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Andrew Lam
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alert@sfbg.com

THURSDAY, NOV. 25

Indigenous People’s Thanksgiving

Join this annual sunrise celebration on Alcatraz Island to honor Mother Earth, the spirit of popular resistance to exploitation, and generations past and future. Sponsored by the International Indian Treaty Council and American Indian Contemporary Arts and featuring guest speakers, drummers, dancers, and MC Lakota Harden.

4:45-6 a.m., $14 (for adult ferry ticket)

Pier 33, SF

(415) 981-7625

 

FRIDAY, NOV. 26

Malling of the Sacred

Join this Black Friday protest at Emeryville’s Bay Street Mall. The mall was built on top of an ancient Ohlone burial site, and even after years of protest actions by the local Native American community, the construction of the mall was completed after the human remains were unearthed.

11a.m.–3p.m., free

Shellmound and Ohlone, Emeryville

(510 )575-8408

 

Fur-free Friday

Thousands of animals are slaughtered for their fur each year. Join in a peaceful protest against the fur industry on one of the busiest shopping days of the year.

Noon–2 p.m., free

Union Square, SF

(415) 448-0058

 

SATURDAY, NOV. 27

South of the Border

Director Oliver Stone journeys south to interview Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to investigate how the United States media has depicted him. He also speaks with several other South American presidents and creates an eye-opening documentary in the process.

1:30–4 p.m., free

Fremont Library

2400 Stevenson, Fremont

(510) 745-1400

 

TUESDAY, NOV. 30

Talking Trotsky

Join the Freedom Socialist Party for a screening of Sergei Eisenstein’s 1927 film The History of the Russian Revolution. The film is part of the Leon Trotsky discussion circle and encapsulates the world’s first socialist uprising.

7 p.m., $2–$5 sliding scale

New Valencia Hall

625 Larkin, Room 202, SF

(415) 864-1278

 

Death of Liberalism

Come hear journalist and author Chris Hedges discuss his latest book, The Death of the Liberal Class, which chronicles the gradual corruption and death of liberalism in the U.S., which was for decades a defense against the worst excesses of power.

6:30 p.m., $12

First Congregation Church

2345 Channing, Berk.

(510)967-4495

 

Green Film Festival

Enjoy a lively selection of short films including Matt Briggs; The Krill is Gone, which raises awareness of the growing threat to the world’s oceans, and Dive, in which filmmaker Jeremy Seifert and friends Dumpster dive in the back alleys and gated garbage receptacles of Los Angeles supermarkets. 6–9p.m., $10–$20 sliding scale

Ninth Street Independent Film Center

145 Ninth St., SF

www.sfgreenfilmfest2011launch.eventbrite.com 

Mail items for Alerts to the Guardian Building, 135 Mississippi St., SF, CA 94107; fax to (415) 437-3658; or e-mail alert@sfbg.com. Please include a contact telephone number. Items must be received at least one week prior to the publication date.

Down on the farm

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Down on the farm

rebeccab@sfbg.com

Sherman Island may barely register for motorists traveling over the Antioch Bridge and through the delta on Highway 160. Almost wholly owned by the Department of Water Resources, the roughly 10,000-acre patch of Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta flatland is barely developed, and probably home to more cows than people. It lies at the confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, where freshwater mixes with the salty seawater of the San Francisco Bay.

What isn’t obvious at first glance is that Sherman Island was once host to highly productive agriculture — but as delta water quality diminished, farmers saw their crop yields plummet. Larry Del Chiaro, who formerly headed the Sherman Island Landowners Association, used to grow asparagus, wheat, barley, safflower, milo, hay, and other crops on the island. But today, like nearly all the others who previously raised crops there, he no longer has property there and has moved on. His story illustrates how California water policies have benefited one group while affecting the livelihoods of the people who live in the state’s central water hub, the delta.

“I was a third-generation farmer on the island,” Del Chiaro told the Guardian on a hot August day in the city of Pittsburg. “My grandfather started it. My father, his brothers, my cousins were all on the island farming.” Del Chiaro majored in soil science in the 1970s and was interested in increasing crop yields, so he set up test plots and was closely monitoring their progress.

But by 1987, the yields were plummeting dramatically — a drought had hit the state, and Sherman Island farmers weren’t getting enough fresh water to sustain their crops. Instead of going to irrigate farmland in the delta, much of the scarce freshwater was being pumped south through the State Water Project to agricultural lands in the arid San Joaquin Valley, causing the delta water to get saltier and saltier.

It presented a problem that was particularly acute in that location. “Sherman Island, to use a cliché, is the plug for the Sacramento Delta,” Del Chiaro said. “We’re the last one to get the freshwater, and the first one to get the saltwater intrusion.”

The North Delta Water Agency, a regional water body, had a contract on behalf of the island’s landowners with the Department of Water Resources (DWR) that guaranteed a certain level of water quality. But DWR’s contractual obligations weren’t met that year. “As the drought continued, our water quality diminished, and diminished, and diminished, till it got to the point where we had to rely on Mother Nature for rainfall,” Del Chiaro said. “And when we didn’t get rainfall, our crops suffered.”

Under state water law, Sherman Island landowners had riparian water rights, which allowed them use of the freshwater that flowed past their land. The overarching problem, he said, was that DWR couldn’t meet contractual obligations to both the delta farmers and the San Joaquin Valley farmers in a dry year because it had over-promised water deliveries through the State Water Project. “We have no control over what Mother Nature gives us in terms of rainfall and the snow pack,” he said. “So they were being overly optimistic in terms of all those contracts.”

With the help of consultant Patrick Porgans and a San Francisco attorney, Del Chiaro and the 26 other Sherman Island landowners sued DWR for damages. In 1991, the state settled for $3.6 million, and the farmers were paid for not drawing water out of the delta. Soon after, DWR bought up the island. Once the water agency took control, it eliminated the need for DWR to satisfy contractual obligations to provide freshwater to the Sherman Island farmers. The farmers had cleared out, and the agency’s problem was solved.

“Compared to the San Joaquin Valley, the vast amount of acreage out there, the people that they employ, and the business compared to the delta, we’re kind of a drop in the bucket,” Del Chiaro noted. “Still, there are the businesses in the delta that basically survive off of our farming operation.”

Sherman Island is more well-known to recreational boaters and travelers, and Chris and Dawn Gulick provide a place for delta vacationers at Eddo’s Harbor & RV Park, located on Gallagher Slough on the east side of the island. Eddo’s wasn’t always a harbor and RV park — when Chris Gulick’s father started the business in 1967, fishing was the primary attraction and the small harbor maintained a fleet of fishing boats for rent. The State Water Project came online around the same time, marking the beginning of freshwater pumping out of the delta.

As delta water quality worsened over the years, there were fewer fish to be caught, so over the decades it became less practical to maintain the fishing vessels. Today, the fishing boats have been sold, and Eddo’s primarily gets its business from recreational boaters looking for guest slips or travelers who find their way to the quiet waterfront park to stay in their RVs.

Chris Gulick emphasized the larger picture during an interview about water issues in the delta, but he acknowledged that his business had been affected by what he saw as the state’s misguided water policies. “When we got here, the striped bass fishery was robust,” he said, “and it slowly has declined, and it steadily has declined.”

Gulick said countless experts and researchers had been in and out of the delta over the years, but he felt that the core problem had to do with governance of the system and the fact that water agencies had over-promised the water.

“The problem with the delta, or the water situation, is that the people that are in policy and are writing these guidelines don’t have a vested interest,” he said. “A lot of them don’t know a whole lot about this, but they’re the experts. They’re the ones who are supposed to be writing the plans. They don’t have a clue — and that is a prevalent attitude to the experts who come out and talk to us.”

How California exports water

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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How California exports water

By Patrick Porgans

In 2009, the last year of the so-called great California drought, a strange thing happened: Sacramento Valley growers produced a near record amount of rice, and down south, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (Met), the largest urban water supplier in the nation, experienced record-breaking water sales. All this despite repeated mainstream media accounts in 2009 of an economy-wrecking dust bowl water shortage.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the California rice harvest in 2009 was up 9 percent from the previous year and approached the record crop of 2004.

Rice consumes a great deal of water for its dollar value and produces little net income. According to a report by the University of California, Davis, the minimum amount of water required to grow a crop of rice is about 42 inches per acre. Unavoidable losses can add to this amount — so that the amount of water consumed (or evaporated) can be as much as 100 inches per acre, depending on the soil. That appears to be enough water to drown the tallest person on earth.

The California Rice Commission, a trade group representing 2,500 rice farmers, estimates that rice uses 2.2 million acre-feet of irrigation water yearly, about 2.6 percent of the state’s total water supply. According to records obtained from Met, that’s equal to the annual average water it supplied to all of its 19 million customers.

UC Davis data from 2008 show that California exported 52 percent of its rice production, much of it to Japan. For every pound of rice exported, about 250 gallons of embedded water used in growing and processing that rice leaves along with it, according to “Water Footprints of Nations,” a 2004 UNESCO study. (The report spawned the Web site www.waterfootprint.com.)

The rice harvest should be of great consolation to the chairman of the California State Water Resources Control Board, Charles Hoppin, who is also a rice grower, vice-chairman of the Rice Growers Cooperative, and immediate past chairman of the California Rice Industry Association. Chairman Hoppin, in a March 2010 speech in Yuma, Ariz., complained that the regulatory community, including much of his staff, doesn’t know or understand the issues facing agriculture and “doesn’t give a rat’s ass.”

According to the Environmental Working Group, rice subsidies in California totaled $2.4 billion from 1995-2009. In that period, the single largest recipient of subsidies was the Farmers’ Rice Cooperative of Sacramento, California, totaling more than $146 million.

Farm recipients of USDA subsidies in California totaled $9.1 billion from 1995-2009.According to EWG, “Washington paid out a quarter of a trillion dollars in federal farm subsidies between 1995 and 2009. But to characterize the programs as either a big government bailout or another form of welfare would be manifestly unfair — to bailouts and welfare.” Then there’s hay — another water-gulping product that’s getting exported, with much of it going to Japan.

Writer Melinda Burns, in a June 10, 2009 story on Miller-McCune.com, notes: “In the Imperial Valley of California, a region drier than part of the Sahara Desert, farmers have found a lucrative market abroad for a crop they grow with Colorado River water: They export bales of hay to land-poor Japan. Since the mid-1980s, this arid border region of California has been supplying hay and feed for Japan’s dairy cows and black-haired cattle, the kind that get daily massages, are fed beer, and produce the most tender Kobe beef.”

She quotes Patrick Woodall, research director at Food and Water Watch, an international consumer advocacy group with headquarters in Washington, D.C.: “There is a kind of insanity about this,” Woodall said. “Exporting water in the form of crops is giving water away from thirsty communities and infringing on their ability to deal with water scarcity.”

From second to first

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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5
From second to first

steve@sfbg.com

In Oakland and San Francisco, the big story of this election was ranked-choice voting, a system that allowed Jean Quan to overcome a nearly 10-point election-night deficit to become Oakland’s next mayor and enabled come-from-behind victories in two races for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

Those who never liked this system of letting voters rank their top three candidates — a group primarily affiliated with downtown and the moderates who did well under the old system of low-turnout, big-money runoff elections — felt validated by the outcomes. “Ranked-choice voting an undemocratic nightmare” was the headline on Examiner columnist Ken Garcia’s Nov. 11 column.

But for those who understand this system — a product of the progressive movement — and have supported it, this was a watershed election that showcased RCV’s populist possibilities. In Quan’s smart use of an RCV strategy and the huge gap she overcame to topple Don Perata, they see an opportunity for political coalition-building that could influence next year’s San Francisco mayor’s race and beyond.

Besides Perata, if there’s anyone who could justifiably be unhappy with how RCV worked in this election, it would be Tony Kelly. He finished in first place in the D10 supervisorial race on election night only to be defeated by Malia Cohen, who climbed out of fourth place on the strength of those who ranked her second or third. But Kelly is perfectly happy with how RCV worked.

“I supported it before and there’s no reason not to support it now, even though I’m on the edge of this,” Kelly told the Guardian. In fact, he said the only reason he ran for public office in San Francisco was because of progressive electoral reforms such as RCV, district elections and public financing of campaigns. “These are all things that help grassroots candidates.”

Kelly had a ranked-choice strategy; he and Marlene Tran each encouraged their supporters to rank the other second. The alliance might have been a way to overcome the strength of the district’s strong African American voting bloc, which favored Cohen (she got her biggest and most lopsided bumps when Dewitt Lacy and Lynette Sweet were eliminated). But most of Tran’s votes were exhausted when she was eliminated, meaning that many of her voters didn’t list any second and third choices.

“Without RCV, that black vote would have never come together. It would have splintered,” said Steven Hill, a progressive activist who helped design the system.

In Oakland, progressives and other blocs of voters wanted anybody but Perata, a Democratic Party power broker. So Quan reached out to all voters and was particularly helped by a progressive base that she shared with fellow Oakland City Council Member Rebecca Kaplan.

“One thing Jean Quan does consistently at events is say, ‘I would like your first place votes, and if I don’t get that, I would like your second place votes,” Kaplan told the Guardian. “It was striking to me that she consistently asked for No. 2 votes.”

That strategy, along with Quan and Kaplan running mutually supportive races and encouraging their supporters to list the other second, clearly paid off.

“It rewrites the textbook for how to win with ranked-choice voting,” Hill said.

Hill and Kaplan said Oakland voters proved themselves adept at using the ranked-choice system on its debut there. Hill noted how few exhausted ballots there were, showing that voters understood and used their full options — more so than have voters in San Francisco, which has had the system in place since 2004.

“I think what this says is that RCV worked. Voters overwhelmingly filled out their ballots correctly,” Kaplan said. She also noted how the election demonstrated the possibilities of political coalition-building: “It isn’t so much the coattails of the candidates as the coalition of the supporters.”

But many observers also say the situation in Oakland was a perfect storm of opposition to a single candidate, Perata, who professed ignorance about how RCV worked.

“I don’t think we’ll see something like this again, but it adds to what’s possible,” said David Latterman, a political consultant who works primarily with downtown-backed candidates.

Jim Stearns, a consultant who represents more progressive candidates, said moderate candidates with money usually prevail in runoff elections, and that probably would have been the case in Oakland if voters hadn’t switched to RCV: “I think you would have had a very different result if you’d had a runoff.”

Yet most political consultants still don’t like RCV, particularly those who work with downtown candidates. “RCV just probably won two races for me, coming from behind, and I still don’t like it,” said Latterman, who worked with Cohen and D2 winner Mark Farrell. “I like runoffs. I like candidates having to reach out and prove themselves.”

Of course, that system favored candidates who have the resources to reach out and target a voter base that is generally smaller and more conservative than in regular elections. But all the consultants are now trying to figure out how to make RCV work.

“The priority of any candidate in ranked-choice is to build your base,” Stearns, who is now working on Leland Yee’s mayoral campaign, told us. After that, the strategy is about identifying other candidates whose bases would also support your candidate and figuring out how to reach them. “Ranked-choice voting is a labor-intensive thing because you have to talk to everyone within that short window.”

But even Latterman said RCV will be a factor in next year’s San Francisco mayor’s race given what happened in Oakland this year. “For the first time a second place strategy worked and it can’t be ignored anymore,” Latterman said.

Hill said the progressive candidates and political consultants in San Francisco still need to learn how to work together to increase the turnout of their voters, sell swing voters on the progressive message and policies, and seek to win the race without undercutting those first two goals.

“How do you broaden your coalition and can you do that by having other progressives in the race?” Hill said. “These are the sorts of questions that progressives have to ask.”

Unfortunately, Hill hasn’t seen evidence that progressive campaigns in San Francisco have figured this out, noting how progressive supervisorial campaigns have instead criticized each other in the last few election cycles, such as this year’s D6 race between Jane Kim and Debra Walker.

“That’s the kind of behavior we still see from progressives in San Francisco, but that progressives in Oakland have already overcome,” Hill said. “Unfortunately, conservatives may figure this out first.”

Ultimately, Hill said that for progressive candidates to run strong ranked-choice voting campaigns against better-financed moderate candidates in a high-stakes election like the mayor’s race, they need to be a little bit selfless: “The progressive candidates need to care less about whether they win individually than that a progressive wins.”

War on drugs rages on

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
War on drugs rages on

By Pamela A. MacLean

news@sfbg.com

The two Norton brothers thought someone was breaking into their Oakland apartment to kill them one pre-dawn day in October 2007. Instead, a couple dozen well-armed and screaming federal drug agents stormed the place, rousted the pair, and dragged them around the apartment before arresting them.

Winslow and Abraham Norton operated one of the most successful medical marijuana dispensaries in the Bay Area, the Compassionate Patients’ Cooperative of California, in Hayward. In just the first six months of 2007, the operation grossed $26 million.

But if they thought facing a federal indictment on charges of conspiracy to possess and distribute more than 1,000 kilos of marijuana and money laundering was their worst nightmare, the Norton brothers just weren’t dreaming big enough.

The pair — with all-American good looks, close-cropped beards, and infectious smiles — finish each other’s sentences when they describe their run-in with the federal justice system.

“We were 11 and 14 when medical marijuana was legalized, and we grew up in Berkeley,” Abraham said “It may be naïve, but we didn’t understand the legality. Now we know federal law a lot better.”

Abraham, 26, and Winslow, 29, played by the rules in California’s fledgling medical marijuana law. In 2005 they got an Alameda County permit to operate from the former Sheriff Charles Plummer, a seller’s permit from the state, paid taxes, and had random inspections by local police.

They even hired security guards to patrol the place to make sure patients felt safe. After abandoning a couple of security companies as “no good,” they hired a tough bunch that had former Navy SEALS, Marines, and cops in their ranks, SEAL-Mar Security. They rotated a crew of 44 different guards who patrolled outside and carried Glocks, Smith & Wessons, Sig Sauers, and Rugers to make sure no one caused trouble.

“We are very proud we were squeaky clean and examined under a microscope,” Winslow said. “We never did a deal out the back door,” Abraham insisted. They sold so much marijuana to legitimate patients “it never made sense and it would have hurt the company” to do any illegal side deals, Winslow said.

But selling marijuana is still a federal crime, and in negotiations the prosecutor insisted the brothers accept five-year minimum prison terms. They refused, offering to plead guilty to conspiracy and let U.S. District Judge D. Lowell Jensen set the sentence. Assistant U.S. Attorney Steve Corrigan balked. Then, according to the Nortons and their lawyers, Corrigan upped the ante, threatening to indict their mother, who helped out in the co-op by opening up for the early shift.

“We had to tell her over a Thanksgiving,” Winslow said. “It was pretty miserable. We didn’t know what to do.”

Then, in February 2009, the government indicted their father instead, along with a coworker, and added a far more serious charge: aiding in the carrying of a firearm to further a drug crime. That charge alone carries up to life in prison, but no less than five years.

The Nortons had no guns. It was the gun-toting security team that was “aiding” in a drug conspiracy.

“It is plain and simple coercion, nothing less than that,” said Harold Rosenthal, Abraham’s attorney.

“When we heard the charge, we said ‘you must be kidding,'” says Doron Weinberg, the high-profile defense lawyer who defended record producer Phil Spector in his 2007 murder trial. “I have never before heard of a person charged with violation of a gun law because they hired a security guard.”

Although there is a new U.S. attorney, Melinda Haag, she isn’t talking. “It is an ongoing case so we have no comment,” said her spokesman Jack Gillund.

Sheriff Plummer, who retired in 2007 after 50 years in law enforcement, said of the weapons charges: “It’s bullshit.”

“While I don’t favor their type of business, it was legal. I wanted to make damn sure they were protected, people were protected, and the building was protected. I told them to hire a security crew,” he said.

Abraham says Plummer assured them during a county Board of Supervisors meeting that if they did everything he required, the feds would leave them alone. “I could have said that,” Plummer said when asked about that assurance.

Although the new charge is “aiding” use of weapons, the security crew was not charged with a crime. It had no effect on the guards or the company, according to Tom Turner, one of SEAL-Mar’s owners.

The indictment of their father, Michael, was no accident. Michael is a patient of the dispensary, but the brothers and his lawyer, Bill Osterhoudt, say Michael had no ownership interest in the co-op.

What Michael Norton does have is a criminal record. In the 1980s, he went to prison for two years in what was known as the Kona coffee caper. He bought low-cost Guatemalan coffee beans and sold them as pricey Hawaiian Kona coffee.

Piled on to the Norton brothers’ legal problems is a tax bill that went unpaid when the federal agents raided their apartment and the business. When the federal agents swept in three years ago, they seized the brothers’ two cars, a house they just bought, more than 300 pounds of marijuana, and an electronic deposit of nearly $340,000 in sales tax sent to the state Board of Equalization, according to Winslow.

“We thought the wire transfer cleared. We had confirmation, but the government still seized it,” Abraham said. “They stole the money,” Winslow said. That debt, with penalties and interest, is now close to $1 million, according to Abraham.

“The feds snatched the sales tax money and left the Nortons liable for it, and now they have liens against them for the money,” Rosenthal said.

The irony for the brothers is that they believe they were the first dispensary to voluntarily pay sales taxes. “We collected them for six months and took a check for $1 million to the BOE,” Abraham said. “They didn’t want to take money from medical marijuana sales and told us to call it something else,” Winslow said. “We refused. They wanted us to lie and say the bags cost $300 and the contents were free. But that would have screwed up our accounting.”

After accepting the initial payment, within a week the board issued letters to all the dispensaries in the state asking for sales tax, according to the brothers.

Judge Jensen rejected defense efforts to get the gun charges thrown out in September. But Jensen, a Republican former prosecutor, signaled he is not happy and ordered both sides to sit down Dec. 9 for formal talks before a magistrate to see if they can resolve the case.

“It’s not enough to say we want the case dropped,” Abraham said. “Our credit is destroyed. We can’t work.”

“Three years later we are still fighting it,” Winslow said. “We’ve been fighting this almost as long as the dispensary existed.”

As for the brothers’ chances to negotiate a resolution with the feds, Rosenthal said, “I’m somehow hoping the clouds are going to part and sanity is going to set in.”

Fighting dirty

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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1
Fighting dirty

rebeccab@sfbg.com

One by one, representatives from California local governments who had gone toe-to-toe with Pacific Gas & Electric Co. recounted their war stories. They were weary, fatigued, and uncertain of the future. Their resources had been depleted by hefty legal expenses, and they were forever caught up in the game of trying to undo the damage of misinformation campaigns whipped up against them by PG&E. None had ever suspected that following state law would be so arduous.

At a Nov. 8 hearing of the California Senate Select Committee on Renewable Energy, held in San Rafael, officials from the San Joaquin Valley, Marin County, and San Francisco spoke about challenges they faced trying to initiate community choice aggregation (CCA) programs, which would create alternative electricity providers to PG&E.

In accordance with Assembly Bill 117, which allows local governments to purchase power in bulk and distribute it to a customer base using the infrastructure and billing systems operated by investor-owned utilities, representatives from local government agencies said they pursued CCAs to bolster local economies and benefit the environment — but quickly fell prey to fierce marketing campaigns.

So far, PG&E hasn’t faced any real consequences for trying to derail its competitors using unethical and sometimes illegal tactics, and the director of the California Public Utilities Commission, Paul Clanon, did not commit to imposing fines or sanctions against the company.

 

COOPERATING FULLY

Despite a requirement under AB117 that utilities must “cooperate fully” with CCA implementation, agency representatives testified that PG&E consistently tried to obstruct their success. The San Joaquin Valley Joint Power Authority’s CCA effort was suspended after a protracted legal battle, and has yet to be revisited.

At the hearing, Sen. Mark Leno listened attentively and offered sympathetic words of encouragement. “It is a superhuman accomplishment that you are even here with us today,” he jested after Dawn Weisz, interim director of the Marin Energy Authority (MEA), finished describing a litany of tactics the monolithic utility employed against Marin’s CCA.

Marin’s experience may foreshadow what’s in store for San Francisco. CleanPower SF, the city’s CCA program, is picking up steam again after an initial attempt to hire a contractor failed to yield an acceptable agreement. On Nov. 5, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) announced it had received four responses to a second RFP for an electricity service provider to administer the city’s CCA.

Already San Francisco has weathered some attacks. Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, who chairs the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCo) and has been a key figure in moving CCA forward, characterized Marin and San Francisco as “brothers and sisters in arms,” saying, “We would share what we knew of what we could expect, because we were no strangers to these tactics.”

Weisz noted that early on, PG&E sent lobbyists to meet privately with local elected officials. Soon after, the company upped the ante with a negative marketing campaign, distributing mailers that contained misleading information about the program. Their activity prompted a rebuke — but no fines — from the CPUC. “I sent PG&E a letter to say knock it off,” Clanon said at the hearing.

PG&E also set up a phone-banking operation to dial up every prospective CCA customer in Marin County and encourage them to opt out of the program and used false information to persuade customers to stick with PG&E service, Weisz charged. “Many were led to believe that their lights wouldn’t go on if they didn’t opt out,” she said.

Once the CCA was in operation, PG&E imposed a delay on the billing process that made one month’s bill artificially low and the subsequent bill abnormally high, making it appear that CCA rates were higher than PG&E rates. This gaffe, which the company chalked up as a technical error, amounted to a sleight-of-hand: “Our rates were set to match PG&E rates,” Weisz explained.

PG&E did not return calls seeking comment.

Against all odds, Marin County is forging ahead with a power program that offers a 26.5 percent renewable energy mix, with 78 percent of its power generated without greenhouse gas emissions. State records show that only 14 percent of PG&E’s energy comes for renewable sources, failing to meet a state requirement that utilities get at least 20 percent of their power from such sources.

Charles McGlashan, a Marin County supervisor who chairs the Marin Energy Authority, noted that implementing a CCA was the most effective method the county could have employed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, yielding an estimated 500,000-ton reduction of greenhouse gas emissions annually.

While the potential exists for other municipalities to follow suit, PG&E smear campaigns will likely discourage similar projects. “This is a powerful opportunity that has been virtually destroyed by the antics of PG&E,” McGlashan said. “It has had an extraordinary chilling effect on the political leaders to even embark on such an enterprise.” Later he added, “I’m only doing it because I’m so hell-bent on answering the children’s questions about climate change.”

 

STORM COMING

Meanwhile, in San Francisco, CCA advocates are getting ready to batten down the hatches. “We’re under no illusion — PG&E will compete fiercely,” San Francisco Public Utilities Commission spokesperson Charles Sheehan told the Guardian. He said the city was taking a proactive approach by conducting early outreach to residents and holding public informational meetings about CleanPower SF.

The SFPUC has received four bids from prospective electricity service providers. The respondents are Constellation Energy Commodities Group, Shell Energy North America, Power Choice Inc. (which was selected during the last RFP process but was unable to secure a binding agreement with the city), and Noble Americas Energy Solutions, formerly known as Sempra Energy Solutions. During the Senate hearing, San Francisco CCA director Mike Campbell noted that the city expected to complete a scoring process and select one of the four by the end of the year. The goal is to be fully operational by 2011, he added.

Leno predicted resistance from PG&E. “It’s like a storm coming in,” he said. “We have no doubt of its arrival. They have endless opportunities for nefarious creativity.” He queried Clanon on why the PUC wouldn’t levy fines or sanctions against the utility for the negative campaigns it waged in Marin, as a way to signal that such activity wouldn’t be tolerated in San Francisco.

Clanon did not commit to taking such an action. “That’s a choice about how you get the right behavior,” he said. He noted that the CPUC issued a decision last May preventing the utility from distributing false or misleading information about CCAs or illegally soliciting opt-outs. Clanon warned that PG&E might not be deterred by “fines and sanctions and specific rules.” Pressed on this point later, Clanon told the Guardian that imposing fines or sanctions “would take a lot of resources by us” at a time when the state agency is consumed with other pressing issues, such as the aftermath of the San Bruno explosion caused by a PG&E gas pipeline rupture. “If you set a rule, more people get around the rule,” he said.

Even if the state regulatory body doesn’t hold PG&E’s feet to the fire, Mirkarimi won’t hold back. “We’re tired of the thuggery. We’re tired of the bullying,” he said. He alluded to the Raker Act, a 1913 act of Congress that allowed San Francisco to build the O’Shaughnessy Dam and draw water from the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir under the condition that no private profit was derived from the development, saying the arrangement had been subverted by PG&E. “We should be able to chart our own energy destiny,” Mirkarimi said.

The perils of unaccountable power

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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The perils of unaccountable power

By Saul Bloom

OPINION San Francisco has two redevelopment commissions that together have broad, sweeping authority over land use and development in the city. The Redevelopment Agency Commission and the Treasure Island Development Authority (TIDA) have more power in some respects than the Board of Supervisors — people you actually vote for.

There is no way to overstate the importance of the power of these commissions. The Candlestick Shipyard and Treasure Island projects by themselves account for an area the size of the Presidio. Over the next decade, the commissions will oversee the outcome of the Schlage Lock parcel in Visitacion Valley, the Bayview-Hunters Point Project Area, the Hunters Point Shipyard and Candlestick Point, India Basin, Mission Bay, South of Market, and Treasure and Yerba Buena islands.

Two important questions these commissions raise are: 1) Is It healthy for our city and county to vest so much authority into two essentially unaccountable authorities; and 2) Would it be better to vest this responsibility in the Board of Supervisors — considering that it’s the norm around the state for these local legislatures to also act as redevelopment commissions?

In San Francisco, redevelopment commissioners are appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the Board of Supervisors. The board cannot select its own representatives. The commissions wield the power of independent financial authority, multimillion dollar agency contracts, and the ability to destroy a community near you. This is a substantial amount of authority for an unelected body.

The mayor and six members of the Board of Supervisors are all that is required to allow a commissioner to serve for life. There are no term limits for commissioners. There are no meaningful criteria to judge a commissioner’s appointment. There is no yard stick by which to measure a panel member’s worthiness for reappointment every four years. The board’s confirmation and reappointment process is more a popularity party than a Supreme Court nominee review.

Other than the courts, there is no recourse to a commission decision. During the recent Candlestick Point-Hunters Point Shipyard debate members of the Board of Supervisors learned they actually has to seek the approval of these political appointees to modify an environmental impact report.

As a consequence, the appointment of commissioners is highly political. The power of the two commissions makes appointments prime objectives for influential sectors of the city’s political establishment. Those commissioners who disagree with the Mayor’s Office over important issues are not reappointed.

There’s no need to abolish the redevelopment authorities, which have unique legal benefits, particularly in project financing. But we can modify the way the city oversees the agencies.

In most counties in California the Board of Supervisors also serves as the Redevelopment Commission. While that could be a bit unnerving in a city as complicated as San Francisco, it is difficult to see how the process could become more politicized, less accountable, and less democratic.

Having the board oversee redevelopment would at least ensure that agency plans reflect the needs and interests of all 11 districts — and an elected body could be held accountable for those plans.

San Francisco deserves a dialogue about whether this is the best way to chart our course into a very foggy future. 

Saul Bloom is executive director of Arc Ecology.

Editor’s Notes

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Editor’s Notes

tredmond@sfbg.com

Imagine if the next mayor of San Francisco was chosen in public. I don’t mean the supervisors voting in public — they’ll have to do that at some point anyway. I mean the various possible candidates going through a process that allows the public to see who’s on the short list — and where those candidates are on the issues.

Sup. John Avalos, with the backing of his colleagues Chris Daly and David Campos, have started the process by suggesting that the board nominate candidates, soon. The idea, Avalos says, is to get a new mayor chosen early so that person can start on the transition process and get up to speed on leading the city.

But there are further steps here. When the supervisors nominate candidates for less significant offices, the Rules Committee holds a hearing and discusses the nominees. What if the supervisors, meeting as a Committee of the Whole, nominated, say, a half-dozen people for the job of interim mayor — then asked each candidate to appear before the group and answer questions?

The voters just overwhelmingly approved a charter amendment that will require the next mayor to appear at a board meeting once a month. There’s no reason the candidates shouldn’t do the same.

The supervisors have every right to ask someone who wants to be mayor what his or her position is on a long list of policy issues. And the pubic has every right to hear the responses.

I know, I know — the candidates would hate it. Standing in front of 11 people, from Chris Daly to Sean Elsbernd, and submitting to the mother of all job interviews would be unpleasant, perhaps unsettling. Some of the top contenders might bow out at the prospect.

But let’s be serious: In a normal campaign, the voters get to see candidates for mayor speak, take stands on issues, and engage in debates. I can’t see the supervisors choosing a new mayor on good faith alone (well, I’d take Tom Ammiano on good faith, but he doesn’t want the job). And if there aren’t any public discussions or interviews, then the only screening process is going to happen privately, with individual board members contacting individual candidates and (most likely) cutting deals.

I think it’s perfectly fair to say to the potential candidates: You want to be mayor of San Francisco? Spend an hour making the case for yourself and fielding questions from the people who are about to hire you. And let the rest of us watch.

Questions for the next mayor

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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4
Questions for the next mayor

EDITORIAL The progressives on the Board of Supervisors are a long way from united on a possible mayoral candidate, and if they can’t come together, the person who finishes Gavin Newsom’s term will be a compromise candidate, either a short-term caretaker (not the greatest option) or someone who’s more in the moderate camp but a candidate the left can work with — for 2011 and possibly four years after that.

We’re glad to see the proposal by Sup. John Avalos to begin the mayoral selection process early. Picking a mayor in a mad scramble on the day Newsom steps down is a recipe for chaos — and potentially a bad outcome. And as the process begins, the last thing the city needs is a mayor chosen through a backroom deal.

But it’s entirely appropriate for progressive board members to set some standards and to ask the people who are angling for the job to make clear exactly what their positions would be on key policy issues.

In other words, anyone who wants to be the interim mayor — and possibly mayor for the next five years or longer — should have to answer, directly and without hedging, question like these:

How much new revenue does San Francisco need to solve its budget problems, and where, specifically, should it come from? This is the central issue facing the city, now and for the indefinite future. San Francisco’s budget has a structural deficit of at least $250 million, and it simply can’t be closed by cuts alone. What taxes will you pledge to support — and put political capital and fundraising clout behind when they go on the ballot?

What specific programs ought to be cut? Everyone likes to talk about the city living within its means, but that ends up leading to a series of death-by-1,000-cuts decisions that year after year devastate services to the poor. Don’t tell us you need to look at budget figures and work it out later; the big-ticket items are no secret. What’s on the chopping block — and what isn’t?

Will you work to promote public power? How will you expedite community choice aggregation, and will you support a ballot measure to replace Pacific Gas and Electric Co. with a full-scale municipal electric utility?

What are your law enforcement priorities? If money’s tight, should the San Francisco police be hassling nightclubs, or should more resources go into the homicide division? How important are foot patrols, and which neighborhoods should get them? Will the SFPD and juvenile authorities continue to turn young people over to federal immigration authorities?

Who should pay to fix Muni? Should the burden of paying for the transit system fall primarily on the riders (through fare increases and reduced services) or should big downtown businesses and retailers (the major beneficiaries of the system) pay more? Should car owners pay higher fees (including parking fees and congestion management fees) to subsidize transit? Which specific fees would you be willing to push for?

Who should the city build housing for? Right now, much of the new housing stock is aimed at the very rich — and San Francisco is turning into a bedroom community for Silicon Valley. Would you set housing policy to conform with the city’s General Plan assertion that more than half of all new housing should be below market rate? How would you make that balance happen? Should the city spend a significant amount of money for affordable housing, and who should pay for it?

Do you agree that public sector jobs are as important as private sector jobs in San Francisco? Would you support the tax plan proposed by Sup. David Chiu?

Do you support giving the supervisors appointments to all major commissions?

Do you think the city should be doing more to stop TICs and condo conversions and to preserve existing rental housing?

That’s just the beginning of a long list of questions — but the progressives on the board should make sure they have answers before agreeing to support anyone, as a caretaker or interim mayor.

Alerts

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0

alert@sfbg.com

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 17

 

“The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires”

Will corporations consolidate power over the Internet the way they have with television — or will it remain a source of free-flowing information? The Commonwealth Club presents a conversation on the possibilities with Tim Wu, author; policy advocate, and professor at Columbia University.

5:30 p.m., $8 members, $20 nonmembers

Commonwealth Club

595 Market, 2nd floor, SF

(415) 597-6700

THURSDAY, NOV. 18

 

Halt, thief!

To draw attention to the National Day of Action Against Wage Theft, the San Francisco Progressive Workers Alliance holds a rally and press conference highlighting how low-wage workers can have their wages withheld from them.. National surveys show that 68 percent of low-wage workers report minimum-wage violations, illegal pay deductions, denied overtime pay, and other forms of economic exploitation.

11 a.m., free

SF City Hall,

Polk Street steps

1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett, SF

crain100@gmail.com, shawsan@cpasf.org.

 

Fight the right

The International Socialist Organization presents Alan Maass, editor of the SocialistWorker.org and author of The Case for Socialism, giving a lecture entitled “The Right Turn in U.S. Politics: How It Happened … and What We Can Do To Stop It.”

1 p.m., free

CCSF Ocean Campus,

Statler Wing Room 14

Phelan and Juson, SF

iso@norcalsocialism.org

(415) 452-5481

SATURDAY, NOV. 20

 

A Progressive platform

The West Coast Regional Congress hosts plenary sessions and workshops on living-wage jobs, universal health care, affordable housing, Social Security, high-quality education, progressive taxation of corporations and the wealthy, and peace and self-determination.

9 a.m., free

Horace Mann Middle School

3351 23rd St. SF

(415) 863-1225

 

Be the change

Aimee Allison moderates a free talk on “Weaving through Change: Identifying Intersections Between Education, Health and Economics.” In the organizers’ words, “the event aspires to provide a safe space for discourse and structure to improve the quality of our thoughts, our actions, and most important, our results as change agents.”

9 a.m.–2 p.m., free

Laney College

900 Fallon, Oakl.

(510) 464-3424

SUNDAY, NOV. 21

 

The Legacy of Thanksgiving

This Free Land Project event brings together artists, activists, and communities to explore the complex history of Thanksgiving and acknowledge the legacy of US colonialism and genocide against Native Americans. Featuring Audiopharmacy, Jeremy Goodfeather, Mohawk , Yvonne Swan, Sinixt Arrow Lakes Nation Raw-G.

7 p.m., $10–$25 sliding scale

La Peña Cultural Center

3105 Shattuck, Berk.

(510) 849-2568 2

Mail items for Alerts to the Guardian Building, 135 Mississippi St., SF, CA 94107; fax to (415) 437-3658; or e-mail alert@sfbg.com. Please include a contact telephone number. Items must be received at least one week prior to the publication date.

Dodging bullets

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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14
Dodging bullets

steve@sfbg.com

Progressives in San Francisco dodged a few bullets on election night, which was the highest hope that many held in a campaign season dominated by conservative money and messaging. The Board of Supervisors retained a progressive majority, Prop B’s attack on public employees went down, the wealthy will pay more property transfer taxes, and — perhaps the best news of all — Gavin Newsom is leaving for Sacramento a year before his mayoral term ends.

But economically conservative and downtown-backed campaigns and candidates scored the most election-night victories in San Francisco, killing a temporary hotel tax hike pushed hard by labor and several progressive-sponsored ballot measures, and winning approval for the divisive sit-lie ordinance and Prop. G, removing Muni driver pay guarantees, which had the widest margin of the night: 65-35 percent.

“Ultimately, downtown did well,” progressive political consultant Jim Stearns told us on election night, noting how aggressive spending by downtown business and real estate interests ended a string of progressive victories in the last several election cycles. He cited the likely election of Scott Wiener in District 8 and the strong challenge in District 2 by Mark Farrell to perceived frontrunner Janet Reilly, who had progressive and mainstream endorsements.

A preliminary Guardian analysis of reported spending by independent expenditure committees shows that groups affiliated with downtown or supporting more conservative candidates spent about $922,435, the biggest contributions coming from conservative businessman Thomas Coates and the San Francisco Board of Realtors, compared to $635,203 by more progressive organizations, mostly the San Francisco Democratic Party and San Francisco Labor Council.

That spending piggy-backed on national campaigns that were also skewed heavily to conservative and corporate-funded groups and messaging that demonized government and public employee unions, playing on people’s economic insecurities during a stubborn recession and jobless recovery.

Stearns said voters are having a hard time in this economy “and they don’t like to see the government spending.” He said national polls consistently show that people are more scared of “big government” than they are “big corporations,” even if San Francisco progressives tend to hold the opposite view.

And even that narrow defeat came after an almost unprecedented opposition campaign that included every elected official in San Francisco except the measure’s sponsor, Public Defender Jeff Adachi, and both the labor movement and many moderate groups.

“The campaign on this was extraordinary and caught fire at the end,” Alex Clemens, founder of Barbary Coast Consulting, said at SPUR’s Nov. 4 election wrap-up event. In particular, the message about how much Prop B would increase the health care costs on median-income city employees seemed to resonate with voters.

“We are really happy that Prop. B is going down because it was such a misguided measure. It was not well thought through,” Labor Council President Tim Paulson told the Guardian at the election night party labor threw with the San Francisco Democratic Party at Great American Music Hall. “San Francisco voters are the smartest in America.”

Paulson was also happy to see those voters approve taxing the transfer of properties worth more than $5 million, “because San Franciscans know that everyone has to pay their fair share.”

In the Board of Supervisors races, it was basically a status quo election that shouldn’t alter the body’s current politics dynamics much. Sup. Bevan Dufty will be replaced with fellow moderate Scott Wiener in D8 and Sup. Chris Daly by progressive Jane Kim in D6. The outcome of races to replace ideological wobbler Sup. Sophie Maxwell in D10 and conservative Michela Alioto-Pier in D2 may not be conclusively known for at least a few more days (maybe longer if the close races devolve into lawsuits), but neither is a seat that would diminish the board’s progressive majority.

Progressives could have made a gain if Rafael Mandelman had won in D8, but he was seven points behind Wiener on election night and even more after the initial ranked choice tally was run on Nov. 5. And in D6, fears that downtown-backed candidate Theresa Sparks might sneak past dueling progressive candidates Jane Kim and Debra Walker never materialized as Sparks finished far behind the lefty pair.

Consultant David Latterman, who worked for Sparks, told us on election night that he was surprised to see that Kim was the choice of 32 percent of early absentee voters “because we targeted those voters.” By comparison, Walker was at 20 percent and Sparks was at 21 percent in the initial returns, which tend to be more conservative. By the end of the night, Kim had 31.3 percent, Walker 27.7 percent, and Sparks just 16.5 percent.

“If she did that well with absentees, it seems like it was Jane’s race to win. If they choose Jane, they wanted Jane. It’s just that simple,” Latterman told us on election night.

At her election night party, Kim credited her apparent victory to a strong campaign that she said fielded 400 volunteers on Election Day, most wearing the bright red T-shirts that read “See Jane Run” on the back. “I feel good,” Kim told the Guardian. “What I’m really happy about is we ran a really good campaign.”

In the end, Kim’s campaign was put over the top by the second-place votes of Sparks’ supporters, with 769 votes going to Kim and 572 to Walker in the first preliminary run of ranked-choice voter tabulations. But despite the bad blood that developed between progressives in the Kim and Walker campaigns, Board President David Chiu, an early Kim supporter, sounded a conciliatory note, telling the Guardian on election night, “Given where Debra and Jane are, I’m glad that we’re going to keep this a progressive seat.”

Prison for killer cop

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Prison for killer cop

rebeccab@sfbg.com

On Nov. 5, former BART Police officer Johannes Mehserle was sentenced to two years in state prison for fatally shooting Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old African American rider, on the Fruitvale train platform on New Year’s Day 2009.

Mehserle, who is white, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in July in an incident that has become charged with racial undertones. He received credit for 292 days served in jail so far, which will considerably reduce his time in prison. It was the lightest prison sentence he could have received for the crime.

Grant supporters gathered in Frank Ogawa Plaza in downtown Oakland to express anger and sorrow upon hearing news of the sentence. “I’m not shocked,” said Cat Brooks, who helped organize an afternoon rally for the Coalition for Justice for Oscar Grant. “But I’m disgusted and distraught. It seems like the justice system didn’t work.”

After the rally came to a close and night fell, protesters spilled into the streets and marched toward the Fruitvale BART Station, the scene of the crime. But after a dozen car windows were smashed along the way, police officers in riot gear corralled the group into a residential neighborhood. Police then placed 152 protesters under mass arrest, mostly on charges of unlawful assembly. Roughly two-thirds of those arrested were Oakland residents, according to the Oakland Police Department, while others were from Berkeley, San Francisco, Hayward, and other local cities.

 

COMMUNITY RESPONDS

A stage outside Oakland City Hall was transformed into a venue for personal expression in the wake of the sentencing. Community members lined up to air their frustrations and resolve to keep fighting. They piled flowers onto a shrine that had been created with a picture of Grant’s face. Some painted pictures, while others gave spoken word or hip-hop performances. Several told stories of loved ones who’d died in police shootings.

Cephus Johnson, Grant’s uncle, was at the Los Angeles courtroom where Mehserle was sentenced, but shared some thoughts with the Guardian beforehand. Asked what he’d thought when the verdict had been announced, Johnson said, “My first thought was that we’re witnessing the criminal justice system failing to work as it should have worked.” If the sentence fell short of the 14-year maximum, he said, “it will be another slap in the face, signifying that black and brown men are worthless.”

East Bay labor organizer Charles Dubois was among those attending the Nov. 5 rally. “Every black parent, every brown parent, lives with this nightmare of their children being killed by some cops because they thought they had a gun,” Dubois said in an interview with the Guardian. “It’s been happening since I was a kid. It’s been happening then and it’s happening now, and it’s going to keep happening until we do something.”

California Assemblymember Tom Ammiano (D-SF) also weighed in during a phone call with the Guardian. “This verdict is outrageous,” he said. “It’s Dan White all over again.”

 

JUDGE DROPS GUN ENHANCEMENT

Judge Robert Perry sided with arguments presented by Mehserle’s defense attorney, Michael Rains, when he levied a reduced punishment. Mehserle could have served up to 14 years prison for involuntary manslaughter committed while wielding a gun, but Perry tossed out the firearm enhancement.

“No reasonable trier of fact could have concluded that Mehserle intentionally fired his gun,” the judge was quoted in media reports as saying. But that appears to be what the jury found, as the prosecution argued in a presentencing memorandum.

“The evidence was presented regarding the use of the gun, and in discussing the use of the gun in the jury room, somehow or another the jury decided he had used the gun illegally,” criminal defense attorney and National Lawyers Guild observer Walter Riley told the Guardian. “One has to believe the jury expected him to have exposure to a greater amount of jail time because of that.”

Perry said he believed Mehserle suffered a “muscle memory accident” that led him to draw and fire his service weapon instead of his Taser, a cornerstone of the defense’s case.

Rains wrote to the court prior to sentencing that jurors should never have been allowed to apply the firearm enhancement to an involuntary manslaughter conviction “because in this case, there is no logical way to square a verdict of involuntary manslaughter and a finding that Mehserle intended to use his gun.”

Prosecutor David Stein of the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office countered that the jury’s conviction showed they believed Mehserle intended to shoot, but not to kill, Grant. Yet Perry agreed with the defense, conceding he had mistakenly permitted the jury to enhance Mehserle’s sentence.

Riley said he sympathized with frustrations over the gun enhancement getting dismissed. “The use of guns is too prevalent in circumstances where law enforcement comes in contact with young black people,” he said. “Our society — our civil society, our judicial authority, and our communities — have to hold government and law enforcement officers to a higher level of accountability in their interactions with citizens. When people with guns shoot an inordinate number of people of one group, it’s worth tremendous scrutiny.”

 

ANOTHER NIGHT IN JAIL

Twice before, activists took to the streets in furious protest over this case. In January 2009, things escalated to the point where cars were set ablaze. In July 2010, a street rally gave way to rioting and looting. So on Nov. 5, many downtown Oakland storeowners boarded up and closed business early in anticipation of a third wave of vandalism.

Yet the turnout was smaller than the previous events. And while there were reports of smashed car windshields and other instances of vandalism along the circuitous path of the march, there was far less property destruction.

The community affair outside Oakland City Hall ended around 6 p.m., when the permit expired. Soon after, activists spilled into the intersection of 14th and Broadway streets, then began advancing down 14th Street chanting “No Justice! No Peace!” and “The whole system is guilty!” The march turned right onto Madison Street, then left onto 10th Street.

A police helicopter with a spotlight kept pace overhead while it progressed, and when protesters reached Laney College, police officers in riot gear blocked them in. So protesters cut through a park and wandered in a pack until they reached the intersection of East 18th Street and Sixth Avenue in a residential neighborhood. Once again, police surrounded the protesters. This time, the crowd was trapped.

Rachel Jackson, an activist who was barricaded in, began sounding off. “We were going to Fruitvale,” she explained. “We wanted to go to the scene of the crime. All night the police have been trying to suppress our free speech.” When a nearby TV news reporter asked her about windows that had been busted along the march, she was incensed. “We will not equate glass with Oscar Grant’s life!” she responded. “If we have to come out ourselves and board up windows, we’ll do that. But what we are concerned with right now is murder.”

Reporters were allowed to exit the confined area, but if anyone else had been inclined to leave peacefully, they were unable to. Police issued a call on a megaphone telling activists, “You are all under arrest. Do not resist arrest.” By the time the mass arrest was underway, public information officer Jeff Thomason told a group of reporters that there were more police officers on the scene than protesters.

“When the rocks were being thrown, it was declared an unlawful assembly,” Thomason explained. He said a dispersal order had been issued simultaneously. Yet it would have been impossible for the trapped crowd to comply with such an order.

Meanwhile, a resident of the Oakland neighborhood who had come outside when the commotion began told the Guardian that she sympathized with the protesters. “The only thing I don’t condone is the vandalism,” said Dyshia Harvey, who surveyed the scene from behind a fence with her six-year-old son.

Harvey had been anticipating word of Mehserle’s sentencing. “I was upset. I was frustrated, angry, and hurt” by the outcome, she said. But she wasn’t surprised. “I already knew we weren’t going to get no justice,” she said. “For taking a life, 14 years isn’t enough. It makes you feel like there’s no justice in the justice system.”

 

NOT OVER YET

Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley has not stated whether her office will appeal Perry’s ruling. Rains told reporters in L.A. that he would appeal Mehserle’s involuntary manslaughter conviction.

Meanwhile, the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice released a statement indicating that a federal investigation is in the works. “The Justice Department and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California have been closely monitoring the local prosecution of this case,” a USDOJ prepared statement notes. “Now that the state prosecution has concluded and consistent with department policy, we will thoroughly review the prosecution and its underlying investigation to determine whether further action is appropriate.”

BART settled a civil lawsuit filed on behalf of Grant’s daughter in January that is likely to total $5.1 million, according to civil rights attorney John Burris’ website. Two other lawsuits, one on behalf of Grant’s mother and one on behalf of five other men on the Fruitvale station platform that night, have been consolidated into a single trial that will begin in May 2011, Burris told the Guardian.

Meanwhile, Grant’s death marked just one of three police shootings that occurred Jan. 1, 2009 — the other two cases also sparked allegations of civil-rights violations, since both victims were African American men. Adolph Grimes, 22, was fatally shot 14 times, including 12 times in the back, by a group of New Orleans police officers, who erroneously believed he was a suspect who’d fled the scene of a shooting.

The same night, Robert Tolan, 23 — the son of a Major League Baseball player — was shot and seriously injured outside his home in an upscale Houston suburb by a police officer who mistakenly believed Tolan had stolen the vehicle he was driving. Sgt. Jeffrey Cotton, the white officer who shot him, was ultimately acquitted.

 

CREATIVE OUTLET

Not everyone in Oakland reacted to Mehserle’s sentence by charging through the streets. The Oscar Grant Foundation, which facilitated live art performances at Frank Ogawa Plaza Nov. 5, is calling for youth groups, Bay Area schools, and adults to participate in an art and poetry showcase inspired by Grant. Information can be found online at IamOscarGrant.org. The foundation is advertising a $1,000 grand prize. Three artists from the Trust Your Struggle Collective didn’t wait to join a contest, however, and spent the afternoon of Nov. 5 adorning plywood covering the Youth Radio building windows at 17th Street and Telegraph Avenue, a few blocks from Frank Ogawa Plaza.

The mural displayed a prominent image of Grant holding his daughter, Tatiana, who was four years old when Grant was killed. The pair are flanked by the names and figures of more than 20 people killed by police.

“We asked the youth inside what they wanted to see,” Miguel Perez, an artist with the Trust Your Struggle Collective, told the Guardian as he looked over the mural. “They said they wanted to see the names of people killed by police nationwide, not just in the Bay Area. The list is so huge, it’s hard to pick out specific names.”

Perez said Trust Your Struggle is a group of artists and educators with social-justice backgrounds who create art as activism. “Being a person of color, I’ve had racist stuff said to me by the police,” Perez said. “It seems like it’s slowly been changing for the past hundreds of years, but it’s still not enough — enough being fairness.” *

How not to choose a mayor

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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5
How not to choose a mayor

EDITORIAL There are plenty of good arguments among progressives about who would be the best person to replace Gavin Newsom as mayor and how the Board of Supervisors should make that decision. It’s a complicated situation: The next mayor will face a horrible budget deficit, all sorts of tough decisions — and then face the voters in 10 months. And if the board appoints a progressive, that person will face a hostile daily newspaper and several well-funded opponents in the fall.

But we know there are some very bad scenarios, some things the board and the potential mayor contenders shouldn’t do — because in the end, the process needs to be free of any sort of backroom taint.

Here are some basic ground rules for the next two months.

Newsom shouldn’t try to mess around with the selection of his successor. The mayor decided to run for state office with the full knowledge that he would leave behind a vacancy that the supervisors would fill. He has no business playing political and legal games to skew the results. For example, some say Newsom is considering delaying his swearing in, now set for Jan 3, 2011, for a week to prevent the current supervisors from voting on an interim mayor. That would be a bad faith, manipulative move. He made his choice; now he needs to get out of the way and let the City Charter process work.

The current board should have a fair shot at electing Newsom’s replacement. The day after Newsom takes office as lieutenant governor, the current board will meet for one last time — and by law, they should and will have a chance to find a candidate who can get six votes to serve out Newsom’s term. Any parliamentary moves that serve only to delay the vote and push the decision to the new board would be inappropriate.

The idea of a “caretaker” mayor is fraught with problems — and Willie Brown shouldn’t even be on the list. Newsom is pushing the idea of a true interim mayor, someone who won’t run for the job in November and will simply keep the lights on for 11 months. That means ignoring the city’s serious structural problems. A caretaker would have no authority and little ability change things. And the notion that’s being floated around of former mayor Willie Brown stepping in is disgraceful. Brown was a terrible mayor, and a rerun of that nightmare — even of only 11 months — is the last thing San Francisco needs.

Kamala Harris shouldn’t be a player in this game. If Harris, the current district attorney, is elected state attorney general, her job will be open too — and it’s easy to see how Newsom could use that as a plum to get his way. If Harris resigns before Newsom is sworn in, Newsom would get to appoint her replacement — and if that appointee is currently on the Board of Supervisors, Newsom would get to fill a seat on the board too. Harris needs to stay out of that unseemly sort of deal.

All the rules and procedures need to be made public, now. The legalities of this transition are tricky. Could the current board appoint an interim mayor now, knowing that a vacancy will occur, or must they wait until Newsom has actually resigns? Could Newsom delay his swearing in? The supervisors need to get legal advice on every possible scenario — and make it public. The last thing anyone needs in this confusion period is secrecy.

Plenty of people will be unhappy with whatever plays out. But if the process is bad, the result will be a mayor with no legitimacy.

Alerts

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0

alert@sfbg.com

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 10

 

Protest a Mexican dam

Help keep a village in Mexico from being flooded. Come to the Mexican Consulate to protest construction of the El Zapotillo Dam, which would submerge the town of Temacapulín, Jalisco, and provide water to a neighboring state that already loses 40 percent of its water supply in transmission. Join families of Temacapulín in a musical and peaceful protest to stop the dam.

12 p.m.–1p.m., free

Mexican Consulate

532 Folsom, SF

www.internationalrivers.org/node/5908

THURSDAY, NOV. 11

 

SF Public Press party

Join the nonprofit SF Public Press for drinks and appetizers, pick up a free copy of its latest newspaper, and meet the people who pull it all together.

5:30 p.m., $20 general admission

The Mechanics’ Institute

57 Post, SF

www.sfpublicpress.org

 

Watch The Big One

Michael Moore’s hilarious cross-country road movie plumbs the depths of corporate America, asking the question: at a time when corporations are posting record profits, why are so many Americans still in danger of losing their jobs? Moore embarks on a one-man campaign to persuade Fortune 500 companies to reconsider their downsizing decisions.

7:30 p.m., $5 donation

Humanity Hall, 390

27th St., Oakl.

www.humanisthall.net/wp/2010/10/17/film-the-big-one-2/

 

Rally Against KPFA’s cuts

Union workers at America’s first listener-sponsored radio station, KPFA 94.1 FM, have mobilized to oppose imminent cuts to KPFA staffing by their parent organization, the Pacifica Foundation. The Morning Show, Against the Grain, Hard Knock Radio, and KPFA Evening News all appear slated for severe program changes and/or decimating cuts.

4:30–6:30a.m., free

1925-29 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Berk.

www.kpfaworker.org

SATURDAY, NOV. 13

 

Indybay’s 10th Anniversary Celebration

Indybay, a hub for independent progressive news and activism, has been thriving for a decade, along with SF Bay Area and Santa Cruz Independent Media Centers and other projects. To celebrate and honor its many contributors, come hear form a diverse lineup of speakers from across Northern California discussing independent media’s role in social and environmental justice movements.

12 p.m., $10 donation

Continental Club

1658 12th St., Oakl.

www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/09/11/18658427.php

SUNDAY, NOV. 14

 

Cultivating a Legacy of Hope

Be a part of the Filipino/American Coalition for Environmental Solidarity (FACES) first-ever community celebration, marking 10 years of building environmental justice and solidarity between the U.S. and the Philippines. Event features a palengke (market) of sustainable crafts, live performances from spoken word poet Aimee Suzara, Diwa Kulintang Ensemble, and guitarist Theresa Calpotura, along with delicious Filipino foods and more.

2–4:30 p.m., free

Bayanihan Community Center

1010 Mission St., SF

www.facessolidarity.org 2

Mail items for Alerts to the Guardian Building, 135 Mississippi St., SF, CA 94107; fax to (415) 255-8762; or e-mail alerts@sfbg.com. Please include a contact telephone number. Items must be received at least one week prior to the publication date.

Calls for justice

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Calls for justice

rebeccab@sfbg.com

Since the fatal shooting of Oscar Grant III on New Year’s Day in 2009, a photograph of the 22-year-old African American man from Hayward has become iconic. The picture shows Grant’s smiling face, and the black ski cap and a hooded sweatshirt he was wearing the day it was taken.

It has been copied onto posters and displayed like wallpaper in downtown Oakland cafes and along city blocks, manipulated with different hues and accents to produce scores of flyers, banners, hip-hop album jackets, T-shirts, and even masks. An expansive mural in Oakland displays Grant’s image on a larger-than-life scale, framed with roses.

The ubiquitous pictures of Grant, the victim of a shooting by police, are a constant reminder that his life was taken suddenly when BART cop Johannes Mehserle shot him in the back on the Fruitvale train platform. At the time, Grant was unarmed and physically restrained, having been arrested following reports of a fight.

Cell phone camera footage of the shooting went viral, and the case drew national attention. The defense argued that it was all a tragic accident, saying Mehserle had mistakenly drawn his firearm when he meant to draw his Taser.

Mehserle was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and his sentencing is expected Nov. 5. With all the attention surrounding the case, this final determination has taken on the proportions of a moment of truth.

Mehserle could be sent to prison for as long as 14 years, or merely be placed on probation. For many Grant supporters, it’s a question of whether the justice system will incarcerate a police officer for killing a young person of color, after so many other youths have been slain in police shootings that never went to trial. For Mehserle’s supporters, the outcome will signify something else entirely.

 

RIVAL NARRATIVES

Mehserle, a white Napa native in his late 20s who resigned from BART after the shooting, was tried on a murder charge. But a jury in Los Angeles (where the trial was moved because of the publicity here) found him guilty of involuntary manslaughter on July 8. Protesters, decrying the verdict as too lenient, converged in downtown Oakland for a street rally directly afterward that later gave way to bursts of rioting and looting.

The grassroots community leaders who urged supporters into the streets aren’t the only people now mobilizing around the sentencing. In the months following the verdict, the law enforcement community rallied in support of Mehserle, whose conviction for on-duty police conduct stood out as a rarity.

The former cop’s supporters have set up websites, hosted vigils, and arranged media interviews for Mehserle and his allies. A website called Justice4Johannes.com decries his conviction, denouncing the justice system as biased against police. “Do not let our officers fall victim to a spineless system,” the website urges, “who would rather protect criminals than protect our law enforcement officers who daily put their lives on the line for you!”

As the date of the sentencing approaches, each side has demonstrated that they are as active as ever. When the Giants played in AT&T Park in October, Mehserle’s father, Todd, made an appearance in McCovey Cove on a stately sailboat with “Free Johannes Mehserle” banners ruffling on its tall masts. But a smaller wooden ketch with activist Jared Aldrich at the helm, hoisted banners that read “Justice for Oscar Grant” and, on another occasion, “Jail Killer Cops.”

On Oct. 23, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 10 shut down Bay Area ports, using a stop-work day to hold a rally at the Port of Oakland calling for the maximum sentence for Mehserle.

“The litany of police killings of innocent young black and Latino men has evoked a public outcry in California,” Jack Heyman, a co-organizer of the rally, wrote in an article in CounterPunch. “Yet when it comes to killer cops, especially around election time, with both the Democratic and Republican parties espousing law and order, the mainstream media either expunges or whitewashes the issue.”

Heyman told the Guardian that he had visited Oakland high school classes to speak about the issue and found that in some classes, every single student raised a hand when asked if they knew the name Oscar Grant. “They happen to be sensitive to the issue of police brutality,” he noted. “A number of them had had problems with police.”

 

PRISON OR PROBATION?

On Oct. 26, opposing briefs on the sentencing were filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court. Defense Attorney Michael Rains submitted a 126-page memo urging the judge to drop the gun-enhancement charge and place Mehserle on probation, which would keep him out of prison. Meanwhile, prosecutors with the Alameda County District Attorney filed a 20-page memo indicating that Mehserle should be sent to prison, but stopped short of advocating for the maximum sentence.

Rains’ motion goes into great detail, quoting from letters sent to the court in Mehserle’s defense, in which the former transit officer is said to be “a gentle giant.” It even goes so far as to suggest that Mehserle’s infant son (born New Year’s Day, 2009) could suffer psychological difficulties later in life if he is separated from his father.

Grant, too, was a father — his daughter, Tatiana, is six — but the prosecution’s motion doesn’t mention how she may be psychologically affected later in life by her loss. Grant supporters sent some 2,000 letters to the judge, according to a posting on civil rights attorney John Burris’ website, but none were referenced in the briefing.

The DA argues that Mehserle intentionally shot Grant, implying that the Taser argument was a fabrication. In the moments following the shooting, the document notes, Mehserle told his fellow officer that he thought Grant was going for a gun. “If the sentence in this case is to serve any purpose whatsoever,” it notes, “it must serve as punishment.”

 

INSIDE THE POLICE LOBBY

The Peace Officers Research Association of California (PORAC) covered the cost of Mehserle’s defense. The 85,000-member, politically powerful police organization maintains a legal defense fund for officers facing legal troubles.

Technically, Mehserle wasn’t entitled to the financial assistance. According to PORAC’s website, an officer who voluntarily resigns may be ineligible for benefits, and Mehserle quit shortly after the shooting. Still, PORAC stepped up and put itself on the hook for millions in legal fees to ensure he had the best possible defense. PORAC was a driver behind the Peace Officers’ Bill of Rights, which established a unique set of protections for law enforcement officers under investigation for misconduct.

PORAC president Ron Cottingham acknowledged that its decision to fund Mehserle’s defense was discretionary, but declined to say more. It’s possible that PORAC was interested in preventing Mehserle’s trial from setting a precedent for other cases involving officers who use deadly force against unarmed suspects.

PORAC also played a role in the BART civilian oversight structure that was ultimately approved by the California Legislature. The transit agency’s lack of civilian oversight became a flashpoint in the wake of the shooting, prompting Assemblymember Tom Ammiano to draft legislation that would have created an Office of Citizen Complaints (OCC) for BART patterned after the system in place in San Francisco. PORAC fought it and the effort was stymied.

“PORAC … will actively oppose your bill as it is written,” Jesse Sekhon, president of the BART Police Officers’ Association, wrote in a letter to Ammiano’s office. “They also said that they will have every law enforcement agency in the state oppose the bill.” Ammiano’s bill would have prevented police officers from serving in oversight roles and would have granted more power to the OCC.

The bill that went forward instead, Assembly Bill 1586, was crafted by BART, supported by PORAC, and introduced by Assemblymember Sandre Swanson (D-Oakland). Under this system, the oversight process begins with a police auditor selected by the BART Board of Directors, and a citizen board — which may include police officers.

According to Lynette Sweet, a member of the BART Board who spoke about the bill during a community meeting in Oakland in August 2009, PORAC opposed Ammiano’s bill because it would have allowed the state to direct municipalities throughout California to create civilian-oversight offices. “PORAC doesn’t want to see that happen. So we’ve now become the lesser of two evils for them,” she said.

On Oct. 29, BART held a dedication ceremony for the new police auditor office and honored Swanson for bringing the legislation forward. The transit agency has initiated a search to fill the civilian-oversight positions. But the rifts in the community over this shooting are far from healed.

On one side, a politically powerful and financially robust police lobby is actively influencing civilian-oversight legislation and spending top dollar trying to keep Mehserle out of prison. On the other, a grassroots community movement furious about police brutality against black and Latino youth is gaining momentum.

Only Judge Robert Perry knows what his own personal interpretation of justice is, and he alone will determine if or for how long Mehserle will spend time behind bars. If he is spared from prison, the community will be outraged. If he is incarcerated, Mehserle supporters will be outraged. But regardless of the decision, Mehserle’s life will go on.

Train tangle

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Train tangle

The California High-Speed Rail Authority Board of Directors is scheduled to meet Nov. 4 in Sacramento to approve criteria for selecting which of four sections of track will be built first — but the federal government appeared to predetermine that outcome Oct. 28 by awarding the project $715 million in economic stimulus funds that can only be used in the Central Valley.

A classic north-south political battle has been brewing for months as advocates for the San Francisco-to-San Jose section and those for the Anaheim-to-Los Angeles section each sought to get their project going first. But with both sections mired in political and design problems, the feds decided that only the Merced-to-Fresno or Fresno-to-Bakersfield sections could break ground quickly enough to qualify for the funds.

However, San Francisco will still see $16 million of that money, which was allocated to the current Caltrain Station at Fourth and King streets, a station that will also serve the high-speed rail project and the proposed Transbay Terminal downtown.

CHSRA board member Quentin Kopp, who helped create the project as a San Francisco-based state legislator back in the 1990s, had been engaged in a behind-the-scenes conflict with current chairman Curt Pringle, the outgoing mayor of Anaheim, whose dual roles seem to violate state conflict-of-interest rules. But Attorney General Jerry Brown has been dragging his feet on issuing an opinion in the matter while running for governor.

The southern California section is more expensive that the Bay Area one, and there are significant right-of-way issues in Los Angeles County, as well as problems with choosing a site for the station in Anaheim. By contrast, the Bay Area line would use the existing right-of-way for Caltrain, which has been pursuing electrification of its track to improve service and mesh with high-speed rail.

“This is the only section in which the right-of-way is owned by a public entity,” Kopp told the Guardian, although he was careful not to state a preference to avoid improperly predetermining his vote.

But the Bay Area section is also the target of a lawsuit by the cities of Palo Alto, Atherton, Brisbane, Menlo Park, and other jurisdictions that have complained about the fast-moving trains and challenged the project’s environmental impact report. There are also looming issues in San Francisco, where the impending release of this section’s EIR is also raising controversial design issues.

For example, city officials have complained about plans that call for the intersection of 16th and Seventh streets and other streets along the current Caltrain corridor to be grade-separated from the rail line, essentially lowering the streets into sunken culverts. “It seems like that issue is going to come to a head at some point,” Joshua Switzky, a city planner who has worked on it, told the Guardian.

CHSRA spokesperson Rachel Wall called the Central Valley earmark “a game changer. They have predetermined that it could only be used in the Central Valley.” But she also said the allocation was just the beginning of the $17–$19 billion the project hopes to get in federal funding.

“That’s what the private investors are looking for — is the federal government committed?” Wall said, noting that California voters stepped up last year by approving a $10 billion bond measure that will go toward the $40 billion project.

Plans call for the entire Anaheim to San Francisco project to be completed by 2020, with trains traveling at up to 220 mph and making the SF-to-L.A. trip in two hours and 40 minutes.

Kopp said he wasn’t too disappointed that the feds restricted the initial funds to the Central Valley. “It wouldn’t offend me if that is our ultimate decision,” Kopp said. “The Central Valley loves high-speed rail.”

The attack on Latinos

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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The attack on Latinos

OPINION The San Francisco-based Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments on Monday for United States v. State of Arizona. Latinos in California were watching closely.

The case addresses the constitutionality of Arizona’s SB1070 law. SB1070 is one of the broadest and strictest immigration enforcement measures ever enacted by any state in the nation. The court’s decision will send a strong signal not just to Arizona, but to the 13 other states considering similar laws. As an immigration lawyer and a first-generation Mexican American from Orange County, laws like SB1070 remind me of how much history repeats itself.

Every day I see families face deportation due to minor encounters with the law. When a broken tail light is used as a reason to stop, overcharge, and deport an individual, then something is seriously wrong with our law enforcement priorities, our laws, and even our morals.

After the Great Depression, Operation Wetback, a strategy enforced by the INS, expedited the deportation of 80,000 “Mexican-looking” Americans, including many Mexicans and Latinos born in the United States — and some Native Americans.

The movement by states to enact immigration laws and scapegoat Latinos started in California with Proposition 187. Passed in November 1994, Prop. 187 sought, among other things, to require police, health care professionals, and teachers to verify and report the immigration status of all individuals, including children. Well-funded anti-immigrant groups like FAIR created a blueprint for states and cities to become immigration law enforcement agents. In light of the discrimination that ensued — even though Prop. 187 was ultimately found unconstitutional — many view this period as one of the worst moments for Latinos in recent California history.

In the wake of SB1070, other states are attempting to pass similar or more extreme laws at an alarming rate. Republican state legislator Randy Terrill, who coauthored Oklahoma’s strict 2007 immigration bill (HB1804), has promised to pursue an even stricter second-generation version of the bill that he has called an “Arizona-plus” law. He is undeterred by the fact that key provisions of HB1804 were ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Arizona’s Republican state Sen. Russell Pearce recently announced that state legislators will propose a bill to deny U.S. citizenship to children born of undocumented immigrants. Even though many, if not all, of these bills will be struck down as unconstitutional, they testify to the current anti-immigrant — and anti-Latino — climate.

There is little political will for immigration reform. Both the Democratic and Republican parties see Latinos largely as a source of votes, but show scant interest in ensuring that the law treats our community fairly. Even President Obama, who during his race for the presidency promised to bring change we can believe in and co-opted the United Farm Workers’ slogan “Yes We Can!,” has turned his back on us. Obama has earned the label “deportation czar.” Under his watch, more immigrants have been deported than at any time since Operation Wetback.

As long as the nation lacks comprehensive immigration reform, laws similar to SB1070 will continue to be introduced in states across the country. Right now it is up to our judicial branch to uphold the Constitution. We, Latinos who are able to vote, must vote for those candidates whose track records show a commitment to fairness for our community — regardless of party affiliation.

Laura Sanchez is staff attorney for the Central American Resource Center (CARECEN) in San Francisco.

Locals for hire

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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2
Locals for hire

sarah@sfbg.com

It’s no secret that San Francisco’s construction industry is going through hard times, a situation that translates into lost opportunities for working class San Franciscans. But that bad situation is being made worse by contractors on local projects hiring workers from outside the city.

Recent studies reveal that under the city’s First Source program, which requires contractors to make “good faith efforts” to reach the goal of hiring 50 percent of their workers from within the city, San Francisco has failed to meet its goals on publicly funded projects.

Sup. John Avalos has introduced legislation that seeks to address this shortfall by requiring contractors to meet the city’s hiring goals or face fines. But some union leaders whose members don’t live in San Francisco are grumbling that the proposal is not workable.

Local unemployed workers are expressing support for the Avalos legislation, as they step up efforts to get UC San Francisco to commit to local hiring plans at its $1.5 billon Mission Bay hospital construction site, which lies a Muni T-Third ride away from some of the city’s most economically distressed neighborhoods.

And now everyone is anxiously wondering where Mayor Gavin Newsom will land on the legislation and on UCSF’s hiring goals in what may be his last weeks as chief executive of San Francisco.

As of press time, Newsom was running neck-to-neck with Abel Maldonaldo in the lieutenant governor’s race, leaving voters uncertain whether Newsom will be mayor in January or second-in-command statewide — a promotion that would land him a seat on the UC Board of Regents but shift his primary allegiance from the City and County of San Francisco to the entire state of California.

When Avalos stood outside City Hall last month and announced his proposal to mandate local hiring on publicly-funded construction projects, he was joined by Sups. Sophie Maxwell and David Campos, Board President David Chiu, community advocates, construction contractors, neighborhood leaders, and union members.

“My legislation will ensure that San Franciscans have a guaranteed shot to work on the city’s public works projects and that the local dollars invested in public infrastructure will be recycled back into San Francisco’s economy and local communities,” Avalos said.

Avalos’ legislation came in the wake of two reports confirming that local construction workers were having a hard time getting work. A report that Chinese Affirmative Action and Brightline Defense released in August estimated that only 24 percent of workers on publicly funded sites are local residents.

And a report released by L. Luster and Associates in mid-October, at the behest of the Redevelopment Agency and Office of Economic and Workforce Development, found that only 20 percent of workers hired at 29 publicly funded construction projects in the past year were local residents.

Avalos’ legislation would mandate assessment of liquidated damages against contractors and subcontractors who fail to meet minimum local hiring requirements and establish monitoring, enforcement, and administrative procedures in support of this policy. It would phase in these requirements over three years, starting at 30 percent the first year.

Avalos noted that his legislation was developed through a series of meetings with city agencies, the Mayor’s Office, labor and building trade unions, the environmental community, neighborhood advocates, contractors, local hiring advocates, and unemployed workers. And he vowed to keep the roundtable approach.

Patrick Mulligan, financial secretary of Carpenters Local 22, told the Guardian that his union, whose members are specific to San Francisco, generally supports local hiring. “But there are some general concerns with the legislation,” said Mulligan, who has lived his whole life in San Francisco and got his first job through a local hiring program. “We have standing contractual agreements with contractors, so whatever legislation gets passed, it will have to be meshed with the existing situation. If these were boom times, people might see it differently. But it’s hard times at the union hall.”

Mulligan also lamented the lack of process for the community to vet whether UC has a local hiring plan at construction projects that impact their neighborhood. “But contractors want the best workforce they can get. And in lean times, they can afford to be more selective and don’t necessarily want to include training time on the job,” he said. “But we feel that it’s inappropriate for contractors to bring their entire crew from outside of town.”

Michael Theriault, secretary-treasurer of the San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council, told the Guardian that Avalos’ legislation was unworkable because construction workers cannot afford housing in San Francisco and too few qualified workers live in the city.

“We take workers from San Francisco into our apprenticeship program constantly, but they get to a certain point in their careers and find that the city builds well on the low-end and the high-end, but doesn’t build workforce housing. So they end up in Antioch, Vallejo, Fairfield, and Modesto, and commute back in,” Theriault said. “That problem has not been addressed by the city, and it’s at the root of why local hiring programs aren’t working.”

Newsom spokesperson Tony Winnicker said the mayor “supports stronger local hire requirements” even as he expressed concerns with Avalos’ proposal. “We’ll continue to work with the supervisors, the building trade unions and the community on legislation that achieves both realistic and legally enforceable local job guarantees for city projects,” he said.

Winnicker noted that the city already supports local hiring through CityBuild and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. “But we believe we can do better,” he added.

Avalos, whose legislation is scheduled for a Nov. 8 hearing of the board’s Land Use and Economic Development Committee, said he sees his proposal as a starting point. “We’ll see where it ends up,” Avalos told the Guardian. “We could pass legislation that wants 50 percent local hiring next year, and it would probably get vetoed and it wouldn’t be realistic. So we have to phase it in and make sure we are creating a system that is going to push the trades to be more inclusive of local residents.”

Meanwhile, unemployed workers — some in unions, others not — continue to protest the lack of a local hire plan at UCSF’s $1.5 billion Mission Bay hospital project, which is funded through debt financing, philanthropic gifts, and university reserves.

“We want to make sure folks get trained and everything that’s necessary, so there is no dispute,” Aboriginal Blacks United member Alex Prince said at an Oct. 27 protest at the Mission Bay site. The protest came one month after Newsom wrote to UCSF Chancellor Susan Desmond-Hellmann noting that the hospital was breaking ground “just as continuing high unemployment rates were devastating the city’s most distressed communities,including neighborhoods impacted by the Mission Bay expansion.”

“There are estimates that up to 40 percent of the members of our local construction trade unions are currently out-of-work,” Newsom wrote. “It would be helpful if you could share the commitments that UCSF has made on the issue of local hiring, particularly around employing residents of San Francisco’s most distressed communities in southeast San Francisco, and the results of those efforts to date.” Winnicker said UCSF has not yet responded.

Barbara French, UCSF’s vice chancellor for university relations, told the Guardian that UCSF is working to evaluate hiring needs for phase of the project, talking to the unions, and intends to make its findings public in December.

“We have had a voluntary local hiring policy since 1993,” French said, confirming that in the past 17 years, the university has reached a 12 percent local hire rate on average. “Sometimes it was 7 percent, sometimes it was 24 percent … Our [goal] is to reach a number that is beyond what we reached before but which is realistic.”

Recently French told community-based organizations that UCSF hadn’t signed a contract with the contractor at its Mission Bay hospital project, didn’t have the permits yet, and that the recent community celebrations didn’t mark the start of active construction at the site.

French said general hiring at Mission Bay will begin in December. “We don’t get any city funds at this site, so our commitment is voluntary. But we feel very strongly that we have to reach out,” she said.

Avalos acknowledged that UC is not under San Francisco’s jurisdiction and can’t be compelled to do more local hiring. “But we know that they are doing a critical amount of building and investing taxpayer dollars, and that this land use impacts the surrounding community. So it makes sense that we have local hire legislation and access to serious end-use jobs at the hospital.”

Editor’s Notes

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Editor’s Notes

tredmond@sfbg.com

Here’s what really scares me about Republicans in Washington: they don’t want the economy to get better.

I’m not just saying that they’re wrong on the issues, or that their prescriptions — tax cuts for the rich, fewer regulations for big business, privatization of health care and Social Security — will only make things worse. I’m saying that, right now, in November 2010, the GOP leaders want continued high unemployment. They want Americans to suffer. They want conditions to get worse and worse — because all they really care about right now is defeating Barack Obama in 2012. And they know and I know and everyone else knows that if the economy improves, he’ll be a two-term president.

I’m not the only one who sees this open conspiracy. Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich has been Twittering about it, and bloggers have been floating it out, but the mainstream news media doesn’t’ seem to want to take the risk of saying what’s right in front of everyone’s face: Republicans are lying, outright. They’ve campaigned on the promise that their ideas and agenda will put America back to work — but they know that’s not true. What the agenda is going to be is obstruction.

The Democrats have never done that, at least not in recent history. Oh, they fought W. on all sorts of policy issues, but they never tried to make sure that the country collapsed. That’s a big difference between the two parties, and it comes down to a basic question: How many people are you willing to hurt, how much suffering are you willing to promote, just to get back in power??

I’ve been talking to a lot of political activists, elected officials, and outside agitators of late about the next president of the Board of Supervisors (with all that implies) and I keep hearing the same name: David Campos.

Campos has been one of the great success stories of the class of 2008, an effective legislator who can work with just about everyone. He’s a solid progressive, but with a gentle personality — someone who sticks to his principles but doesn’t pick personal fights. I don’t know how he puts together six votes, but he might surprise us.

I’m writing this the day before the election and it comes out the day after, by which time Jerry brown will be the governor-elect, Barbara Boxer will have won another Senate term, and the Giants will be holding their World Series victory parade. You read it here last.

SF needs a local hire law

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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SF needs a local hire law

EDITORIAL A billion-dollar hospital project, built by a public agency using taxpayer dollars, just broke ground on the edge of District 10, the corner of the San Francisco with the highest unemployment rate and some of the city’s worst economic problems. That’s something job-hungry residents ought to be celebrating — more than 1,000 construction workers will be earning steady paychecks over the next few years.

And yet, when dignitaries including Rep. Nancy Pelosi showed up for the groundbreaking ceremony, they were met with protests. Bayview residents showed up to complain that very few of those jobs are going to the people who live in the project’s neighborhood. In fact, not that many jobs are likely to go to San Francisco residents. That’s because the University of California, San Francisco, which is building the hospital at Mission Bay, has no policy whatsoever requiring its contractors to hire local residents. As Sarah Phelan reports on page 11, San Francisco residents may turn out to make up fewer than 20 percent of the people who work on the project.

That’s a problem for a significant number of local construction projects financed and managed by government agencies. A recent study released by the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency Office of Economic and Workforce Development found that only 20 percent of the workers on public works job sites in the city were San Francisco residents.

Obviously, private construction companies can hire anyone they want — but when San Francisco tax dollars and San Francisco public land are involved, local residents ought to get a fair share of the work. That’s not just a political argument; it’s solid economics. Just as money spent at a locally owned independent business stays in town and does more for the local economy than money sent at big chains, local workers are more likely to spend their paychecks here in town.

Sup. John Avalos has introduced a bill that would set a 50 percent requirement for local hiring on projects paid for by the city. It’s a great idea, and needs strong support. There’s resistance from the building trade unions, which is no surprise — the unions want to keep the seniority system in place and give jobs to the members who have been unemployed the longest, no matter where they live. And a significant percentage of the membership of the building trade unions live out of town.

May of the residents of low-income areas like Bayview lack the specific skills for unionized trade jobs. But with so many longtime members out of work, the unions don’t want to add apprenticeship programs to train new workers for jobs that don’t exist.

But there has to be room for compromise here. The building trades leaders need to understand that San Francisco taxpayers have every right to demand that when they finance public works projects, some of that money will stay in town. And Avalos isn’t pushing for 100 percent local hire — nor is he trying to undermine the time-honored tradition of the union hiring hall.

The UC project is trickier. As a state agency, UC is exempt from local laws — and has a long history of defying San Francisco’s efforts to hold it accountable. The Bayview activists aren’t asking for 50 percent local hire — but they are demanding that the university adopt some sort of enforceable rules to ensure that some percentage of the jobs at the new hospital go to city residents. That’s more than reasonable.

San Francisco’s state legislative delegation ought to be in touch with the UCSF chancellor and send a clear message: This is a problem that needs to be resolved, now — and if it’s not, legislation setting local hire goals for all UC projects ought to be on next year’s agenda.

California’s secret death drug

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0
California’s secret death drug

news@sfbg.com

California was forced to postpone the execution of convicted murderer Albert Greenwood Brown in September because the state had run out of sodium thiopental, part of the death drug cocktail used in lethal injections.

The last batch of the drug expired Oct. 1 and the manufacturer won’t have more until 2011. So as of early October, all executions had been postponed until next year.

But on Oct. 6 the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation announced in a court filing that it had obtained 12 grams of sodium thiopental, also known as sodium pentothal, with an expiration date of 2014. That could mean some swifter executions.

But it also raises a critical legal question: where did the drug come from, and did the state violate federal or international laws obtaining it?

CDCR isn’t talking. Terry Thornton, deputy press secretary, refused to identify the source of the newly acquired drug. But it clearly didn’t come from the manufacturer Hospira. The company, the only U.S. manufacturer of sodium pentothol, says it has none available and is in no rush to sell it to the CDCR. In a statement released by Hospira, company spokesperson Daniel Rosenberg announced that “the drug is not indicated for capital punishment and Hospira does not support its use in this procedure.”

Natasha Minsker, death penalty policy director for the ACLU of Northern California, said it would be tricky for the state to buy the drug from anyone else. “Hospira is the only approved manufacturer in the U.S.,” she said.

But there’s a hint of where California’s supply might have come from. Arizona also recently obtained some of the death drug — Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard told the Arizona Republic that it was delivered from an unidentified source in Britain.

But the British press has raised questions about the deal. No European country has the death penalty and both British and European Union laws bar exporting for profit materials used for executions.

Both the Arizona and California batches have the same expiration date.

Ty Alper, associate director of the Death Penalty Clinic at Boalt Hall School of Law, explained that to his knowledge, “California got [the sodium thiopental] from a foreign source,” He raised questions about the possible risks of obtaining the drug from an unknown outfit.

“If the drug is not FDA approved, could it have contaminants in it? Could it perform differently?” Alper asked. “If that drug doesn’t work right then, everybody knows the execution will be horribly painful and torturous.”

So far, the U.S. Supreme Court hasn’t bought that argument. Oct. 25 the court voted 5-4 to clear the way for Arizona to execute Jeffrey Landrigan, a convicted murderer. “There is no evidence in the record to suggest that the drug obtained from a foreign source is unsafe … There was no showing that the drug was unlawfully obtained, nor was there an offer of proof to that effect,” the unsigned opinion stated.

Landrigan was executed Oct 27.

However, we can’t find any evidence that California obtained the drug legally. There are no FDA-approved importers, and federal law strictly limits the ability of anyone to bring powerful drugs directly into the country. Title 21 United States Code of the Controlled Substances Act, Section(b) states: “It shall be unlawful to import into the customs territory of the United States from any place outside thereof (but within the United States), or to import into the United States from any place outside thereof, any nonnarcotic controlled substance in Schedule III, IV, or V, unless such nonnarcotic controlled substance … (1) imported for medical, scientific, or other legitimate uses”

Sodium pentothal is a Schedule III drug.

Executing a human being clearly doesn’t count as a “medical or scientific” use — no doctor is involved in administering the lethal drugs. Of course, there might be an opinion from the state attorney general concluding that killing a condemned prisoner is an “other legitimate use” but the office won’t produce one. When we asked if obtaining the drug from a foreign supplier was legal, Christine Gasparac, a spokesperson for Attorney General Jerry Brown, stated in an e-mail that “You’ll have to contact the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation for a response to your questions” and that “this office was not involved in the procurement of the drug.”

CDCR hasn’t presented any import license, purchase order, chain of custody documents, or anything else to show where the deadly stuff originated. We’ve filed a written request under the California Public Records Act for the data, but have not received a reply.

That bothers state Sen. Mark Leno (D-SF), who chairs the Public Safety Committee. “I am concerned that a state agency, using taxpayer money, is buying something and refusing to disclose where the money went,” he told us.

Procuring sodium thiopental may become even harder in the future — it has only limited use in medicine.

Dr. Philip Lumb, chair of department of anesthesiology at the University of Southern California medical school, said that over the past few years the drug Propofol has replaced sodium thiopental in the majority of surgical cases. (Propofol is the same drug Michael Jackson overdosed on.)

“It is still available — we still have it,” Lumb said. “It is used sometimes for brain procedures.”

But if Hospira isn’t making much and doesn’t want to sell it to prisons for executions, and European companies can get in trouble for exporting it, California may find that a drug it relies on to kill people isn’t available from any legitimate source. Which means the custodians of our prison system could, in effect, be buying lethal drugs on the black market.

They put other people in prison for that.

Alerts

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0

news@sfbg.com

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 3

 

SPUR’s Election Wrap-up

The San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association’s post-election discussion and analysis session is popular with political junkies of all ideological stripes. Although it’s hosted by a knowledgeable duo — Barbary Coast Consulting founder Alex Clemens and political consultant David Latterman — a wide variety of political analysts always show up to create a lively, insightful discussion. Bring a bag lunch and your two cents.

12:30 p.m., $5 or free for members

SPUR office

654 Mission, SF

381-8726

 

Revolution is not a Tea Party

As the dust begins to settle on the midterm elections battlefield, come discuss how the country’s political fervor affected the national discourse on issues like immigration and civil rights. Was the Tea Party an actual grass roots revolution or merely a large angry mob? How long will the virulent xenophobia and nativism continue, and what can be done to counter it?

7-9 p.m., free

Revolution Books

2425 Channing Way

Berkeley

revolutionbooks@sbcglobal.net

THURSDAY NOV. 5

 

“Tranny Fest: San Francisco Transgender Film Festival”

Come one, come all: ladies and gentlemen, transgender, and gender queer. Now in its 12th season, Tranny Fest will open Thursday, with performances by Landa Lakes, Butch Tap, Thisway Thataway, and Psychobabble, among others. The festival continues Friday and Saturday with short films and videos by transgender and gender variant artists. Advance tickets will be available for the event.

Thurs.–Sat., 8–10 p.m.

$12–$15 sliding scale

CounterPULSE, SF

1310 Mission, SF

www.freshmeatproduction.com

 

Evening with our poet laureate

In addition to California poet laureate emeritus Al Young, Revolution Books will also host jazz/blues music, guitarist Trevor Michaels, and other poems and song.

7 p.m.–9 p.m., free

Revolution Books

2425 Channing Way, Berk.

510-848-1196

SATURDAY NOV. 6

 

Green Festival San Francisco

Here’s more proof that green is the new black. One of the largest sustainability events in the country will be held at the San Francisco Concourse. The eco-confab includes lectures from Bill McKibben, Daniel Pinchbeck, Amy Goodman, and others. Vendors, workshops, music and an array of organic beer, wine, and vegetarian cuisine will also be on hand. Admission discounts are also available to students, seniors, cyclists and public transit riders.

Sat.–Sun., 10 a.m.–7 p.m.

$10–$25

Concourse Exhibition Center

635 Eighth St., SF

www.greenfestivals.org/sf

The. Rent. Is. Too. Damn. High!

Andrew Lam
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3
The. Rent. Is. Too. Damn. High!

 

As continued reports of unprecedented, record-breaking amounts of cash from corporate real estate developers and big landlords flood the Board of Supervisor races, the damaging impact of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision is becoming more and more clear. But even worse, Thomas J. Coates, a far-right extremist Republican real estate developer and landlord, is trying to buy the Board of Supervisors so that he can end rent control. Last week, Coates made the largest donation to supervisors races in the 150-year history of San Francisco.

Who is Coates? He spent more than $1 million on Proposition 98 in 2008 trying to repeal rent control statewide. He was the largest single contributor to that campaign, which was so extreme that even Gov. Schwarzenegger and former Republican Gov. Pete Wilson opposed it. Coates gave the maximum contribution allowed by law to George Bush and Dick Cheney’s campaign and funded GOP candidates across the country. Now he’s spending more than $200,000 to elect anti rent control San Francisco supervisors: Mark Ferrell in District 2, Theresa Sparks in District 6, Scott Wiener in District 8, and Steve Moss in District 10.

With this one donation, the stakes in this election for every San Franciscan — especially renters and progressives — became even higher. By spending his fortune here, Thomas Coates hopes to erode San Francisco’s strong rent control laws by electing supervisors who are less sympathetic to renters. Through influencing the election of the supervisors, he also influences the selection of the interim mayor (since the supervisors will choose the next mayor by a majority vote if Gavin Newsom is elected lieutenant governor), which would result in an anti rent control mayor.

To make matters worse, workers and their families are already on the defense fighting Jeff Adachi’s anti-labor ballot initiative proposal (Proposition B), which would make city workers pay huge increases in their health care coverage. Adachi is mischaracterizing his initiative as pension reform even though the bulk of the cuts will come from forcing low-wage workers to pay for their children’s health care.

Wall Street speculators crashed the stock market, causing workers’ pension funds to lose billions and wiping out retirement savings. The losses require local and state governments to spend more to keep the funds solvent. So who do Gov. Schwarzenegger, Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, and Adachi blame? The victims: the workers.

Renters and city workers aren’t the only ones under attack. Newsom’s cynical sit/lie initiative (Proposition L) demonizes young homeless kids. Many of these youth are queers who ran away to San Francisco because it is a queer haven, and others are abused kids who left home because it wasn’t safe. If Prop. L passes, for 12 hours a day these kids will be criminalized if they sit or lie on the sidewalk.

All this in one of the most progressive cities in America? If we are under attack from conservatives in San Francisco on some of the most fundamental issues of our city, it’s no wonder the Tea Party is raging in the rest of the country.

Now more than ever we need labor, progressives, and renters to come together to fight back by voting Tuesday, Nov. 2. Harvey Milk once said, “Give ’em hope.” Show us that hope on Election Day by voting for progressive supervisors, rejecting Adachi’s so-called pension reform, and opposing the so-called sit/lie ordinance. Remember to vote and vote for Debra Walker in District 6, Rafael Mandelman in District 8, No on B, No on K, No on L, and Yes on J and N.

Gabriel Haaland is a local queer labor activist.

 

 

PG&E fast and loose on repairs, tight-lipped on info

Andrew Lam
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0
PG&E fast and loose on repairs, tight-lipped on info

It was clear at several times during the Oct. 19 Senate committee hearing that Pacific Gas & Electric Co. had done a poor job of communicating with those affected by the pipeline explosion that brought catastrophe to San Bruno, a practice that is in keeping with its longstanding pattern of secrecy.

Kathy DeRenzi, a survivor who testified at the hearing, noted that she had written several letters to PG&E since the event, addressed to Vice President of Gas Operations Kirk Johnson. “I haven’t heard back from anyone,” she said. DeRenzi also noted that she has been in close contact with many affected residents since the blaze, and very few had received notification that the hearing would be held. “There would’ve been a lot more people here” had they known, she said.

San Bruno Mayor Jim Ruane also complained of the utility’s lack of communication. In the weeks following the blaze, he said, the company started a repurchasing program for residents whose homes had been damaged — but never mentioned it to city officials. “The city was never informed,” Ruane said. “It’s kind of a mixed message when we find out from the media about this program.”

Weeks earlier, the company continued to hide crucial information about its top 100 priority repairs until intense public pressure forced it to release the list. A recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle noted that two key PG&E employees who were on duty the night of the explosion declined to be interviewed by federal investigators about the pressure spike in the gas pipeline, saying they were “too traumatized” to talk.

PG&E also ignores the inquiries of certain media outlets. When a Guardian reporter attempted to approach Johnson to ask a question, media relations representative Joe Molica stood in the way and insisted that Johnson didn’t have time to talk. Asked for contact information so that an interview could be set up later, Molica appeared to search for a business card but came up empty-handed.

He then refused outright to provide his phone number or e-mail address. Asked why a media relations representative could not share his e-mail address with a reporter, Molica scoffed. “Because it will end up on some blog,” he snapped. 

 

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