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Politics Blog

“Failing to grasp the big picture”

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By Steven T. Jones

The supervisors that voted 4-1 yesterday to reject the MTA’s budget were smart, deliberate, curious, and forward-looking, so it’s no surprise that the Mayor Gavin Newsom’s flack Nathan Ballard told the Chronicle that they were “failing to grasp the big picture” and causing cuts in public health and other city services.

If those cuts happen, that’s Newsom’s fault for blocking the new revenue measures that President David Chiu, who also led this charge in questioning a budget that will hurt Muni and the city, tried to create. Instead, Newsom supports this utterly dishonest MTA budget, which takes even more than the $26 million per year that voters in 2007 said they wanted Muni to have by approving Prop. A and using it to fund pet projects that he wants to claim in his run for governor.

Newsom was also the one who decided to pay MTA director Nat Ford $316,000, the highest salary in the city, and to negotiate overly generous contracts with city police, fire, and management unions that he’s now having to try to go back and undo. He lets taxpayers pay Ballard and other highly paid political operatives and lets his precious 311 call center charge the MTA almost $2 per call, which is more than it costs to ride the bus. And he wants MTA is increase the number of fare inspectors, even though that program costs $8 million and only netted $350,000 in fines. On and on it goes, as the hearing yesterday clearly highlighted.

But don’t take my word for it, go to SFGTV and watch the Budget and Finance Committee hearing, starting around the third hour when this item began. Watch Chiu respectfully and intelligently ask insightful questions of Ford that clearly showed just how bad this budget is. Then you’ll grasp the big picture and appreciate who’s really running the city and who’s willing to sacrifice this city on the altar of his personal ambitions.

Supervisors seem primed to reject MTA budget

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By Steven T. Jones

While the Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee hearing on President David Chiu’s proposal to reject the Municipal Transportation Agency’s disastrous budget is just getting underway, the fact that Chiu has six co-sponsors (giving him the seven votes required to reject it) seems to indicate that this budget is going down.

“If people have to pay more for less, they will stop taking Muni,” Chiu said at the hearing, referring to an MTA budget that closes a $126 million budget deficit mostly with Muni fare increases and deep service cuts.

Chiu and Sup. David Campos also took issue with the $66 million that the MTA is planning to pay out to other city agencies, most notably the police and health departments and the 311 call center, a pet project of Mayor Gavin Newsom. “Whatever money riders of Muni pay into the system should be used for public transportation,” Campos said, adding that his Mission District constituents are angry that the MTA is being used as a piggy bank by other city departments. “I’m very troubled by that and I believe the voters of my district are troubled by that.”

While this saga will take at least another week or two to play out at the board level, if Chiu’s co-sponsors remain supportive, the board is going to make the MTA come up with a fair, smart budget that doesn’t subsidize unrelated services or discourage public transit use when we need it most.

Bike Coalition honors Sunday Streets

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By Steven T. Jones
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Proponents of Sunday Streets accepting their award. Photo by Orange Photography courtesy of the SFBC.

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition honored the proponents of Sunday Streets – the temporary closure of San Francisco roads to cars that was created by a partnership of groups ranging from Livable City to the Mayor’s Office – at its annual Golden Wheels awards event, held last night in the War Memorial Building across from City Hall.

Sunday Streets, part of an international trend toward adopting the ciclovias popularized in Columbia as a means of expanding public space and promoting fitness and recreation, started last year in San Francisco with two events and there are six planned for this year, with the second coming this Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. from AT&T Park to the Bayview Opera House.

“The streets belong to us, they are the public spaces of the city, but they don’t feel like they belong to us,” said Livable City director Tom Radulovich, who praised the unlikely coalition that brought these events together. “I don’t get a chance to thank the mayor for very many things…But the mayor was committed to this.”

Loitering outside clubs banned

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Text by Sarah Phelan

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Asking for change outside local nightclubs could end up costing you $100 or a stint in the county jail, thanks to a newly enacted loitering ban that’s aimed at making clubbing safer but threatens First Amendment rights.

Google the phrase “we met outside the club” and you’ll get all sorts of interesting hits, mostly involving luscious bands, lascivious strippers and a crazy story titled “Getting laid Brazilian style.”

But meeting band members, picking up strippers and getting laid San Francisco style by people you met outside clubs here just got potentially harder, thanks to loitering legislation that the Board of Supervisors passed yesterday, in an effort to make clubbing safer. And then there are the usual questions about how this legislation impinges on people’s First Amendment rights and how it will most likely end up netting a bunch of homeless folks rather than hardened criminals.

“The areas outside nightclubs have become the site of robberies, assaults, stabbings and shootings” states the loitering ban that the Board passed in a 9-2 vote, with Sups. Chris Daly and John Avalos dissenting.

Why does the Potrero power plant operate with an expired water permit?

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By Rebecca Bowe

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On Dec. 31, 2008, Mirant’s wastewater-discharge permit expired — but the gas and diesel-fired power plant still runs an average of nearly 20 hours a day, according to figures released by the California Independent System Operator (Cal-ISO).

One unit at the facility uses a system called once-through cooling, which means it takes in huge quantities of water from the bay to cool the machinery, then dumps it all back at temperatures high enough to impact surrounding ecosystems. This process is regulated by a permit issued by the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board. A spreadsheet on the agency’s Web site shows that more than five months into 2009, a hearing to outline the terms of a new wastewater-discharge permit still hasn’t been scheduled. The water board is waiting on a state policy decision regarding once-through cooling before it acts, a note explains.

Gov opens door, a bit, on legal pot

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By Tim Redmond

Well, Arnold Schwarzenegger didn’t actually admit that he favors legalizing marijuana, which he once referred to (after taking hit on camera) as “not a drug, it’s a leaf,” but he did say that the state ought to have a debate on the issue. That’s possibly good news for Assemblymember Tom Ammiano, who has a bill to legalize pot that’s not exactly moving forward fast. Some of the Democrats in Sacramento are more afraid of the Demon Leaf than the guv is.

I don’t know if Arnold still does the 420, but I know he realizes that his budget plan is heading for defeat. And legalizing and taxing the state’s biggest cash crop would do wonders to boost state revenue.

UPDATE: Just talked to Ammiano, who told me that “I’m predicting something pretty good comes out of this.” WIth polls showing more than half the state supports legal pot, even the Democratic leadership, which has been loathe to move the Ammiano bill foward, may be ready at least to discuss the issue.

“The opposition is shrinking and the proponents are growing,” he said.

So it will be interesting to see how the Democratic candidates for governor shake down on this. “Gavin Newsom has trapped himself by saying no,” Ammiano noted. Can’t wait to hear what ol’ Jerry Brown has to say.

Guardian wins Maggie Award

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By Tim Redmond

Congratulations to City Editor Steven T. Jones, who won a presitigous Maggie Award from the Western Publishing Association. Jones won in the category of “Best Signed Editorial or Essay” for his March 19, 2008 report on the state of the antiwar movement, “Resistance is futile — or is it?”.

Recurrent Energy project passed on 7-4 vote

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By Rebecca Bowe

The Board of Supervisors voted 7 to 4 this afternoon to approve a 25-year power purchase agreement with Recurrent Energy, a private firm that plans to construct a 5-megawatt photovoltaic array at the Sunset Reservoir. Supervisors John Avalos, David Campos, Chris Daly and Ross Mirkarimi voted against the agreement, voicing concerns that the city would be locked into a bad financial deal for years to come and asserting that the city could strike a better deal with Recurrent. Part of the problem, Mirkarimi noted, is that the city would be locked into paying a fixed price for solar energy even if the going rate drops significantly in coming years.

The Guardian has weighed in on the project at several junctures. While everyone at the table believes that the end goal is laudable – adding 5 megawatts of clean energy to the city’s renewable portfolio – Supervisors Mirkarimi and Campos have expressed opposition to contract terms that they say would ultimately sell San Francisco ratepayers short. At a joint meeting between LAFCo and the SFPUC on April 24, Mirkarimi also worried that the Recurrent Energy project could undercut the efforts of San Francisco’s fledgling Community Choice Aggregation initiative.

The power purchase agreement was originally put forth by Mayor Gavin Newsom and Supervisor Carmen Chu. Chu advocated strongly for it during today’s meeting, saying she believed it was a good deal and noting that it would create 71 jobs.

Daly weighed in heavily against it, calling the deal a politicized “rush job.” The result, in his opinion, is that “we get electricity that is green, but it is too expensive to give anyone else the opportunity to do it too. … Going green doesn’t mean going green stupid. If it seems like gymnastics for a deal, there is a better way.”

Beyond May Day

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Text and photos by Joe Sciarrillo
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Thousands marched in Bay Area cities on May 1 to honor International Workers’ Day, or May Day, offering a preview of the big struggles to come on the national political front.

Mission District activists chanted on Dolores Street, “¡Qué viva las familias! ¡Qué viva el barrio! Viva!” energizing participants to join together to support their families and neighborhoods. Yet the daily struggles of immigrants and laborers, families living hand-to-mouth, and loved ones separated by borders has eluded most media outlets and commentators.

The nationwide marches focused on calls for comprehensive immigration reform and improving workers’ conditions, including passing the Employee Free Choice Act. This was just days after the first question at President Barack Obama’s April 29 news conference asked if he would close the U.S./Mexico border due to the swine flu outbreak. He, of course, responded by declaring that he would not do so.

Craigslist kills again

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So maybe it’s more complicated than blaming it all on Craigslist, but reports that The Onion, that venerable fake news publication, is discontinuing print editions in San Francisco and Los Angeles, “because the advertising in both cities has been abysmal” got me thinking uncharitably of Craig Newmark again.
Speaking of killings, Craigslist representatives are meeting with attorney generals from Missouri, Illinois and Connecticut today to negotiate eliminating ads for prostitution and other suspected illegal sexual activities from their site.

The real defenders of San Francisco values

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By Steven T. Jones
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While Mayor Gavin Newsom gallivants around the country – he’s been back east accepting accolades for same-sex marriage and Healthy San Francisco and trying to shore up White House support for his Treasure Island and Hunters Point redevelopment schemes – other city leaders are doing the hard work of restoring San Francisco values.

On Wednesday, there are two shining examples of this uphill battle that take place on opposite ends of Civic Center Plaza. First, SF Public Defender Jeff Adachi hosts “Justice Summit 2009: Defending the Public and the Constitution,” which highlights the importance of constitutional guarantees of quality legal representation for all defendants, regardless of income level, a right that has been eroded by budgetary pressures in San Francisco and around the country.

Among the long list of respected legal thinkers will be a keynote speech by US District Judge Thelton Henderson, who has ordered California to finally do something about severe overcrowding and substandard medical care in its prisons – a laudable and courageous stand that has been met with utter cowardice, contempt, and pandering by state officials. That event begins at 10 a.m. in the main library’s Koret Auditorium.

Then, at 1:30 in City Hall, the Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee will consider a proposal by Board President David Chiu to reject the terrible and short-sighted budget that was just approved by the Municipal Transportation Agency, which reduces Muni service and increases the fare to $2 while asking little from motorists (who will increase in numbers as more people eschew taking transit) or from Muni chief Nat Ford, whose $316,459 salary is the highest in city government (again, Newsom’s doing).

These are difficult issues that require hard work (and more revenue from the well-heeled city residents that Newsom is siding with in blocking a special election on tax measures), but it’s good to see we still have some public-spirited elected officials who are willing to take risks and work for San Francisco values instead of simply campaigning on them.

CBDG switcheroo is not a done deal

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For anyone who believed that Mayor Newsom was merely proposing a) to merge the Mayor’s Office of Community Investment with the Office of Economic and Workforce Development and b) change how community block development grants are spent, and that none of this would happen until he got the Board of Supervisors’s approval, as is required, according to the City charter, here’s a letterthat suggests that the MOCI/OEWD merger is a done deal, and that changes to community development block grants use are about to be rammed through, give or take a community comment, or two.

Dated April 16, the missive states that, “The Mayor’s Office of Community Investment (MOCI), now merged with the Office of Economic and Workforce Development, is proposing to amend the 2005-2009 Consolidated Plan.”

The Consolidated Plan, in case you are wondering, sets forth the strategy and goals for the city’s use of four federal funding sources: community block development grants, emergency shelter grants, home investment partnerships and housing opportunities for persons with AIDS.

According to the OEWD April 16 missive, Newsom’s proposed amendment seeks to undertake “economic development, housing and public service activities with CDBG funds” and promote “innovative programs in economically disadvantaged areas.” It also designates the Western Addition as a “neighborhood revitalization strategy area.”

You can check out the entire draft plan here.

The solar project heads for a vote

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By Tim Redmond

Lots of talk about the Sunset reservoir Solar proposal over the weekend; the Chron weighed in with a fairly weak story that just did the he-says-she-says without getting into any of the real issues. And Julian Davis has a pretty detailed analysis here, at Fog City Journal.

The simple point is that the contract the supes are about to sign off on isn’t a great deal for the city. We’re going to be paying a lot of money to a private company to do something the city ought to be able to do itself.

I had conversations last week with a number of supervisors, and it’s looking like some of the progressives — John Avalos and Eric Mar, for example — are leaning toward supporting the project. Mar told me he’s been listening to the Sierra Club, which is often a good thing to do when it comes to alternative energy, but in this case I think the traditional enviros are so thrilled that there’s actual a viable solar project on the horizon that they’re not spending enough time on the details.

In fact, I spoke with John Rizzo, the Sierra Club’s point person on the project, and he told me that “The Sierra Club doesn’t care about the details of the contract. We’re not contract experts. We just want to see this happen.”

He agreed that it’s infuriating that so much of the federal alternative-energy money is going to the private sector, and said he’d support legislation that would give public agencies access to the same sort of money private companies get in tax breaks. “But global warming isn’t waiting,” he said. “Let’s build this one with this kind of a deal, and try the have the city build the next one.”

I with Rizzo in spirt, but the truth is, we’re going to regret this deal.

The only reason it makes sense to pay Recurrent Energy to do this is that Recurrent gets a $12 million tax break, and the city, as a public agency, doesn’t qualify for that money.

Let me make a humble suggestion. Rep. Nancy Pelosi is, I believe, still the speaker of the House. She’s managed to get San Francisco something like a billion dollars for the Chinatown subway. I’m willing to bet a case of Bud Light (and I don’t make bets that valuable easily) that if the mayor of San Francisco called Rep. Pelosi and told her that the difference between building a five-megawatt solar project and not building it was $12 million in federal money — so little in terms of federal spending that it’s what Mirkarimi calls “decimal dust” — San Francisco would have a promise of that cash so fast that Newsom couldn’t even find a shovel to break ground before the check arrived.

And the thing that frustrates me is that nobody’s even trying.

The supes ought to send this deal back to committee and take a real look at ways the city can do the same project, and own it, for less money. I refuse to believe that’s not possible.

And if Gavin Newsom wants to say he can’t make this work, then he’s going to have a hell of a time convincing any of us that he has the ability to run the State of California.

The trial of the San Francisco 8

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By Ben Terrall

On Monday, June 8, the seven former Black Panthers known as the San Francisco 8 will face a preliminary hearing in Superior Court. The defendants are charged in the 1971 death of a local police officer; the charges were initially brought back in 1975, and dismissed when a judge ruled that the central evidence in the case was obtained through torture.

In fact, the FBI COINTELPRO-era case has a chilling resemblance to stories of torture at Guantanamo Bay: the statements were obtained after several of the suspects were subject to sleep deprivation, wet blankets used for asphyxiation, and beatings.

Now, although the San Francisco district attorney refused to file charges, Attorney General Jerry Brown has brought the case back. In 2007, he charged eight men – all of them now in their 60s, 70s and 80s – with murder. One defendant has been dropped from the case.

The remaining defendants are Herman Bell, Ray Boudreaux, Richard Brown, Henry (Hank)Jones, Jalil Muntaqim (Anthony Bottom), Harold Taylor and Francisco Torres.

The case has attracted international attention, and Nobel Prize winners including Desmond Tutu have called on Brown to drop the charges.

Locally, it’s led to a fascinating battle within the San Francisco Labor Council.

Prison report: Health care, the Rolling Stones and Oscar Wilde

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Editor’s note: Just A Guy is an inmate in a California state prison. His reports from the inside appear Mondays and Thursdays. He will respond to questions and comments, but since communications out of the state prison system are often difficult, it may take a little while.

By Just A Guy

Last week’s blog didn’t get as much response as I had hoped, but got what I expected. It is obvious that even the left is less concerned with the general living condition of prisoners than with the impact on the economy and society in general, but I think it is being overlooked that the way we are treated often results in de-sensitized individuals being released into to a world they now view as more agressive and unfair. I will use this to seque into medical and mental health care as this is a portrait of how we’re treated, too.

To say there is inadequate mental health care would be a gross understatement, this has been verified (by Elaina Jannell in previous posts) with respect to California State Prison-Solano. Keep in mind that Solano is supposed to be a pilot program prison, a place where they bring the politicians and tour groups to show what a great job the California Deparment of Corrections and Rehabilition is doing and how all your tax money is being spent.

Well, that’s Solano, not here or the other thirty-two prisons. If the mental health care is inadequate at a pilot program, imagine what it’s like somewhere that isn’t under the microscope!

I am one of those people that is supposed to be getting mental health care, but I have not seen anyone from the mental health staff in well over a year. While I feel I am well adjusted and, quite frankly, don’t hold the services in high regard (for obvious reasons) there are people around me who have blatantly obvious mental/psychological disorders that DO NOT receive care. The CDCR answer seems to be paint.

Betchya wonder what the hell I’m talking about.

Newsom’s Spanish-speaking ringer

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By Tim Redmond

The San Jose Mercury News just busted Gavin Newsom for using a Spanish-speaking (sorta) ringer in his campaign announcement. Turns out the guy isn’t an immigrant; he’s a Mission District doctor who is the ex-husband of Newsom’s education advisor and SF School Board member Hydra Mendoza.

Public access TV faces the axe

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By TIm Redmond

San Francisco stands to lose the vast majority of its public-access cable programming June 30th unless Sup. Ross Mirkarimi is able to convince his colleagues to try to force Comcast, the local cable operator, to keep paying the tab.

Comcast for years has paid enough money through its francise agreement with the city to fund the San Francisco Community Television Corporation, a nonprofit, at a level of roughly $700,000 a year. That pays for the studios on Market Street and a staff to manage 134 local programs that show on channels 29 and 76. It’s a wonderful mix of stuff, put together for what amounts to a bargain price in decidedly low-overhead studios, and demonstrates exactly what the notion of public-access TV is all about.

But in 2006, the state Legislature took the authority to regulate cable franchises away from cities — and that left San Francisco unable to continue demanding the payment for public access. Mirkarimi has figured out a way around it, and he has the support of state Sen. Mark Leno, who argues that the state legislation never intended to prevent cities from mandating public-access fees.

The technical glitch is language that seems to imply that the city can force Comcast to pay for facilities, but not for operating costs. Since the city’s pretty broke right now, it’s going to be hard to get $700,000 in General Fund money to pay the CTC staff. In fact, CTC applied to renew its contract, but the city said it was only going to be able to pay some $100,000 a year going forward.

But frankly, without a staff to operate the access channels, the whole enterprise will die.

Mirkarimi’s bill would hit Comcast with a new fee — and based on a letter he’s received from Leno, he thinks it will fly legally. But the cable company says it will simply pass that on to customers (who frankly don’t have a lot of choice in the market). The Chronicle’s Marisa Lagos put it this way:

A city report estimates that consumers, who currently shell out $6.24 per year, could end up paying 352 percent more, or $28.20 per year

That sounds like a whopping fee hike — 352 percent more! — but in reality, we’re talking about all of $21.96 a YEAR, or $1.83 a month. Which is pretty minimal.

At the Budget Committee, Mirkarimi and Sup. John Avalos voted to send the bill to the full board, which takes it up tomorrow, May 5th. Saving public access TV isn’t as important as saving public health, but it’s a part of San Francisco, and it’s a way for diverse and creative voices to get on the air — and it would cost the taxpayers nothing and cable subscribers pennies. This one needs community support.

How Weird to pay SFPD’s protection money

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By Steven T. Jones

Faced with San Francisco Police Department threats to block their permits to sell beer and to have amplified music, organizers of the How Weird Street Faire have decided to pay the nearly $10,000 that the cops were demanding up front rather than go to court to fight fees that appear to violate caps written into city codes.

How Weird organizer Brad Olsen said vendor fees and other financial support should allow them to come up with the money. That’s good news for those planning to attend the May 10 event, although other outdoor event advocates — such as John Wood, with the Entertainment Commission and Love Fest — had urged How Weird to make a stand against rapidly escalating SFPD fees. As the Guardian reported, city codes cap fees for events this size at $5,494.

Police have said they’re required to recover all costs associated with the event, although it is the SFPD that decides have many cops on overtime are required to staff the event, which has had no major police incidents in its 10-year history. Love Fest is a far larger event covering more territory, and therefore gets a bigger SFPD bill, so this fight is likely to pick up again once its organizers begin the permit process this summer.

Meanwhile, the SFPD has begun an aggressive campaign to crackdown on underground parties, one that has caused the dozens of local Burning Man camps now staging fundraisers to get creative in throwing parties. Many have moved the parties to the East Bay, while others are renting out existing clubs in San Francisco to get around the crackdown (which many suspect is tied to an SFPD power vacuum and struggle as Chief Heather Fong prepares to retire).

Stay tuned to the Guardian for more coverage of the Death of Fun.

Don’t shoot the shipyard messengers

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Rev. Amos’ Brown’s recent op-ed in the Examiner is the latest in a string of attacks on anyone who suggests that anything about Lennar’s redevelopment plan could be improved.

These types of attacks are called “shooting the messenger.” And while they can be effective in silencing critics, they don’t address the problems contained in the message that the (now smeared) messenger was delivering.

In this latest instance of shooting the messenger, Amos’ target is the outspoken Minister Christopher Muhammad, who leads the Nation of Islam mosque on Third Street in Bayview Hunter’s Point and represents the Muslim school that sits adjacent to the shipyard.

Muhammad, who is good at firing up his followers with feisty soul-shaking speeches, has taken to comparing Florida-based developer Lennar to an invasive Burmese python, ever since Lennar failed to control toxic asbestos at the shipyard.

Muhammad also has taken to saying that if Lennar had screwed up in Pacific Heights and the kids at the school had been white, the response from Mayor Gavin Newsom and corporation would have been very different—and Lennar would likely have been fined more than $500,000, which is equal to the cost of one of the 10,500 condos that they are planning to build on the shipyard and Candlestick Point in the next decade.

Muhammad, who has been making these comments at just about every commission, hearing, and meeting citywide, recently took his show on the road to embarrass Newsom at the townhalls in Napa and San Jose, where the man who wants to be California’s next governor was hoping to seduce supporters with speeches and a sunny smile, not be shouted down by a black minister shouting about asbestos and poor innocent children.

Last month, Newsom responded to Muhammad’s crashing of his gubernatorial run in what seemed like sour grapes manner: according to columnists Matier and Ross, Newsom saw that a letter was fired off to Muhammad’s school, with the help of Brown, demanding that $24,000 (of unpaid back rent totaling $168,000) be settled in 30 days, or the school—and with it the kids—will face eviction.

Muni flunks Econ 101

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By Tim Redmond

There are lots of problems with the Muni fare hikes, and Paul Hogarth points out some of them. But there’s a larger issue here: Is this really going to bring in more revenue?

Every time Muni raises fares, some people stop riding the bus. That’s basic economics — you hike the price of a product, and you sell less of it. And if your raise the price too high, and enough people stop buying your product, you actually lose money.

That’s called the price elasticity of demand, and it’s a central part of any economics course. It’s hard to run a business without some basic understanding of the concept.

If your product isn’t necessary for people’s lives (and there are available alternatives), the drop-off is faster and sharper — raise airline tickets high enough and people quickly drop discretionary travel and vacation closer to home. When the product is something everyone absolutely needs, like housing, and there’s no substitute, you can raise prices a lot more without losing customers (see: San Francisco rents).

Muni is somewhere in between. For some people, typically poor and working-class people, it’s essential — they don’t own cars and need the bus or train to get to work. For others — those of us who are physically able to ride bikes, or to walk to work or the store, or economically able to afford private cars — the price elasticity of Muni is much higher.

There are all sorts of studies on this (here, for example, but trust me, unless you’re really into economic theory and lots of strange numbers, don’t even think about it.)

Suffice to say that in San Francisco, a small city with typically good weather, a fairly wealthy population and a lot of people who enjoy walking and biking, the price elasticity of demand for Muni is relatively high — that is, when prices go up, people who can will seek other alternatives. Nobody knows exactlyat what the price point Muni starts to lose money — when fare hikes become counterproductive — but I suspect we’re approaching it. The largest rate hike in half a century is not only regressive, counter to the city’s transit-first policy and environmentally stupid — it may be a financial mistake.

Now contrast that with raising parking prices. For starters, most drivers who park downtown can well afford to pay a couple bucks more for parking. Second, check out the streets — parking is so hard to find that it seems very likely that demand exceeds supply by enough of a factor that raising prices won’t impact use and will bring in more revenue.

And what if some people decide that parking costs too much and stop driving? Isn’t that what the city wants to accomplish anyway?

This decision to raise fares more than parking is nuts, on every level.

Celebration, cigars, and a bloody nose at Mirkarimi baby bar crawl

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Text by Steven T. Jones, photos by Tim Daw
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Friends, colleagues and supporters of Sup. Ross Mirkarimi gathered last night to celebrate the recent birth of his son, Theo Aureliano Mirkarimi, with an event dubbed the Mirkarimi Man-Baby Shower and Bar Crawl that started at Molotov’s in Lower Haight.

Among those taking part in an event centered around drinking, cigar smoking, carousing, congratulatory support, wearing custom trucker’s caps, and general male bonding were Board of Supervisors President David Chiu, his predecessor Aaron Peskin, City Attorney’s Office spokesperson Matt Dorsey, Chiu board aide David Noyola, former mayoral candidate Quintin Mecke, Mirkarimi aide Rick Galbreath, Guardian publisher Bruce Brugmann, former Santa Monica mayor Mike Feinstein, Entertainment Commissioner John Wood and local political activists Julian Davis, Andy Blue, Dan Nguyen-Tan, Amandeep Jawa, and Boris Delepine.
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Macanudos and Mecke

What’s all the fuss about Articles 10 & 11?

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By Rebecca Bowe

The San Francisco Building & Construction Trades Council is planning a “Rally for Jobs” on May 5 at Civic Center Plaza to oppose “a measure on historic preservation that would kill much of our work,” according to an announcement on the council’s Web site. “Work is hard to find now. Don’t let it go away forever,” the announcement declares. At issue is the rewrite of Articles 10 and 11 of the city’s planning code, which deal with historic preservation and are integrally linked with the newly created Historic Preservation Commission.

There’s no question that the effects of an unstable economy and the downward slide of the housing market have led to a shortage in construction jobs, and it’s clear that the workers in this industry are hurting. At the Democratic party luncheon picket last week, I spoke with a number of masons, electricians and others who were struggling to make ends meet while they were out of work. Some 400 workers in the bricklayers union alone have lost their jobs, one union member told me, and times are tough.

But is the Historic Preservation Commission to blame? Would the pending revisions of Articles 10 and 11 really be the last nail in the coffin for development in San Francisco, obliterating the last remaining construction jobs in the city? I called the city Planning Department to find out what this rewrite will mean for the city and was directed to Tara Sullivan, who works in legislative affairs and has been deeply involved in the process. “There’s some speculation that this will halt development around the city,” Sullivan told me. “But it’s not an anti-development tool at all. And it’s not citywide.”

Herrera lobbies for Healthy San Francisco

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By Steven T. Jones
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When I arrived back at San Francisco International Airport last night, weary after a long trip from Prague, I was surprised to bump into City Attorney Dennis Herrera. We chatted a moment and he told me that he was taking a red eye flight to DC to lobby the US Labor Department into supporting our Healthy San Francisco program.

As you may remember, the Golden Gate Restaurant Association has been mounting an aggressive (but so far unsuccessful) legal challenge of the city’s universal healthcare program, which is partially funded by employer contributions. GGRA is now trying to get the US Supreme Court to overturn the 9th Circuit’s ruling in the city’s favor.

Bush’s Labor Department filed an amicus brief supporting GGRA’s contention that the program violates the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act, a stance Herrera hopes the new administration will reverse. “We have higher hopes for the Obama Labor Department, so this is a preliminary discussion that Dennis is having with them,” Herrera spokesperson Matt Dorsey told me today.

Mayor Gavin Newsom, a former restaurateur who belonged to GGRA, claims credit on the gubernatorial campaign trail for Healthy San Francisco (which was actually created by then-Sup. Tom Ammiano), but did little to either get it passed or to defend it against attack from his allies. As with same-sex marriage, the other big feather Newsom tries to wear in his candidate’s cap, it is Herrera who’s doing the heavy lifting while Newsom pretends to Californians that he’s leading San Francisco.

Tax pot and the rich, or bury our heads

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By Steven T. Jones

Newspapers and politicians can empower citizens, or they can promote cynicism and gridlock. The package of bad choices being presented to voters in the coming election are an example of the latter, and so is an article in today’s Chronicle reporting poll results showing voters want neither tax increases nor spending cuts.

It’s certainly true that most people want maximum services and minimal taxes, but Chron’s writer Carla Marinucci does a real disservice by her selective presentation of the Field Poll results. Rather than writing “state voters strongly oppose both new taxes and cuts in their favorite programs and services,” she could have written this: A new poll shows state voters want to close the budget gap by legalizing marijuana and increasing taxes on millionaires.

Instead, readers must make the jump to learn that 56 percent of voters want to legalize and tax marijuana, something legislation by Assembly member Tom Ammiano would do. And they have to make it almost to the end of the story to read that, “Three-quarters also supported more taxes on millionaires.”

It’s sad that veteran Chronicle political writer John Wildermuth has decided to take the Hearst buyout and leave the ailing paper, and we’re left with Marinucci and her consistently disempowering and conservative point-of-view. If the Chronicle wants to become relevant to this city, they should find a political writer who can recognize and present opportunities for progress.

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