2065, www.sfskateclub.com
BEST EYE ON THE OCEAN
Perched above Sutro Baths near Ocean Beach, on a cliff whose face always seems to be exploding with colorful blooms, the exceedingly graceful 4,050 sq. ft. National Park Service visitor center at Point Lobos known as Lands End Lookout is one of our new favorite places in the world. (Although it’s closed as of this writing due to the government shutdown, boo.) Opened earlier this year, it contains a smart little cafe, oodles of info on the area’s environmental features, wildlife, and historical hot spots, and a nature-loving staff. Most people will come here at a starting point of an energizing down to the or through the surrounding hills. But the low and angular yet surprisingly capacious design of the Lookout itself, by EHDD, fits so perfectly into its Point Lobos surroundings (and puts further to shame the industrial barn-like Cliff House next door) that you may find yourself lingering beyond a cappuccino to enjoy the light and light-filled space, waves frothing on the rocks far below.
BEST BAR FOR A SECOND DATE
Fancy foodie joints, indie movies, trendy pop-ups, and all that jazz: all great ways to unwind the weirdness of date No. 2, but when it’s a Tuesday, you worked all day, and exhausted yourself in yoga, let’s be real: you’re hangry and horny. This evening out requires two things immediately: food and liquor. Forget trying to be impressive, go with our proven routine. We call up the Little Chihuahua on Divisadero, order something to go, and walk your awkward and excited date next door to The Page — one of the few chill, homey spots left on the rapidly developing (and stressing out) “Divisadero Corridor” — where one can snag a bar stool, drink some whiskey, and feast on your delicious assortment of salsas and burrito fare. This neighborhood staple is cool with your takeout as long as you promise to clean up your foils and spills — and generously tipping your bartender never hurts. Your date will be well fed, your confidence levels will be on the up, and the night is young. It’s time to turn the page on this.
298 Divisadero, SF. (415) 255-6101, www.thepagebar.com
BEST NEW DRONE HIVE (WITH BUZZ)
Face it: cafes do not want an all-day camper leeching off their wi-fi (and scaring away their customers), and people working on their laptops want a place to work where they don’t have to keep buying single espressos just to get that last report done. Now we out-of-office worker bees can bow to our caffeine-overlords guilt-free: The Workshop Cafe is a spot where laptop use is not only condoned, its encouraged. In fact, calling it a cafe may be a misnomer — it’s really a hip and sleek public office space that a cafe snuck into and never left. (And it’s already looking to expand to a location near you.) Each table is equipped with rows of outlets to charge your gear, and there’s a smartphone app to order coffee without moving your rump. Cubbies deep inside the FiDi coffee joint-cum-workspace come equipped with white boards and markers for impromptu meetings, and widescreen monitors await your PowerPoint-laden laptops. Workshop even offers scanning and printing services: no need to head to FedEx or Kinko’s or whatever the heck they call themselves these days. Pro tip: there are free portable batteries to plug your laptops into if you want to toil at the tables outside. For only two bucks an hour, you can work as long as you like, minus snide looks from annoyed baristas. Now we can work forever! Free time, what’s that?
180 Montgomery, SF. (415) 322-1048, www.workshopcafe.com
BEST SUPER-WELLNESS INSURANCE
Clamber up to the Queen Anne Victorian home on a quiet Richmond corner to find some of the best free health care in the city. For 20 years, the SF Free Clinic has tended to the uninsured and underinsured, doing the work that our great federal government is only just now starting to get to. Started in 1993 by Tricia and Richard Gibbs, two general practitioners who wanted to make the connection between low-income San Franciscans and the city’s high quality health resources, the facilities offer preventative health screenings, vaccines, and non-emergency care. Services like free diabetes screenings are aided by health facilities and pros from across the city who lend a hand at the California Street location. Example: renowned yoga instructor Betty Roi offers a regular healthful yoga class. The SF Free Clinic has seen more than 70,000 patient visits since it opened its doors, a staggering number that shows how valuable the clinic is to the city’s health and wellness.
4900 California, SF. (415) 750-9894, www.sffc.org
BEST MEMOS FROM HELL
“I’m so disappointed in Tartine. They can’t make a real croissant. They’re too heavy!” “I’ve had a really hard weekend, I’m exhausted. All I’ve done is go to music festivals.” “You know him, he’s a serial entrepreneur. We are going to have him give a talk!” Nothing could be more indicative of the tragically funny contemporary state of San Francisco than the exclamations posted to the Dispatches from Entitlementistan Facebook page. As the page’s anonymous proprietor explains “I overhear the most asinine snippets of conversation outside of our window. Here is a handcrafted, artisanal, seasonal, locally-sourced, curated selection of comments from the heart of the Mission.” Links to cringe-worthy tech exposes, snaps of “only in privileged SF” moments, and even some nuanced critiques of the state of this rapidly changing city are posted almost daily. Dispatches is no mere anti-tech hate fest, however. It showed some serious viral power when it posted a Bud Light “Party on the Playa” Costco banner at Burning Man time, and a now-iconic pic, shot by Meredith Perry and picked up by Valleywag, of a Google Glass-sporting nerd with a bicycle at Dolores Park selfie-ing while two leather clad unicorns frolicked in the background. The caption? “Perfection.”
www.facebook.com/entitlementistan
BEST GUIDE FOR A CHALLENGING FUTURE
The organization has offered lectures and panel talks on key policy issues to Bay Area audiences for years, but the Commonwealth Club of California’s Climate One series deserves a shout-out for bringing the most pressing environmental issues of our time to the fore. Climate One was founded by Commonwealth Club Vice President Greg Dalton in 2007 after he visited the arctic circle in a Russian icebreaker boat and saw firsthand the effects of climate change on life in that part of the world. So far, the series has brought together public officials, academic experts, key business players, and advocates for serious, in-depth conversations on everything from fracking and the implications of rising sea levels to “Corn, Cows, and Cars.” The result: scary stuff, but with a reach toward actual solutions. Educate thyself with a Climate One talk at the Club’s San Francisco headquarters or download a podcast from a recent event.
BEST SAIL FROM SOBRIETY (ON WAVES OF NOTORIETY)
The cocktail menu at Virgil’s Sea Room pays homage to our city’s unfathomably quirky, endlessly entertaining heroes: fashionista twins Marian and Vivian Brown, departed philanthropist and devoted banjo player Warren Hellman, drag queen Empress I Jose Sarria, perennial 12 Galaxies sign-hoister Frank Chu. But when speaking of our burg’s best loved, mustn’t we also mention progenitors of accommodating neighborhood watering holes? If indeed we must, hoist a glass to the triple-threat owners of one of Bernal Heights’ new favorite hangouts. Lexington Club owner Lila Thirkield, DJ-promoter-political dervish Tom Temprano, and former Nickie’s drink slinger Gillian Fitzgerald opened their watering hole early this summer in the space that once housed karaoke dive-a-rama Nap’s III. They’ve slapped on some nautical accents, spruced up a surprisingly roomy patio, and nurtured a relaxed, quirky ambience that raises a welcoming flag to buoy local spirits — while saluting San Francisco’s rambunctious past.
3152 Mission, SF. (415) 829-2233, www.virgilssf.com
Weekly Picks: October 16 – 22, 2013
For events listings, see SFBG.com
WEDNESDAY 10/16
Heavenly Bodies
A few years ago, The Empire of Death: A Cultural History of Ossuaries and Charnel Houses — a magnificently beefy book documenting the centuries-old practice of crafting art from human bones — made the rounds. The author of that beautifully macabre tome was LA-based art historian Paul Koudounaris, who returns with Heavenly Bodies: Cult Treasures and Spectacular Saints from the Catacombs, smaller in scale yet nonetheless jam-packed with sumptuous photos of skeletons dripping in jewels. Koudounaris celebrates his new release with a reading and slide show at (perfect venue alert) curio emporium Loved to Death. (Cheryl Eddy)
5:30-7pm, free
Loved to Death
1681 Haight, SF
WEDNESDAY 10/16
Carve San Francisco
Yeah, it’s October, and yes, it’s getting chilly, but c’mon, that’s no excuse not to hit the beach (jacket-clad) to watch some of the world’s best sculptors — sand sculptors, that is — turn flecks of rock and coral dust into stunning works of art at San Francisco’s first international Carve competition. We’re not talking castles here — think pharaohs and pyramids, or wind-surfing skeletons. Tonight and Thu/17 the artists get busy with initial shaping, and the real party begins Fri/18 with Off the Grid food trucks and a surf film screening. Chill Sat/19 with a yoga class, then watch the award ceremony, and by the near end of the weekend, if you still haven’t made it, bro, what are you waiting for? Get down there to see the finished oeuvres. Give a dollar when you vote, and you’ll also help the Surfrider Foundation protect these gnarly beaches. (Kaylen Baker)
Through Sun/20
7am-7pm, free
Presidio waterfront, SF
WEDNESDAY 10/16
Cave
“Funk minimalism” seems to be a label this Chicago rock group has self-applied, but it’s inadequate to describe the collective sounds on its latest energetic album Threace. With the single “Shikaakwa,” a driving beat leads into an Afro-pop sounding keyboard, trading off with a Push Push-era winding flute that alternately spirals in on itself and riffs atop the rhythm. There and elsewhere on the album, the result is wordlessly psychedelic, always heading somewhere, even if you can’t guess exactly where it will lead. (Ryan Prendiville)
With Quintron and Miss Pussycat, zZz, the Vinyl Avenger (DJ set)
Sat/16, 9pm, $10–$12
Elbo Room
647 Valencia, SF
(415) 552-7788
THURSDAY 10/17
#TrendingTopics Stand-Up Comedy Night
Maybe it’ll be Kanye, maybe it’ll be Bieber, or maybe it’ll be the economy, but in any case, Twitter is sure to be abuzz with something, and that’s what the comedians of #TrendingTopic Stand-Up Comedy Night will be drawing from for their sets this week. Share some laughs about the most important topics in the world — or at least, what tweeters consider to be the most noteworthy — and vote to crown the best comedian as the new #trendingtopic king or queen! (Kirstie Haruta)
9pm, $10
Sip Bar and Lounge
787 Broadway, SF
(415) 699-6545
SATURDAY 10/19
“Trolley Dances”
If you regularly ride Muni, you’ll understand why it can drive you bananas. But at least once a year during “Trolley Dances,” Muni becomes pure joy. That’s when Kim Epifano and her fellow dancers take over selected lines for what they call “rolling performance tours.” You pay your fare and you’ll ride to a number of stops to watch performances before the trip continues to the next one. This year they’ll start at the Market Street Railway Museum on Embarcadero and go as far as Church Street. Included among others are Keith Terry and Corposonic, Tezkatlipoka Aztec Dance and Drum, and — since this is the event’s 10th anniversary in SF — Trolley Dances founder Jean Isaacs San Diego Dance Theater. (Rita Felciano)
Also Sun/20
11am-2:45pm, every 45 minutes; Muni fare
Various locations, SF
SATURDAY 10/19
Lit Crawl
This year’s Lit Crawl, the epic finale to the annual Litquake festival, features 517 writers, including the likes of Alejandro Murguía and the Conspiracy of Beards (30 men singing Leonard Cohen a capella), and 83 venues, including a bowling alley and the Mission police station, even atop a pool table at the Lexington Club. The crawl highlights everything literary, from your typical erotic poetry session to a cookies-and-milk reading by published 6-year-olds. Personally, I’m excited for “Anna Karenina on the Couch,” where professional psychoanalysts break open the repressed egos of 19th century literary dames Anna Karenina and Jo March (in the flesh!) and the Bay Guardian’s very own “Celebrity Twitterature,” where drag stars playing Hollywood stars reenact breakups and breakdowns through live Twitter feeds. Come join the biggest, hippest bunch of bookworms on the West Coast. (Baker)
6-9:30pm, free
Various venues around the Mission, SF
(415) 440-4177
litcrawl.org/sf
SATURDAY 10/19
POC Zine Project Race Riot! Tour
The POC Zine Project — now on its Race Riot! Tour — makes a Bay Area stop at the SOMArts Cultural Center tonight. Race Riot! brings contributing writers to cities across the nation to share their work and start a discussion. The POC Zine Project, founded by Daniela Capistrano, works to make all people of color zines accessible through experimental, volunteer-based activism and community engagement. Join the discussion and the movement for POC visibility through creative work and activism. All proceeds support the POCZP. (Haruta)
6:30pm, $5-10, no one turned away for lack of funds
SOMArts Cultural Center
934 Brannan, SF
(415) 863-1414
SUNDAY 10/20
GWAR
Here’s to almost three decades of rubber masks, obscene lyrics, tasteless humor, and lots and lots of fake blood. Yes, we’re talking about GWAR, the Virginia-based heavy metal shock rock group and its foam penises, staged crucifixions, and exposed butts (among other onstage delights), which will be celebrating its 30th anniversary next year. Despite more than 18 different lineups and 26 members throughout the band’s history, little has changed about the essence of GWAR. If you’re looking to have a night to remember, get your clothes stained permanently by red dye, and maybe even see a Billy Ocean cover (GWAR recently took on “Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car” for the A.V. Club) look no further than Oderus Urungus and his monstrous minions. (Haley Zaremba)
With Whitechapel, Iron Reagan, A Band of Orcs
7:30pm, $28
Regency Ballroom
1300 Van Ness, SF
theregencyballroom.com
SUNDAY 10/20
Goblin
Fans of horror films know how important a soundtrack can be — the best-known examples are probably the shrieking strings of Psycho (1960) and John Carpenter’s iconic synth score for 1978’s Halloween. Fans of Euro horror, however, share a fondness for Goblin, Italian purveyors of the creepy, pulsating, proggy, keyboard-driven music that enhanced many films by macabre master Dario Argento (including 1977’s Suspiria), not to mention George Romero’s 1978 zombie classic Dawn of the Dead. Touring North America for the first time, the veteran band swoops into San Francisco to make Goblin-faithful dreams (and nightmares) come true. (Eddy)
With Secret Chiefs 3, DJ Omar Perez
8pm, $28–$75
Warfield
982 Market, SF
TUESDAY 10/22
The Garden
This Burger Records up-and-comer is an identical twin duo hailing from Orange, Calif. The 19-year-old Shears brothers specialize in melancholy snippets (most of their songs barely pass the one-minute mark) of post-punk drum ‘n’ bass, androgynous style that would make Boy George jealous, teen angst, and getting reblogged on Tumblr. Their songs are haunting and beautifully executed, though rarely understandable. The lyrics are drawn from inside jokes and twin-speak (the Shears have a secret language, for those occasions when they even need to communicate verbally) and the vocals are often drowned in feedback and reverb. But the words don’t seem to matter. Whatever they’re doing or saying, they’re doing and saying it unlike anyone else. (Zaremba)
With Lovely Bad Things, Bicycle Day
9pm, $10
Brick and Mortar Music Hall
1710 Mission, SF
(415) 800-8782
TUESDAY 10/22
Maria Bamford
Not gonna lie, comedian Maria Bamford kind of scares me. Clearly it’s the voices. Not really the ones she regularly employs as a voice actor on Adventure Time or CatDog. Or what I think is her “normal” voice, familiar to anyone who caught her recent scene-stealing turns on Arrested Development and Louie. (That one was strangely endearing.) No, it must be one of the many characters she shifts in and out of faster than Gollum, as part of her surreal stand-up routines (and on The Maria Bamford Show and Ask My Mom! web-series). Actually, I think it’s one in particular. Yeah, I think I’m just afraid of Maria Bamford’s mom. (Prendiville)
Also Wed/23, 8pm, $25
Cobb’s Comedy Club
915 Columbus, SF
(415) 928-4320
Help us keep raising hell
EDITORIAL The last couple years have been some of the most difficult and precarious in the Guardian’s 47 years of printing the news and raising hell in San Francisco. We’ve been struggling to survive and thrive, both the newspaper and the larger progressive political and alternative arts communities the Guardian is a part of, at a moment when this city needs us more than ever.
But the good news is that people are awakening to what has been lost as our resources have waned. We see it in the resurgent movements against evictions and gentrification and for better transit and bike lanes, in a rare referendum campaign challenging the 8 Washington project and its lies, in the lively online discussions we facilitate, and in the community support that the Guardian and other nascent progressive media projects are receiving.
Most people don’t trust the mainstream political, economic, and media institutions to understand or explain what’s happening to San Francisco and the greater Bay Area. Technology has created an explosion of new media outlets, but it’s come at the price of common narratives and gathering places where we can join together, discuss the issues, and then assert our collective will.
This is where the Guardian comes in, and it’s why we must find the way to grow through these tough years and regain our standing as the premier forum for discussing and promoting San Francisco’s values and needs. And for that, we need your help and support.
In some ways, it’s a situation similar to when Bruce B. Brugmann and Jean Dibble started the Bay Guardian in October 1966, when San Francisco was at the epicenter of social movements and technological innovation that were challenging entrenched economic interests and the inertia of the status quo.
The Guardian gave voice to new ideas about human rights and responsibilities, sexuality and identity, art and expression, diversity and tolerance, and many of the other issues and values that have animated San Francisco for the last half-century. Along with papers such as the Village Voice, Boston Phoenix, and Chicago Reader, the Guardian helped create the model for alternative newsweeklies that came to proliferate in every major US city, expanding the political and cultural dialogue in the country.
But that model is faltering. The Phoenix, which was founded the same year as the Guardian, closed its doors earlier this year, falling victim to the same economic pressures that are plaguing the entire newspaper industry. And the Voice soldiers on as a relatively apolitical corporate clone of its former feisty self after being bought out by a Phoenix-based chain driven by the kind of bottom-line Wall Street values that alt-weeklies were originally launched to oppose.
Regular readers of the Guardian know how we’ve fought for our independence and sustainability over the last year (see “On Guard,” June 19, and “New Guardian leadership wants your input,” July 23), and that we’ve approached it in a way that was consistent with our values on transparency, fearless truth-telling, and partnership with our progressive community.
And now, on the Guardian’s anniversary, we are recommitting to the mission stated on our masthead, “to print the news and raise hell,” while updating that mission for the digital age in myriad ways, some of which we’ll be announcing soon. This region is at a crossroads, choosing between greedy, myopic elitism and egalitarian sustainability, and we need strong media voices like the Guardian to clarify that choice.
For that, we need your help. Read the paper and then pass it to a friend. Post our stories to your favorite online forum. Buy an ad to promote your business, event, or cause. Participate in our community forums, including our Oct. 23 discussion of high-rises and waterfront development at the LGBT Center. Send us good story tips. And, most importantly, help us promote the idea that an informed and engaged citizenry is the foundation of democracy — and the only way to save the soul of San Francisco.
Endorsements 2013
We’re heading into a lackluster election on Nov. 5. The four incumbents on the ballot have no serious challengers and voter turnout could hit an all-time low. That’s all the more reason to read up on the issues, show up at the polls, and exert an outsized influence on important questions concerning development standards and the fate of the city’s waterfront, the cost of prescription drugs, and the long-term fiscal health of the city.
PROP. A — RETIREE HEALTH CARE TRUST FUND
YES
Note: This article has been corrected from an earlier version, which incorrectly stated that Prop A increases employee contributions to health benefits.
Throughout the United States, the long-term employee pension and health care obligations of government agencies have been used as wedge issues for anti-government activists to attack public employee unions, even in San Francisco. The fiscal concerns are real, but they’re often exaggerated or manipulated for political reasons.
That’s one reason why the consensus-based approach to the issue that San Francisco has undertaken in recent years has been so important, and why we endorse Prop. A, which safeguards the city’s Retiree Health Care Trust Fund and helps solve this vexing problem.
Following up on the consensus pension reform measure Prop. B, which increased how much new city employees paid for lifetime health benefits, this year’s Prop. A puts the fund into a lock-box to ensure it is there to fund the city’s long-term retiree health care obligations, which are projected at $4.4 billion over the next 30 years.
“The core of it says you can’t touch the assets until it’s fully funded,” Sup. Mark Farrell, who has taken a lead role on addressing the issue, told us. “The notion of playing political football with employee health care will be gone.”
The measure has the support of the entire Board of Supervisors and the San Francisco Labor Council. Progressive Sup. David Campos strongly supports the measure and he told us, “I think it makes sense and is something that goes beyond political divides.”
There are provisions that would allow the city to tap the fund in emergencies, but only after it is fully funded or if the mayor, controller, the Trust Board, and two-thirds of the Board of Supervisors signs off, a very high bar. So vote yes and let’s put this distracting issue behind us.
PROP. B — 8 WASHINGTON SPECIAL USE DISTRICT
NO, NO, NO!
Well-meaning people can arrive at different conclusions on the 8 Washington project, the waterfront luxury condo development that was approved by the Board of Supervisors last year and challenged with a referendum that became Prop. C. But Prop. B is simply the developer writing his own rules and exempting them from normal city review.
We oppose the 8 Washington project, as we explain in our next endorsement, but we can understand how even some progressive-minded people might think the developers’ $11 million affordable housing and $4.8 million transit impact payments to the city are worth letting this project slide through.
But Prop. B is a different story, and it’s something that those who believe in honesty, accountability, and good planning should oppose on principle, even if they support the underlying project. Contrary to the well-funded deceptions its backers are circulating, claiming this measure is about parks, Prop. B is nothing more than a developer and his attorneys preventing meaningful review and enforcement by the city of their vague and deceptive promises.
It’s hard to know where to begin to refute the wall of mendacity its backers have erected to fool voters into supporting this measure, but we can start with their claim that it will “open the way for new public parks, increased access to the Embarcadero Waterfront, hundreds of construction jobs, new sustainable residential housing and funding for new affordable housing.”
There’s nothing the public will get from Prop. B that it won’t get from Prop. C or the already approved 8 Washington project. Nothing. Same parks, same jobs, same housing, same funding formulas. But the developer would get an unprecedented free pass, with the measure barring discretionary review by the Planning Department — which involves planners using their professional judgment to decide if the developer is really delivering what he’s promising — forcing them to rubber-stamp the myriad details still being developed rather than acting as advocates for the general public.
“This measure would also create a new ‘administrative clearance’ process that would limit the Planning Director’s time and discretion to review a proposed plan for the Site,” is how the official ballot summary describes that provision to voters.
Proponents of the measure also claim “it empowers voters with the decision on how to best utilize our waterfront,” which is another deception. Will you be able to tweak details of the project to make it better, as the Board of Supervisors was able to do, making a long list of changes to the deal’s terms? No. You’re simply being given the opportunity to approve a 34-page initiative, written by crafty attorneys for a developer who stands to make millions of dollars in profits, the fine details of which most people will never read nor fully understand.
Ballot box budgeting is bad, but ballot box regulation of complex development deals is even worse. And if it works here, we can all expect to see more ballot measures by developers who want to write their own “special use district” rules to tie the hands of planning professionals.
When we ask proponents of this measure why they needed Prop. B, they claimed that Prop. C limited them to just talking about the project’s building height increases, a ridiculous claim for a well-funded campaign now filling mailers and broadcast ads with all kinds of misleading propaganda.
With more than $1 million and counting being funneled into this measure by the developer and his allies, this measure amounts to an outrageous, shameless lie being told to voters, which Mayors Ed Lee and Gavin Newsom have shamefully chosen to align themselves with over the city they were elected to serve.
As we said, people can differ on how they see certain development deals. But we should all agree that it’s recipe for disaster when developers can write every last detail of their own deals and limit the ability of professional planners to act in the public interest. Don’t just vote no, vote hell no, or NO, No, no!
PROPOSITION C — 8 WASHINGTON REFERENDUM
NO
San Francisco’s northeastern waterfront is a special place, particularly since the old Embarcadero Freeway was removed, opening up views and public access to the Ferry Building and other recently renovated buildings, piers, and walkways along the Embarcadero.
The postcard-perfect stretch is a major draw for visiting tourists, and the waterfront is protected by state law as a public trust and overseen by multiple government agencies, all of whom have prevented development of residential or hotel high-rises along the Embarcadero.
Then along came developer Simon Snellgrove, who took advantage of the Port of San Francisco’s desperate financial situation, offered to buy its Seawall Lot 351 and adjacent property from the Bay Club at 8 Washington St., and won approval to build 134 luxury condos up to 12 stories high, exceeding the city’s height limit at the site by 62 percent.
So opponents challenged the project with a referendum, a rarely used but important tool for standing up to deep-pocketed developers who can exert an outsized influence on politicians. San Franciscans now have the chance to demand a project more in scale with its surroundings.
The waterfront is supposed to be for everyone, not just those who can afford the most expensive condominiums in the city, costing an average of $5 million each. The high-end project also violates city standards by creating a parking space for every unit and an additional 200 spots for the Port, on a property with the best public transit access and options in the city.
This would set a terrible precedent, encouraging other developers of properties on or near the waterfront to also seek taller high-rises and parking for more cars, changes that defy decades of good planning work done for the sensitive, high-stakes waterfront.
The developers would have you believe this is a battle between rival groups of rich people (noting that many opponents come from the million-dollar condos adjacent to the site), or that it’s a choice between parks and the surface parking lot and ugly green fence that now surrounds the Bay Club (the owner of which, who will profit from this project, has resisted petitions to open up the site).
But there’s a reason why the 8 Washington project has stirred more emotion and widespread opposition that any development project in recent years, which former City Attorney Louise Renne summed up when she told us, “I personally feel rich people shouldn’t monopolize the waterfront.”
A poll commissioned by project opponents recently found that 63 percent of respondents think the city is building too much luxury housing, which it certainly is. But it’s even more outrageous when that luxury housing uses valuable public land along our precious waterfront, and it can’t even play by the rules in doing so.
Vote no and send the 8 Washington project back to the drawing board.
PROP. D — PRESCRIPTION DRUG PURCHASING
YES
San Francisco is looking to rectify a problem consumers face every day in their local pharmacy: How can we save money on our prescription drugs?
Prop. D doesn’t solve that problem outright, but it mandates our politicians start the conversation on reducing the $23 million a year the city spends on pharmaceuticals, and to urge state and federal governments to negotiate for better drug prices as well.
San Francisco spends $3.5 million annually on HIV treatment alone, so it makes sense that the AIDS Healthcare Foundation is the main proponent of Prop. D, and funder of the Committee on Fair Drug Pricing. Being diagnosed as HIV positive can be life changing, not only for the health effects, but for the $2,000-5,000 monthly drug cost.
Drug prices have gotten so out-of-control that many consumers take the less than legal route of buying their drugs from Canada, because our neighbors up north put limits on what pharmaceutical companies can charge, resulting in prices at least half those of the United States.
The high price of pharmaceuticals affects our most vulnerable, the elderly and the infirm. Proponents of Prop. D are hopeful that a push from San Francisco could be the beginning of a social justice movement in cities to hold pharmaceutical companies to task, a place where the federal government has abundantly failed.
Even though Obamacare would aid some consumers, notably paying 100 percent of prescription drug purchases for some Medicare patients, the cost to government is still astronomically high. Turning that around could start here in San Francisco. Vote yes on D.
ASSESSOR-RECORDER
CARMEN CHU
With residential and commercial property in San Francisco assessed at around $177 billion, property taxes bring in enough revenue to make up roughly 40 percent of the city’s General Fund. That money can be allocated for anything from after-school programs and homeless services to maintaining vital civic infrastructure.
Former District 4 Sup. Carmen Chu was appointed by Mayor Ed Lee to serve as Assessor-Recorder when her predecessor, Phil Ting, was elected to the California Assembly. Six months later, she’s running an office responsible for property valuation and the recording of official documents like property deeds and marriage licenses (about 55 percent of marriage licenses since the Supreme Court decision on Prop. 8 have been issued to same-sex couples).
San Francisco property values rose nearly 5 percent in the past year, reflecting a $7.8 billion increase. Meanwhile, appeals have tripled from taxpayers disputing their assessments, challenging Chu’s staff and her resolve. As a district supervisor, Chu was a staunch fiscal conservative whose votes aligned with downtown and the mayor, so our endorsement isn’t without some serious reservations.
That said, she struck a few notes that resonated with the Guardian during our endorsement interview. She wants to create a system to automatically notify homeowners when banks begin the foreclosure process, to warn them and connect them with helpful resources before it’s too late. Why hasn’t this happened before?
She’s also interested in improving system to capture lost revenue in cases where property transfers are never officially recorded, continuing work that Ting began. We support the idea of giving this office the tools it needs to go out there and haul in the millions of potentially lost revenue that property owners may owe the city, and Chu has our support for that effort.
CITY ATTORNEY
DENNIS HERRERA
Dennis Herrera doesn’t claim to be a progressive, describing himself as a good liberal Democrat, but he’s been doing some of the most progressive deeds in City Hall these days: Challenging landlords, bad employers, rogue restaurants, PG&E, the healthcare industry, opponents of City College of San Francisco, and those who fought to keep same-sex marriage illegal.
The legal realm can be more decisive than the political, and it’s especially effective when they work together. Herrera has recently used his office to compel restaurants to meet their health care obligations to employees, enforcing an earlier legislative gain. And his long court battle to defend marriage equality in California validated an act by the executive branch.
But Herrera has also shown a willingness and skill to blaze new ground and carry on important regulation of corporate players that the political world seemed powerless to touch, from his near-constant legal battles with PG&E over various issues to defending tenants from illegal harassment and evictions to his recent lawsuit challenging the Accreditation Commission of Community and Junior Colleges over its threats to CCSF.
We have issues with some of the tactics his office used in its aggressive and unsuccessful effort to remove Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi from office. But we understand that is was his obligation to act on behalf of Mayor Ed Lee, and we admire Herrera’s professionalism, which he also exhibited by opposing the Central Subway as a mayoral candidate yet defending it as city attorney.
“How do you use the power of the law to make a difference in people’s lives every single day?” was the question that Herrera posed to us during his endorsement interview, one that he says is always on his mind.
We at the Guardian have been happy to watch how he’s answered that question for nearly 11 years, and we offer him our strong endorsement.
TREASURER/TAX COLLECTOR
JOSE CISNEROS
It’s hard not to like Treasurer/Tax Collector Jose Cisneros. He’s charming, smart, compassionate, and has run this important office well for nine years, just the person that we need there to implement the complicated, voter-approved transition to a new form of business tax, a truly gargantuan undertaking.
Even our recent conflicts with Cisneros — stemming from frustrations that he won’t assure the public that he’s doing something about hotel tax scofflaw Airbnb (see “Into thin air,” Aug. 6) — are dwarfed by our understanding of taxpayer privacy laws and admiration that Cisneros ruled against Airbnb and its ilk in the first place, defying political pressure to drop the rare tax interpretation.
So Cisneros has the Guardian’s enthusiastic endorsement. He also has our sympathies for having to create a new system for taxing local businesses based on their gross receipts rather than their payroll costs, more than doubling the number of affected businesses, placing them into one of eight different categories, and applying complex formulas assessing how much of their revenues comes from in the city.
“This is going to be the biggest change to taxes in a generation,” Cisneros told us of the system that he will start to implement next year, calling the new regime “a million times more complicated than the payroll tax.”
Yet Cisneros has still found time to delve into the controversial realm of short-term apartment sublets. Although he’s barred from saying precisely what he’s doing to make Airbnb pay the $1.8 million in Transient Occupancy Taxes that we have shown the company is dodging, he told us, “We are here to enforce the law and collect the taxes.”
And Cisneros has continued to expand his department’s financial empowerment programs such as Bank on San Francisco, which help low-income city residents establish bank accounts and avoid being gouged by the high interest rates of check cashing outlets. That and similar programs are now spreading to other cities, and we’re encouraged to see Cisneros enthusiastically exporting San Francisco values, which will be helped by his recent election as president of the League of California Cities.
SUPERVISOR, DIST. 4
KATY TANG
With just six months on the job after being appointed by Mayor Ed Lee, Sup. Katy Tang faces only token opposition in this race. She’s got a single opponent, accountant Ivan Seredni, who’s lived in San Francisco for three years and decided to run for office because his wife told him to “stop complaining and do something,” according to his ballot statement.
Tang worked in City Hall as a legislative aide to her predecessor, Carmen Chu, for six years. She told us she works well with Sups. Mark Farrell and Scott Wiener, who help make up the board’s conservative flank. In a predominantly Chinese district, where voters tend to be more conservative, Tang is a consistently moderate vote who grew up in the district and speaks Mandarin.
Representing the Sunset District, Tang, who is not yet 30 years old, faces some new challenges. Illegal “in-law” units are sprouting up in basements and backyards throughout the area. This presents the thorny dilemma of whether to crack down on unpermitted construction — thus hindering a source of housing stock that is at least within reach for lower-income residents — look the other way, or “legalize” the units in an effort to mitigate potential fire hazards or health risks. Tang told us one of the greatest concerns named by Sunset residents is the increasing cost of living in San Francisco; she’s even open to accepting a little more housing density in her district to deal with the issue.
Needless to say, the Guardian hasn’t exactly seen eye-to-eye with the board’s fiscally conservative supervisors, including Tang and her predecessor, Chu. We’re granting Tang an endorsement nevertheless, because she strikes us as dedicated to serving the Sunset over the long haul, and in touch with the concerns of young people who are finding it increasingly difficult to gain a foothold in San Francisco.
Tim’s San Francisco
steve@sfbg.com
Longtime Bay Guardian editor Tim Redmond, who left the paper in June, is launching a new media project, continuing more than 30 years of work as one of San Francisco’s premier progressive voices by starting an online publication under a new nonprofit organization.
The San Francisco Progressive Media Center promises to deliver original news, arts, and cultural reporting on a daily basis, differentiating itself from local blogs that serve mostly to aggregate stories written by other media outlets and offer commentary on that reporting.
“Democracy can’t survive without reporters and I want to have reporters out there covering the news everyday. San Francisco has always needed a liberal daily newspaper,” Redmond told us, predicting that online reporting outlets representing various perspectives will eventually rise to compete with the limited local coverage offered by the San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner.
“I will focus on all the things I care about in San Francisco,” Redmond told us, listing land use issues, housing costs, and media criticism as some examples of his interests.
Redmond has remained remarkably upbeat and positive since his clash with the San Francisco Print Media Co. — whose purchase of the Guardian he engineered last year to save the financially troubled, locally owned newspaper — ended his long run with the Guardian (see “On Guard,” June 19).
“I’m just moving on and doing my own thing. I’m excited about my new project and I’m raising a lot of money for it,” Redmond said. “I’m getting a tremendous amount of community support. I hope to have 50-60 grand on hand by the end of the month.”
To help reach that goal, Redmond and his supporters will throw a fundraiser on Sept. 26 at the El Rio. Despite being a stalwart of the left, Redmond said he’s getting support from across the ideological spectrum. “I have spent 30 years building a reputation in town as someone who doesn’t take cheap shots and I’m fair,” was how Redmond explained his broad support.
Although he’s still awaiting IRS approval of his nonprofit status, Redmond has already assembled a board of notable progressive luminaries to help him, including Eric Weaver, Laura Fraser, Calvin Welch, Alicia Garza, Gen Fujioka, Gabriel Haaland, and Giuliana Milanese.
“I wanted a board that reflects the diversity of San Francisco’s left,” Redmond said, noting that board explicitly has no editorial control.
Haaland said that Redmond has long been an important progressive voice in San Francisco and he’s happy to see that voice continue, particularly under the new nonprofit model that he’s creating.
“Having an independent, progressive media is more important than ever, and being a nonprofit takes it to another level of independence,” Haaland told us.
Welch said the new publication is arriving just in time to help expose important issues that will affect the future of San Francisco.
“I think we’re at a critical point in this city’s history,” Welch told us, citing the growing public unease with intensified waterfront development and other economic and sociopolitical trends. “The timing is impeccable and people would be interested to read online what Tim and others’ takes are on what’s happening in the city.”
San Francisco Progressive Media Center will be the latest effort to expand the city’s media landscape amid the downsizing of the once-dominant Chronicle and Examiner (see “Media experiments,” 5/25/10). Those ventures have included the San Francisco Public Press, SF Appeal, and the Bay Citizen, which had a high-profile launch in 2009 followed by being folded into the Center for Investigative Reporting last year (see “Compressing the press,” 2/22/12).
Redmond is finalizing details of his new project and has yet to announce the name for his new publication, which he plan to launch next month. [UPDATE: At the Sept. 26 event, Redmond announced that his new publication will be called 48 Hills: The Secrets of San Francisco.” There are 47 named hills in San Francisco – and as those of us who have spent their lives fighting for social and economic justice know, there’s always one more hill to climb.“]
In the meantime, he’s been blogging at Tim’s San Francisco (timssanfrancisco.blogspot.com) and preparing to teach an investigative reporting class at City College of San Francisco. On the new site, Redmond plans to feature some video and other multimedia content, but he said “this is not a techie venture, this is a content-driven venture.” And while seeking to showcase a variety of voices, Redmond will set the tone for the publication, telling us, “I’m interested in working with anyone in this city, but I’m the editor.”
Redmond said he still supports the Guardian, even if he has concerns about its parent company’s growing list of media holdings, which also includes the San Francisco Examiner, SF Weekly, and a large share of the Bay Area Reporter. Redmond said that media consolidation works for the community only when there is a diversity of other voices.
“I’m glad Todd [Vogt, CEO of San Francisco Print Media Co.] bought the Guardian and kept it going, and I’m glad the Guardian is still alive,” Redmond said. “I’ve been working for someone else my whole life…and it’s time for me to move on and do something new.”
Press Up! San Francisco Progressive Media Center fundraiser and launch party. Fiery speeches, refreshments, music. Sept. 26, 6-9pm, El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF. Donations of $25, $50, $100, or $250 can be made at the door or at tinyurl.com/SFPMCcontribute.
From America’s Flop to America’s Blowout — and we couldn’t be happier
New Zealand’s sailing team could win the America’s Cup this weekend after taking a 6-0 lead over the American team sponsored by Oracle and its billionaire CEO Larry Ellison, who made this elite sailing race even more prohibitively expensive than usual. And we at the Guardian couldn’t be happier for the Kiwis. Go New Zealand!
For years, we’ve been covering this sad spectacle, from the overhyped initial attendance and economic projections to the waterfront land grab and real estate swindle that Ellison and company tried to perpetrate on San Francisco to sticking city taxpayers with a big bill that Ellison should have footed himself to the episodes of cheating that caused international judges to dock Ellison’s team two points in the final (one of which is still yet to be assessed).
So we feel vindicated by this great act of karmic justice, to watch Ellison’s team not just losing badly, but being utterly blown out of the water by the straight-shooting team from Down Under, whose skipper has pledged to scale back future America’s Cups to make them cheaper and more accessible.
Frankly, watching the America’s Cup has been far less exciting than the speedy “NASCAR on water” that it was hyped as by organizers. This “sport” makes baseball seem riveting and fast-paced. But we’re thrilled to watch the grand finale, if only for the snicker.
Sammy Hagar runs through the hits at the America’s Cup Pavilion
Celebrating 40-plus years on the rock scene, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Sammy Hagar hit the stage in San Francisco on Saturday night before a crowd of thousands of enthusiastic fans.
Playing the America’s Cup Pavilion, the Red Rocker blazed through a set spanning most of his career, starting out with Montrose songs, then on to his solo material, through his stint with Van Halen, and up through his current output.
Sporting his signature shaggy hair and shades look, Hagar kicked off his set with several tunes from his first successful band, the Bay Area-based Montrose, for whom he sang back in the early 1970s.
Taking to the stage with two of his former Montrose bandmates, Bill Church and Denny Carmassi, along Y&T guitarist Dave Meniketti, who was filling in for the late Ronnie Montrose, Hagar ran back and forth, pumping up the audience with classic cuts like “Rock Candy” and “Bad Motor Scooter.”
When his current backing group took over, Hagar wasted no time in getting to some of his early signature solo hits, running through “Red” and then “I Can’t Drive 55,” which got fans — many of whom looked to have been following him since the beginning — singing along and dancing around, much to the chagrin of the bouncers, who seemed intent on keeping people firmly planted in front of their assigned seats.
The seating situation was one of the drawbacks to the temporary venue, or at least how it was configured for this particular show; you could tell lots of fans wanted to dance around and let loose, which is hard to do when you’re surrounded a sea of metal folding chairs and security forces keeping a watchful eye on everything.
Otherwise, the outdoor amphitheater located along the city’s waterfront was an ideal location for the concert — it definitely helped that it was one of those great late summer/early fall days and nights in San Francisco, where the sun was out all day, and the fog held off rolling in until the show was nearly over.
Landmarks like the the Transamerica Pyramid and Coit Tower provided a stunning backdrop to watching Hagar traverse the stage, at times bounding around and encouraging the crowd the yell or sing along, at others picking up a guitar and reminding concertgoers that he is also a formidable six string slinger in addition to being one of the best known singers in the realm of classic rock.
And that voice still sounds as strong as ever, belting out more hits such as “There’s Only One Way To Rock,” “Why Can’t This Be Love,” and “Heavy Metal” among others.
Hagar’s old cohort in Van Halen, Michael Anthony, joined in on bass for several tunes, eliciting a roar of approval when he appeared on stage and bantered back and forth with Hagar, who plied him with a bottle of liquor and tried to convince him to move out of LA to join him here in the Bay Area.
While playing one of Van Halen’s hits, “Right Now,” a video montage appeared on a giant screen behind the band, culling parts of the vintage video clip and adding a few newer additions. One said, “Right Now…People are hungry in San Francisco,” with the words “You Can Help” and shared the website for the San Francisco Food Bank — keeping with the fact that Hagar himself had previously announced that he would donate money to a couple of local charities when he made this tour stop.
Although it seemed he needed no extra help in winning over the crowd’s admiration, Hagar also scored some hometown points when he took a moment to tell everyone how he had “moved to San Francisco back in 1968 with a suitcase, a guitar, and about $5 in my pocket — and I’ve lived here ever since!”
He then added that in recent interviews everyone has been asking him, “When are you going to retire?”
“I tell them I retired when I moved here and started playing music!”
Shit happened
Exploratorium layoffs raise questions
A round of recent layoffs at the Exploratorium in San Francisco has taken the museum staff by surprise and sparked questions about the institution’s focus, an unexpected turn of events on the heels of the institution’s splashy reopening at its refurbished 330,000 square foot facility along The Embarcadero.
In mid-August, just a few months after the Exploratorium opened the doors at Piers 15/17, some 80 full-time-equivalent positions were eliminated without warning. The cuts included 35 layoffs, 35 positions that went unfilled, and eight reductions from full time to part time, according to spokesperson Leslie Patterson, a 14-year Exploratorium employee who was among those affected. The total staff is composed of 290 full-time-equivalent positions, according to its website.
Roughly three quarters of the impacted staff members are represented by SEIU Local 1021, and union members are now gearing up to launch a social media campaign in response to the sudden staffing cuts, featuring the community-minded vision of founder Frank Oppenheimer, with the hashtag #ourcommunitymuseum.
Officially, the cuts were made to solve a budget shortfall created when attendance at the new facility failed to reach anticipated levels. “They had very, very aggressive projections for attendance,” noted Eric Socolofsky, an exhibit developer who has been representing unionized museum staff at the negotiating table.
“We worked so hard to get in these doors and open this place,” Socolofsky said of the new waterfront spot. “People have given so much,” but in the weeks since layoff notices were issued without warning, “there’s a lot of disillusionment.”
Patterson emphasized that “our crowds have grown” since the new facility opened, despite the uncertain financial picture. June attendance was triple that of June in the previous year, she said, but the overall attendance figures still failed to hit necessary targets. “We needed to reduce the workforce to offset a budget gap,” she said.
Yet several museum employees told the Guardian that there is more to the sudden staff reduction than just solving a simple budget gap. There appears to be a reorganization effort afoot to promote business development, Socolofsky said, and that has some staff members concerned about a shift in priorities that could detract from efforts geared particularly for Bay Area patrons.
Socolofsky said more energy had been going toward “client services,” or contracting with outside institutions to build exhibits, and rent or sell portable exhibits developed at the Exploratorium. And even as the layoff notices have been issued, the Exploratorium is hiring for a dozen or so new positions.
“One of our concerns is that it’s moving toward a profit model,” Socolofsky said, adding that it was his understanding that some positions had been eliminated because they did not fit into the new organizational structure.
Its board of directors includes representatives from prominent businesses including Google, Twitter, eBay, Bechtel, Disney, PG&E, and a host of prominent venture capital firms with investments in the tech sector. Exploratorium Board Chairman George Cogan is a director at Bain & Company, Inc., a firm that specializes in restructuring, which gained notoriety during the 2012 presidential election due to GOP candidate Mitt Romney’s history of involvement there.
“It just seems like the pendulum has swung more toward the business aspect,” said David Barker, a graphic designer with the Exploratorium’s Institutional Media Group who was forced into an early retirement as a consequence of the staffing cuts.
Pamela Winfrey, a senior artist who started working at the museum in 1979 and just had her hours scaled back, said the Exploratorium has always felt like a family. “I think there are new directions in the wind as well as a budget shortfall,” Winfrey said. “It’s a complicated picture.”
And across the board, she added, the Exploratorium must contend with the fact that there’s a steadily eroding pool of funding for arts and science. “Funders are really having to think about whether they want to feed starving children,” she said, “or feed the mind.” (Rebecca Bowe)
Prisoners end hunger strike
Bay Area legislators Tom Ammiano (D-SF) and Loni Hancock (D-Berkeley) — who chair the Assembly and Senate Public Safety Committees, respectively — played pivotal roles in the Sept. 5 decision by California prison inmates to end their hunger strike (see “Hungry for reform, July 3) after 60 days.
The legislators called for legislative hearings to consider implementing some of the reforms that the prisoners and their supporters have been calling for, including changes to solitary confinement policies that critics say amount to illegal torture under international law.
“I’m happy that no one had to die in order to bring attention to these conditions,” Ammiano said. “The prisoners’ decision to take meals should be a relief to CDCR and the Brown administration, as well as to those who support the strikers.”
The question now is whether the legislative hearings, set for next month, can persuade the executive branch to finally take action, despite the fact that both Gov. Jerry Brown and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation have taken a hard line on prison issues, even resisting federal court orders to reduce the population in the severely overcrowded prison system and to improve substandard health care.
Ammiano spokesperson Carlos Alcala told the Guardian that the end of the hunger strike could help end that stalemate: “Mr. Ammiano is hopeful that CDCR’s intransigence has been directed at negotiating under the hunger strike pressure, but that they will now be open to making some changes that are meaningful.”
CRCR head Jeffrey Beard issued a public statement saying, “We are pleased this dangerous strike has been called off before any inmates became seriously ill.”
Issac Ontiveros of the Oakland-based California Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity group said the hunger strike generated international attention and support, waking the public up to horrific conditions in the prisons and putting pressure on the CDCR to implement reforms.
“Their demands are legitimate and they are pointing out human rights violations in California’s prisons,” Ontiveros told the Guardian, noting that Amnesty International and a long list of other groups are putting pressure on California to reform its prison practices. “What made them call off the strike was the political gains that they made…It was a thoughtful civil rights strategy.” (Steven T. Jones)
SFPD handling of cyclist fatalities probed
In the wake of revelations of shoddy and insensitive police work related to the Aug. 14 death of 24-year-old bicyclist Amelie Le Moullac, who was run over by a commercial truck driver who turned right across her path as she rode in a bike lane on Folsom Street at Sixth Street, Sup. Jane Kim has called for a hearing on how the SFPD investigates cyclist fatalities.
The issue has lit up the Bay Guardian website with hundreds of reader comments after we wrote a series of blog posts and an editorial (“Anti-cyclist bias must stop,” Aug. 28), revealing that SFPD failed to obtain video of the crash even as its Sgt. Richard Ernst showed up at an Aug. 21 memorial to Le Moullac to denigrate cyclists and make unfounded statements about the fatal collision.
Police Chief Greg Suhr later apologized for Ernst’s behavior and the flawed investigation and said that surveillance video unearthed by cycling activists led to the conclusion by a police investigation that the driver who killed Le Moullac was at fault, according to Bay City News and SF Appeal, which also reported on Kim’s call for a hearing. “We’re really thankful to Jane for bringing this forward,” San Francisco Bicycle Coalition Director Leah Shahum told the Guardian, saying she hopes the hearing results in changes to how the SFPD investigates cyclist fatalities. “We want to make sure there is ongoing accountability.” Meanwhile, as the San Francisco Examiner reported Sept. 5, Le Moullac’s family has filed a civil lawsuit against the driver who killed her, Gilberto Oriheaula Alcantar, as well as the company that he was driving for, Daylight Foods Inc., alleging that he was negligent in driving too fast and failing to pull into the bike lane before making a right turn from Folsom onto Sixth Street. (Steven T. Jones)
A bridge so far
By Steven T. Jones
steve@sfbg.com
Pedaling onto the Bay Bridge over the weekend, I was suspended between our industrial past and sleek present. But my ride into the future was abruptly stopped just before I reached the island.
All the experts say we should all just be happy with the world’s longest bike and pedestrian pier, and it certainly is a wondrous thing to behold, this spacious and beautiful two-mile path that pasted big grins on the dozens of faces that I rode past on its sunny first Friday in operation.
But just as the duality of riding between the old Bay Bridge and the new invoked myriad metaphors, so too did the fact that my fellow taxpayers and I just spent $6.4 billion on a bridge from Oakland to San Francisco built almost exclusively for the private automobile.
Is this the future we’ve embraced? Are global warming, economic equity, and collective responsibility such distant abstractions that we can fill this beautiful new bridge with people sitting alone in expensive, deadly, polluting, space-hogging machines?
I looked into their work-weary eyes as I rode my bicycle out from Oakland with a few of my friends during rush hour, on a path wide enough to facilitate conversations among a pair of cyclists in each direction and strolling pedestrians, six abreast. It was lovely, like we had finally arrived in the civilized, people-powered present that we Guardianistas have been working toward for decades.
And then it ended, a vivid reminder that we’re not there yet.
SHARING THE ROAD
The past is blocking our progress, literally and metaphorically, at least for now.
The old Bay Bridge stands between the stubbed-off end of the new bike/pedestrian path and its intended touchdown spot on natural Yerba Buena Island, the conjoined twin of the artificial Treasure Island, where developers dream of building high-rise condo towers buffered against the rising sea.
Officials tell the Guardian that the path will likely be completed in early 2015, after the old bridge comes down. Then, we’ll be able to ride our bikes onto the island and cruise our way to the west side, with its beautiful views of our beloved city, San Francisco, shimmering just out of reach.
Next month, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission will release its latest study of how to complete the ride/walk, examining the placement of pathways balanced on either side of the Bay Bridge’s western span, their added weight compensated for with lighter decks for the cars, all at a cost approaching a billion bucks, with a capital B.
“Everything about this is going to be hard,” MTC spokesperson John Goodwin told me when I asked about allowing cyclists and pedestrians onto the Bay Bridge’s western span, citing an array of engineering, financial, and political obstacles.
“It’s a 10-year project even if a local billionaire decides to put up the money,” Goodwin said, noting that there is no public funding identified for the project except for maybe raising automobile tolls again, which would be a tough sell to voters for a bike and pedestrian project. “It’s an uphill climb and I’m not sure it will ever reach its intended goal.”
But completing this journey is really only as difficult as we make it. Just ask local activist/author Chris Carlsson, who says that he and some of his buddies could fix the problem in a day for a few thousand dollars. All we need to do it take the righthand lane, install some barriers, done.
“The bridge is more malleable than people treat it as and we need to have this discussion publicly,” Carlsson, a founder of Critical Mass and author of Nowtopia, told us. “Let’s solve this problem today. The idea that they would open this bridge without completing this path is insulting.”
To Carlsson and others of his radical ilk, this is an equity issue, and the opening of a car-only bridge is symbolic of our societal myopia. To believers in the automotive status quo, the idea of giving up one of five traffic lanes for the final, two-mile-long descent into San Francisco makes their heads explode.
“That’s just wildly unrealistic,” Goodwin said of Carlsson’s idea, even instituted on a temporary basis, noting that the Bay Bridge handles more than 270,000 cars per day, by far the busiest state-run bridge in California.
To many modern minds, automobiles are essential to our personal freedom and economic vitality — bikes are toys, public transit is for the poor, walking is what you do in your neighborhood or on the treadmill at the gym — but San Francisco is a voter-approved “transit-first” city that supposedly gives each of these modes priority over cars.
“The idea that the five lanes of automobile traffic is inviolable is ridiculous,” Carlsson said, calling it a relic from the days before the freeway revolts of the 1950s and ’60s, when San Franciscans rejected the conception of The City as just another stop along the fast and efficient interstate highway system.
In fact, it was that cars-first vision — before it was rejected by a populist revolt — that helped lead officials to remove the passenger trains that operated on the lower decks of this New Deal/WPA bridge for its first 17 years of life, turning the whole Bay Bridge over to cars, trucks, and the occasional bus.
The era of unfettered automobility had begun, and the idea that capitalism/industrialism and the health of our world might someday, somehow come into conflict with one another also seemed wildly unrealistic.
BRIDGING THE GAP
The Bay Bridge was my bridge growing up in the East Bay, our link to the big city that I traversed while safely cocooned in the backseat of my parents’ car, windows up, car filled with what we’d later call secondhand smoke, buffered against the wilds of West Oakland as we launched over the bay.
Today, my perspective has changed and so has my access through the old industrial waterfront, which has been opened up to all by a pair of new paths leading bikers and hikers to the bridge, both short rides from the West Oakland BART station.
One starts on Maritime Street, near the Port of Oakland and the remnants of the old railyard on what the Realtors have started calling Oakland Point; the other starts on Shellmound Street right across from Ikea, best accessed from West Oakland along 40th Street, where crews were in the process of placing tall cones to protect the bike lane as we rode past.
After the trails merge, it proceeds past the yards for the government agencies set up to serve the motoring public: CalTrans and its freeway maintenance facilities, and the California Highway Patrol, which has doubled its local bicycle brigade (which had worked just the Golden Gate Bridge) to police the new path.
“Best job in the world,” a smiling Officer Sean Wilkenfeld told me as he arrived at the end of the Bay Bridge path, where a couple dozen people stood watching the new Bay Bridge and the old, which took on a ghostly feel as we hovered next to its newfound lifelessness.
Personally, I really like the new Bay Bridge, with its elegant modern architecture and unobstructed bay views. But some of the friends and strangers that I chatted up there at the end of the line disagreed, singing the praises of the old, industrial, seismically unsound original.
“The new bridge is beautiful, but in some ways I like the old bridge better because you can see its functionality,” Joel Fajans, a physics professor at UC Berkeley, told me.
Conversation among the cyclists turned to our beautiful new path and its untimely end. “What a dream come true to have a bike path on the Bay Bridge. I already wrote to my representatives about completing the route to San Francisco,” said Kurt Vogler, a 47-year-old environmental consultant from Oakland who rode the bridge with Fajans.
That was the phrase that everyone used, this notion of completion, conveying the sense that we’re somehow stuck between where we were and where we should be, suspended between the old and the new, waiting to catch up.
“I think it’s beautiful. It’s an engineering marvel, a miracle,” Garris Shipon, a engineer from Berkeley, said halfway through his bike ride on the Bay Bridge. “I’m glad they launched with a bike path at all, and I hope they finish it because I’d love to ride all the way across.”
TWO BRIDGES
The San Francisco-Oakland Bay and Golden Gate bridges were built at the same time, started in 1933. But the Bay Bridge — the industrial, utilitarian bridge connecting The City to its biggest, most diverse nearby population centers — was done first. The tall, pretty one — with its Art Deco flourishes and tourist appeal — took longer.
On its opening day, the Golden Gate Bridge was filled with pedestrians, while the Bay Bridge hosted its first traffic jam as it was unveiled, “with every auto owner in the Bay Region, seemingly, trying to crowd his machine onto the great bridge,” the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
It’s been the same story ever since, with cyclists and walkers crowding onto the Golden Gate daily, salty winds howling through their hair, while travelers on the Bay are caged behind steel and glass.
But not anymore. In fact, it’s far more pleasant to ride on the Bay than the Golden Gate, where the bike path is narrow and cluttered. Now, it’s the golden one that seems to belong to another age, with the Bay Bridge designed to be personally experienced.
“It’s really a spectacular excursion,” Renee Rivera, executive director of the East Bay Bicycle Coalition, told me. “I was taken by surprise by what fun it is to be on a bike on that bridge.”
But the stirring sensation of riding or walking the Bay Bridge only accentuates its main shortcoming; at least the noisy, harrowing Golden Gate Bridge goes all the way across.
“We just spent $6 billion on that,” Fajans said, gesturing to the new Bay Bridge, “and you’re saying we can’t spend a little more to complete the bike lane? That’s not fair.”
Goodwin and others say that motorists paid for the new Bay Bridge with their tolls, but Fajans calls bullshit, noting that BART passengers pay more than drivers for a round trip across the bay without buying exclusive access in the future.
In this age of austerity, with government funding for transportation projects drying up and people reluctant to raise their own tolls or taxes, it’s hard to do what’s needed. That’s one reason cycling advocates take what they can get, such as an expensive western span proposal with one of two paths reserved for maintenance vehicles to smooth the automotive flow.
“If we have to sell it to the public to increase tolls, we’ll have to show that it benefits everyone,” Rivera said.
Completing this path, somehow, is a top priority for the cyclists.
“It was a little tough to get people’s attention on the western span for the last couple years, but now is the time,” Leah Shahum, executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, told us.
Neither director seems willing to embrace Carlsson’s radical approach of simply seizing a lane.
“Like Chris, we feel strongly about equity on the bridge,” Rivera said. “At the same time, it needs to function smoothly as a bridge and I would be concerned about it bottlenecking at Treasure Island.”
Carlsson rejects the neoliberal approach of begging for scraps as we ride into a future that simply can’t continue to be dominated by automobiles. He says the Bay Pier must not rest there for another decade.
“Both bike coalitions have a resistance to appearing anti-car,” Carlsson says, “so they aren’t willing to say the obvious thing.”
Carlsson talks about the Bay Bridge as part of the free Shaping San Francisco lecture series at 7:30pm, Sept. 11, Eric Quezada Center for Culture and Politics, 518 Valencia, SF.
Questions raised by staff cutbacks at the Exploratorium
A round of recent layoffs at the Exploratorium in San Francisco has taken museum staff by surprise and sparked questions about the institution’s focus going forward, an unexpected turn of events on the heels of the institution’s splashy reopening at its refurbished 330,000 square foot facility along The Embarcadero.
In mid-August, just a few months after the Exploratorium opened the doors of its LEED-certified space at Piers 15/17, some 80 full-time-equivalent positions were eliminated without prior warning. The cuts included 35 layoffs, 35 positions that went unfilled, and eight reductions from full time to part time, according to spokesperson Leslie Patterson, a 14-year Exploratorium employee who was among those affected. The total staff is comprised of 290 full-time-equivalent positions, according to its website.
Roughly three quarters of the impacted staff members are represented by SEIU Local 1021, and union members are now gearing up to launch a social media campaign in response to the sudden staffing cuts. They’ve created a graphic depicting founder Frank Oppenheimer (above), and are posting to Twitter and Facebook with the hashtag #ourcommunitymuseum.
Officially, the cuts were made to solve for a budget shortfall created when attendance at the new facility failed to reach anticipated levels, making actual revenues lower than what consultants had projected. “They had very, very aggressive projections for attendance,” noted Eric Socolofsky, an exhibit developer who has been representing unionized museum staff at the negotiating table.
“We worked so hard to get in these doors and open this place,” Socolofsky said of the new waterfront spot. “People have given so much,” but in the weeks since layoff notices were issued without warning, “there’s a lot of disillusionment.”
Yet Patterson, the museum spokesperson, emphasized that “our crowds have grown” since the new facility opened, despite the uncertain financial picture. June attendance was triple that of June in the previous year, she said, but the overall attendance figures still failed to hit necessary targets. “We needed to reduce the workforce to offset a budget gap,” she said.
Revenue generated by museum visitors is separate from the money raised to relocate the Exploratorium from its previous home at the Palace of Fine Arts. That effort was bankrolled by a capital campaign, which has collected $290 million of its $300 million goal so far, according to Patterson.
Meanwhile, several museum employees expressed to the Guardian that there is more to the sudden staff reduction than just solving a simple budget gap. There appears to be a reorganization effort afoot to promote business development, Socolofsky said, and that has some staff members concerned about a shift in priorities that could detract from efforts geared particularly for Bay Area patrons.
Socolofsky said more energy had been going toward “client services,” or contracting with outside institutions to build exhibits, and rent or sell portable exhibits developed at the Exploratorium.
And even as the layoff notices have been issued, the Exploratorium is hiring for a dozen or so new positions. “Whatever positions are available are being opened to people who were laid off,” Patterson said. But when asked how the museum could possibly afford be hiring at a time when it was cutting staff to balance the budget, she said she didn’t know the answer.
“One of our concerns is that it’s moving toward a profit model,” Socolofsky said, adding that it was his understanding that some positions had been eliminated because they did not fit into the new organizational structure.
In some ways, it seems odd that the celebrated 44-year-old institution, which lists its budget online as $58.6 million for 2012-13, would be facing financial problems. Its board of directors includes representatives from prominent businesses including Google, Twitter, eBay, Bechtel, Disney, PG&E, and a host of prominent venture capital firms with investments in the tech sector. Amid speculation that the museum could be changing course, some observers have hinged on the fact that Exploratorium Board Chairman George Cogan is a director at Bain & Company, Inc., a firm that specializes in restructuring, which gained notoriety during the 2012 presidential election due to GOP candidate Mitt Romney’s history of involvement there.
David Barker, a graphic designer with the Exploratorium’s Institutional Media Group who was forced into an early retirement as a consequence of the staffing cuts, echoed Socolofsky’s assessment that a reorganization effort seemed to be driving staffing cuts in part. But at the same time, he said the museum had to do something to adapt to a new climate in which funding sources are drying up.
“It just seems like the pendulum has swung more toward the business aspect,” he said. An employee for more than 30 years, Barker lamented that the staffing cuts could dampen mentorship opportunities for younger artists and designers.
Barker was dismissive of the idea that the reorganization was somehow linked to Cogan’s role at Bain & Co., saying, “There’s no person who is more dedicated to the museum.”
Amid the unanswered questions, impacted and unaffected staff members alike emphasized in interviews with the Guardian that the Exploratorium staff continued to feel like a kind of family. “I think it’s kind of extraordinary,” said Pamela Winfrey, a senior artist who started working at the museum in 1979 and just had her hours scaled back. “I think there are new directions in the wind as well as a budget shortfall,” Winfrey said. “It’s a complicated picture.”
And across the board, she added, the Exploratorium must contend with the fact that there’s a steadily eroding pool of funding for arts and science. “Funders are really having to think about whether they want to feed starving children,” she said, “or feed the mind.”
Fall fairs and festivals
Listings are compiled by Guardian staff.
Sept. 14-15
Ghirardelli Chocolate Festival Ghirardelli Square, 900 North Point, SF; ghirardellisq.com/chocolate-festival. Noon-5pm, $25 for 15 chocolate tastings. Project Open Hand benefits from the 18th annual incarnation of this delectable festival. New for 2013, there’ll be a “Chocolate and Wine Pavilion” for guests over 21, plus the ever-popular hands-free ice cream eating contest; chef demos; and a talk by Ghirardelli’s “Chocolate Professor,” Steve Genzoli, on the art of chocolate-making.
Sept. 15
Comedy Day Sharon Meadow, Golden Gate Park, SF; www.comedyday.com. Noon-5pm, free. The 33rd incarnation of this local tradition boasts “one stage, five hours, 40 comedians, and a million laughs!” Performers include Will Durst, Tom Ammiano, Natasha Muse, Johnny Steele, Tony Sparks, and more.
Sept. 20-22
Oktoberfest by the Bay Pier 48, SF; www.oktoberfestbythebay.com. Fri, 5pm-midnight; Sat, 11am-5pm and 6pm-midnight; Sun, 11am-6pm, $25-75 (kids 13-18, $5 for Saturday day session or Sunday only). “Tasty food, cold beer, and sizzling oompah music,” y’all. How do you say y’all in German? Anyway, if you have lederhosen, now’s your chance to wear it. The 21-piece Chico Bavarian Band headlines this annual sudsy bacchanal.
Sept. 21-22
Polk Street Blues Festival Polk between Pacific and Union, SF; www.polkstreetbluesfestival.com. 10am-6pm, free. Back for its fourth year, this up-and-coming fest boasts two music stages, arts and crafts vendors, and gourmet eats. Visit the website in the weeks before the event for updated performer information.
Sept. 27-29
Eat Real Festival Jack London Square, Oakl; www.eatrealfest.com. Fri, 1-9pm; Sat-Sun, 10:30am-5pm, free. No dish costs more than five bucks at this showcase of sustainable Bay Area cuisine (and local beer and wine, too). The fest also offers up DIY demos (“from home cheese making to backyard chickens”), live music, butchery contests, and more.
Sept. 28
Superhero Street Fair Waterfront Boardwalk Oasis overlooking Islais Creek, 1700 Indiana, SF; www.superherosf.com. 2pm-midnight, $20 ($10 in costume). Holding out for a hero? Why not just be one yourself at this fourth annual fiesta? Seven stages with 17 “sound camps” (dubstep, reggae, drum and bass, etc.) set the mood, plus there’ll be bands (including SF’s own pint-sized rockers Haunted By Heroes), robot dancers Anna and the Anadroids, exhibits by the Cartoon Art Museum and Mission Comics, a “Superhero Bootcamp,” and lots more heroic (and villainous!) fun.
Sept. 29
Folsom Street Fair Folsom between 7th and 12th Sts, SF; www.folsomstreetfair.com. 11am-6:30pm, free (gate donations benefit charity). In honor of Folsom’s 30th anniversary, the fest goes for 30 extra minutes this year. That means 30 extra minutes of kinky, leather-clad fun with an estimated 400,000 fellow revelers, plus over 200 exhibitor booths (selling gear for every fetish), multiple stages of live music and DJs, and naked butts as far as the eye can see.
Oct. 6
Castro Street Fair, Castro at Market, SF; www.castrostreetfair.org. 11am-6pm, free. Celebrating its landmark 40th anniversary, this popular gathering brings pop star Peaches to headline its main stage; her act includes a tribute to late disco legend Sylvester, who performed at the 1975 Castro Street Fair.
Oct. 11-19
Litquake Various venues, SF; www.litquake.org. San Francisco’s Literary Festival unfurls for over a week of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction author events, interactive activities, and more — including the insanely popular annual Lit Crawl. Check the website as the event approaches for info on special guests.
Oct. 12-13
Alternative Press Expo Concourse Exhibition Center, 635 8th St, SF; comic-con.org/ape. Times and ticket prices TBD. For 20 years, APE has promoted alternative and self-published comics, and this year looks to be a stellar one: guests include Zippy the Pinhead creator Bill Griffith, and there’ll be another edition of “Comic Creator Connection,” helping writers and artists come together to make creative magic.
Oct. 19
Potrero Hill Festival 20th St between Wisconsin and Missouri, SF; www.potrerofestival.com. 11am-4pm, free. The 24th celebration of one of SF’s hilliest ‘hoods features local food vendors, historians, entertainment, artists, and more.
Oct. 26
Noe Valley Harvest Festival, 24th St between Church and Sanchez, SF; www.noevalleyharvestfestival.com. 10am-5pm, free. This fest offers old-fashioned family fun to kick off the holiday season, with a certain amount of Halloween flair to boot: there’ll be a pumpkin patch (and pumpkin decorating), costume contests for kids and dogs, a pie-eating contest, and more.
Nov. 9-10
Green Festival Concourse Exhibition Center, 635 8th St, SF; www.greenfestivals.org. Sat, 10am-6pm; Sun, 11am-5pm, ticket price TBD. Presentations and panel discussions on sustainable living and other green issues, plus “the nation’s largest green marketplace for the conscious consumer” for all your eco-conscious gift-giving needs.
Nov. 23-Dec. 22
Great Dickens Christmas Faire Cow Palace, 2600 Geneva, SF; www.dickensfair.com. Nov 23-24, Nov 29-Dec 1, Dec 7-8, 14-15, and 21-22, 10am-7pm, ticket price TBD. Because it wouldn’t be Christmas in San Francisco without this long-running interactive, festively detailed dose of Victorian London. Roasted chestnuts for everyone!
America’s Cup organizers sell small-scale naming rights at Pier 27 to pay their debt to the city
The Port Commission has approved a proposal by the America’s Cup Organizing Committee (ACOC) to sell bricks, benches, and other assets at Pier 27 to offset budget shortfalls, but community activists fear that corporate naming rights are undermining plans for a public recreation space.
A presentation at the Tuesday meeting by Kyri McClellan, the former city staffer who now serves as CEO of the ACOC, and Mike Martin of the Office of Economic and Workforce Development outlined the sale of up to 1,000 bricks to be set in pathways and 72 benches to dot the Northeast Wharf Plaza, which will bear the names of donors. Benches will be priced at $25,000, which McClellan cited as the going rate at other high-profile locations throughout the city.
McClellan emphasized that “none of what we’re proposing today as a pilot program includes what may previously have been alluded to as naming rights for this particular park, the piers, or the buildings.”
Milo Hanke and Alex Walker of San Francisco Beautiful, a local advocacy organization, didn’t have a problem with the smaller scale elements of the ACOC proposal. “The tiles and the bricks that are being offered here for $150, $300, for instance,” Hanke told the crowd, “that’s a gratifying opportunity for ordinary citizens who have already invested in our port to volunteer to express additional support for this proud port.”
But Hanke and Walker expressed concern about bigger ticket items that McClellan addressed with less specificity. “We want to make sure that this is a thing that’s going to be place-making and not place-taking,” commented Walker.
In addition to bricks and benches, the wharf’s lawn and adjacent walkway, an open plaza area, and a point at the pier’s end are earmarked for recognition of donors. So too are an event space and an exterior concourse on the second floor of the James R. Herman Passenger Cruise Terminal, slated to open at Pier 27 next spring.
“Corporate naming rights,” explained Hanke, “come with an intangible cost and I think that, given San Franciscans’ historic aversion to excess commercialization of our public realm, corporate naming rights are well worth taking a bypass on.”
Diagrams presented by ACOC did not include detailed renderings of larger donor fulfillments or clarification as to whether recognition would be restricted to individual and foundational donors and off limits to more commercial interests. “There is concern,” said Hanke, “of a creeping naming rights program if large areas are named for corporations.”
Pulling in $500,000 to $2.5 million a piece, however, bigger structures may be the revenue drivers ACOC is desperately seeking. As part of its host agreement with San Francisco, the organization is obligated to help offset the city’s expenses incurred in event preparations and operations.
Luckily, the race’s outsized budget is expected to be less than the $32 million originally projected, due to the paltry number of teams competing (four at last count) and the resulting decrease in spectatorship. Still, the ACOC needs to come up with as much as $20 million – a debt burden that’s got Mayor Ed Lee personally stumping in the fundraising effort. The fundraising flop belies early promises that the city would make money hosting the event.
San Francisco voters approved Proposition B last November, authorizing the city to apply public funds towards repairs and redevelopment of recreational spaces. The fact that the Northeast Wharf Plaza was a named site in that bond measure isn’t the only reason community activists are demanding to know what assets on its piers are being auctioned off and who’s buying them.
According to Jon Golinger, a spokesman for the Northeast Waterfront Advisory Group, the San Francisco Waterfront Special Area Plan limited development on the Pier 27 plaza until a 2000 amendment lifted port restrictions in exchange for guarantees of public recreation areas.
Since then, “we’ve been paying close attention to this park. It’s particularly needed and a long time coming,” explained Golinger, who said there’s been no citizen review of the ACOC’s donor recognition program proposal.
Neighborhood organizations hope ACOC’s tag sale of infrastructure doesn’t torpedo use plans for land long ago promised as a public recreation area. Golinger would like to see features like a kids’ play area, a dog run, and exercise equipment for seniors included in the final design – whether or not they are lucrative to race organizers now.
“After the Cup is done in October, it should look, feel, and be used like a true public park,” Golinger said of the plaza. “This corner of town is the most densely packed part of San Francisco with the fewest recreation areas per capita…. [the plaza] should be part of the neighborhood as opposed to a corporate event venue.”
The promise of infrastructure improvements was one reason the city of San Francisco agreed to host the America’s Cup race in the first place. Residents are now left to hope that ACOC won’t forgo investments of lasting civic value for single-use vanity projects intended to float its budget deficit.
Concluding the discussion of the ACOC’s proposal on Tuesday, Port Commissioner Leslie Katz offered assurances that, “we’ll definitely oversee and be mindful of the aesthetics of anything going forward… This is not a selling off of the port, but really an opportunity to thank and acknowledge those that have allowed us to move forward.”
This opportunity, of course, assumes that donors actually surface. Mayoral spokesperson Christine Falvey said, “We will learn from [this] effort about how we can raise private dollars to improve our waterfront and engage city residents in the effort.”
If ACOC’s efforts to court private dollars from city residents aren’t fruitful, however, taxpayers-turned-debt-collectors may have no option but to sign former District 3 Supervisor Aaron Peskin’s online petition and to demand that America’s Cup billionaire defending champion Larry Ellison pick up the tab for his boat race all by himself.
SF Democratic Party opposes developers’ 8 Washington initiative
On Wed/14, members of the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee voted 14-6 to oppose Proposition B, a San Francisco ballot measure backed by the developers of a luxury waterfront development project, 8 Washington. Ten DCCC members abstained, while two voted “no endorsement.” Prop. B seeks voter approval for the waterfront development, which has become a flashpoint in San Francisco politics.
The 134-unit condominium complex, which will offer units in the $5 million range, already won approval from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors last June. But 8 Washington developers launched the Prop. B initiative in response to Prop. C, a referendum backed by oppositional campaign “No Wall on the Waterfront.” In May, the DCCC made an early endorsement against Prop. C, essentially siding with project opponents in declaring opposition to 8 Washington.
It’s easy to get Props. B and C confused. The campaign against 8 Washington is called “No Wall on the Waterfront,” while the developer-backed campaign favoring construction has been dubbed “Open up the Waterfront.” From opponents’ perspective, it almost doesn’t matter if voters bother to sort out which is which. Now with the support of the DCCC, they are urging a “no” vote on each.
Last week we told you about a campaign video produced by 8 Washington developers that had attracted some controversy. Here’s a campaign video produced by 8 Washington opponents, featuring former San Francisco Mayor Art Agnos. The pitch makes sound like the San Francisco waterfront will morph into Miami Beach if 8 Washington moves forward. You have to admit it’s a stretch.
Agency official under fire for development project endorsement
Did a high-ranking official of a regional conservation authority improperly use her influence to secure $10,000 for a nonprofit she chairs the board of? That’s the allegation raised against San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission Vice-Chair Anne Halsted in a complaint filed with the Fair Political Practices Commission, a statewide ethics agency.
Halsted appeared in a campaign ad produced by Open Up the Waterfront, which is pushing a San Francisco ballot measure seeking public approval for 8 Washington, a controversial waterfront development project that has become a political flashpoint in San Francisco.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VF6OrFcwzn0&feature=youtu.be
Halsted also chairs of the board of directors of SPUR, a member-supported San Francisco nonprofit focused on planning issues.
In addition to publicly endorsing Open Up the Waterfront, SPUR received a $10,000 donation from San Francisco Waterfront Partners, the 8 Washington developers and major funders of the ballot initiative, sometime between May and the end of June. The campaign ad was posted to YouTube on July 22.
Geraldine Crowley, a volunteer working on a competing ballot measure campaign formed in opposition to 8 Washington, No Wall on the Waterfront, seized on this donation in her FPPC complaint. Crowley charged that Halsted violated conflict-of-interest rules under the California Political Reform Act, saying Halsted “used [her] official position to influence a governmental decision in which the official knows or has reason to know that he or she has a financial interest.”
“I would just like to have her portion of the commercial erased,” Crowley said in an interview. “What she says in the commercial does not reflect how all of BCDC feels about Open Up The Waterfront.”
The video also features an appearance by Will Travis, retired director of BCDC. “This appears to be a violation of the conflict-of-interest rules designed to prevent financial gifts from influencing public officials entrusted to steward public assets such as the Bay,” said Jon Golinger, a spokesperson for No Wall on the Waterfront.
Halsted didn’t respond to our request for comment, but she did contact BCDC Chair Zack Wasserman to address the concerns raised by No Wall on the Waterfront in a message that was later forwarded to the Guardian.
“For several years [I] have supported a project called 8 Washington which is near the waterfront, but totally outside BCDC’s jurisdiction. Because a recent video advocating the project indicated that I, a supporter of the project, am vice chair of BCDC, some have worried that it implies BCDC support – something I have never envisioned or contemplated! Please be assured that my advocacy is personal because I believe it is an excellent project, not because any organization with which I associate has voted to endorse the project! Sorry if this confused anyone.”
Whether Halsted influenced the $10,000 donation to SPUR in connection with her support for the project remains unclear. The organization’s operating budget exceeded $3 million during the 2011-2012 year, according to SPUR’S annual report.
“When it comes to conflict-of-interest violations, it needs to be found that a public official is making governmental decisions based on money that has been given to them,” Gary Winuk, chief of the enforcement division at FPPC said. “After we receive the complaint, we wait 10 days for the person accused to respond, then launch an investigation and review all the facts if there is just cause.”
David Beltran, spokesperson for Open Up the Waterfront, criticized the complaint as “a reckless and meritless attempt to suppress free speech.”
It’s likely to be a week or more before the FPPC determines whether Crowley’s complaint has any validity. If the FPPC determines that that Halsted did indeed violate the conflict-of-interest rules under the California Political Reform Act, she may face penalties such as a misdemeanor and $5,000 per violation.
Larry Goldzband, the commission’s executive director, noted that BCDC has yet to endorse the project.
“The multi-use project proposed at 8 Washington Street in San Francisco is not in the jurisdiction of the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission,” Goldzband said. “BCDC has neither considered nor endorsed the project, nor has any Commissioner asked that the Commission review the project in any manner.”
Get fresh
culture@sfbg.com
TABLEHOPPING Ahhh, the much-maligned San Francisco “summer,” the 62-degree, socked-deeply-in-the-fog days we love to hate on — but secretly cherish when the rest of the country is melting in 98-degree temps with sauna-like levels of humidity. But we are a hardy bunch. We proudly don our scarves with a flourish as we sit on patios drinking pitchers of beer, our stripy sweaters like badges of honor as we attend windy picnics in the park, eating corn on the cob (that was grown somewhere warm, definitely not here) while wearing fingerless gloves.
Since the calendar says it’s summer — even though some days almost require a parka — we have a restaurant summer salute for you: your cheat sheet of new restaurants with patios and sidewalk seating, plus recently opened spots that are just plain hawt, no matter what the temperature is. Oh, and a sneak peek at a couple places opening in time for Indian summer. Sunblock optional.
NEW PATIOS
Due to reopen this week is a revamped Ziryab (528 Divisadero. SF. www.ziryabgrill.com), with a brand-new look, and there will now be both the popular front terrace and a new back patio with greenery. Add in a fresh Mediterranean menu from chef Khalid al Morabet (think vegetable tagine, merguez flatbread), plus a new liquor license with cocktails from Zach Taylor, previously at Hog and Rocks. Dive into drinks like the Ziryab Manhattan, with date-infused Bulleit rye, lapsang souchong tea, and a touch of arak — yeah, it’ll keep you warm.
In the Castro, the owner of Italian hotspot Poesia recently opened Dante’s Table (544 Castro, SF. www.dantestable.com), which has a back patio and garden area fittingly called “Paradiso.” You can swing by for a menu of casual Italian dishes (pasta, Neapolitan pizza), plus summery classics like bruschetta with tomato or burrata and tomatoes. Bonus: full liquor! There’s a happy hour from 5pm–6:30pm, with $7 cocktails, and $5 bites (suppli al telefono, fried and cheesy risotto balls…) that you can enjoy before the fog rolls in.
On the waterfront, Michael Chiarello’s Spanish Coqueta (Pier 5, SF. www.coquetasf.com) has a few outdoor tables where you can watch joggers go by as you swill your gin and tonic and eat jamón iberico (we recommend you do this at lunch for maximum sun). If the wind picks up, there is the Bar5 space that flanks the restaurant, with a communal bar table, high leather chairs, and tiled floors. And it’s full of windows that open and let in fresh air and light, so it’s almost like being outside.
We have mentioned these other new patio-bedecked places in our weekly Tablehopping column, but here’s your reminder: in North Beach, there’s the latest location of Tacolicious (1548 Stockton, SF. www.tacolicious.com), serving tacos and margaritas — available by the pitcher, oh yeah — all day to put you in a Mexico frame of mind as you kick it in your sidewalk seats. Meanwhile, over in the Upper Haight (a.k.a. fog-bank city), there’s Sparrow Bar and Kitchen (1640 Haight, SF. sparrowbarandkitchen.com) with its spacious heated beer garden in the back. Order one of the burgers to pair with the 14 beers on tap. Lastly, the very-soon-to-open (and heated!) back patio at Rustic (3331 24th St., SF. www.rusticsf.com) in the Mission will help you pretend you’re a well-seasoned Italian man, or reaffirm your official status as one, playing on the two bocce ball courts while eating pizza.
HOT-HOT OPENINGS
With a name like Waiheke Island Yacht Club (Pier 29, SF. www.waihekeislandyachtclub.com), you practically assume your drink is going to be a Cape Cod, served by someone in a navy blazer with gold buttons. Far from it. This higher-end, pop-up restaurant in a Pier 29 shed is a New Zealand import, open until the end of the year. It sports an airy and spacious look, with low-slung leather chairs and a gleaming open kitchen. It’s unlike anything in the city. The modern cuisine features New Zealand ingredients, like lamb (of course) and a smashing venison dish. You’ll find inventive cocktails at the bar, such as the Red Snapper, a spin on a Bloody Mary that totally rocks. Or refresh with some beers from Kiwi import MOA.
Also on the waterfront, the Boulette’s Larder team just opened the minimalist and contemporary Bouli Bar (Ferry Building, SF. www.bouletteslarder.com) in the former Culinaire space, with a wood-burning hearth, more than six kinds of pizzas, a variety of meze and salads, and lunch to go. Of course you can expect organic and very carefully sourced ingredients galore, with interesting seasoning and spices. Yup, it’s all so bougie. And in case you’re wondering, Boulette’s is due to reopen in August.
Over in Jackson Square, the business crowd has a new spot to power lunch at Roka Akor (801 Montgomery, SF. www.rokaakor.com), while the after-work scene can take over the downstairs lounge. The focal point of the dining room is the robata grill encircled by a hypertrendy shou-sugi-ban counter made of charred birch wood finished by hand. The menu, by chef Roman Petry, has a wide range of Japanese-inspired dishes, from lobster and abalone miso soup to Wagyu beef and kimchi dumplings, plus nigiri sushi, steaks, and more.
COMING REAL SOON
The Divisadero Corridor, so foodie-hot, and with the August 14th opening of La Urbana (661 Divisadero, SF. www.laurbanasf.com), it’s going to really be en fuego. This stylish restaurant and bar will be giving us a taste of Mexico City, with an eclectic design highlighting so many custom touches — mucho contemporary cantina. The cutting-edge cuisine from chef Benjamin Klein will offer modern takes on traditional regional Mexican dishes; the bar is going to be all about mezcal, and there will even be a Mezcaleria, with over 30 mezcals for sale (soon).
Anyone who is a fan of the elegant Acquerello is getting excited to see what owner Giancarlo Paterlini’s son Gianpaolo is putting together for his new 1760 (1760 Polk, SF. www.1760sf.com) project on Polk and Washington. It’s going to be a chic yet comfortable 80-seat spot (read: no tablecloths), with a rocking wine program (of course), a full bar, and a modern, ingredient-driven menu by chef Adam Tortosa. Stand by for an opening in late summer.
Marcia Gagliardi is the founder of the weekly tablehopper e-column; subscribe for more at www.tablehopper.com. Get her app: Tablehopper’s Top Late-Night Eats. On Twitter: @tablehopper.
Striking Out
news@sfbg.com
Today marks 1,575 days since concession workers at AT&T Park have had a raise, during which time the San Francisco Giants have been fabulously successful, both on and off the playing field.
The 750 workers represented by UNITE-HERE Local 2 are currently involved in frustrating and fruitless negotiations with their employer, Centerplate, a South Carolina-based food service company contracted by the Giants to sell beer, garlic fries, and other overpriced consumables at games.
The Giants and its front office seem fairly unconcerned about the plight of workers who proudly don the team’s logo and pad its revenues. Not a single concession worker that we interviewed for this article said that they work for Centerplate — each of them said that they work for the Giants.
Since the last contract expired in March 2010, the Giants have won two World Series championships, raised the average ticket price by 20 percent, and have seen the value of the team shoot up by $223 million. The only thing that hasn’t improved are the wages of the concession workers.
Cashiers currently make $16.40 per hour, in-seat runners make $13.40, and some entry-level workers make just $10.45, which is actually less the city’s minimum wage. That’s only legal because those workers were under contract for $10.45 per hour when the wage increased to $10.55 at the beginning of this year. And Centerplate won’t even let Giants workers have a tip jar to augment their substandard wages.
Local 2 reports that revenue from concessions is divided up in a 55-45 split between the team and Centerplate (the Giants PR office disputes this number, but it won’t divulge the actual split). So when a fan spends $17 for a hot dog and 16oz beer, Centerplate and its workers get $7.65 and the Giants get $9.35, all of it pure profit. And the Giants executives even set the concession prices, not Centerplate.
But the team says the plight of these workers isn’t its problem. “We continue to urge both parties to get back to the bargaining table and to have productive discussions so the matter can be resolved as quickly as possible. This dispute is between Centerplate and Local 2, not the Giants,” is the team’s public position on the issue.
The Giants communications office responded with this stance to every question the Guardian asked about the issues involved: What have you done to “urge” Centerplate to settle the contract? Couldn’t the Giants force a settlement if it really wanted to? Why haven’t concessions workers shared in the team’s success and rising revenues? How can you claim to support the community if you can’t even ensure the people who work in your stadium are paid minimum wage?
The Giants had nothing to say about a petition signed by 600 of the workers urging the team and Centerplate to agree to a deal, instituting a company-wide no-comment policy on the standoff with concession workers.
“It would be nice if they would come in and talk—not be a mediator, but to know what we’re asking for and say why they’re not providing it or why they feel they shouldn’t provide certain information,” Billie Feliciano, who has worked as a Giants cashier for more than 30 years, told us. “They could talk to the president of the union on that if they wanted to. You know, we’re not asking you to tell us how you spend your money. We just want to know how much control you have of this situation.”
Feliciano and her fellow workers just want the Giants to be team players.
WHO’S IN CONTROL?
Contrary to what the Giants may say, there is one pressing issue—job security for the workers—that is nearly impossible for the workers and Centerplate to resolve. Every worker interviewed for this story has explicitly said that job security is their most important goal.
Even Centerplate says only the Giants can offer job security to concession workers. If Centerplate goes out of business or loses its contract, the concession workers will likely lose their jobs, which is why they’re advocating for a succesorship clause that would guarantee their employment in that scenario.
When The Guardian inquired with the Giants office about the issue, its spokesperson once again responded, “This is an issue between the workers and Centerplate, not the Giants.”
But with the Giants controlling who runs its concession and how much they charge the fans, is Centerplate just an easy scapegoat for squeezing more profits from workers? Because on the subject of health benefits and wages, the two camps are separated by a wide chasm.
In order to qualify for healthcare, the workers need to work at least 10 games in a month (they’re eligible for health insurance only from June 1 through December 1) to have coverage a month later, which means that the health and well-being of the 750 workers hinges on Major League Baseball’s scheduler.
Workers almost got denied coverage for August because June only had nine games, but they ended up qualifying because they worked a private event at AT&T Park for the biotechnology firm Genentech.
Yet Centerplate wants to raise the number of qualifying games to 12, while Local 2 wants to keep it at 10 and grant healthcare coverage to workers who work every game in months with less than 10 games.
On wages, Centerplate has offered 25-cent increase in hourly pay, no retro raises for the years worked under the expired contract, and a $500 bonus. Though Local 2 has not put out an exact number on their wage demands, its spokesperson says Centerplate’s wage offers are beyond unacceptable; they’re insulting.
Centerplate’s main message in this quarrel is its insistence that the concessions workers are among the highest paid in the nation and that they accrue more benefits than most part-time workers. But the workers say that claim is misleading given the high cost of living in the Bay Area.
“If we were living in Dallas, Texas, I’d say yeah, we’re probably overpaid. But we’re not,” Anthony Wendelburger, who has been a cook for three years, told us.
The Bay Area is among the most expensive metropolitan areas in the nation. Last month, the business consultant Kiplinger published a list of the top 10 most expensive cities in the U.S. San Francisco was third behind Honolulu and New York, with nearby San Jose in fourth and Oakland eighth.
The average concessions worker makes around $11,000 in a year while some make upwards of $13,000 during the regular season. Based on differences in the cost of living, we calculate (using www.bankrate.com) that $11,000 translates to $7,760 if they served food and drinks for the Seattle Mariners, $7,880 for the Chicago Cubs or White Sox, and $6,530 for the Atlanta Braves.
THE OLD BALLGAME
At the Giants-Padres game on June 18, a Tuesday, several hundred protesters gathered at a rally to show support for the Giants concession workers. Most were affiliated with Local 2, but a few off-duty concession workers came to join the demonstration.
They implored the fans—most whom seemed to be just learning about the dispute—to abstain from purchasing any concession stand products. The rally started an hour before game time engulfed fans waiting in line with chants of “No justice, no garlic fries!” and “Ain’t no protest like an union protest because an union protest don’t stop!”
Inside the stadium, 44 protesters (all of whom had purchased tickets) staged a sit-in in front the garlic fries stand situated behind sections 122 and 123. Their numbers withered as the game progressed and by the fourth inning, the area in front of the stand was cleared and business resumed, with 10 protesters arrested for refusing to disperse.
That protest followed a more significant action on May 25, when all of the 750 workers staged an one day strike, authorized by a 500-16 vote by workers. For that game, Centerplate employed volunteer workers who only got paid in tips. Yes, the scabs got the tips that the regular workers are being denied.
Food and drink service during that game was significantly slower than normal, as even the Giants acknowledged. There were reports of fans standing up to 40 minutes in line for a beer, which is usually more than two innings, an amount of playing time that few true baseball fan would ever give up for a beer run.
Critics—including several passerby fans who were loudly expressing their disdain for the demonstrators at the Giants-Padres game—say the workers should be content with what they have, perhaps assuming the workers were getting more from that $10 beer than they really are.
When Pearlie Jones started working concessions at Giants games 22 years ago, hot dogs were $3. Today they sell for twice that amount at the stand that Jones now manages.
We met Jones at the Local 2 building in the Tenderloin. She lives in Daly City, survives on unemployment during the off-season, and has no other source for health insurance. With nervous laughter, Jones told us she “prays to God during [the off season] that I don’t get sick.”
Wendelburger, who has to commute almost two hours each way to the ball park, works as a bartender during the off-season, although he can only get three days a week. When asked about health insurance during the off-season, this husband and father of two says, “Unless I’m going to die, I’m not going to see a doctor.”
But Jones says that as important as improved wages and healthcare benefits are to her and other employees, they really fear losing their jobs: “Our job security is the main issue that we’re pushing for right now.”
One issue that seems telling of the way Centerplate and the Giants are treating concession workers is on the issue of tips. The workers are currently not allowed a tip jar or a tip line on credit card receipts, a standard feature of food service, particularly here in the Bay Area, where even butchers and bakers have tip jars.
Ramirez says she’s utterly baffled by Centerplate’s stubbornness on the issue. “A tip line is something that doesn’t cost management anything and requires a small change in the computer system and is something the customers are actually demanding. We have a great experience with our fans and customers and they want to share their gratitude and they can’t,” she told us.
Another seemingly minor yet deadlocked issue is the request for benches for in-seat food runners. These workers currently have nowhere to sit for breaks or in between food runs, yet Centerplate has refused to budge on that issue.
When asked about these minor demands, a Centerplate spokesperson said that they have not seen any list of demands from Local 2, a statement disputed by workers and Local 2.
Centerplate has cast workers as greedy, even filing a lawsuit against Local 2 claiming that the union and the workers are trying to exploit the Giants’ World Series championships, an action that the union and its workers heard about from reporters, adding to the aura of mistrust hanging over these negotiations.
LONG STANDOFF
Both sides have accused the other of not operating in good faith, something they both hope will change when negotiations resume on July 29.
Centerplate says it wants to give the workers a contract, but blames the deadlocked negotiations on Local 2 head Mike Casey, who also serves as the elected president of the San Francisco Labor Council.
“Unfortunately, Local 2 and its leader Mike Casey have not responded to our economic proposal. Our employees, and Local 2 members, remain without a contract, raise, bonus, and health security all because of Casey’s failures,” Centerplate spokesperson Gina Antonini told us.
But the concession workers seem to strongly support Casey, who was on vacation and unavailable for comment. “I have tremendous faith in our Local 2 union leadership. Mike Casey is brilliant,” Patricia Ramirez, a line cook of 14 years, told us. “I think Casey and [Local 2 organizer] Alphonso Pines are leading us in the right way and I think we’re going to win because of their guidance.”
Centerplate seemed unaware of Casey’s local reputation and community support. “The entire labor community is supporting Local 2 and our message is clear: If you have to go to the games, don’t buy the food” San Francisco Labor Council Executive Director Tim Paulson told us.
Local 2’s tough, deliberate, long-term strategy is one that has paid big dividends numerous times in its history, even if it has resulted in long standoffs with management, as was been the case with hotel workers in San Francisco.
“We have seen plenty of times that they have deadlocked for a period of time, they hold out, they tend to fight as long as it takes, and they tend to win” said Ken Jacobs, chair of the UC Berkeley Labor Center.
For their part, concession workers involved in the negotiations blame Centerplate lawyer and lead negotiator George Aude and his abrasive style for the impasse and the tense relations. Several workers we talked to cited Aude’s disrespectful demeanor, with one worker calling him a “giant hothead”.
In one of the negotiations, Aude made several irate comments, which Local 2 took as a threat. They say Aude demanded of the Local 2, “If you don’t stop all these actions you’ve been doing, we’ll offer you less money.”
We reached Aude to comment on the contract talks, he said simply “unsatisfied,” and when we asked for further details, Aude hung up and refused to answer our calls.
SUPPORTING THE TEAM
Mayor Ed Lee says he’s urging the two sides to settle the standoff and that he has offered to help, although he’s leaving it to the mediators involved. So for those keeping score, City Hall has offered help but the Giants organization has not.
Yet Lee’s half-hearted offer to help Giants workers belies his zealous efforts to promote the Giants and its brand. In February, Lee and the Giants launched a citywide anti-litter program called “The Giant Sweep,” named in honor of the Giants’ sweep of the Detroit Tigers in the 2012 World Series.
“Last year the Giants showed us that winning the World Series took a team effort that went far beyond individual heroics. It required the effort of every player, coach, manager, and support staff — not to mention the fans — to build a championship team. The same approach is needed to attack San Francisco’s litter problem. The Giant Sweep will help San Francisco remain a place where people want to live, work and visit,” the Mayor’s Office said in announcing the program.
Mayor Lee and Gavin Newsom awarded the Giants a “Key to the City” for their World Series wins. Pitcher Matt Cain was awarded a “Key” last year for his perfect game against the Houston Astros. Even disgraced slugger Barry Bonds was given a “Key” after passing Hank Aaron on the all time home run list in August 2007.
“You know, we usually give keys to individual dignitaries who have accomplished great things, whether it was the president of Ireland, or Tony Bennett, or even a Matt Cain on his wonderful perfect game in San Francisco,” Lee said during last year’s celebration. “We normally celebrate those individual accomplishments, but today, we’re gonna break with that tradition and present this key to the entire team and coaching staff, everybody involved in the Giants, the investors, their front office. Congratulations to a team that doesn’t know how to quit, never gives up, and defied the odds at every opportunity.”
Then the city spent nearly a reported quarter-million-dollars to throw its team a massive victory parade and San Franciscans went wild in celebrating the Giants, once again, as the concession workers waited to feel like part of the team.
Could Lee or other City Hall figures help solve the standoff? Other mayors have successfully intervened in situations like this before. In 2004, then-Mayor Newsom sided with the 4,300 picketing hotel workers after the hotels refused his request to end a lockout.
Less than a year before that, Newsom ran for mayor as a “business friendly centrist” who raised millions of dollars from the hotel industry and other downtown business interests. But when he saw that hotel management wasn’t being reasonable, he used the power of his office to help broker an agreement.
It would seem Lee could do the same thing if he wanted, particularly given that the Giants are currently asking the city for land and support to help grow its business.
STADIUM SPRAWL
The Giants organization is currently working on a $1.6 billion, 27-acre development project at Pier 48, located on the opposite side of Mission Creek from AT&T Park. The gargantuan project will include 1,000 housing units, 125,000 square feet of retail, 1.7 million square feet of office space, 2,690 garage parking spaces, and more than eight acres of public space. The project is on public land and will be subject to numerous approval processes, by both the city and the Port of San Francisco. Pier 48 and Seawall Lot 337 are some of the last valuable, easily developable sections of waterfront in San Francisco, so one might say the team is asking a lot from the community. And of course, Mayor Lee offered unqualified, enthusiastic support for the project, telling the Chronicle, “Among my highest priorities is to make sure our homegrown companies can stay, grow, and hire right here in San Francisco, driving job growth, improving our neighborhoods, and in this case our world-class waterfront.” But Lee, Centerplate, and the Giants seem to think that just creating jobs is enough, regardless of pay, benefits, and job security. “The success of a Major League Baseball club is measured by more than game-winning rallies and pennant drives. Beyond the box scores, a ballclub has a unique opportunity to create partnerships to improve the quality of life in its community,” the Giants proclaim on its community page. But for Giants workers, such sentiments have done little to improve their quality of life.
Events: July 17 – 23, 2013
On the Cheap listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Selector.
WEDNESDAY 17
Kim Deitch Booksmith, 1644 Haight, SF; www.booksmith.com. 7:30pm, free. The graphic novelist presents The Amazing, Enlightening and Absolutely True Adventures of Katherine Whaley, accompanied by a screening of the 1915 silent film The Hypocrites, plus a slide show highlighting Deitch’s underground cartoon work.
Stephanie Lehmann Books Inc, Laurel Village, 3515 California, SF; www.booksinc.net. 7pm, free. Also Thu/18, 6pm, free, Towne Center Books, 555 Main, Pleasanton; www.townecenterbooks.com. The author reads from Astor Place Vintage, a novel set in turn-of-the-20th-century New York City.
THURSDAY 18
“Shipwreck: Competitive Erotic Fanfiction for Literary Perverts” Booksmith, 1644 Haight, SF; www.booksmith.com. 7pm, $10. Six writers “destroy one great book, one great character at a time,” with the end results read aloud in dramatic fashion (and the audience choosing a winning author). Target this go-round is J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit.
FRIDAY 19
“Friday Nights at the de Young: Sights and Sounds of Mexico” de Young Museum, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden, Golden Gate Park, SF; deyoung.famsf.org. 5pm, free (access to permanent collections and special exhibits requires admission fee). Jazz and pop fusion with Ilan Bar-Lavi and Sonex, plus a lecture on photographer Rose Mandel. Plus, the de Young’s 144-foot observation tower stays open until 8pm.
“Friday Nights @ OMCA” Oakland Museum of Art, 1000 Oak, Oakl; www.museumca.org. 5-9pm, half-price admission for adults ($6); 18 and under free. This month’s theme is “Indie Rock,” so you can wager a guess as to what type of music will be filling this family-friendly night market. Also: art workshops for kids, food trucks, foodie talks, and more.
SATURDAY 20
“Exploratorium Market Days: Local Motion” Public plaza outside the Exploratorium, Pier 15, SF; www.exploratorium.edu. 11am-3pm, free. The science museum kicks off a monthly series of free outdoor events with “a celebration of the myriad ways people, machines, and animals get around.” On tap: a bionic suit, a personal submarine, a dragon boat, a pedal-powered Ferris wheel, and a chicken foot dissection.
“Pedalfest” Jack London Square, Broadway at Embarcadero, Oakl; www.jacklondonsquare.com. 11am-7pm, free. More than 20,000 bike fans are expected to cycle through this event, which features daredevil and stunt performances, a BMX competition, a children’s bicycle parade, a bike rodeo, live music, “pedal-powered food,” and more.
“San Francisco Waterfront Labor History Walk” Meet at 75 Folsom, SF; www.laborfest.net. 10am, free. Labor historians lead this walking tour that focuses on SF’s maritime industry from 1835-1934, with additional discussion of the 1901 transportation strike.
SUNDAY 21
“Off the Grid SF: Picnic at the Presidio” Main Post Lawn, Presidio, SF; offthegridsf.com/picnic. 11am-4pm, free. Food trucks converge to sell tasty treats (added bonus: gorgeous bay views) from local hotspots like Humphrey Slocomb, Hog and Rocks, Namu Gaji, and more. Pro-tips: bring blankets for seating, and get there early to line up for your favorites — the best stuff tends to sell out well before 4pm.
TUESDAY 23
Nyna Pais Caputi Koret Auditorium, San Francisco Main Library, 100 Larkin, SF; www.sfpl.org. 6:30-7:30pm, free. The director of Petals in the Dust: The Endangered Indian Girls screens a trailer for her film and discusses current efforts by activists to end violence against women in India.
C.W. Gortner BookShop West Portal, 80 West Portal, SF; (415) 564-8080. 7pm, free. The author reads from his second book in the “Elizabeth I Spymaster Chronicles,” The Tudor Conspiracy.
“Slave Labor, Free Labor, and Working People Today” 518 Valencia, SF; www.laborfest.net. 7pm, free. CUNY lecturer Carol Lang charts the links with the fight against slave labor (2013 marks the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation) with the fight for workers’ rights around the world today.
“Strange Invaders: Ants, Termites, and Bedbugs” SoMa StrEat Food Park, 428 11th St, SF; www.askascientistsf.com. 7pm, free. Ask a Scientist and Wonderfest co-present this discussion of creepy-yet-common household invaders. Eeek! *
Dailies miss the backstory on the America’s Cup ruling
Yesterday’s ruling against a last minute rule change in the America’s Cup was duly reported in today’s Chronicle and Examiner. But as with much of the reporting presented in the mainstream media these days, it was tough to discern what’s really going on here or why the ruling came down as it did.
Luckily for Guardian readers, they’ve been privy to the excellent reporting by Amanda Witherell, who understands both boats and bullshit and set up this decision with an insightful backstory report in this space a couple days ago, “Is Larry Ellison cheating?” with an assist by Guardian staff writer Rebecca Bowe, who is also quite familiar with boats and bullshit.
Here’s the key thing that both papers missed or glossed over: Ellison’s team has been training with this new rudder design on one of its two boats since April, back when it wasn’t even allowed by the rules. And when an Artemis Racing sailor tragically died in May, the home team slipped the rudder design allowance into new “safety precautions,” although it didn’t require it of the New Zealand and Luna Rossa teams, which one would think they would have if it was really about life and death.
Which it isn’t, say Witherell’s sailing sources. In fact, these longer rudder stabilizers could even be more dangerous because they extend beyond the side of the hull and could run a greater risk of seriously injuring a sailor who slips over the side. What this was really about is changing the rules at the last minute in a way that would benefit Ellison’s team, and that effort has now been struck down by a international jury that oversees the sport.
Ellison is now presiding over these races from his ridiculously large personal yacht docked at Pier 23, a vessel the size of a small cruise ship. His people have booked big name entertainers for him to enjoy, as is customary for events thrown by tech gazillionaires. And he’s created a race using boats that are more expensive and faster — and therefore more inherently dangerous — than any in America’s Cup history, which has been roundly criticized in the sailing world for promoting elitism in the sport.
So it’s good to see that Ellison’s wealth and power can’t buy every single thing he wants, with his initial waterfront real estate deal rejected by progressive San Franciscans, and now his gambit to seek a competitive advantage on the water rejected by the sailing community.
BTW, grab next week’s Guardian to catch Amanda’s latest report on the America’s Cup as competitive sailing finally gets underway in the San Francisco Bay this weekend. And one more thing: Go New Zealand!