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Politics Blog

A statement about the Guardian

Marke B. and Tim Redmond
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Today I named veteran Bay Area journalist Stephen Buel publisher of the San Francisco Bay Guardian.

And following the resignation of Editor and Publisher Tim Redmond, I named longtime Bay Guardian editor Marke Bieschke interim editor of the paper.


Buel, editorial vice president of the San Francisco Newspaper Company, will bolster the paper’s fortunes while upholding its long tradition of investigative journalism, progressive values and cultural coverage. Bieschke, the paper’s managing editor, nightlife columnist and long-time San Francisco resident and activist will help provide vision and leadership on the print and digital editions of the Guardian.

“The Guardian has been losing money, and we were forced to contemplate some editorial layoffs,” Buel said. “Tim decided to resign rather than follow through with what we were discussing. I am dedicated to reversing the Guardian’s fortunes and helping it grow again.

“While we will all miss Tim’s skills as a journalist, I would like to assure the Guardian faithful that it will remain the progressive newspaper of record in San Francisco. I suspect there will be some skepticism about that, but over time, I am confident that readers will not be disappointed.”

— Todd Vogt, president and publisher of the San Francisco Newspaper Company, parent company of the Guardian, SF Weekly and The San Francisco Examiner.

Guardian forum on Plan Bay Area draws big, engaged crowd

Sasha Cuttler
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San Franciscans who want to help shape how this city grows — rather than just leaving it up to regional planners and market forces — packed a large conference room last night for a community forum presented by the Bay Guardian: “Whose Future? What Does the Regional ‘Plan Bay Area’ Really Mean for San Francisco?”

Moderated and organized by Guardian Editor/Publisher Tim Redmond, and co-sponsored by the Council of Community Housing Organizations (CCHO) and Urban Institute for Development and Economic Alternatives (UrbanIDEA), the session began with a overview of what’s now being planned for the San Francisco of 2040.

Gen Fujoika of the Chinatown Community Development Center said that Plan Bay Area, which is being jointly developed by the Association of Bay Area Governments and Metropolitan Transportation Commission (which will hold a hearing on the plan tomorrow, Fri/14, at 9:30am in Oakland), doesn’t pay for itself yet it will include strong incentives that will shape development in the region.

“It is in some sense a plan and I think we need to critique the hell out of that plan,” he said. “As we think of Plan Bay Area as a vision statement, we need to think about whether it’s our vision.”

As illustrated by the Plan Bay Area maps that the lined the walls of the LGBT Center conference room, the plan’s “priority development areas” that are slated for dense, streamlined development are also the same areas identified as “communities of concern” with vulnerable, low-income populations, making the plan a recipe for mass displacement.

Fujoika quoted a comment that Mayor Ed Lee made on Tuesday when asked by Sup. Eric Mar about the issue: “San Francisco has some of the toughest anti-displacements laws in the country.” While that may be true, Fujoika said that the plummeting numbers of African-Americans in the city and Plan Bay Area’s displacement projections for San Francisco show those laws simply aren’t up the challenge.

“If we have the toughest anti-displacement position in the country, then we are in some trouble,” he said, calculating that the affordable housing needed to prevent extreme gentrification in the city would total $6.8 billion, and that the affordable housing fund created by voters last year is only projected to raise $1.3 billion by 2030.

Fujoika said that he and the other panelists aren’t against growth and development, “but we are for equitable growth,” which would involve more community buy-in for the plan, more money for affordable housing and infrastructure needs, and more of the growth burden being shared by other Bay Area communities.

San Francisco Planning Commission Chair Cindy Wu cited growth projections for Chinatown as a good example of the problem, noting that is already a dense, complete neighborhood that would suffer from the greatly increased traffic that would be funneled through it and other negative impacts of unfettered growth.

“It’s not just growth for growth’s sake, it’s who gets to live there and who gets those jobs,” she said. Wu called for more community organizing around this and other development plans, citing as a good example the coalition-building that forced California Pacific Medical Center to agree to a multi-hospital project with far better community benefits than the deal it originally cut with the Mayor’s Office.

It was a point echoed by Maria Zamudio with Causa Justa, who said Plan Bay Area will worsen pressures that are already displacing the Mission District residents she works with, or forcing them to live in unsafe housing. “They’re going to push our families out of the city and maybe out of the region,” she said.

To combat the power that this plan and profit-minded property owners will exert over how San Francisco grows, San Francisco Labor Council President Mike Casey, head of UNITE-HERE Local 2, said that progressive San Franciscans will need to work cooperatively with organized labor, a relationship that has suffered during these tough economic times.

“Unfortunately, I think we’ve become alienated and marginalized from each other,” Casey said, calling on activists to not let differences over individual projects or issues interfere with solidarity over the larger, longer struggle for equity and justice.

“Not everyone agrees that a strong labor movement is the cornerstone of a more progressive vision,” Casey said, arguing that displacement of working class people from the city has a cascading effect in gentrifying the city. “The demographics of a city shape very much what the politics of protest look like.”

And those politics of protest will be more crucial than ever in resisting the demands that powerful capitalists will make on San Francisco in the coming years, a point that all seven panelists seemed to agree on.

Bob Allen of Urban Habitat said the planning research groups represented on the panel need to find ways to funnel more funding into grassroots organizing, both in San Francisco and regionally. Otherwise, we’ll see the “suburbanization of poverty,” with Plan Bay Area funneling the best jobs and most expensive housing into urban areas and leaving everyone else to fend for themselves in communities that don’t have the tenant protections and other hard-won social justice programs that San Franciscans have struggled for.

“Local control can be a way of saying ‘I don’t want black or brown people to live in my suburban community,” Allen said.

Ironically, Plan Bay Area is ostensibly driven by concerns over climate change and the argument that it’s better to concentrate development along transit corridors, which is why almost all of San Francisco and much of Oakland is proposed for development that would be given waivers from some California Environmental Quality Act scrutiny.

Yet the plan doesn’t fund the transit upgrades that would be needed to serve that growth or create restrictions on automobile use that might encourage more transit use. Instead, Fujoika said low-income people who actually use transit would be the diplaced in favor of wealthier residents who might not.

“Transit has become an amenity rather than a necessity,” Wu said.

The forum, which was attended by more than 130 people, included a lively discussion that involved dozens of audience members who offered their own views, ideas, and strategies for how to move forward. Among them was Brian Basinger of the AIDS Housing Alliance, who said that he is working with a coalition to reform the Ellis Act, which allows landlords to evict tenants from rent-controlled apartments.

“We could move this as early as January,” Basinger said of the reform legislation now being developed with allies in the Legislature, urging attendees to get involved.

After the audience discussion, the meeting closed with Peter Cohen of the CCHO summarizing the high points and getting people to sign up on lists that were circulated to be involved with next steps. And Rachel Brahinsky, a former Guardian staff writer who is now a professor at USF’s Leo T. McCarthy Center for Public Service and the Common Good, urged attendees to fight for San Francisco to remain inclusive and diverse: “San Francisco is the place it is because people have kept fighting.”

Another victory for the champions of the “unborn”

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In a grand piece of political theater, Wisconsin Republicans passed a measure 17-15 in their senate that would require an ultrasound prior to an abortion. “Theater” because they had the votes already and because it gave them the chance to grandstand “passionately” about this particularly ridiculous law (the idea being that if the uninformed baby vessel got to see what she was killing, no abortions–like she didn’t know what she was doing and wandered into a clinic looking for a bagel and cream cheese and walked out sans fetus).

Or maybe that the idea being that if you make the already ugly and gruesome abortion procedure into a humiliating, painful, degrading and drawn out marathon of misery, the wimmens will be less likely to “kill their babies”. 

OK. That does make sense in its way. But…….

The male half of these pregnancies don’t seem to have a parallel punishment. Why is that? Why not a law that requires that a physician stick a biopsy needle down the ureter to let the “offending party feel the pain of a baby’s death?”

Makes sense to me.


 

 

NSA surveillance scandal goes full tilt clown

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The domestic eavesdropping scandal is now entering week three in the news (it’s existed for real a lot longer) and as these things tend to do, the political posturing is headed into Clownland.

Yesterday, Congressman Peter King (R-NY) demanded that UK Guardian journalist (and attorney) Glenn Greenwald be arrested. Not because of anything Greenwald has done, but because Greenwald is threatening to expose CIA assets around the world (Greenwald denies this). Odd that a lawmaker wouldn’t be able to make this distinction and even odder that when a CIA asset was actually exposed in rhe last decade (by an employee of the Bush Administration), King wasn’t this vociferous.Greenwald, fairly consistent on the matter of civil liberties, is a pretty bright guy and snarkily responded that King’s newfound enthusiasm for prosecuting terrorists is somewhat of a joke. King has been a long time supporter of the IRA. You’d think that as a congressman whose Long Island district was impacted hard by 9/11 would be fairly tough on domestic terror, but it hasn’t hurt King electorally at all.

For two reasons. One is the obvious one–The IRA’s membership does bear a strong physical resemblance to King’s constituency, ie, both white and not Muslim, ergo, not terrorists. The second is that the IRA doesn’t bomb New York. London, yes, Manhattan, no. In fact, the US has been a source of IRA cash, donated by people that don’t see the group as terrorists.

Roll that over in your head. The US doesn’t meddle in the affairs of Northern Ireland by planting military bases there (there has been a slight flap over the use of Irish airports for US military purposes). Mostly, American involvement has been muted and even handed, especially in the late 90’s. Therefore the IRA has never attacked the US. Which wouldn’t be all that difficult, given the huge number of Irish-Americans and the ease that an IRA asset or two could fit in.

Because the US doesn’t militarily meddle in Ireland’s affairs, The IRA has no interest in America. 

Perhaps if the same philosophy extended to the Middle East, eh? Nah, better that the clown show go into overdrive, right?

 

 

Projection

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One of the more hilarious aspects of the back and forth in “Mr Redmond’s Cyber Playpen” is the inevitable scream from Redmond’s adversaries of “envy” every time Redmond posts anything critical of SF’s moneyed class. Imputing motive into why someone says something as a way of derailing a discussion is old hat as is. Who cares why something is written, it’s there, debate its merits. But the automatic assumption that Redmond’s bitterness over his failure in business leads him to muck-rake isn’t even asinine, it’s borderline demented.

As Redmond (and I) came from a relatively privileged background and yet voluntarily chose a profession where getting rich isn’t part of the reward at all, why would we envy those whose ranks we could easily have joined? Journalism, even when print media was thriving, isn’t lucrative. Neither is music/radio work. I can’t speak for him, but as someone that actually turned down a career in brokerage to play rock and roll, accumulating money didn’t seem anywhere near as gratifying. As Earl Butz pointed out many years ago, there are more important things in life.

An investigative reporter in any major city is gonna find lots and lots of sweetheart deals between City Hall and developers or landlords or any business interest. And would be remiss to not report them. It’s part of the gig they love. And lordy be, giving voice to people that don’t have one is satisfying if not fiscally rewarding. Claiming that Redmond must be envious of people he has nothing in common with is like claiming a gay man would envy the straight guy with the beautiful woman on his arm–she isn’t something he’d ever want, so it would never occur to him to be envious.

No, trollsky’s, the “envy of the rich” doesn’t come from Tim, Marke, Steve or I–but from you. All day every day planted on the lefty website hurling puerile broadsides like a cafeteria food fight–the idea that the rich and their government enablers are skeevy enrages you, because you wish so desperately to be part of a group of people that have no need for you (and recognizing that you’re a peon is too painful to accept). How dare anyone knock the people that are living YOUR dream? 

Hate to say it, but this is classic projection, or in layman’s terms “if you spot it, you got it”. Screaming “you’re jealous” at someone else when the big green globs of same are rolling off your brow like algae-laden sweat. It can be sort of funny in a pitiful manner at first but it’s gotten tedious–the hand that has the finger pointing outward has four pointing back at you. Next time you feel the urge to project, take four quarters off mama’s dresser and buy a lottery ticket. It’s healthier. 

Everyone but Mayor Lee sees SF’s worsening “housing affordability crisis”

Sasha Cuttler
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There was a clear theme that ran through yesterday’s Board of Supervisors meeting from beginning to end, something understood equally by renters, homeowners, and politicians from across the political spectrum: San Francisco has a crisis of housing affordability that is forcing people from the city.

And the only person who doesn’t seem to understand or care about that is the person with the most power to deal with the situation, Mayor Ed Lee, who opened the meeting by essentially dismissing both short- and long-term gentrification forces and claiming “our city has some of the toughest anti-displacement laws in the country.”

It was a claim that Lee made twice, first in response to a question by Sup. Eric Mar about Plan Bay Area and the massive displacement of current San Franciscans that it would create by 2040. And it was also how he answered a question by Sup. John Avalos about rents that are now skyrocketing beyond what most San Franciscans can afford.

I followed Mayor Lee back to his office, asking him to explain his claim, and he cited the city’s “elaborate” rent control laws and the Rent Board recently hiring new personnel as he briskly retreated toward his office. But surely he’s aware that displacement is already happening and getting worse, I told him, citing Rent Board figures showing that evictions are now at a 12-year high.

Lee looked at me dubiously and said, “I’ll have to check the figures on that.” I followed up today with Press Secretary Christine Falvey to ask whether Lee did check those figures — which show 1,757 evictions in the last year, up from 1,395 the previous, both numbers representing returns to the mass displacement of the last dot-com boom — and I’ll update this post if/when I hear back.

“It shows he’s out of touch with what’s happening in San Francisco,” Avalos told me in response to the mayor’s remarks.

Lee seemed to bristle at the suggestion that his aggressive economic development policies might have a downside that he’s going to have to deal with at some point. He touts the 44,000 jobs the city has added during his mayoral tenure, even deflecting criticism that he’s too focused on the technology industry by citing estimates that every tech job creates at least four other jobs (seemingly oblivious to the fact that most of these are low-wage service sector jobs, the very people who are being forced from the city).

“I’m just hoping you’re not blaming the 44,000 jobs we helped created,” Lee told Avalos, saying that he understands the concern about the rising cost of living, “but those are 44,000 people drawing a paycheck and taking care of their families.”

Yes, Mr. Mayor, but those paychecks are having an increasingly tough time paying for housing in San Francisco. That concern animated the condo conversion debate that took place later in the meeting, voiced by those focused on the lack of affordable homeownership opportunities and those focused on reducing the city’s rental stock to create those opportunities.

“I don’t think saying ‘it’s good that we have a growing economy’ is enough to address the issue,” Sup. David Campos said during the condo debate, referring to Lee’s earlier remarks.

Speaking near the end that discussion, Campos summarized the concerns expressed by both sides and sought to put the legislation into perspective: while important, the condo deal is a drop in the anti-displacement bucket. “We are only dealing with the issue of affordability in San Francisco on the margins,” he said, later adding, “I don’t think we’re doing enough to deal with the fundamental issue of who gets to live in San Francisco.”

The debate on the condo conversion began with its original author — Sup. Mark Farrell, who represents District 2, the wealthiest and most conservative in the city — explaining his desire to help middle class people who want to own homes remain in the San Francisco.

“This is the most affordable form of home ownership in San Francisco today,” Farrell said of tenancies-in-common, the fiscally and legally precarious middle step between an apartment and condominium. Later, he said, “We need more affordable homeownership opportunities and not less.”

Farrell argued that “this didn’t need to be a zero sum game,” but that’s exactly what the stock of rent-controlled apartments is in San Francisco, where only housing built before 1979 is protected from the market forces that can drive rents up to whatever a landlord demands.

“We have a fixed rent control stock. Every apartment that converts to a a condo is one less unit,” said Board President David Chiu, who worked with Sups. Jane Kim and Norman Yee and tenant group to amend Farrell’s legislation to help both renters and homeowners.  

“These units were once the homes of tenants who were displaced,” Kim said, objecting to the notion that one person’s apartment should be another person’s affordable homeownership opportunity and arguing that the city should be building more condos for first-time homebuyers instead of cannabalizing the homes of the nearly two-thirds of city residents who rent.

Like Chiu and Kim, Yee said that he wanted to help the TIC owners of today without simply clearing out of the backlog and letting the condo lottery continue unabated, which would green-light even more conversion of apartments. “We want to curb the speculation,” Yee said.

That idea that the city should help people who live in the city, without simply feeding the speculative investors who profiteer off of housing in San Francisco, was a strong theme among critics of condo conversion.

A pro-tenant crowd packed the Board Chambers. Although barred by board rules from addressing the condo legislation directly (that occurred at the committee level), one commenter said, “Giving any more power to the real estate market in San Francisco should be considered a crime.”

To help ward off real estate speculators once the annual condo conversion lottery resumes in 2024, the legisation also limited future conversions to buildings of less than four units, instead of the current cap of six units, a change that Farrell resisted.

“This is not an academic exercise anymore,” Farrell said of the condo conversion restrictions that were added to the legislation. “This will negatively impact thousands of TIC owners in the city.”

Farrell’s original co-sponsor, Sup. Scott Wiener, had a more pro-tenant point-of-view, objecting to the changes that Chiu inserted on more narrow grounds. In his comments, he noted how close the two sides were and how they share the same basic goal: preventing displacement of current city residents.  

“The one thing we can all agree with is we have a housing affordability crisis,” Wiener said, praising the city’s rent control and tenant protection laws, but adding, “TIC owners are also part of this city.”

The price of dealing with the rapid growth in the city — whether it comes to infrastructure or housing affordability — was also a point that Wiener made earlier in the meeting as the board approved the term sheet for a massive office and residential development project proposed at Pier 70.

“We are not doing what we need to do to support the public transportation needed for those projects,” Wiener said, also referring to other projects along the waterfront (the Warrior Arena at Pier 30 and the Giants/Anchor Steam project at Pier 46) and in the southeastern part of the city. “We don’t have the transit infrastructure to support our current population, let alone new growth.”

It’s about striking a balance, as Chiu said he did with the condo legislation, and not just a balance between renters and TIC owners. It’s about striking a balance between how to protect the San Francisco of today while planning for the San Francisco of tomorrow.

Yes, that means working with market rate housing developers, and it also means diverting some of their would-be profits into the city’s affordable housing fund and its infrastructure needs. Yes, it means private-sector job creation, but it also means more public sector jobs and providing a safety net for people without jobs or who work as artists or social workers or other professions that are being driven from the city. And it means beefing up our public housing and turning around the exodus of African-Americans, concerns raised at the meeting by Sup. Malia Cohen.

We at the Guardian last year looked at how Oakland has become cooler than San Francisco, largely because of the displacement from here. And now, even many people within the tech community have begun to decry the gentrifiction that is being driven by Mayor Lee’s narrow economic development vision.

“Plan Bay Area is an opportunity to think regionally and strategically about planned growth,” Lee said when addressing Mar’s question, sidestepping the direct answer that Mar sought on a set of specific proposals for mitigating some of the displacement planned for San Francisco and maintaining this city’s diversity.

Yes, we do have an opportunity to think strategically about the city we’re becoming and who gets to live in it, but only if we don’t think “jobs” is the answer to every question.

David Chiu’s flextime

Zelda Bronstein
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David Chiu’s flextime

I’m not surprised that the folks at the Chamber of Commerce are all agitated about Sup. David Chiu’s proposal to expand family-friendly scheduling at local businesses. The Chamber’s Jim Lazarus is typically out of control:

“At some point, people are not going to want to create businesses in San Francisco when they have to go up to City Hall for a hearing every time an employee doesn’t like their reason for not agreeing to a shorter workweek,” Lazarus said. “Are we going to close for the month of August like France? Is that the next one?”

For the record, I’m all in favor of the French way of thinking about work. But you already know that.

Here’s the crazy thing, though: The Chiu legislation is actually remarkably mild. All it says is that a worker at a company with more than 10 employees has the right to request a different work schedule. The word here is “request.” The company can deny the request if would “create an undue hardship for the company or organization, including an increase in costs or a detrimental effect on the ability to meet customer or client demands.”

Folks: That’s a huge, broad exemption. If giving an employee the right to work at home sometimes (actually, a good idea for lots of reasons, including climate change) or the right to start or end a shift early or late, costs any money or causes any real disruption in the business, then management is exempt and can deny the request.

All the law would really do is elevate the idea of flextime to something that has to be considered if someone asks for it. And you can’t be fired for asking.

If the Chamber is going to go ballistic about this, it’s way out of step. A lot of businesses in the city already comply with at least the spirit of the Chiu law. I don’t see this as a huge issue for anyone.

Explaining Osama and 9/11

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My oldest son just graduated elemetary school and so my wife and I gave him an IPad as gift. He loves the thing. Unlike his gadget n geegaw loathing father, he takes to that stuff with a vengeance.

As an internet scouring curiosity-laden child, he’s gotta be watched carefully. Sometimes he finds “acceptable” videos on YouTube that scare him, however. Today he saw for the first time the footage of the World Trade Center being hit by plane and collapsing on September 11th, 2001. I was on an errand when his mother called me and told me how upset he’d been, seeing the people jump hand in hand to their deaths. 

When I returned home, I explained to him what had happened. And why New York had been attacked and how it had affected our family directly (his uncle’s boss was flown into the towers killing her). I explained to him that human beings were capable of incredible cold blooded cruelty but also kindness and love. He still wanted to know why Bin Laden had planned and executed the attacks and I replied that the motive may have been to force American troops off the holy Saudi soil or maybe that as a former CIA employee, he’d been stiffed for cash. We don’t really know.

What I do figure, I explained to him, is that Bin Laden had a history of being part of suckering Western powers into unwinnable wars. By knocking down the World Trade Center, America would be dragged into a bloody morass like the Red Army was and we’d collapse like the USSR did. And then something hit me that I’d never thought of.

When Bin Laden was laying out this grand scheme of destruction, how come no one ever said anything like “well, it’s true that the Americans are infidels, dude–but this retaliation of theirs that you’re hoping for? That’s gonna be thousands and thousands of our people that get snuffed in a war that really doesn’t have to take place. Like, they may be imperialistic whatevers, man, but this provocation means lots of dead civilians, kids. That’s not really a great idea–got anything else?”

Of course that never happened and not because of Islamofascism or whatever other completely human trait is laid on one group of people as opposed to all of them. It never seems to keep the Bin Laden’s of the world up at night that they’re responsible for death and carnage nor does anyone ever tell them that this isn’t heroism or martyrdom but murder. 

So I explained this to my boy and he nodded by way of “OK, dad–cool”. I dunno if it sank in but if I ever get word back that he walked away from a fight because he knew it never leads to anything but pain, that’s a job well done.

 

The Mission ‘douchebags’

Zelda Bronstein
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The Mission ‘douchebags’

Okay, you have to read this. When a 1990s tech-startup guy who admits he was part of the last generation of gentrification is now so fed up with the new arrival of high-paid techies that he’s ready to leave, it’s pretty serious.

Chris Tacy makes an excellent point: When you move into the Mission, you need to understand that there are already other people living there, some of whom have been there a long time, and that it isn’t just you’re rich-kids playground:

Be considerate. That little old hispanic lady at the bus stop? Help her onto the bus instead of loudly bitching about how she’s going to make you late to your meeting at The Creamery. Be respectful. This neighborhood was here before you and will be here after you leave. It’s not your trashcan, your toilet or your playground. Understand the history and the culture and the people and act in a manner that isn’t stupidly offensive. Be sensitive. The traditional residents of this neighborhood are not rich and never will be. Flaunting your wealth and your opportunities is a douche move.

A guy I knew in college came from a very wealthy family, and his parents set up a trust fund for him. But he wasn’t going to get a penny until he was 30, and most of it would come to him later in life. His dad’s rationale: People who have a lot of money in theirs 20s become assholes. They don’t have enough life experience to handle the sudden riches. Get a job, live like a normal person, find out what life is like.

That’s how riches used to happen — the great industrial fortunes of the previous American generations tended to come to people who had worked for a while first; there weren’t a lot of 20-something millionaires. I think that’s a big change in the current economy. Some people are just too young to be rich.

I know, I’m an old fart who is not rich and never will be. Sometimes I feel like a curmudgeon. But if you’re lucky enough to be rich in your 20s, show some respect.

Distance and racism

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Right now, I’m approximately 116 miles from the Mexican border.

When I was growing up, I was 1600 miles from the same border. I was in Boston–I had a discussion today with some musicians from Boston that are “alarmed” at “the end of America” because of “amnesty”. When I pointed out that in the last 24 years, LA had become more “Latino” (I sussed out that the issue wasn’t illegal immigration as it never really is, when they started in with “press 2 for English”) and that crime and pollution was down and land values up–might as have been talking to my toenails.

I think it’s the same syndrome that crazy white folks in gated communities have about “the end of our way of life”–the further removed they are from the actual human beings that terrify them the more terrified they are.

Why do you think Coeur D’Alene, in Idaho’s northern tip was the capital of white power, hundreds of miles away from non whites?

It’s race.

Supervisors approve condo legislation with veto-proof majority

Sasha Cuttler
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Supervisors approve condo legislation with veto-proof majority

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors today voted to approve compromise legislation that will allow more than 2,000 tenancy-in-common homeowners to convert to condominiums in exchange for a 10-year moratorium on the city’s current condo conversion lottery that now allows 200 conversions annually.

Approved by a veto-proof 8-3 majority after some last amendments were shot down by the six supervisors who most steadfastly supported the version that Board President David Chiu took the lead on crafting, this was a big victory for tenant groups who strongly opposed the original legislation, which did not include the moratorium and other restrictions.

“It’s great. We’re going to see a significant drop in condo conversions in the future. All of us tenants are very happy,” San Francisco Tenants Union head Ted Gullicksen told us after the hearing, which was packed with tenant supporters.

Sup. Mark Farrell, who sponsored the original legislation, decried how divisive the issue had become, criticized the approved version as deviating from his original intent of helping TIC owners in exchange for a fee that would help fund new affordable housing, and said, “This doesn’t need to be a zero sum game.”

But Chiu and the five supervisors who supported his version – Jane Kim, Norman Yee, David Campos John Avalos, and Eric Mar – noted the finite number of rent-controlled apartments in the city and the need to protect them from being converted into condos.

“How do we balance the needs of tenants who fear being evicted with TIC owners looking for relief?” Chiu said of the balance he aimed to strike, which he continued to tweak with new amendments today, including allowing TICs with all owner-occupied units to move forward if the legislation is challenged in court, an event that would otherwise freeze all condo conversions until the lawsuit is resolved.

Sup. London Breed wanted even greater flexibility in that so-called “poison pill” aspect of the legislation, which tenant groups had insisted on to prevent the bypass from going through even if the moratorium was challenged. Breed proposed allowing condo conversion applications to proceed for a year after a lawsuit was filed, but Chiu said that would let TIC owners convert to condos while challenging other aspects of the legislation, such as the lifetime leases for tenants in converted buildings.

Breed and Sup. Malia Cohen, who privately and rather grimly conferred with one another and sometimes Chiu before the item began a little after 4pm, were clearly the two swing votes on the question of whether the legislation would reach the crucial eight-vote threshold needed to override a possible mayoral veto. Mayor Ed Lee has refused to take a position on the issue, leaving both sides in the dark.

But after the motion to insert Breed’s amendments failed on a 5-6 vote, the board voted 8-3 to approve Chiu’s version of the legislation, with Sups. Farrell, Scott Wiener, and Katy Tang opposed. A subsequent vote on a version of the legislation backed by Farrell and Wiener – which contained a weaker poison pill and more flexible owner-occupancy provisions – then failed on a 4-7 vote, with Breed joining the three dissenting supervisors.

Underscoring this legislation was what some supervisors called a “housing affordability crisis” in San Francisco, an issue that Mayor Lee was asked about at the start of the meeting, which he deflected by claiming “our city has some of the toughest anti-displacement laws in the nation.”

We’ll analyze that discussion and offer more details on the condo conversion debate and the politics behind it tomorrow in the space, so check back then.      

Dede Wilsey re-elected prez of Fine Arts Museums board with little fanfare

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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Dede Wilsey re-elected prez of Fine Arts Museums board with little fanfare

At a quarterly meeting on June 6, Diane “Dede” Wilsey was summarily re-elected as president of the Board of Trustees of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF). The election marks her sixth consecutive term in a post she’s held since 1998, a tenure made possible when the board eliminated term limits in 2009.

She ran uncontested, and her unanimous endorsement by the board’s Nomination Committee was granted, in the words of Committee Chair Lisa Zanze, to be “mindful of the need for continuity” at FAMSF.

Earlier this year, Wilsey was the subject of harsh criticism by former and unnamed current employees at FAMSF, who anonymously submitted information to the Bay Guardian demonstrating that, among other things, Wilsey was directing staff members to assist with the maintenance of her personal art collection on museum time. Curator Emeritus Robert Flynn Johnson was even quoted in the New York Times as saying the museum was in a state of “Orwellian dysfunction” under Wilsey’s leadership.

Other allegations of mismanagement have included the ouster of several well-regarded, veteran members of the museum’s staff, such as European art curator Lynn Orr. Eyebrows were also raised over the exhibition of Wilsey’s son Trevor Traina’s photography collection at the deYoung last summer. Incidentally, Traina was re-elected to the FAMSF board last week after briefly retiring in April 2012, just before his show opened.

Despite the controversy, Wilsey’s position was never questioned at last week’s meeting. The need for “continuity” ostensibly stems from a gap in leadership at the museum following the death of Director John Buchanan in December 2011. The protracted recruitment effort for Buchanan’s replacement finally came to an end earlier this year, in the wake of the controversy, with the appointment of Colin Bailey, former deputy director and chief curator at The Frick Collection in New York. (On Thursday, Wilsey likened working with the selection committee to “herding cats.”)

It’s true that Wilsey has an extensive record of arts patronage in San Francisco. But with Wilsey retaining her post as president of the board, it’s unclear whether the “points of great concern amongst a broad range of professional staff” highlighted in an anonymous note sent to the Guardian this past February have been adequately addressed. The outcome of Wilsey’s re-election, perhaps, was the quiet dismissal of an ugly period in an institution otherwise concerned with beauty.

8 Washington and the Warriors

Zelda Bronstein
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8 Washington and the Warriors

I won’t be a bit surprised if the Warriors start putting money behind Simon Snellgrove’s efforts to win ballot approval for his 8 Washington condo project. And it won’t be just because of general developer solidarity. And I don’t think the basketball team owners are counting on a lot of fans living just down the Embarcadero — odds are a lot of the people who buy Snellgrove’s ultra-luxury condos won’t live in San Francisco much of the time anyway.

No: What the Warriors realize is that the fate of their arena could be linked to the fate of the height-limit battle on Snellgrove’s lot.

The mayor has called the Warriors Arena his legacy project. The head of the Planning Commission says it’s a done deal. Despite the screwy financing and the serious problems with traffic and transit, this thing is moving forward through official San Francisco on greased skids.

But given the way things work in this city, it’s almost certain that the arena will wind up on the ballot. Either the Warriors will organize an initiative campaign to put it before the voters, or the opponents will. And in this case, both sides will have money — the neighbors who don’t want the project are a relatively well-off bunch.

It’s too late for anything to happen for the Warriors this fall, which means a likely battle in November, 2014. But the voters this fall may very well reject the condo towers, and if they do, it will likely hinge on the notion that San Francisco has historically reduced height limits near the Bay. Polls show most voters don’t want tall buildings on the waterfront. And a strong vote to reinforce that would have impacts for any future projects.

“If 8 Washington goes down,” former Mayor Art Agnos, who opposes both projects, told me, “then the people will have spoken out about big buildings on the waterfront, and the Warriors will be in trouble.”

Remember: The arena is only one piece of the Warriors’ project. There’s also a shopping mall, hotel and highrise housing planned for the area — and without the highrise on Seawall Lot 333, the arena doesn’t pencil out. So you can love the idea of a big ol’ flying saucer thingy on a concrete pad four times the size of Union Square sitting on the edge of the Bay and still not like the idea of (once again) spot-zoning a waterfront lot for high-end condos that will block people’s views.

If I were opposed to the arena, I’d be reaching out to the folks fighting Snellgrove and throwing some cash their way. Because this is the first in a series of battles over the use of waterfront land, and its importance goes far beyond 134 condo units.

Icelandic MP Birgitta Jónsdóttir talks asylum options for NSA whistleblower

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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Birgitta Jónsdóttir is waiting for Edward Snowden to drop her a line.

The Icelandic Member of Parliament and Wikileaks supporter happens to be in San Francisco at the moment, working to raise awareness about the trial of Wikileaks whistleblower Bradley Manning, and preparing for a speaking engagement this evening where she’ll appear alongside Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971.

Snowden, meanwhile, is presumed to be somewhere in Hong Kong – but as of the most recent media reports, his exact whereabouts were unknown (at least to reporters). Snowden is the 29-year-old former employee of intelligence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, who came forward Sunday as the source responsible for leaking top-secret U.S. government documents to The Guardian (UK) and The Washington Post revealing a widespread digital surveillance program.

Jónsdóttir’s International Modern Media Institute issued a statement on June 9 vowing to “discuss the details of his asylum request” and to investigate the legal and security implications of the Iceland option.

“I have not gotten into contact with him,” Jónsdóttir said in a phone interview with the Bay Guardian this morning. “But … we have sent out the message that he can be in contact with us if he chooses, to let us know exactly what he wants.”

She added, “I’m quite concerned, because there are no direct flights to Iceland. … I’m just worried about the extradition process in other countries – if he needs to do a layover, or if we’re not quick enough to grant him asylum. And, frankly speaking, one of the parties in the government in Iceland is never going to agree to support it. So, it’s tricky.”

There may be better places for Snowden to seek asylum, Jónsdóttir added, but she and others are still investigating the possibilities. “I don’t know if Ecuador can take any more refugees from the political prisoners of the information age,” she said, referencing the country that granted Wikileaks founder Julian Assange political asylum, and has granted him residency in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for a year.

“But I really think emphasis in this case should be on all this heavy sentencing on … whistleblowers and people that are doing research and trying to bring information into the public domain,” Jónsdóttir said. “I feel this is more like a witch hunt than the ordinary justice system,” she added, “if you look at the crimes they’re accused to have done, which in many people’s opinion, are not crimes at all.”

For now, it’s still too early to say where Snowden will ultimately wind up. “The ball is in his hands,” Jónsdóttir said. “In the meantime, we will check out all the legalities and possibilities. We would obviously have to do it through secure ways. We have reached out to [journalist] Glenn [Greenwald] and James Ball, who has also been writing about this for The Guardian. And we’ll see if we get a message from him or if we can communicate directly. As soon as we have any information, we will make a statement.”

Supervisors pose tough but important questions to Mayor Lee

Sasha Cuttler
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Supervisors pose tough but important questions to Mayor Lee

There’s a full agenda at the San Francisco Board of Supervisors meeting today, from the condo conversion lottery bypass legislation to approval of the term sheet from the massive development project at Pier 70, but some of the most interesting and potentially newsworthy items are at the very beginning of the agenda, when Mayor Ed Lee will answer questions posed by the supervisors.

Unfortunately, if past is prologue, Lee won’t give direct, substantive answers to the vitally important questions that he’s being asked, just as he dodged a question on the condo conversion debate in February and has kept everyone in the dark of which of the rival measures he supports and which he may veto. Mayoral leadership was desperately needed on that protracted debate, just as it’s needed today on some of the questions he’s being asked.

The first question, posed by Sup. Eric Mar, concerns Plan Bay Area and how it plans to pack 280,000 more people into San Francisco by 2040, which was the subject of a May 28 Bay Guardian cover story and panel dicussion that we’re sponsoring at the LGBT Center tomorrow night.

Mar lays out the massive displacement of existing residents and the traffic gridlock that the plan will create in San Francisco and how the approval process from much of this streamlined development may be given waivers from California Environmental Quality Act review.

Mar notes more than 40 regional groups have come together to try to improve the plan and mitigate its damage, and he plans to ask Lee:

“A consensus has formed around the following recommendations for making Plan Bay Area better:

– Provide $3 billion in additional operating revenue for local transit service and commit to a long-range ‘Regional Transit Operating Program’ to boost transit operating subsidies by another $9 billion over the coming years.

– Move 5 percent of the housing growth from low-income communities (mainly San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose) to transit-connected suburban job centers.

– Incorporate strong anti-displacement policies for community stabilization measures, such as land banking and preservation of affordable housing in at-risk neighborhoods.

– Director the Planning Department to analyze the impacts of potential CEQA streamling as soon as possible and create strong mitigation measures.

Do you support these measure, and are you committed to a plan with lower displacement level than the current proposal? If you do not support these ideas, why not?”

Excellent  question, and definitely an appropriate one for our chief executive officer, who would have more clout to push for these changes than any of the supervisors.

The second question comes from Board President David Chiu, who makes news by noting that Mayor Lee has continued his predecessor’s underhanded practice of refusing to fill city positions to provide services that the supervisors have decided to fund in the budget, undermining the city’s balance of power and Lee’s rhetoric on collaboration.

“In recent months, Controller data indicates that positions allocated by the Board for librarians, recreation and park staff, building inspection, health and labor enforcement, urban agriculture and other Board priorities were either not filled or only recently hired. Will you commit to ensuring that when the FY 13-14 budget is approved, our Board of Supervisors’ priorities are treated equally to your Administration’s, with positions filled as soon as possible?”

Again, great question about an important current issue, the kind of thing that voters created this question time for, to ensure that there was communication and collaboration between these two branches of government.

The last two questions concern San Francisco’s housing crisis. Sup. David Campos cites the scatching report that he commissioned from the Budget and Legislative Analyst on the dysfunctional and mordibund Housing Authority, which Lee controls, asking “what is your long term vision to save public housing — a significant public asset to San Francisco?”

Sup. John Avalos cites data on the skyrocketing rents in San Francisco and asks, “Are you concerned that your administration’s policies to stimulate economic activity, especially supporting the tech industry, have created one-sided development and only job for high-income ‘appsters,’ and have exacerbated the already extremely limited housing market? Do you have any plans to address the increasing rents, and increasing rate of evictions and displacement of long-time San Francisco renters?”

These are tough questions, but they are central to what kind of city San Francisco is becoming. They were all submitted last week, so the mayor has had time to think about them and he should provide answers and show leadership on these difficult issues. That is his job.

Will he? Check back later and I’ll let you know. The meeting starts at 2pm.

There’s gonna be a morning after (pill)

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The Obama adminstration has decided not to block the over the counter availability of “morning after contraceptives”. Simply put, any woman or girl (or man, assuming he’s either motivated or very confused) can buy a medication that prevents pregnancy up to 72 hours after sexual intercourse.

Naturally, the mainstream media is claiming that this move is fraught with negative implications for Obama, but as this polls well with one of the president’s truest bases, single women, where might this be? In reality, this is not just a no-brainer among the supposedly “enlightened” progressives but should be very popular among the strong anti-abortion opposition of same–after all, no pregnancy, no abortions.

Of course it isn’t. The “morning after pill” is considered an “abortifacient”, even though its purpose is to prevent the very beginning of pregnancy. Plus, that the pill is available to young women without parental notification, this supposedly “encourages promiscuity” (much in the same way that a clean glass would encourage alcoholism, right?). As such, it removes more power from the parent and is a very easily attainable contraceptive which by fiat means acknowledgement of pre-marital sex. Yeah, I know it isn’t the 1950’s for the rest of us, but…..

What no one dares say, well, what the hell, I will: The real reason they oppose this availability is that is may render abortions obsolete. You’d think that as sanctity of life types they would applaud this. They don’t–abortion opposition is a major industry and fund raising tool. After the 2010 midterms, the new Tea Party favorites in Congress introduced bill after bill limiting abortions (that they knew had no chance of passing the Senate). It’s a game to them–fact is, with “pro life” President Bush/Speaker Hastert/Maj.leader Frist in power for 4 years and a weak opposition–the best they could do was a “partial birth abortion” limitation, a procedure that accounts for less than 1% of all abortions.

This terrifies the Planned Parenthood phobes to the core of their bones. No abortions mean no contributions. Means a new scourge is gonna have to be found fast and they don’t have one.

Too effin’ bad. 

Stop meddling

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Stop meddling

The mega flap over the National Security Administration’s electronic surveillance rages on this week. The chief leaker, Edward Snowden is hied away in Hong Kong, President Obama has assured the American people that he’s “only do this to protect the people”, which is apparently how most Americans see it. Civil libertarians are outraged, the Republican “gotcha” media overjoyed and as there has been relative peace post 9/11 on the homefront (plus the realization that “online privacy” is mythical in and of itself), this too shall pass.

Too bad that it will. Not just because government snooping (and its corporate twin) are an ugly intrusion but really because the underlying story–also the story of 9/11 itself–will fade. The actual cause of Middle Eastern nationalism and the terrorism that comes with it isn’t that “Muslims are crazy” or “they don’t know how to be free and we must show them” but is actually the ceaseless meddling in the affairs of these nations that has characterized US and the UK’s dealings with same for 100 years.

Overthrowing popular regimes hostile to American interests like Iran, 1953 or propping up the Shah, Mubarak, Saddam (a former “ally”) or Assad has created legions of pissed off Middle Easterners (that at various points admired the US as the #1 nation in the world). High unemployment among the young plus ceaseless anti-American propaganda from their state run media’s is part of it, but were it not for a few incontrovertible facts–The US’ automatic backing of Israel in all matters as well as fealty to the Saudi royal family’s autocracy has convinced millions of people that America is no friend to them at all. 

Drone bombing ain’t helping, either.

It isn’t like they don’t know why, either. Protecting the interests of petroleum companies has been priority #1–used to be called “protecting the oil supply” (the “Carter Doctrine”), but at this point, that is a major league load of bovine poop. The US gets less than 13% of the oil it uses from the Persian Gulf and is now a net exporter of petroleum. Therefore, the protection in question isn’t for the US consumer or its security, but for oil company’s revenues and profits–all subsidized by (you guessed it) American taxpayers.

Stop fucking meddling. Stop fucking meddling in their affairs–remove the US military from the Gulf (let the oil companies create their own security minus the military that’s paid from our taxes), stop the bowing and scraping to Al Qaeda backing Saudis, stop reflexively assuming “Israel good, Arabs, bad” and acting accordingly and guess what? Out of sight, out of mind—the notion that “Muslims hate our way of life and want to wage a holy war against us” is belied by the simple fact that the world’s largest Muslim nation has so far ignored most things American. “Live and let live” is the sanest philosophy one can embrace in one’s personal life, why not in one’s political life as well? 

Poor Scott Walker–the sun ain’t gonna shine anymore

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Anyone that believes that merit and achievement in governing mean anything at all should stay away from Wisconsin.

The Badger state, cheesehead central, home to the Packers, Brewers, Bucks and Violent Femmes. Also home to perhaps the most dismal head of state in the US, Scott Walker.

(To any music fan, the image conjured up by “Scott Walker” is that of the legendarily reclusive, Jaques Brel-like vocalist. But I digress).

Having won the governor’s seat in that state without having said anything about busting up public employee unions, that’s what Mr. Walker aimed to do. And set off massive protests in Madison and escaped recall by the hair of his chinny chin chin. Walker’s claim is that unburdening the state of the pensions and bloated salaries would set off an economic wave of growth–and did it?

No. The state plummeted in job growth and real wages declined at twice the national level. 87,000 Wisconsins have been heaved off the state’s massively successful BadgerCare program, presumably to join all the other unemployed Wisconsins that were gainfully employed before Walker took office. 

One would think that given the state’s atrocious fiscal performance that Walker’s ambition to ascend would be over. Wrong again–he is considered a viable presidential candidate in 2016. How can this be?

It’s simple: To win over the Republican base, the most important quality a candidate can have is a gleeful sadism when it comes to people of modest means plus a directly proportionate propensity to salad toss the very wealthy (Walker was pranked figuratively doing same to the nation’s big bankroller of lunacy). Even though the vast majority of said base are people of modest means themselves. 

A few weeks ago, I noted polling that showed the Republican party at 59% disapproval, a record high. Recent polls have shown the GOP getting annihilated in 2016 by the AntiChrist herself, the only Republican that polls decently is perhaps their last sane figurehead. Which makes sense–if what turns your base on is pointless cruelty, then you really have become a “crazy clown cult”. Venerating a complete failure is exhibit A, case closed. 

 

A tale of two signings: Kluwe and Tebow

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Two very disparate signings in pro football in the last month. First, punter and outspoken gay rights advocate Chris Kluwe has signed with the Raiders (after being let go by the Vikings). The former UCLA star has been a pro ball player eight years, the Raiders are his third team. Whether or not his views on same sex marriage had anything to do with Minnesota letting him go is not clear (The Vikings MVP running back Adrian Peterson is not an equality advocate) . Maybe they didn’t like his band. Who knows?

Of far more note and unlikely pairing is the newest member of the New England Patriots, Tim Tebow. Signed as a possible third string quarterback (or possible halfback or replacement for the Patriots star tight end Rob Gronkowski), the poster boy for the pro-life movement and the “libertine” present QB Tom Brady would seem to be an odd couple. Given that Tebow’s last coach was a foot fetishist and wife swapper, I think Brady’s activities will seem mild by comparison.

Fact is this: If Kluwe is an upgrade on the generally dreadful Raiders and Tebow is the missing ingredient for the NFL’s recent champions of the “near miss”, what they think or stand for off the field is irrelevant. Raiders fans are among the most devoted in the world (among other things) and the last few years have been brutal in Oakland. The Patriots collapse in the last AFC championship game (and the crap out against the Giants twice) has re-ignited that old sorrow from the bleak, pre-Brady era. As a QB is by nature more significant than a punter, Tebow will be under massive scrutiny. But he has the best coach in the world and New England sports fans (that hated him a week ago) loving him now (kind of).

Training camp for both teams did get a whole lot more interesting though!

 

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