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Politics Blog

Prison Report: Donte Stallworth and me

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By Just A Guy

Editors note: Just A guy is an inmate in a California state prison. You can read his most recent blog, and links to past blogs, here. He will try to respond to comments, but communication from prison is often difficult, so be patient.

I just read in USA Today about the penalty Cleveland Browns wide receiver Donte Stallworth received for killing someone while driving drunk in Florida: Thirty days in jail, two years of house arrest, eight years probation, and 1,000 hours of community service.

I guess it really does pay to have money!

I know of a man who has been in prison in California for 21 years now on his 15-to-life sentence. He’s been found suitable for parole three times, and has had the governor deny his parole three times. This is a man who, like Stallworth, had NO criminal record, but wasn’t rich or a football star.

This man has not received one incident report for violating prison rules in 21 years of incarceration, has a wonderful support network, from a good family, and has a job waiting for him.

This scenario is just as likely to happen in California as in Florida, where they actually kill people with the death penalty.

What’s going on here? I find it stunning that the disparity of such type of cases is still so apparent, but the enormity of it is .. God, I’m truly at a loss for words.

Oddly, I’m sitting here in the hole, 33 months in to a 48 month sentence for possession of a controlled substance. I wasn’t allowed into Prop. 36 (the state’s version of a drug program) because when I got arrested I was also charged with driving under the influence, which eliminated my eligibility to enter the treatment program. Some loophole, eh?

Life by the numbers: More bikes = fewer bike collisions

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By Rebecca Bowe

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Things were finally beginning to fall into place for Jon Aguon. The 24-year-old college student and avid surfer and skater had completed his summer courses the day before, he’d just signed a lease on a place in the city, and he planned to spend the afternoon at a skate park on Potrero Avenue. He loaded up his skateboard, hopped on his bike, and started making his way there.

The trouble started when a bus stopped ahead of him, blocking the bike lane. In a matter of seconds, Aguon looked over his shoulder, checked for oncoming traffic, and began maneuvering around it. That’s when the Ford Expedition entered the picture.

“I remember the split second before I got hit, the roar of the Expedition motor. I knew exactly what this car was doing: accelerating to pass me,” he says. “Well, it didn’t pass me.”

Aguon says he bounced off the SUV, spun a 540, and then wound up landing on his knee. The shock set in, and he immediately curled into a fetal position. Moments later, he stood shakily. There was a sharp pain in his back, and a large blood spot was forming on his jeans at the kneecap. As he stood there dazed, the driver left his name and number with a nearby cyclist and drove off.

The bike accident occurred almost a year ago, and now Aguon — who suffered a broken rib, a badly sprained ACL and a bruised and swollen Tibia from the ordeal — says he’s still at just a fraction of his strength. Since the collision, “I haven’t even tried surfing,” he says.

Getting hit hasn’t kept Aguon from using a bike as his exclusive mode of transportation. But it did inspire him to speak out in favor of the Bike Plan, a comprehensive citywide network of new bike paths and amenities with improved cyclist safety as its centerpiece. “I’m not one of those cyclists who hates cars,” Aguon told us, adding that in fact, he loves to drive. But he believes that with improved bicycle infrastructure, accidents like his could be fewer and farther between.

Have you seen this van?

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Here’s how bad the economy is: Somebody broke into the Bay Guardian parking lot last night, rammed through the chain-link fence and drove away with our van.

Kinda crazy — it’s ten years old, it’s all beat up — and it has the Guardian logo all over it and a Best of the Bay mural on the side. Hard to hide.

It’s value is probably more sentimental than economic at this point, but we miss it — after all, we used the van as the cover of our Best of the Bay issue back in 1999, when it was brand new. We commissioned the van-mural, designed by Tim Racer at Racer-Reynolds Illustration and painted by Rich Ayer at Signmakers, and we’d hate to see the artwork chopped up or painted over.

So if you see it, call SFPD burglary at 553-1261. Or call us.

Renters demand ideas from Newsom

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By Megan Rawlins

As expected, Mayor Gavin Newsom has promised to veto the renter relief and protection legislation passed by the Board of Supervisors at last week’s meeting. And in response, renters will rally at the steps of City Hall at noon on Tuesday to demand that Newsom offer some alternative if he indeed kills the renters’ package.

The legislation, in descending order of controversy, suspended rent increases that would exceed one-third of a tenant’s income for those who had recently lost a job, had their wages decreased by at least 20 percent, or derived their income solely from government assistance; allowed the addition of a roommate without a resulting rent increase, and amended rent-banking rules to cap rent hikes at 8 percent annually.

Authored by Sup. Chris Daly, the changes are intended to address the precarious position of San Francisco renters, who constitute two-thirds of the city’s population.

Protest HIV program cuts

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By C. Nellie Nelson

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Pride At Work protests the mayor’s budget on Pride day. Photo: Luke Thomas, Fog CIty Journal

Today at 5 pm the LGBT labor group Pride at Work will hold a vigil on the steps of City Hall protesting the mayor’s deep budget cuts to programs that are vital to much of the queer community. The vigil runs until midnight, so you can stop by after work.

As Fog City Journal reports, this is the second major Pride at Work protest over the budget cuts — the group staged a die-in in front of Mayor Newsom’s car in the Pride Parade. As Newsom attempted to step around the protesters, they let him have an earful on the effects of his budget cuts that slashed funding for the Departments of Public Health and Human Services

“The die-in demonstrated reality. When you cut HIV programs, people will sero-convert. When you cut the drug programs, people will die,” Harvey Milk Club president Rafael Mandelman told the Guardian today. He said the protest indicates that the mayor “can’t ride same-sex marriage forever. We’re grateful for the mayor’s efforts in that area, but we need budgets that will protect vulnerable populations and queers. People’s lives are at stake.”

Despite the passage of Prop. 8, Newsom does indeed seem to still be riding the crest of same sex marriage. In a recent fundraising letter for his gubernatorial campaign, a supporter enthuses: “Mayor Newsom married S– and I in his office in 2004. He always held our relationship equal to his own… S– and I will always love him for standing with us and fighting for us.”

But some LGBT leaders are starting to feel that the choices of what departments to cut back are not equal in the least.

Robert Haaland is a labor activist and long time leader of the local chapter of Pride at Work. He told us the budget cuts “are no different from what Schwarzenegger is doing. No new revenue, deep cuts to health and human services. It’d be fine if he was running as a Republican governor.”

Haaland pointed out that when Newsom ran against Supervisor Matt Gonzales in 2003, Newsom was neutral on gay marriage, and Gonzales got the majority of votes in District 8, which includes the Castro.

“He changed his position on marriage, but that doesn’t give him license to use marriage as a shield for budget cuts affecting LGBT and poor people,” Haaland said.

And Mandelman sums up, “It’s great to celebrate marriage, but for a lot of people it’s a luxury.”

Newsom’s poll numbers suck, but ….

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By Tim Redmond

This is not the kind of information a candidate for governor likes to hear, but the Chron reports today that Attorney General Jerry Brown is way ahead of Newsom among Democrats in the race for California’s next governor. Matier and Ross say

The poll by JMM Research of 525 Democratic and decline-to-state voters is the first snapshot since Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced last week that he wasn’t running.

With Villaraigosa in the lineup, the numbers read:

— Brown, 33 percent.

— Newsom, 20 percent.

— Villaraigosa, 17 percent.

Take the L.A. mayor out, and it’s:

— Brown, 46 percent.

— Newsom, 26 percent.

Brown does best with the voters over 40, who tend to turn out in bigger numbers on election day. Newsom thrives with the younger crowd, which he hopes to turn out big time, a la Barack Obama.

Geographically, Brown beats Newsom everywhere but the Bay Area.

But let’s be serious here: These early numbers mean exactly nothing. The race is a year and a half away, and this is nothing but name recognition and vague opinions based on current news media reports.

My take: Newsom’s toughest opposition would have been Villaraigosa, and with the L.A. mayor out of the way, he’s really the front-runner. Why? Because this is a textbook campaign — the new against the old, the fresh face against yesterday’s news, the guy who has only a very limited (and carefully crafted) record against the guy who has been around a long time and has done enough in his life to piss off both the left and the right.

I’m not a Newsom fan (in case you hadn’t noticed) and I’ve always liked Jerry Brown personally (although he was a horrible mayor of Oakland and is taking some awful positions). The fact that he’s in his 70s shouldn’t be an issue — he’s healthy, lively, full of energy, and to dis him because of his age is wrong on many, many levels … but that doesn’t mean the Newsom camp won’t (subtly) do it, and it doesn’t mean it won’t work.

I’m talking real, harsh politics here — and I’m betting that Newsom’s team isn’t a bit concerned with these poll numbers.

Cyclists cheer as SFMTA Board approves Bike Plan projects

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By Rebecca Bowe

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San Francisco Bicycle Coalition Executive Director Leah Shahum (right) and cyclist Lynn Howe moments after the SFMTA Board declared its unanimous support for 45 new Bike Plan projects.

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency Board approved 45 San Francisco Bike Plan projects earlier this afternoon, a move that will nearly double the number of bike lanes in the city.

The unanimous decision prompted cheers and applause from cyclists who turned out at the MTA hearing en masse to voice support for the citywide Bike Plan. Some 200 people signed up to comment at the hearing, and the overwhelming majority were supporters donning hot-pink stickers distributed by the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition that screamed, “Double the number of bike lanes.”

For more than three hours, the board heard personal stories from people who get around by bike: parents, seniors, students, health-care workers, teachers, lawyers, landlords, scientists, and even a 14-year-old boy named Cameron who told the MTA Board that he gets nervous about getting “doored” while riding his bike. (“Sharrows,” the San Francisco-grown road markings that depict arrows in the bike lanes, are designed to keep cyclists out of the car-door zone to reduce the danger of being doored, or slammed by an unexpected door. The bike plan calls for marking 75 miles of on-street bike routes with sharrows.)

Fewer than 20 speakers voiced opposition to the plan, and most took issue with a proposal for Second Street that would reduce parking to accommodate new bike lanes and restrict left turns at various intersections. Several representatives from the South Beach Mission Bay Business Association and the South Beach/Rincon/Mission Bay Neighborhood Association said there hadn’t been enough community outreach conducted in their neighborhood, and called the plan for Second Street “flawed” — but most voiced their general support for enhancing bike lanes in the city. The MTA Board ultimately voted to remove the Second Street project from the package of projects up for approval, setting it aside for further discussion.

BART strikes looms

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By Wendi Jonassen
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BART riders may need to come up with other modes of transportation next week.

A strike by BART employees threatens to shut the system down on Tuesday after weeks of heated labor contract negotiations have gotten nowhere.

At midnight on June 30, BART’s four-year labor contract with five different unions will expire. Workers threaten to strike, effectively shutting down BART and disrupting commutes for thousands as they fight to negotiate a 3 percent increase in pay to accommodate cost of living and better benefits.

But BART management isn’t budging. It wants to balance the $250 million budget deficit by reducing payroll, which its says accounts for 75 percent of the budget, and increasing fares in July and December. BART also wants to work out some outdated work procedures that they say cost time and money.

Bike projects approved in SF

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By Steven T. Jones

After almost three years of no bicycle improvements in San Francisco — the result of a court injunction imposed because the city’s Bike Plan wasn’t submitted to proper environmental review — city officials have taken a pair of actions that will likely result in the biggest bicycling boom in the city’s history.

Last night, the Bike Plan’s new Environmental Impact Report was approved by the Planning Commission, and this afternoon, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission board unanimously approved the plan and 45 new bicycle projects around the city (delaying only the 2nd Street bike lanes for further study and discussion). Now, once any appeals play out, city officials will be able to return to court later this summer to get the injunction removed and construction on new lanes, racks, and other improvements should begin this fall.

Mayor Gavin Newsom, other officials, and bike advocates are right now holding a press conference on the steps of City Hall. Guardian reporter Rebecca Bowe, who has been covering the hearings, is there and will offer a full report later on this blog and in Wednesday’s Guardian.

UN conference on global crisis undercut by G20 indifference

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By Nick Buxton
Editor’s Note: Buxton is in New York covering the United Nations Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and its Impact on Development for the Guardian.

Maybe I was being a naïve activist, but I thought I would be covering an important and consequential event. The world is facing a devastating economic crisis, accompanied by a toxic mix of crises of climate chaos, food prices and even flu outbreaks, and here was chance for a smart, effective response to these pressing and interconnected issues.

The international community had agreed back in November 2008 to develop a coordinated international response to an unprecedented global crisis – and to present its plan in summer 2009. Yet, here I am on the second day of that conference, and for the press it is as if the meeting did not exist.

Until Michael Jackson’s death, the latest dull exploits of US celebrity misfits Jon and Kate – famous mainly for their ability to reproduce- were the only stories staring out at me on most newspaper front pages. So I decided to do some investigation.

Judge tosses Newsom’s political payback suits against Minister Muhammad

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Text and photos by Sarah Phelan

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For several years, Minister Christopher Muhammad (at lectern) has been trying to get Mayor Gavin Newsom to temporarily stop work at the Hunters Point shipyard, until the children at Muhammad’s school and members of the surrounding Bayview community get asbestos dust-related health tests.

The city’s health department claims there is no health problem related to the dust and that there are no tests available, other than autopsies.
But thanks to Lennar’s failure to properly install and maintain air monitors, there is no data available to prove exactly what levels of dust the community was exposed to, when the developer’s massive grading project began at the shipyard in 2006.

Since then, air monitors at the site have repeatedly recorded exceedances that, the city claims, have triggered protective shutdowns, though often these shutdowns did not occur as fast as the community would like. And the ongoing exceedances have raised additional questions about the cumulative risk to public health and safety of all these dust clouds, where exactly the dust is coming from, and what exactly it contains.

Under new EPA administrator Lisa Jackson, the community’s request for additional assessments of the dust situation is reportedly being reviewed. But meanwhile, Muhammad’s refusal to shut up about the dust, has clearly angered Mayor Gavin Newsom, who recently said, via his spokesperson Nathan Ballard, that he supported a lawsuit that was filed against Muhammad and his group’s school, via the San Francisco Housing Authority, allegedly to recover unpaid back rent.

It was Chronicle columnists Phil Matier and Andy Ross who first asked whether the lawsuit that the San Francisco Housing Authority recently filed against Muhammad and the Nation of Islam’s Center for Self-Improvement, which operates the K-12 school next to the shipyard’s Parcel A in the Bayview, was “pay up or pay back”.

“You decide” the duo wrote on April 1, when they broke the news that the San Francisco Housing Authority had filed a lawsuit against Muhammad, alleging irregularities at the school, shortly after Muhammad and other activists showed up at Newsom’s gubernatorial town halls, asking loud and embarrassing questions about asbestos dust at the shipyard.

But the M&R column has remained deafeningly silent about the outcome of that lawsuit, even though Ross phoned the Nation of Islam’s lawyer Richard Drury minutes after the judge threw out not just one, but all three lawsuits that the SFHA had filed against Muhammad. That was over a week ago, on June 16.

So, does this mean the Chronicle only wants to write about stuff that they can spin to make Newsom look good and Muhammad bad? You decide.

It also turns out that it cost the city very little to file what appears to have been a series of frivolous lawsuits as payback for the Minister’s ongoing questions about asbestos dust: the city used in-house counsel at the Housing Authority, and the City is exempt from filing fees.

Reached by phone, Muhammad’s attorney Drury said he felt all three the lawsuits were “payback” against Muhammad for his attempts to try and get help from Newsom around ongoing issues with dust and asbestos at the shipyard.

“When the Minister didn’t get Newsom’s help, he attended a town hall meeting—and shortly afterwards, the San Francisco Housing Authority sued the Minister for breach of contract, payment of rent and unlawful detained,” Drury said. “In other words, the San Francisco Housing Authority is trying to evict a K-12 school, where 70 percent of the kids were failing in the public school system, and where 80 percent of the center’s graduates go to college.”

Board helps renters, but Newsom veto looms

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By Megan Rawlins

Progressives on the Board of Supervisors yesterday passed four ordinances aimed at helping renters, which make up about two-thirds of San Francisco residents, but the 6-4 margin of approval won’t be enough to overcome a threatened veto by Mayor Gavin Newsom.

Sups. Carmen Chu, Bevan Dufty, Sean Elsbernd, and Michela Alioto-Pier voted against the effort to provide financial relief to renters, while Sup. Sophie Maxwell abstained due to a conflict of interest involving her ownership of renter units.

“The federal government has spent significant money on homeowners who are struggling in this crisis, but hasn’t address renters,” said Sup. Chris Daly, who authored the measure. “There is a place for local government to help these people, the majority of San Franciscans.”

Nativists revive Willie Horton tactic

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By Steven T. Jones
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As the Chronicle once again pushes its anti-immigrant crusade with another front-page, above-the-fold story – clearly trying to badger District Attorney Kamala Harris into joining their descent into raw nativism – the central argument seems to be a flashback to another episode of racist-tinged political manipulation.

Conservative SF Examiner columnist Ken Garcia yesterday wrote that the issue comes down to two words: Edwin Ramos. He is the undocumented immigrant accused of a San Francisco murder, with the implication being that the murder wouldn’t have happened if he and his ilk had been deported. That argument also underlies the latest alleged outrage, because Alexander Izaguirre also committed a crime instead of being deported or kept in prison on a minor drug charge.

But I think the latest nativist campaign comes down to another two words: Willie Horton. He was the criminal that Republicans used in TV ads to paint 1988 Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis as soft-on-crime, an underhanded tactic that played heavily to racist fears and stereotypes.

Rally and resolution support Iran’s reformers

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Story and photos by Megan Rawlins
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Sup. Ross Mirkarimi addresses a pro-democracy rally of Iranian-Americans and their supporters.

In a sea of people on the steps of City Hall yesterday, there were clusters of green, the color of the protest movement in Iran: green shirts, green scarves, green ribbons, green pants. Small children, little old men, young men and women with their parents and grandparents were frantically waving signs. Chants alternated between “Freedom for Iran” and “Yes to democracy. No to theocracy.”

The crowd quieted quickly when people began to speak, but frequently broke in with cheers or burst of applause. This gathering of the local Iranian-American community was galvanized by frustration, outrage and sadness over what many termed the human rights violations that have been part of the fall-out from the recent, contested Iranian election.

Many carried signs or spoke to remember a young student named Neda Agha-Soltan, reportedly shot dead in the streets of Tehran Saturday evening. Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, who organized the press conference and resulting demonstration and is Iranian-American, assured those gathered that her death would not be in vain.

D.A. Kamala Harris gets back on track

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Text by Sarah Phelan

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San Francisco D.A. Kamala Harris

Erica Terry Derryck, the deputy Public Information Officer at D.A. Kamala D. Harris’s office sent out the following statement last night.

“Back on Track is an innovative initiative that has achieved remarkable results. It has dramatically reduced recidivism — the re-offense rate –and saved money for taxpayers. This is exactly the type of innovation we need in order to tackle the chronic problem of recidivism in California during a time of chronic budget deficits. The flaw in the initiative was fixed when it came to my attention. No innovative initiative will ever be created without some unanticipated flaws to be fixed along the way, but this must not stop us from tackling tough problems with smart solutions.”

The statement followed the Guardian’s request for an interview, in the wake of a Chronicle article that was essentially a reprint of a story that the LA Times ran, attacking San Francisco’s D.A. for “letting illegal aliens go” from the Back on Track program.

The Chronicle story was written by crime reporter Jaxon Van Derbeken, who recently received money and an award from the Center for Immigration Studies, an anti-immigrant group, for his reporting related to the city’s sanctuary ordinance last year.

Immigrant rights advocates charge that with that series and this more recent attack on the D.A.’s Back on Track program, the Chronicle is milking racist stereotypes, under the guise of “legal status” stories.

To date, the Chronicle continues to defend its decision to let Van Derbeken accept the CIS award and money.Van Derbeken won’t say how much money he got, but records show that CIS has in the past coughed up $1,000 a pop to reporters who wrote immigrant-bashing stories.

The cops and the carpetbaggers: Part II

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This week, we report on the political fireworks surrounding the city’s budget process, which got especially loud last week at the dueling rallies outside City Hall.

As the Chronicle noted, Police Officer’s Association President Gary Delagnes — who lives in Novato — made waves by calling the city’s progressive Supervisors “carpetbaggers” and “idiots” while speaking at a rally organized by the police and firefighters’ unions to protest the Board’s changes to the mayor’s proposed budget. (“What the fuck right does Delagnes, who doesn’t live in the city, doesn’t pay property taxes in the city, doesn’t even get to vote here, have to complain about [Sup. John] Avalos?” Guardian editor Tim Redmond wondered on our blog.)

Mayor Gavin Newsom was onstage shaming the Supes right alongside the police and fire union leaders, helpfully reminding everyone that seismologists have said it’s not if, but when the Big One will strike. (Speaking of earthquakes, do we really want our hospitals to be understaffed and cut to the bone if disaster hits?) To really get a sense of how over the top the whole spectacle was, check out this slideshow of photos from the rally, set to the audio of Delagnes’ speech.

Photos, audio and slideshow produced by Rebecca Bowe

Prison report: In the Hole

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Prison report: Inside the Hole

By Just A Guy

Editors Note: Just A Guy is an inmate in a California state prison. His blogs typically run Monday and Thursday, but prison authorities have just sent him into the Hole, a punitive isolation facility. So this blog is a little late, and he may have trouble responding to comments.

I’m sitting here in the Hole, also known as Administrative Segregation, contemplating how difficult it’s going
to be to write a politically relevant blog from the confines of the cell in which I have no access to current media/news, one stamped envelope, a pen filler rolled in paper to make it thick enough to
write with, two ancient fantasy books, no clock or watch, no cellmate and racing thoughts. …

I was going to write about SB 678, which is a bill proposed by Sen. Mark Leno allocating funds toward increasing the efficacy of probation, but can’t do it now because I didn’t finish reading it.

I suppose I could stare at the dirty walls and metal toilets, try and ignore slight hunger pangs, and attempt to decipher the various graffiti on the walls, which is endemic to any facility’s holding tank, holding cage, and cell within the system. At the same time I’m trying to ignore the scent of metal on flesh that the sweat from my left palm causes when it touches the paint- worn- down-to metal desk that’s bolted to the wall, or even worse the pain in my ass from sitting on a metal stool trying to write. But how we’re treated isn’t politically relevant any more either, right?

I won’t go into the dynamics, yet, as to why I’m in the Hole, but let’s just say that it was bound to happen because there are forces greater than I that do not like me.

Immigrant groups accuse Chron of milking racist stereotypes

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Text by Sarah Phelan

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The Chronicle’s Jaxon Van Derbeken was awarded money and a prize by the Center for Immigration Studies, whose executive director is Mark Krikorian. Will D.A. Kamala Harris, whose office has come under fire for letting “Illegal immigrants go,” be cowed by Krikorian-style nativist attacks?

District Attorney Kamala Harris has not yet responded to our request for an interview, in the wake of the “D.A.’s office let illegal immigrants go” screamer in today’s Chronicle.

If she did, I’d begin by asking, did you know that the reporter who wrote the Chronicle story, just accepted an award and a cash prize from the Center for Immigration Studies, an unabashed anti-immigrant group, and the Chronicle doesn’t think there’s anything off about that?

I’d also want to know if the D.A, who jumped into the 2010 race for State Attorney General last November, is going to let Van Derbrken’s reporting create policy. Because this was exactly what happened last summer: Just days after Van Derbeken launched his series, and the day after Mayor Gavin Newsom announced that he had formed a committee to explore a gubernatorial run, Newsom did a turnabout on the city’s long standing sanctuary policy.

Last but not least, I’d ask the D.A. whether deportation, which is what nativists at the CIS are pushing for, actually solves the problem of recidivism, which is what diversion programs, like the one at the D.A.’s office, seek to solve.

Van Derbeken himself recently reported that a Honduran juvenile who was deported last summer after Newsom changed the city’s sanctuary policy, had already returned to the city.

Is SF privatizing legal defense for the poor?

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By Tim Redmond
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SF Public Defender Jeff Adachi

The San Francisco Public Defender’s Office is facing a budget cut of about $1.9 million — small change compared to the city’s half-billion deficit. But the reduction comes at the same time as the San Francisco Superior Court is budgeting an additional $1.2 million for handling cases that the public defender can’t.

And that’s led to some serious intrigue in the Hall of Justice. Among other things, Public Defender Jeff Adachi has charged that the presiding judge of the Superior Court, James McBride, is trying to take all of the misdemeanor cases away from the PD’s office and give them to private defense lawyers.

Like most privatization schemes, this one would either save the city money or cost money, depending on who’s doing the figures. But it would mark a dramatic change in the way San Francisco provides legal defense for indigent people.

Chronicle continues anti-immigrant crusade

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By Steven T. Jones

Jaxon Van Derbeken and the San Francisco Chronicle continued their crusade against undocumented immigrants today, expecting elected officials in San Francisco to be accountable to federal immigration authorities while resisting accountability for their own unethical collusion with a controversial anti-immigrant group.

At issue is a Los Angeles Times story about how District Attorney Kamala Harris – who is running for attorney general, a fact that likely played a role in the hit piece – allowed a half-dozen undocumented immigrants to enroll in a rehabilitation program rather than turning them over to the feds. The Chronicle essentially rewrote the Times story under Van Derbeken’s byline and ran it as its splashy lead news story.

Harris told the Times that it’s not her job to enforce federal immigration policies, a stand that has been San Francisco’s official Sanctuary City policy since the ‘80s when Dianne Feinstein was mayor. But Van Derbeken and anti-immigrant groups like the Center for Immigration Studies – which recently gave Van Derbeken an award and large cash payout for his work on the issue – have been pushing for more local cooperation with federal immigration crackdowns.

The Chronicle has refused to say how much money Van Derbeken received for an award that was worth $1,000 a few years ago (CIS has also refused to disclose the figure despite our direct questions), or to address the validation of CIS’s controversial views that acceptance of the award represents, or to offer a position on CIS’s demands and quest for mainstream legitimacy, or to explain or apologize for the derogatory comments that Van Derbeken and conservative Chronicle columnist Debra Saunders made about San Francisco and immigrant rights activists during his acceptance speech earlier this month.

While Van Derbeken did briefly raise the concern during his speech that innocent San Francisco residents could get deported under federal immigration policies, he has resisted accepting the immigrant rights community’s call for due process to play out before deporting local residents (often to a country they know little about and where they have no support system) and dividing up families in order to satisfy the increasingly vitriolic demands of nativist groups.

Berkeley’s budget success

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By Tim Redmond

Berkeley isn’t in the financial mess San Francisco is, and while you can’t compare the two cities at all — SF is a city and county, has far more people and much more demand for services — there are two telling points in today’s Chronicle story:`

While sales tax revenues have plummeted elsewhere, they’ve actually risen in Berkeley. (Union City, Albany and Alameda were the only others in Alameda county to see a year-to-year rise.)

The sales tax increase is due, in part, to the quirky nature of the Berkeley economy. The city has virtually no big-box retailers. Instead of shopping malls, the city has clusters of stores in various neighborhoods, Elmwood to Solano Avenue.

The result is that “during times of prosperity, we don’t grow that much,” said Kamlarz. “And during downturns, we don’t decline that much.”

In other words, a diversified economy of local small businesses is more sustainable and better in tough times than one based on big chains.

The other:

Of course, this couldn’t happen without city voters who continue to tax themselves at among the highest levels in the state. Libraries, fire stations and school measures all continue to get support.

You want good libraries, good schools and no fire-station closures? Be willing to pay for them.

Of course, this shouldn’t be seen as any sort of surprising news.

Classes for sale

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By Tim Redmond

So City College is going to start selling naming rights to its classes. From the Chronicle story, it looks as if the chancellor, Don Griffin, has the whole thing planned out — he told the paper where to send checks for $6,000 and exactly how to make sure your name gets in the books.

There’s a minor problem, though: He never mentioned any of this to the Community College Board.

“When I read about it in the paper, that was the first I’d heard of it,” board member John Rizzo told me.

It’s not as simple a fundraising scheme as it seems. Besides the tacky factor (which doesn’t trump the desperate need for money) there’s the potential for conflicts, both real and imagined.

“What if PG&E wants to buy a class — or maybe ten of them?” asked Rizzo. What if big pharma companies want to sponsor chemistry classes? What if big agricultural congomerates want to sponsor nutrition classes? This could get ugly fast.

“I have a lot of serious concerns about it, and it’s certainly a new policy,” Rizzo noted. “I’m amazed that the chancellor never even mentioned this to the board.”

The Chronicle and the angry nativists

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By Steven T. Jones

San Francisco Chronicle editors continue to defend their decision to let reporter Jaxon Van Derbeken accept an award and large cash payout from the Center for Immigration Studies, which pushes an extreme position cracking down on immigrants, even though the Guardian has learned that the payout was $1,000 in 2001, which is extremely high for a journalism contest, most of which have no cash award and are judged by journalists based on professional standards.

Van Derbeken (who still hasn’t responded to my follow-up questions) and the editors (Managing Editor Stephen Proctor and Assistant Managing Editor Ken Conner) continue to refuse to answer detailed questions about whether the size of the award compromises accepted journalistic standards and whether the acceptance of it legitimizes CIS’s effort to make its extreme position more acceptable to mainstream audiences and politicians.

“All issues have proponents and opponents,” Proctor told us, equating the award to those given for education and legal affairs reporting and denying that the immigration issue is more divisive and controversial.

Meanwhile, CIS’s Mark Krikorian responded to our request for comment by criticizing his critics as a “jihad against dissent from the elite consensus for open borders” and sending us this link to a National Review article that he wrote addressing the Southern Poverty Law Center report labeling CIS an extremist organization.

Neither Krikorian nor anyone from the Chronicle has responded to our direct questions about how much cash Van Derbeken received from the CIS, although we found an application for the 2001 award that listed the amount as $1,000.

Villaraigosa to announce intentions

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By Steven T. Jones

CNN reports that LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will in just a couple hours announce whether he plans to run for governor against Gavin Newsom, who really needs some high-profile opponents to keep him honest. So, on behalf of the Guardian, let me just offer this last-minute encouragement: Run, Antonio, run!

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