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Now the Chron front page really IS a PG&E ad

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By Tim Redmond

We’ve often accused the San Francisco Chronicle of acting like a public-relations mouthpiece for Pacific Gas and Electric Company. But it’s not even funny anymore: The Chron today has a big front-page ad from PG&E — and, perhaps not coincidentally, the paper almost totally ignored the news about a key step toward public power.

The front-page ad, accompanied by a note from the publisher, has turned some heads among local journalists. Publisher Frank Vega says in his note that the Chron is just following everyone else in the industry.

But PG&E’s greenwashing ads? Right on the front page? And where was the story about Community Choice Aggregation?

Halloween on the Pier

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By Sarah Phelan

Mayor Gavin Newsom and Sup. Bevan Dufty are apparently speaking again, or at least speaking together to other people. We say this because they just issued a press release saying that they’ve “asked the Port Director to explore the feasibility of having a no-alcohol entertainment event at Piers 30-32 for Wednesday, October 31, 2007.” All of which is City goobledegook, which, roughly translated, means, ‘We want to hold Halloween on the waterfront, but no, you won’t be able to have a stiff drink to take the chilly edge off. ‘

Dang! It’s enough to make a partier want to head inland and hit up a bar in the warm and fuzzy Castro, instead.

Yeah, we know, it’s too early in the process to rain on anyone’s Halloween Parade, and maybe the pier will be fabulous and we can all dress up as Pirates and have friends dressed as the Parrots of Telegraph Hill clinging on our shoulders, yelling “Pretty Polly!” and “Walk the Plank!”, (along with unprintable expletives about how cold they are.) And there’s enough ghosts along the waterfront–sunken ships, dead fishing industries, and the souls of the workers who died building the Bay Bridge–to spook out the whole darn City. Hey, wonder what costume the Gavsta will be wearing this year?

Brains on campus

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By Marke B.

Maybe I’ve become horribly desensitized to unexpected, unexplainable, realtime violence in the past four years, thanks to constant devastating casualty reports coming back from the country we fucked up even more, but the first thing that jumped into my head on hearing about Virginia Tech — other than thinking the AP had made a typo when they reported 29 dead an hour after reporting 1 dead — was: “Isn’t this what it’s like in Iraq, like, three times a day?”

The V-Tech tragedy is horrendous and hits geographically closer to home, but try watching this, called “Brains on Campus,” from the amazing “Hometown Baghdad” series of independently produced vids, and not freaking out about the terror that Iraqi college students have been going through for years during our occupation.

IT’S CCA TIME!

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By Amanda Witherell

Ever since the California State Assembly passed AB 117 in 2002 legalizing “Community Choice Aggregation” (CCA) public power advocates have been eagerly awaiting the day San Francisco would get the legislative ball rolling and start divorce proceedings with it’s current electricity provider, Pacific Gas and Electric.

That ball got a big push from Sups. Tom Ammiano and Ross Mirkarimi on Tuesday April 17, when they introduced a draft implementation plan for CCA to their fellow board members. The plan calls for the city to purchase and provide 51 percent of its energy from renewables by 2017.

“It’s wonderful considering the response to global warming from PG&E has been fossil fuel, ‘clean’ coal, and nuclear power,” Mirkarimi told the Guardian.

Read how CCA will make San Francisco 50 percent greener, after the jump…

The word on guns from England

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By Tim Redmond

The Guardian of London has a short but poignant editorial on why the United States, despite a long string of terrible gun-driven tragedies, can’t seem to control guns. The rest of the world seems baffled, too.

Virginia is for (straight gun) lovers

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By Tim Redmond

By the way, Virigina was one of only two states that as recently as 2004 was defying the U.S. Supreme Court and enforcing anti-sodomy laws. So it’s perfectly okay to buy guns and kill people in that great state, but you can going to jail for being gay.

(For the record: Nobody knows yet where Cho bought his guns; if it turns out that he got them in Texas or something, or that he bought them illegally from a dealer somewhere, I will apologize to the Great State of VA — sort of.

The right to bear arms in Virginia

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By Tim Redmond

I’m surprised that this hasn’t gotten more attention: Immediately after hearing of the horror at Virginia Tech, President Bush express his condolences for the victims — then made a point of commenting about “the right to bear arms.”

The president believes that there is a right for people to bear arms, but that all laws must be followed. Certainly, bringing a gun into a school dormitory and shooting … is against the law and something someone should be held accountable for,” [a Bush spokesperson] said

According to the New York Post, the shooter, Cho Seung Hui, had every legal right to buy the weapons he used in the state of Virginia.

He was a disturbed kid, by all accounts, and nobody will ever be able to figure out exactly what made him go off and kill 33 people, including himself. But if the country wasn’t so obsessed with the right to buy and use weapons of mass murder, like automatic handguns, it’s very likely he never would have had the tools to carry out the massacre.

The main reason so many people die of handgun shootings is that these weapons are far too easily available. And that is in part the fault of President G.W. Bush.

Shooting spree suspect named

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By G.W. Schulz

Virginia rampage shooter identified. Love kills. Gun opponents are pissed, while NRA supporters are keeping quiet.

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*Photo from Virginia State Police via SFGate

Bernal owl dies

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By Tim Redmond

Sad news. For months now, all of us in the neighborhood have enjoyed watching a pair of Great Horned owls, who had made their home in a tree on Bernal Hill. They were a reminder that amazing bits of nature can appear in this crowded city; we all hoped they were a nesting pair, and that we’d see owlets this summer.

But alas, one of the owls was found dead last week. Nobody knows why; they seemed to be quite happy eating mice, voles and snakes on the hill. I hope it wasn’t some sort of pesticide poisoning, which would be a different kind of reminder indeed.

Newspaper execs pose uncomfortably for camera

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By G.W. Schulz

Dean Singleton is fuckin’ stoked! Check him out below! That’s him on the right there. He’s the CEO of MediaNews Group, beloved by laid off reporters and editors everywhere, some who adore him so much, they throw empty beer cans at him.

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Dean Singleton (right) with dreamy blue eyes
and conservative red tie. Tighten that knot, Dean!

If you owned as many newspapers as this guy does and flew around the country in your own private jet to deal with each one, you’d probably be able to hammer out a slightly bigger smile than this, huh? Dean’s spicing things up at MediaNews Group with a brand spankin’ new Web site and a recent office move across town to swankier digs in Denver, where the company has long been based.

So who’s that guy on the left there? That’s Joseph J. Lodovic IV, president of MediaNews. He earned a fat $1 million bonus last summer after the Hearst Corp., owner of the San Francisco Chronicle, gave MediaNews nearly $300 million to complete its big local newspaper buyouts that included the San Jose Mercury News and the Contra Costa Times. Joe’s muggin’ big ’cause he knows he’ll have his own private plane soon enough!

For those keeping track …

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Pulitzers announced. Weeklies still in the game.

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Joe Pulitzer

The fun keeps dying

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By Steven T. Jones
How Weird Street Faire’s fate got even worse since my last post, with the San Francisco cops now saying the organizers need to cough up $23,833 in fees, to be paid before the May 6 event. What is this, a shakedown? Somebody call a cop. Or maybe someone at City Hall should call off the cops.
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Unfortunately, the city’s punitive approach to its most beloved street fairs and festivals only got worse last night when Recreation and Park Department staff convened members of the Outdoor Events Coalition to say they’re recommending substantially increased special event fees, so big that events like Bay to Breakers, Love Fest and other events could cease to exist. Rec and Park, an increasingly incompetent department that has bungled its way into a $2 million budget deficit, say they need big bucks to cover their costs and wipe out the red ink. Their proposal calls for charging $50,000 to use the Golden Gate Park polo field, $25,000 for Civic Center Plaza, and $12,000 for Mission Dolores Park. And on top of all this, the city has banned booze from the Haight Ashbury Street Faire of all places. Last year, we warned that fun in the city was under siege. Now it’s starting to look comatose.

Dr. Jang for mayor!

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By Tim Redmond

You’ve seen the late-night cable-TV ads. You’ve seen the drag queens portraying him on Halloween in the Castro. He fixes my teeth (well, one of his associates does, but I’ve met The Man.) And now Beth Spotswood wants him to run for mayor!.

I love her candidates list: Brian Boitano, Cheech Marin (“you know what the mayor’s office is missing? A bong”), and — of course — George Clooney (“he’s already broken up with Jennifer Siebel.”) But I’m voting for Dr. Jang.

Leno-Migden, Round 1

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By Steven T. Jones
Mark Leno lost the debate, but won the vote, showing that Carole Migden has some work to do if she’s going to keep her Senate seat. The takeaway here is that charm and gravitas are not good substitutes for the attentiveness to constituents and diligent relationship building that have been Leno’s strong suits, particularly in the last couple years. The two candidates squared off in front of the San Francisco Young Democrats for their first debate last night, and Leno initially appeared tentative, apologetic, and inarticulate, almost as if he was scared of Migden. He started off trying to explain why he was taking on a fellow Democrat in a primary challenge and could only mumble some vague appeal to challenging the status quo. Then Migden introduced herself, “Hello, my name is Carole Migden and I’m the status quo,” before going on to sound as strong, clear, and charming as I’ve ever seen her, describing herself as “a woman with a lot of gumption and a lot of tenacity.” Her approach seemed to put Leno back on his heels even more, as he offered a bad joke that fell flat and descended into wonky details before finding his form late in the debate. But it didn’t seem to matter. Despite Migden’s efforts to call in the votes — during which she likely learned the lesson that she can’t count on as much support as she assumed she had — Leno had this endorsement won before either of them started talking.

Contractors accuse Lennar of Extortion

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By Sarah Phelan
Lennar has been giving contractors a choice between a rock or a hard place: reduce your unpaid invoices by up to 20 percent—or be excludedfrom bidding work for a minimum of six months. Nice, real nice.

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Marc McGuire, a tile contractor from San Diego, and CALPASC’s Brad Diede on CNBC yesterday to discuss accusations that Lennar is extorting contractors

Three top Lennar executives sent these demands to contractors in Southern California in a letter dated January 16, 2007. So far, no similar letters have emerged locally, but that doesn’t mean similar demands haven’t been happening here, warns Brad Diede. Diede is executive VP of the Sacramento-based California Professional Association of Specialty Contractors, which represents 500 trade contractors and construction suppliers nationwide.

Outraged, Diede fired off a letter to Attorney General Jerry Brown, in which he wrote,
“We believe this potentially criminal act is a flagrant example of the abuses of power builders exercise over trade contractors in the State of California.”

But so far, Lennar has not been found guilty of civil or criminal violations in this case.

Unions intervene in GGRA lawsuit

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By Sarah Phelan
Last week, a judge granted four unions–The S.F. Labor Council, SEIU Local 1021, SEIU United Healthcare Workers West and Unite Here Local 2—an intervention in the suit that Golden Gate Restaurant Association, a non-profit trade association, has brought against the City and County in the matter of the soon-to-be implemented San Francisco Health Care Security Ordinance.
GGRA is arguing that the mandatory aspect of this local ordinance is preempted by federal law.
Specifically, GGRA’s beef is with the part of the ordinance that requires employers with 20 employees or more to spend a minimum amount per hour worked to provide health care benefits. Employers would also have to maintain records of health care benefit spending, record and report such spending and make records available for inspection. These mandatory requirements won’t be implemented until January 2008, but the City and County will start coverage of unemployed (and therefore uninsured) San Francisco residents, as of July 1, 2007.

Tourk payments investigation clears and questions

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By Steven T. Jones
The City Attorney’s Office this morning released its investigation of payments the city made to Ruby Rippey-Tourk after she left her job as appointments secretary to Mayor Gavin Newsom, with whom she had an illicit affair, to enter substance abuse treatment. The report found no wrongdoing by any city officials and indicates Rippey-Tourk can keep the $10,000-plus that she received. But it also highlights the special treatment that Rippey-Tourk received and notes that investigators were hindered by her refusal to waive medical privacy rules.
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green, and affordable

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By Tim Redmond

Casey Mills, the former managing editor of BeyondChron, has a great piece today that explains how too much of the “new urbanism” fails to consider affordable housing:

A disturbing trend already underway involves sustainability and ‘green’ advocates aligning with developers to promote density above all other considerations. Requiring developers to contribute towards affordable housing, for example, simply represents a roadblock to the more important overall goal – brining more housing downtown. If affordable housing becomes viewed as a necessary component of sustainability, not a roadblock to it, this sort of alliance would be impossible to maintain.

He’s right: as market-rate housing in urban centers drives out poor people (and it does, always), those people have to live further and further from work. Since there will always be a need for less-well-paid service workers (not to mention the likes of bus drivers and teachers, who can’t possibly afford any of the new housing we’re building) in cities, gentrification and displacement are significant causes of sprawl.

And yet San Franicsco continues to build housing for people who don’t live here (or even work here), driving out the people who do work here and promoting exactly the kind of sprawl everyone at City Hall is officially against. Insane.

Seymour Hersh weighs in on who deserves to die

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By G.W. Schulz

Investigative reporter Sy Hersh in an interview with Rolling Stone national correspondent Matt Taibi on what could be done to improve big media’s tepid coverage of the Bush White House:

“You’d have to fire or execute ninety percent of the editors and executives. You’d actually have to start promoting people from the newsrooms to be editors who you didn’t think you could control.”

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Sy Hersh looking murderous

Guardian staff writer G.W. Schulz in an open response letter to Hersh:

“Dude. Fuck yeah. You should be in a metal band. All this talk about executions.”

Pelosi steps up

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by Amanda Witherell

The ongoing saga at Alcatraz has finally caught the attention of Rep. Nancy Pelosi. While sewage spills and a fired whistleblower interested legislators in the State Assembly, it’s labor practices and land use planning that have Pelosi concerned — both of which have been issues since Alcatraz Cruises assumed control of the lucrative contract from Blue and Gold back in September.

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photo courtesy of alcatrazunion.com

Eek, she’s back

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By Steven T. Jones
Like a bad movie that gets turned into a worse sequel, actress Jennifer Siebel has returned to the pages of another Bay Area corporate daily for another vapid puff piece filled with lines that will make grown women groan.
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But conspicuously missing from this profile of Mayor Gavin Newsom’s girlfriend are gratuitous (and possibly libelous) shots that she took at her boyfriend’s controversial former fling, Ruby Rippey-Tourk, sins that Siebel magnified with over-the-top comments she posted on the SFist. That incident earned the blog more than 600 comments on a single thread, and they today return to that comment-cow with a funny post. But aside from priceless quotes, such as “I grew up in a very beautiful, magical bubble,” Siebel this time manages to avoid politics, character assassination, or, really, anything of substance. I suppose that’s progress.

People do

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By Steven T. Jones
Do people really praise a company for polluting the planet and local ecosystems, exploiting indigenous people and propping up corrupt regimes around the world, and making $17 billion in annual profits in the process? People do, and those people write for the business pages at the San Francisco Chronicle, which has just named Chevron its company of the year.
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This is astonishing beyond words and surely a sign that the Chron doesn’t hold anything close to San Francisco values, which extend far beyond just corporate bottom lines. Consider that Chevron is a company that helped get us into the disastrous war in Iraq. It is a company waging economic warfare against people around the world. It is a company that has gouged American consumers to reap record profits and spend them against the public will.
This is the best company in the Bay Area? It’s closer to the worst.

‘WHEN WE WERE YOUNG’: Gen Xers don’t wanna be cops ‘cause they’re fat and lazy, says Gary Delagnes — PLUS! Police commissioner David Campos responds to the POA’s call for his resignation

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By G.W. Schulz

There’s never a shortage of bitching over at the San Francisco Police Officers Association. And the best place to find it lying exposed, unshaven and clad in patent-leather stirrups without so much as a single blush is in the cop union’s monthly newsletter, the POA Journal.

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As attorney Mark Schlosberg at the ACLU of Northern California will tell you, there’s no better place than the POA Journal for an honest assessment of what the SFPD’s rank and file is really thinking. And leading each edition of the Journal is a scribe from outspoken union president Gary Delagnes that’s sometimes funny but mostly unsettling.

Without further ado, ladies and gentleman, welcome to another edition of “What’s the city’s cop union bitching about now?”

This past year actually treated the POA quite well, what with the state Supreme Court’s Copley decision sealing off police disciplinary records from public scrutiny, Berkeley losing a subsequent legal challenge to the ruling and the SFPD’s general success in slowing down the implementation of a program designed to track and flag lunatic cops.

The dark prince of SF elections

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By Steven T. Jones
Why does attorney Jim Sutton seem to be involved in every major campaign finance scandal in San Francisco? In the latest, Sutton’s firm reportedly advised a local motorcycle training company on how to allegedly launder money into a City College bond campaign (Sutton isn’t mentioned in the story, but in a letter the company wrote to the Ethics Commission that the Chron featured on today’s front page). Shouldn’t the State Bar take an interest in this at some point?

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