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Opinion

SEIU and the new McCarthyism

David Talbot
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2
SEIU and the new McCarthyism

OPINION More than 43,000 California health care employees are currently involved in the largest union election in private industry since the 1940s, a contentious campaign that pits officials of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) against the National Union of Health Care Workers (NUHW). The outcome of the election may well determine the future of the labor movement for years to come.

The leaders of NUHW (the interim president is Sal Rosselli) are the same organizers who inspired and united us in achieving a historic victory: the five-year Kaiser Permanente contract of 2005-10. Health care workers all over the state depend on the benefits enumerated in that contract, including employment and income seniority, paid retirement, paid family health care, and employee participation in staffing and health care issues. The contract is still considered the national gold standard for hospitals.

A few years ago, our union, part of SEIU, was united and strong. The nurses, lab technicians, secretaries, operators, environmental service personnel, x-ray technologists — we were all proud to work together in a noble enterprise, fostering and saving human life. Today, SEIU is in disarray.

The decline began when Andy Stern took power in Washington. He established absentee rule of California. After he withdrew SEIU from the AFL-CIO (which prohibits union raids of other unions), Stern launched a series of raids on two sister unions, UNITE HERE and the Puerto Rican Teachers’ Union. The San Francisco Labor Council (along with the AFL-CIO) formally denounced the Stern raid on UNITE HERE. The raid cost our members millions of dollars. Stern then moved against our California locals, particularly United Healthcare Workers-West, led by Rosselli. Rosselli was the leading champion of democratic unionism in the state. In defiance of the wishes of our membership, Stern fired Rosselli.

The bitterness and hostility within our union today are a direct result of Stern’s mass purges. One hundred elected members of the executive board were removed by fiat. Hundreds of elected shop stewards were dismissed. Subsequently, 48 other stewards resigned in protest of the autocratic policies of the national office. The standard joke at California Kaiser worksites is, “Got a grievance? Call Washington!” Juan Gonzalez, the widely read columnist for the New York Daily News, called the Stern blitz “a stunning assault on democracy within his own union.”

SEIU represents a new kind of McCarthyism in the labor movement, a trend that threatens the unity of labor as a whole.

SEIU bully tactics to prevent workers from joining NUHW are so widespread, so well-documented, that Dolores Huerta, cofounder of the United Farm Workers, sent an open letter to SEIU President Mary Kay Henry, who succeeded Stern after he retired. Huerta complained that “every time workers met to talk about NUHW, SEIU staff surrounded them and began chanting and yelling insults, refusing to let workers talk.”

Even the homes of workers are not off limits. In Fresno, local TV stations (just Google “TV Coverage of SEIU Threats”) documented SEIU pressure tactics during house visits, after workers received their ballots in the mail.

The demise of our once great union has implications far beyond our locals in California. If California’s most successful, democratic labor organizers can be overthrown, If elected shop steward networks (shop stewards are the backbone of union democracy) can be dismantled by fiat, if Washington can establish absentee rule of locals from 3,000 miles away, no union is safe, and American democracy itself is diminished.

Jessica Garcia and Elaine Monney are rank-and-file members of SEIU.

Apathy and the arboretum

David Talbot
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5
Apathy and the arboretum

OPINION Nobody believed it could happen, that the ordinance might pass. On the face of it, it seemed inconceivable. The very idea that visitors would have to pay to enter a public park appeared absurd, and had been rejected only the year before. Some believed the hype and were convinced that this would help solve the budget deficit. Others expected someone besides themselves would take action, or believed that that the $7 fee, once imposed, would apply only to nonresidents.

So, by and large, people sat on their hands. Meanwhile, the San Francisco Botanical Garden Society at Strybing Arboretum, the driving force behind the privatization of the arboretum in Golden Gate Park, was using the camouflage of hard times to mask the absurdity of its proposal. The way had been carefully paved. A real estate developer and Bolinas resident handpicked by Mayor Gavin Newsom to head the Recreation and Park Commission voiced his enthusiasm. The rubber-stamp commission he heads passed it on to the Board of Supervisors. Despite the presence of his grandfather’s native plant garden within the arboretum, the mayor lent his support.

The society had craftily employed lobbyist Sam Lauter, who had set up meetings between individual supervisors and wealthy trustees.

The strategy succeeded. Astonishingly, only three supervisors voted against the ordinance imposing a fee on entrance to the arboretum. Leading the charge for the measure was John Avalos, who had added a “sunset” clause along with other vaguely worded amendments. At the hearing, the ever-congenial Chris Daly accused opponents of “elitism.” No public comment was permitted, and no supervisor questioned Recreation and Parks Department head Phil Ginsberg, although Eric Mar did announce his intention to join the Botanical Garden Society.

Much was made about union jobs — as though holding three gardeners’ salaries hostage to the passing of a privatization ordinance was a reasonable proposition.

As things stand now, the society is planning to allow its members free admission to the arboretum. Given that the reason for the $7 fee is all about the budget, this makes no logical sense. Low-income people and the undocumented (not to mention the homeless) will be excluded.

The society is also planning to build a $13 million glorified greenhouse that would have its own entrance on John F. Kennedy Drive. No community discussion has been held, but that has not deterred the society from soliciting the state to pay $7 million toward this so-called “sustainable gardening center,” an edifice that would likely memorialize the likes of Dede Wilsey or similar donor.

So what’s a good citizen to do? If you value public free space, the wings of the society need to be clipped. The best way to do this is to directly contact the offices of your supervisors, especially Sups. John Avalos (554-6975), David Campos (554-5144), David Chiu (554-7450),Michela Alioto-Pier (554-7752), Sean Elsbernd (554-6516) and Carmen Chu (554-7460). And vociferously voice your feelings.

Otherwise, the fee will not sunset next year — or any year.

Harry S. Pariser is a long-term resident of the Inner Sunset. You can join the Yahoo! group at groups.yahoo.com/group/keepthearboretumfree.

Behind Whitman’s attack on nurses

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Behind Whitman’s attack on nurses

OPINION Meg Whitman’s increasingly high-profile war with California’s nurses poses important questions about a potential Whitman term as governor and the implications for California.

California’s nurses began pressing Whitman during the primary, when she was spending up to $21,000 an hour — more than many California families earn in a year — in a frenzy well on its way to smashing all previous campaign finance records.

Whitman’s pledge to spend up to $180 million out of her billionaire pocket by November to drown out all competition was accompanied by other disturbing trends. She refused to engage regular Californians in public events and avoided the public’s watchdog, the press. And she demonstrated a haughty temperament symbolized by her now-famous altercation with a subordinate employee to whom she paid a $200,000 settlement.

In short, Whitman was acting as if she was entitled to be crowned governor because of her wealth and privilege, a hubris also indicated by her failure to vote for much of her adult life but assumption that her billions and social rank alone qualify her to be governor.

Thus, the parody of Queen Meg was born, in which the California Nurses Association trailed Whitman to campaign events with a mock Queen Meg; her court, including chaperones Mr. Goldman and Mr. Sachs (in honor of her checkered career on the Goldman Sachs board); and nurses waving “Rich Enough to Rule” signs.

Whitman, who appears not to handle stress well, reacted with a full-scale assault on CNA and nurses. She demanded the home addresses of CNA members but refused CNA’s offer to meet with nurses in unscripted forums instead.

It turned out she just wanted to bully nurses, not actually talk to them. So Whitman began to bombard registered nurses in the state with multiple attack mailings and phone calls from a purchased outside list (is there anything she can’t or won’t buy?), and created a union-busting “nurse” website. What next, an enemies list?

In addition to reservations about Whitman’s temperament, attitude toward her opponents, and her royal pretensions, nurses have significant concerns about her policies as well, including her plans to:

• Slash 40,000 state jobs, creating hardship for thousands of additional California families in the midst of our ongoing recession, just as she sent 40 percent of company jobs overseas as the chief executive of eBay.

• Freeze regulations opposed by her CEO friends, presumably including many that will impair workplace safety rules, clean air and water requirements, and protections against food toxins.

• Suspend California’s new law to reduce greenhouse gases and the impact of climate change.

• Expand tax breaks for corporations and multimillionaires while pushing even deeper cuts in critical safety-net programs that will punish the most vulnerable Californians.

• Make new budget cuts that will likely reduce education funding by some $7 billion.

• Roll back public pensions, even for those who have sacrificed pay or other benefits for a more secure retirement.

• End workplace standards such as guaranteed meal and rest breaks and overtime pay.

All these programs have a common theme: they’re the wish list of the corporate CEOs who for the past seven years have taken residency in the governor’s office under Arnold Schwarzenegger. And they want more.

With Whitman, they would get it. Her pledges to “streamline” regulations, slash corporate taxes, and curtail workplace economic and safety standards, reflect the corporate agenda Whitman embodies and an escalation of the policies that have plagued our state under Schwarzenegger.

The troubling combination of Whitman’s sense of entitlement, intolerance of critics, and corporate to-do list are an ominous mix for California. She may be rich enough to rule, but her character and values say we should all be wary. *

Zenei Cortez is a registered nurse and co-president of the California Nurses Association.

 

Ideas that work: a plan for a new San Francisco

David Talbot
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6
Ideas that work: a plan for a new San Francisco

OPINION San Francisco is a city of tremendous riches and problems — a locus of wealth, inequality, innovation, creativity, and sometimes stifling resistance by political and economic power brokers. It’s time to break through. We have the ability, and opportunity, to create a whole new set of economic, social, and political relationships between people and government. On everything from municipal banking, to Muni reform, to public-controlled sustainable energy production and community-driven budgeting, we have a flood of ideas from thinkers and activists across the city.

The Aug. 14-15 Community Congress at the University of San Francisco will focus on turning those ideas into a political platform the city can implement. Last week, we described the vision; this week, we offer some proposals that will be discussed at the event; following the event, others will be posted at sfbg.com.

The event runs Aug. 14 from 9 a.m.–5 p.m. and Aug. 15 from 9 a.m.–1 p.m. at USF’s McLaren Conference Center. For information, go to www.sfsummitcongress.wordpress.com. (Karl Beitel and Christopher Cook)

1. A MUNICIPAL BANK


San Francisco is rich — it has $16.1 billion in assets, with a net worth of $6.5 billion, according to the city treasurer. With a little maneuvering and political will, roughly a half-billion of that money could be devoted to creating a municipal bank: a fiscally solvent, federally insured economic engine that would invest in community development projects serving underfunded activities and endeavors, providing significant economic and social benefits to the residents of San Francisco.

With its own public bank, San Francisco could begin to fund and promote more community-centered forms of economic development. Worker co-ops, for instance, could get loans for projects that are socially beneficial and economically viable. The bank could also help generate new homegrown industries that produce both revenue and social value to the city. This would help democratize the city economy, giving financial muscle to community-based projects and neighborhood-serving businesses.

Over a period of three to five years, a modest portion of the city’s liquid investments can be transferred to create to the new bank. The bank could use this pool of capital to extend low-interest, long-term loans for projects located in San Francisco. The bank would offer a full spectrum of retail banking services, such as money market accounts, to attract additional deposits to supplement funds from the city.

A municipal bank has potential to grow into a major economic force in the city for financing community-centered development. With the right up-front commitment from the city, the total asset portfolio of loans and other investments would grow far beyond this initial public investment — representing a significant infusion of loan capital into currently underserved segments of the credit market in San Francisco.

The municipal bank would be a member-owned, federally chartered, and federally insured credit union. It would engage in rigorous vetting of loan applicants. But because the bank would not run as a profit-maximizing enterprise, loan officers would explicitly consider projects in light of their economic viability and potential contribution to the economic, social, and cultural well being of San Francisco.

Priority could, for instance, be given to loans for affordable housing development and community economic development. In particular, the bank could prioritize businesses and enterprises that represent alternative models of ownership such as worker co-ops and worker collectives, and smaller, community-serving, locally-based, social enterprise-type businesses.

To ensure that the bank’s lending activities reflect the need for more democratic modes of credit and finance, governance and oversight could include representation from social groups and constituents normally excluded from corporate governance. The bank’s member-owners would elect the board of directors.

Municipal bank funds would be completely separate from the city’s general fund, with strict firewalls imposed to assure that lending activities do not become intermingled in any way with the annual appropriations process.

By creating its own bank, San Francisco would be a national model for community-based development and economic democracy. It would be a national first, and has the potential to transform how cities think about local economic development. (Beitel)

2. HOUSING SAN FRANCISCO


Since the beginning of the dot-com boom, San Francisco has seen displacement of low-income families from rent-controlled housing in alarming numbers. Much of this displacement has been happening through conversion of small residential apartment buildings (between four and 12 units) into tenancy in common units. Small-site displacement tends to target seniors, disabled people, and working class families — and many of the units that were converted were, under rent control, de facto affordable housing.

In addition, over the past 15 years the city has lost 4,370 units due to Ellis Act evictions. At the same time, the city’s housing production model favors larger projects because of the economies of scale possible for new construction of big projects, with 70 or more units. While these projects are important in adding to the city’s affordable housing stock, sites to accommodate giant developments are in short supply.

So how do we address San Francisco’s chronic affordable housing crisis. First, stabilize low-income communities and preserve diverse neighborhoods by encouraging the city to invest in developing a small sites acquisition and rehabilitation program that could help nonprofits take over and operate affordable rental housing for low-income tenants. That property could also be converted to limited equity housing cooperatives and community land trust properties.

Next, the city should ban all TICs from becoming condos. The city can give landlords and speculators a choice: If you want your property to be eligible for condo conversion, with all the economic benefits that come with that designation, then you need to follow the process and abide by tenant protections in the condo law. If you want to ignore the condo law, then you’re stuck with a TIC.

To further protect renters, prior to sale of a renter-occupied unit, the city could require the owner to offer tenants the right to buy the unit, at a price based on the last best offer from a bona fide purchaser.

The Rent Board also needs reform. The panel, which oversees rent increases, consists of five members: two landlords, two tenants, and one homeowner. All are appointed by the mayor. We suggest three tenants, two landlords, and two homeowners — with the appointments split between the mayor and the supervisors.

There also must be a permanent, local source of funding for affordable housing development. A progressive increase in the real estate transfer tax could generate $45 million annually.

We further support Sup. Ross Mirkarimi’s proposed legislation that would protect resident’s rights during relocation and ensure their right to return to buildings that have been redeveloped. (Amy Beinart and the Council of Community Housing Organizations)

3. THE CRISIS IN CARE


More than any other American city, San Francisco relies on a network of faith- and community-based nonprofits to deliver critical health and human services to its poorest and sickest residents. More than 15,000 people are employed in this sector, which had a total budget of almost $800 million in 2000.

Health and human service nonprofits play a significant role in providing a substantial portion of the city’s services for seniors, people with AIDS, the homeless, children and youth, people with special physical and mental needs, and those who suffer from substance abuse.

Yet this critical sector finds itself bearing the brunt of cuts and reduction in services caused by the fiscal crisis facing San Francisco.

So what can we do? Here are seven suggestions.

• First, conduct a coordinated citywide health and human services needs assessment driven by neighborhoods and communities.

• Second, working with service users, service providers, and city employees, create a 10-year plan for health and human services that can guide yearly budget considerations.

• Third, as the city implements the 2009 ballot measure that calls for a two-year budget cycle informed by five-year financial plans, require department heads and commissions to include the perspective of professional service providers and service users, including a standards analysis plan and a narrative about the impact on services.

• Fourth, open a dialogue with the foundation community on addressing the changing needs of the nonprofit human services community, including community needs, accountability, and funding cycles.

• Fifth, depoliticize the request-for-proposals (RFP) process by moving it out of city departments and into the Controller’s Office.

• Sixth, require city departments that contract with nonprofit health and human service providers to complete their implementation of the recommendations to streamline the city’s contracting and monitoring processes approved by the 2003 City Nonprofit Contracting Task Force, and ensure that current procedures and processes are consistent with those recommendations.

• And seventh, preserve services for the most vulnerable San Franciscans by focusing on revenue solutions to the city’s ongoing structural budget deficit, including November 2010 campaigns to increase the hotel tax and the real property transfer tax. (Debbi Lerman, Human Services Network)

4. BUILDING WORKER COOPERATIVES


Although these are hard times, there’s an opportunity for San Francisco to realize a new model of economic sustainability — by supporting worker cooperatives.

The worker cooperative model is a business form well-suited to the diverse needs of urban areas and is already viable in a broad variety of sectors including manufacturing, service, and retail. A key aspect of worker cooperative development is that its goal is not just the creation of jobs; it’s also about making business ownership accessible.

An inspiring new model of economic development is currently taking place with the Evergreen Cooperatives in Cleveland. In an ambitious effort, anchor institutions such as the local universities, hospitals, and the City of Cleveland have established procurement agreements with developing worker cooperatives rooted in the struggling urban communities of Cleveland (where unemployment rates are as high as 25 percent). The goal is to redirect the estimated $3 billion that these anchor institutions spend on goods and services toward worker cooperatives in the communities where these institutions are located. The first two business models underway are a commercial laundry service and a solar installation company.

There’s also a lot of inspiring work already being done by the worker cooperative community in the Bay Area. The Arizmendi Association continues to develop new worker-owned bakeries despite the economic recession. This fall, Arizmendi will launch its second SF location in the Mission District, creating new jobs and opportunities for local residents to have ownership over their work. Rainbow Grocery and Other Avenues are two extremely successful, long-lasting worker-owned grocery stores in San Francisco.

The city ought to officially recognize the worker cooperative model as both viable and preferable, and include it in the city’s various efforts of economic development. And city officials should take a leadership role in reimagining what a vibrant economy could look like and begin to promote worker cooperatives as central to that vision. (Poonam Whabi, Rick Simon, Steve Rice, Inno Nagara, and Nadia Khastagir)

Reinventing San Francisco

David Talbot
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8
Reinventing San Francisco

By Christopher D. Cook, Karl Beitel, and Calvin Welch. 

OPINION It’s hard to trust hope these days — to imagine that our world, or even our city — could be different. But for the next 10 or 15 minutes, as you read this, we invite you to suspend the cynicism and disbelief that hang over contemporary life, and allow your mind to imagine that, yes, a different San Francisco is possible. Just for 15 minutes, although we hope this helps kick-start a much longer-term revival of hope and urban reimagining.

It’s time to create something new in San Francisco — a visionary movement for constructive change that’s bold and unapologetic. Imagine, for instance, if San Francisco became a national model for how cities can reinvest local profits (public and private) and assets to expand economic opportunity and social equity. Imagine if, instead of promoting a dispiriting and volatile blend of corporate development and Darwinian “free-market” anarchy, San Francisco transformed how American cities define success by creating concrete alternatives to the chaos of capitalism.

Now imagine that San Francisco had its own public bank — a fiscally solvent, interest-generating financial force (potentially a half-billion dollars strong) dedicated to public financing and economic stimulus, that functioned as a vigorous incubator for homegrown industries and sustainable, true-green job creation.

We are proposing no less than a reinvention of San Francisco — a dramatic shift in priorities, resources, politics, and culture that marries the very best in both creative innovation and urgently needed reforms to make our city socially equitable and sustainable, both ecologically and economically.

Toward this end, the Community Congress, Aug. 14-15 on the University of San Francisco campus, will stimulate ideas, discussion, and planning to reinvigorate civic engagement and inspiration and create a concrete, locally actionable agenda for reshaping the city. You’re invited. (Visit www.sfcommunitycongress.wordpress.com for more information.) The congress is a conversation starter and idea incubator — an opportunity to begin reimagining San Francisco as a socially equitable, racially inclusive, ecologically sustainable city that grows its own food, supplies its own energy, and is an affordable haven for working-class people, immigrants, artists, and creative folk of all stripes.

We humbly propose a city that embraces cosmopolitanism and international exchange while empowering its residents to achieve a decent and livable quality of urban life. We are not trying to turn back the clock; we are trying to create new forms of social and economic value that give people meaning and sustenance, and hope.

 

WHY A COMMUNITY CONGRESS—WHY NOW?

Couldn’t we save such sweeping aspirations for a rainy day? The sky isn’t falling yet, is it? Not quite, but the present constellation of crises San Francisco is ensnarled in — massive and rising structural deficits, a boom/bust economy that’s profoundly unstable and inequitable, deepening economic and social divides that destabilize communities, to name a few — is simply unsustainable.

San Francisco’s economic and fiscal crisis is not a passing moment. Rather, it signals long-term structural flaws in the city’s economic policies and planning. San Francisco has lost roughly 45,000 jobs since 2000, and each “recovery” is marked by steadily higher unemployment rates (currently resting at 9.2 percent). More critically, as jobs and wages have grown more precarious and housing prices have steadily risen (over the long term), thousands of San Franciscans have been displaced.

Any serious vision for change must incorporate race and class dynamics. Consider the economic evisceration of much of the city’s African American population, which has plummeted from 13.4 percent of the population in 1970 to just 6.5 percent today (more than 22,000 African Americans left the city between 1990 and 2008). The gutting of communities of color is intrinsically intertwined with issues of job and wage loss and soaring housing costs. This is particularly acute in the geographic and political dislocation of African Americans in San Francisco. Add to this picture intense overcrowding and poverty in Chinatown and in Latino and immigrant communities, and you get a set of inequities that are morally unacceptable and socially untenable.

Like other major American cities, San Francisco faces a crucial historical moment. Global warming and fast-dwindling oil supplies require a transformative shift in how we conceive (and implement) economic development far beyond the city’s current piecemeal approach to “green procurement.” The Peak Oil Preparedness Task Force, appointed by the Board of Supervisors in 2007, concluded that a full 86 percent of San Francisco’s energy use comes from fossil fuels, primarily petroleum and natural gas, and a small amount of coal. Given the world’s fading oil supplies and mounting climate chaos, this is simply unsustainable.

The specter of a looming energy and environmental crisis, combined with economic instability marked by persistently high unemployment, rising income inequality, systemically entrenched homelessness, consumer debt, and the deepening crisis of cutbacks to critically needed human services and affordable housing call for a radical shift in how society — and San Francisco’s economy — are run.

Transforming San Francisco into a truly sustainable city will mean dramatic shifts in what (and how) we produce and consume, and aggressive city policies that promote local renewable energy. Our economy — how our food, housing, transportation and other essential goods are made — will have to be rebuilt for a world without oil.

These and other limits mean we must redefine growth and profit—fast. Work and sustainability must become fully intertwined, and we must think creatively about how jobs can produce social and community value, instead of profits concentrated at the top.

Creating truly sustainable and equitable cities for the 21st century will also mean dramatic shifts in how we produce and consume. There is no better place to begin than here in San Francisco, long an incubator in progressive thinking and genuine grassroots action and innovation. In an earlier Community Congress in 1975, residents and groups from across San Francisco united in a movement of ideas and organizing that led to district supervisorial elections and successful campaigns to stem the tide of downtown corporate development, helping to democratize politics and economics in San Francisco.

The 2010 Community Congress is aimed at reinvigorating local movements for lasting change, both on the policy level and in the relationship between people and their government. We hope to inspire a spirited and creative shift in the city’s culture and politics — with concrete, politically actionable policies to democratize planning and development and a more sweeping transformation of our expectations — toward a far richer and deeper engagement of people and communities in their own governance.

 

A NEW FRAMEWORK FOR URBAN DEVELOPMENT

What would this City of Hope look like, and how would it work? Consider what we could accomplish with a municipal bank. The City and County of San Francisco currently has almost $2.6 billion in highly liquid reserves, about $500 million of which could be used to fund a Municipal Bank of San Francisco. Once established (and federally insured), the Municipal Bank could take additional deposits and use this to issue more loans. The bank could promote economically viable worker-run cooperatives that produce goods and services addressing community needs — be it day care, urban gardening, or ecologically sustainable light industry that creates meaningful employment for local residents. The bank could provide competitive small-interest loans to help stimulate small-business development — the key economic engine of the city. Currently, access to credit is one of the primary impediments to small business growth in San Francisco.

The city could also start a Municipal Development Corporation to produce goods and services that meet essential needs, boost local employment, and generate surpluses that would be available for local reinvestment. San Francisco could launch itself on the path to local energy self-reliance with funds from the Municipal Bank, together with revenue bonds—raising large pools of capital to finance large-scale alternative energy investments such as solar panels to generate energy for sale to local businesses and households.

The proceeds could help subsidize community-based development such as urban farming projects that could grow food for our public schools. The Municipal Development Corporation could explore other initiatives like large-scale medical marijuana cultivation and development of a commercial fiberoptic network. Other ideas can be developed; we need to engage our collective imagination to envision what can exist if there’s enough people power and political will.

By expanding access to credit, municipalizing a chunk of the city’s assets, establishing an economically viable municipal development enterprise, and democratizing city planning and development, San Francisco can enable long-disenfranchised communities to create sustainable and diversified development — instead of fighting over “jobs versus the environment” and other false choices and getting nowhere for decades.

It’s time for proactive, community-led economic development that addresses urgent needs, from local hiring and training, to creating a diverse base of neighborhood-serving businesses, to ecologically sustainable and healthful development and planning that is driven by communities and residents.

San Francisco’s job creation policies can be transformed to prioritize community needs over corporate profits by linking major development contracts to strict local hiring and training, community benefits agreements that invest in social goods like childcare and in-home health services, and ensuring dramatic increases in the city’s stock of affordable housing.

We need to build new forms of public participation in local government in ways that address people’s everyday needs. For instance, the congress will propose a new partnership between residents and Muni to make Muni work better, involving current riders and drivers in a new, more powerful role in how Muni lines function.

We need to find better ways to sustain a diverse population of working-class, people of color, artists, writers, musicians, and others. We need to make sure development isn’t just code for finding new ways to gentrify neighborhoods and displace existing residents.

Specific proposals will address how the city and community-based nonprofits deliver critical health and human services to our neediest residents. We propose making this an integrated part of the budget process, not a last-minute afterthought. Toward this end, the Community Congress will present actionable proposals to create innovative “resident/government” partnerships to improve local government responsiveness and efficiency.

 

RAISING—AND SPENDING—THE BENJAMINS

One of the keys to unlocking the city’s stagnating economy is progressive revenue generation and more democratic participation in budgeting. We must enlarge the public pie while reapportioning it in a way that stimulates job creation and shifts the tax burden onto the large businesses that reap vast private benefits from public goods and services. The city’s budget process must be dramatically reshaped and democratized. Communities need a seat at the fiscal table when the budget is being crafted — instead of lobbying tooth and nail at the end of the process just to retain funding that barely keeps programs afloat.

How can we build a participatory budgeting movement that brings residents and communities into the process? For instance, community budget councils composed of elected and appointed residents from every supervisorial district could assess neighborhood needs and incorporate them into drafting the budget. Whatever form this takes, the goal is to put the needs of residents at the forefront of how the city spends its resources.

The Community Congress can also help redefine fiscal responsibility. Taxing and spending must be accountable and transparent and respect the fact that this is the public’s money. Let’s be honest: much of what passes for government excess is due to management and executive bloat at the top, not salaries of frontline workers like bus drivers, social service providers, and hospital workers. True fiscal responsibility also means investing in prevention: education, healthcare, and services that help people build their lives.

 

RECLAIMING HOPE

It’s time to reclaim the public sector as the sphere of our shared interest. Rather than thinking in terms of the old paradigm that counterpoises “government” and “the market,” let us envision a new citizen movement to create a more participatory, democratic, and accountable system of self-government.

The San Francisco Community Congress is about bringing people together — community activists, those working in the trenches of our increasingly strained social services, our environmental visionaries, our artists, the urban gardeners and permaculturists, poets, bicycle enthusiasts, inventors … in short, assembling our pool of collective knowledge and wisdom, and yes, our differences — in a forum to discuss, debate, share concerns and viewpoints, and ultimately produce a working template that is both visionary and can be implemented.

The Community Congress will create a space for all of us to participate in defining our own vision of San Francisco. It is a first step toward reasserting popular control over economic development. It is an invitation to be visionary, rethinking in fundamental ways what it means to live in the 21st century city, and a forum for creating real, practical platforms and proposals that can be implemented using the powers of local government.

We want to propose a new vision of urban governance. Not more bureaucracy, more commissions, more departments, but the creation of new institutions that are democratically accountable and place new kinds of economic and political resources in the hands of ordinary citizens.

We don’t have any illusions. There are limits to what local government can do. Ultimately, deep change will require actions by higher levels of government. More profoundly, it will require a deeper change in citizen awareness, a rejection of life dominated by the pursuit of narrow self-interest, in favor of a more ecologically sustainable, socially just, and more democratic way of life.

But we can begin at the local level, here and now, to envision and implement the kind of changes that will need to take place if we want to insure that our city, our country, and our planet will be the kind of place we want our children to live. Please come. Bring your hopes, passions, and ideas. This is our collective project, our shared wisdom, our joint vision of the kind of city and society in which we want to live.

Christopher D. Cook is an author, journalist, and former Bay Guardian city editor (www.christopherdcook.com). Karl Beitel is a writer, scholar, and activist. Calvin Welch is the director of the San Francisco Information Clearinghouse and a long-time affordable housing advocate. This story was funded in part by www.spot.us

 

Why is Pelosi killing ENDA?

David Talbot
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0
Why is Pelosi killing ENDA?

OPINION Why is the Congressmember from the gayest city in America blocking legislation that protects lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender workers from workplace discrimination? That’s the question LGBT workers across the country are asking, and why LGBT workers picketed her office in the Federal Building and delivered a letter demanding that she not kill the Employee Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA).

Most LGBT workers have no protections from workplace discrimination. ENDA would provide legal protection against discrimination nationally. In 29 states, it is still legal to fire someone solely because they are lesbian, gay, or bisexual. And in 38 states it is legal to fire someone solely for being transgender. The current version of the bill would outlaw discrimination on both sexual orientation and gender identity.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi repeatedly promised that she would schedule a vote on the law, but repeatedly broke these promises.

A 2006 study by the Guardian and Transgender Law Center found that 60 percent of transgender people in San Francisco earn less than $15,300 per year, only 25 percent have a full-time job, and nearly 9 percent have no source of income.

Only 4 percent reported making more than $61,200, which is about the median income in the Bay Area. More than half of local transgender people live in poverty, and 96 percent earn less than the median income. Forty percent of those surveyed don’t even have a bank account.

What this study reveals is that even in a city that is considered a haven for the LGBT community, transgender workers face profound employment challenges and discrimination. If this is true in San Francisco, imagine the figures in less queer-friendly towns.

A 2007 meta-analysis from the Williams Institute of 50 studies of workplace discrimination against LGBT people found consistent evidence of bias in the workplace. The analysis found that up to 68 percent of LGBT people reported experiencing employment discrimination, and up to 17 percent said they had been fired or denied employment.

Public opinion polling shows that Americans are overwhelmingly in favor of making sure LGBT Americans get the same employment opportunities as everyone else. In fact, the latest surveys show that nearly 90 percent of Americans support workplace fairness for LGBT workers.

In a few weeks, Congress will finish its legislative business for the year so members can return to their districts to run for reelection. Last month at a LGBT Pride event, Rep. Jackie Spier (D-San Mateo) announced to a stunned crowd that not only would we not get ENDA before the end of the legislative session but she doesn’t think we would get it for five years because we won’t have enough votes in Congress again to ensure passage.

That’s right, at this moment, members of Congress are planning on leaving town and going home to campaign for their own jobs — while leaving thousands of LGBT workers without protections for the next five years. When 90 percent of Americans support workplace fairness, it’s challenging to believe that Pelosi fears a backlash from the voters.

That said, it’s fair to say that Pelosi may get a backlash from LGBT voters if she continues to block ENDA from a vote. The time to pass ENDA is now. The American people support it; the politicians promised it. No more broken promises. We demand that the House speaker stop blocking ENDA and schedule a vote.

Gabriel Haaland is a member of Pride at Work.

 

Repairing the initiative process – in CA and SF

David Talbot
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6
Repairing the initiative process – in CA and SF

OPINION I recently participated in a research trip to Switzerland to study the alpine nation’s system of direct democracy (initiative and referendum, or I&R). Its model offers fresh ideas about how to repair the dysfunctional initiative process in California and San Francisco.

In California, it takes approximately 750,000 signatures to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot — almost 3 percent of the statewide population — and about three-fifths that for a nonconstitutional statute. That’s an extremely high threshold, so in actual practice the only players able to qualify a ballot initiative are wealthy individuals or organizations that can pay an army of circulators about $3 per signature. It has been years since a statewide initiative has qualified through the work of volunteers.

Because of these dynamics, direct democracy in California has been captured by wealthy special interests. Proponents of Proposition 14, which was bankrolled by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and big business, outspent opponents by 50:1 to pass a “top two” primary that is deform masked as reform. Even when Big Money’s measures lose — as PG&E’s Proposition 16 did — they force everyone else to play defense. Ironically, this dynamic is the opposite of that envisioned by California Gov. Hiram Johnson, who in 1911 created the initiative to allow the people to counter powerful special interests like railroad tycoons.

But in Switzerland, the political leaders have crafted an impressive practice that fosters a noisy collaboration between the people and their elected representatives. That nation has a proposal-counterproposal system. Once an initiative or referendum qualifies for the ballot, the government is given a chance either to pass that law itself or put a counterproposal on the ballot. Similarly, if the government passes a law, the people can put their own counterproposal on the ballot or try to overturn the law via a referendum.

This dynamic unleashes a process that is less polarizing and fosters a healthier debate. That in turn fosters more of an ongoing dialogue between the people and their elected representatives that, over time, forges a broader consensus on issues.

But a key reason this dynamic works is because the Swiss only require about 100,000 signatures for an initiative — a bit more than 1 percent of the population — and 50,000 for a referendum. The Swiss also allow a longer period of time for collecting those signatures, up to 18 months, compared to only five months in California. So non-wealthy interests can use the I&R process and signatures can be gathered with all-volunteer labor.

Gathering 1 percent is still a sizable undertaking; it would equal about 370,000 signatures in California for a constitutional amendment. But that’s low enough that serious efforts lacking deep pockets could still play in the game.

For example, look at the Jeff Adachi-led initiative over public pensions in San Francisco. Adachi has put his fingers on the pulse of an issue that needs addressing, but many progressives feel that the details in Adachi’s measure are too harsh and polarizing. But what if a counterproposal was put on the ballot, giving the public another choice? The subsequent multichoice campaign would be less polarizing and could help find the sweet spot of consensus.

The Swiss model isn’t perfect. Like California, when it comes to the actual I&R campaigns, Switzerland has inadequate campaign finance and transparency laws. With no public financing for underfunded campaigns, private money dominates and skews the public debate.

That’s why free media time should be provided for all significant viewpoints. And shared financing for all campaigns, pro and con, should be considered; all campaigns would be required to pay 15 percent of the amount they spend on their own campaign into a common fund that is distributed to the underfunded campaigns.

If I&R in California and San Francisco is designed correctly, it has the potential to reinvigorate this age-old invention of representative government. *

Steven Hill is author of the recently published Europe’s Promise: Why the European Way is the Best Hope in an Insecure Age.

Get rid of the water bond, now

David Talbot
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0
Get rid of the water bond, now

OPINION A Field Poll released last week showed decent support among progressives for Proposition 18, the $11 billion water bond on the November ballot. We shouldn’t let the bond’s cheery name fool us. Prop. 18 is a con job.

Sold as the Safe, Clean, and Reliable Drinking Water Act, Prop. 18 has been getting a lot of press recently for the “pork” that was added to it to gain votes when it went before the Legislature last November. But for progressives, the real concern isn’t the pork; it’s the other meat in the bond. Prop. 18 would maintain a status quo that’s bad for our budget and water supply.

With polls showing lagging support for the bond, Gov. Schwarzenegger asked the Legislature to delay the measure until 2012. Bay Area residents have nothing to gain from the measure — this year or in two years. We need our legislators to fight for the bond’s termination, now.

Prop. 18 provides a $2 billion downpayment for a peripheral canal to send more water from the Sacramento Delta to deep-pocketed interests to the south. In 1982, Northern Californians overwhelmingly rejected the peripheral canal; we should do the same with the bond. The Westlands Water District, Beverly Hills billionaire-owned Paramount Farms and other megafarms stand to gain immensely from any additional water these projects might bring. The Bay Area does not.

Worse, some of these landholders skip farming altogether in order to resell the water we’ve subsidized at a huge profit to real estate developers. They pay about $25 to $50 per acre-foot of water, but can easily resell the water for over $200 per acre-foot. Corporate giant Cargill is looking to buy water from landowners in Kern County to supply its proposed 12,000-unit housing development on bay salt marshes in Redwood City.

The meat of Prop. 18 is $3 billion for the construction of more dams, an expensive and inefficient way to manage water. California’s rivers already have hundreds of dams. The water that evaporates from them each year is enough to supply 4 million people.

With interest, Prop. 18 would add $24 billion in debt to the state’s General Fund — roughly $16 million a week for 30 years. Already facing a $19 billion deficit, California has made drastic cuts to vital public services like education, housing, and healthcare — and this bond will make things worse.

Although there is some money in the bond for projects that could actually benefit us, it’s too little, too late. And the state still has $7 billion available from past water bonds that has not been spent. When the Legislature passed a bill in 2009 to invest that money in regional water projects, the governor vetoed the bill. The same will likely be true here. And even if we do see that money someday, will the trade-offs be worth it?

There is no question that California needs to invest billions in rebuilding and upgrading our vital water infrastructure. Here in the Bay Area, we are already spending billions on rebuilding our sewer and drinking water systems. Unfortunately, the bond provides only a trickle of money for such important investments or to boost conservation and efficiency in the urban and agricultural sectors. It’s no wonder that the Sierra Club, Food & Water Watch, San Francisco Baykeeper, Clean Water Action, the California Teachers Association, and United Farm Workers all oppose the bond.

Fortunately, state Sens. Mark Leno, Leland Yee, and Ellen Corbett and Assembly Members Tom Ammiano, Loni Hancock, and Nancy Skinner all voted against placing this bond on the ballot. We now need them to step up and urge their colleagues not just to delay but to repeal this bond, now. *

Elanor Starmer is the western region director for the consumer advocacy nonprofit Food and Water Watch (www.foodandwaterwatch.org).

A new New Deal for San Francisco

David Talbot
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15
A new New Deal for San Francisco

OPINION On Thursday and Friday, July 8 and 9, San Franciscans concerned about the future of their city will have a unique opportunity to devise practical, locally actionable proposals to shape and direct future policy affecting the local economy and the provision of critical human services.

On July 8, starting at 3:30 p.m. at SF Lighthouse Church (1337 Sutter at Van Ness), a New Deal for the City economic development summit will be held to address set of issues ranging from municipal reform to community-based economic development proposals. A copy of the draft positions can be found at www.sfcommunitycongress.wordpress.com.

The next day, the San Francisco Human Services Network, a 110-member organization of human and health service nonprofits, will host its New Realities summit starting at 9 a.m. at the McClaren Center at the University of San Francisco. More details about topics at the summit can be found at www.sfhsn.org/index.

The results of these two summits, along with proposals on Muni reform and affordable housing, will form the basis for a citywide meeting of “The New, New Deal for San Francisco” Congress, scheduled for Aug. 14 and 15 at USF.

The summits and congress offer a chance to discuss, adopt, and plan the implementation of a comprehensive response to the assault on the provision of critical public services and the clear failure of the local economy to respond to the current and future needs of San Franciscans. Over the past decade, San Francisco has lost, and never replaced, more than 70,000 permanent jobs as first the dot-com bust and now the implosion of the financial sector have shredded the city’s “new” economy. In a total reversal of its historic role, San Francisco is no longer the employment center of the Bay Area, but simply the high-end bedroom of a commuting workforce based outside the city.

This historic shift has meant that the primary form of development in San Francisco has gone from commercial, employment-based enterprises to high-end residential development — development that, because of Proposition 13 limits on local property taxes, simply fails to pay for the city services needed to support the existing and new residential population.

San Franciscans built a system of local governance that was unique in the state, and not often matched in the nation, in providing a level of municipal services based on the premise that we share a special place and a common future. These services were provided by a robust mixture of traditional public sector departments and innovative, community-based nonprofits. That system was itself based on an economy that mainly employed San Francisco residents in a diverse mix of economic activities with opportunities open to a wide array of people.

That economic base has been reduced to a mere shell of its former diversity, with few opportunities for even fewer people. Our current mayor has no desire to address this historic shift; instead, he is content to endlessly campaign for other offices, issue press releases on mythical achievements, and pit one portion of San Francisco against another in hopes that all forget the decline of the city under his leadership.

Progressive forces cannot again allow needed changes to be held hostage to the election of a particular candidate. We must put on the table a comprehensive, integrated set of locally actionable policies that make sense in the realities we face in the second decade of the 21st century — no matter who wins. After all, it’s our city.

Karl Bietel is a worker advocate; Fernando Marti is a community planner; and Calvin Welch is a balanced growth and affordable housing advocate.

 

Fiscal solidarity

David Talbot
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0
Fiscal solidarity

OPINION As Mayor Gavin Newsom prepares to skip town for the bleak limelight of Sacramento, he has left a resounding parting shot with massive budget cuts to those San Franciscans most in need of public aid: seniors, youth, homeless people, folks with mental illnesses, health clinic patients … the list goes on.

Newsom has balanced his final budget (and his campaign for lieutenant governor) largely on the backs of the poor, working-class, multiracial, and immigrant San Franciscans, as well as the nonprofits and city workers who deliver vital services.

The Newsom budget actually adds costs: by cutting services for the treatment and prevention of substance abuse and for youth crime prevention and supportive housing, for instance, it destabilizes lives and forces people right back into the treatment systems that are being cut — adding new human and fiscal costs.

"Every cut has a constituency," Newsom’s PR people say repeatedly. And that’s precisely what the mayor is counting on — that each "constituency" will fight on its own, for its own fiscal scraps. He’s wrong.

As members of a broad coalition of community and neighborhood-based organizations, labor unions, and civic leaders and residents across the city, we stand together in opposition to Newsom’s cuts-only budget and his attempts to divide "constituencies."

Fiscal solidarity means we recognize that an injury to one is an injury to all. "Constituencies" are in fact people whose lives cut across multiple budget line items. Cutting city parks is also a senior issue, as well as a youth issue. Closing mental health programs for the poor is not only an unnecessary moral outrage — it’s a public health and safety issue.

As members and supporters of unions and nonprofits, which are sometimes pit against each other in budget cut wars, we declare mutual support. The mayor’s cuts will mean drastically reduced services for those who need them most and deep staff cuts for city employees and nonprofit workers. We may work for different institutions under different budget line-items, but we’re fighting together as one community — one big "constituency."

Budget wars artificially divide communities that overlap and intermingle. Expressions of unity are put to the test by the budget "add-back" process that forces community groups to scuffle for scraps of cash — groups serving populations in critical need are set against each other, and whole communities are reduced to line-items.

We’re standing against fiscal wedge politics and demanding a real alternative. The budget must protect those most in need and be balanced by cutting first from the top instead of the bottom.

We are united for solutions — progressive tax measures on key wealth sectors that can and must pay their fair share to keep San Francisco the beautiful, thriving, diverse, and culturally rich city it is. We’re standing up for the city Newsom’s leaving, for the communities he’s cutting, and for progressive revenue — a tax to make downtown hotels pay their fair share, and a gross receipts tax on large businesses for starters.

Mayor Newsom: if you cut one of us, you cut us all.

This statement was signed by Christopher Cook, Budget Justice Coalition; Gabriel Haaland, SEIU 1021*; Gordon Mar, Jobs with Justice*; Eric Quezada, Dolores Street Community Services*; N’Tanya Lee, Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth*; Jennifer Friedenbach, Coalition on Homelessness; Guiliana Milanese, Jobs with Justice*; Christina Olague, Senior Action Network*; Sheila Tully, California Faculty Association, SF State*; Chelsea Boilard, Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth*; Joseph Smooke, Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center*; Carl Finamore, delegate, SF Labor Council*

* names for ID purposes only

In defense of Bay to Breakers

David Talbot
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32
In defense of Bay to Breakers

By Conor Johnston

OPINION An op-ed piece in the June 9 issue of Guardian (“When the rich can sit on the sidewalks“) was the latest in a rash of negative media stories about Bay to Breakers. I am not going to respond to that article specifically, except to thank the Guardian for giving us equal time.

For 99 years, Bay to Breakers has been lifting the city’s spirits, bringing fun, tax revenue, millions of tourism dollars, and nationwide attention to San Francisco. If ever we needed those things, it’s now, when we have record deficits, 47,000 people out of work, and may lose the football team that is named after us.

So let’s set the record straight.

Bay to Breakers does not cost taxpayers a dime. The event pays for all costs, including cleanup. And the permit fees and tourism generate tax revenue. ING probably dropped its sponsorship for reasons unrelated to B2B. Sponsors come and go. B2B will find another. Bay to Breakers is a financial boon for San Francisco. The event attracts thousands of people to the city; 49 of 50 states were represented by participants in 2008. The average tourist spends $505 in the local economy. Bay to Breakers is and always has been peaceful. There were fewer than five arrests reported this year. I have never seen a fight at B2B, not once, in seven years. Bay to Breakers remains enormously popular. There are about 100,000 participants and spectators, including many world-class runners.

This said, there are problems at B2B, namely public urination and the overall impact on the neighborhoods. We absolutely acknowledge that. But unlike the critics, we still believe in this city’s ability to solve problems.

How do we do it? Not with prohibitions — they are a retreat, not a policy. Sound policy takes effort, collaboration, and commitment. Let’s get the stakeholders together — neighborhood groups, race organizers, race supporters, SFPD, and city officials — and create a plan to protect the neighborhoods while preserving the race’s spirit.

Our group, Citizens for the Preservation of Bay2Breakers, is committing to raise money for 100 additional multiperson urinals and to leading the cultural campaign for more responsibility among participants. And we have other ideas:

• Ticket people who urinate on or disturb private property.

• Rent more toilets.

• Implement multiperson urinals, which are six times more efficient and are one-third of the cost per user.

• Improve the barricades to keep participants on course.

• Increase revenue with a tiered registration for non-runners.

• Host an event in the park that attracts participants out of the neighborhoods sooner.

I see in Bay to Breakers a celebration of what it means to be San Francisco, to be capable, to be unafraid of free expression and unapologetic of diversity.

I see world-class runners lined up next to 30-somethings in Elvis costumes. I see convalescent patients lining the sidewalk, smiling and taking pictures with Rambo and Cinderella. I see mothers pushing costumed babies. I see 100,000 happy faces. But most of all, I see a century-old civic institution that is worth fighting for. *

Conor Johnston is co-chair of Citizens for the Preservation of Bay2Breakers and a resident of District 5.

When the rich can sit on the sidewalks

David Talbot
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77
When the rich can sit on the sidewalks

By Tiny


OPINION Steel gates, steeds with silver spurs, lush red carpet lining the streets, uniformed officers guarding velvet-roped grand entrances to fancy costume balls while commoners are arrested if they so much as stop to rest on a nearby sidewalk. Sounds like the days of feudal England, or Marie Antoinette’s Paris. Guess again — its San Francisco, circa 2010.

In the wake of the proposed sit-lie law, which would make it illegal for poor people to sit or lie on any public sidewalk or street, the San Francisco is increasingly giving public streets and sidewalks away to large corporate festivals where rich, mostly white people stumble around with open containers, drunk and disorderly.

Since last month’s expanding Bay to Breakers "race," at which drunk, oddly dressed white people sat on curbs, stumbled into doorways, toppled onto the streets, and partied with entitled impunity as only people with race and class privilege can in this country, I have felt uneasy. This so-called run, supported by large corporations, has increased its land grab of several blocks of city streets, causing increased traffic, pollution, and blocked arteries for pedestrians, cyclists, and cars — all so that white people can party in undisturbed inebriation all across the city.

And if you think it was just a benign day of public drunkenness, think again. Several of my friends of color who made the mistake of being outside on race day were subjected to an onslaught of hate speech from some very threatening gang members (from the INGCHARLESSCHWABSTANFORD Gang. "You think this is Arizona?" "Are you here to be a valet?" "Go Back to Mexico."

I was riding my bicycle a week later only to be stopped on my route up Van Ness Street because of the two-day preparation, and then almost 24-hour exclusive usage of McAllister and Van Ness streets for the Black and White Ball. Again: a state-sanctioned, corporate-and-private-philanthro-pimped event for rich white people to get drunk and party on city streets.

Why is it that white people in a corporate-sanctioned party are seen as more safe or civilized than the rest of us — and how do houseless people, poor people, and people of color get criminalized in our own communities for the sole act of convening, standing, talking, or being?

It’s important to note that the rhetoric and propaganda in support of sit-lie has gone so far as to cite the struggle of disabled people to get by sidewalks "cluttered" with houseless people or businesses having their customers scared away by houseless folks convening. Yet the plethora of drunk people lying on sidewalks after Bay to Breakers are not seen as an obstacle to safety.

Tiny, a.k.a Lisa Gray-Garcia, is editor of POOR Magazine.

The hidden zinger in Prop. 14

David Talbot
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11
The hidden zinger in Prop. 14

 

By Richard Winger

OPINION Proposition 14, a June 8 ballot measure, would mandate that all candidates for Congress and state office appear on the same June ballot, and that all voters use that ballot. Only the two candidates who got the highest vote totals could run in November. Even write-ins would be banned in November for Congress and state offices.

Prop. 14 also has a hidden zinger in it that would remove the Peace and Freedom and Libertarian parties from the ballot. But so far only one daily newspaper has mentioned it — the San Francisco Chronicle, in a March 11 story by Wyatt Buchanan. The state ballot pamphlet says nothing about this particularly nasty detail of Prop. 14.

California has six recognized political parties: Democratic, Republican, American Independent, Green, Libertarian, and Peace and Freedom. The parties remain ballot-qualified either by polling 2 percent of the vote for any statewide race in a midterm year (all parties get a free ride in presidential years) or by maintaining registration equal to 1 percent of the last gubernatorial vote.

In practice, it’s far easier for the smaller parties to meet the first test. The Peace and Freedom Party has 58,000 registered members, and the Libertarian Party has 85,000 registered members. But these parties always meet the 2 percent vote test. Minor parties typically draw far more votes than they have registered members.

The problem is that Prop. 14 eliminates, in practice, the 2 percent vote test. Under Prop. 14, no party officially has any nominees for any office except president and vice-president. And since minor party candidates almost never place first or second in the June primary, minor party members would never be able to run for statewide office in November. And, the catch is that only the November vote counts for meeting the 2 percent vote test.

Prop. 14 also says that members of unqualified parties will not be permitted to list their party label on the June ballot.

The real irony is that the big newspapers of California know about this problem with Prop. 14 but refuse to mention it. That’s ironic because back in 1981, when Democrats in the Legislature wanted to toughen the ballot-access requirements, the big newspapers of California denounced that bill with full fury. Forty of California’s biggest newspapers, TV stations, and radio stations editorialized against that measure.

This year the Los Angeles Times (which led the charge for minor-party access in 1981) refused to mention that Prop. 14 has the same characteristic as that bill, only worse. The Times has rejected at least 10 op-eds submitted by various individuals in the last year that mentioned this problem. None of the Los Angeles Times stories about Prop. 14 have mentioned it. None of the political columnists for that newspaper have mentioned it.

Prop. 14 is supported by the Chamber of Commerce, the for-profit health insurance companies, the for-profit hospitals, and various multimillionaires, and the Yes on 14 campaign has a huge war chest. Why won’t the L.A. Times even mention this flaw in the measure? Who are the big dailies afraid of offending?

Richard Winger is the editor of Ballot Access News.

 

Violence in the Bayview — and solutions

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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5
Violence in the Bayview — and solutions

By Chris Jackson

OPINION The outpouring of emotion surrounding the tragic death of Tian Sheng Yu — the elderly Chinese man who was savagely beaten to death by two African Americans — resonates with me. My family has been in the Bayview for more than 40 years, and I know firsthand the pain caused by street violence.

I, too, have witnessed what seems to be going on now: the polarizing of people who use race as a shorthand to determine who is dangerous and who is not. It’s a sad realization to see these sorts of divisions creep into the public discourse in San Francisco in 2010.

Let’s be clear. The Asian American community has every right to feel outrage over being targeted for violent attacks. As a black elected official, I am the first to stand with them in solidarity — violence against my neighbor is violence against me. Pure and simple.

But there is more to this story, as is often the case. For as it turns out, in San Francisco, African Americans are also prime targets of violent crime, and at a disturbing rate. My neighborhood is a good example of what’s going on. In District 10, which includes the southeastern part of the city, 36 percent of our residents are Asian American, and 28 percent are African-American. But if you take a look at the last 136 reported aggravated assaults, African Americans were targeted 89 times — that’s more than 68 percent of the total aggravated assaults.

Pitting one racial group against another is cowardly and wholly misguided. Recent reports of community meetings where inflammatory language is used to divide us by race do nothing to solve the underlying problems. The truth is, we are all suffering and need to work together to find solutions to make our community safer.

Sup. Ross Mirkarimi’s legislation to mandate foot patrols is a good start. We need a real community policing model that emphasizes on-the-ground, respectful contact between the police and community members.

But our main focus should be on preventive measures. We need to expand drop-in center hours from one afternoon a week to five days a week beginning this summer. Crime happens every day, not just once a week.

Our youth should be put to work on neighborhood beautification projects. If young people are busy working to beautify their neighborhood, they will take more pride and personal responsibility for what happens in it.

We need to get back to the basics as well, and address the poor lighting that exists in areas of high crime. As a city, this is a cosmetic fix that can reap big rewards.

These are simple solutions, and the problems unleashed by Tian Sheng Yu’s death run far deeper. But every journey starts with a first step. Let’s just make sure that first step takes us forward, to a place of shared concern so we can all contribute to making our community safer.

Chris Jackson is an elected member of the Community College Board and lives in the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood.

 

Make hotels pay their share

David Talbot
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2
Make hotels pay their share

By Martha Hawthorne


OPINION If you ride Muni, educate your children in public schools, or rely on city services, you’ve already felt the impact of cuts to the city budget over the past few years, and it could get worse. San Francisco is facing a $522 million deficit this year. It’s expected to swell above $700 million in the next two years. Current budget balancing proposals include laying off teachers and nurses and cutting after-school programs, youth job training, street cleaning, public safety, recreation, and health services for San Franciscans and visitors alike.

While city residents and employees have sacrificed, certain Internet hotel booking sites are trying to evade more than $70 million in legally required hotel taxes. Additionally, airline companies that use San Francisco hotels to house their flight crews overnight are attempting to escape paying the hotel tax, depriving the city of millions of dollars in revenue annually.

At the same time, 5 million visitors to the city each year are not being asked to shoulder their share of the rising costs for services including public transit, public safety, and infrastructure. In fact, the hotel room surcharge in San Francisco hasn’t increased in 14 years, while costs have skyrocketed. Currently visitors to San Francisco pay the same or lower surcharge than they do in many other large cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Boston, and Houston.

That’s why we have come together to create the Stand up for San Francisco Coalition, a group of teachers, nurses, parents, public employees, and concerned citizens who believe the city needs to find new ways to fund our highest priorities. Together, we are headed to the street to collect signatures to place on the ballot an initiative that would close loopholes and make hotels pay their fair share.

This proposed measure would do three things. It would ensure that Internet hotel booking sites pay the full amount of hotel surcharge they owe — bringing millions of dollars each year into the city. It would end a practice by which airlines are attempting to not pay hotel room taxes they legally owe. And finally, it would impose a temporary visitor surcharge of 2 percent, costing the average visitor $3 per night, to support the infrastructure and services that help draw visitors and serve them during their stay, which would sunset in four years.

We are committed to thinking creatively about ways to fix our city’s budget problems, beginning with ensuring the city collects what it is owed from big hotels. Our initiative asks visitors contribute a few dollars more per night to help guarantee San Francisco is a city that lives up to its progressive values. In order to save the jobs of teachers, protect HealthySF, care for our seniors, stop service cuts to Muni, and hold the line for public safety, hotels and visitors need to pay their fair share.

Martha Hawthorne, a public health nurse, is a founder of Stand up for San Francisco and one of the official proponents of the Hotel Fairness Initiative.

Immigrant rights – in Arizona and at home

David Talbot
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0
Immigrant rights – in Arizona and at home

By Angela Chan


Mayor Gavin Newsom and City Attorney Dennis Herrera have publicly opposed the anti-immigrant bill, SB 1070, in Arizona. A diverse coalition of civil rights organizations — including the Arab Resource and Organizing Center, Asian Law Caucus, Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center, Central American Resource Center, Community United Against Violence, Equal Justice Society, La Raza Centro Legal, National Lawyers Guild San Francisco Bay Area Chapter, POWER, and Pride at Work SF — applauds both city officials for taking a strong stand against the Arizona bill. At the same time, we urge Newsom and Herrera to firmly and unequivocally support the implementation of a local policy that protects the due process rights of immigrant youths in San Francisco.

As with SB 1070 in Arizona, the mayor’s policy of requiring juvenile probation officers to report young people to federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) before they receive due process has opened the door to racial profiling and torn many innocent youth from their families.

Since July 2008, pursuant to Newsom’s draconian reporting policy, more than 160 youth have been reported to ICE right after arrest, before they even have had a chance to be heard in juvenile court. That means that youth who are completely innocent of any crimes and youth who are overcharged have been reported to ICE.

Despite the veto-proof passage of a policy by the Board of Supervisors last fall that moves the point of reporting from the arrest stage to after a youth is found to have committed a felony, Newsom has insisted on ignoring the new city law. Herrera, in turn, has yet to advise implementation of the new law.

Like the Arizona bill, Newsom’s policy requires reporting to ICE when local officials — in this case juvenile probation officers — merely have "reasonable suspicion" that an individual is undocumented. The factors that probation officers are required to use to determine reasonable suspicion have come under fire for codifying racial profiling into law.

In March, a year and a half after the mayor’s policy went into effect, Chief Probation Officer William Siffermann admitted before the Rules Committee of the Board of Supervisors that the latter factor could lead to racial profiling. A few days later, Herrera stated that this factor had been removed from the policy. However, if any changes have been made to the written policy, they have not been made available to the public.

Another similarity with the Arizona bill: probation officers in San Francisco have not been properly trained and do not have the expertise in immigration law to accurately determine which youth are actually undocumented. Rather, these officers rely on race, ethnicity, language ability, surnames, and accent as a basis for assuming immigration status.
Much like the Arizona bill, Newsom’s policy goes well beyond any obligations under federal law by requiring that probation officers report suspected undocumented youth to ICE. Finally, as with the Arizona bill, the mayor’s draconian policy only compounds the harm to immigrant families caused by an already flawed federal immigration system, which is in drastic need of comprehensive reform. We need humane reform at the federal level. But in the meantime, Newsom and Herrera need to take swift action to restore due process and protect family unity by ending San Francisco’s draconian policy. *

Angela Chan is a staff attorney with the Juvenile Justice and Education Project at the Asian Law Caucus.

Pension reform: don’t blame workers

David Talbot
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8
Pension reform: don’t blame workers

 

By Larry Bradshaw and Roxanne Sanchez

OPINION Members of Service Employees International Union Local 1021, who make up about half of all San Francisco city employees — the lowest-paid half — are currently at the negotiating table with the Mayor’s Office working out a deal to give back $100 million toward the city’s deficit over the next two years. Last year our members gave back $48 million.

Now San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi is proposing a new charter amendment to make city workers pay huge increases in their pensions and health care coverage. Never mind that he draws no distinction between the highly paid managers and the lower paid workers, between those feeding at the trough and those who toil to make and fill the trough. It’s all the rage these days to blame the economy’s woes on public workers, whatever the facts are, no matter who the culprit really is.

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

Insurance companies continue to raise premiums on health care coverage, making money hand over fist. They use those funds to lobby against reforms, from single-payer to the public option. When they win, the costs of continuing to cover workers and their families continue to escalate. Who do Schwarzenegger, Whitman — and Adachi — blame? The victims: the workers.

In an op-ed piece published last week in the right-wing Republican blog FlashReport, Schwarzenegger came out in support of a SB 919, a measure that would significantly increase employees’ contribution to the pension fund and decrease their pension payments upon retirement.

Whitman, who is spending millions of dollars of the money she made at Goldman Sachs in quasi-legal transactions, is proposing to not only double employees’ contributions to their pension fund and reduce the benefit, but to increase the retirement age and eliminate the defined pension benefit for new hires.

Into this company comes Adachi. He is concerned with the deficit since budget cuts have meant that his office has been unable to cover all the cases it is mandated to defend, and now some of those are being contracted out. Welcome to our world, Jeff.

Adachi has only two months to gather at least 70,000 valid signatures to get the required number to qualify for the ballot. It’s highly unlikely that can be accomplished without hiring signature-gatherers.

Herein lies the irony. Adachi is going to have to turn to downtown interests, the very financial and corporate interests that tanked the stock market, and the pension funds, for the money to penalize workers for Wall Street’s crimes.

Certainly San Francisco is facing financial problems. But instead of attacking workers, perhaps Adachi and his friends should join us in attacking the real problem. We are working on ideas for ballot measures that can raise new revenue for the city. Now that the city’s unions have stepped up and given back together $200 million, it’s time for downtown financial interests to contribute. *

Larry Bradshaw is a paramedic and Local 1021 vice president. Roxanne Sanchez is president of Local 1021.

Housing relief – for tenants

David Talbot
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1
Housing relief – for tenants

OPINION Since the burst of the housing bubble, we’ve seen a lot of attention paid to the plight of homeowners hit hard by the recession and facing foreclosure. Indeed, President Obama recently enacted a protection for homeowners that requires banks to let unemployed homeowners delay their mortgage payments. But until now there has been little talk and even less action on how we can help tenants who are also in danger of losing their homes.

Tenants need economic relief too. Renters have been particularly hard hit by the housing bubble and the ensuing recession. During the bubble, real estate speculation caused San Francisco rents to increase by an average of 50 percent. When the bubble burst, tenants saw their jobs disappear and incomes drop — but rents remained at record high levels. Evictions for nonpayment of rent shot up as renter after renter found it impossible to keep up with San Francisco’s housing costs.

The June 8 election will give voters a chance to change that. Proposition F will give tenants the right to postpone rent increases when they’ve lost their jobs or seen their wages or hours cut.

Many tenants struggle to pay San Francisco’s sky-high rents in the best of times and, when hit with a layoff or reduction in pay, it becomes even more difficult. Any further rent increases would be devastating and put their housing at risk. Prop. F will provide needed relief to those tenants trying to pay high rents with vastly reduced incomes. Unemployed tenants or those who have seen their wages cut by 20 percent or more will be able to get any rent increase delayed simply by filing a petition with the San Francisco Rent Board and documenting that they are unemployed or have had wages cut.

With the difficulties renters face in one of the country’s most expensive housing markets, Prop. F is a mild and measured response to a very real crisis. Prop. F essentially does what any decent landlord would do anyway: give a break to tenants who’ve just lost their jobs and hold off on rent increases until back on their feet.

San Francisco voters should also give a break to tenants on the verge of losing their homes. Vote Yes on Prop. F.

Ted Gullicksen runs the San Francisco Tenants Union.

What do you get for your tax dollars?

David Talbot
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0
What do you get for your tax dollars?

By Steven Hill

OPINION Most Americans seem to regard April 15 — the day income tax returns are due — as a recurring tragedy akin to a biblical plague. Europe frequently plays the punching bag role during these moments because there is a perception that the poor Europeans are overtaxed serfs.

But a closer look reveals that this is a myth that prevents Americans from understanding the vast shortcomings of our own system.

The fact is, in return for their taxes, Europeans receive a generous support system for families and individuals that Americans must pay for exorbitantly, out-of-pocket, if we are to receive it at all. That includes high-quality health care for every single citizen, the average cost of which is about half what Americans pay, even as various studies show that Europeans achieve healthier results.

But that’s not all. In return for their taxes, Europeans also receive affordable childcare, a decent retirement pension, free or inexpensive university education, job retraining, paid sick leave, paid parental leave, ample vacations, affordable housing, senior care, efficient mass transportation, and more. To receive the same level of benefits as Europeans, most Americans fork out a ton of money in out-of-pocket payments, in addition to our taxes.

For example, while 47 million Americans have no health insurance, many who do pay escalating premiums and deductibles. Anthem Blue Cross of California announced that its premiums will increase by up to 40 percent. But all Europeans receive health care in return for a modest amount deducted from their paychecks.

Friends have told me they are saving nearly $100,000 for their children’s college education, and most young Americans graduate with tens of thousands of dollars in debt. But European children attend for free or nearly so (depending on the country).

Childcare in the U.S. costs over $12,000 annually for a family with two children; in Europe, it costs about one-sixth that amount, and the quality is far superior. Millions of Americans are stuffing as much as possible into their IRAs and 401(k)s because Social Security provides only about half the retirement income needed. But the more generous European retirement system provides about 75 percent to 85 percent (depending on the country) of retirement income. Either way, you pay.

Americans’ private spending on old-age care is nearly three times higher per capita than in Europe because Americans must self-finance a significant share of their own senior care. Americans also tend to pay more in local and state taxes, as well as in property taxes. Americans also pay hidden taxes, such as $300 billion annually in federal tax breaks to businesses that provide health benefits to their employees.

That’s something to keep in mind as you pay your income taxes.

Steven Hill is the author of the recently published Europe’s Promise: Why the European Way is the Best Hope in an Insecure Age (www.EuropesPromise.org) and director of the Political Reform Program for the New America Foundation.

Marin County’s water grab

David Talbot
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31
Marin County’s water grab

By Joan Bennett

OPINION In August 2009, the Marin Municipal Water District’s elected board of directors conducted a public hearing to hear and discuss comments on a proposed $432.8 million desalination plant that would be built near the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. Despite overwhelming public opposition, the board unanimously approved the proposal. The stated reason: the dire need for a reliable water supply.

There is no truth to MMWD’s rationale.

This is not just a Marin County issue. The plant would have major impacts on the bay.

The Pacific Institute’s yearlong study, "Desalination, With a Grain of Salt," concluded that "most of the state’s seawater desalination proposals are premature … [such plants] fail to adequately address economic realities, environmental concerns, or potential social impacts."

James Fryer, the former head of MMWD’s water conservation from 1992 to 1999 and a water management and conservationist expert with 20 years of experience in the field, concluded in a separate report that desalination should be pursued only as a last resort.

In response, MMWD paraded before the public the inevitable hackneyed specter of a drought. But MMWD’s arguments are contradicted by the facts:

•MMWD operates seven reservoirs with more than 79,000 acre feet of water. Annual ratepayer consumption is roughly 28,000 acre feet or less. Last year, consumers used 26,000 acre feet.

•Two of those the reservoirs, Phoenix Lake and Soulajoule, have remained untapped for 17 to 20 years.

•Since the 1976-77 drought, MMWD’s reservoirs were expanded by 26,000 acre feet, nearly a 50 percent increase.

•Marin tree-ring studies demonstrate that a severe drought occurs once every 400 years.

As Paul Helliker, MMWD general manager, recently noted: "This year we won’t have any rationing because we are above our thresholds … there is no reason to because there is no problem with water supply."

If these facts alone are insufficient to convince even the most dubious, there are more.

The water source for desalination is the polluted San Francisco Bay. MMWD insists that expensive filters and reverse osmosis membranes will block dangerous contaminants such as pharmaceuticals, pesticides, chemicals, heavy metals, and Central Marin Sanitary Agency’s 11 million gallons of treated sewage (not to mention untreated spills) dumped daily into the bay near the intended desalination intake pipe.

A desalination plant is an energy glutton. MMWD is already the largest energy user in Marin. The plant would increase MMWD’s energy use from 40 percent to as high as 300 percent depending on the facility’s size and operation.

For decades the water district has urged its customers to conserve, and its customers have complied. As a reward, in February, to erase revenue shortfalls from conservation efforts, MMWD ordered a 10 percent rate hike and simultaneously halved its conservation budget on the disingenuous grounds that "conservation doesn’t work." This raises a conundrum: if rates were raised because of shrinking water use, then does MMWD even need a desalination plant? *

Joan Bennett is a lawyer in Marin. The Coalition for the Public’s Right to Vote About Desalination (CPR-VAD) is circulating an initiative for the November ballot to compel MMWD to obtain voter approval for the plant. For more information, see www.marinwatercoalition.com and www.foodandwaterwatch.org/water/california/marin.

Revenue for all

David Talbot
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2
Revenue for all

OPINION Cut, cut, cut, cut, cut: this is the sound of your government — parks, schools, playgrounds, hospitals, clinics, public transportation, programs for youth and seniors, arts, social services, the whole fabric that makes San Francisco what it is — fading away as state and local politicians refuse to raise revenue to revitalize our economy.

Mayor Gavin Newsom and big business groups have promoted a defeatist politics of low expectations, cutting spending, laying off city workers by the thousands, and offering tax breaks to businesses and developers rather than tapping San Francisco’s deep pockets of wealth to generate economic opportunities citywide.

It’s time for a new path: a fiscal politics of optimism, opportunity, and addition rather than subtraction. It’s time for an unapologetic progressive taxation movement for this November’s ballot and beyond, to make the city’s great wealth — individual and corporate, often badly undertaxed — work for all San Franciscans.

As California crumbles, local revenue movements could fuel a statewide campaign of towns, cities, and counties to overturn Proposition 13. San Francisco can take the lead with progressive taxation to create jobs, promote small neighborhood businesses, expand affordable housing and public transit, save public health, and more.

A citywide campaign for progressive taxes is building, including leaders from community-based nonprofits, grassroots organizing and neighborhood groups, labor unions, and some corners of City Hall. There are many promising ideas; with the right political will and organizing, the city could, for instance, tax large-scale real estate and levy profits from large firms. Progressive taxes could, at minimum, bring in close to $100 million and help save critical city services.

To win this campaign, a strong coalition must educate and mobilize the public about the vital importance — and citywide benefit — of raising revenue through targeted taxes on large firms and wealthy individuals. The city’s political leaders will need prodding, pressure, and support to get this done.

Progressive taxation will benefit all of San Francisco, not just some — working-class people of color and immigrants who endure the cuts’ harshest effects, everyone from youths to seniors, and vitally needed city employees like social workers, nurses, librarians, park workers, and firefighters.

The politics of austerity poses false choices between public safety and public health — as if health isn’t a safety issue. San Franciscans of all stripes must reject the pitting of services and "constituencies" against each other, reject the wedge politics that pit labor against nonprofits (both of which work to uplift working-class and poor residents), and unify around progressive revenue.

Nobody likes taxes, least of all the middle class, working class, and poor (the vast majority of us) who shoulder the bulk of the burden. But wealthy individuals and corporations can and must pay their fair share. According to a 2007 World Wealth Report produced by Merrill Lynch, 123,621 households in the Bay Area — many of them in San Francisco — "had $1 million or more in financial assets in 2007, up 10.8 percent from the year before," the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

At a Feb. 14, 2007 Town Hall on Poverty in Bayview-Hunters Point, Newsom asserted, "we haven’t addressed the wealth divide; we haven’t addressed the health divide; we haven’t addressed the economic divide … why in a city like San Francisco has income inequality grown like it has?"

Yet Newsom and others continue to avoid progressive taxation — despite polls suggesting such measures can win. Tell Mayor Newsom, and your district supervisor, to make San Francisco’s wealth work for everyone. Now. *

Christopher Cook, an award-winning journalist and former Bay Guardian city editor, is communications director for the Revenue for All campaign of Budget Justice, a coalition of members from dozens of community organizations, labor unions and their allies working to raise revenue and protect the most vulnerable San Franciscans from budget cuts.

Our Endorsements: For DCCC

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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10
Our Endorsements: For DCCC

The Democratic County Central Committee isn’t the most high-profile elected agency in San Francisco, but it’s really important. The committee sets policy for the local Democratic Party — and that includes endorsements. The people who control the committee control a slate card that goes out to every registered Democrat in the city, and that’s a vast majority of the voters. DCCC endorsements, carrying the imprimatur of the party, have a significant impact on local elections, particularly in district supervisor races.

For years, the DCCC was controlled largely by the old Brown-Burton machine, but two years ago, the progressives took back control, and that made a huge difference in electing good supervisors. The DCCC endorsement will also matter in the next mayor’s race.

The folks downtown realize this. David Latterman, a political consultant who often works with more moderate candidates and interest groups, sent a memo out March 17 titled “Headed toward the cliff in 2010 elections.” The memo, which we’ve obtained, argues that downtown and the moderates need to get organized, now: “If we can have one person run a coordinated effort with $150K … we can really pick up DCCC seats. Only a few will make a difference in the fall endorsements. The mayor’s race starts now.”

So it’s crucial that the progressives turn out to vote June 8, and vote for strong candidates for the DCCC who will support district elections, public power, tenant rights — and progressive candidates for supervisor.

We’ll be publishing endorsements for all of the June primary races and ballot measures in a few weeks, but we’ve decided to do early endorsements for the DCCC. Twelve people are elected from each assembly district. Here are our choices:

 

ASSEMBLY DISTRICT 12

John Avalos

Michael Borenstein

Sandra Lee Fewer

Chris Gembinski

Hene Kelly

Eric Mar

Milton Marks

Jake McGoldrick

Jane Morrison

Melanie Nutter

Connie O’Connor

Larry Yee

 

ASSEMBLY DISTRICT 13

David Campos

David Chiu

Michael Goldstein

Robert Haaland

Joseph Julian

Rafael Mandelman

Kim-Shree Maufas

Carole Migden

Aaron Peskin

Eric Quezada

Alix Rosenthal

Debra Walker

 

Radio: It’s about local, dammit

David Talbot
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8
Radio: It’s about local, dammit

By Johnny Angel Wendell


arts@sfbg.com

As the 2010 midterm elections approach, so rises the heat level in one of the American news media’s most vitriolic battlegrounds: AM (and increasingly FM) news/talk radio. Dominated almost entirely by the American right in all its permutations, the genre is part of what Hillary Clinton once deemed a "vast right-wing conspiracy." And while she may have overstated the case somewhat, talk radio is the angry white male’s jungle drum. As the broadcast point for the economic and social theorizing emanating from billionaire-funded think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute, as well as repeating anti-government (when the government is not being run by Republicans) doggerel whose roots run all the way back to Father Coughlin’s screeds in the 1930s, it’s as effective a tool for mounting outrage (which is never aimed at corporate America, a telling sign, populism-wise).

Because of this obvious one-sidedness masquerading as news, many media critics on the left have demanded the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine — a law enacted in 1949 that required the holders of broadcast licenses to present issues of public importance in a way that a government commission deemed fair and equal, so both sides of an issue got equal time. The doctrine remained the standard by which talk radio operated until it was repealed in the late 1980s. Shortly after that, Rush Limbaugh began his ascent to the summit of talk radio, becoming its most popular voice. If the Fairness Doctrine was still in place, however, that might never have happened.

President Obama has said that he has no interest in restoring the doctrine, claiming it’s a distraction. Despite the fact that reinstating it would personally benefit yours truly as a left-leaning talk show host, I’m also opposed to it — it does not solve what truly ails talk radio today.

What’s really wrong with talk isn’t the imbalance between right and left — it’s local vs. national, live vs. syndicated. Tune in to nearly 80 percent of talk outside of morning and afternoon drive time, and it’s one national show after another: Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Dr. Laura. Their politics are irrelevant — they’re broadcasting on local frequencies and not discussing local events.

Talk radio does not need partisan balance. At this point, half the country gets its news from the Internet, where thousands of Web sites provide every conceivable point of view. What talk does need — and badly — is a requirement that stations devote at least half their time to local issues. Most of the day or part of the evening should be devoted to what actually affects the audience — schools, traffic, cops, corruption, our kids, our money, what we see and hear right in front of us.

Radio chains might scream bloody murder at this because syndication is cheaper. But the two most popular AM stations in the state — KFI AM640 in Los Angeles and KGO 810 in San Francisco — are locally-based stations. KGO has no syndicated programming at all Monday through Friday, and consistently has been the top-rated station in the city.

A Fairness Doctrine would be seen (rightfully so) as a way to shut up the right. But a 50/50 Doctrine would not — and given that the polarity of opinion on local issues is less (because it’s real and present), the blatant disregard for fact would evaporate quickly. This is worth lobbying for — if anything meant "bringing it all back home," local talk would be the optimal place to begin. *

Johnny Angel Wendell is a talk show host at KTLK AM 1150 in Los Angeles and has been on Green 960 and KIFR 106.8 in SF.

The commons and commoners

David Talbot
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48
The commons and commoners

By Ben Rosenfeld


OPINION This is a call out to creative, fun-loving San Franciscans: the mayor, the police chief, and their downtown cronies have declared war on our grassroots arts culture, and they are coming for your actual and conceptual space next. The future they promise is manifest in their many recent attacks on public and private gatherings, and their efforts to wrest the commons from the commoners.

On Halloween 2009, the San Francisco Police, under their new chief, Los Angeles transplant George Gascón, shut down the Take Back Halloween Flashdance in front of the Ferry Building before DJ Amandeep "Deep" Jawa even arrived. Then they shut down several smaller street parties. Their official reason — that organizers lacked permits — is what Bill Clinton famously termed an explanation, but not an excuse.

The SFPD has a long history of not only tolerating unpermitted gatherings, but of rerouting traffic around and even escorting them. The cops are fully empowered to grant the equivalent of on-the-fly permits. Applying for an actual permit is cumbersome, costly, anti-spontaneous — and reinforces the SFPD’s view of itself as censor.

Since Halloween, Chief Gascón’s force has been striking a mighty blow against crime by writing scores of open container citations to revelers in Dolores Park; fining or forcing the closure of SoMa clubs and bars for failing to conform to every fickle letter of the law; and sending undercover officers into warehouse and studio parties to bust them from within, sometimes violently, and without warrants.

Perhaps the most un-San Franciscan of all Gascón’s initiatives is his demand for an ordinance that would literally criminalize the very act of sitting or lying on certain public sidewalks at certain times. Never mind the fact that most violent crime is committed by people standing up and in striking range.

Not only is the idea just plain mean, it is anathema to San Francisco’s culture of compassion and broadmindedness, and its affirmative celebration of vibrant street culture. The danger is not that the police will arrest everyone who dares to take a load off or sit and sip a Snapple against the side of a building, but that they will enforce the law selectively according to their own purity tests, while robbing the rest of us of the diversity and ferment which make us richer.

On March 27, reclaim space for art and innovation. Sit and lie on the public sidewalk! March and sing in the public street! Picnic on the pavement. Pop open a beer in Dolores Park. Do it without a permit. The Constitution is your permit. San Francisco’s heritage of artistic experimentation is your permit. Hell, the people telling you to get a permit flocked here because people like you marched around them in the first place and made this city inspiring. Do it for them too. This is a defining moment. They are playing for keeps, and so must we. Let’s bask in San Francisco’s ongoing heyday, not in quaint stories of what used to be.

Ben Rosenfeld is a lawyer in San Francisco.

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