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Politics Blog

Prison report: CDCR won’t admit mistakes

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By Just A Guy

Editors note: Just A Guy is an inmate in a California state prison. His blogs typically run twice a week.

It was a good week for Jaycee Dugard, who was discovered after being imprisoned for 18 years in an Antioch backyard. But it wasn’t a good week for the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office, which missed several opportunities to solve the case, including two visits to the home of Phillip Garrido, the paroled sex offender who is charged with kidnapping Dugard.

But at least Contra Costa Sheriff Warren E. Rupf had the courage to admit the mistakes, ask forgiveness and take steps to assure that something like this would never happen again.

What was the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation response? Remember, CDCR is responsible not only for people in prison but for people on parole. In typical fashion, agency spokesman Gordon Hinkle denied that anything had gone wrong or that CDCR had been remiss in any way, and said that that the parole agent had gone in Garrido’s backyard but because of the way it was situated didn’t find anything strange.

Wait: These agents visited a registered sex offender’s house once a month, yet found nothing awry?

Far be it for the people at CDCR to even admit that they are doing a poor jobs. They never admit responsibility for anything. Yet they are tasked with rehabilitation.

Isn’t a key component of the rehabilitation process admitting your mistakes? What kind of example does it set when the entity so concerned about the public’s safety is incapable of admitting it has done something wrong performed poorly?

Examples like this should make it obvious that CDCR is not protecting you but protecting itself through a continuous enterprise of lying, hiding the truth, covering up the facts and skewing information in order to paint a picture or inmates as unrepentant evildoers bent on destruction — while coloring itself as a benign bureaucracy with the unenviable job of keeping us at bay by “walking the toughest beat.”

The beat is so “tough” that the parole agents didn’t thoroughly investigate the back yard of a convicted sex offender. I guarantee my parole officer would investigate my back yard if it were in such disarray – at the very least, the yard was ripe to be a meth lab and Garrido’s deranged rants would be a cause for concern.

But you know what one of the big problems with the scenario is? The parole agent probably had 200 people to watch, 100 of them no nonviolent offenders, so he or she didn’t have time to thoroughly investigate what was going on.

Wait – it was 18 years! Good job, CDCR.

Government’s number on priority is to protect the public, but with that comes a responsibility to define what the public is being protected from. Do we really need to be protected from a casual drug user, or even addict (any more than we need to be protected from a casual drinker or even an alcoholic)? If drugs were decriminalized, taxed and regulated by the FDA — or even handed out free to registered addicts – a large percentage of our property crimes would disappear. The black market would collapse, prices would drop and drug-related murders would decline.

But most important, parole officers wouldn’t have to be so overwhelmed that they don’t have the time to investigate the jungle-like backyard of a convicted rapist who believes he was inspired by God to commit atrocities on teenage girls.

Who are the real criminals here?

City petitions court to end bike injunction

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By Steven T. Jones
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The three-year-old ban on new bicycle-related projects in San Francisco – imposed because city officials failed to do a detailed Environmental Impact Report with its Bicycle Plan – may soon come to an end.

The San Francisco City Attorney’s Office this afternoon filed a petition with Judge Peter Busch seeking to end the injunction, arguing that the recently approved Bike Plan and supporting EIR address the concerns that led to the injunction, which banned everything from bike lanes to simple sidewalk racks.

Prison report: A bomb plant?

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By Just A Guy


Editors note: Just A Guy is a California state prison inmate. His blogs typically run twice a week, depending on his ability to communicate from behind bars.

“On Wednesday, 8/26/09, at approx 2015 hours, [NAME] discovered an anonymous note while retrieving the sick-call slips from the Facility Four drop box. The contents of the note stated that bomb-making materials, weapons and a zip gun are being passed through 21 and 22 buildings en route to Building 19. The note also indicates a riot is planned on Facility Four this week.”

This is the memo we woke up to this morning at California State Prison, Solano. This is the fifth time in 60 days that an anonymous note has been “discovered” in which a zip gun was part of the threat, and at least the seventh time since April of 2008 that the institution was locked down or placed on modified program because of a zip gun.

No zip gun has ever been found. I can’t wait to see evidence of the bomb manufacturing facility. Apparently one building manufactured the bombs, sends them to the finishing plant building, which then sends the finished product to the distribution building to be used in the riot!

This, folks, is your tax dollars at work. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation doesn’t believe in the boy who cried wolf, because anonymous notes are apparently held as fact and many person-hours of your tax dollars will be spent searching for the contraband. But the only real contraband they will find will be the cell phones brought in by the very same people searching for contraband zip guns and bomb-making materials.

The funny thing about this is that if an inmate were to ask for protection because he wanted out of a gang or feared for his life, he would have to provide verifiable evidence of the threat. Anonymous information is only viewed as potentially factual if the threat is posed to the safety of the institution or its officers. Verifiability only comes into play when an inmate asks for his or her own protection.

On a bright note, Arnold called the Assembly gutless and questioned the ease by which the Republicans voted to cut funding for education but were so scared of prison releases. Good for him.

The hypocrites in Sacramento and in the CDC never cease to amaze me. They truly try to get the public to believe that public safety is their main concern, but do so much to ensure the public’s detriment that it defies description.

I keep saying it over and over and over: The people in prison with less than a year left, violent or not, are all going to get out anyway, you fucking idiots.

A spike in crime may occur, but is that going to be because of releases, or because California’s unemployment rate is above 11 percent, there’s no money for education, and those released (early or not) can’t get a fucking job?

What’s the unemployment rate for parolees? And now, in this economy, who is going to hire a guy who just got out of prison with no practical job training or experience when some cat with an MBA is also applying for that barrista job at Starbucks because Mr. MBA used to work for General Motors — and now Mr. MBA’s kids can’t get any financial aid for college because MBA made too much money the year prior to being laid off. And even if the kids did have the money, they wouldn’t be able to start school until spring, because classes have been cut, so they take jobs at McDonald’s that could have been gone to parolees.

Shit flows downhill …

Really, they should just send all those early-released inmates to CSP Solano, where there seem to be plenty of positions available at the bomb, weapons and zip-gun manufacturing facility.

(PS: The lockdown finally ended about 11 a.m. ….)

Stop the chemical companies

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By Tim Redmond

Sen. Mark Leno wants to stop the chemical industry from pumping toxic crap into products used by babies and kids. SB 772 ought to be a slam dunk — but the chemical companies are fighting back. There’s a plea on Calitics for people to get invoved and help.

Leno’s used to this sort of battle, but he told me even he is amazed by the chemical industry’s tactics. IF we can’t win this one — a very mild bill protecting children — you wonder if we can beat these folks at anything.

Groups push for federal immigration reform

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By Megan Rawlins

Michael Tsui grew up in San Francisco. The youngest child of a single mother, he went to public schools, worked hard, did well and, at 21 years old, he’s now a computer-engineering student at San Jose State University.

The young man looks, sounds and acts like any other American college student working towards graduation and worrying about job prospects. Except Tsui isn’t worried he won’t find a job in his chosen field and location; he’s worried that he can’t work legally and might be deported.

Tsui is an undocumented immigrant, brought here from Hong Kong at the age of five by his mother along with two older siblings on tourist visas. His tourist visa was transferred to a student visa, but when that expired, Tsui entered the nebulous and shadowy world of the undocumented.

And he is the kind of person that civil liberties and immigrant rights groups are trying to help with their campaign to reform federal immigration laws, which was launched last week in San Francisco.

Prison report: A confederacy of morons

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By Just A Guy


Editors note: Just A Guy is an inmate in a California state prison. His dispatches typically run twice a week, when he is able to communicate from behind bars.

It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve blogged, but Tim was on vacation so my contact was away.

I suppose a lot has happened, but has it really? Assembly Speaker Karen Bass has postponed voting on prison cuts because the Assembly does not have enough votes to pass the bill that would enable releases.

It seems that the stumbling block is the reduction of some crimes from felonies to misdemeanors. The majority of the reductions seem to be property crimes, where the likelihood of violence is very slim. The glaring problem, at least to me, is the possession laws, which aren’t included.

I just feel that this state is run by such a bunch of morons I don’t really know why I write about it. Everyone is so afraid of actually facing the problems of the prison system that they just do nothing. In my business we call this “paralysis by analysis.”

“We walk the toughest beat.” Isn’t that the mantra of California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation employees? What a crock.

The CDCR spends so much time trying to protect itself from itself it’s a wonder the operation can get anything done at all. It is, seriously, the most ineffective bureaucracy I’ve ever seen, with petty infighting from the rank and file all the way up to the senior administration. It’s a place where the product is the people that they are supposed to be protecting the public from — but the reality is that they have mastered putting the public in greater danger through creating a self-perpetuating machine in which their product becomes ever-more violent, thus ensuring CDCR’s future for the long hall.

What else has happened? Oh yeah, can’t forget about the riot down in Chino.

Surprisingly, Arnold attributed the riot to the overcrowded conditions and didn’t automatically use it as a mechanism to say how bad we all are and how this proves our incorrigibility.

I am not in a particularly good mood. I am so disgusted by this state, by CDCR, by the people who purport to have integrity but are willing to further their cause using any measure, irrespective of who gets in the way. I can’t wait for the day I am able to write about everything freely, and will get my chance to shed the true light on what’s happening at CDCR.

Esto es ridículo

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By Steven T. Jones

OK, this is sooooo irritating. As we’ve repeatedly pointed out, Mayor Gavin Newsom regularly refuses to comply with city law and release his detailed daily schedule, denying us the right to know who he’s meeting with and whether he’s doing any work for the city. Most days, the required public schedule simply says he “has no public events” or is “to conduct meetings in City Hall.”

But now that he’s off in Mexico on a PG&E-sponsored trip that has nothing to do with San Francisco, his taxpayer-paid Office of Communications issues the most detailed itinerary of Newsom’s day that I’ve ever seen. These people are shameless. No wonder nobody likes them.

Restaurants back SF employer health mandate

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By Steven T. Jones
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Zazie insures its workers, wants other restaurants to do the same, and has the best Crab Benedict in town.

While the City Attorney’s Office prepares for the final battle in its defense of the Healthy San Francisco universal health care program against the legal attacks by the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, a couple of SF restaurants have filed briefs supporting the city.

Medjool (whose owner, Gus Murad, was the subject of a planning code controversy earlier this year) and Zazie (everyone’s favorite Cole Valley brunch spot) filed friend of the court briefs supporting city arguments that the US Supreme Court should reject the GGRA’s appeal of a Ninth Circuit ruling that the city is legally requiring SF businesses to provide their employees health insurance or pay a fee to support Healthy San Francisco.

“The Health Care Ordinance serves the interests of amici curiae, Zazie and Medjool, medium-sized restaurants in San Francisco, because it enables these restaurants to act responsibly by providing health insurance coverage for employees while maintaining their ability to compete economically. The ordinance further serves the interests of Zazie and Medjool by enabling the restaurants to protect the health of both employees and customers, by ensuring that employees have access to affordable health care services, and by helping to prevent episodes of food contamination by ill employees. Amici believe that not only is the ordinance in their own interest but it is in the interest of all restaurants and San Francisco residents, because it allows businesses to compete in a fair and level context while also ensuring that all San Francisco workers have access to affordable health care,” the brief reads.

BTW, I find it supremely ironic that Mayor Gavin Newsom is using the cost of potential litigation as the main reason for opposing due process for undocumented youth, while Newsom runs for governor citing his two principal achievements – Healthy San Francisco and legalizing same-sex marriages – defense of which have been the most expensive legal fights the city has engaged in since he took office.

Did you get the (leaked Campos) memo?

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Text and photos by Sarah Phelan

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After today’s swearing-in ceremony for SFPD Chief George Gascón , (which former chief Heather Fong attended in pants and a pink cardigan,) I asked Mayor Gavin Newsom if he was concerned that someone in his office had leaked a confidential memo about Sup. David Campos’ proposal to extend due process to immigrant youth.

(The City Attorney’s office prepared the attorney-client privileged memo at Newsom’s request. Newsom’s office then leaked the memo to the Chronicle, which cited the memo in an article that was critical of Campos’s legislation.)

The Mayor responded tersely to my question, noting that clients, in an attorney-client privileged arrangement, can release memos, if they so choose.

“So, you did leak the memo to the Chronicle?” I said.

“I handed it,” Newsom said, pausing to look directly at his spokesperson Nathan Ballard,” to some of my people.”

Newsom’s revelation confirmed what everyone already suspected, but it also appeared to be a defensive move.

Yesterday, the City Attorney noted that it was”not aware of a City official or employee who has acknowledged responsibility for the disclosure.,” and stated that this disclosure therefore “may have been unauthorized.

“The integrity of the attorney-client relationship is essential to my ability to do my job effectively, and, by extension, to the ability of all City officials to be fully apprised of legal issues that may accompany their proposals,” City Attorney Dennis Herrera wrote. “Confidential legal advice is not intended to be fodder in political disputes.”

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And just minutes before Gascón was sworn in, Sup. John Avalos called on Herrera and the Ethics Commission to conduct a formal investigation of the leaked confidential attorney-client privileged memo

Is Newsom helping rightwing nuts to sue the City?

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Text and photos by Sarah Phelan

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Sup. David Campos talks to the media about his proposed legislation to extend due process to undocumented kids.

“Did Mayor Gavin Newsom leak a confidential memo to the Chronicle about Sup. David Campos’ legislation to extend due process to undocumented kids?”

I asked mayoral spokesperson Nathan Ballard this question today. And here’s what he said:

“It’s my understanding that the Chronicle got it from a confidential source,” Ballard replied by email. “You should ask them how they got it.”

As it happens, the Chronicle points to the source of the memo, noting that it was “prepared by the city attorney’s office at the request of Mayor Gavin Newsom.”

In other words, it’s pretty clear that the Mayor’s Office leaked the memo.
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SF allowed to join federal challenge to Prop. 8

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By C. Nellie Nelson

U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker has ruled that San Francisco will be added as a co-plaintiff in the federal court challenge to Proposition 8.

“Judge Walker found we were situated differently. We were the only party to put forth the societal and governmental costs of marriage discrimination. The city has a perspective that private parties and even the state do not bring,” City Attorney Dennis Herrera told the Guardian. “In painstaking detail we put forth costs incurred by the Department of Public Health. Tax consequences. Budget consequences.”

But Judge Walker ruled against naming other anti-Prop. 8 legal groups American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal, and the National Center for Lesbian Rights as parties. He ruled that the Campaign for California Families, which seeks to uphold Prop. 8, could not be a party in the case either. The LGBT law blog lawdork.net summarizes Walker’s decisions, “In short, this has moved the LGBT legal organizations to the periphery of a very prominent and potentially landmark case.”

Embattled Ethics Commission heroes

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By Steven T. Jones

Two of the best, most public-spirited individuals ever to serve the San Francisco Ethics Commission – former staffer and commissioner Joe Lynn and current staffer Oliver Luby – are each fighting serious battles.

Luby — a Lynn protégé who has fought persistent corruption and dysfunction within the department — has been hounded by Director John St. Croix and his lieutenant, Mabel Ng, and now faces a ridiculous investigation for daring to comment from his work computer on flaws in new state ethics rules.

His many progressive supporters and his union, SEIU Local 1021, have each formally protested what they see as illegal retaliation against a whistle-blower and the matter has been shopped out to Oakland’s Ethics chief Dan Purnell (who also did the 2004 investigation of Ng improperly ordering Luby to destroy a document showing a money laundering scheme by the Gavin Newsom for Mayor campaign, the very thing that Ethics is supposed to regulate).

Meanwhile, Lynn faces a far more consequential battle: he’s fighting for his life against leukemia and about to undergo another round of chemotherapy. Friends and supporters of Lynn – a true Ethics pioneer – plan to gather tomorrow at 1 p.m. at Tacqueria Reina at 1550 Howard to show their love and support. All are welcome.

Campos invites Newsom to support due process for all youth

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Text and images by Sarah Phelan

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Sup. David Campos addresses the crowd before introducing legislation to restore due process to undocumented youth.

Yesterday’s rally at City Hall in support of Sup. David Campos’ resolution to restore due process to immigrant youth was a who’s who of all the movers and shakers within the local immigrant reform community.

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Members of Mujeres Unidas y Activas led the crowd in chants of “Si se puede!”

Dozens of community groups, half a dozen supervisors, a representative for Assemblymember Tom Ammiano, Mission High school teacher Derrylyn Tom,, Kate Kendall of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Patti Lee of the Public Defender’s office, Ana Perez of the Central American Resource Center, Lateefah Simon of the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights, Tim Paulson of the San Francisco Labor Council and Rev. Charles Kullmann of the SF Interfaith Coalition were in attendance, to name a few of the hundreds who showed up.

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Board President David Chiu told the crowd that the city needs to “strike the right balance” and ensure public safety and the rights of immigrants.

Noticeably absent were Mayor Gavin Newsom and Sups. Carmen Chu, Sean Elsbernd and Michela Alioto-Pier, none of whom have signed on in support of Campos’ resolution to date. And it seemed like a missed opportunity for Newsom, who needs all the support he can get if he is going to have a chance of winning the governor’s race.

Ana Perez of the Central American Resource Center told the crowd that soon after Newsom’s revised sanctuary policy was implemented last summer, 50 prominent Latino leaders sent Newsom a letter asking him to amend the policy so that immigrant youth would be guaranteed due process.

“California has always been a leader on social issues,” Perez said, as she thanked Campos and the seven other supervisors who are co-sponsoring his resolution to restore due process. ” We have been dismayed by San Francisco’s decision and its current policy which destroys families.”

Chronicle and Guardian agree on Garamendi

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By Steven T. Jones

The San Francisco Bay Guardian and San Francisco Chronicle often differ in our political endorsements. We’re a progressive newspaper and they’re more conservative, particularly on economic issues. So it was a telling coincidence that we each endorsed John Garamendi for Congress is today’s newspapers, making some of the same arguments as we bypassed two other experienced politicians and an attractive newcomer.

The Garamendi campaign had an interesting take on the two papers as it announced the endorsements this morning: “I am honored to have received endorsements from the San Francisco Chronicle and San Francisco Bay Guardian,” said Garamendi. “The Bay Area’s largest newspaper and largest progressive weekly often disagree on a lot of issues, but on the need for experienced leadership in these troubled times, they are in unison. Debates over health care, job creation, and climate change are front and center in Washington, and my three decades in public service have centered on finding innovative solutions to these very real problems. I will represent the people of the 10th Congressional District with the passion and drive that have defined my entire career and remain focused on the serious issues at hand.”

BTW, you can listen to our endorsement interview with Garamendi, as well as Anthony Woods and Adriel Hampton, here.

Hines spy?

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By Rebecca Bowe

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Here’s the latest twist in the fight over 113 Steuart Street, a shuttered two-story building on the city’s northern waterfront that high-profile developer Hines Interests wants to raze and replace with a tall, shiny green building called 110 The Embarcadero. A committee that’s pushing to landmark 113 Steuart is claiming that Hines has used “industrial espionage” to try and thwart their efforts.

On Aug. 4, a group called the 113 Steuart Street Landmark Committee — comprised of preservationists, historians and labor union members — held a meeting at the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 34 Hall to chart their strategy for landmarking 113 Steuart, which would preclude demolition. The site is historically significant, committee members argue, because it served as the labor hall where International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) leader Harry Bridges and the Maritime Strike Committee organized the Waterfront Maritime Strike of 1934. (The ILA was the predecessor to the ILWU.)

The meeting attracted a newcomer. Committee members Ralph Schoenman and Bradley Wiedmaier told the Guardian that Daniel McGill introduced himself to the rest of the group as a “student of urban planning interested in the field” who professed a “deep interest” in the effort to preserve the building. Throughout the planning meeting, Wiedmaier said, McGill was “feverishly taking notes on everything anyone said.”

If McGill really was there as a Hines spy, we doubt he’d last a day as an FBI informant. As any good spy should know, giving your real name makes it much easier for your foes to denounce you as an infiltrator. Suspicions raised, Weidmaier consulted Google the next day and found McGill listed as an Assistant Project Manager at Hines Interests – the very development firm that aims to tear down 113 Steuart.

SF hotel workers rally against corporate cutbacks

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By Cecile Lepage and Megan Rawlins

“What do we want? Contract!
When do we want it? Now!”

It was to the beat of this straightforward chant that close to 1,700 hotel workers marched through downtown San Francisco on Friday, Aug. 14, the day their union contract officially expired. “Today, I’m here to fight for a fair new contract, said Elita Judge, a 10-year housekeeper at the Hotel Vitale. “We want to maintain the high quality health care that we’re enjoying right now.”

Friday’s parade was organized to send a message to the hotel management companies: Unite Here Local 2 union members – who make up 90 percent of the industry employees – are determined to uphold their living standards as negotiations for a new contract are launched.

Newcomers vs. old hands in D10 congressional race

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By Steven T. Jones
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Anthony Woods, John Garamendi, and Adriel Hampton are running for Congress.

Three of the top candidates in the Sept. 1 special election to replace Ellen Tauscher in the East Bay’s District 10 congressional race met with the Guardian’s editorial board last week. In tomorrow’s Guardian, we reveal who we’re endorsing in that race, but for now you can review their interviews.

Below, you’ve find links to sound files from the recorded interviews with John Garamendi, Anthony Woods, and Adriel Hampton. Each are about an hour long and cover the complete endorsement interview.

Gascón asks L.A. cops to review Hugues de la Plaza case

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The Chronicle just broke the news that SFPD chief George Gascón is bringing in Los Angeles homicide detectives to review the June 2007 death of Hugues de la Plaza, a San Francisco resident with dual American and French citizenship, who was found stabbed to death in his locked Hayes Valley apartment after a neighbor saw a pool of blood outside.

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Gascón’s decision is yet another indicator that the new SFPD chief is a take-charge guy. And hopefully LAPD will be able to turn up new leads in this two-year old case. A preliminary report, released by the Office of Citizen Complaints weighed in on, earlier this year, found that the de la Plaza case was not a top priority and that the subsequent investigation suffered from a lack of coordination.

As the Guardian previously reported, the San Francisco Medical Examiner was unable to determine how de la Plaza died. SFPD investigators initially thought the case was a suicide and de la Plaza’s death has never been formally ruled as a homicide.

De la Plaza’s family and his ex-girlfriend Melissa Nix rejected the SFPD’s suicide theory and mounted a long campaign to keep attention on his case, convincing the French government to mount its own investigation.

Team Newsom readies the mudballs

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By Steven T. Jones
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Gavin Newsom has been openly and repeatedly signaling his intention to run a negative primary campaign for governor against Jerry Brown ever since he hired political hitman Garry South, who encouraged his client Steve Westly to beat the crap out of Phil Angelides last time, thus ensuring Arnold Schwarzenegger would keep the governor’s office. Newsom’s determination to take the low road was also reinforced by the recent departure of Eric Jaye, who opposed South’s penchant for scorched earth campaigning.

The Los Angeles County Democratic Central Committee was justifiably concerned and recently unanimously passed a resolution calling for the gubernatorial candidates to sign a clean campaign pledge. The San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee followed suit this week, overwhelmingly passing an identical resolution, with only a few staunch Newsom allies in dissent.

“Democrats cannot afford a negative, bruising primary that leaves our nominee weakened and damaged going into the general election and according to recent published press reports, negative attacks are likely to be forthcoming in the coming weeks,” reads of the resolution’s whereases.

Hotel workers strife returns to SF

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By Steven T. Jones
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Image from SF Chronicle

San Francisco hotel workers plan to demonstrate in the streets tomorrow afternoon, the day that UNITE-HERE Local 2’s contracts with the major San Francisco hotels expire, launching what could well be another pitched labor battle with larger political implications.

In 2004, shortly after Gavin Newsom became mayor, a standoff between the union and the coalition of corporations that own the city’s biggest hotels resulted in strikes and lockouts that were San Francisco’s most significant labor fights of the new century. Newsom tried to mediate the conflict and when the hotels (which had back him for mayor) defied his demand to end the lockout, he walked the picket line with workers.

That moment and Newsom’s decision to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples that same year were arguably the high water marks for his standing with progressives. After that, he checked out, moved to the right, and began to pursue celebrity and the governor’s office.

Now, with hotels apparently using the economic downturn as an excuse to cut their workers’ numbers and benefits, the union gearing up for the fight of its life, and Newsom more focused on running for office than city business, this one might just get ugly. The fun begins at 4 p.m., near the Four Seasons Hotel, Market between 3rd and 4th streets.

San Francisco scores victory in Mirant settlement agreement to shut down plant

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By Rebecca Bowe and Cecile Lepage

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The Guardian’s rooftop view of the Potrero power plant.

“I know that there are many people who doubted that this day would ever come, but I’m happy to report that it finally has,” City Attorney Dennis Herrera announced at a press conference at City Hall this morning.

Herrera was referring to an agreement between the City and County of San Francisco and Mirant Potrero, LLC to shut down of the polluting Potrero Power Plant no later than December 31, 2010. Freshly signed, photocopied and distributed, the settlement agreement represented a major victory for the city attorney and San Francisco elected officials, who’ve been railing against the hazardous effects of the 40-year old gas-fired facility for years.

“Despite the fact that we have over the years been involved in policy debates with Mirant Corporation and litigation … over the last decade, I’m happy to report that they have stepped up as a partner and have committed themselves to working alongside the city and county as we make sure that we get that power plant closed by the end of 2010,” Herrera said.

In addition to requiring the shutdown, the agreement requires Mirant to pay the city $1 million to be put toward addressing pediatric asthma, neighborhood beautification projects and other programs that would be beneficial to the surrounding community. In exchange, the city agrees to drop a lawsuit it filed in April to force Mirant to comply with laws requiring seismic upgrades to unreinforced masonry buildings on the power plant site.

Mirant agrees to close Potrero Power plant by 2010

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By Rebecca Bowe

This just in from City Attorney Dennis Herrera’s office:

City Attorney Dennis Herrera has reached an agreement with Mirant to permanently shutter the company’s Potrero power plant by the end of 2010, and to secure the Atlanta-based energy giant’s unprecedented commitment to join the City in actively pushing for the plant’s closure should state or federal energy regulators attempt to delay it. Under terms of the agreement signed by Mirant officials today, the company will also pay at least $1 million to the City to help address pediatric asthma in nearby communities and to initiate other mitigations in neighborhoods adjacent to the fossil-fueled facility. Mirant will pay another $100,000 to the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office for legal fees and costs.

The agreement was just signed this morning. We’ll give you an update soon with more in-depth information.

Sup. Mirkarimi pushes for transparency in mayor’s security detail costs

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By Rebecca Bowe

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Image courtesy James Ratcliffe

Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi has introduced legislation that would require elected officials to reimburse the city for security-detail costs while traveling the campaign trail, the Chronicle has reported. Mirkarimi has been trying unsuccessfully for more than a month to get the Mayor’s Office to disclose how much is being spent on security for Mayor Gavin Newsom as he campaigns for governor outside San Francisco. In response, he’s been told that revealing that dollar amount would be a security risk.

The legislation also seeks to shine some light another longstanding transparency problem: Newsom’s public calendar. Mirkarimi’s proposed rule would require the mayor to submit a detailed schedule, describing how much time was spent on each activity listed.

The Guardian has noted the mayor’s tendency to reveal only a bare minimum of information in the official schedule he publicizes, telling journalists and concerned citizens virtually nothing about how the people’s business is being conducted.

Sunshine advocate Kimo Crossman, who has been publicly calling for a meatier mayoral calendar for years, pointed out that there are already open-government rules in place that have been ignored. “When the Guardian found out the Mayor Willie Brown was shredding his calendars, part of the Prop G enhancement to [the city’s Sunshine Ordinance] required keeping a very detailed calendar and preserving all correspondence in the Mayor’s office,” Crossman told us via email. “The [Sunshine Ordinance Task Force] has found that [mayor’s office spokesman] Nathan Ballard and Mayor Newsom have willfully violated these provisions and therefore committed official misconduct.”

“Subsequently,” he added, “no behavior has changed.”

SF protest against illegal Honduran regime

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By Steven T. Jones

People are understandably still outraged by the coup d’etat in Honduras, which will be the subject of a 5 p.m. rally today outside that country’s consulate in San Francisco, located at 870 Market Street near Powell.

“Tuesday will culminate a week-long march against the illegal coup in Honduras by hundreds of Hondurans nonviolently calling for the immediate and unconditional restitution of elected president Mel Zelaya,” announced organizers that include the ANSWER Coalition, School of the Americas Watch, Barrio Unido, and many others.

The group is certainly correct that US-trained members of the Honduran military have kept the illegal regime in power and silenced critics for almost two months, and even the Associated Press and New York Times have written about the class conflict at the heart of the coup.

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