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Politics Blog

Workers underpaid by firms renovating fancy mid-Market offices

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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52

Union members from San Francisco Carpenters Local 22 were distributing flyers outside a developer’s Bush Street headquarters this week, upset that the company hired contractors who don’t pay union scale wages. “Hurting workers!” The bright orange flyers screamed. “Shame on them!”

The developer is Group I, headed by Joy Ou. In addition to being the CEO of the development firm, Ou is also listed on state licensing records as the principal officer of Construction Studios, Inc., one of the general contracting firms singled out on the flyer. Ou did not return Guardian calls seeking comment.

Group I is conducting office renovations at 988 Market Street, a 1920s-era building located at Sixth and Market streets adjacent to the Warfield Theater. Group I purchased the Warfield office building from David Addington. It is a prominent location: when Mayor Ed Lee ran for election in 2011, his campaign office was headquartered there. The building is also included among mid-Market properties eligible for payroll tax exclusion under a program hashed out in 2011 to revitalize the central Market corridor.

Of the multiple floors under renovation, two will house Benchmark Capital, a venture capital firm that invests in tech startups. Tech startup companies are poised to move in just below. It’s unclear whether these businesses will apply for the payroll tax break.

According to Bill Gerber of Tico Construction Co., a contractor tapped to conduct some of the renovations, the workers he’s hired actually are earning union-scale wages. “Tico is running it as a union job,” he said. “We are paying area wages.”

But Scott Littlehale, a spokesperson for the carpenters’ union, told the Guardian that Gerber never responded when the union asked him if Tico pays area standard wages on all jobs. “What we believe is that the developer in this case, Group I, has not required its contractors to pay area wages all the time on all its jobs,” Littlehale said. “This is a labor market that extends beyond a single job site.”

Under California law, workers employed on city-funded projects must pay the prevailing wage, which is $38.50 an hour for carpenters before benefits are factored in, according to the Department of Industrial Relations. Since 988 Market is not a publicly funded project, it’s not bound to this requirement.

Nevertheless, the idea that construction crews are working for less than the area standard in San Francisco’s burgeoning economic climate – to renovate space for a venture-capital firm that will qualify for a payroll-tax exclusion – raises questions about whether this kind of development is actually helping struggling workers recover from the economic hit of the last several years. Group I stands to make top dollar by renting its office spaces out to tenants heavily invested in the booming tech industry. Meanwhile, San Francisco is becoming increasingly unaffordable for skilled laborers.

Construction gigs are temporary by nature, and Littlehale said many union members earn less than the area median income. “Construction work had been a pathway to fairly stable middle class standards, and that’s under threat,” Littlehale said. “The big picture is: We’re going to hold the folks up the food chain accountable.”

Condo conversion compromise in the works despite Realtors’ resistance

Sasha Cuttler
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180

[UPDATED BELOW] Negotiations between tenant advocates and real estate interests (including the political advocacy group Plan C) over the controversial condo lottery bypass legislation haven’t gone well or found common ground. But sources tell the Guardian that Sup. Jane Kim and Board President David Chiu, who has been mediating the dispute, are preparing to introduce compromise amendments that have the support of the San Francisco Tenants Union and other tenant advocates if a deal can’t be worked out with real estate interests.

Details are still being hammered out with advocates and the City Attorney’s Office, so the hearing scheduled for this Monday at the Land Use and Economic Development Committee will likely be postponed until March 25. But the basic deal is to allow the roughly 2,000 tenancies-in-common now seeking to convert into condos to do so in exchange for a long moratorium on new condo conversions, possibly indexed to construction of new affordable housing for the renters who comprise nearly two-thirds of San Franciscans.

The original legislation by Sups. Mark Farrell and Scott Wiener is being strongly backed by both current TIC owners who want the ability to refinance and Plan C and other real estate interests that want to continue converting ever more rent-controlled apartments into condos, rather than abiding the city’s current limit of 200 per year, awarded through a lottery system. The SFTU has strenuously resisted opening up those flood gates, but it’s open to clearing out the backlog in exchange to shutting the gates for awhile (see my story in this week’s Guardian for more on the political dynamics surrounding this issue).

“We’re hopeful that a majority of the board will support amendments which will significantly protect tenants and which will allow a version of the Wiener-Farrell legislation to be approved,” SFTU head Ted Gullicksen told us.

Progressives on the board oppose the legislation as currently written, and the swing votes are thought to be Sups. London Breed (which Plan C supported in the last election in exchange for what it says was her promise to support more condo conversions, an assurance she denies making), Norman Yee (who was brought into the Chiu-mediated negotiations), and Malia Cohen, with just one of them needed to force changes to the legislation.

But the real estate interests – including Plan C, the Association of Realtors (whose government affairs director we left a message for and are waiting to hear back from, and we’ll update below if/when we do), San Francisco Apartment Association, and other downtown-based groups – who are pushing for more condo conversions are likely to strongly resist the amendments. They simply want more rent-controlled apartments turned into condos they can sell, period.

Their perspective is reflected in SF Apartment Magazine, put out by the San Francisco Apartment Association, which every month offers advice to real estate investors and apartment building owners on various ways to buy apartment buildings, evict tenants or increase their rents, and convert the buildings to TICs or condos.

It runs a regular column called “TIC Corner” with the latest tricks for financing acquisitions and getting rid of those pesky tenants. In the November 2012 issue, for example, attorney D. Andrew Sirkin wrote excitedly about a new Securities and Exchange Commission rule that will now allow owners to advertise the sale of apartment buildings as TIC/condo investments, which he said “will dramatically ease the regulatory burden for real estate entrepreneurs wishing to raise money for apartment acquisitions and make it much easier to find investors.”

Another feature story in the magazine, “The ABCs of OMIs,” teaches these investors all the tricks for evicting tenants from their buildings, while “Roommate Roulette” offers advice to owners of rent-controlled buildings for keeping new roommates of existing tenants off the lease so they can charge market rate rents as soon as possible.

And, of course, the magazine is filled with ads for San Francisco apartment buildings that are for sale and just waiting to be cleared of tenants and turned into amazing real estate investment opportunities. Gullicksen says it is this mentality, applied to what even Mayor Ed Lee has called the city’s “precious few rent-controlled apartments,” that has animated the opposition to the Wiener-Farrell legislation. SFTU had planned a rally for Monday called “Stop Rent Control Attack,” which has now been postponed until March 25.

UPDATE 3/11: Sup. Wiener got back to us and said, “I hope we can move to a compromise and I don’t want to prejudge that compromise.” Asked about the concept of approving TICs in the pipeline in exchange for halting on all condo conversions for some number of years, he said, “It’s definitely something to explore, a pause in the lottery, and I’m open to that. But the devil is in the details.”

#OpenData just got a teeny bit more open

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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62

We were disheartened when, after submitting some fairly innocuous questions to the Mayor’s Chief Innovation Officer, Jay Nath, we received zero answers. By the time the Guardian’s annual Freedom of Information issue hit stands yesterday, we were still out in the cold. (Shameless plug: Pick up a print edition of this week’s paper for our flow chart on how to file Sunshine requests, designed by our illustrious Art Director Brooke Robertson.)

Nath, who helped start the city’s Open Data program, responded to our emails and tweets (apologetically) by saying he was awaiting the green light from the Mayor’s Office of Communications. Which begs the question: In a city so outwardly committed to transparency, why can’t the Mayor’s Office of Communications entrust a program expert to share information about information-sharing software?

Anyway, the day after we ran our story, Nath did respond in an email. The first objective of Open Data is to “increase transparency,” he told us.

Other goals are to “drive economic development” and “foster the creation of new services and analysis by our community.” The inspiration behind it came from President Barack Obama, who on his first day in office “issued a memo on open government that heralded their open data program Data.gov,” Nath explained. “With this precedent, the city recognized an opportunity to share local data with the public.” 

Head over to the city’s Open Data Portal and you can poke around for info on everything from real-estate development, to restaurant health inspection scores, to city salary ranges by job classification.

As Nath pointed out, there are also over 30 datasets around campaign finance. That’s a good thing – but there’s still room for improvement. Last year, after attending a city hackathon where transparency advocates hoped to spur creation of an app to track lobbying, campaign contributions and real-estate development, Adriel Hampton of the San Francisco Technology Democrats noted that this was impossible due to a lack of information. “Despite millions in spending on … online transparency measures, access to data in these areas is woefully lacking,” Hampton wrote.

Nath said the annual cost is $40,000 per year for software. He also shared his vision for future expansion. “In terms of new services, I see applications that mash up data from multiple public and private sources to create a seamless experience,” he said. “For example, imagine a tourism app that helps you navigate the city via public transit, taxis, car / bike sharing, biking, walking, etc.”

So how does Open Data affect public records requests under the San Francisco Sunshine Ordinance? “Government can use open data to reduce costs by pro-actively providing information that is often requested through FOIA,” Nath told us, referring to the Freedom of Information Act. “For example, by releasing real-time transit data, transit riders have dozens of ways to know when their next bus is coming. This new and immediate access to information has resulted in 21.7% fewer SF 311 calls – and at $2 per call – that yielded a savings of over $1 million a year.”

An interesting thing about data is that it can be totally neutral until it’s harnessed for a particular purpose, with clever visualization and presentation. Just ask the producer of this video on wealth distribution, which has been making the rounds.

Oakland’s JVP counters AIPAC’s push to exempt aid to Israel from sequestration cuts

Sasha Cuttler
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26
Oakland’s JVP counters AIPAC’s push to exempt aid to Israel from sequestration cuts

Ahead of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s three-day policy conference in Washington DC, Oakland-based Jewish Voice for Peace and Avaaz.org blanketed the DC Metro with provocative anti-AIPAC posters. The $100,000 marketing campaign features images of young Jews with the words: “AIPAC does not speak for me. Most Jewish Americans are pro-peace. AIPAC is not.” The posters, which are part of a larger campaign to counteract AIPAC’s strong and hawkish influence on American foreign policy, will run for two-weeks in the DC Metro.

The March 5-7 AIPAC conference attracts pro-Israel activists from around the country and this year features an address by Vice President Joe Biden. AIPAC spends nearly $3 million a year lobbying Congress and enjoys widespread support from both major political parties. But according to JVP Executive Director Rebecca Vilkomerson, Jewish-American frustration with AIPAC is mounting.

JVP’s high-profile ad campaign is designed to appeal to more liberal American Jews who are uncomfortable with AIPAC’s continued support for conservative US foreign policy priorities. “AIPAC is the NRA of foreign policy lobbies, it pushes a right-wing agenda that in no way represents the majority of Jewish Americans,” JVP Spokesperson Sydney Levy told the Guardian.

JVP endorses the controversial Boycott, Divestment, and Sanction (BDS) movement which seeks to isolate Israel internationally through a sustained divestment from Israeli institutions. This position has drawn criticism from other local Bay Area Jewish organizations and Levy said JVP has been barred from using space at the San Francisco Jewish Community Relations Council.

During the ongoing conference, AIPAC is expected to launch a campaign to convince Congress to exempt Israel aid from the sequestration budget cuts. But JVP is calling on its grassroots network of more than 35 local chapters to oppose the campaign. “In the era of sequestration, where every item is on the table – from Medicare to Head Start – why isn’t aid to Israel on the table?” asks Levy.

AIPAC did not responded to requests for comment, but we’ll update this post if it does.

SF approaches 1 million residents

Zelda Bronstein
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167
SF approaches 1 million residents

So the Association of Bay Area Governments, which plays an outsized role in local planning by making all sorts of projections, based on whatever economists and demographers use to make projections, that are supposed to guide how cities in the region make land-use decisions, says San Francisco should be prepared to see its population grow to 964,000 people by 2035.If you figure that’s only an estimate, and probably off by at least five percent, we could be talking about a million people in this city just 20 years down the road.

Now: Some of those people will be coming here for jobs that are being created. Many will be coming here as immigrants from other countries. Many more will be coming because, well, California is growing, and, as the official motto of the old Redevelopment Agency put it, “Omnes Volunt Habitare in Urbe San Francisco.” Everybody wants to live in the city of San Francisco.

ABAG says we’re going to need to build homes and create jobs for all of those people, and the Chron talks about the new private-sector development that’s going on, and the zoning plans the city has adopted to increase density, particularly on the Eastern and Southeastern side of town. (Yes, it’s crazy, but John Rahaim, the planning director, freely admits that 80 percent of all new development is going into 20 percent of the city.)

Before we decide that this is our fate and our future, though, it’s worth considering a few points.

1. San Francisco is already one of the densest urban areas in the US. Last time I check the data, this city was number three on the list, behind Manhattan and Union City, New Jersey. Clearly, urban areas are going to have to get more dense as population increases in this state; the only other option is suburban sprawl, which works for nobody. But I wonder: Should San Francisco take this much more density when Berkeley (for example) doesn’t want it and won’t take it? Should it all go on the East Side when the more suburban-style areas on the West Side don’t want it?

Is there a way to do density that looks more like North Beach — one of the densest neighborhoods in town, and a really great place to live, work, and visit — and less like the highrise forests of Soma, which are unappealing at ground level, discourage neighborhood interaction, and are lacking in human scale?

I don’t want to live in Manhattan. I don’t want Soma to turn into Manhattan. Downtown is bad enough.

2. Nowhere in the Chron article, or in the comments attributed to Rahaim, is there any mention of affordable housing. That’s crazy. The urban planning train wreck that we’re heading for is all about the balance between jobs and the cost of housing. The vast majority of the jobs in San Francisco today do not pay enough to cover the cost of renting or buying a market-rate home. That’s not going to change radically; tourism and government are, and will be, the city’s major industries, even as tech, which pays better, increases.
If the housing that gets built is not in synch with the needs of the workforce, then the workers will be forced to live futher and further away, which leads to exactly the kind of sprawl and transportation problems that this “infill” and increased density is supposed to prevent.In other words: Affordable housing for the workforce prevents sprawl. Market-rate housing for people who live here and commute to work on the Peninsula is not environmentally sound.

3. Density — both in housing and in commercial development — has huge impacts on existing populations, particularly low-income communities. That’s not part of the planning discussion at all, and it really ought to be the starting point.

I know my trolls — I know you well — and I know you’re all going to say that growth and change is inevitable. Sure. But I think of a city first and foremost as a community, as a place where a diverse group of people live. Protecting that is just as important as giving developers and businesses a chance to make money.

Oh, and Rahaim’s comment —  “This (growth) is going to happen whether we plan for it or not” — is wrong. If we don’t build office space and room for new jobs, if we don’t build housing, the growth isn’t going to happen. San Francisco gets to decide what happens on land in San Francisco. Not saying we want to stop (all) growth, but Rahaim is a planner, and he should know: Growth happens when you encourage it and allow it. Growth doesn’t happen in places where you don’t allow it.

There is no growth in Bolinas, because the people who live there don’t want it. There’s less growth in Berkeley, because the people who live there want less. Again: Not the model I want to use. I don’t want to live in Bolinas any more than I want to live in Manhattan. But San Francisco does control our own fate, and we should never forget that.

 

The America’s Cup is killing us!

Sasha Cuttler
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56

First Larry Ellison and his rich cronies try to perpetrate an audacious real estate scam on San Francisco, after pitting us against other cities to host his America’s Cup race. Even though we were able to scale back that swindle, they still evicted Teatro ZinZanni from Pier 27 so they could profit from overpriced waterfront concerts at the spot they supposedly need for their boat race — lying, cheating and corrupting the system along the way.

Then we learned that Ellison, the world’s fifth richest man, and the other 1-percenters on the America’s Cup Organizing Committee, may stick San Francisco taxpayers with a $20 million bill for their race because they’re all too greedy and selfish to honor their private fundraising commitment – which they could cover by simply writing checks for amounts they would barely notice, and which they’d probably find a way to write off of their taxes anyway.

And now, on top of all those outrageous indignities … they’re killing people!

Well, maybe Ellison and his crew aren’t actually committing murder. But during last weekend’s venerable Escape from Alcatraz triathlon – which was moved up from the warm-ish summer months to the frigid winter because the yachts are apparently unable to share the bay for a few hours one morning – one man died of a heart attack and 150 participants had to be rescued (three times the normal number) because the water was so dangerously cold.

Just one more example of how overentitled rich people, with the active complicity of the Mayor’s Office, are having their way with San Francisco, heedless of the consequences.

“Unlikely trio” of supervisors saves CPMC hospital deal

Sasha Cuttler
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37

An ideologically diverse trio of supervisors, a community-minded mediator, and a deliberate negotiations process (one that that involved local stakeholders and verified corporate claims) has managed to do what the Mayor’s Office couldn’t: reach an agreement that seems to be a good deal for the city and has broad political support for California Pacific Medical Center to build two new full-service hospitals in town.

It differs from the disastrous deal announced by Mayor Ed Lee last year in key ways. St. Luke’s Hospital – a staple of care for low-income San Franciscans that must to rebuilt to meet new state earthquake safety standards – will be about 50 percent larger than previously proposed, while the new luxury hospital that CPMC has been trying to build on Cathedral Hill will be about 50 percent smaller.

That simple flip alleviated much of the Cathedral Hill project’s impact on traffic and affordable housing – which CPMC will still pay $14 million and $36.5 million respectively to mitigate, more than in the previous agreement and part of a roughly $80 million payment to the city – and overcame community concerns about the company’s commitment to St. Luke’s.

The new deal also has stronger local hiring requirements and more stringent guarantees that CPMC will serve MediCal patients and provide more charity care to the poor, regardless of the company’s financial situation, while maintaining contributions to community-based organizations at the same level as under the previous agreement.

In many ways, the agreement repudiates the deal cut last year by Mayor Ed Lee, which CPMC refused to significantly modify or even support with verifiable financial claims even as it fell apart in spectacular fashion under scrutiny last year by the Board of Supervisors, particularly during hearings at the Land Use Committee chaired by Sup. Eric Mar.

That flawed deal was rushed to completion just as the Saleforce headquarters expansion that had been trumpeted by Lee and the America’s Cup real estate deal both fell apart, which sources tell the Guardian put pressure on Lee to quickly deliver something to the business community and building trades (read tomorrow’s Guardian for more on Lee’s approach to tough negotiations and its implications).

But today’s press conference to announce the new deal at St. Luke’s was a forward-looking celebration of what was universally lauded as a big victory for the community. And most of the credit seems to go to mediator Lou Giraudo, who owns Boudin Bakery, and Sups. David Campos, David Chiu, and Mark Farrell, who all stepped up late last summer to salvage the project.

“There are two stories: the deal itself and the process,” Giraudo told the crowd. He said that he had some trepidation going in and that all he knew of the supervisors was what he read in the newspapers, and that the three represented the left (Campos), right (Farrell), and center (Chiu). Giraudo said they were the keys to making this deal happen.

“I have never been so impressed by politicians to come together as one,” Giraudo said, praising the trio for working hard, bringing in outside expertise to verify CPMC’s financial claims, and working with their constituencies. “We depoliticized together and then we built trust.”

Farrell also praised both the deal – “It ensures we have access to quality health care for years to come in San Francisco.” – and the process, in which the three supervisors worked well together. “I think about the future of the Board of Supervisors and us working together as colleagues,” he said. “None of us have spent more time on anything than we have CPMC.”

Campos echoed the point. “I really cannot be more proud of the work that we as the Board of Supervisors did here,” Campos said, noting how they had all committed to work together for the good of the city, demonstrating “how we, as the Board of Supervisors, can work on even the most difficult issues and resolve them.”

He also praised his constituents in the community coalition of labor, housing, and social justice advocates – including San Franciscans for Healthcare, Housing, Jobs, and Justice – who had pushed for a better deal for San Francisco. “This is a victory for them at the end of the day,” Campos said, singling out their consultant Paul Kumar for helping shape a deal that ensures that, “St. Luke’s plays a large role in the CPMC system.”

Kumar, a consultant with the National Union of Healthcare Workers who wasn’t at the event, later told the Guardian, “This is a victory for democratic planning.” He noted that CPMC and its parent company, Sutter Health, are notoriously hard-nosed negotiators and that he’s hoping this agreement represents a turning point in their relationship with the community and their employees.

“The question is if we can parlay this into a better and more responsible relationship between Sutter and the city,” Kumar said.

Chiu – who has been at the center of several difficult city negotiations in recent years, and who helped lead the board’s charge against CPMC last year – told the conference, “When we started this process, I was not hugely optimistic we would get here,” calling the supervisors “an unlikely trio.” But he praised all parties involved for working to get a deal with strong local hiring and charity care provisions.

“This is a comprehensive project,” Chiu said.

When Lee spoke, he praised the deal and the crucial role played by the three supervisors. “This project would not have gotten done without their direct involvement,” said Lee, who didn’t attend any of the dozens of negotiating sessions, although Ken Rich from the Mayor’s Office was involved. Yet the unusually grim-faced mayor also seemed to bring up the only doubts expressed about the deal, saying “The job is never done, this is an announcement about where we are today” and vaguely warning that, “It’s sensitive, people do have trepidation about what this will mean to them going forward.”

Afterward, Lee took reporters’ questions while walking steadily to his car, without pausing to get into what he was alluded to or why this deal seems so much better than the one he cut, except to say that the “health care landscape has changed.” Later, a mayoral staffer who would only speak on background, said one key to this deal was that CPMC had decided that demand for hospital beds would drop in the future and that they needed fewer in San Francisco.

CPMC CEO Dr. Warren Browner, who had some tough clashes with supervisors last year, didn’t go into the reasons behind the sweetened deal during his presentation (except to contest Giraudo’s comment that he had fought through “deal fatigue and was weary at times” by saying that he actually had a lingering case of “walking pneumonia” that he thanked CPMC’s medical staff for helping to cure.).

After comparing the negotiations to the legend of Sisyphus repeatedly pushing a boulder uphill, Browner said, “We are looking forward to going through the process and putting shovels in the ground, hopefully in 2013.”

 

Terms of the deal, which were formally introduced at today’s Board of Supervisors meeting, include:

  • Permits for a 120-bed St. Luke’s Hospital, 274-bed Cathedral Hill Hospital (or an additional 30 beds if St. Luke’s operates at 75 percent capacity), medical office buildings at both hospitals, a parking garage with up to 990 spaces (limited to CPMC staff and patients only) on Cathedral Hill, and a new Neurosciences Institute at Davies Medical Center.

  • St. Luke’s Hospital will have a number of specified services – including acute care, senior and community health care, labor and delivery, intensive care, cancer treatment, mental health services, and outpatient care – to ensure it remains a full-service hospital.

  • CPMC caring for 30,000 charity care and 5,400 Medi-Cal managed care patients per year, limits on healthcare cost increases to city employees, and CPMC endowing a new $9 million Healthcare Innovation Fund to increase capacity at local clinics.

  • CPMC contributing $36.5 million to the city’s affordable housing fund and paying $4.1 million to replace the homes it displaces on Cathedral Hill.

  • At least 30 percent of construction job and 40 percent of the permanent entry-level positions in the new facilities will be San Franciscans, and CPMC will contribute $4 million to job training.

  • To offset transportation impacts at Cathedral Hill, CPMC will give $14 million to the SFMTA and “institute a robust transportation demand management program,” as well as spending $13 million on pedestrian safety and streetscape improvements at all its San Francisco facilities.

 

 

Leo Villareal’s magical Bay Lights

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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7

Tonight, March 5, the western span of the Bay Bridge will be illuminated in the much-anticipated Bay Lights installation, created by internationally acclaimed artist Leo Villareal.

The project will incorporate an “intelligent lighting” system, powered by 25,000 individually programmable LEDs that will be illuminated according to “abstract sequences inspired by the kinetic activity around the bridge,” Villareal explained at a press conference at the San Francisco Ferry Building this afternoon. “It’s not a light show,” the artist noted, and added that he preferred to think of it more as “the equivalent of a digital campfire.”

Villareal, who has worked in software in addition to being an artist, emphasized that the lighting system is highly efficient, using only enough power to cost about $15 per night.

The project has been in the works for two and a half years and under construction for the last six months. Private funders have raised $6 million of the total $8 million needed. The presenting organization is Illuminate the Arts, a nonprofit organization.

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, speaking at the press conference, emphasized an economic projection finding that the installation could result in $97 million in local economic activity. He expressed support for it as an important project for generating private support for public art. “This project has unleashed incredible generosity,” showing funders that “art is something exciting, and cool to get behind as a sponsor,” Lee said. “I think it will release even more generosity” for art in San Francisco, he added.

When the Guardian took the opportunity to ask Lee what could be done to help make San Francisco more affordable for artists in general, he responded, “I am very sensitive to that,” and said he was making an extra effort to work with the arts community, particularly those who “want to create art homes and art locations in mid-Market.” Lee added that even tech employees have expressed to him that they value living in a city where arts are thriving, so “we have to make sure there’s the right balance for that.”

Happy International Women’s Day: There’s a long way to go

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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6

This coming Friday marks International Women’s Day, an event geared toward promoting gender equality across the globe. As women seek greater representation in politics, media, tech and other professional realms, controversies around gender equality issues continue to arise – even in San Francisco, a city nationally recognized for its progressive commitment to equality.

Last week, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee landed in hot water with a comment that led some to question if he was implying that women with kids don’t have the time to serve as elected officials.

A few weeks before that, San Francisco blogger and programmer Shanley Kane shook things up with a widely circulated essay blasting Silicon Valley’s “toxic lies about culture,” in which she paints the start-up world as limiting for women despite oft-expressed ideals of inclusivity:

“What your culture might actually be saying is … We have a team of primarily women supporting the eating, drinking, management and social functions of a primarily male workforce whose output is considered more valuable. We struggle to hire women in non-administrative positions and most gender diversity in our company is centralized in social and admin work.” 

And when we dropped by the RSA Security Conference last week at San Francisco’s Moscone Center out of sheer curiosity to hear what the founder of Wikipedia had to say, we learned that even people who strive for an internationally inclusive open-source encyclopedia project are experiencing lopsided gender representation, and struggling to address it.

Jimmy Wales, who started Wikipedia about 12 years ago, asked his audience to “imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of human knowledge” as the foundational goal of the global endeavor, which is headquartered in San Francisco. But despite this lofty objective of global inclusivity, he admitted that Wikipedia is struggling to attract more female participation when it comes to the people who are writing articles for it.

As things stand, the people who contribute entries to Wikipedia are 87 percent male, he said. “We’re not happy about that number,” Wales said, noting that it is reflective of the gender imbalance in the tech community in general. “This is a really important goal for us: To improve female participation,” he added.

Dishearteningly, it seems to follow a broader trend of a lack of female representation in traditional media. A report released a couple weeks ago by the Women’s Media Center included some eye-opening stats:

  • At the current pace, it will take until 2085 for women to reach parity with men in leadership roles in government/politics, business, entrepreneurship and nonprofits.
  • By a nearly 3 to 1 margin, male front-page bylines at top newspapers outnumbered female bylines in coverage of the 2012 presidential election. Men were also far more likely to be quoted than women in newspapers, television and public radio. That’s also the case in coverage of abortion, birth control, Planned Parenthood and women’s rights.
  • Forty-seven percent of gamers are women, but 88 percent of video game developers are male.
  • The percentage of women who are television news directors edged up from the previous year, reaching 30 percent for the first time.

This may not sound like a lot to celebrate, but come Friday, the ongoing struggle for gender equality might just give you the inspiration to check out some local activities commemorating International Women’s Day, Women’s History Month or just some remarkable female-driven projects in the Bay Area.

Pick up a copy of the Guardian tomorrow and check out our special Women’s History Month event listings, where we’ll highlight everything from a gathering honoring female media professionals, to meet-ups for female coders, to murals painted by women, courtesy of Guardian Culture Editor Caitlin Donohue.

White House supports cell-phone petition

Zelda Bronstein
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5
White House supports cell-phone petition

A petition calling for legislation to legalize unlocking cell phones has passed the magic 100,000 mark, mandating a White House response — and guess what? The Obama administration says it agrees that consumers should have the right to reprogram their phones to work on any carrier’s network.

Sina Khanifar, a San Francisco entrepreneur, started this whole movement, and it’s picked up steam quickly. Now, with the Obama administration on board, he just needs a member of Congress to introduce a bill overruling the Library of Congress and freeing the cell phones.

Rep. Pelosi, who represents San Francisco, would be an excellent choice to carry the legislation, no?

Just ignore the Chamber of Commerce

Zelda Bronstein
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35
Just ignore the Chamber of Commerce

The Chronicle made a big deal of the fact that the Chamber of Commerce has a “21-point advocacy agenda” that “could weaken” the city’s “boundry pushing legislation and pro-labor policies.”

But really, nobody should even care.

The Chamber’s been pretty irrelevant to local politics for years now, and there’s no way six members of the Board of Supervisors are going to take the backward-thinking group up on its efforts to contract out city services and slow down cutting-edge proposals.

Actually, most of the “21-point agenda” is pretty tame. The Chamber, for example, wants to “Work with city government and advocacy groups to improve the ability of residents and visitors to move efficiently around the City by car, transit, bike and taxis.” And it hopes to “Continue to promote San Francisco’s small businesses through formulating favorable public policies and providing ample networking opportunities.” Wow. Hold the front page.

As for the things that might actually matter, forget it. Contracting out comes up almost every year at budget time; every year, a unified labor community shoots it down. This year will be the same. And nobody’s going to get City Attorney Dennis Herrera to release a public analysis of every piece of legislation before it’s approved.

Herrera’s better than his predecessors, by far, but he’s a lawyer, and lawyers don’t like to share with anyone the advice they give their clients. I often wish Herrera’s office would release more than it does, but unless the supervisors declare that they no longer want confidential advice from their attorney (which has its charm, to be sure, but also some real downsides) then the current policy will continue. Herrera will privately tell board members that there might be legal risks to some of their bills; the elected supervisors will decide whether to take those risks or not.

While I’m always an advocate of open government, the city attorney is not the Supreme Court. In the really bad old days, a city attorney named George Agnost used to routinely shut down progressive legislation by announcing that it was unconstitutional, leaving even conservative members of the board to denounce him. When the supes pass something, it’s a presumptively valid law. If you don’t like it, you can sue. The courts — not the city attorney — decide what’s legal and what isn’t.

And I have no idea where the Chamber’s Jim Lazarus came up with this:

But prior to Herrera and his predecessor, Louise Renne, city attorneys regularly issued public opinions, said Lazarus, a deputy city attorney in the 1970s who lost to Herrera in the 2001 election.

That’s completely untrue. I know; when Agnost was city attorney (in the 1970s and early 1980s) I tried constantly to get copies of his legal opinions. The vast majority were never released. That office was so secretive the city attorney wouldn’t even tell you his name if it wasn’t written on the door. When I pushed the issue, Agnost told me that copies of every non-confidential opinion he’d ever written were available at the public library. I went there. There were exactly three opinions on file, all of them noncontroversial and unrelated to any pending legislation.

Look, we all know that Gavin Newsom pushed the boundries of law when he approved same-sex marriages. But the California Supreme Court, faced with San Francisco’s civic disobedience, changed the law and said marriage was a basic right. And the US Supreme Court is about to do the same thing. Is the Chamber arguing that Newsom was wrong?

The Chamber is yesterday’s news. I don’t even know why we pay attention any more.

 

 

 

Attorney who conducted whistleblower cops’ deposition says questions remain

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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7

The Guardian broke the story last week about an Oakland school police officer, Sgt. Jonathan Bellusa, who came forward as a “whistleblower” in sworn testimony. The day after a group of Oakland-based police-accountability activists leaked an uncertified draft of the officer’s deposition to the media, NBC Bay Area aired an interview with Bellusa, who was involved in the January 2011 fatal shooting of a 20-year-old African American man, Raheim Brown.

Bellusa, who is now on leave from employment, alleges that there was a cover-up in the investigation of the shooting incident by the Oakland School Police Department, which operates independently from the Oakland Police Department as a division of the school district. Shortly after posting the story, the Guardian received a call back from attorney Adante Pointer, who conducted Bellusa’s deposition. Pointer said he didn’t know how the activist group, Against Hired Guns, got a copy of the document but he did point out that all witnesses get a copy of their deposition transcripts.

“I’ve taken a number of depositions over the course of my career, but this is the first time I’ve ever had a police officer admit that their employer was putting pressure on them to give testimony in a particular way,” said Pointer, who works for the Law Offices of John Burris, which is representing Brown’s family in a civil suit against the school police department. “It’s very eye-opening,” he added, particularly if Bellusa’s allegations ring true and “public funds and public resources are being used to cover up this death.”

But Pointer added that some of the things Bellusa stated about the facts of the shooting did not add up with the stories given by Sgt. Barhin Bhatt, who fired the weapon, or witness Tamisha Stewart, Brown’s friend who was seated in a vehicle next to him when he was shot. Bellusa “held firm to this idea that he had been stabbed three to four times with this screwdriver,” Pointer said, referencing a part in the deposition when Bellusa testified he had been hit with the butt end of a screwdriver and feared he would be stabbed in the throat.

But that doesn’t jive with the account of Stewart, who stated in her sworn testimony that the screwdriver stayed in the car ignition during the whole encounter, Pointer told the Guardian. Stewart was held in jail following the shooting for several weeks, and during that time she discussed what had happened with family and friends in telephone conversations, Pointer told the Guardian. What Stewart did not know was that her phone calls, placed from a phone provided by the jail, were being surreptitiously recorded. Pointer said his firm had been provided with tapes of the calls.

In those recorded conversations, “She was candid about everything else,” according to Pointer. “And she said she never saw Raheim try to stab [Bellusa].” Bhatt, meanwhile, told Pointer in his own deposition that he started firing because he saw Brown make a move toward the gear shifter, Pointer said, which also doesn’t add up with Bellusa’s account.

All of which goes to show that, whistleblower cop or no, questions continue to surround the fatal shooting of Brown.

CCSF board approves report to accreditors amid heavy criticism

Sasha Cuttler
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CCSF board approves report to accreditors amid heavy criticism

Windsong, a 21-year-old City College student, held a sign that read “I love CCSF” while standing along Ocean Avenue last evening, as cars rolled by honking their support for the embattled school.

“I love learning while not being bound by the four-year school structure,” she said. She’s an artist in residence at a local elementary school, and was protesting to make sure City College of San Francisco could give her students the same opportunities she had.

“This place is in my heart,” she said. And she wasn’t alone.

Nearly 200 protesters lined the building outside of City College’s board of trustees meeting last night as the CCSF Board of Trustees approved the school’s “Show Cause” report, which is a 220-page document detailing what the college has done to meet its accreditation requirements — accreditation is required for a college degree to have worth, and for a school to receive state funding.

In short, it’s a document arguing what the college has done to improve since it was hit with sanctions last October, and why it should stay open and accredited. The report is due to the accreditation commission on March 15.

The Accrediting Commission of Community and Junior Colleges hit City College with a “show cause” sanction, citing a lack of progress in six problem areas the school was supposed to address since its last accreditation review six years before. When the accrediting commission came back to check on the school, it concluded City College had yet to address key areas, including measuring Student Learning Outcomes, and adequately funding their reserve, a “rainy day fund” the college leans on in hard times.

City College said that it has now met the challenge of those key problem areas. “We were deferring maintenance, and deferring (upgrading) technology,” said board president John Rizzo. “We’re required to spend money, and this gives us a plan going forward.”

But the shouting protesters outside the meeting and the angry students inside disagreed with some points of the plan. Proposition A was a parcel tax measure approved by voters in November that would raise somewhere between $14-16 million City College annually, which the board wanted to use to beef up the college’s reserve fund, one of the key areas where they were knocked by the accrediting commission.

California Federation of Teachers president Joshua Pechthalt implored the board to use Prop A funds for current teachers. “The men and women who work in this college spent many hours taking money out of their pockets to pass Prop A,” Pechthalt said in public comment to the board. The audience of about a hundred or so faculty and students cheered. “I would ask you to work closely with faculty and staff, that you work collaboratively with them.”

Pechthalt was there at the behest of Alisa Messer, the president of City College’s American Federation of Teachers Local 2121. Teachers at City College have had wage freezes for years, and most recently had an 8.8 percent wage reduction just this past month.

Part-time teachers were hit too, as nearly 40 of them were “not rehired” for the current semester, as well as 18 counselors and 30 members of the college’s staff..

Student Martin Madrigal, a 29-year-old mathematics major at CCSF, said he also supported using the Prop A funding to prevent layoffs and wage reductions.

“I missed class to come to this fight,” Madrigal said to the board. “But if I didn’t come here there wouldn’t be a class to miss.”

One by one, faculty and students implored the board to use Prop A funds to buffer the college’s wage reductions and layoffs. At one point, student Eric Blanc, a member of the protest group Save CCSF, came to the podium to speak in public comment and was cut off by the board. Ten or so other students and faculty had yet to speak, and were told there was no longer time.

Blanc then demanded of the board his time to speak. The campus police chief, Andre Barnes, and an officer approached Blanc and tried to remove him from the room. The tension in the room mounted as the audience started chanting “let him speak, let him speak!”

Trustee Rafael Mandelman diffused the situation, asking for silence and calmly explaining that the board needed time to conduct its business. Tensions rose again though as the topic of the college’s reserve fund came up — the reserve is now at $4 million, but the school is planning to boost it to $13 million by 2014, and $18 million by 2019.

It’s a needed safety net, the trustees argued, for a school with a budget hovering at more than $200 million a year and an economy that’s in the tank.

“Tomorrow the sequestration will begin, and it will impact California spending and our communities,” Trustee Steve Ngo said. “This [money] is going to faculty and staff, but in the future. Faculty and staff would not have to take cuts in wages, if we had funded the reserve.”

Ultimately, the board voted to approve its long term reserve fund plan, using Prop A funds to help buffer the reserve for the future. Blanc told the trustees that they had denied themselves other options, like suing the accreditation commission, or asking for emergency funding from City Hall.

“I think behind the rhetoric of this are thousands of people being shut out,” he said.

Vice Chancellor Peter Goldstein, who handles college finance, said that some of the claims of the protesters were inaccurate.

“I keep hearing people talking about cutting classes,but that’s not our plan for [fiscal year] 13-14,” he said. “In fact, this college is putting together a budget for next year that will have more classes than this year.”

The college may not be cutting classes, but it is asking everyone to do more with less. Teachers to teach with less salary, students to fit into larger classrooms, and for classes soon to fit into fewer campuses.

Whether those are improvements or dire straits depends on who you ask.

Video by Joe Fitzgerald:

http://www.youtube.com/embed/pMXeECCvVTs

http://www.youtube.com/embed/L5To6k2uU60

 

Save CCSF plans to march to City Hall to demand aid to CCSF and to protest austerity cuts at the college on March 14. For more information visit http://www.saveccsf.org/.

Click here to read City College’s 220 page “Show Cause” report: http://www.ccsf.edu/ACC/Preliminary_Final_Draft_Show_Cause_Report_Feb_26.doc.

Family of teen shot in Alice Griffith still waiting for Housing Authority help

Sasha Cuttler
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Aireez Taylor, a 15-year-old Mission High School student and a resident of the Alice Griffith public housing project in Bayview, was shot seven times on Dec. 29.

It happened around 6:30 p.m. She was with several friends at a house just a few blocks from her home in Alice Griffith, also known as Double Rock. They were standing on the porch talking, her mother, Marissa, told the Guardian. Then two men armed with guns hopped out of a parked car. One of Aireez’s friends, a 17-year-old boy who lived at the house with his family, saw them coming. He ran for the door and was shot once in the foot. Aireez, fleeing after him, was shot seven times.


Residents of Alice Griffith interviewed by the Guardian described an intensification in the violent crime at and around their community in recent months. Several attributed the violence to a conflict between African American and Samoan gang members. Whatever the cause, the shooting of a 15-year-old girl stands as evidence of the ongoing danger in San Francisco’s public housing developments. Aireez’s father, Roger Blalark, said that his daughter wasn’t the intended target of the shooting. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time, he said.

But for Aireez, who survived the attack, the wrong place at the wrong time is her home in Alice Griffith. Her parents have applied for emergency relocation with the San Francisco Housing Authority, but after two months—and amid the recent scandal surrounding Director Henry Alvarez and federal reports that have rated the agency as one of the worst in California—they are still waiting for the agency to locate and repair a unit in a new housing development. In the meantime, Roger and Marissa continue to fear for their daughter’s life. “What if they find the guy and ask her to testify?” asked Roger.

Aireez made a steady recovery from the gunshot wounds inflicted upon her in the December attack. But the trauma of the event has not been as easily healed. She spent three weeks at San Francisco General Hospital. During that time, an unknown intruder tried to snap a photo of her as she lay in her hospital bed, Roger said. Later, a man claiming to be her father came to inquire about her, while Roger himself was at her bedside.

A police officer met with Roger and Marissa on the Monday following the attack. Aireez reportedly had not seen the shooters. An investigation is underway, though no arrests have been made and the police have no suspects, according to SFPD spokesperson Gordon Shyy.

The journey home from the hospital was a return to the place where she had nearly been killed, a community where the shooters presumably were still at large. “She gets shakes, every time she comes home,” said Roger. “She has to come by the corner where she got shot.”

SFPD Bayview District Captain Robert O’Sullivan said that relocation is an important part of protecting the victims of violent crimes. Ultimately, the choice to relocate a tenant rests with the Housing Authority. “There needs to be an assessment done when something like a shooting occurs in public housing,” said O’Sullivan. Alice Griffith, he pointed out, has a significant number of people in a relatively small space.

“It’s always something that is in the front of people’s mind, anyone that has a stake in this, in investigating or assisting—is this going to be a risk for this person or their family in continuing to stay here?” O’Sullivan said.

Marissa and Roger applied for an emergency transfer on Jan. 2. There was paperwork to fill out, then the Housing Authority had to search for a vacant unit that could accommodate a family of their size. Housing Authority spokesperson Rose Marie Dennis said that she could not give out confidential information regarding specific tenants, but confirmed that the majority of the Housing Authority’s holdings are studios, one-, or two-bedroom apartments.

Roger and Marissa needed something bigger. A unit that could accommodate their family was finally located in another housing development by the third week of January. Marissa was initially told that the unit would be ready in two weeks. But two weeks turned into five, and now six, and Marissa still doesn’t know the status of the unit or when it will be ready for move in.

Dennis told us the Housing Authority tries to accommodate all requests for relocation, and prioritizes tenants with emergencies. Victims of a violent crime that request a transfer are moved as soon as possible, she said. But the process of relocating a victim is often hindered by a variety of factors, including Housing Authority’s ability to allocate resources toward fixing up vacant units. The length of the wait is a matter of resources and cooperation between all the parties involved in preparing the new unit. Once a suitable place has been found, teams of custodians and craftsmen and women must work to clear, clean, and repair the unit. Preparing a unit for move in costs on average $12,000, she said.

The problem is not that there aren’t empty units. According to Dennis, vacant housing stock is in a constant state of flux, with the current occupancy rate estimated to be 96.3 percent. Since the Housing Authority manages a total of 6,476 units over 45 development projects, that would indicate that as many as 240 units now lie empty. Dennis said that some units are kept vacant by the Housing Authority for a variety of reasons, while many others are only made available as the agency finishes the repairs and renovations necessary to make the units livable by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) strict standards.

Roger and Marissa’s experiences would appear to dovetail with recent media scrutiny that suggests the Housing Authority has reached a critical state of dysfunction. The agency made the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s list of troubled agencies after it received a 54 out of 100 on their latest evaluation. Scandal has dogged the agency’s leadership—three lawsuits alleging discrimination and retaliation were recently filed against Alvarez, who was also accused in a lawsuit of steering contracts to political allies. And it’s long-term capital outlook is looking increasingly bleak, as buildings accumulate decades of wear and tear and infrastructure becomes obsolescent. Stuck with a federal budget that remains constant, the Housing Authority is put in the position of maintaining outdated infrastructure that would, in the long run, be more cost effective to replace, said Dennis.

But Dennis nevertheless assured the Guardian that the agency addresses emergencies as quickly as possible—irrespective of larger, structural financial deficits. “We get bogged down in anecdotes that aren’t reflective of what’s ahead of us,” said Dennis. “We don’t have time for politics, that really doesn’t add up to positive change.”

So what is positive change for the residents of San Francisco’s public housing? With Alvarez on leave, Mayor Ed Lee has stated his intention to revamp the agency’s leadership and has appointed five new commissioners to oversee the city’s public housing.  “Being on a constant treadmill of troubled lists and repair backlogs that are structurally underfunded is not working for our residents or our City,” Lee said in a press release.

Lee spoke of a “better model” through HOPE SF, a massive redevelopment plan that began under former Mayor Gavin Newsom and which hinges on public-private partnerships. Alice Griffith is one among several sites that is being rebuilt as part of HOPE SF, with construction scheduled to begin in 2014. The plan is to create mixed-income neighborhoods where 256 new affordable rental units are interspersed in a larger community of market-rate homes.

But in the meantime, the day-to-day reality of the violence and dysfunction faced by tenants continues. “It’s not about tearing down the projects, you got to revitalize what’s already here,” said Roger.  

Roger knows that a relocation won’t necessarily solve their problems. He worries about the persisting presence of gang members at the new housing development, about the fact that he will be trying to protect his family in a community that he is much less familiar with. At Alice Griffith, Roger has connections within the community. He helps direct the Run, Ball & Learn Program, which provides basketball and tutoring programs for community youth. So they wait.

“They’re gonna have their own process,” says Marissa. “In the meantime we’re still sitting here.”

Big waterfront projects prompt study of new transportation ideas

Sasha Cuttler
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The massive development projects being proposed along San Francisco’s central waterfront – from the proposed Warriors Arena at Pier 30 through the Giants’ housing/retail project at Pier 48 down to Forest City’s sprawling proposal around Pier 70 – will create huge challenges for the city’s already overtaxed transportation system.

Nobody is more aware of that issue than Warriors President Rick Welts as he seeks approval to build a 17,500-seat arena with just a smattering of parking spaces. “We’re investing a billion dollars in this property, and if people aren’t comfortable getting to it and leaving it, we have a problem,” Welts told a gathering of the California Music and Culture Association on Tuesday night, responding to a local resident who raised the concern. “We have to get that right, it’s at the top of our list.”

With Muni and BART already at capacity during peak hours, and thousands of new housing units being built in the coming years both along the waterfront and from nearby SoMa down through the Eastern Neighborhoods Plan area, city transportation planners are trying to get ahead of potential problems created by the development boom.

“We’re now taking a step back and looking at the long-term needs from the Exploratorium down to Pier 70,” says San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency planner Peter Albert, who is leading a comprehensive waterfront transportation study that will inform the environmental studies done for each of these projects. “What we get is an environmental review that is much smarter because we have all this advanced planning….EIRs are important, but they aren’t really planning.”

Albert is looking at everything from working with various transportation agencies to beef up bus, train, and ferry services to the area; using these projects to complete the ambitious but underfunded and long-stalled Blue-Greenway bicycle path along the waterfront; accelerating capital projects that are already in the SFMTA’s queue; and exploring a dozen or so new ideas.

“What’s also coming out of this are new ideas we’re coming up with, things we weren’t even thinking of that may make sense,” Albert told us, noting that he’ll be doing his first presentation of some of these ideas to the SFMTA Board of Directors on March 5.

They include extending new streetcar service along the Embarcadero to the Caltrain station at 4th and King or possibly all the way out to the Anchor Steam Brewing-anchored project at Pier 48 (which would probably involve construction of new streetcar turn-arounds); better integrating the Central Subway project into Mission Bay and the Embarcadero with new bus and rail connections around 20th and 3rd streets; and expansion of the Embarcadero BART station to increase its peak capacity.

Welts said BART will be an important connector to the new Warriors Arena, noting that the walking distance from Pier 30 to the Embarcadero station is actually about the same distance as the Coliseum BART station is from the entrance to the Warriors’ current arena. He said that he’s excited about Albert’s work and wants to cooperate with helping the city meet its transportation needs: “We have a lot of process to go through and we’re embracing that process.”

Funding the needed improvements will be a challenge, particularly because new development projects generally don’t pay for their full impacts to the transportation system, as SFMTA head Ed Reiskin and Sup. Scott Wiener have told the Guardian. On Monday, Wiener amended the Western SoMa Community Plan to increase how much developers would pay in transportation impact fees.

Albert said funding for the needed improvements to the area’s transportation system would come from a combination of mitigation fees from the developers, reprioritizing the SFMTA’s existing capital budget, and securing state and federal transportation grants by developing impactful projects that are shovel-ready, thanks to this advanced planning effort.

These three waterfront development projects alone could have huge impacts. The Warriors Arena would host more than 200 concerts and sporting events per year, drawing anywhere from a few thousand to more than 17,500 people. The Giants’ Pier 48 proposal involves 27 acres of new development, including retail, office, Anchor Brewing, and about 1,500 homes. And Forest City’s proposal for Pier 70 involves about 1,000 homes, 2.2 million square feet of office space, and 275,000 square feet of retail and light manufacturing.

Addressing the waterfront’s transportation challenges, Board of Supervisors President David Chiu told the Guardian, “It is possibly the most difficult and important question surrounding the Warriors project, and I’ve encouraged all parties to make sure they get it right.”

The day in gay sports — very cool and very ugly

Zelda Bronstein
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The day in gay sports — very cool and very ugly

Three remarkable news stories today show the beautiful and the ugly side of LGBT issues in sports, and suggest that, despite the remaining bigotry, there’s hope.

We’ll start with the inspirational: The Chron reports on Gabrielle Ludwig, a 51-year-old trans woman who has fought her way to acceptance as a player on the Mission College women’s basketball team. She’s endured the sort of rotten, painful slurs that Jackie Robinson put up with as the first black player in Major League Baseball, but she’s won over her teammates and sent an important message to young people all over the world:

Since I decided to go out to the media, there’s been a larger purpose – to help the LGBT community and all those people who have lost children because they struggle with, ‘God, am I gay, am I straight, am I transgender? F- it, let’s put a rope around my neck and hang myself in the garage,’ ” Ludwig said. “If I can be a role model, and just let go of some of that burden, then what I do out here and the beating that I take from people in the stands … it’s worth it.”

Go Gabrielle.

And then we go to the NFL, where team execs at the “combine” — where scouts and coaches check out college players headed for the draft — are asking not-at-all-subtle questions about sexual orientation.

In a normal workplace (and the NFL isn’t remotely normal, as a workplace or anything else) asking a job applicant if he “likes girls” would be blatantly illegal. In pro football, it’s apparently tolerated, because the top brass in the NFL still can’t come to terms with their responsibility to prevent homophobia.

Everyone knows there are gay NFL players. And it’s only a matter of time before someone comes out. When that happens, the league has a repsonsibility to prevent the kind of shit that Gabrielle Ludwig is going through.So far, not so good.

Now for the hope: While everyone’s talking about the Obama administration’s amicus brief on same-sex marriage, an equally interesting brief has gotten lost. Two NFL players — yes, two players in the same league that is asking people if they like girls — have filed their own amicus brief, arguing that, as professional sports figures, they have a responsibility to stand up for the rights of all people to marry:

Under all the bad behavior that makes the news, male professional sports for far too long have harbored bigotry, intolerance, and prejudice—with respect to both race and sexual orientation,” the brief reads. “We are just beginning to see progress with regard to the issue of sexual orientation.

They say exactly what Ludwig says:

If a Pro Bowler treats a teammate as being an equal who is worthy of his friendship and respect because that other person is a good friend who places the team before himself, then high schoolers in Texas, Georgia, Illinois, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania,California, and Minnesota will not—cannot—miss that example. If that Pro Bowler speaks out publicly and kindly, kids will hear it and feel it. Kids who are already dealing with everything youth throws at them will know they can treat others as friends and equals, and those others will know they are equal and that, without question, it is better to be themselves than to be hurt.

So a handful of NFL players are supporting marriage equality and speaking out. They’ve opened the last closet door a crack. And, like the debate over same-sex marraige, this is only going in one direction.

 

Oakland school cop comes forward as a whistleblower

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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Two years after his involvement in a police shooting that took the life of a 20-year-old African American man, an Oakland School Police Department officer has come forward as a “whistleblower” in sworn testimony, making allegations of unethical behavior within a department that is already under the scrutiny of federal investigators.

In a deposition delivered earlier this month as part of a civil suit, police Sergeant Jonathan Bellusa gave a detailed account of what transpired just before his patrol partner, Sgt. Barhin Bhatt, fired several rounds and killed Raheim Brown as the youth was positioned in the passenger’s seat of a car outside a high school dance in January of 2011.

Bellusa gave testimony that in the months that followed, he came under retaliatory pressure from within the department and was “uncomfortable” with various aspects of how the investigation unfolded.

An unedited, uncertified transcript of Bellusa’s deposition, which contains some grammatical and punctuation errors because it was transcribed by an automated system, was made public Feb. 28 by a group of activists organized under a project called “Against Hired Guns.” The group sent a detailed summary and analysis of the deposition, as well as the unedited transcript, to reporters. The activists also posted the contents on a website, againsthiredguns.wordpress.com.

Asked who is behind Against Hired Guns, spokesperson Cat Brooks said they are Oakland activists “who have been doing this work either together on campaigns, or separately inside of our own groups, that see strength in numbers rather than apart. We in general are tired of having flashpoint reactions to police corruption or violence, and are interested in bringing as many people or groups together as possible to have a sustained campaign that is focused on eradicating police violence.”

Bellusa is currently on leave from employment at the Oakland school police department, and the Guardian was unable to reach him by phone on the number listed on the OUSD website. “He’s been gone for quite awhile,” OUSD spokesperson Troy Flint told the Guardian when reached by phone. Asked to comment on the myriad allegations raised in Bellusa’s testimony, Flint said, “We’re going to refrain from comment until we’ve seen the actual suit.”

The deposition was conducted by Attorney Adante Pointer of the Law Offices of John Burris, in connection with a civil rights suit that is being filed against OUSD by Brown’s mother, Lori Davis. Reached by phone, Pointer confirmed that he had taken Bellusa’s deposition several weeks ago, and was surprised that its contents had been made public, since it “is not complete yet.” He added, “I’m thinking to myself, who put that out there?” As of press time, Pointer had not returned a follow up phone call.

Brooks declined to answer questions about how the activists obtained a copy of the uncertified transcript.

Allegations of retaliation for whistleblowing

Roughly a month after the shooting incident, Bellusa said in his deposition, former OUSD Police Chief Pete Sarna let out “a boisterous yell with his [fist] up in the air” and seemed “excited” that “we as a department don’t have to worry about anything.” According to Bellusa’s testimony, Sarna had just received word that his “friend” Pete Peterson had “agreed to do the investigation” of the fatal shooting of Brown.

Asked if he felt pressured by supervisors to make statements consistent with Bhatt’s account of the shooting incident, Bellusa stated, “I have felt that if I gave statements that went against the district that I would be thrown in jail for perjury.”

In the months after the shooting, Bellusa testified that he filed a formal complaint alleging that Sarna drunkenly made racist remarks to an African American sergeant in July of 2011. Sarna resigned the following month.

Bellusa also testified that on an August morning in 2011, after he’d filed the complaint against Sarna for allegedly making racial slurs, he overheard a conversation between OUSD General Counsel Jacqueline Minor and Superintendent Tony Smith. “I over heard Jackie Minor… say they were not going to let John get away with this,” he stated.

In another incident, Bellusa testified that a different OUSD officer informed him that “Chief Sarna’s assistant, Jenny Wong, told a bunch of officers something like: ‘Don’t worry, Sarna is going to beat this case. He’s going to fire John [Bellusa].’”

After Sarna stepped down, Bhatt was briefly appointed interim police chief, unleashing an outcry from OUSD parents outraged that an officer would be promoted to the top post after shooting and killing Brown just months before. Alameda County prosecutors had since cleared Bhatt of any wrongdoing in the shooting that resulted in Brown’s death.

In response to the backlash, Bhatt was removed and replaced with Police Chief James Williams in September of 2011. The shooting of Brown, coupled with Sarna’s alleged use of racial slurs, prompted a federal grand jury investigation into the OUSD police force last year. Bellusa noted in his testimony that he had described his experience to federal investigators.

Taken as a whole, Bellusa’s testimony renders a disturbing internal portrait of the Oakland School Police Department, which consists of about a dozen officers and operates independently of the Oakland Police Department as a division of the school district.

The alarming account raises serious questions about internal operations of the department, particularly since it is an independent force operated by the school district at a time when funding cuts have placed the public school system under tremendous budgetary pressure, resulting in recent school closures.

Allegations of corruption

A detailed summary of the transcript provided by Against Hired Guns highlights more disturbing allegations made by Bellusa in the course of his testimony. Among them:

  • Bellusa asserted that he witnessed Bhatt pour Wild Turkey into a glass while he was on duty. He also said he felt concerned about Bhatt after observing him “clean his firearm for a long period of time.”                                                                      
  • Bellusa testified that he “found out” that Sarna and Lou Silva, a former OUSD officer and current district-wide Campus Security and Safety Manager, were “sending their personal cars down to a shop on 16th Avenue… [and] were overcharging the police cars,” apparently in order to have their personal cars repaired for free or at a deep discount.
  • Bellusa testified, “I found out that he [Sarna] called another officer [and] told him [not to report] what had happened in front of the African American who is a witness to the … racial slurs.”

Officer-involved shooting

Brown was shot and killed outside a dance at Oakland’s Skyline High School on Jan. 22, 2011. He was sitting in the passenger’s seat of a Honda with a friend, Tamisha Stewart, who was in the driver’s seat. Bellusa and Bhatt pulled up behind them in an unmarked patrol car after noticing the lights of the Honda were flashing. Bhatt made his way to the driver’s window, Bellusa testified, while he flanked the rear passenger’s side of the car.

As Bhatt began a verbal exchange with Stewart, Bellusa testified that he noticed Brown was “fidgety” rather than cooperative, which he interpreted as a “red flag.” He opened the passenger door, crouched into what he described as a “catcher’s stance,” and initiated a verbal exchange with Brown. Shortly after opening the door, Bellusa said he made observations that led him to conclude that the car had been stolen.

When Pointer asked him where his hands were at that point, Bellusa stated, “They were on his lap,” according to the transcript. “Were they holding anything?” Pointer asked. “No,” Bellusa responded. “And so did you ask him to step out of the car when you’re having this conversation with him?” Pointer asked. “Not at that time,” Bellusa answered. 

Bellusa said Brown then grabbed a screwdriver and stuck into the ignition of the vehicle, directing Stewart to drive. This prompted a struggle between Brown and Bellusa. According to a summary of the transcript written by the group of activists:

“Bellusa lunged into the car, grabbing [Brown] from behind as Brown was leaned over toward the ignition. …Bellusa tried to hold Brown, and then grabbed him, pulling Brown’s shirt and ripping it. Bhatt, leaning in through the driver’s window, hit Brown with his flashlight. … Brown had not yet made any aggressive move toward anyone, according to Bellusa’s description of events.”

A struggle ensued, and Bellusa testified that at one point Brown bit Bellusa’s wrist, prompting Bellusa to pull his hand away and use his “hammer fist” to strike him. Brown then grabbed the screwdriver from the car’s ignition, and “I believe that the backside of the screwdriver [was what] he used at that point to strike me in the chest,” Bellusa testified.

“As the struggle ensued and neither fighter gave in,” activists wrote, “[Brown] turned the screwdriver around and tried to make contact with Bellusa.”

According to Bellusa’s sworn testimony, “I was afraid that I was going to get stabbed in the throat clear as day.” He told his partner to shoot Brown: “I just screamed shoot him, shoot him,” he testified.

The Against Hired Guns summary describes what happened next. “As Bellusa pulled himself out of the car, two shots were quickly fired through the driver’s open window … by Bhatt before his gun jammed. Raheim Brown, Jr. had two bullets lodged in his body. It took Sergeant Bhatt five to ten seconds to clear the chamber of his gun, during which time he said loudly: ‘Fuck! Fuck!’ By this time, Bellusa was out of the car and at a safe distance, he said in his deposition. When asked whether he thought Brown was still a risk after the first two shots, Bellusa replied plainly: ‘No,’ and said that by this point, he had his own gun out. When asked why he didn’t pull his trigger, he replied: ‘Just like I said my statement with OPD, I didn’t see a threat.’

‘Tell me … about the gun’ 

Bellusa explained in his deposition that he’d noticed a gun sitting in the side pocket of the vehicle during the incident, but did not alert Bhatt that the gun was there until after the shooting had occurred. When Pointer asked, “And prior to you screaming ‘shoot him, shoot him’ you hadn’t said anything related to the gun?” Bellusa responded: “No.”

Shortly after the shooting, Bellusa testified he had an interaction with Sarna, then-OUSD chief, and Smith, the OUSD superintendent. According to details included in the deposition, this conversation took place at Oakland Police Department (OPD) headquarters, after Bhatt and Bellusa had been separated, prior to any formal interview with OPD regarding the shooting.

According to Bellusa’s testimony, Smith questioned him directly. “He said specifically ‘John, tell me where the gun was. Tell me everything you can remember about the gun and what it looked like.’”

Penetrating the Thin Blue Line

An introductory statement from Against Hired Guns notes that Bellusa “will likely be considered a ‘good’ cop” for publicly airing these allegations and making an unusual break from the code of silence that typically binds police departments.

Yet the activists aren’t willing to let the sergeant off the hook so easily. Asked why they took steps to preempt release of this information, Brooks, the spokesperson for Against Hired Guns, told the Guardian, “We thought that it was important so that the debate could be framed as part of the larger context of police and violence in Oakland, as opposed to this cop has now done something good, which makes him a good cop. … He was still present the night Raheim was murdered.”

Against Hired Guns wrote in an analysis included in press materials, “It has now been over two years since Raheim’s family lost him to the violence of policing.  They have relentlessly searched for justice and still do not know exactly what happened to him. At the very least, Bellusa or any of the people or agencies he spoke with, could have explained the context of Raheim’s killing to his family members, who continue to grieve and struggle with the loss of their son, father and lover.” 

The activists’ summary frames the issue in this way: “Sergeant Bellusa has now penetrated the ‘thin blue line’ that shields corrupt, abusive, violent police officers and departments. We are releasing this information as part of … a series that places the statements of Bellusa’s testimony in the larger overall context of policing in our society [and] the ‘thin blue line’ that protects officers from any consequences.”

Public broadband works; why not here?

Zelda Bronstein
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42
Public broadband works; why not here?

There’s a fascinating new map that the Institute for Local Self Reliance has put together that shows how 342 communities around the United States are now offering publicly owned, cheap, reliable broadband and cable service to local residents and businesses. Check it out here. Then check out why the fastest networks in the nation are built by local governments:

“It may surprise people that these cities in Virginia, Tennessee, and Louisiana have faster and lower cost access to the Internet than anyone in San Francisco, Seattle, or any other major city,” says Christopher Mitchell, Director of ILSR’s Telecommunications as Commons Initiative. “These publicly owned networks have each created hundreds of jobs and saved millions of dollars.”

Then sit back and ask yourself why you’re paying so much money every month for the rotten service you get from Comcast and AT&T. Ask your friends, ask around work; is anyone really happy with their broadband service? Do you think you’re getting a good deal for the price?

When I saw the map I called Mitchell, and he told me that every one of the cities and towns on his map has been successful with public ownership. “Within five years, everyone is either making money for the general fund or breaking even and offering really low rates,” he said. “The real benefit is lower prices, which leaves residents with more money in their pockets, which tends to get spent in their communities where it helps local business.”

Most of the cities that have muni broadband (and cable TV!) also have municipal electric power systems, which makes the whole thing easier. But Santa Monica did it bit by bit, installing fiber every time one of the streets was torn up for plumbing, sewers, etc. and gradually building out a network that so far only connects businesses but can be expanded as the money comes in. San Francisco streets are torn up all the time, and will be torn up regularly as water and sewer lines are replaced. The biggest expense of laying cable is cutting open and repaving streets; the cable itself is fairly cheap.

In some states, the big private telecoms have pushed through state legislation banning muni broadband — but not in California. San Francisco has every legal right to get into this business.

So why aren’t we doing it already? “What’s missing,” Mitchell said, “is the political will to really piss off Comcast and AT&T.”

I was just looking at the map when I got an email alerting me to this lovely discussion between Mayor Ed Lee and the head of PG&E, talking about the private utility’s plans to invest $1.2 billion in local infrastructure (more on that in a future blog post). That’s going to involve a lot of digging up streets. So what does Mayor Lee say? Maybe we could allow PRIVATE companies to lay fiber at the same time.

I want to throw up.

 

 

Look who supports same-sex marriage

Zelda Bronstein
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46
Look who supports same-sex marriage

The latest Field Poll is very good news for supporters of same-sex marriage in California — residents of this state now support gay nuptials by almost 2-1. That’s a dramatic change since 2008, when Prop. 8 passed; in fact, the poll shows the approval margin widening significantly in just the past two years. And we all know that this is a demographic shift (voters under 40 are in favor by 78 percent, and most of the opposition is among the 60-plus crowd) so the numbers are only going in one direction.

But here’s one of the more interesting elements of the poll: In California, 55 percent of Catholics support same-sex marriage.

That’s something the College of Cardinals ought to be (but clearly isn’t) thinking about in the upcoming Papal Enclave. Frankly, very few Catholics in the US or Europe pay much attention to the church’s teachings on sex anymore. And as we all know, once the faithful decide that half of what you’re saying is pretty stupid, they’re going to pay less attention to the rest of it. In other words, the Church is becoming far less relevant in this country, and another conservative white Pope — and that’s who’s likely getting elected — will just continue that trend.

 

Gentrification’s simple math

Zelda Bronstein
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66
Gentrification’s simple math

Chuck Nevius is big into gentrification these days. He thinks it’s a dandy thing and “no longer a dirty word,” says the even longtime residents of the Mission love it, and has a nice photo of a person walking in Dogpatch, where two really cool dive bars just shut down — thanks to the gentrication that’s such a great thing.

Nevius quotes Randy Shaw, who has a bizarre statement:

In the ’70s and ’80s there was massive displacement of residents in the Haight, Noe Valley and the Castro,” says Randy Shaw, executive director of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic. “But now you are seeing a massive influx of upper-income people into previously unoccupied areas.”

What? “Previously unoccupied?” Like the Mission and Soma and Dogpatch? Unoccupied by the wealthy, maybe, but there are people living in almost every square inch of San Francisco, and in some parts of town, they are low-income people, and richer people force them out. That’s happening on the same scale today that it did in the 1980s, except worse: In the 80s, if you werer priced out of the Haight or Noe Valley or the Castro you could move to the Western Addition or the Mission or Soma. Now prices are so high everywhere in town that your only move is out of San Francisco altogether.

And while ol’ Chuck does admit there are downsides, he seems to think that somehow you can move wealthier people and more upscale establishments into existing lower-income areas without anything bad happening, as long as you respect “the delicate balancing act.”

But it isn’t a balancing act at all — it’s a zero-sum game. There’s finite space in this city, and when when something or someone comes in, something or someone has to leave. (Yes, you could build a lot more housing, but nobody’s building housing for working-class people.) But you can’t build more storefronts on Valencia or Mission; force out the existing community serving businesses and they have noplace else to go.

San Francisco has failed spectacularly at the fundamental challenge facing a city under this kind of pressure. First, before you allow more development, more upscaling, more of what C.W. Nevius loves, you have to protect existing vulnerable populations. That’s not a balancing act; that’s a mandate. If you don’t do it, you lose the character of the city and San Francisco becomes another sterile, corporate community.

Jesus. Why is this so hard to understand? I’ve lived through it several times, these booms that people like Mayor Lee and Nevius always celebrate, and every time, the pattern has been the same, the city has been damaged, and community institutions have been lost. I’m not one of those preservationists opposed to all change, but again: First protect existing vulnerable populations.

 

 

Wiener’s dance mix: more DJs mixed with fines for “bad actors”

Sasha Cuttler
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7

DJs could proliferate in San Francisco’s bars, restaurants, coffee shops, and plazas under legislation that Sup. Scott Wiener introduced today to include DJs under the city’s limited live music permits, but the legislation also includes new enforcement powers to crackdown on underground parties and other unpermitted events.

Limited live music permits – which are far cheaper and easier to obtain than the city’s full-blown Place of Entertainment permits ($385 compared to around $2,000 for the POE permits) – were created in 2011 by legislation sponsored by then-Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, allowing amplified performances until a 10pm curfew. But DJs were left out, despite their prevalence in San Francisco, something Wiener is now trying to correct.

“Entertainment and nightlife are an essential part of San Francisco’s cultural and economic vibrancy,” Wiener said today in a press release announcing the proposal. “This legislation fosters live entertainment while also heightening our ability to monitor and regulate bad actors.”

It’s that last part that doesn’t sit well with everyone, particularly given San Francisco’s pervasive culture of throwing underground parties, which are key fundraising tools for grassroots efforts such as Burning Man camps but which are the targets of periodic crackdowns by the SFPD and other agencies. It seems that when it comes to nightlife, we always have to take some medicine whenever City Hall offers a spoonful of sugar.

The legislation would give the Entertainment Commission the authority to levy $100 fines to those involved with unpermitted parties, either in established clubs or underground warehouses, whereas now the commission only has the authority to punish those who have permits for violating them.

“Punishing a DJ playing at a party in which the promoter didn’t get the proper permits (perhaps unbeknownst to the DJ), would be unfair and inappropriate, in my opinion,” was how DJ/Promoter Syd Gris from Opel Productions and Opulent Temple reacted to the legislation.

But Entertainment Commission Executive Director Jocelyn Kane told us she doesn’t expect to fine an DJs. While she asked Wiener for those enforcement powers, they are simply a way of encouraging promoters and business owners to get permits. “We’re not into punishment, we’re into compliance,” she said, adding that this is simply seeking authority to do administratively what the SFPD and California Alcoholic Beverage Control Administration can now to criminally and civilly.

Tom Temprano, president of the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club and a DJ/promoter at the popular Hard French parties, told us “where I really want clarification is on the new enforcement powers for the commission,” although he agreed with Kane that the commission generally works cooperatively with the nightlife community, far more than either the SFPD or ABC.

“All in all, it’s a really good step in the right direction,” Temprano said of the Wiener legislation. “It seems really positive. As a DJ, allowing DJs to be used for limited live performances is just common sense.”

Kane said the legislation will allow music to flourish in the city, from outdoor plazas to small venues, many of which have used DJs illegally. “We’ll be able to legalize that and bring them into the fold,” she said. “There always have been places that use a DJ like a jukebox.”

In addition to the relatively cheap application cost compared to POE permits, limited live music perhaps are quick and easy to obtain and don’t necessarily require city inspections paid for by the applicant.

In his press release, Wiener praised the importance of nightlife to the city economy and cited a city study he commissioned last year which found that nightlife has a $4.2 billion impact on San Francisco, employing 48,000 people and furnishing the City with $55 million in tax revenue annually.

“We need to encourage a flourishing nightlife that not only marks San Francisco as a cultural capital, but also creates jobs and brings in revenue for essential City services,” Wiener said. “These amendments are part of that broader strategy.”

Sequestration cuts would hit the Bay Area’s most vulnerable

Sasha Cuttler
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31
Sequestration cuts would hit the Bay Area’s most vulnerable

While the looming federal budget cuts known as sequestration were designed to equally hit Democratic and Republican party priorities, from social services to the military budget, in the Bay Area they would disproportionately target society’s most vulnerable citizens and strain already-stretched local agency budgets.

If Congress and the White House fail to forge a budget deal by March 1, the cuts could begin to withdraw $9-10 billion of federal support from the California. In the Bay Area, these cuts would have the biggest impact on low-income families, the homeless, victims of domestic violence, adults living with AIDS, and children ages 3-5.

Back in September, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee signed a U.S. Conference of Mayors’ letter that called on federal lawmakers to resolve the budget conflict before the sequestration cuts could take effect, labeling the budget cuts “a threat” to local economies nationwide. Now, with the deadline looming, city officials and social service providers across the Bay Area are bracing for the impact. Depending to how the cuts are eventually allocated, San Francisco alone could lose more than $10 million in critical social services.

“All across the city, the sequestration hurts those most in need of services and support,” Gentle Blythe, spokesperson with the San Francisco Unified School District, told the Guardian.

San Francisco Unified stands to lose $3.8 million in funding, over 5 percent of the district’s federal education dollars. The cuts would strain an already-tight education budget, which has suffered from the slow economy and the corresponding dip in tax revenue. “We’ve been in a climate of cuts for years,” Blythe said. “There is a definite sense of fatigue.”

The pending round of cuts would force San Francisco district officials to make a series of uncomfortable decisions. The bulk of San Francisco’s federal education funding comes from Title I and Title III grants, money specifically earmarked for low-income students and English-language learners. If the state does not step in to fill the hole, the $3.8 million shortfall will translate into a significant rollback of services for the city’s most at-risk students and potential layoffs of teachers and resource officers.

Early childhood programs are especially vulnerable to the impact of the sequester. San Francisco Head Start Director Marjorie Weiss told us the demand for these federal education programs is spiking as more San Francisco children are living in poverty.

US Census figures show 13.8 percent of San Francisco residents were living below the federal poverty line in 2011, up from 12.2 percent in 2005. Over the last decade, 850 additional children became eligible for SF Head Start, which operates federally funded preschool programs in 19 classrooms at 9 different centers across the city.

These programs significantly improve the long-term employment and educational prospects of children living in or near poverty. But as the need for these early-childhood services grows, the money is drying up. Over the last two years, state and local funding for early-childhood education has be cut by nearly 20 percent.

Now, with the sequestration looming, San Francisco Head Start providers are worried about their ability to continue providing services. “At Head Start, we have already been dealing with years of budget cuts,” Weiss told us. If the sequester comes through, the program will lose an additional $1.1 million and will be forced to eliminate programming for more than 100 low income children ages 3-5.

“This will be devastating. These cuts will have a crippling effect on low-income children in the community and their ability to be ready for school” says Weiss. The funding cuts will take effect June 1st and directly impact the incoming class of 3-year-old preschool students.

Although education will absorb a significant impact from the sequestration, social services across the city will be cut back. San Francisco homeless advocates are forecasting a $1 million cut in federal assistance and AIDS groups have warned that nearly $800,000 dollars in housing vouchers for AIDS patients are on the chopping block. Federal funding for the AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP), which subsidized medical care for AIDS patients, is set to be slashed by nearly 8 percent across the board.

Advocates for the victims of domestic abuse are also worried about the sequester’s impact on local survivors of domestic violence. In San Francisco, federal money provides crucial services for victims of domestic violence through nationally-mandated Family Violence and Prevention Services (FVPS). The city’s three primary domestic violence shelters rely on this revenue stream for outreach programming, translation services, and extended operating hours. The pending sequester would cut nearly 10 percent of FVPS grants, forcing shelters to tighten their belts.

“The sequester is going to dramatically impact the funding for lifesaving services for domestic violence shelters and rape crisis centers, as well as legal service, and children’s programs,” Beckie Masaki, the founder and former executive director of San Francisco’s Asian Women’s Shelter, told the Guardian. Masaki now works with the Asian and Pacific Island Institute (APIDV) on Domestic Violence, where she advocates for more federal funding for domestic violence service providers.

Masaki is worried that the cuts will disproportionately impact the city’s most vulnerable women: low-income and non-English speaking victims of domestic violence, as cash-strapped shelters lay off translators and cut back on outreach and group therapy.

“In the past, when we were facing cuts, we did our best to minimize the impact on survivors,” she explains. “But in this era of constant cuts, it’s going to mean layoffs, and ultimately fewer services for the most vulnerable survivors”.

As lawmakers in Washington scramble to pass a budget deal before the March 1 deadline, the climate of uncertainty leaves local service agencies in a state of limbo. With future funding in doubt, long-term planning and strategizing become increasingly difficult. Yet for many local service providers, the most recent threat of sequestration is a familiar consequence of an increasingly fragile social safety net.

According to Masaki, the sequestration should motivate Congress to rethink its budgeting priorities: “If they invest in these baseline life-saving services for those that are most vulnerable in our community, in the end that is the path to better economic and social sustainability for our whole nation.”

Activists to government: SF should be more like LA

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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9
Activists to government: SF should be more like LA

What sets San Francisco apart from Los Angeles? When it comes to city agencies that are supposed to keep politicians, lobbyists and campaign financiers honest, there are evidently some key differences.

Last year, San Francisco’s Budget & Legislative Analyst, Harvey Rose, drafted a report at the behest of Sup. David Campos comparing the San Francisco Ethics Commission to that of LA. It was meant as a precursor for moving forward with a package of tougher Ethics regulations governing areas like campaign finance, but so far little has happened on that front.

Some of Rose’s findings are intriguing. For example, the report notes that in LA, investigations into possible ethics violations result in more findings of merit and, ultimately, significantly higher fines on average. Whereas the LA Ethics Commission dismisses just 19 percent of its cases, the vast majority of ethical investigations here in San Francisco – 76 percent – die off with findings of no merit, or “case dismissed.”

Do San Franciscans have a tendency to file more complaints lacking in substance, or does this reflect the modus operandi of the Ethics Commission – an agency that has long been painted as a sleeping watchdog by good-government wonks?

“I think that could be a fascinating figure to get more detail about,” says Eileen Hansen, a former member of the San Francisco Ethics Commission who served for six years. “LA heard more [cases], but we dismissed more,” she added.

Hansen is part of an ad hoc group, Friends of Ethics, that’s gearing up for an informational hearing scheduled for tomorrow, Feb. 27, to take a deeper look at the Rose report and consider what lessons San Francisco’s Ethics Commission might learn from its counterpart in LA, where government accountability rules are regarded by lawyers and government transparency activists as a gold standard. Those who attend the “interested persons” meeting will enjoy a rare perk: The ability to address a commission without having to adhere to the two-minute time limit normally imposed at public hearings.

“Those who are on the commission’s list – consultants, political treasurers, political lawyers, all the usual suspects – are the ones who have weighed in so far,” an email circulated by Friends of Ethics points out. “For ten years the rules have been written by those special interests, and we are insisting that they be written for the public interest.”

What’s LA got that San Francisco doesn’t? For one thing, the city bans political contributions from registered lobbyists. This means, for instance, that if a registered lobbyist is trying to sway an elected official who’s up for reelection on, say, a major development project, that lobbyist is legally barred from writing a big fat juicy check to support said politician’s campaign. In San Francisco, there is no such rule.

Hansen says there are other measures that could improve government accountability in San Francisco. “We ban contributions from city contractors, but we have a huge loophole,” she explains, “of not including people seeking development projects. That’s 90 percent. Development drives politics in this town,” she added, noting that closing the loophole could be a possible reform.

“LA is doing some great things. Our hope is that we get the public to take the Rose report seriously,” Hansen said. “It could inform the beginning of a reform package that we would love to see the Ethics Commission take seriously.”

The Ethics Commission hearing will be held on Feb. 27 at 3 p.m. in San Francisco City Hall, Room 400.

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