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Politics Blog
How to recapture foreclosed homes
Text by Sarah Phelan
Courtesy of the San Francisco Housing Development Corporation.
As the Guardian’s report about foreclosures in San Francisco reveals, they are concentrated in the southeast, where working people and communities of color live, making efforts to recapture these properties and resell them as affordable housing units a worthy endeavor.
But for those who believe buying these properties isn’t the best use of city money in stringent budgetary times, it’s worth looking at what’s happening policy-wise elsewhere in the Bay Area.
Last month, a dozen Democratic U.S senators joined their Republican colleagues to defeat a bill that would have allowed judges to reduce mortgages in bankruptcy courts. President Obama, facing strong opposition from the nation’s surviving banks, did not pressure lawmakers to support the measure, and the Senate killed a plan to spare thousands of homeowners from foreclosure through bankruptcy.
Steven Zuckerman, managing director of the California branch of Self-Help, one of the largest community development financial institutions (CDFI) in the United States, says his organization was deeply involved in supporting that legislation. And he doesn’t buy detractors arguments that lowering mortgages in bankruptcy courts would cause banks to raise other people’s mortgage rates.”
‘The bill only included mortgages that already exist,” Zuckerman, who blames the bill’s failure on the “lobbying of bankers’ associations,” told me.
According to information posted at its website, the North Carolina-based Self-Help has already provided billions in financing to small business owners and nonprofits nationwide in an effort to create and protect ownership and economic opportunities for minorities, women, rural residents, and low-wealth families and communities.
And locally, Self-Help is one of several CDFIs trying to help communities like San Francisco’s southeast sector and North Richmond in the East Bay, which have been hard hit by the recent wave of foreclosures sweeping the area.
”We do have a program and a product that we are trying to make available to groups that work in areas with high foreclosures,” Zuckerman said.
John Ross takes no prisoners
By Tim Redmond
Ross tell the supes how it is. Photo by Luke Thomas
It wouldn’t have been John Ross Day in San Francisco if they didn’t have to call the cops.
And, indeed, a few minutes after Ross – the poet, journalist, activist, author and Bay Guardian correspondent – was honored at the Board of Supervisors, with a proclamation sponsored by Sup. John Avalos, his companeros and campaneras recessed to a conference room down the hall to await refreshments, and since it was 4:20, and the windows of the room were open, well …. The smell of fresh herbal medicine wafted out the door and down the hall, and pretty soon you could smell it in front of the supervisors chamber, and before long a couple of sheriff’s deputies came by and – politely, respectfully – informed us all that smoking – “of any kind” – was forbidden in City Hall.
And for a moment, I shuddered, because whenever the cops are around and John is around, there always seems to be trouble.
But remarkably enough, everyone on all sides kept cool, and the deputies walked away, and John made it through an entire afternoon and evening at City Hall without getting arrested.
That’s a far cry from the old days.
Typically, when people are honored by the supervisors, they thank the board, praise the wonders of this city and politely and meekly receive their award. Not John Ross.
The half-blind, half deaf rabble rouser made a short statement in which he managed to insult city government, denounce the entire process of giving out awards and demand that the board reject the Muni fare hike. Then he read a poem denouncing the “motherfuckers” who are driving poor people out of the Mission.
It was a great moment in San Francisco history. Supervisors Chris Daly, David Campos, Avalos and Ross Mirkarimi seemed to be enjoying themselves immensely; some of their colleagues, as Daly later told me, were squirming.
But that’s why we love John Ross, an uncontrollable shit disturber who is utterly and sometimes insanely fearless, who is pure of heart and devoted so deeply to the cause of social justice that he can’t put it aside, even for a minute.
Here’s his statement, in entirety.
Board restores some Muni service, but Newsom gets his fare hike
By Steven T. Jones
After hours of negotiations between the Mayor’s Office (mostly via its representative, Sup. Carmen Chu) and progressive members of the Board of Supervisors, President David Chiu reconvened his colleagues this evening to announce that he had cut a deal on his challenge to Muni’s budget: “I’m happy to say we’ve made good headway.”
Chiu asked MTA chief Nat Ford to announce the terms: the agency would trim $10.3 million from the budget (a $2.8 million reduction in the $66 million it is giving to other city departments, $6.5 million in salary and operations savings and other nips and tucks, and $1 million in increased parking revenue after a 90-day study of extending meter hours) and restore $8.6 million in proposed Muni service cuts, immediately complete MOU negotiations with the SFPD to finally explain why the MTA is giving them millions of dollars every year, and delay by six months increases in what seniors, youth and the disabled will pay for Fast Passes.
Everyone thanked Chiu for taking the lead on challenging the MTA budget and negotiating a settlement to this conflict with Mayor Gavin Newsom, then all the progressive supervisors criticized the package as a bad deal that unduly punishes Muni riders and lets Newsom get away with raiding what is supposed to be an independent agency. “I have to say I’m utterly disappointed with where we are right now,” said Sup. David Campos, the first to react to the freshly inked deal.
The board voted 6-5 to drop its challenge of MTA’s budget, allowing fares to increase to $2 and services to be reduced, with Sups. Campos, Ross Mirkarimi, Chris Daly, John Avalos, and Eric Mar in dissent.
Seeming stung by the criticism of his colleagues, Chiu seemed to lay blame where it belonged when he said, “On Friday, the mayor and I had a conversation about this budget and it was made clear to me that there wouldn’t be any movement….We needed to work this out so we could move forward on the myriad issues before us.”
Muni budget deal keeps fare hikes
The Board of Supervisors voted 6-5 in favor of a Muni budget deal that restores almost $10 million in cuts but leaves the fare hike to $2 and most of the MTA transfers to other departments intact. More details in a couple hours.
Muni budget showdown drags on
By Steven T. Jones
As our followers on Twitter know, backroom negotiations between the Mayor’s Office and progressive members of the Board of Supervisors have delayed consideration of rejecting the Muni budget. The MTA seems to be basically letting the Mayor’s Office (through Sup. Carmen Chu) represent this supposedly independent agency.
For now, Sup. Sophie Maxwell seems to be standing firm with the six solid progressives for the seven votes they need to reject while Sup. Bevan Dufty is simply following Newsom. Maxwell has lots of Muni riders in her district and sources say she wants more from drivers in budget cuts that hit Muni rider by a 4-1 ratio (although she isn’t commenting).
Progressives also want a paring back of the budget’s $66 million raid by other departments and sources say there has been some progress there, but no deal yet. The board is in closed session now and most indications are there there will be action on this today, but you never know. If no deal is reached, progressive supes will have to decide whether to reject the budget or continue the item a week in the hopes of reaching a deal.
Stay tuned
The quest to save the Bluepeter Building
By Rebecca Bowe
Photo courtesy Janet Carpinelli
The Bluepeter Building, a unique industrial warehouse constructed in 1940 along San Francisco’s central waterfront, has become the focus of a neighborhood campaign for historic preservation. Under the Mission Bay redevelopment plan, it’s slated for demolition — but some community members are hoping an alternative vision can be implemented.
Janet Carpinelli of the Dogpatch Neighborhood Association has a vision for rehabbing the Bluepeter Building and converting it to a fish market, casual food vending business, and community gathering space which she says could also be integrated into a maritime history tour along the city’s Central Waterfront. Owned by the Port of San Francisco, it’s been shuttered for more than a decade and hasn’t been very well maintained. Under the Mission Bay redevelopment plan, the building would be torn down and a park would be constructed on the lot instead.
“Just putting the park there is not as interesting,” Carpinelli says. “We shouldn’t just be knocking down the building.”
How the JROTC vote could come down
By Tim Redmond
Like so much in San Francisco politics, the vote tonight on restoring JROTC isn’t as simple as it might seem.
The resolution by Jill Wynns and Rachel Norton simply directs the superintendent to preserve JROTC at the seven high schools where the program currently exists. It doesn’t say a word about Physical Education credit.
That’s a central issue, because just about everyone agrees that if students don’t get PE credit for JROTC, so few will sign up that the program will die anyway. State law seems to say that anyone teaching PE classes has to have a teaching credential, and the JROTC instructors don’t qualify. The Chron reports that
Last week, the California Board of Education clarified the issue, saying local education officials have the authority to offer PE credits for JROTC. The state Department of Education reiterated that position in a letter to district and county education officials Monday.
JROTC instructors, who have a state and federal credential to teach the military course, would not need a PE credential, said Phil Lafontaine, the department’s director of professional development and curriculum support.
“They’re appropriately credentialed,” he said, even if students are earning PE credit.
But Gentle Blythe, the SFUSD spokesperson, told me that the district “has not seen that letter, so we haven’t been able to analyze it.”
In the meantime, the school board voted last June to end PE credit for this past year, which was supposed to be the final year of JROTC. According to Norton, that resolution doen’t apply going forward — so she’s convinced that if her resolution passes tonight, the PE issue will be moot. “The board policy enacted last year only end PE credit for the 2008-2009 year,” she told me.
Now it gets interesting. The intent of the board last year was almost certainly to end PE credit forever, since JROTC was supposed to be phased out after this year (why deny PE credit in 2009-2010 for a program that wasn’t supposed to exist?) But if the technical interpretation Norton is offering holds up, the board may face another vote –to withold PE credit for next year and into the future.
And since the swing vote on JROTC, Norman Yee, has made it clear ijn the past that he doesn’t support PE credit, he could wind up voting yes tonight to save the program — then no on a future resolution killing PE credit (which would effectively kill JROTC anyway).
“That’s possible,” Norton said. “But I don’t think it’s going to happen.”
It might, though — I don’t see JROTC foes letting this go.
UPDATE: I just spoke with Norman Yee. He says he plans to support the Wynns-Norton resolution “with amendments” — including the right for some high schools to opt out. He says his previous refusal to support PE credit was based on the state’s position that only credentialed teachers could teach PE — but if the state is wiling to accept the SF program, so is he.
Ick, that means this comes down to the district’s legal interpretation of a letter from the state Board of Education. Stay tuned.
Newsom pushes hard for Muni budget cuts
By Steven T. Jones
Newsom only rides Muni for photos ops, so he won’t feel the pinch of paying $2 fares for decreased service.
As the Board of Supervisors prepares to vote this afternoon on a Muni budget that would raise fares and cut service in order to subsidize other city departments and protect drivers from increased parking fees, pressure from Mayor Gavin Newsom has reportedly flipped Sup. Bevan Dufty and weakened the resolve of the final swing vote, Sup. Sophie Maxwell.
Streetsblog has an excellent report (including audio from Newsom yesterday) about how Dufty – after voting against the Muni budget in committee just last week — has relented to accusations by the Mayor’s Office that a vote against the MTA budget is a vote to widen the city’s budget deficit.
Yet the reality is that the city charter makes the MTA an independent agency, not a piggybank for the Police Department, Newsom’s cherished 311 call center, or the other city agencies that will siphon off $66 million in Muni funds through work orders for functions that they perform anyway. Work orders have increased by way more than the $26 million per year that Newsom encouraged voters to give Muni by approving Prop. A in 2007.
Newsom tried dismissed arguments that the budget would create a downward spiral for Muni, which is already reeling from state budget cuts, saying of the issue “this is nothing.” He also said, “You have to be responsible for the things you advocate because there’s tradeoffs.” That’s true, and apparently Newsom is willing to trade the MTA’s independence and the quality of public transit in San Francisco for appeasing the cops, subsidizing 311, and justifying his budgetary unilateralism and opposition to new revenue measures.
Has Yee done a flip-flop on JROTC?
By Tim Redmond
Here’s what Norman Yee told me last fall:
“I will not vote to bring back JROTC to the schools. I have always said that I support JROTC if it meets state requirements. But since it doesn’t, I’m not for bringing it back. People ask these yes-or-no questions, and they don’t understand what my position really is.”
This morning the Chronicle reports that he’s ready to vote to bring the program back.
What’s happening? I haven’t been able to reach Yee today, but if he’s changed his position, that would be a serious disappointment, since many of us endorsed him for re-election in part because he had the courage to vote down JROTC last time around.
The vote is tonight.
Local businesses underrepresented in city contract awards
By Rebecca Bowe
At Monday’s Land Use and Economic Development Committee hearing, Human Rights Commission Executive Director Chris Iglesias reported on how many locally owned San Francisco businesses benefit from city-issued contracts. The Guardian spotlighted this issue recently.
Across the board, the data showed, most city contracts are awarded to outside firms. (One speaker referred to them as “the Halliburtons of the world.”) The number of prime contracts and subcontracts awarded to non-local businesses was disproportionately higher than those awarded to local businesses, minority-owned businesses, or women-owned businesses, the data showed. Between September of 2006 and December of 2008, Iglesias noted, 35 percent of all city contracts went to certified local business enterprises.
In terms of city departments, Public Works led the way by awarding some 48 percent of its contracts to local firms. The airport issued just 10 percent of its contracts to local businesses, the port contributed 22 percent, and the Public Utilities Commission awarded 34 percent. Citywide, just 9 percent of term-contract awards and 7 percent of blanket-purchase orders were made through local firms.
Board of Supervisors President David Chiu, who formerly served on the city’s Small Business Commission, was less than thrilled by the findings.
Key JROTC vote tomorrow
By Tim Redmond
The future of military recruiting in public schools will come back before the San Francisco School Board tomorrow (Tuesday May 12) as the seven board members take up a resolution by Jill Wynns and Rachel Norton that would undo a previous board decision and bring back JROTC.
This is, of course, a terrible idea.
It’s also going to be a close vote — Wynns, Norton and Hydra Mendoza are expected to support the resolution. Jane Kim, Kim-Shree Maufas and Sandra Fewer are going to oppose it. The swing vote is Norman Yee — and nobody has any idea what he’s going to do.
If the Wynns resolution bringing back JROTC fails, then the program is dead. The board has already voted to phase the recruiting program out, as of next month.
Of course, JROTC will be in trouble anyway as long as the board doesn’t grant phys ed credit to students who take the elective activity. Right now, the JROTC instructors don’t qualify as state-certified phys ed teachers, and the program doesn’t meet state standards. Assembly member Fiona Ma is trying to change that, but here bill doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.
It’s a heated and emotional topic that’s generated a lot of organizing and energy at the board — and as the final vote nears, Kim, Fewer and Mendoza have been meeting with JROTC instructors to see if there’s any ground for compromise.
“I told them I would consider approving it as an after-school program,” Kim told me. “If students really want it, then they can do it after school, with no credit.” The response from JROTC: No way, that would kill the program.
“If the program is so popular, I don’t get the issue,” Kim explained.
The other glitch: The JROTC instructors say the Department of Defense, which ultimately calls the shots here, wouldn’t accept an after-school program.
In other words, the military really IS using the hook of P.E. credit to snag potential military recruits in public high schools.
There’s another interesting element to all of this. The San Francisco public high schools are considering changing curriculum anyway to fit more closely to the UC/CSU admission requirements — and there’s no way JROTC would qualify for any course credit under those standards.
Yee has said in the past — and has told me personally — that he doesn’t want JROTC to come back and that he won’t vote for P.E. credit for the program. But the pressure on the board members will be intense. I hope he has the courage to do the right thing.
The military has every right to go after 18-year-olds, and is using every tool at its disposal to convince them to join up. Seducing minors into the war maching just isn’t acceptable in San Francisco.
Prison report: No one knows what it’s like ….
Editors note: Just a guy is an inmate in a California state prison. His dispatches run Mondays and Thursdays. He tries to answer all questions and comments, but it takes a while to get communications out of the state prison system, so be patient.
By Just A Guy
Another day’s gone by, and I’m a little closer to home and struggling for something to write about. It’s easy once I get going, but figuring out what my topic should be can be difficult.
I mentioned I’d talk about how we feel. I can really only write about how I feel, how it is on a daily basis. It’s hard to quantify a lot of these things, but I will try and lay it out. When I say prison and the way we are treated is de-sensitizing, that probably bears explanation, so I will delve into that for a minute.
Imagine, for a moment, being in an environment that is always hostile. Please don’t mistake hostility for violence in this instance, but more of an overall feeling or undertone of unease. If you can, think of a day or time in your life where you were just uncomfortable, just not quite at rest, not able to quite put your finger on why, maybe it was where you were, maybe it was the people or person you were around, maybe you were in a bad neighborhood and were lost. How about this — the first time, as a child you left the boundaries of your home or neighborhood on your own, rode your bike a little further than you’d ever been … you weren’t scared really, you were sure you knew how to get home, but you were just a little ambivalent, or not at rest … that’s sort of how it feels to be in prison. Vulnerable. Not able to relax.
Also, imagine what it’s like to really trust no one around you. Imagine if you always felt like someone was trying to get something from you, that the smiles were false, that you were being watched all the time, that your world was really a tight rope over a bed of rusty, broken nails. Imagine a state of mind where every decision you make, every meal you eat, and every “friendship” you have is behind the fence on of the wrong side of justice and pining for a moment of solace.
Ammiano on pot on CNN
By Tim Redmond
In case you missed it Saturday, here’s the CNN segment on Tom Ammiano’s pot decrim bill. The governor was supposed to be on with Ammiano, but he ducked at the last minute, claiming he was too busy with the Santa Barbara fires. (Funny, I didn’t see him carrying an axe or a hose.)
Hogarth out in D6 supes race
By Steven T. Jones
Paul Hogarth has announced his withdrawal from the District 6 race for the Board of Supervisors, clearing the way for Debra Walker to be the sole significant progressive candidate in that race (although Jim Meko will also vie for those votes in a district that is one of the city’s most liberal, while downtown is expected to offer up its own candidate).
In making his announcement, Hogarth — who works for Tenderloin Housing Clinic and writes for its Beyond Chron blog — cited financial reasons and the fact that his heart just wasn’t in it right now. He had come under some criticism in the Guardian and elsewhere for planning to continue writing for the blog as he ran.
Hellman to the rescue
By Steven T. Jones
San Francisco financier Warren Hellman is one of downtown’s most complex and interesting figures, as I learned years ago when I worked on an award-winning profile of him. Since then, we’ve stayed in touch and spoken every few months, often about the state of the print media in San Francisco and around the country.
Earlier this year, as the Chronicle was having its problems, we again talked about the need for a more sustainable media model and he said that he planned to contact Hearst executives and explore the possibility of creating a nonprofit paper, a goal that other less connected and endowed entities have also been pursuing (including The Public Press, on whose steering committee I’ve served). But Hellman has the pull to get top executives on the phone and to generate significant capital.
Now, as the San Francisco Business Times reports, Hellman has made significant progress and says he intends to make an announcement in two months about how he plans to create a new print media presence in San Francisco.
We wish him luck and are anxious to see what his team comes up with.
Ammiano and Arnold, on pot
By Tim Redmond
Okay, here’s the TV event of the month: Assemblymember Tom Ammiano will be discussing his marijuana legalization bill with Gov. Schwarzenegger, live on CNN, tomorrow (Sat) at 2:30 pm. The segment will be rebroadcast later in the day.
Must-see TV.
Hall of Shame on torture includes Bay Area notables
By Steven T. Jones
It’s shameful that the Bay Area is home to so many of the top people implicated in creating this country’s torture program. They include the former White House lawyers who created the legal justification for the program, Jay Bybee (who is now a justice at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, located on 7th Street) and John Yoo (who teaches law at UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall); top Bush Administration enablers Condoleezza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld, who are down at Stanford’s Hoover Institute; and our own Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who was reportedly briefed on the program when it began back in 2002 as chair of the House Intelligence Committee.
While Pelosi has so far (inexplicably) escaped serious scrutiny of the issue (just as she did about her foreknowledge of Bush’s illegal wiretapping program), there’s a budding impeachment movement against Bybee, Rice and Rumsfeld reportedly need to consult lawyers before traveling (they should really visit Spain, which I hear is lovely this time of year), and regular protests calling for Yoo’s removal continue next week when World Can’t Wait plans to have a large protest outside Boalt’s commencement ceremonies on May 16 at the Greek Theater.
Justice is coming slowly, but it is coming.
Will Newsom play chicken with the MTA budget?
By Steven T. Jones
As the Board of Supervisors prepares to reject the Municipal Transportation Agency’s budget this Tuesday, word is the Mayor’s Office and MTA are threatening to play chicken and not try in good faith to develop a new budget before the current one expires at the end of the month (in which case, the city General Fund would pay for current Muni service levels, thus expanding the city’s budget deficit).
“We don’t have a course of action charted for if the Board of Supervisors rejects this budget,” MTA spokesperson Judson True said. When I asked whether the board would get together next week to try to develop a budget (its next meeting is May 19), he said, “Whether the MTA board convenes or not is up to the MTA board.”
And that board is made up entirely of mayoral appointees, which is how we got into this mess in the first place. The Mayor’s Office has not answered our inquiries, and MTA director Nat Ford hasn’t been available to supervisors or anyone else. He even cancelled a long-planned interview tonight on the City Desk News Hour, on which I’ll be discussing this issue tonight (7 p.m. on Comcast Channel 11).
It’s not as if the MTA and Newsom didn’t see this coming. More than a month ago, Board President David Chiu visited the MTA and said the Board of Supervisors would reject the budget if it relied too heavily on Muni service cuts and fare hikes and if it continued to subsidize other city agencies through ballooning work orders.
City College raid moves us closer to accountability
By Steven T. Jones
News that prosecutors have raided the administrative offices at City College of San Francisco seeking documents associated with a scheme to launder public funds into campaign contributions (a story that Chron investigative reporter Lance Williams broke in 2007, and which the Guardian has furthered a couple times) is a big deal and a long time in coming.
As the Guardian has written repeatedly over the years, City College administrators from former Chancellor Phil Day on down have always played fast and loose with the people’s money and need to be held accountable.
The DA’s investigation should cast a wide net in learning who knew about this money laundering scheme, including looking at longtime board members who enabled Day and held back the reformers. Luckily, that board now has some public spirited members, including Milton Marks, John Rizzo, and Chris Jackson (who just joined the board last year), but they’re still in the minority. Nonetheless, they need to push this board to work hard to restore the public’s confidence in this important institution.
Layoffs at the San Francisco Chronicle
By Steven T. Jones
Hearst dropped the hammer on the San Francisco Chronicle this morning, laying off 20 people in the newsroom, including award-winning veteran writers Susan Sward and Jane Kay. SFist was the first up with a fairly complete list, which our sources at the Chron has confirmed is accurate.
The layoffs follow voluntary buyouts that dozens of Chron employees took, including political writer John Wildermuth. Most of the terminations, both the layoffs and buyouts, go into effect at the end of the month. Although Chron employees knew this was coming, it was still tough blow to morale at the paper.
An employee meeting to discuss the news has been set for 4:30 pm. We’ll have more on this story as it develops.
Marin paper chokes on Mirkarimi appointment
By Tim Redmond
The Marin Independent Journal is going nuts about the fact that San Francisco Sup. Ross Mirkarimi got a slot on the state Coastal Commission. The IJ wanted a Marinite, Sup. Steve Kinsey, and is blasting Sen. Mark Leno for recommending Mirkarimi (which for all practical purposes guaranteed that the San Francisco environmental leader would get the post).
According to the IJ:
Leno said it was a difficult choice and that he respects Kinsey’s experience. He said Mirkarimi offers strong environmental credentials and stressed that a San Franciscan has not held the North Coast seat for 32 years. He pointed to Mirkarimi’s leadership in winning passage of San Francisco’s ban on plastic bags. Leno said he also heard from some environmentalists who asked him not to pick Kinsey. Apparently Kinsey works harder than they would like to balance historic private property rights and local agriculture with protection of California’s coast.
You get the point — Kinsey thinks that the Coastal Commission should “balance” property rights and coastal protection. Actually, that’s not the panel’s job. The commission was set up to prevent development along the coast; it’s supposed to be really, really hard to get a permit to do anything that would limit public access or damange a pristine coastal area.
A former Sierra Club president makes the point nicely here.
But wait — the IJ isn’t done. In an oped column May 5th, Brad Breithaupt insists that Leno was snubbing the northern part of his district:
For the first time in 30 years, a Marin resident isn’t serving on the commission, even as an alternate.
Guess what? It’s been more than 30 years since San Francisco had a seat on the commission.
But that’s not the issue. The issue is that coastal protection is more important than whether someone lives in San Francisco or Marin — and on an increasingly conservative and pro-development commission, the representative from the SF/Marin/Sonoma area needs to be a hard-core enviro, someone who isn’t looking to compromise with property owners or developers.
“And I think Ross Mirkarimi has already proven he’s doing an excellent job,” Leno said. So lighten up, Marin.
Recurrent debacle
By Julian Davis
(Julian Davis is on the board of San Francisco Tomorrow, an urban environmental organization. He chaired last November’s Clean Energy campaign, prop H.)
In the wake of Tuesday’s vote on the Recurrent solar power deal for the Sunset Reservoir, long time progressive activists have to ask themselves, what happened?
A widespread commitment to positive government courses through the veins of San Francisco’s political community. Whether it’s defending the public health care system against cuts or the perennial advocacy of public power, one thing that unites progressives is a belief that government should work for the people and that corporate special interests have no place dictating or writing the terms at City Hall.