Politics Blog Archives — Page 102 of 258 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

Barry Bonds trial: Why?

Zelda Bronstein

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April 6, 2011

Can somebody pleae explain why the United States government is spending all this money trying to put someone in jail who is clearly no threat to society, already has had his career ruined (unlike the Wall Street guys who actually damaged the economy and got away not only without criminal charges but with increased riches) and at worst, lied about something that he knew would leak out?

Remember: Bonds was worried from the start that his grand jury testimony would not remain confidential. And it didn’t.

I don’t know. The case is weak, the prosecution is weak, I don’t care about the size of his testicles and this is all costing the taxpayers millions of dollars. Why can’t the U.S. attorney prosecute some real bad guys? How about investigating municipal corruption?

Okay, I’m done now.

Where’s Jerry Brown’s leverage?

Zelda Bronstein

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April 6, 2011

17

Jerry Brown’s travelling around the state, trying to get Republican voters to urge their legislators to go along with his budget plans. And he’s telling the harsh truth: If he’s forced to do an all-cuts budget, not just the poor but the middle class will get hammered. One of the most dramatic changes will be in higher education.

Brown says that if he has to make another $15 billion in cuts, the price of a year at UC will go up to $20,000. That’s going to price a lot of kids out of the college market and undermine one of the pillars of California society — the provison of affordable higher education for all. It will have another insidious impact: More kids will graduate deeper in debt — and will be unable to pursue public-interest occupations that don’t pay well.

Think about it: You graduate with $80,000 in debt, it’s much harder to work at a community-based nonprofit, or even as a teacher. God forbid you decide to go to law school or medical school; by the time you’re out, there’s no way you’re doing public interest law or working in a community clinic.

That, of course, is part of the hidden agenda here: The people who want tax cuts and small government also want to get rid of those pesky social change organizations and povery lawyers.

Here’s the odd thing, though, about Brown’s barnstorning tour:

He’s going into Republican districts — and threatening to do exactly what the Republicans in Sacramento want. They want an all-cuts budget, and they want a Democrat to have to take responsibility. So Brown what Brown is saying to the GOP legislators is: Do what I ask — or I’ll give you everything you want. Not exactly an offer they can’t refuse.

His big mistake was assuming that the Republicans would ever work with him. He should have started back in January with a signature drive to put an all-taxes (or mostly taxes) solution on the ballot. You want to block my half-cuts, half-taxes budget? Fine — I’ll give you a budget with no cuts at all. That’s how you deal with assholes.

And that’s why the Democrats need to be pushing their own ballot initiative(s) — now.

Board approves Twitter/mid-Market tax break

Sasha Cuttler

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April 5, 2011

34

Board approves Twitter/mid-Market tax break

After making some last minute amendments proposed by sponsoring Sup. Jane Kim, including cutting the northernmost 10 blocks of the Tenderloin out of the tax exclusion zone, the Board of Supervisors today voted 8-3 to approve a six-year payroll tax holiday on new jobs for Twitter and the mid-Market area.
Even the three dissenting supervisors – John Avalos, Ross Mirkarimi, and David Campos – said they support economic development efforts for mid-Market and the Tenderloin and a targeted tax break to keep Twitter from following through on its threat to leave town for Brisbane.
“I think the city blinked too soon,” Mirkarimi said, objecting the fact that Twitter has not yet agreed to a community benefits agreements (CBA) and calling for a broader discussion of business tax reform, noting that this piecemeal approach has caused Zynga and other companies to also demand a tax cut. “I would rather take a step back.”
Avalos called the deal a “bad precedent” that encourages these same kinds of ultimatums and other bad corporate behavior while adding to economic inequities. “I have real concerns about disparities in wealth in this country,” he said.
Campos said he applauded Kim for taking on the issue, but said it didn’t make sense to vote on this before a CBA was approved. He also asked the Budget Analyst’s Office to study a proposal by City Economist Ted Egan to institute a parcel tax on vacant commercial properties to incentivize owners to lower rents enough to attract tenants. He acknowledged that Kim has pledged to sponsor such legislation and said he wants to work with her on that.
The rest of the supervisors said they voted for the legislation in order to support the business community and many of them called for replacing the payroll tax with another form of business tax, such as a gross receipts tax, as well as reforming how the city taxes stock options.
“I think it’s unfortunate that this has devolved into a discussion of one company,” Sup. Mark Farrell said of legislation that began as an effort to keep Twitter in town. It was a point echoed by Sup. Malia Cohen: “I’m extremely skeptical of how the discussion has turned to focus on one company.”
Cohen and Campos also raised concerns that the mid-Market tax break could serve to draw businesses from other struggling parts of town, with Cohen noting that she was voting for the legislation but “with serious reservations about the mixed messages we’re sending to our small business community.”
Kim answered the criticism by noting that the legislation was crafted to apply only to “net new jobs” in an effort to discourage companies from moving to the region in order to erase their business tax obligations. She also said mid-Market is unique because it “was always intended for large commercial use” and is well-served by transit.
In addition to the CBA, Kim also proposed trailing legislation that would create a Community Benefits Task Force to evaluate the CBAs that the legislation requires big companies to negotiate with the city and unspecified legislation on protecting tenants from displacement.
The only real surprise in today’s hearing was the “yes” vote of Sup. Eric Mar, who had previously told the Guardian “I’m voting with the progressives on this one.” But he said that he was won over by what he called Kim’s community outreach efforts and with the trailing legislation that she proposed because, he said, “This tax break will have a gentrifying impact.”

Devaughndre Broussard’s credibility on trial in Chauncey Bailey murder case

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee

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April 5, 2011

0

Devaughndre Broussard’s credibility on trial in Chauncey Bailey murder case

Report from The Chauncey Bailey Project, of which the Guardian is a member:

By Thomas Peele, The Chauncey Bailey Project

OAKLAND — Defense attorneys on Tuesday continued their assault on the credibility of the prosecution’s star witness in the Chauncey Bailey murder trial, delving into his background at Your Black Muslim Bakery and focusing on past crimes the man admitted to.

Defense attorney Gene Peretti questioned Devaughndre Broussard for a little less than 90 minutes, asking him about past instances when he left the bakery, where he worked as a handyman.

Broussard said he left the bakery twice because he wasn’t getting paid. He also testified that bakery leader Yusuf Bey IV made death threats against bakery members over complaints about their performance in a security business the bakery also ran.

Broussard, 23, is the key witness against Bey IV and another bakery member, Antoine Mackey, who are facing murder charges in connection with the death of Oakland Post editor Bailey and two other men in summer 2007. Broussard admitted to killing Bailey and one other man, Odell Roberson, and said Bey IV ordered the hits; Mackey is accused of helping in those two deaths, and also with killing another man, Michael Wills.

Bey IV and Mackey, both 25, have pleaded not guilty.
*****
In morning testimony, Peretti, who is representing Bey IV, asked Broussard about a 42-inch flat screen television set that came to be in his possession several years ago.

Asked how he obtained the TV, Broussard laughed, and said, “I stole that from Home Depot.”

“Didn’t you steal that from Mr. Bey?” Peretti countered. Broussard denied he had taken it from the bakery leader.

Broussard is expected to remain on the stand all day Tuesday.

Contact investigative reporter Thomas Peele at tpeele@bayareanewsgroup.com. Follow him at Twitter.com/thomas_peele.

The case for class warfare

Zelda Bronstein

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April 5, 2011

36

By now, just about everyone who cares about the economic wars in America has read the Joseph Stiglitz piece in Vanity Fair. It’s nothing new, really — the same stuff a lot of people have been saying for a long time now. But the fact that it was written by a Nobel Prize winner and that the piece ran in a popular magazine typically dedicated to the lives of the rich and famous has brought a lot of welcome attention to the message:

In terms of income equality, America lags behind any country in the old, ossified Europe that President George W. Bush used to deride. Among our closest counterparts are Russia with its oligarchs and Iran. While many of the old centers of inequality in Latin America, such as Brazil, have been striving in recent years, rather successfully, to improve the plight of the poor and reduce gaps in income, America has allowed inequality to grow.

And:

Some people look at income inequality and shrug their shoulders. So what if this person gains and that person loses? What matters, they argue, is not how the pie is divided but the size of the pie. That argument is fundamentally wrong. An economy in which most citizens are doing worse year after year—an economy like America’s—is not likely to do well over the long haul.

And:

The more divided a society becomes in terms of wealth, the more reluctant the wealthy become to spend money on common needs. The rich don’t need to rely on government for parks or education or medical care or personal security—they can buy all these things for themselves. In the process, they become more distant from ordinary people, losing whatever empathy they may once have had. They also worry about strong government—one that could use its powers to adjust the balance, take some of their wealth, and invest it for the common good. The top 1 percent may complain about the kind of government we have in America, but in truth they like it just fine: too gridlocked to re-distribute, too divided to do anything but lower taxes.

Over at CalBuzz, they’re talking about how class warfare may be the next big winning strategy in California politics:

As a political matter, it’s time for Jerry Brown to reach for his inner La Follette and start sounding some good, old fashioned, Wisconsin style populism. Instead of going after the railroads, as La Follete did, however, Brown should aim at the ultra-wealthy, the oil companies and other greedy corporate interests who have a) allowed the California Republican Party to gridlock the budget process and b) fought to keep special corporate loopholes, including outrageously low property tax rates from Prop. 13.

The latest polls show that more than 75 percent of Californians (including 60 percent of Republicans) think it’s a good idea to raise taxes on people who make more than $500,000 a year. The California Federation of Teachers is talking about a ballot initiative for the fall. Brown ought to be on board with that; hell, he ought to be out front making the case.

I’d like to see some Inner La Follette in San Francisco, too. City Attorney Dennis Herrera, who seems to support the Twitter tax break, is at least talking about the need to refrom the local tax structure. Although he’s using the same dumb old language of the anti-tax folks:

The city’s economic analysts have estimated that the current business payroll tax depresses employment in San Francisco by 1 percent, by driving up costs to employers to hire more workers. For some real-life perspective, that’s about 5,500 jobs that would otherwise be available to unemployed and under-employed San Franciscans right now. City economists also blame the current business payroll tax for depressing local wages—which, in turn, depresses local spending.

Which is enough to make me scream. The payroll tax doesn’t affect any rational business decision on hiring; it can’t. It’s just too minor a factor. And if you want to say that without a payroll tax, a company with several hundred employees might be able to hire a couple more, you’re missing the point: The payroll tax is just a rough estimate for the size of a firm — and if San Francisco had a gross receipts or commercial rent tax instead, that company would be paying roughly the same amount for a different tax.

Of course, if we had a better tax structure, more companies would pay; right now, so many outfits have so many ways to avoid the payroll tax that only about ten percent of local businesses pay it at all. And I’m in complete agreement with Herrera (and David Chiu, and others) who argue that we need to get rid of the payroll tax altogether and create a better, fairer business tax. But that’s not because very modest taxes (and that’s what the city charges) drive companies out of San Francisco or prevent job growth — it’s because too many pay nothing at all. (Yes, applying the payroll tax to stock options is a big financial disincentive. It’s also easy to fix, without giving half of the central city a tax break that will cost hundreds of jobs. Yes: Cost jobs. Because when the city loses tax revenue, it has to lay off employees. Public sector jobs are jobs, too.)

I have been asking — begging — city officials for 20 years to get serious about tax reform, to put together a summit, a task force, a committee that can overhaul the entire local tax structure. But let’s not talk about lower taxes creating jobs. That’s just nonsense. Investment creates jobs. Good education and infrastructure attracts businesses. The goal of a new tax policy ought to be to make the city’s revenue generation more progressive (the rich pay more) and more fair (almost everyone pays something) — and to bring in at least a few hundred million more dollars a year.

In fact, the goal ought to be to follow the advice of Professor Stiglitz and do whatever we can here at home to fight wealth inequality (the same way we do our small part here in SF to fight global warming, childhood obesity and overuse of plastics).

I’m not a big fan of war, but I believe in self-defense — and over the past 30 years, the powerful interests in this country have waged an all-out war on the poor and the middle class. And for the most part, we haven’t bothered to fight back. We’ve surrendered, over and over again, and now we’ve become a nation of serfs, forced to work more hours for less pay with less security and a declining quality of life — just so the top 1% can be richer than ever before.

At the great T. Pynchon wrote:

They’ve been paying you to love it

But the time has come to shove it

And it isn’t a resistance, it’s a war.

Right here in San Francisco, too. Can we at least talk about that? Please?

Jane Kim’s credibility problem

Sasha Cuttler

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April 5, 2011

96

(UPDATED AND CLARIFIED ON 4/7 BELOW) Two weeks ago, when Sup. Jane Kim voted to move the Twitter/mid-Market/Tenderloin tax exclusion zone forward before Twitter had agreed to a community benefits agreement (CBA), over the objections of Sup. Ross Mirkarimi and other opponents of the legislation who wanted a chance to review the CBA, she announced at the Budget & Finance Subcommittee meeting that she would delay the vote if the CBA wasn’t approved by the day before the hearing.

Today, the full board is scheduled to consider approving the legislation and Twitter has not yet agreed to a CBA, which is the only thing the city gets in return for giving the company a $57 million tax break. So, during a rally this morning at City Hall against the CPMC project, I asked Kim whether she would keep her word and delay the legislation.

No, she said, they will be voting today to approve it and then they’ll approve the CBA later as trailing legislation. When I pointed out that she was going back on her word and reminded her of the comments she made publicly two weeks ago, she said, “Well, the community understands and wants us to move this forward.”

What community, I asked, noting that much of the community opposes the legislation. She said, “SOMCAN is OK with this,” referring to the South of Market Community Action Network, whose members were perhaps the most vociferous opponents of the legislation at that March 23 committee hearing, their members uniformly asking that the legislation be delayed until after a CBA is approved by Twitter and subjected to community input.

After that conversation, a SOMCAN member who overheard the exchange confirmed that the organization continues to oppose the legislation, although City Hall sources tell us that Kim’s office has assured the group that it will get money out of the final CBA. It is illegal for supervisors to direct funding to specific groups in such agreements, which are negotiated by the Office of Economic and Workforce Development, as Deputy City Attorney Cheryl Adams testified at the March 23 hearing.

UPDATE AND CLARIFICATION: Kim legisiative aide Matias Mormino and SOMCAN organizational director Angelica Cabande strongly deny the organization was promised financial compensation from the Twitter CBA, saying the only assurance the organization was given was Kim’s pledge to create legislation designed to prevent the displacement that SOMCAN fears this legislation will create. Cabande also told us, ” The CBA will keep the corporation accountable to our neighborhood and residents’ concerns by specifically defining how Twitter’s presence will benefit the surrounding low-income communities.”

Kim has made several statements about this legislation that weren’t true or were contradicted by the testimony of City Economist Ted Egan, as we’ve reported. Previously, she has also lied to others about statements I’ve made in conversations with her and about whether she’s ever met privately with Willie Brown, who supported her supervisorial campaign with an independent expenditure mailer that was illegally created in her campaign manager’s office.

Kim’s sponsorship of this tax break legislation comes despite the fact that she’s said she generally opposes such supply-side economic schemes. In his economic analysis of the legislation, Egan recommended doing a parcel tax on vacant commercial property as a better way to address vacant storefronts in mid-Market, the problem that Kim and others have claimed that this legislation is about.

I asked her about that recommendation during the March 16 committee hearing and she said that she strongly supports the proposal and that she has directed her staff to work on it. Is she going to keep her word and follow through on that pledge? I’ll believe it when I see it.

Herrera calls for local tax summit

Mary Magee

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April 5, 2011

0

City Attorney and mayoral candidate Dennis Herrera is arguing that the controversy over a proposed tax break for Twitter highlights the need to reform the city’s business payroll tax to help create jobs and foster growth.
“The fact that city leaders have been prompted to craft a narrow tax break to avoid losing one large employer speaks volumes about the far more serious problems with our local business taxation scheme,” Herrera said in a campaign press release. “Whatever happens with the Twitter tax deal, it has highlighted a public policy priority. San Francisco can no longer afford to ignore: we need to replace our business payroll tax with something fairer that creates jobs.”

Herrera notes that among all California cities, San Francisco is alone in basing its entire business tax on payroll. As a result only about 8,000 companies pay the tax out some 80,000 registered to do business in San Francisco…

Herrera says this narrow tax base puts “a wildly disproportionate burden on the approximately 10 percent of businesses required to pay the tax, which is especially tough for smaller businesses crossing the $250,000 payroll threshold for the first time. It bears little correlation to businesses’ ability to pay, and even less to their comparative use of city services.”

Herrera notes that the City Attorney’s office took part in a policy working group in late 2009 alongside the City Controller, the Treasurer and Tax Collector, and the Office of Economic and Workforce Development. The working group examined alternatives to the current business payroll tax, considered legal options and researched the advantages and disadvantages of business tax systems employed by other local governments.

Herrera argues that the current tax is unfair to businesses, working families, and San Francisco’s low- income residents, since they suffer the most from severe budget cuts “owing to the tax scheme’s mercurial instability from year to year.”

Herrera’s full proposal can be found on his mayoral campaign website.

Why does a “burgeoning” neighborhood need tax breaks?

Sasha Cuttler

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April 4, 2011

43

Why does a “burgeoning” neighborhood need tax breaks?

The San Francisco Chronicle has run two stories in the last two days about the huge influx of new arts-related businesses coming to the supposedly “blighted” mid-Market area, some of them drawn by a 10,000-square-foot space the city’s Film Commission opened as an incubator for independent filmmakers (the Examiner had the story last week). Yet city officials and the daily newspapers are still pushing a $22 million tax exclusion zone for the area, which will be considered by the Board of Supervisors tomorrow (Tues/5), using discredited arguments that nothing will locate here without big tax breaks.

“The incubator project will benefit both the San Francisco film community and the evergrowing Mid-Market Arts District,” Mayor Lee said today in a Mayor’s Office press release. “Establishing programs such as this helps ensure the health of the Mid-Market area as it continues to grow and become a burgeoning arts community.”

“Listen to the recent City Hall political debates, and you’d think the beleaguered Mid-Market neighborhood was on the verge of becoming the next Silicon Valley with Twitter at its core,” was the lede in a front-page story in today’s Chron listing at least seven major arts-related businesses that are moving to mid-Market, drawn by the cheap rent, large buildings, and artistic synergy and not the tax breaks.

At least three supervisors are also working on legislation to excuse tech companies from paying payroll taxes on stock options, which City Economist Ted Egan said was the main reason to believe Twitter would follow through on threats to leave town if it doesn’t get a tax break. And Guardian investigations have revealed the lies and corruption behind how the tax exclusion zone was created.

Yet rather than prompting a reconsideration or scaling back of a tax giveaway that even Egan — a fairly conservative, free-market kinda guy – says doesn’t make sense for most of the properties that have been thrown into this tax exclusion zone, Sups. Mark Farrell, Carmen Chu, Malia Cohen, and Scott Wiener have recently joined the original sponsors, Sups. David Chiu and Jane Kim, as co-sponsors, giving them the six votes they need.

Let’s be clear: This isn’t about helping mid-Market and the Tenderloin. Hell, with all the business interest that is already occurring there naturally, the likelihood that this tax break will raise rents and force out low-income residents, small businesses, and non-profits is now greater than ever. But then again, this was always about helping landlords and doing a big political favor for the rich in an election year more than it was about any of the platitudes that have dripped from the lips of these craven political animals.

Old-school land-use power politics is back at City Hall, sold to the rest of us with the false promise of helping the poor. I guess some things never change.

SFBG Radio: Will Obama be re-elected?

Zelda Bronstein

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April 4, 2011

4

Will Obama be re-elected in 2012? Will you want to work for him, or give him money, or vote for him? Johnny and Tim talk about the future of the president. Listen after the jump.

sfbgradio442011 by endorsements2010

How to move 200,000 people around America’s Cup

Mary Magee

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April 4, 2011

3

How to move 200,000 people around America’s Cup

I’ve been wondering how the city plans to move the thousands of spectators expected to show up for a series of regattas in 2012 and 2013, leading up to and including the 34th America’s Cup Final.

And today I had a chance to start perusing the city’s draft People Plan which aims to move up to 200,000 residents and visitors daily to the city’s waterfront and is promising to be “the most transit, bicycle and pedestrian-friendly major sporting event in history.”

(Note to compulsive printers of online government documents: thanks to some nifty maps in this document, your printer may experience replication difficulties. For instance, I had to print everything but the maps on pages 13 and 14 of the document.)

Anyways, my preliminary review revealed that there is a special section in the draft dedicated to the “special transportation needs” of America’s Cup “participants” and that these participants include teams, event staff and, ta da!, accredited media.

“Special transportation needs for the ‘participant” group include but are not limited to staff access to race-related areas and other constricted waterfront areas,” states the plan. “These activities may require unique and frequent vehicle access to various sites.”

[Note to self: Remember to check out what is required to qualify as “accredited media” for a seat in one of the vehicles frequently accessing the area.]

Just kidding, and now, back to the needs of regular people who want to see the event.

“Part of the appeal that brought the Events to San Francisco Bay was the opportunity to create a new kind of viewing experience for the highest level of competitive sailing, with races held in close proximity to urban areas and accessible shoreline instead of open seas,” states the plan’s “Strategic Adaptability” section.

“The novelty of this concept creates excitement but it also creates uncertainty, in that there are few instructive examples of how spectators will choose to attend an America’s Cup Final-level sailing event in the middle of a weekend day, or how a large event in San Francisco Bay during a weekday will affect the ability of Bay Area residents to commute to work or their other daytime destinations,” the section notes.

{This sounds like the city is trying to figure out how many of us will choose to be anywhere but San Francisco on the weekends in question, how many of us who work in San Francisco are planning to play hookey to attend week day events, and how many will show up even if the Bay is swathed in fog.]

Un its draft plan, the city promises “to seed the strategies set forth in the People Plan with a measure of adaptability to allow for the strategic deployment of a finite amount of transportation resources across the spectrum of transportation demands associated with the Events in accordance with the expected demands of each day.”

Beyond that, the document is divided into three main parts. One itemizes likely destinations, the next describes transportation strategies to serve these key destinations, and the final section describes “additional considerations and strategies.”

To learn a) which race facilities, waterfront locations, and race viewing locations will be accessible to the public, b) which bus, rail, cable car, bike, automobile and ferry routes will be modified, and c) which parking and special locations will be added, be sure to check out the plan. And then eave your comments at the city’s feedback site here.

For, as the city’s website warns, “The early draft of the People Plan is the product of analysis by city and SFMTA staff, with early input from stakeholder groups. The draft People Plan announced today will also undergo significant and further revisions, following input from members of the public, advocates, city and agency staff, the environmental community and other stakeholders in the coming months. Final approval and consideration will occur following the completion of environmental review.”

In other words, review the documents now and speak your piece soon, otherwise your ideas won’t have any chance of making it into the final plan.

Or at Mayor Ed Lee put it in a press release, “We are moving rapidly to meet our commitments to host a spectacular 34th America’s Cup in 2013 and set a new standard for sustainable event-planning. The America’s Cup is a unique opportunity to leverage our region’s transportation resources and our enthusiasm to deliver the most transit, bicycle and pedestrian-friendly international major sporting event in history for residents and visitors alike.”

And here’s hoping that we will all be “moving rapidly” when the regatta finally rolls into town…

St. Stupid’s Day Parade mocks economic and religious institutions

Sasha Cuttler

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April 1, 2011

0

The 33^rd Annual St. Stupid’s Day Parade careened through the Financial District this afternoon, with hundreds of colorful self-styled idiots offering spirited and incisive send-ups of corporate and religious power and clearly having a great time in the process.

The always lively April 1 countercultural ritual was infused by fabulous weather and a nearby gathering of Burning Man regional representatives from around the world, a conference at the Bently Reserve where head honcho Larry Harvey will be giving a heavily touted speech this evening in which he’s expected to announce the formation of a nonprofit group that will eventually take over Burning Man from Black Rock City LLC.

But it’s tough to upstage the First Church of the Last Laugh on its holiest of days, and the crew led the parade of costumed followers through some of its regular rituals, including the tightening of the lug nuts that connect old San Francisco to the new landfill at Battery and Bush streets and throwing socks at the old Pacific Stock Exchange Building.

Along the way, they stopped to make noise and jokes directed at the Federal Reserve, Well Fargo, Bank of America, and other titans of capitalism and corruption, offering chants that included “Go back to work” and “No more chanting.” Lobbies were raided and icons mocked, but with such a good nature and self-deprecating style that even the initially nervous-looking suits and security guards ended up smiling.

Happy St. Stupid’s Day, everyone, now go have some fun.

Brugmann: Dammit, where’s our tax break?

Sasha Cuttler

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April 1, 2011

8

Brugmann: Dammit, where’s our tax break?

Bay Guardian Editor and Publisher Bruce B. Brugmann announced today that the paper will move to Brisbane next fall unless the city expands its payroll tax exemption to cover Potrero Hill.

The paper, which plans to expand its workforce “by at least a few people” over the next five years, can’t continue to pay the roughly $500 tax for each new employee, Brugmann said. Although he denied rumors of an initial public offering, he said discussions about a “complex, derivative-based stock swap” that could lead to multi-dollar payoffs to some employees were a factor in his decision.

“We’ve always believed that stock options are the basis for American’s economy,” Brugmann said. “And it makes no sense to tax the wealthy when we can barely afford to tax the poor.”

The Bay Guardian building could also be converted to market-rate condominiums as part of the deal.

The Guardian is the latest local business to demand relief from the city’s crushing payroll tax. In the wake of proposals to offer a tax holiday to Twitter, companies like Zynga – also in Potrero Hill – and Yelp are threatening to leave town unless they get a similar deal.

“With the money we save,” Brugmann said, “we can afford to buy Steve Jones a car and get him off that goddam freak-ass bicycle.”

Jennifer Matz, a City Hall staffer who works to get corporations tax breaks, said she normally would be willing to give away public money to just about any company in town. “But my boss doesn’t seem that upset about the Guardian leaving,” she explained.

Still, several supervisors immediately announced plans to expand the tax district to the area immediately surrounding the corner of Mississippi and 17^th where the Guardian is located. “If my favorite newspaper left town, I don’t know what I’d do with myself,” noted Sup. Jane Kim.

April Fool’s! Kinda.

Redmond traded for Nevius in mid-season shocker

Sasha Cuttler

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April 1, 2011

4

Redmond traded for Nevius in mid-season shocker

Bay Guardian Executive Editor Tim Redmond has been traded to the San Francisco Chronicle for columnist C.W. Nevius and a right-wing associate editor to be named later, it was announced today.

As part of the deal, the Chronicle will pick up the remainder of Redmond’s $25.3 million contract. In addition to a future editor, the Chron will pay the Guardian an undisclosed amount of money “just to get Nevius the fuck out of here,” Chronicle Editor Ward Bushee said.

“We respect all that Chuck has done for us, but when we realized he couldn’t even get a hippie recycling center evicted by the deadline, we knew it was time to make a change. This is the big leagues, boyo.”

Former Sup. Michela Alioto-Pier, one of the many die-hard Nevius fans who has become disillusioned of late, was more harsh. “Nobody pays any attention to his shit anymore,” she said.

Nevius, a former sportswriter, has been struggling lately with the transition to a political position. His Column Effectiveness Percentage has dropped to .212 and his embarrassing play on the Haight Asbury Neighborhood Council Recycling Center and the Park Merced development have spurred calls for his removal.

Redmond has been struggling, too, and is widely considered to be grossly overpaid. His CEP fell below .300 for the first time this year, a problem he has blamed on age and brain damage. He recently cut his hair in an effort to clear some of the heat from his leftist political rhetoric, but his last four pieces on tax policy have been complete failures – not one politician has held a hearing, made a statement or done anything but quietly murmur that Redmond “has gone off the deep end.” He has refused repeated calls to open up his stance.

Redmond insists that none of his problems are his own fault, and suggested that his lack of effectiveness is due to some sort of shadowy “juice” at City Hall. “David Chiu and Jane Kim can’t possibly be throwing curve balls like that on their own,” he said.

Under the terms of the deal, Nevius will immediately take over Redmond’s job and Redmond will become the Chron’s Conservative Suburban Twit.

Redmond announced that he will be selling his house in Bernal Heights and moving to a gated community in the East Bay. “If I’m going to trash San Francisco every day, I need to be living in a place where there’s no music and the cops shoot homeless people on sight,” he said. “If I’m going to become a conservative, it’s important to eliminate any actual connection to the people I’m writing about.”

April Fool’s.

The Guardian endorses: Jello Biafra for Mayor!

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee

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April 1, 2011

7

On every level, the San Francisco mayor’s race is critical. San Franciscans will decide whether a fiscally conservative candidate backed by downtown interests will continue Gavin Newsom’s legacy of gutting critical services while refusing to raise taxes, or if a progressive will lead the city into a new era.

San Francisco needs a mayor who is motivated not by campaign donations from corporate fat cats, but by true San Francisco values. The city needs some one who is ready to fight the war on fun, by boldly having more fun than the warmongers can possibly stand.

What San Francisco needs is Jello Biafra. In a rare early endorsement, the Guardian has thrown its support behind Biafra for mayor. Formerly the lead singer of legendary punk rock group the Dead Kennedys, he is now the front man of Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine. In 1979, Biafra ran for mayor against former Mayor Dianne Feinstein and former state Sen. Quentin Kopp. His campaign motto was There’s Always Room for Jello.

“I am honored,” Biafra said when he was notified that he had received the Guardian’s endorsement for mayor. “After all, how could I be any worse than the last elected mayor, who turned out to be a horrible Frankenstein of Dianne Feinstein, Gray Davis and Tom Cruise?”

Biafra went on to talk about his campaign platform. “I would immediately reverse all [Newsom’s] mean-spirited, bigoted, anti-homeless laws, and instead hire all the panhandlers to work for the city on a 50 percent commission to help balance the budget,” he said.

Biafra said San Francisco could take a cue from Austin, Texas for another revenue-generating measure. “I would … declare the outlying strip on 11th and Folsom to be a music district, like they did on Sixth Street in Austin Texas, instead of having the police harass them and shut them down. This has brought in a huge amount of tax revenue for Austin, by the way.”

As part of this plan, the city could “use the revenue to buy back KUSF for the people of the city,” he added.

Biafra has a refreshing approach to ending police misconduct and promoting reform within the San Francisco Police Department. “Police officers should be an elected position,” he told the Guardian. “Every four years, you run for election, voted on by the district you patrol. You couldn’t just run off and hide in Novato after beating and shooting people anymore.”

An honest mayoral candidate, Biafra doesn’t pull any punches – not even when it comes to criticizing the Guardian, which has been the only publication to endorse his campaign so far. “I think the Guardian blew it when they came out against the initiative to rename our sewage plant after George W. Bush,” he said. “I think that would be a great idea. I’ll bring that one back, too.”
Rather than minimum wage, Biafra would like to implement a maximum wage, which has been proposed by the California Green Party.

“What should the wage be? Let’s be generous: Two hundred grand, and then you’re done,” Biafra decided. “You can live really well on that kind of money. Everything else goes back to the public purse, and you’ve got schools, you’ve got health care for everybody, transportation for everybody, people can even go to law school on the public’s dime – and why not? I mean, what about just giving some of that money back to people who didn’t make the $200,000 and guarantee people income, instead of talking about welfare cheats?”

When he ran for mayor in 1979, Biafra generated a great deal of attention with his proposal to require businessmen to wear clown suits between the hours of nine and five. But he said this required some explanation: “This is only in downtown,” he noted, “because this is a response to Feinstein’s campaign to clean up Market Street. She meant the Tenderloin, I meant downtown where Chevron and Bechtel and Bank of America and the other looters hold court.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPhfUOsT71c&feature=related

Biafra said he also planned to bring back another proposal from his first mayoral bid: “Create a board of bribery, to set fair standards and public rates for liquor licenses, building code exemptions, police protection, and most importantly, protection from the police,” he explained.

As for the re-naming of Candlestick Park, Biafra had a flash of inspiration during his endorsement interview. “Isn’t there those little bags of junk food under the brand Emperor Norton for, you know, dried bread chips and stuff? How about, if they’re going to sell off the name Candlestick Park — or for that matter, finally name our baseball stadium after something other than a phone company — how about Emperor Norton Park?” Biafra suggested.

Vote for Jello Biafra for Mayor of San Francisco. After all, as he told us, “I would definitely be better than the last elected mayor. Then again, so would a cockroach.”

Vote early, vote often, and vote like your city depended on it!

P.S.: If Jello Biafra doesn’t win, we’ll kill ourselves.

Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine will launch their latest album, Enhanced Methods of Questioning, at Slim’s on June 4.

April Fool’s. Kinda.

Books, borders, and official ridiculousness

Sasha Cuttler

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March 31, 2011

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Books, borders, and official ridiculousness

In the pantheon of ridiculousness going on in this country, this may not rate highly, but it seems telling enough to share anyway. For the last two months, I’ve been selling my new book, The Tribes of Burning Man, through my website: taking payments through PayPal, signing the books, and mailing through out through the Post Office, which is cheaper than FedEx or UPS for one-pound books.

It’s gone pretty well so far, with the exception of a couple empty envelopes being delivered and the books never found, which I’ve had to replace out of my pocket. But then today, I got one of the books I tried to send to a customer in Colorado (only one of the two I sent that day, mind you) back from USPS, with two stickers on it.

One says “Surface Transportation Only” and has a picture of a plane crossed out, and the other reads, “We regret that your mail was not collected or is being returned to you due to heightened security requirements. All mail that bears postage stamps and weighs more than 13 ounces MUST be taken by the customer to a retail service associate at the Post Office.”

I already have to go to the Post Office when I send my book to other countries and fill out a silly little US Customs form, and I’m told by customers that the books sometimes get hung up in Customs holds for weeks. Now, they can’t even send a book to Colorado without freaking out that I may be a terrorist sending bombs? It’s a six-by-nice-inch softcover book, you idiots, do you really lack the technology to figure that one out? And will it really make a difference if I drop it at the Post Office myself considering that they don’t ask for ID or provide any other security anyway?

WTF?!?! OK, readers, thanks for indulging my little rant. Now back to your regularly scheduled news coverage.

SF in top 38 counties nationwide that deport “non-criminal aliens”

Mary Magee

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March 31, 2011

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SF in top 38 counties nationwide that deport “non-criminal aliens”

So much for San Francisco being a sanctuary city. The National Day Laborer Organization (NDLON) and two other organizations have unearthed statistics that show San Francisco in the nation’s “top 38” counties, when it comes to deporting immigrants who had not been convicted of crimes.

The statistics, which the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Department provided as part of a public records request, also show that California is the top state in the nation, when it comes to deporting “non-criminal aliens,” which is how federal authorities categorize immigrants who lack visas and green cards, since both are simply violation of civil administrative law, and not criminal acts.

These revelations come as internal documents, procured by the New York Times, suggest that federal immigration officers, facing resistance from Chicago and Cook County to join ICE’s controversial Secure-Communities program, pushed local officials to secure the participation of reluctant police departments.

Immigrant advocates say these newly released documents are fueling concerns that S-Comm is being used to circumvent due process for immigrants, and futher illustrate the need for reform, at the statewide level, to avoid abuse.

But ICE refutes charges that it is circumventing due process and primarily deporting immigrants who have not committed serious crimes.
“Secure Communities is a comprehensive initiative to modernize the criminal alien enforcement process,” an ICE spokesperson told the Guardian. “While ICE prioritizes the removal of convicted criminal aliens, the agency still enforces the law with regard to other aliens who are subject to removal. In addition to criminal aliens, ICE’s priorities include other individuals who pose a potential threat to public safety – such as those with known gang affiliations and prior drunk driving arrests – as well as immigration fugitives and individuals who have tried to game the immigration system.”

ICE officials also said that their review of the latest S-Comm statistics for San Francisco County show that “more than 60 percent of the aliens who’ve come into ICE custody since Secure Communities’ local activation are convicted criminals. What’s more, nearly one third of those cases involve individuals who’ve been convicted of Level 1 offenses [felony crimes].

But NDLON spokesperson B. Loewe said the newest data show that, several years into the S-Comm program, problems that immigrant advocates have been raising since S-Comm began, are continuing.
“There is no protection for the innocent, or even victims of crime, and the program appears to lend itself to circumventing due process,” Loewe said. “The latest numbers should raise concerns for anyone who cares not just fro civil rights but also for public safety for all.”

The S-Comm statistics emerged as part of a Freedom of Information Act request that NDLON, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the Immigration Justice Clinic of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law filed pertaining to ICE’s controversial Secure -Communities program.

Launched in Texas in March 2008, S-Comm involves state and local entities in the enforcement of federal immigration law by turning on a mechanism to run fingerprints through various databases when individuals are arrested, even if those individuals are brought in on minor charges or if their charges are subsequently dismissed.

“What’s most significant is that San Francisco is among the top 38 counties nationwide, and among the top 13 California counties,” said Jon Rodney, communications project coordinator at the California Immigrant Policy Center.

“The numbers speak for themselves,” said Angela Chan, a San Francisco Police Commissioner and Asian Law Caucus staff attorney. Chan noted that between October 2008, when California began implementing S-Comm, and February 2011, California has deported 35,643 local residents.
“That’s 10,000 more than Texas, which deported 24,152 residents,” Chan observed. She also noted that California is the state that deports the highest numbers of residents nationwide.

The top 13 counties in California deporting the highest percentage of non-criminal? Merced, Fresno, Tulare, Solano, Monterey, Kern, San Luis Obispo, San Francisco San Joaquin, Contra Costa, Riverside, Sonoma, and Alameda, in that order.

This latest round of charges comes ten months after S-Comm was first activated in San Francisco, and fresh on the heels of Assemblymember Tom Ammiano’s announcement of AB 1081, a bill that would honor the right of local governments to opt out of the federal S-Comm and set basic safeguards for those municipalities that do decide to participate.

Chan notes that the Assembly’s Public Safety Committee will hold a hearing on AB 1081 on April 26.

“Ammiano’s bill is timely and crucial,” Chan said, noting that California signed an S-Comm agreement without public input, notice or negotiations.

“That [process] raised concerns that California signed a boilerplate agreement that was dictated by ICE” Chan said. “And it’s part of the reason why we have such high numbers of deportations,” she continued, noting that Ammiano’s bill “connects to an existing clause,” in the memorandum of understanding that the California Attorney General’s Office signed with ICE, back when Gov. Jerry Brown was still California Attorney General.

Ammiano’s bill would require the California Bureau of Criminal Identification and Information to modify the agreement it entered into with the US Department of Homeland Security in May 2009, regarding S-Communities.

Meanwhile, in a March 7 memo (a copy was procured through NDLON’s public records request) ICE noted that its Secure-Comm program produced over 133,000 matches in the first five months of 2011, compared to 248,000 matches in 2010.

ICE also noted that since the program was first activated in Harris County, Texas, on Oct. 27, 2008, the agency has removed over 94,000 aliens and over 24,600 criminal aliens convicted of Level 1 (felony offenses) that were identified through the program.

“Deployment continues to be the primary driver for increased identifications,” ICE stated, observing that in the first five months of 2011, ICE will deploy S-Comm in 409 new jurisdictions. This means that by the end of May, 1,067 jurisdictions will be activated in 39 states, “covering 70 percent of the foreign non-citizen population.”

ICE’s goal is to deploy the program to an additional 488 jurisdictions by the end of 2011, bringing the total jurisdictions deployed by year’s end to 897.

But as Chan notes, Ammiano’s AB 1081 has implications for how and whether S-Comm gets activated in any more California counties,
“AB 1081 requires needed modifications to California’s S-Comm agreement, which was signed in April 2009 by California,” Chan said. “ It was one of the first, if not the first, agreement signed by a state to enter into S-Comm. AB 1081 taps into this contract term, which allows modification and termination of the agreement, to allow counties to opt in or out of the deeply flawed program.”

Life history of key witness won’t be presented in Chauncey Bailey murder trial

Sasha Cuttler

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March 30, 2011

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Life history of key witness won’t be presented in Chauncey Bailey murder trial

Report from The Chauncey Bailey Project, of which the Guardian is a member:

By Thomas Peele, The Chauncey Bailey Project

OAKLAND — The life history of the man who confessed to killing journalist Chauncey Bailey won’t be used as evidence to explain his behavior and willingness to join the former Your Black Muslim Bakery, a judge ruled Tuesday.

Prosecutor Melissa Krum argued that Devaughndre Broussard’s background growing up in institutions and in foster care while his mother served prison terms was relevant to show he was susceptible to following former bakery leader Yusuf Bey IV and carrying out his alleged orders to kill people.

Judge Thomas Reardon denied the request. “I’m not sure the relevance is anything more than marginal,” he said.

His decision came after the triple-murder trial of Bey IV and bakery member Antoine Mackey was delayed until Monday after an alternate juror fell ill. Court is closed Thursday for Cesar Chavez Day and the trial is not conducted Fridays.

Broussard has pleaded guilty to killing Oakland Post Editor Bailey and another man, Odell Roberson, and has said Bey IV ordered the slayings. Mackey is charged with helping Broussard in those killings and also with killing a third man, Michael Wills.

When the trial resumes, Broussard is expected to describe how he killed Bailey the morning of Aug. 2, 2007. Broussard will be sentenced to 25 years in exchange for his testimony.

In a motion before the judge after the delay was announced, Krum said she wanted to question Broussard about his life for 10 or 15 minutes to show how he “bounced around” institutions during his childhood, developed a severe stutter and came to seek what the bakery offered people with few other options in life. The bakery, founded by Bey IV’s father, was known as a black empowerment organization in Oakland.

Defense lawyers Gene Peretti and Gary Sirbu said the proposed testimony was unfair to their clients.

“It will generate tremendous sympathy toward (Broussard) as a witness and give a stature to him,” Sirbu told Reardon. “Why he went to the bakery seems irrelevant. He is a hapless individual. One can easily see why he went to the bakery.”

Reardon said his decision also limits the amount of documentation the defense will receive concerning Broussard’s juvenile history in courts and institutions. After debating the matter with Reardon, who is reviewing those records, Sirbu agreed to accept a limited number of documents showing when Broussard was untruthful or deceptive to authorities.

Sirbu wants such records to attack Broussard’s credibility. He and Peretti have described Broussard as a serial liar and are looking for further evidence.

Krum did win a second motion: Reardon agreed that she could show jurors a videotape of bakery followers performing a militarylike drill as Bey IV commanded them. The members in the 2007 video include Broussard and Mackey.

Krum said the video showed Bey IV giving orders and others following them. Broussard has testified that performing such drills was central to the bakery’s culture.

Sirbu raised a vigorous counter argument.

“It’s very prejudicial,” he said. “It has inherent shock value. There’s a threat that gets you viscerally when you see that drilling.”

Reardon agreed with Krum, saying, “It seems to me to be the heart of the case. (Bey IV) didn’t shoot anyone dead, but he (allegedly) ordered others to do so.”

Contact investigative reporter Thomas Peele at tpeele@bayareanewsgroup.com. Follow him at Twitter.com/thomas_peele.

Board delays Yellow Pages vote

Sasha Cuttler

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March 30, 2011

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In an attempt to assuage big business interests, the Board of Supervisors decided yesterday (Tues/29) to delay the vote on an ordinance regulating the Yellow Pages, a piece of legislation that would create a three-year pilot program to rid the city of unsolicited phone books. A vote on the legislation is set for May 10.

The ordinance by Board President David Chiu passed the Land Use Committee on March 22. In attendance was a large opposition including the Yellow Pages Association, representatives of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and AT&T Advertising Solutions to stress the importance of the directory to small businesses and local jobs.

Although it appears the votes are there to pass it, supervisors including progressive David Campos and business-friendly Sean Elsbernd pushed for the delay so the city’s chief economist could undertake an analysis to understand how the “ban” would affect city businesses and to allow the public to continue to voice its opinions on the issue.

According to a previous Guardian article on the ordinance, many local businesses have chosen to advertise elsewhere, and many residents, including populations generally seen to use the Yellow Pages such as the elderly and non-English speakers, will still be able to easily obtain phone books if need be.

Alexia Marcous, Vice President of the Green Chamber of Commerce and a strong advocate in favor of the ordinance, said she was disappointed that the board chose to delay the vote.

“It’s politically motivated,” she told the Guardian. “Instead of doing what’s best for the city, they are stalling.”

While Marcous noted that it’s always prudent to obtain more information, it was unnecessary for the public to “provide further rebuttal” on the ordinance that she believes already has overwhelming support. Marcous states that some of the consequences of delaying the vote include the costs the city incurs for “dealing with the blight and litter and diverting the vital funds from more important issues.”

If the board decides to authorize the ordinance, Marcous sees San Francisco as a success story for other cities to emulate.

“It shows we are willing to do something about the egregious distribution practices that are only helping the Yellow Pages,” she said.

YPA Vice President of Public Policy and Sustainability Amy Healy posted on the Yellow Pages blog last week, before the vote was made, that the Yellow Pages Coalition “will be working diligently over the next week to influence the other members of the Board of Supervisors.”

Rent control is sticking point in Parkmerced debate

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee

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March 30, 2011

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Rent control is sticking point in Parkmerced debate

After a marathon debate at the March 29 Board of Supervisors meeting lasting several hours, a vote to certify the environmental impact report (EIR) for the masssive Parkmerced overhaul was pushed back until May 24.

Sup. David Campos raised concerns about the plan, saying the outstanding issue for him was questions surrounding whether a provision of the development agreement guaranteeing preservation of rent control could be enforced. He said he did not feel supervisors could rule on the EIR without having that issue settled. Campos made the motion to continue, which was seconded by Sup. Sean Elsbernd and agreed upon unanimously.

“I have to say that for me, there is still a question that remains that has to do with the potential loss of rent control housing,” Campos said. “I understand that there are differences of opinion with respect to that issue, but I am still puzzled as to whether or not we have all the information that needs to be had to make an informed decision here. I think that something as important as this project requires that we have as much information as we can.”

Elsbernd, whose District 7 includes Parkmerced, raised concerns about the impact to residents of living in a long-term construction zone, but he said he was convinced that the project could help improve public transit and serve to limit congrestion on the western side of the city. “It’s one step backward to get two steps forward,” he said of the increase in roughly 6,000 parking spaces that would go along with the project. “The west side is dramatically underserved when it comes to public transit, and it’s only going to improve with a project like this.”

But Campos, who sparred with Elsbernd at many turns throughout the lengthy discussion, said it was hard to see how traffic along 19th Avenue would improve with the addition of so many more cars. “You’re talking about 9,450 parking spaces, plus 1,681 street parking spaces, so the total number is 11,131. … So I’m trying to understand how such a significant increase will actually help congestion, which is what was said earlier. How’s that something that will actually make things better, not worse?”

Focus on tax reform and scrap the sleazy giveaway

Sasha Cuttler

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March 29, 2011

33

A few weeks ago, when the Guardian was the only media outlet in San Francisco that seemed to care about the huge Twitter/Mid-Market/Tenderloin tax exclusion zone – which everyone took as a done deal because it was sponsored by Sups. David Chiu and Jane Kim and backed by fiscal conservatives – I had a very illuminating interview with City Economist Ted Egan.

We at the Guardian were instinctively opposed to huge tax breaks for a wealthy corporation and big landlords and our position only became stronger as I reviewed thousands of pages of internal city emails and other public documents and got a sense of the sleazy and haphazard way this was created, and with the unsupported claims being used to sell it.

But then, when I asked Egan what convinced him that Twitter would leave without a tax break, he said the tax on stock options was what convinced him. If media reports were right and Twitter goes public for $12 billion and employees got about a quarter of that, that would translate into about a $40 million one-time tax bill. And that, Egan said, would probably convince most companies to flee.

It made sense to me and the other editors here at the Guardian, so our position evolved and our coverage focused on the rest of the tax giveaway, which Egan told us and the Board of Supervisors Budget & Finance Subcommittee – in two separate hearings – really didn’t make much economic sense. SEIU Local 1021 and other progressive opponents of the legislation also softened their opposition and acknowledged that some kind of change to the stock option taxation was probably needed.

Today, as Sups. Chiu, Ross Mirkarimi, and Mark Farrell all introduced varying forms of legislative fixes to the stock option issue — and the media coverage of the issue begins to pick up steam – what’s somehow being lost in the renewed debate is how ridiculously corrupt and wasteful the city’s initial approach to the Twitter problem was.

“One is a sleazy land grab and the other is honestly trying to deal with tax policy,” says Gabriel Haaland of SEIU 1021, which opposes the Tenderloin/Mid-Market deal but is open to legislation tweaking the payroll tax’s stock options provisions.

Yet, unbelievably, many city officials are talking about approving the massive tax giveaway zone on April 5 and then continuing to give even more tax breaks to Zynga, Yelp, and any other high-tech companies that threaten to leave. Rather than stepping back to reevaluate the whole thing (as Farrell, to his credit, seems to be advocating in his comments to the press), most the officials involved in this seem to be bent on simply giving in to what corporations say they want and asking for almost nothing in return.

As I report in this week’s Guardian, continuing my earlier investigation, there are serious unanswered questions and hints of corruption in the way many Tenderloin and Mid-Market properties were offered tax breaks, largely at the direction of private power broker Randy Shaw, yet proponents of the measure have plowed forward with the deal anyway, denying reasonable requests for a public review of what the city is getting in the deal, for reasons nobody can explain.

During a high-stakes election year, when many of these deal makers will be seeking campaign contributions from the very interests that would benefit most of this reckless and ill-considered giveaway of public funds, it would behoove us all to take a deep breath, get the facts, get off our knees, regain a sense of civic pride, and have our toughest negotiators get the best deal we can with these companies.

And those negotiators probably aren’t from the Office of Economic and Workforce Development, which cut a bad deal with corporate America on the America’s Cup (another story on which the Guardian was a loud and early whistle-blower) and a bad deal on Twitter, largely because this agency exists almost entirely to serve the business community and not city residents. Personally, I’d love to see Egan and Budget Analyst Harvey Rose as the city’s negotiating team, two straight shooters who don’t have a political pony in the race.

There is a reasonable solution to this problem here somewhere, and it isn’t simply about slashing the taxes for every big corporation that wants it, or with simply waiving payroll taxes on stock options, a provision the board created in 2004 to address the problem of companies using inflated stock options to get around their payroll taxes. Mirkarimi’s legislation includes a floor of at least $100,000 in salary per employees that companies would still be taxed on when they go public, which seems like a good idea. Farrell has suggested finding a way to value stock options as compensation at the time employees buy them, which also sounds reasonable to us – even though we’re a progressive publication and he’s arguably the board’s most conservative member.

You see, reasonable solutions are possible. But that has to start with abandoning the ill-conceived, badly executed Mid-Market/Tenderloin tax exclusion zone – which Egan has said won’t achieve its desired goals anyway – and dealing solely with the issue of business taxes and retention.

Then, on a separate track and with a more transparent process, the city can also deal with revitalizing Mid-Market and the Tenderloin using smart, creative, multi-pronged strategies – some of which may still involve incentives to Twitter and other desirable companies – that don’t rely on voodoo economics and wishful fantasies that seem to mask darker ulterior motives.

Understanding radiation

Mary Magee

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March 29, 2011

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The Bradbury Science Museum in Los Alamos, New Mexico contains a bunch of exhibits about the history of Los Alamos National Laboratory and its science and research work. And with alarm bells continuing to sound around the world in light of Japan’s troubled efforts to contain a nuclear contamination crisis at its Fukushima Daiichi plant, (and folks on the West Coast and beyond stockpiling potassium iodide for fear of exposure to drift) I found myself drawn to the “Understanding Radiation” display during a recent visit to the museum, which includes a chart to help folks calculate their annual radiation dose (scroll down to the end of this post to figure out your own personal annual dose.)

The display notes that the three main sources of radiation for folks in the United States are from outer space, fallout from past nuclear testing and nuclear power plants.

“Exposure doesn’t make you radioactive but can cause biological harm measured in units called rems,” the display stated, noting that our exposure to ionizing radiation is measured by a unit called a rem.
“On average, each of us receives a total dose of about one-third of a rem (362 millirem) per year, from all sources,” the display notes.

The average American receives about 360 millirems in one year, according to the Bradbury Science Museum, and the display includes a pie chart that shows that the biggest slice of our annual dose comes from natural sources, starting with radon gas, which is present in most rocks and soil and building materials, is produced in small amounts in buildings, and can build up indoors, especially in basements and tightly sealed buildings.

The second highest source is a combination of natural cosmic radiation (the dose you receive from the sun and outer space) and terrestrial radiation (the dose you receive from the ground).

The third largest dose comes from medical and dental procedures, including X-rays.

That’s followed by internal radiation (what comes from our bodies), consumer products, other sources, and lastly, an average annual but very small dose from Los Alamos National laboratory activities.

UPDATE: A spokesperson for the Los Alamos National Laboratory clarified that the small dose from the lab’s activities opnly applies to folks living in the immediate area. “Our exhibit notes that Laboratory activities contribute about 1/10 millirem to the public – to a person who lives in Los Alamos year-round,” they clarified. “ It doesn’t apply to someone living in say, the Bay Area, let alone a person who lives in the Bay Area and doesn’t visit Los Alamos (or the nearby Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for that matter).” [So, my apologies for my misinterpretation, and thanks for the clarification!]

Now, maybe, like me, you did not pay attention/or did not retain the information from your chemistry classes on nuclear fission, fusion and fallout. If so, what follows could be of interest to you.

And if you did pay attention, rest assured that I’m trying to figure out if folks will need to start factoring in a new annual dose level related to leaks from the Fukushima Daiichi plant. (Today’s news is all about how marine life faces a threat from the runoff: high levels of radioactive cesium have been detected in seawater near the damaged nuclear reactors, and this is raising the disturbing prospect that radiation could enter the food chain. Cesium 137 levels have been detected at 20 times the normal level at 1,000 ft from the effluent at the plant. These levels are far less than the iodine 131, which has been found spilling from the plant at concentrations of more than 1,150 times the maximum allowable levels. But the problem is that unlike iodine 131 which degrades relatively quickly, (it becomes half as potent every 8 days), cesium 137 has a half life of 30 years and is absorbed by marine plants, which are eaten by fish, and tends to bioaccumulate (become more concentrated) as it moves up the food chain (as big fish eat smaller fish).

Anyways, I’ll update this post, when we get more information about the size and nature of the leaks, which are thought to have occurred when seawater was dumped on the overheating reactors. (The idea is that the seawater picked up the radiation before it washed back out to sea, but other sources are also thought to be possible).

In the meantime, read on if you want to brush up your understanding of radiation/or better understand the sources of your annual personal radiation dose:

“Radiation is energy in the form of waves or particles,” the BSM display observes. “Radiation is energy traveling at the speed of light. It makes up familiar parts of our world, such as visible light, ultraviolet light and infrared light, radio and television waves, X-rays and microwaves.”

That said, the display goes on to explain that the problem is with ionizing radiation.

“Is radiation harmful?” the display asks. “Most radiation is not, but some radiation carries enough energy to separate molecules or remove electrons from atoms and this can damage living tissue. This type of radiation is called ionizing radiation. It includes particles and energy emitted from radioactive elements and the X-rays used in medicine or at airports. A less energetic form of radiation, ultraviolet rays from the sun, can burn our skin.”

So, how can we protect ourselves from ionizing radiation?
“We can protect ourselves from the effect of ionizing radiation by applying three principles: time, distance and shielding,” the display states.

“We use time to allow a radioactive material to decay and thus decrease its radioactivity. Or we limit the amount of time we are exposed to the source of radiation.”

“We use distance between us and the source to decrease the likelihood it will reach us.”

“We use shielding between us and the source of radiation to absorb or stop radiation before it reaches us.”

“We can protect ourselves from the effects of ionizing radiation from internal hazards (inhaling or ingesting radioactive material) through the use of engineered controls (like containment and ventilation) and personal protective equipment (like anti-contamination clothing and respirators).

Ionizing radiation comes in two forms: a) Waves or rays and b) particles.

One type is similar to visible light and occurs as waves or rays, e.g. gamma rays, X-rays. And, as the museum explains, gamma radiation and X-rays can easily penetrate our bodies and so are external hazards. They can be stopped by dense material such as lead, concrete and steel. Examples of gamma-emitting radionuclides are cesium-137 and cobalt-60, uranium-235 and plutonium-239, in addition to being alpha-emitters, also emit gamma radiation.

The other type of ionizing radiation is known as alpha, beta and neutron radiation and is produced by energetically charged particles.

Alpha radiation
Alpha particles (two protons and two neutrons) can be stopped by a single sheet of paper and cannot penetrate clothing or the outer layer of skin. So externally, alpha radiation is not a hazard. But if alpha particles enter your body by breathing and eating, then they can be an internal hazard. [Examples of alpha-emitting radionuclides are Uranium-235 and plutonium-239. And as recent reports from Japan have explained, plutonium has been found at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. While the source is currently not clear, the reactors could be a source, as could tests of tests of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, because even though these ended in 1980, they left trace amounts of plutonium around the world. This is worrying because Plutonium-239 has a half-life of 24,000 years and can cause healthy tissue to turn cancerous if it gets deep inside the body.)

Beta radiation:
Most beta particles are negatively charged and have a short range in air and cannot penetrate other substances very deeply. But if beta radiation has enough energy, it can penetrate your skin, so it’s considered an external hazard. It can be stopped by plastic, aluminum, wood, and clothing. Examples are phosphorous-32 and hydrogen-3 (tritium) which is deemed to be a very low hazard.

Neutron radiation
Neutrons are neutrally charged, subatomic particles emitted during a nuclear reaction in radiation-generating devices like accelerators and nuclear power plants.
They are also emitted by special radionuclides like californium-252 or by ionization of materials like plutonium plus berrylium. Highly penetrating, water, concrete and hydrogen-rich materials make effective shields.”

How to measure your exposure
Our exposure to ionizing radiation is measured by a unit called a rem.
“On average, each of us receives a total dose of about one-third of a rem (362 millirem) per year, from all sources,” the museum display notes.

How to calculate your personal annual radiation dose.

1. Calculate your Cosmic radiation level
The level of cosmic radiation depends on your altitude:
If you live at sea level, you receive 26 millirem, a year.
If you live at 0-1,000 ft above sea level, it’s 28 millirem.
If you live at 1,001-2,000 ft, it’s 31 millirem.
If you live at 2,001-3000 ft, it’s 35 millirem.
If you live at 3,001-4,000 ft, it’s 41 millirem.
If you live at 4,001-5,000 ft, it’s 47 millirem.
If you live at 5,001-6,000 ft, it’s 52 millirem.
If you live at 6,001-7,000 ft, it’s 66 millirem.
If you live at 7,001-8.000 ft, it’s 79 millirem.
If you live at 8,001 ft and plus, it’s 96 millirem.

2. Now add the terrestrial radiation, the dose you receive from the ground:
If you live closest to the Atlantic Coast, add 23 mrem.
If you live closest to the Gulf of Mexico, add 23 mrem.
If you live closest to Colorado Plateau (AZ, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico) add 90 mrem.
If you live closest to the MidWest, add 46 mrem.
If you live closest to the Pacific Coast, add 46 mrem.
If you live closest to Alaska, add 46 mrem.
If you live closest to Hawaii, add 46 mrem.

3. Add your radon gas dose
Add 200 mrem (the U.S. Average) for radon gas we breathe.

4. Add natural radiation dose for food and water
Add 40 mrem for average natural radiation from food we eat and water we drink.

5. Fallout from past atmospheric testing of nuclear devices
Add 0.5 mrem for fallout from past atmospheric testing of nuclear devices.

6. Occupational exposure
Add 44 mrem if you work at the Los Alamos National Laboratory as a radiation worker, or your occupational dose from your job.

7. Radiation from different medical treatments
If you have X-rays of the arm, hand, foot, or leg, add 1 mrem.
If you have Xrays of the chest, add 6 mrem.
If you have X-rays of the pelvis/hip, add 65 mrem.
If you have X-rays of the skull/neck, add 20 mrem.
If you have barium enemas, add 405 mrem.
If you have upper gastrointestinal tract radiography, add 245 mrem.
If you have dental X-rays, add 2 mrem.
If you have CT (computed tomography) scans, add 110 mrem.
If you have a plutonium-powered pacemaker, add 100 mrem.
If you have a thyroid scan, add 14 mrem.
If you have porcelain crowns or false teeth, add 0.07 mrem.

8. Depending on your lifestyle, place of residence, here are more factors to add:

If you travel by air plane, add 0.5 mrem per hour in air.
If your luggage is inspected, add 0.002 mrem.
If you live within 50 miles of a coal-fired electric utility plant, add 0.03 mrem.
If you live within 50 miles of a nuclear reactor, add 0.01 mrem (not counting Japan).
If you smoke 1/2 pack of cigarettes per day, add 500 mrem.
If you smoke 1 pack of cigarettes per day, add 1,000 mrem.
If you smoke 11/2 packs per day, add 1,500 mrem.
If you smoke 2 packs per day, add 2,000 mrem.
If you have a smoke detector, add 0.008 mrem.
If you live in a stone, adobe, brick, or concrete building, add 7 mrem.
If you wear a luminous wristwatch, add 0.06 mrem.
If you use a gas compression lantern, add 6.2 mrem.

9. Average annual dose from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, add O.1 mrem.

The museum notes that this dose is, “a small fraction of the amount the public receives from some consumer products and our natural environment.” And it clarifies that a mrem, or millirem, is one thousandth of a rem.

So, you’ve added up your annual dose, but what does this mean in terms of health?

“Radioactive materials give off ionizing radiation that can alter the chemical makeup of human tissue,” the museum display notes. ‘The amount of damage depends on the amount of radioactivity.” (And the time, distance and shielding involved, see above).

‘It’s clear that very high exposures such as those experienced at Chernobyl can be fatal,” the display continues, noting that 31 people died within the first few weeks at Chernobyl after receiving radiation doses in excess of 1,000 rems, and that many others, who were exposed to doses of 100 rems, have a 1 in 100 chance of developing cancer.

“It’s very difficult to determine at exactly what level exposure to radioactivity becomes dangerous,” the display states, noting that worldwide the number of fatalities over the next 50 years were estimated to be as high as 17,000. (Again, this was before the March 2011 triple disaster in Japan.)

The display observes that a 1991 study by the International Atomic Energy Agency measured no increase in any radiation-related illnesses in villages near the site.
“But the study did not look at the highest-risk populations closest to the site,” the display added, noting that there were no fatalities in 1979 at Three Mile Island, when reactor failure allowed “small amounts of radioactive water and steam to be released from the containment structure.”

“Exposure levels to folks nearby were less than 100 millirem per year, which is about one third of the normal background yearly dose,” the display observed.

It also noted that strontium and radium are biologically active, which means they can migrate to bone tissue and stay there a long time. And that radioactive iodine can replace the stable iodine which is very important to human health. “Radioactive iodine is taken up by the thyroid and can pose a significant health risk.” (Hence the rush on potassium iodine, even though radioactive iodine degrades fairly fast, and the radioactive risk can be combated by banning fishing and the consumption of seafood for a period of time as Japan is already doing.)

The display clarifies that exposure doesn’t make you radioactive, but it can cause biological harm, and that medical X-rays are by far the largest artificial source of radiation for the average American.

For more information, you can also check this chart from the Public Domain here

Chauncey Bailey killer struggles with testimony

Sasha Cuttler

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March 24, 2011

1

Chauncey Bailey killer struggles with testimony

Report from The Chauncey Bailey Project, of which the Guardian is a member:

By Thomas Peele and Josh Richman

OAKLAND — Devaughndre Broussard, the admitted killer of Oakland Post Editor Chauncey Bailey, struggled through testimony Thursday morning against former Your Black Muslim Bakery leader Yusuf Bey IV, the man he says ordered him to commit two murders.

Broussard entered Judge Thomas Reardon’s courtroom at 11:39 a.m. wearing shackles and a red jail jumpsuit. He passed in front of the defense table where Bey IV and co-defendant Antoine Mackey sat staring at him intently; he didn’t meet their eyes. Bey IV wore a tan suit and a bow tie — the symbol of the Black Muslim movement that Broussard said he himself joined in 2006.

Within minutes, Broussard was asking for questions to be repeated, and seemed to find it difficult to formulate answers. Bey IV court-appointed lawyer, Gene Peretti, made numerous objections in the first few minutes.

Reardon frequently jumped in, trying to clarify and simplify Krum’s questions about how Broussard came to join the bakery.

Broussard said Richard Lewis, a close family friend who was in a San Francisco jail with him, had also spent time with Bey IV when Bey IV was awaiting bail in a vehicular assault case. Broussard was due to be discharged the next day and Lewis asked him his plans.

“Probably going back and hanging out in the streets,” Broussard said he replied. Lewis, though, offered Broussard an alternative: joining the ranks of so-called soldiers working for Bey IV at his bakery in Oakland.

Lewis said Bey IV needed “people he could depend on,” Broussard told a jury of seven women and five men.

When Krum next asked him “what agenda (Bey IV) had,” Broussard said, “I am not understanding.”

The attorney who negotiated Broussard’s plea bargain two years ago, LeRue Grim, watched from the front row.

“That’s just him,” Grim said outside of court about Broussard’s labored answers. “He’s a little bit meticulous.”

Grim said Broussard told his family to stay away from court on Thursday because he feared for their safety.

“He thought they might be in danger,” Grim said of Broussard’s stepfather and half sister, who had wanted to attend.

Speaking in the courthouse lobby during Thursday’s lunch recess, Peretti said he had no idea why Broussard would believe his family would have anything to fear.

“I don’t think he’s going to be found credible,” he said, noting Broussard has to deliver compelling testimony to keep up his part of a plea deal that will keep him from a life sentence. “There is no prosecution case without Broussard … and he’s told many, many versions of what happened.”

“He is a liar, that’s my opinion — he is an admitted liar,” Peretti added.

The lawyer said his client, Bey IV, is “more than disappointed, he’s outraged” at Broussard’s plea deal and testimony. He also said Bey IV “never wanted to be CEO of the bakery.” He reluctantly took the job following his elder brother’s murder and lacked the business experience and maturity to make it work, Peretti said.

As for the bow tie Bey IV wore Thursday, Peretti said, “There’s no significance to that — it was the one tie that matched his suit.”

Earlier Thursday morning, jurors flinched — and some looked away — when shown an autopsy photo of Bailey’s face, blasted away by pellets from a 12-gauge shotgun.

Krum displayed the photo on a large screen as the forensic pathologist who performed Bailey’s autopsy, Dr. Thomas Rogers, described the wound. One juror, a bald man in glasses, grimaced noticeably.

The photo showed what Rogers described as an eight-inch wound of his “face bones, brain, skull, teeth.” Bey IV and Mackey glanced at it and then looked away.

Krum asked Rogers the condition of Bailey’s left eye. “It was basically destroyed,” Rogers replied.

Lawyers for Bey IV and Mackey asked Rogers no questions.

A creative way out of the state budget mess

Zelda Bronstein

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March 24, 2011

36

A creative way out of the state budget mess

With no Republicans willing at this point to go along with the governor’s June election plans, Jerry Brown has quite the problem on his hands. There never really was a Plan B. And now he’s got to find one, fast. He’s already made the cuts, and they’re awful. He’s not going to get his own party to go along with much more. But it’s legally dubious whether he can put taxes on a special election ballot without any Republican support, and he clearly doesn’t want to.

So what’s the best option? Well, the deep thinkers over at CalBuzz have a brilliant scheme. The idea: Pass an all-cuts budget, a devastating, ugly, puke-inducing thing — then

gather signatures to place that on the November ballot, with a provision that if the measure fails the cuts will not occur because the 2009 taxes and fees will be re-instated for five years. As a practical matter, cuts can be delayed to occur after November. And costs can be shifted to local government for local responsibilities whether the measure wins or loses.

Then let Grover Norquist, Jon Fleischman, radio heads John and Ken and the rest of their not-our-problem cadre be forced to argue for the budget ballot measure while Democrats and labor argue against it.

It’s much easier to get a vote against something in California — particularly when that something contains provisions that nobody wants. A No vote means Yes on taxes and No on cuts.

Man, why aren’t these guys running for office?

Housing: Density and affordability

Zelda Bronstein

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March 24, 2011

44

The way the Chron describes it, the debate over the city’s updated Housing Element is all about density. And that’s part of the issue, no doubt: For years, people on the west side of town have resisted any increased density, meaning all the new housing has to get crammed into the eastern neighborhoods. And increased density, on some level, is going to have to be part of the future in San Francisco.

But there’s another, more important, piece of the puzzle. The Housing Element draft acknowledges that, based on community needs, more than 60 percent of all new housing in San Francisco should be affordable — that is, below market rate. And the draft admits that’s not about to happen:

However, even with these strategies the City will not likely see the development 31,000 new units, particularly its affordability goals of creating over 12,000 units affordable to low and very low income levels projected by the RHNA.

In other words: Existing city policy is inadequate to meet the needs that the city formally agrees must drive public policy.

The Planning Department won’t come right out and say it, but the message is pretty clear: Our current planning and housing policy — driven primarily by the needs of the private sector — is not going to come remotely close to solving the housing crisis. Either San Francisco has to come up with a huge amount of public money — billions of dollars — to underwrite new affordable housing construction or there has to be a much greater requirement that private developers chip in.

Building market-rate condos in San Francisco is a lucrative business. It does nothing to meet the city’s needs. There’s a disconnect here, and until we resolve it, the affordable housing crisis will continue.