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Politics Blog

It’s official: SF follows the stimpack money.

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A graph on the Mayor’s Office’s newly launched website seeks to break it all down.

Text by Sarah Phelan

So, finally, the Mayor’s Office has launched a website to track stimpack dollars that are coming to San Francisco based on census data (formula funding), or that can be competed for locally.

So far the newly launched website breaks down the dollars by the following categories: public safety, environment, education, housing, health and human services and transportation. It’s a good start.

What the site does not do is break down the dollars according to whether they are going to create green collar jobs. Such jobs been defined by Van Jones, Obama”s new Green Collar czar, as, ” a family-supporting, career-track job that directly contributes to preserving or enhancing environmental quality.”

I realize it’s early days and the city may truly not have a handle on this crucial date yet, and I’m trying to practice what Jones, who likes metaphors involving ships, (the Amistad, the Titanic, and Noah’s Ark all get invoked in Jones The Green Collar Economy,) calls “the Noah principles.

These five principles can be summed up thus: “fewer issues, more solutions; fewer demands, more goals; fewer targets, more partners; less accusation, more confession; and less cheap patriotism, more deep patriotism.”

Clean Power SF will take center stage at joint meeting

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By Rebecca Bowe

Last Friday, Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi declared 2009 the “make-or-break year” for San Francisco’s ambitious Community Choice Aggregation program. Also known as Clean Power SF, the program would establish the city and county as an electricity purchaser for residents and businesses currently served by PG&E, and put S.F. on track for achieving 50 percent renewable power generation. At an April 3 LAFCo (Local Agency Formation Commission) meeting, it was announced that the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission has agreed to sit down with LAFCo for a meeting about CCA for the first time ever — a sign that things could actually start moving forward.

The process of getting Clean Power SF off the ground has been fraught with delay, in part because the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission — which is tasked with implementing the program — dropped the ball on a series of deadlines. During the last couple monthly meetings, LAFCo, which is charged with overseeing CCA implementation, has vented frustration about the feet dragging at the PUC and questioned the agency’s commitment to the effort. However, the tone shifted some at the April 3 meeting.

CCA director Michael Campbell, who was hired by the SFPUC, noted that the city agency is getting back on schedule — and announced the launch of a new Web site. Two new LAFCo staff positions were approved recently by the Board of Supervisors, providing further momentum.

Iraq: Six gay men shot at clerics’ urging

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By Marke B.

Today came word that six men had been shot for being gay in Baghdad’s Sadr City — two last Thursday and four earlier, their bodies unearthed on March 25 with signs reading “pervert” pinned to their chests. Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr had called for a “crackdown” on gays. “Sermons condemning homosexuality were read at the last two Friday prayer gatherings in Sadr City, a sprawling Baghdad slum of some 2 million people,” according to Reuters

“Two young men were killed on Thursday. They were sexual deviants. Their tribes killed them to restore their family honor,” a Sadr City official who declined to be named said.

“This (homosexuality) has spread because of the absence of the Mehdi Army, the spread of sexual films and satellite television and a lack of government surveillance,” said the office’s Sheikh Ibrahim al-Gharawi, a Shi’ite cleric.

According to an eyewitness, a cafe known for being a gay hangout was also burned down.

“Homosexuality is not a crime in Iraq,” said our own State Department (specifically, John Fleming, the public affairs officer for the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs) last Thursday when confronted by an international outcry over the alleged possibility of “execution in batches” of gays imprisoned for “moral crimes” there.

Does “bureaucracy” equal “corruption?”

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Players: Michael “Kennedy” Cassidy, Gus Murad and Jean-Paul Samaha (the three men on the right) party together at Murad’s wedding in Morocco. Photo by Luke Thomas, Fog City Journal.

By Tim Redmind

The Chron’s Seth Rosenfeld continues to cover the controversy over the demolition of the Little House on Russian Hill, and he’d advanced the story a few notches. But the headline — “cracks in bureaucracy doomed historic house” — makes it sound as if this whole episode were just a matter of screw-ups and incompetance. As opposed to, for example, systemic corruption in the Department of City Planning and Department of Building Inspection.

Read through Rosenfeld’s article, and our piece, by Rebecca Bowe, and the notion that all of this happened by accident — that somehow, simple bureaucratic messups allowed two very influential players in the local political scene to pull off what should have been an illegal demolition — strains credibility. To say the least.

So far, nobody has come up with a smoking gun that links anyone at City Planning or DBI, or either of the developers, to any violation of law. And that’s probably the way it will stay. Shady stuff happens all the time in the world of San Francisco real-estate development, and some of it’s perfectly legal, and even when it isn’t, nobody ever seems to go to jail.

No — it’s just business as usual at CIty Planning and DBI. As Charles Marsteller, former head of Common Cause, told us:

“It was just a put-on by some insiders in City Hall working the network that they normally work,” Marsteller says. “And it shouldn’t have happened.”

Board tells Newsom to support due process for all youth

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The SF Examiner and the Chronicle continue to beat the anti-immigrant drum, when it comes to mocking, downplaying or distorting the unconstitutional impact on children of San Francisco’s sanctuary policy.

So it may come as a surprise to learn that under the new policy direction that Mayor Gavin Newsom ordered last summer, just as he was announcing his gubernatorial run, San Francisco does nothing to accord due process to undocumented children that are charged with felonies by local law enforcement officials.

Now, if you ask the Mayor’s Office, if the sanctuary policy accords due process to juvenile youth, you’ll get, “Yes, the City Attorney vetted it.”
That is not an answer. It’s the giant sucking sound of mayoral advisers passing the buck.

Now, as Sup. David Campos points out, the City Attorney provides legal advice—what the law is, its parameters, its implications—not policy calls.

Campos reiterated that point this week, when he and seven other members of Board of Supervisors voted to pass a resolution urging the board to adopt the United Nations convention on the rights of the child, which supports due process for youth. (You can watch the video of that meeting here. Look for item 17.)

Hollis update: Safe and sound in San Francisco

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The Guardian continues to follow the condition of local dancer and activist Hollis Hawthorne, who was in a serious motorcycle accident in India and is in a coma. By Molly Freedenberg

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One of my favorites: Hollis getting ready for the Cheese Puffs’ big show opening for Richard Cheese at Bimbo’s last year. The Derailleurs had their first big show immediately afterwards.

Wow! There have been lots of changes since we last updated about Hollis. For those who haven’t been keeping up with the Hollis blogs, she’s home! As in: settled into a private room at our very own St. Luke’s, right here in the Mission. Her room is decorated with photos of her and her friends, including a giant poster at the foot of her bed featuring Hollis, Eliza (who’s maintaining the friendsofhollis blog), and their mutual friend Shannon (who helped co-found the Sprockettes with Eliza before she co-founded the Derailleurs with Hollis). Her mom, Diane, is still in town and spending nearly every second of every day at her side (with a sadly dinky blanket, I must add.) Hollis also is getting tons of visitors – so many that Eliza is working on posting an online schedule for reference and planning.

Hollis is still in a coma, but her condition continues to improve slooooowly. (Contrary to what soap operas would have us believe, the process of coming out of a coma is incredibly gradual.) She is making verbal sounds, which we can hear thanks to a small purple device attached to her tracheotomy tube that helps air flow over her vocal chords (instead of right out the tube). She occasionally opens both eyes, which seem to be tracking (though not exactly seeing). And some friends report that Hollis is responding to them directly – whether turning her head towards a book being read to her, or seeming to play thumb wars with Eliza. As of yesterday, she also seemed to be relaxing – letting go of the curled-up tension she’s had on her right side (especially her hand and arm) since the accident.

Big box is back for Bayshore

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By Tim Redmond

Mayor Gavin Newsom and Sup. Sophie Maxwell are pushing a massive 107,000-square-foot Lowe’s home improvement store for the old Goodman Lumber site on Bayshore Boulevard.

And it’s still a bad idea.

Big-box retail is the opposite of sustainable economics and progressive city planning. I know, we’re in a recession and we need any jobs we can get, but low-wage employment in a chain store that sucks all its revenue out of town every night isn’t going to help us get out of this hole.

Io-wha???

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By Marke B.

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Lat night, I attended the annual gala for the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Campaign (or IGLHRC) — last year’s gala feted Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and this one, while considerably smaller, was also mega-inspiring. It was held mostly to honor Helem, an incredible and youthful gay rights organization based in Lebanon, but it also served as an introduction to IGLHRC’s new Executive Director, Cary Alan Johnson. The intensely charismatic Johnson spoke of how he had just visited nine starving gay prisoners in Senegal, convicted of “engaging in acts against the order of nature” and ordered to serve eight years — the men in fact had simply gathered at an apartment to discuss AIDS education (and were therefore also convicted of conspiracy.)

He also spoke about how IGLHRC’s small ground team in Uganda was desperate to combat a huge new wave of creepy American religious right extremists (totally creepy — one horrid group of them is called “Extreme Prophetic Ministry!”), who were openly and vocally attacking Ugandan LGBTs and insisting they could be “cured.” Johnson also described IGLHRC’s role in assisting all the people who had been beaten senseless in the backlash against South Africa’s recent adoption of same-sex marriage laws.

The speech was pretty rousing and I was soon wiping my eyes on the bf’s sleeve as the emotions poured out for my persecuted peeps around the globe. Would there ever be any bright spots in the seemingly eternal struggle to get other people to fucking mind their own goshdarned business?

Labor deal leaves open issues

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By Steven T. Jones

Yesterday’s joint announcement of a wage concession deal between the Mayor’s Office and Service Employees International Union Local 1021 — the largest union of city employees — included few details, and sources on both sides have been reluctant to give out much information until the rank-and-file have the chance to review it (they say more details could be forthcoming on the union’s website by tonight).

“The goal of this tentative agreement is to protect vital services for San Franciscans, minimize layoffs to employees, preserve the integrity of the collective bargaining agreement, and assist the City with its economic recovery,” read the brief joint public statement.

The Chronicle’s Marisa Lagos got a bit more, with unnamed sources telling her the union has agreed to forgo $40 million in promised pay increases over the next 16 months, including raises that were set to kick in this Saturday. While the promise to “minimize layoffs” was in there, the real question is how to do that, including whether Mayor Gavin Newsom will cooperate with the desire by labor and the left for a package of local tax measures later this year.

Given this week’s report predicting unprecedented budget deficits for each of the next three years — reaching a staggering $750 million by 2011 — there is growing recognition that service cuts alone simply will not solve this city’s fiscal crisis.

Fiona Ma’s “renegades”

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By Tim Redmond

So Assemblywoman Fiona Ma, with the help of the Republicans, managed to get a bill through committee that would force San Francisco to restore JROTC. It’s astonishing to me that a San Francisco representative, and a former supervisor who understands why local control is often important to San Francisco, would try to get the state to override a local school board policy decision. I’m totally against JROTC in the public schools, but however you feel about it, letting the state dictate that kind of policy for a local school board is a dangerous precedent.

And to make things worse, she read what looked like a prepared speech blaming the situation on “renegade” SF school board members. “Renegade?” Because local elected officials voted their conscience on a tough issue?

I emailed Ma to get an explanation, but according to her email auto-response, this great maker of educational policy is on “vaction.” (Sic). I’ll let you know if I hear any more.

Brain damage is good for your political career

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By Tim Redmond

I thought this was an April Fool’s joke at first, too, but it’s not: Former Sup. Ed Jew is asking for a reduced sentence in his extortion case because of brain damange

Now, before you go all bananas about this, keep in mind that it’s fairly common in high-stakes capital cases for defense lawyers to argue — often correctly — that their clients’ violent behavior was caused in part by organic brain damage. Arguing that someone has diminished capacity because of head trauma, and that his medical condition should be a factor in his sentence, is a perfectly legitimate legal strategy.

But what I love about this story is that Stu Hanlon, a brilliant defense lawyer, is arguing that Jew’s brain damage was exactly what made him so popular and got him elected:

“His social naivete and exuberance likely endeared him to people initially, helping him to become supervisor, but ultimately contributed to his downfall when more prudent judgment and impulse control were necessary.”

In other words: People with brain damage make excellent politicians. Wow, that explains a lot.

Financial District fills with stupid people

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Story and photos by Steven T. Jones

A motley crew of colorful fools paraded through the Financial District this afternoon for the annual St. Stupid’s Day Parade. Who? Why, St. Stupid, who one fool with a megaphone described as the “two-dimensional scapegoat brought to you by the First Church of the Last Laugh.”

What, haven’t heard of that church either? What are you, stupid? Said fool told the hundreds in attendance that it’s the largest and oldest religion in the world, the one to which all humans are members and from whence every other church is derived. It is the church to which all and nothing is sacred.

All hail our new corporate overlords!

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Editor’s Notes by Tim Redmond

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It was hard in the good old days. Back when we were young and San Francisco was cheap and I was really cool with my long hair and motorcycle and stuff. You could rent an apartment for $200 a month, and even though we weren’t making much money in those days, there was plenty left over for drugs.

Back then, a guy like me would never have respected a politician like Gavin Newsom. You know: Party pooper. High-society twit. He even blamed his drinking for his tawdry affairs; we always though our tawdry affairs were the best reason for our drinking. And we never went into rehab. How, like, Betty Ford can you be?

But now I’m older and have a family and take cholesterol medication and I’ve come to realize how much I like Gavin Newsom. I mean, I don’t like him, not all Beth Spotswood or anything, but he’s growing on me.

I remember when he was running for reelection, and he came down to the Guardian to talk to us, and I asked him why he should get another term when the city was so eminently fucked up, and he said: "Gee, why did I even bother to get up this morning?"

That’s the kind of question you’d never hear Jerry Brown or John Garamendi ask. They know why they got up this morning; they are past the time of wonder and self-doubt.

Old farts is what they are.

So this week we endorse Gavin — Our Mayor — for governor of California. You won’t read that in SF Weekly — they don’t even do endorsements, pathetic little shits.

In other news, I’m happy to announce that the Guardian has settled its lawsuit with SF Weekly and Village Voice Media.

Gav for Guv! Do it to ’em, Newsom

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A special Guardian endorsement

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POTUS here he comes!

California’s a tough place. It’s a state of clashing values — of coastal liberals who want good public services, environmental protection, and gay marriage and central valley conservatives who want nothing of the sort. It’s run by a fractious, divisive legislature that desperately needs a firm hand. It’s a state so big and complex that it has defied the abilities of generations of talented politicians, from Jerry Brown and George Deukmejian to Gray Davis and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

And yet, we refuse to give up on the Golden State. It’s been the Guardian‘s home since 1966, the place where we launched what would be the first alternative paper on the West Coast. It’s a place with endless possibilities, from sunshine to public power to tax reform, and we can’t risk its future on another worthless, wimpy chief executive.

That’s why we’re taking the unusual step of announcing an early endorsement for governor. We’re backing the only candidate strong enough, smart enough, sober enough, and secure enough in his own self worth and image to take on the Sisyphean task of running California. Today, we’re endorsing Gavin Newsom.

The mayor of San Francisco may look like a lightweight fop, but that’s unfair — we know him better. This is a young man who grew up cleaning toilets then went on to found his own successful business, using nothing but the wealth and connections of a billionaire family friend to help him. A man who has never spent a day in his life without comfortable surroundings yet developed a remarkable empathy for the less fortunate, and capitalized on their misery to promote his career. A man who travels the world in the company of movies stars and brilliant entrepreneurs, fearlessly promoting his home town while the rest of the whiney little twerps at City Hall just sit in committee meetings and bitch.

Losers.

Newsom’s platform is perfect for this state, at this time. He supports marriage; after all, he’s done it twice himself. He’s even gotten involved in the marriages of close friends and advisors! And he thinks the rest of us, no matter what our sexual proclivities, should have the right to be miserable too.

Newsom talks not just of change, but of "gigantic order-of-magnitude change." He thinks we should all come together to solve the state’s problems instead of pointing fingers of blame — and isn’t that just the sweetest?

Ask Nate

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The Guardian introduces a new weekly advice column from Nathan Ballard, press secretary to Mayor Gavin Newsom. We hope you enjoy his insights as much as we always have.

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Dear Nate:

Times are tough in San Francisco for a lot of people, but my life seems to be bottoming out these days. My good city job just got eliminated, the after school program my kids love was cut, my elderly grandmother just lost her home health nurse, and the police still have no idea who murdered my husband last year. He was even shot right in front of one of those crime cameras. What should I do?

Desperate for Help

Dear Dessie:

I reject the premise of your question. Things are going great in San Francisco, particularly under this mayor’s strong leadership. But we feel your pain, which seems to stem from the Board of Supervisors refusing to give the Police Department more money or the authority to constantly monitor those cameras. Sup. Aaron Peskin is the reason your husband’s killer hasn’t been caught. He may actually be the murderer.

Nate

Dear Nate:

I was thinking about going into politics. Do you have any advice for someone considering running for office?

Budding Candidate

Dear Bud:

As my boss has repeatedly said, being mayor is the toughest and most thankless job in the world. He’s constantly dealing with uppity supervisors and complaining constituents, at least when he’s in town. And if you’re one of those spineless, whiny so-called progressives, my advice is to just do something else. Get a real job, something in the private sector. But if you share Mayor Newsom’s belief in building a better San Francisco with more public-private partnerships — and you’ve got a lot of rich friends — I say go for it. But make sure you hire the best advisers by calling Storefront Political Media and Earned Media. We — , er, uh, I mean they really know what they’re doing.

Nate

Dear Nate:

I’m new to San Francisco and trying to understand the political dynamics here. Is the central struggle really between progressives and moderates? Those are the two labels I hear the most, but it doesn’t make much sense to me. What about liberal vs. conservative?

Political Science Student

Dear Poli-Sci:

I reject the label progressive, and so does the San Francisco Chronicle now that we convinced them to. So actually the central struggle in this town is between the radical and unrealistic ultra-liberals and moderates like Gavin Newsom. The mayor can be a fiscal conservative when he needs to be, and he’s liberal on social issues, which makes him a moderate and therefore the voice of reason. He could even be a progressive on some issues, if there were such a thing as a progressive, which there’s not. But he’s never ultra-anything, because that would make him crazy, which he also isn’t. Is that clear?

Nate

An L-Shaped Recovery

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Economic advisers are predicting an L-shaped recovery for San Francisco, and it’s going to involve 25 percent cuts to some city departments, on top of the 730 layoff notices that were sent out between July 2008 and May ’09.

“Staggering” is how Mayor Gavin Newsom described the $746 million deficit that the Mayor’s Office, the Controller and the Budget Analyst are projecting for FY 2011-12.

That number is in a ‘three-year budget projection” report that the Board’s budget committee hears tomorrow.

Controller Ben Rosenfield noted that the report “makes no assumptions about how budgets are going to be solved.”

But, of course, as Newsom pointed out, action will be taken, not just to address FY 2011-12’s $746 million projected deficit, but the $615 million deficit projected for FY 2010-11, and the $438 million deficit projected for FY 2009-10.

And those actions will be the subject of intense debate about priorities and solutions in the weeks to come.

Newsom’s proposed solutions for the upcoming fiscal year, include 12.5 percent budget cuts, plus 12.5 percent contingencies cuts, in some departments.

“I will not be accepting 25 percent cuts from some departments, but from others I will,” Newsom said. “I don’t believe in across-the-board cuts.”

Asked which departments he would accept 25 percent cuts from, Newsom told reporters, “You’ll find out when you read my budget.”

Green and stimulated

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By Rebecca Bowe

At a March 30 event hosted by Change SF, representatives from Green for All, the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and other grassroots organizations opened up a dialogue about green jobs and federal stimulus spending with District 10 Supervisor Sophie Maxwell and Mayor Gavin Newsom’s director of climate protection initiatives, Wade Crowfoot.

Participants spoke about projects they’re engaged in that are aimed at promoting environmental justice, green-jobs training and environmental education, and voiced support for programs that can boost prospects for disadvantaged workers by preparing them for jobs in the green sector. Supervisor Maxwell, a panelist, praised the audience for their work, saying, “It makes me feel like I’m not out of my mind when I’m asking, who are we stimulating with the stimulus package?”

At this stage of the game, Maxwell’s question has yet to be answered with any real clarity. Crowfoot noted that as part of the economic-recovery package, San Francisco is slated to receive some $7.7 million from a U.S. Department of Energy community block grant for energy efficiency and conservation purposes. Additionally, the city will receive some $1.5 million as part of a federal weatherization assistance program, he said, which seeks to curb the energy consumption of low-income residences. Crowfoot threw out some thoughts on how the funding might be used — including energy retrofits on city buildings, initiating a program to replace inefficient boilers, and working alongside existing community-based programs — but on the whole the outlook was vague, as he characterized these suggestions as still being “in the universe of interesting ideas.” Applications for specific project funding are due in late April, he noted. We tried calling a few times today to get more details, but haven’t heard back yet.

Who’s leaving the Chron

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Reporter Steve Rubenstein, Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Kim Komenich along with five other photographers, cartoonist Tom Meyer, music critic Joel Selvin and long time science writer and California Media Workers Guild representative Carl Hall.

These are just a few of the names on the list of about 100 employees “volunteering” to quit the Chronicle and accept a buyout of one year’s pay, plus medical insurance from Hearst Corp. by the end of today.

You can read the full list at author/journalist Frances Dinkelspiel’s blog.

Hearst claims it needs to layoff 150 employees and end seniority to avoid closing the 144-year-old newspaper. So, after today, Hearst will begin sending out pink slips to at least 50 of the Chron’s remaining employees.

I’m sure it is sad over at the Chron, and it’s never fun to write about the woes of the newspaper industry, but if I were leaving with a year’s pay in my back pocket and dreams of starting my own non-profit online newspaper dancing in my head, I’d be tempted to shout, “Adios Suckers!” in a really loud voice…just before the door hit me on the way out.
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Reilly on Hearst’s Hindenberg

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By Tim Redmond

Clint Reilly calls the San Francisco Chronicle “the greatest wealth destruction machine in American journalism today.” It’s an interesting hit on the situation; he cites a Wall Street Journal interview with investment banker (and media industry expert) Jonathan Knee, who notes:

The reason why most newspaper companies have gone bankrupt or appear perilously close to it is that they have too much debt, not that they have stopped being profitable. For the reasons I have already described, they are certainly less profitable than they used to be, but compared to most media businesses like movies and books, most newspapers still have higher profit margins. Unfortunately, many of these companies maxed out on available debt during a bubble in the debt market just before the debt bubble popped and their own profit margins precipitously declined. That does not mean that these companies cannot continue to generate significant cash flow once restructured into a sustainable capital structure.

Then points out that Hearst’s problem isn’t debt — I suspect the bean counters have already written off as a tax loss most of the $700 million the company paid to buy the Chron. The problem, he argues, is bad management:

With more than 75 percent of its circulation outside San Francisco, the Chronicle is unable to cover The City or the suburbs in depth. The paper’s circulation should have been cut in half many years ago; at 360,000, it remains massively expensive to produce, print and circulate. Resizing alone might have saved the paper by dramatically reducing operating costs across the organization.

All of which, of course, argues against Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s plan to eliminate anti-trust regs and allow the Chron to merge with, say, Dean Singleton’s Media News Group.

California is NOT a high-tax state

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By Tim Redmond

Next time a politician tells you that businesses are leaving California because of high taxes, try the truth. California is #12 on the list of state tax levies per person.

Check out this nifty chart from the Sacramento Bee:

Per capita

U.S. total $2,571
Alaska $12,276
Vermont $4,095
Wyoming $4,070
Hawaii $3,996
Connecticut $3,818
North Dakota $3,604
New Jersey $3,526
Minnesota $3,509
Mass. $3,360
Delaware $3,357
New York $3,356
California $3,193

Imagine — good ol’ conservative red-state don’t-tax-me Wyoming has higher per-capita taxes than California. Alaska, home to Sarah Palin, has the high oil-severance tax (which California still lacks, despite being an oil-producing state). I guess it’s cold in Minnesota, so they need higher taxes to heat all those state buildings — but wait! It’s warm in Hawaii, and they have higher taxes, too.

As Calitics notes:

The chart shows little overall trend – big states and small states, states with high unemployment and low unemployment, they’re all there. One cannot draw a conclusion from this chart that there’s any correlation between high taxes and high unemployment or poverty rates.

Of course, no amount of evidence or fact is likely to change the minds of California conservatives and their fellow travelers, who continue to cling to 30 years of failed policy and insist that any tax increase is going to destroy our state.

And none of that includes the fact that overall, people and businesses in the United States pay far lower taxes than just about any other industrialized country. Which may be why the recession isn’t as bad in Europe, where there’s a solid social-safety net:

The Europeans say they have no need for further stimulus right now because their social safety nets, derided in good times by free market disciples as sclerotic impediments to growth, are automatically providing the spending programs that the United States Congress has to legislate.

Something to think about.

Fiona Ma joins the Pentagon

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By Tim Redmond

Nice piece by Marc Norton on BeyondChron about the upcoming pro-JROTC rally in Sacramento. He points out that Assemblymember Fiona Ma of San Francisco is joining with some serious right-wing types to force the military-recruitment program back into the San Francisco public schools.

If you want to let Ma know how screwed up this is, you can call her at (415) 557-2312 or email Assemblymember.ma@asm.ca.gov.

The BART police committee mess

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By Tim Redmond

In the wake of the shooting of Oscar Grant, which was captured on videotape and inflamed the community, and 17 years after the shooting of Jerrold Hall, which was reported only by me and roundly ignored by BART’s establishment, the BART Board finally agreed to set up a subcommittee to look at police oversight and procedures. But if you haven’t heard much from that panel, it’s not surprising — Sweet Melissa reported last week that the police oversight committee hadn’t yet held any public meetings.

But wait — it gets even better.

I called Linton Johnson, the BART spokesperson, and asked him if Melissa had it right. “No, not at all,” he said. “The committee meets in public all the time.” When would that be? “At the regular BART Board meetings, every other Tuesday and Thursday.” Huh? I admit, I haven’t been to a BART Board meeting in a while, but it turns out, according to Johnson, that the committess all meet simultaneously with the full board. “The board goes into recess then reconvenes to hear reports from the various committees,” he explained.

That’s odd, I told him — no other agency I know of does that. Why BART? Well, he explained, the board members only get paid “their miserable $1,000” when they attend full meetings, and most of them didn’t want to take the time to come to an additional meeting on a different day.

Jesus, that’s lame. The San Francisco School Board members go to weekly meetings AND committee meetings AND spend about 30 hours a week working on school stuff, and they get $500 a MONTH. The BART Board members make four times as much and are too lazy to get to more than two meetings?

Wait — there’s more. Melissa told me that Linton’s story “was completely different from what he told me. He said he didn’t even know when the next meeting was.” And more: Quintin Mecke, who works for Assemblymember Tom Ammiano, was actually at the last BART Board meeting, and he told me that the police oversight committee reported that they had, in fact, been meeting on their own, with various community leaders and experts on police oversight — but they hadn’t given any public notice of those meetings and the sessions had been private.

I called BART Board member Tom Radulovich, who is on the committee, and he told me that “we will start having public meetings soon.” But he said he worried that public sessions might not be as productive — “I’ve been to a lot of public hearings at CIty Hall, and people say things differently in public than they do in private. We want to have conversations, and public hearings are not always conversations.”

Sure — but private meetings aren’t good, either. That’s why the state’s Brown Act requires most public agencies to do most of their work in public. How is BART getting away with this? Well, Johnson says, the folks at BART HQ have conveniently decided that the police oversight committee is actually just a subcommitee, and since it has four members, and there are nine BART Board members, a meeting of the subcommittee doesn’t include a quorum of BART Board members and thus doens’t require public notice.

Give me a fucking break.

I like Tom Radulovich, and he’s one of the very few decent members of a generally miserable board, but he’s missing the point here. Legal or not, it looks terrible for this committee to be holding secret meetings. This nonsense has to end.

Money for nothing and checks for free

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By Steven T. Jones

After almost 20 years working for newspapers in California, I’ve taken hundreds of calls from public relations people seeking to have us write about their corporate clients. I usually ignore them, but sometimes I warn them to be careful what they’re asking for because they just might get it.

So when Amy Wallace from Echo Media Public Relations called me this week, seeking to get me to write a laudatory piece about California Property Tax Savers – which helps clients lower their property tax payments, something she said was important during these hard times – I remembered that local officials had just last month cautioned against using such companies.

Assessor Phil Ting and Treasurer Jose Cisneros sent out a statement that “denounced unscrupulous property tax reassessment services” that charge fees for a service that the city offers for free. I had the company send me a response to the city’s warning, and I called Ting to get a response to their response (which follows).
“Anybody can come into our office and make this request for free. It’s a process that’s created so people don’t have to pay these fees,” said Ting, who said he doesn’t believe this company can get clients more of a reduction than they’d otherwise get, and he said it certainly wouldn’t be enough to offset fees of up to 40 percent.

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