Volume 42 Number 42 Archives — Page 2 of 2 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

Tres Agaves

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July 15, 2008

› paulr@sfbg.com

If you’re one of those people who’s always on the lookout for the next big thing, and you think the next big thing might be tequila bars, you might feel a pang about Tres Agaves, the brick cathedral of tortillas, margaritas, and fun that opened about two and a half years ago in the ever-more-crowded environs of AT&T Park. Tequila is, at its best, a New World riposte to the single-malt scotches and fancy brandies of the Old World: a carefully made and indigenous essence worthy of thoughtful appreciation. Its source plant is the agave, a succulent that is often supposed to be a kind of cactus but is really a member (along with garlic and onions) of the lily family.

Tres Agaves does have a tequila tasting lounge, and maybe tequila geeks really can get some pondering done in there — but maybe not. Tres Agaves isn’t about cozy spaces or nuanced discussions of a pedigreed drink; it’s a huge party full of sports whoops, big plates of likable food, and plenty of semiblitzed people. As parties go, it’s not bad at all. True, prices are on the high side; some of the dishes are ordinary; and most of the tequila goes into margaritas, which, for all their many innovations, are basically fruit drinks to get plastered with. But if, like me, you have a vestigial fondness for Chevy’s, Tres Agaves will seem pleasantly familiar.

The sense of déjà vu makes itself felt early, once you’re through the front door and past the host’s station, which is screened from the rest of the immense dining room by a half-wall that reminded me of an oversized ant farm, with stones instead of grains of sand (and, presumably, very large ants). The restaurant opens out around you like another country: a rolling plain of tables bounded by a line of booths, another dining area behind that, and, to the left, another province of tables. Far in the distance: a wall of exposed brick rises two stories high.

Now that the airlines have decided to start charging passengers for water, we must be extra grateful for those freebies that remain, such as chips and salsa in Mexican restaurants. Tres Agaves’ offering is especially good here: fresh, delicate, still-warm chips (as good as Chevy’s) along with two kinds of salsa, tomatillo and chipotle. The latter was deliciously smoky and bristling with chili heat but perhaps too salty. When we vacuumed up the first bowl of chips, another was swiftly brought, no questions asked.

Much of the food is exactly what you would expect to find in this kind of setting — guacamole ($8), for instance, served in a pestle-like bowl and notable not only for its price but for a freshness that goes a long way toward justifying it. The guac was a wonderful bright green (avocado flesh begins to turn a gray-brown on exposure to air, so color is an important index of freshness) and carried a definite chili kick. Queso fundido ($9.50) — a shallow bowl of melted white cheese suitable for scooping into warm corn tortillas or up with chips — was dotted with chunks of pork rather than chorizo, and while I love chorizo (in both its Mexican and Spanish guises), it can be overbearing. The pork here was better-behaved.

At $19, a plate of chiles rellenos seems a little pricey, but at least you get two peppers (poblanos) — big, fresh, and a vivid green — stuffed with corn kernels, mushrooms, zucchini slivers, and melted white cheese. Like Newfoundland dogs, the poblanos look formidable but are quite mild-mannered (i.e., no discernable chili heat). They’re also charred and peeled, not batter-fried, which makes them less caloric and greasy-looking.

A few of the dishes were news to me. One, costillas ($9.75), consisted of pork knuckles braised in an ancho chile broth, and the result was something like a spicy osso buco. (The meat disappeared considerably faster than the broth, which we mopped up with a trayful of warm corn tortillas.)

Another, carne en su jugo ($17.50), turned out to be a kind of beef and bean stew traceable to the Mexican state of Jalisco (which is, not coincidentally, the heart of tequila country). The meat was obviously an obstinate cut that was going to require some serious tenderizing; it had been carved into ribbons, then simmered with red beans in a broth of lime juice, cilantro, and onions, almost like a cooked beef ceviche. The final product was puckeringly flavorful and nearly too salty — I almost never say such a thing — but was redeemed, in the end, by the acidity of the citrus.

A common experience in Mexican restaurants (at least for me) is to have done so much front-loading on chips, salsa, and the sundry delights known as antojitos at the beginning of the meal that, approaching the end, the mere thought of dessert becomes unbearable. Particularly if the dessert is flan, which it often is. Mexican flans aren’t bad, but I’ve never had one to compare with a good crème caramel or panna cotta. A simple solution to this problem, if it is a problem, is to offer something else, and Tres Agaves does, several times over.

Nonetheless, we didn’t quite warm to a chocolate-cinnamon cake ($6), despite its reasonable price and its attractive disk shape. The cake appeared with suspicious swiftness after we’d ordered it, leading us to suppose it had been sitting around for who knew how long, just dying to be summoned — like an anxious junior-high-schooler at a dance. And it was dry — from undue refrigeration? My kingdom for a flan! *

TRES AGAVES

Dinner: Mon.–Wed., 5–10 p.m.; Thurs.–Fri., 5–11 p.m.; Sat., 3–11 p.m.; Sun., 3–10 p.m.

Lunch: Mon.–Fri., 11:30 a.m.–3 p.m.

Brunch: Sat.–Sun., 10 a.m.–3 p.m.

130 Townsend, SF

(415) 227-0500

www.tresagaves.com

Full bar

AE/DISC/MC/V

Noisy

Wheelchair accessible

Darkest hour

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July 15, 2008

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So much of what will be written about The Dark Knight will focus on Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker, and rightfully so. Every time the character appears onscreen — robbing a bank, crashing a party, gleefully explaining the origins of his perma-smile — the movie veers into supremely sinister territory. But even when the Joker is tucked away for a chunk of time, Christopher Nolan’s sequel to his 2005 Batman Begins is a grim affair, living up to the "dark" in its title in both style and tone.

That’s not a diss, though — Nolan’s Batman, embodied by Christian Bale, faces daunting circumstances. His alter ego, Bruce Wayne, may be a jet-setting playboy, but he ain’t no cheeky, cheeseburger-scarfing Tony Stark. Wayne Manor burned down in the first film, so Wayne’s living in a Gotham penthouse. Ex-squeeze Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal, stepping in for Batman Begins‘ Katie Holmes) has taken up with Gotham’s new D.A., Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart, nearly as strong as Ledger in a less showy role), who joins forces with the idealistic Lt. Gordon (Gary Oldman) to rid the city of its gangster element. Operating on his own all-madness, all-the-time frequency, the Joker (who is called a terrorist more than once) manipulates all involved, with utter chaos as his ultimate goal.

The script, co-penned by Nolan and his brother Jonathan, offers a tangled, complex plot that asks more of its audience than, say, the relatively straightforward Iron Man does. Knowing this, Nolan staffs even bit parts with familiar faces, including Eric Roberts as a mafioso and Anthony Michael Hall as a talk-show host. But it’s not all talk — there are plenty of sweet vehicles and nifty gadgets (supplied, as before, by Morgan Freeman’s Lucius Fox), car chases, people flying out of windows, and every comic book villain’s dream prop: a giant pile of money.

That said, however, The Dark Knight has more heft to it than the average superhero flick. Some may find it too hefty — besides a few zingers from Michael Caine’s Alfred, its only moments of levity are supplied by a psycho in face paint. Personally, I’m glad to see The Dark Knight presented like a drama (with, uh, capes and explosions) instead of a toy commercial. And though it may ask some obvious superhero-movie questions, it places them in a world where the stakes are too high not to wonder: should Batman have limits? When, if ever, can the "masked vigilante" step aside and let cops and courts take over? And at what cost? There’s a sense of futility in The Dark Knight that feels odd for a summer blockbuster — probably because it so matches the mood of the real world. Maybe the film’s one easy question is when the Joker asks, "Why so serious?" For that, there are plenty of answers. (Cheryl Eddy)

THE DARK KNIGHT

Opens Fri/18 in Bay Area theaters

San Francisco’s undocumented children

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July 15, 2008

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OPINION The recent news stories criticizing the city’s juvenile probation department for sending undocumented children home instead of handing them over to the federal immigration authorities has ignited a firestorm of negative attacks.

However, the stories missed a key fact: the city’s practice of transporting youth home was enacted with the full knowledge and cooperation of the Immigration and Naturalization Service 12 years ago.

San Francisco’s 1989 voter-approved sanctuary law specifically forbids city officials from providing information to federal immigration authorities to aid in deporting noncitizens. While the law does not protect adult felons, it’s silent on the issue of what the city should do with undocumented children after their juvenile cases are concluded.

In 1996 the city’s Juvenile Probation Department drafted a set of policies declaring that undocumented children were entitled to due process of the courts. The policies stipulated that juveniles who wanted to return to their families would be given an airline ticket home after completing their sentences. Children whose families could not be located would be released to halfway homes or foster care, consistent with the way other minors were treated.

In 1993 the INS was sued in the class action suit Flores vs. Reno for unlawfully housing undocumented minors in juvenile correction facilities without access to their families or legal representation. The case settled in 1997 with the INS agreeing that detained children should be placed in the "least restrictive environment," and that every effort would be made to reunite minors with their families.

Prior to the Flores settlement, juvenile probation officials and an attorney for the SF Public Defender’s Office met with representatives from the regional INS office to review San Francisco’s policies.

In 2002 the INS was subsumed by the Department of Homeland Security and became Immigration and Customs Enforcement. While ICE was given the task of prosecuting undocumented children, the Office of Refugee Resettlement, part of the Department of Health and Human Services, was given the responsibility of protecting these children. Unsurprisingly, in the post-Sept. 11 era, ICE took a more aggressive stance against immigrant youth, particularly those involved in the juvenile justice system.

Meanwhile Congress began debating what to do with unaccompanied children who are taken into ICE custody. In 2002, Sen. Dianne Feinstein introduced the Unaccompanied Alien Child Protection Act, stating that "unaccompanied alien minors are among the most vulnerable of the immigrant population." Feinstein noted that "many of these children have entered the country under traumatic circumstances … they are young and alone, subject to abuse and exploitation."

San Francisco’s solution of sending kids home to their families, while imperfect, served at least one purpose: of the seven children represented by my office who were sent home in the last 18 months, none have been rearrested in the United States. San Francisco’s reunification policy was legally justified, fair to youth and their families, and cost-effective.

Jeff Adachi

Jeff Adachi is San Francisco’s public defender.

Red ink stains green rhetoric

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July 15, 2008

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› news@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY Environmentalists are pondering the state’s seemingly schizophrenic approach to fighting climate change after a recent state report encouraging increased use of mass transit came out at the same time that the governor’s budget proposal denies the state’s public transportation fund more than $1 billion.

The California Air Resource Board’s June 26 Draft Scoping Plan to combat global warming, released pursuant to Assembly Bill 32, the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, is at least the second major report this year to recommend expanding public transit. But the governor’s latest spending plan redirects that sizeable chunk of money — gasoline tax revenue that voters who approved Prop. 42 in 2002 directed toward transportation projects and agencies — to help reduce the state’s $17 billion budget deficit.

"There’s a lot of misallocation of resources going on," said Tom Radulovich, executive director of the San Francisco nonprofit Livable Cities. "The governor on the one hand wants to say, ‘You should all ride mass transit.’ But on the other hand, he is taking away [transit] support from the state budget."

The governor’s press secretary, Aaron McLear, said the budget proposal spares transit from cuts faced by other programs during these tough economic times.

"Funding for public transportation stays level in the governor’s budget proposal. That’s in the face of a $17 billion deficit. The fact that it remains level is better than a lot of cuts we’ve had to make," McLear said. "We wish we could increase it, because it certainly is something the governor believes in. But again, the state is facing a $17 billion shortfall. We can only spend the money that we have. There will have to be some tough decisions to be made."

The CARB plan calls for California to lead by example by encouraging state employees to take advantage of public transportation during their commutes. It notes that transportation accounts for 38 percent of California’s greenhouse gas emissions, most of which comes from cars and trucks, and that curbing these emissions is critical to reaching California’s goal of reducing total emissions by 30 percent over the next 12 years.

"Overall I think this is headed in the right direction. For better or worse, this really does put California ahead of any other state if we fully implement this plan. Of course, having a good plan does not guarantee that it will be implemented, but this is a very serious attempt," said Gabriel Metcalf, executive director of the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association, of the state’s global warming plan.

Yet he also said that reaching the plan’s ambitious goals for reducing greenhouse gases means people will have to drive less and use transit more, and that local governments will need to stop approving urban sprawl projects.

"The easy answer that most Americans would rather have is to keep driving just as much as always, but have alternative fuels. And that just is not going to work. AB 32 has a major land use change component. Is it enough? No, it is not. But it is at least an acknowledgment of what we have to do," Metcalf said. "Overall I’m pretty impressed, but they’re not proposing enough land use change and they’re not proposing transit funding increases. They are still unwilling to face facts about the role of the automobile and climate change."

Yet instead of increasing funds for mass transit, the governor has redirected billions of public transportation dollars into the general fund, maintaining status quo transit funding in the face of increased gasoline prices and the new climate change mandate. At the same time, billions of dollars have been allocated to highway expansion programs, exacerbating the global warming problem.

"Anybody’s budget should be a reflection of their values, whether it’s an individual or an agency," said Carli Paine, transportation program director for the Transportation and Land Use Coalition. "The state is saying, ‘We value public transportation as a climate friendly choice.’ Yet when it comes to expressing those values in the budget, we say, ‘It doesn’t matter that much,’ so we’re actually undermining those original statements."

The governor’s revised state budget allocated $306 million to the State Transit Assistance Program, the state’s source of funding for mass transit operating costs such as maintenance, drivers, fuel, and mechanics.

This is the same amount that was allocated last year, even though transit ridership is the highest it has been in more than 50 years, according to a June report by the American Public Transportation Association. And factor in that crude oil is about $140 per barrel now compared to about $73 per barrel this time in 2007, according to the Energy Information Administration, a federal agency. "The budget is kicking transit in the teeth when it needs it [money] the most," Radulovich said.

The $306 million allocated to the State Transit Assistance Program comes from funds generated by Prop. 42, the voter-approved gasoline tax measure. But Paine said the STAP should also be entitled to what is called "spillover" money. Spillover refers to additional funds generated when the price of gas rises faster than inflation on other goods, leading to unusually high revenue from the tax.

The governor’s budget predicts $1.77 billion in spillover for the 2008–09 fiscal year, but he decided to put the money toward shrinking the deficit instead of funding public transportation. The current fiscal year was the first time since the proposition passed that the spillover did not go toward public transportation.

Radulovich said he believes the state is hesitant to fund mass transit — even though it recognizes the importance of reducing the number of cars on the road — because building more roads and freeways leads to more expansion and urban sprawl.

"Sprawl makes a lot of people a lot of money," he said, including oil companies, car companies, homebuilders, construction firms, and trucking companies. "These are political questions, not policy questions. The policy answers in many ways are very clear. The question is whether there is the political will to deal with it, and that’s what we’re going to find out."

Radulovich said this reality is why many California business groups support outward expansion and put pressure on the government to fund highways over mass transit. The Bay Area Council, for example, pushed aggressively for highway expansion during the last budget cycle.

Paine said she believes political pressure also comes from structural flaws in the state’s budget system.

"It’s the legacy of Prop. 13, which really froze the income our state received from [property] taxes," she said. "Public entities that are committed to social services, such as education, are still receiving property taxes at levels that are decades behind what they used to be." This puts a strain on the state’s general fund, and money has to be diverted from the mass transit account to relieve the burden generated by California’s low income tax levels, Paine explained.

Paine said a new budget proposal has been submitted to the California legislature that would restore hundreds of millions of dollars to the mass transit account for the 2008-09 fiscal year by generating additional revenue for the general fund. She said that since 2000, more than $3 billion of mass transit money has been redirected to the general fund, and the number will exceed $4 billion if the governor’s current proposal goes through.

"This isn’t just a problem this year — it’s a chronic problem. And public transportation is chronically being leaned on for relief," she said. "It’s just not a sustainable system."

TRANSIT FUNDING 101

Carli Paine of the Transportation and Land Use Coalition explained the finer points of California’s complicated system for funding — or not funding — improvements to the public transit system. Transit’s main account is called the State Transit Assistance Program. This money is flexible, but is mostly used for transit operations (maintenance, operations, fuel, mechanics, drivers, and so forth). Sometimes, though, it is used for capital projects (such as buying new tracks or replacement cars).

The STAP is the largest portion of the public transportation account, and the funding is critical. As Paine put it, "If you can’t even operate the system that you have, it doesn’t help much to have money to lay new tracks." The STAP is therefore often the focus of discussions about transit funding.

Prop. 42, which directs California’s gas tax to transportation projects, funds the STAP, although not all Prop. 42 money goes there. For example, 25 percent of Prop. 42 revenue goes to a special account for transit capital projects.

Prop. 1B is another big source of transit funding. It is the 2006 measure that allowed California to sell $19.9 billion worth of bonds to fund transportation programs. Only about $4 billion of that was allocated to public transportation, with the lion’s share of the money going toward new freeway projects.

This is where things get a little complicated.

California originally had a sales tax on all goods except gasoline. In the 1970s, voters passed Prop. 42, which decided that it would be more equitable to reduce the sales tax rate by a fraction of a percentage point, but expand the sales tax to include gasoline.

This was expected to be revenue-neutral for the state, so it wouldn’t cost people more. That was true unless gas prices rose quicker than the cost of all goods, which it eventually did.

Then-Gov. Ronald Reagan argued that it was important to return the extra revenue to public transportation because when gas prices rise, more people use public transit. As a result, this "spillover" has been set aside for transit expansion.

Last year was the first year in which the spillover was diverted to the general fund instead of being given to the STAP. It was redirected to help close the state deficit, and the 2008–09 budget proposes doing the same thing this fiscal year. (Janna Brancolini)

Editor’s Notes

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July 15, 2008

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› tredmond@sfbg.com

Back in 2001, San Francisco came within 500 votes of approving a public power system in an election marred by lingering evidence of fraud. Ballot boxes were removed from the Department of Elections (under a bizarre, never-documented threat of anthrax poisoning) and box tops were later found floating in the bay. I still think we actually won that election. And it’s hard to see how we could have done it without organized labor.

The Central Labor Council backed public power. Service Employees International Union Local 790 poured resources into it. The labor-environmental coalition that came together around building a city-run system that would rely on clean energy was unprecedented.

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. knows this. That’s why the company is trying mightily to keep labor from backing this year’s Clean Energy Act. And at the center of that battle is Mayor Gavin Newsom’s chief political consultant and close advisor, Eric Jaye.

The Clean Energy Act, as we point out on page 5, would give the city control of its energy future and put San Francisco at the forefront of national efforts to reduce carbon emissions. It also opens the door to public power — and Jaye has been hired by PG&E to try to keep the supervisors from putting it on the ballot, and to defeat it if they do.

He has a powerful weapon to use: labor’s determination to pass a giant bond act to rebuild San Francisco General Hospital.

A billion-dollar bond act is a tough sell, and harder still during a recession. Labor is also making a big push for progressive supervisorial candidates in Districts 1, 3, and 11. And the labor council director, Tim Paulson, tells me that he really wants to keep the city’s disparate and sometimes fractious labor unions united around those goals.

The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, PG&E’s union, will oppose any public power measure, any time, no matter what it says, and IBEW walked out of the labor council in 2001 over the issue. Now Jaye is telling labor people that the Clean Energy Act (and other issues that are "crowding" the ballot) may undermine public support for the hospital bond. "I have an early poll showing that these other measures have a negative impact on the hospital," Jaye told me. "I have been pointing to that fact and asking if we really need to do [the Clean Energy Act] this year."

John Whitehurst, who is running the SF General bond campaign, says his polls show that there was no correlation between an affordable housing set-aside measure and the hospital bonds, and presumably the same is true of the Clean Energy Act. On the other hand, he says, "if Jaye runs a campaign that says ‘Gee, the city can’t do anything right,’ it could create problems for the hospital measure."

Would Eric Jaye threaten the SF General bonds (which his client, Gavin Newsom, strongly backs) to keep labor from backing public power? He insisted to me that he would never do that, and that he and the mayor fully back the bonds. But PG&E, I think, cares nothing about the hospital — or the city — and will do whatever it can to scuttle this measure.

So will labor be intimidated by the threat of divisiveness (from the IBEW) and the political scare tactics from PG&E — or will labor leaders tell the mayor to knock it off?

Newsom and the Clean Energy Act

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July 15, 2008

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EDITORIAL A progressive measure that would make San Francisco one of the greenest cities in the nation will be on the ballot this fall. It’s designed to lower energy costs, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and promote green-collar jobs. It has all the elements that Mayor Gavin Newsom has been talking about in his high-profile speeches, press conferences, and celebrity appearances. It’s a perfect vehicle for a mayor who wants to stand out as a candidate for governor of California. It has the backing of some of Newsom’s close allies, like state Sen. Mark Leno.

That’s why Newsom ought to support the Clean Energy Act.

The charter amendment, sponsored by Sups. Aaron Peskin and Ross Mirkarimi, seeks to make San Francisco more energy independent. It sets ambitious goals for renewable energy and would put the city on track to create its own public power system. It’s not a radical measure — in fact, it’s milder than we would have liked. It doesn’t mandate an immediate takeover of Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s facilities. It doesn’t turn the Public Utilities Commission into an elected body. And no matter what lies PG&E puts out, it won’t raise electric rates or cost the taxpayers money.

It does, however, mandate that the PUC look at the best ways to ensure that by 2017, 51 percent of the electricity used in the city comes from renewable resources. By 2040, that number should be 100 percent. And the evidence from across the nation shows that the best way to promote renewable energy is to shift from private control of utilities to public power.

Again, that’s hardly a radical notion: more than 2,000 cities in the United States have public power. Palo Alto is among them; so are Alameda and Santa Clara. The Sacramento Municipal Utility District provides reliable service to Sacramento County at rates 30 percent below what PG&E charges customers in adjoining areas — and SMUD has one of the best records in the nation for promoting conservation and renewable energy.

Of course, the very existence of any sort of plan to consider energy alternatives for San Francisco seems to terrify PG&E. Already the giant private utility is pulling political strings and retailing outrageous lies to try to scare the supervisors away from placing the charter amendment on the ballot. And we expect to see a savage, multimillion-dollar campaign against the measure this fall.

That’s because PG&E wants no hint of competition, no chance that the city might actually consider the benefits of public power. It’s no secret why. When you look at the facts, compare how public and private systems have fared in the past decade, and line up the financial figures and the prospects for sustainable energy policies, public power wins.

The biggest misinformation PG&E is putting out these days involves the cost of creating and running a public power system in San Francisco. The company is throwing out numbers like $4 billion, and suggesting that the taxpayers would be on the hook for all of it if the city tried to take over the company’s system.

For starters, there’s nothing in the Clean Energy Act that requires a takeover. It might turn out to be more prudent, for example, to slowly build a new city-owned infrastructure. More important, if the city did decide to buy out PG&E’s wires, poles, and meters, the cost would be nowhere near what the company is claiming.

How much is the system really worth? Well, one way to find out is to check the assessed value, the figure the state uses for property-tax purposes. And as Amanda Witherell reported July 2 (see "The dirty fight over clean power"), the state says all of PG&E’s property within San Francisco city limits is worth only $1.2 billion — and that includes the company’s downtown office complex, which is worth at least several hundred million. So the actual cost of the system might wind up at less than a quarter of what PG&E claims.

And none of that money — none — would come from taxpayers. The PUC could issue only revenue bonds, backed by future electricity sales, to finance any buyout or construction. No tax money would ever be in play. And our past analyses have consistently shown that the city could buy out PG&E’s system, cut electric rates, and still wind up with a sizable surplus every year.

Newsom is aware of all of this, and has said that he’s willing to consider supporting public power. Now there’s a measure heading for the ballot that would also mesh with all of the mayor’s environmental goals. The only argument against it is that PG&E — in the past a backer of the mayor — doesn’t want it to pass.

Newsom needs to support the Clean Energy Act. If he doesn’t, it will demonstrate that he lacks the backbone to stand up to special interests — and has no business running for governor of this state.

A kickoff press conference on the Clean Energy Act will be held at 11 a.m. Tuesday, July 22 on the steps of City Hall.