By Steven T. Jones
The Legislature is poised to rebuke Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s obstructionism on creating a much-needed high-speed rail system for California. As Guardian readers know, the California High Speed Rail Authority had asked for a $103 million budget allocation this year to move the project forward in advance of next year’s planned bond measure, but Arnold only offered them $1.2 million in his budget. Since then, the Assembly (where SF’s Fiona Ma has been championing the project) approved a $51 million budget for the agency, while the Senate voted for give it $40 million. A conference committee will determine the actual budget amount, likely somewhere between those figures. It’s a good sign, particularly if the Legislature holds firm and refuses the governor’s request to indefinitely postpone the $10 billion high-speed rail bond issue now set of the November 2008 ballot.
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Politics Blog
Half-speed progress on high-speed rail
Eric Mar running for supe in D1
By Tim Redmond
This was hardly secret, but now it’s official: School Board member Eric Mar, long a progressive leader, will announce soon that he’s running for supervisor in District One. And in the meantime, he’s working against the McGoldrick recall.
A secret hold on an FOIA bill
By Tim Redmond
An important bill to reform the federal Freedom of Information Act has cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee, but can’t go to the floor for a vote because one senator has placed an anonymous hold on it.
The Society of Professional Journalists has a good running total of which senators said they didn’t place the hold and which are not responding; you can find it here
Word in Washington is that the guilty party — the senator who wants to secretly block more public access to government — is John Kyl of Arizona.But the only way to prove that is to rule the others out, and that’s been done before. From SPJ’s action notice:
In August 2006, Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) put a hold on a bill to create a searchable public database of all federal grants and contracts. Stevens’ role was revealed only after online public advocates and journalists forced senators to go on the record about whether they placed the hold.
Both of California’s senators deny placing the block. If you live in one of the states where the senator hasn’t responded, call or email right away.
Sometimes it’s just too easy
by Amanda Witherell
The pugnacious Nathan Nayman photo courtesy of examiner.com
Now, I know it’s easy to get really jealous when other people write better than you do but plagiarism is still the deadliest of sins when it comes to putting the word out.
But don’t let that stop Nathan Nayman!
Did you catch his op-ed against Community Choice Aggregation in last Wednesday’s Examiner? Did you catch that two paragraphs of it were lifted nearly WORD-FOR-WORD from a letter PG&E sent to community organizations about a month ago? The statement expressed the utility company’s concerns, STRANGELY SIMILAR to Nayman’s, about the CCA plan to bring more renewable energy to San Francisco. I guess PG&E sent one of those letters to Nayman’s Committee on Jobs, too. I wonder if they put a check for another $50,000 in the envelope, too. I called Nayman to ask, but he hasn’t called me back yet.
Betting on the mayor
By Steven T. Jones
I’ll be the first to admit that I barely understand the complexities of futures markets, but I’m proud to say that I’ve already made a few hundred bucks off this fall’s mayor’s race. OK, it isn’t real money, and this market for who will be our next mayor is a contrivance of the SF Usual Suspects. Yet it’s a fun and interesting new way to handicap the upcoming race. BTW, I’m swimming in Ross Mirkarimi shares in case anybody wants to make me a good offer.
About Zoellick
By Sarah Phelan
Wolfowitz may be on his way out, but get this: Robert Zoellick the guy picked to replace him, was one of the signatories (along with Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle, Elliott Abrams, Zalmay Khalilzad, John R. Bolton, Richard Armitage, William Kristol, and others) of a Jan. 26, 1998 letter to President Bill Clinton drafted by the Project for a New American Century calling for “removing Saddam’s regime from power.”
Step Up! Sheehan hangs up her helmet.
By Sarah Phelan
You can’t blame antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan for hanging up her helmet, but what excuse do the rest of us have? Sheehan kept the memory of her son alive and didn’t flinch from confronting the truth that her son died for a lie. With the bloodiest month since the US invaded Iraq coming to an end, it’s time for the rest of us to debunk Bush’s “war” myth. There were no WMDs. And there is no enemy, now Saddam is gone. Instead, we have an occupation, which can only end one way: when we leave. How many more American troops have to die for Bush’s war lie? One more is one too many. Tell Congress that it’s the decider, not Bush. Tell Congress to take back its power. Now.
Candidates and non-candidates
By Tim Redmond
So much going on right now in the local political world — and some of it so ephemeral.
Chris Daly’s progressive convention is June 2, coming right up, and we still don’t have a candidate for mayor. Matt Gonzalez gives an interview to BeyondChron and says he’s not ruling out a run, but won’t be making any announcement in time for the June 2 event. Will anyone? Or is this going to be a convention without a candidate?
The 08 supes races, on the other hand, are heating up and full of candidates. Cecilia Chung just announced she’s running in district 11, creating the possibility for a fascinating bit of history: As Chung just told me, It will be 30 years next fall since the assissination of Harvey Milk, and his killer, Dan White, represented what is now D-11. Electing a transgender woman from that district would make big national news.
Chung won’t be the only candidate: I’m told John Avalos, aide to Sup. Chris Daly, is also planning to run, as is Community College Board member Julio Ramos.
And in District Nine, Police Commission member David Campos is clearly running to replace Tom Ammiano, as is housing activist Eric Quezada, who will have a kick-off event at Galleria de la Raza June 1.
Star studded Milk Club event
By Steven T. Jones
Last night’s annual dinner of the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club was a truly memorable event that stands as testament to the strength, vitality, depth, and verve of this city’s progressive movement. Political events can be deathly boring, but not this one, not with back-to-back speeches by Senator Carole Migden and Assembly member Mark Leno (who is running for Migden’s seat), presidential candidate Mike Gravel hitting the most progressive themes of his field, masseur Mike Jones talking about how and why he outed the closeted Rev. Ted Haggard, Sup. Chris Daly being honored for his work on affordable housing, the irrepressible Donna Sachet serving as MC, a snappy and well-produced ensemble musical tribute to the Summer of Love, and a crowd full of notables.
About those whales …
By Tim Redmond
Yeah, I’m all for saving the whales and I even worked for Greenpeace once. But I have to say: Coast Guard boats and helicopters. Camera crews from all over. Front-page headlines. Tens of thousands of dollars, maybe millions of dollars, spent on two wayward whales that at this point will probably die anyway.
That’s a lot more attention than anyone pays to the homeless people who wander the streets of San Francisco and die just about every week of every year. Kids sicker than that whale calf could use just a tiny bit of that money we’re spending in the Sacramento River.
Don’t get me wrong: I love the whales. But let’s have some perspective here.
City Attorney smacks down Jew’s PUC investigation request, launches investigation into Jew
Sarah Phelan
In addition to telling Supervisor Ed Jew that disclosure of his public records, including his PUC water usage records is permitted “because you stated in your letter and in comments to the public that your father’s home is also your residence”, City Attorney Dennis Herrera has asked the beleagured supe to provide the following information before next Tuesday, May 29 (which could be tricky since Jew is currently in China),: a copy of Jew’s 2006 state and federal tax returns; a copy of his driver’s licence; a copy of his vehicle registration cards; a copy of his utility bills–gas and electric, waste removal; cable or satellite TV bills; and telephone bills for his 28th Avenue residence between June 1and April 30, 2007. (Note to self: don’t get into hot water with city attorney, until you’ve got your personal records filed and ready to go.)
Meanwhile, further analysis of Jew’s water usage shows that no water was consumed in March and April 2007, that only 3 units (3 x 748 gallons) was consumed in January and February 2007, and I unit (748 gallons) was consumed in November and December 2006. Prior to that, the only water units shown are from an unbilled balance already on the account before Jew established service there on September 11, 2006.
Ed Jew throws a one-two punch at the PUC–then flies to China
Guardian photo of Ed Jew by Charles Russo
By Sarah Phelan
Before leaving the country at 1am this morning for the home of his ancestors, beleagured Supervisor Ed Jew managed to find time–in between luggage packing and driving to the airport–to dash off a letter to City Attorney Dennis Herrera, requesting an inquiry into “the apparent willful disclosure of confidential personal information by an employee or employees of the Public Utilities Commission.”
Wow. We knew that Jew wasn’t a big fan of the PUC, as witnessed by his ultimately unsuccessful 2005 battle against sewer, water and garbage hikes. But who knew that the supervisor, who is being investigated by the FBI for demanding money from a tapioca bubble drink shop chain in exchange for mucho cash would end up accusing the SFPUC of releasing cherry picked information to the running dogs of the press to make him look bad. Hot diggitty!
Rescuing the sinking Shipyard
Artist’s rendering of Jim Mason’s Mechabolic project
By Steven T. Jones
For the last two weeks, Berkeley bureaucrats have been clashing with The Shipyard‘s countercultural artists and engineers, ordering facility owner Jim Mason to shut the place down or jump through some difficult hoops to bring it up to code.
Mason had threatened to follow in the Crucible‘s footsteps and leave Berkeley for what he saw as more hospitable environs next door in Oakland. But first, he had a meeting yesterday with Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates that by all accounts went well. The upshot: Bates told city fire, building, and planning officials to find a way to let the Shipyard stay.
Hogarth doth protest too much
By Steven T. Jones
Even before reading the article about Club Six’s conflict with neighbors that I wrote for tomorrow’s paper, Paul Hogarth (a half-time housing activist with Tenderloin Housing Clinic and half-time managing editor for THC’s Beyond Chron blog) has concluded that I’m being terribly unfair to the SRO residents of Sixth Street, all because Club Six advertises with us. Apparently he’s psychic.
Actually, Paul’s poorly executed preemptive strike illustrates the danger of activists masquerading as pseudo-journalists. Under Hogarth’s direction, Beyond Chron has already slammed Club Six without bothering to contact owner Angel Cruz, who is at the club everyday and easy to reach. And that article didn’t disclosure Hogarth’s role in organizing the NIMBY mob until I asked him about the apparent conflict of interests (difficult questions that Hogarth considers “hostile”).
So now he’s bending over backwards to explain why they’re the good guys and we’re the bad. I won’t deign to address his many illogical accusations and willful misinterpretations except to say that I’ve been a professional journalist for more than 15 years and I’ve been known for my integrity, independence and willingness to slam advertisers when that’s how I see a story. And I’ve interviewed all sides of this story and read all relevant documents, so the story that you’ll read tomorrow is actually journalism.
Prisons and schools
No bookcase.
By Tim Redmond
Here’s one of the saddest statistics I’ve seen in a long time: California will soon spend more money on prisons than on its university system.
Everyone in Sacramento seems to agree this is wrong. Nobody does a damn thing about it.
In fact, the state Legislature just agreed to spend another $8 billion on more prison beds.
More on this tomorrow.
Was there $20,000 in Ed Jew’s safe?
Guardian photo of Ed Jew by Charles Russo
By Steven T. Jones
The Examiner today repeats their big scoop in the FBI raid of Sup. Ed Jew’s office: that agents found $20,000 in his safe that had come from a constituent seeking help with regulatory issues. This is the real story, which the Chron has missed as they chase the small potatoes allegation that he doesn’t regularly sleep in his house in the district.
“The men paid $40,000 for the consultant’s services, Jew said, $20,000 of which ended up in Jew’s safe. He did not elaborate on how the money got into his safe, but told The Examiner on Friday that he planned to spend it on community needs, including a playground, in his district,” reports the Examiner.
If that’s true — and the Examiner now appears to be standing by its initial report — then Jew should resign immediately and focus on trying to stay out of prison
Ed Jew and the FBI
By Tim Redmond
I’m not going to jump to any conclusions here; I’m an innocent-until-proven-guilty kind of guy. But I will say that there’s some very funky looking stuff in the daily papers right now about Sup. Jew. The Chron had the basics in its first-day story, but raised more questions than it answered, especially around the fact that Jew doesn’t seem to be living in the house that he owns in the Sunset. The Sunday Chron story follows that up a bit, exploring the fact that Jew’s wife and daughter apparently live in Burlingame.
But the Examiner had the most juicy bit of the scoop, something that somehow got left out the the Chron story (and now is not, apparently, on the Ex website, or at least I couldn’t find it.)
Here’s the Ex:
“Jew said the storeowners [who needed help with permits] paid $40,000 for [consulting] services, half of which ended up in his safe and which, he said, he planned to spend on community needs in his district, including playgrounds. Jew said FBI agents Friday confiscated the $20,000. He did not elaborate on how the money came to be in his safe.”
Whoa. $20,000 in cash in his safe, and he “did not elaborate” on it. That’s a question I would have pushed a bit more if I were the Ex reporter on that story, but it’s too late now: Jew has a lawyer, and won’t be making any more comments.
But we do know the FBI search warrent mentioned that the agents were looking for cash, and had a long list of currency serial numbers.
So let’s see if I’ve got this right: Jew sends some constituents to a consultant, the constitutents pay him — not the consultant — $40,000 cash, and $20,000 ends up in his safe. If that’s true — and again, I’m basing this on one Examiner story that seems to have vanished from the web (the paper is now using a brief AP report on its site) — it sure looks bad.
And to answer the question Brian poses at Calitics — if Jew was forced to resign over this, who would replace him? — that’s easy. The mayor gets the appointment, and it will be Newsom’s buddy, Doug Chan.
The East Bay Express: Independent again
By Tim Redmond
The good news — and it’s very good news — is that the East Bay Express is no longer a member of the Village Voice Media chain that owns the SF Weekly. I’m a day late with this news; it’s taken me a bit to process, because our ad director (and my good friend) Jody Colley has left the Guardian to go work with the new ownership. But most of the reports have been upbeat, emphasizing that Express editor Steve Buell and his partners, Hal Brody, Kelly Vance and Bradley Zeve have done a very unsual thing. They’ve taken a chain paper and made it an independent.
And although none of the principals are talking about the price, I think they got it pretty cheap. In essence, the big, bad VVM couldn’t make it in the East Bay, and was forced to bail.
Of course, it’s going to take a while to disentangle the VVM connections. The Express was very much a cog in the borg machine: The website was designed and run by VVM. The movie reviews came from VVM. The accounting and systems were all handled through VVM. And — perhaps most important — the ad sales were closely linked to the SF Weekly.
In fact, the Weekly’s ad materials these days all cite the circulation not of the SF paper but of the combined Weekly and Express, and for a lot of accounts, buying an ad in the Weekly meant a free one (or heavily discounted one) in the Express. So the two were almost like an old-fashioned joint operating agreement. They even ran the same cover story a few months ago.
I suspect on the sales side, that won’t change immediately. There are contracts and deal and money is involved, so I expect the nonsense will continue for a bit. But in the end, I hope and believe the Express will once again be a community-based and community-serving paper. And I wish them all the luck in the world.
Bikes rule!
Me and Newsom at last year’s Bike to Work Day
By Steven T. Jones
San Franciscans pedaled past an important milestone during yesterday’s Bike to Work Day: on the morning commute along Market Street, bicycles outnumbered cars for the first time. Traffic engineers counted 647 cyclists riding eastbound on Market near Van Ness from 8-9 a.m., or 54 percent of the total traffic. That number was also a 27 percent increase over last year’s bike tally. Bike advocates were thrilled with the turnout and further elated when Mayor Gavin Newsom, fresh off his ride to City Hall, announced his Bike SF 2010 Milestones. He promised to shepherd the bike plan to completion next year and ensure it studies 50 projects, including some key missing links in the current network. And to reach the plan’s goal of 10 percent of all vehicle trips being by bike by 2010, he promised to create 20 new bike lanes by then, reduce bike collision injuries by 50 percent, and to actively support so-called LOS reform, which could exempt many new bike projects from needing detailed environmental studies. It was a big day for bicycling and great first step to making San Francisco the greenest big city in the country.
Chronicle to slash newsroom staff
By Steven T. Jones
The San Francisco Chronicle is planning to lay off about a quarter of its editorial staff — 20 managers and 80 rank-and-file journalists — in the next two weeks, according to sources at the paper. Exactly how the cuts will go down and who will be let go is still being worked out by Hearst Corporation in consultation with the union, creating serious anxiety in the newsroom, even though they were told in March that this might be coming. Sources say their union contract requires a two-week notification for staff reductions, so by the end of the month there could be substantially less news gathering going on in the Bay Area and 100 media professionals wondering what’s next. It’s a sad time for journalism in the U.S.
Media Workers Guild logo
Tomorrow’s honorees
By Steven T. Jones
Last night’s San Francisco Tomorrow 37th annual dinner on Fisherman’s Wharf offered a who’s who list of environmentally engaged political leaders and activists — a testament to the important role this venerable organization has played in creating the San Francisco of today (full disclosure: my sweetie, Alix Rosenthal, recently joined the SFT board).
Supervisors Chris Daly, Aaron Peskin, and Tom Ammiano all showed up, as did Sen. Carole Migden, Assessor Phil Ting, and Democratic Party stalwart Jane Morrison. Activists being honored by the group were filmmaker Judy Irving (who made “Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill” and other films focus on SF urban environment), recycling scold and innovator Denise D’Anne, and Amy Meyer and Dr. Edgar Wayburn, who have worked for more than 30 years to create the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.
Yet to me, the most interesting award and resulting speeches were for the special award that Ammiano received for creating a universal health care program for the city, in the process braving aggressive attacks by downtown and finally winning over Mayor Gavin Newsom.
The War on Mother’s Day
By Sarah Phelan
My 20-year-old son called me on Mother’s Day. He could only talk for a minute, because he was calling from a National Guard camp, where he’s training before deploying to Iraq, and all the other soldiers-in-training wanted a turn talking to their moms and families, too.Afterwards I choked up. I’ve been opposed to invading Iraq, ever since Bush began banging the anti-Saddam war drums in November 2001, so it’s hard to see my son volunteer at this time in history. I worry about what will happen once my son gets to Iraq, but I can’t stop him from making his own decisions.
What I can stop is Bush from getting away with bloody murder. We all know that his administration spun up a bunch of lies to invade Iraq in March 2003. We all found out the hard way that it was easier for Bush to tell these lies than it was for us to debunk them, especially once US troops were on the ground. Since then we’ve all witnessed how ruthless the Bush regime has been when it comes to smearing those who have challenged their lies. And no one wants to be accused of not supporting the troops.
But giving Bush more money for his war in Iraq is not supporting the troops. It’s supporting the Bush lie. I don’t blame America that my son signed up, but I will blame myself, if I don’t try to air the truth about Bush’s war. And if my son, who is Canadian, is prepared to fight for this country, Americans should be prepared to defend their Constitution, which has been under constant attack since Bush and his cronies came to power. So, don’t tell me there’s nothing you can do. Support the troops, bring them home. Defend America, defend the Constitution. It’s in your hands.
Who has the best (City Attorney) jeans butt?
By Sarah Phelan
In his time, City Attorney Dennis Herrera has been accused of paying too much attention to dress codes, cuff links and time schedules. But on Friday, members of the AIDS/LifeCycle Riders team in his office, along with anyone who has contributed to their 545-mile Trek to Los Angeles fundraising efforts will be allowed to wear jeans. Or, to quote Herrara’s legalese, they will be given “a first-ever, one-day-only ‘dress code dispensation'”.
The blue jeans butt off begins with a 10:00 a.m. photo op on the City Hall steps to celebrate the ten riders who are representing Herrera’s the office in the 545-mile ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles, June 3-9, and the idea is to raise money and awareness for the cause, but you know you’re wondering, er, what kind of jeans Chief Trial Deputy Joanne Hoeper, and her husband, Steve Tomich, ; Deputy City Attorneys Kimberly Bliss, Ronald Flynn (and his partner, Neal Schwartz), Andrew Gschwind, John Kennedy, Kathryn Luhe and Kristine Poplawski; and Investigator Anne Taupier will be wearing. And, of course, who has the best jeans butt. Or is it illegal to say things like that about city attorneys?
Newsom’s personal columnist
By Steven T. Jones
The Examiner’s Ken Garcia just loves to sneer at progressives and puff up Mayor Gavin Newsom, as he did again yesterday. In fact, this seems to be Garcia’s sole raison d’etre. Yet the problem with Garcia disguising his mayoral flackery as independent journalism is that some ill-informed readers might actually believe what he has to say, no matter no bogus his points or flawed his logic.