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Politics Blog

Gavin Newsom (suddenly) cares about economic justice

Zelda Bronstein
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37
Gavin Newsom (suddenly) cares about economic justice

I was eating my (late) breakfast as I was listening to Gavin Newsom on KQED’s Forum this morning, and at first it was just the usual lofty rhetoric about education … and then Michael Krasny asked the lieutenant governor about the Occupy movement, and I almost threw up my whole wheat bagel and peanut butter.

Cuz Gav — the mayor who would never even consider asking the city’s wealthiest to pay more taxes, who ran for governor and then lite gov on a platform that he’d balanced the city budget without raising taxes, the guy who was a great friend of the city’s 1 percent, had the nerve to sing the praises of Occupy and complain about economic injustice.

Seriously: Gav ranted on for about five minutes about how low the taxes are on rich people. He announced that his company just set up a new winery and hired a bunch of people — and taxes were never an issue. He acted like someone who reads my shit.

One of the messages of Occupy — and one of the reasons that the movement exists not just in Washington and Manhattan but in cities all over the country — is that economic injustice needs to be addressed everywhere. It’s not just about the Bush tax cuts or even Jerry Brown’s tax-hike initiative; it’s also about local government trying to address the wealth and income gap and the impacts of 1 percent domination — at home.

Gavin had seven years to do that. He didn’t even try. Worse, when the progressives on the board tried, he’d veto anything that remotely smacked of a tax hike on the rich or a way to force the 1 percent to share the wealth with the 99 percent. (Does anyone think he would have allowed Occupy to stay at Justin Herman Plaza as long as Ed Lee did? Not a chance.) Now he wants to take advantage of the popularity of the movement for his own advancement.

Fucking sick.

America’s cup: What does Larry get?

Zelda Bronstein
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8
America’s cup: What does Larry get?

The development agreement for the America’s Cup comes out next week, although the project is already under way. But there’s some concern that the number of visitors (and thus the revenue to the city) might not be as high as projected.

The project EIR is more conservative about the possible number of visitors than city officials had been at first, and now the Bay Citizen reports that “doubts are growing about the number of spectators who will actually come to the city this year and next.” Apparently the prelims in San Diego have been a bit of a bust — and there aren’t as many teams signing up for the challenge.

So here’s the question: If the city winds up taking in less money than expected, does Larry Ellison take a bath, too?

Of course, it’s not that simple: Ellison’s getting a lot from the city, but it’s not based on any revenue the city will get from the cup; it’s based on the investment he’s putting into the port. He’s getting a sweet deal from San Francisco — way too sweet in my mind. The guy’s the sixth-richest person in the world; he doesn’t need all the goodies the city’s handing over, and I’m not sure I want the arrogant, aggressive CEO of Oracle determining the future of a large part of the San Francisco waterfront. But in theory, since he’s renovating property that’s falling apart, he gets something in return.

And, as Jane Sullivan, the spokesperson for the America’s Cup project at City Hall, points out, the fewer the visitors, the lower the city’s costs.

She also told me that “we don’t think the number of competitors will affect the number of visitors,” which is probably true — people will come for the spectacle, and Oracle will hype it beyond imagination, and nobody knows who any of these other teams are anyway. (The one team that might have gotten some press, aside from Oracle, wasn’t allowed to put in an application.)

But here’s the thing: This entire project, and the motivation to give Larry Ellison a bunch of really valuable city property, was the economic impact the cup is supposed to have on the city. The Mayor’s Office has been throwing around numbers like $1.4 billion in economic impact — that’s new jobs, full hotel rooms, packed restaurants, spillover employment benefits — and, of course, more tax revenue to the city coffers.

What it we give away the store to the Oracle pirates and we wind up getting a lot less money than we were hoping for? Nothing against the Cup; I love boats, and I love a big party (although I try to make sure that when the party’s over, I’m not completely broke). But it seems to me that the city’s the only one taking the risk on the downside. Larry gets everything he wants no matter how this all turns out.

We won’t know all the details until we see the agreement, but am I the only one worried about this?

 

But doubts are growing about the number of spectators who will actually come to the city this year and next to watch the races of experimental catamarans. Preliminary races held on 45-foot vessels in San Diego and elsewhere are failing to attract expected crowds or sponsors.

Source: The Bay Citizen (http://s.tt/15upW)

Castro plaza bill passes, 6-5

Zelda Bronstein
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10
Castro plaza bill passes, 6-5

The Board of Supervisors has passed a watered-down version of Supervisor Scott Wiener’s legislation to prevent camping and sleeping in Harvey Milk and Jane Warner plazas, with Supervisor David Chiu  casting the swing vote.

The bill passed 6-5 after an amendment by Chiu that stripped the bill of a provision which would keep shopping carts and other “large wheeled conveyances” from entering either plaza. But initial reactions among opposition activists has been mixed.

“I think it’s fair to say that Supervisor Chiu gave an elegant compromise with his amendment… It’s very polarizing legislation within the LGBT community,” said long-time LGBT activist Gabriel Haaland. Haaland, who added that he would not have voted in favor of the legislation, said many were concerned about the impact it might have on homeless LGBT youth.

Likewise, Bob Offer-Westort, an activist with the Coalition on Homelessness (CoH) who was arrested Friday night after pitching a tent in Jane Warner Plaza, expressed his satisfaction with today‘s decision, saying the supervisors removed the most controversial aspects of the legislation while applying the Parks Code, which imposes less onerous obligations on those subject to citations.

However he tempered this by saying, “it’s still still onerous and bad policy to use the criminal justice system to address homelessness. …I am very glad that supervisors who were concerned about the targeting of homeless youth took a moral stand today.”

Tommi Mecca, an activist with the San Francisco Housing Rights Committee, was training new activists and had not been able to watch the board vote,, but said that he was disappointed that the legislation passed at all.

“My initial reaction is that it’s sad we have to have regulations at all. Especially in Harvey Milk Plaza. Harvey Milk Plaza is a symbol for the LGBT community… it was just a fun, free place,” Mecca said.

“I don’t think it should be illegal to sleep in a public place. If there’s an earthquake, people think it’s fine to sleep on the street. But being homeless is a crisis too. Public space should be public… The reality was that we did not have a sixth vote to kill it.”

Occupy Oakland inmates at Santa Rita attacked- developing story

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(THIS STORY HAS BEEN UPDATED)

In the aftermath of the mass arrests of Occupy Oakland protesters– and whoever else happend to be on the wrong street at the wrong time– on Jan. 28 in Oakland, there have been loads of reports and rumors about brutality inflicted on those arrested. Most of those arrested were held in Santa Rita jail.


My observations:

I spent 20 hours in jail, and I saw some cruel treatment. I saw people suffering after being denied medication. I saw people with allergies to the food that was provided refused any substitute and unable to eat, sometimes for more than 24 hours. I saw people crammed into holding cells meant for groups a third their size, so that some people had to remain standing, sometimes for more than 24 hours. As many arrestees were wearing clothing coated in tear gas and pepper spray, those chemicals continued to waft through cells and affect all present.

Reports:

I have reports directly from sources of arrested occupiers being beat up in jail with police batons. At least 20 people were ziptied, meaning their hands were cuffed behind their backs– and more often than not, if they happen to be cuffed too tightly and their hands go numb and even blue, police won’t loosen them– for more than eight hours. I know that some people who were denied access to a restroom ended up sitting in their own vomit and urine for at least four hours in some cases.

UPDATE Another report from Joshua Clover, a professor of English at UC Davis, who was released Monday night, :
“I was held for 53 hours for a misdemeanor charge which every single person here, and there, knows will never be brought, and indeed which will be met with a class action suit for wrongful arrest that the city of Oakland will be compelled to settle. I have a perforated peptic ulcer. Early on in the stay I requested non—prescription care — liquid antacid, which the jail keeps on hand — when I began to have an ulcer attack, which is to say, when I began to bleed internally. I was not given such care until an attorney was able to intervene by phone many hours later. I received one capful, which was mildly effective for about three hours. Further requests were ignored. As many will know, a bleeding ulcer attack is both painful and potentially fatal”

UPDATE When I questioned Alameda County Sheriff’s Department Public Information Officer Sergeant JD Nelson about this, he responded that “[Clover] was obviously seen by a medical person, and they said that was enough medicine.”

But accoridng to Clover, via an email, “The one time that I received medication, a deputy came to the cell door accompanied by someone who may have been a nurse, holding a capful of antacid. I asked for more but was not given it.” And was Clover seen by a medical professional to determine the correct amount of medication? He says, “Definitely not.”

Also according to Clover, “Food was often not provided for periods of up to 14 hours. For a long period I shared a cell with 27 other people; it was about ten by ten feet. For a period I was in a cell labeled ‘Maximum Occupancy: Two.’ There were ten of us, three very sick. We stood. One of the people slumped over on the toilet, that being the alternative to standing.”

UPDATE

“Three people I know were denied medication for HIV infections while being held for multiple days, which is a life-threatening choice made by the county”

“two women were denied anti-depressants that they had with them when they went to jail”

UPDATE According to an anonymous source, “My 12×12 cell had 28 people. There was a toilet, a concrete bench, and enough hard floor space for three or four of us to sleep at a time. A girl in the cell across from ours told the guards she needed Lexapro or she would go into withdrawl. They ignored the request. One of my cellmates was HIV-positive. When I last saw him at 2 a.m. on Monday morning he had not yet been given his medications. As I exited the jail I saw a woman who had just been released lying on the floor. She was having a seizure and being tended to by a couple of firemen.”

UPDATE From Alyssa Eisenberg, who has multiple sclerosis:
“I take my medication at least twice a day…without it, the pain is, everything kind of goes numb and tightens up. Somtimes I can’t even see without it. When  had to sign the booking form about noon i couldn’t even see it, my vision was so blurry…I was told they don’t give meds to people that are going to be cited and released, only to people that are going to stay and get charged.”

Unconfirmed reports:

Daily Kos quotes an anonymous source who reports that “prisoners from the Oakland Commune were being denied medications (some had seizures) while the guards said they didnt care if they died. Some people were brutally beaten. The put tear gas in the vents of my cell twice.”
According to Occupy Oakland media spokesperson Omar Yassin, a report that someone was tear gassed in the jail’s hallway is likely credible.

Then there’s the peolpe who were injured during the protests Jan. 28. Also according to Yassin:

At least a dozen people had welts on their faces or bodies from being beaten by clubs or shot with rubber bullets. One woman was shot in both arms with rubber bullet; one man was shot in the face with rubber bullets while holding a video camera to document the events. Several protesters were shoved to the ground and received wounds on their faces while being arrested. Police raised their rubber-bullet rifles to the faces of protesters throughout the day, threatening attacks– a rubber bullet to the face can cause brain damage and blindness.

 

A spokesperson for the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department refused to comment, although she did say that they’ve “been bombarded with calls about this all day.” Shocker.

UPDATE According to Alameda County Sheriff’s Department Public Information Officer Sergeant JD Nelson, no complaints of mistreatment at Santa Rita have been filed.

Nelson said that peanut butter was made avaliable to vegans those allergic to meat, in direct contrast to what I witnessed in jail.

In response to reports that some detainees were held on buses in the Santa Rita parking lot for up to eight hours, during which time they were refused bathroom access and in some cases made to sit in their own urine and vomit, Nelson said that “Generally when they come to the jail the buses are unloaded fairly quickly. Obviously some people are going to go first, some last.”

He told me that detainees were denied medication because “We do we allow them to take their medication in jail. People will try to smuggle stuff in.”

When asked about reported beating in jail, Nelson replied, “I haven’t gotten any reports of any skirmishes between officers and those arrested. We would report it if  there was any use of force,”

According to Nelson, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office has video footage of all of the areas in the jail where arrestees were held, and, unless there was a lawsuit preventing its release, he would make the footage available to me soon. For now he said, “I don’t even know if they’ve been developed.” (Is this 1984? Not in the Orwellian sense. In the technology sense.)

More on this soon. Send me information that you have, yael@sfbg.com

Arrest raises doubts about Wiener’s loitering ban

Sasha Cuttler
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Bob Offer-Westor, Human Rights Organizer for the Coalition on Homelessness (CoH), was arrested and issued a citation for loitering within half an hour of setting up his tent in Jane Warner Plaza on Friday evening. He demonstrated how the recent push to enact new anti-camping regulations – which the Board of Supervisors is considering this afternoon – will only seek to criminalize behavior already outlawed under s627(e) of the California Penal Code.

Following the incident, CoH claimed in a press release that the reliance by the San Francisco Police Department on PC 647(e) to arrest and cite Offer-Westor for loitering settles the debate by showing that legislation already exists to deal with the problem. But the author of the new regulations, Sup. Scott Wiener, remains unconvinced.

When contacted by the Guardian, Wiener reiterated his view that the claim that his proposal would duplicate existing law is “misinformation” and that existing laws referred to by the CoH either do not specifically relate to the two plazas or are so general as to be inapplicable.

This includes PC 647(e), the provision under which Offer-Westor was arrested, which states that: “Every person who lodges in any building, structure, vehicle, or place, whether public or private, without the permission of the owner or person entitled to the possession or in control of it is guilty of disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor.”

When asked to respond to news of the arrest, Wiener’s position was unshaken and he said that it was not surprising that the police relied on 647(e) as it is the only provision that may apply to camping in the plazas, but that its use by the officers proved nothing.

“Section 647(e) is vague and non-specific. One can argue that it does apply to camping in the plaza and someone could also argue that it does not apply. My legislation would clarify and make it explicit,” Wiener told us. “I would run the bet that if the ticket was taken to court that it would be found to be too vague and would not apply…Police should not have to rely on vague provisions.”

Offer-Westort would like to call Wiener’s bluff. He has sent Wiener – who is an attorney – a copy of his citation and asked the supervisor to act as legal counsel, but has so far received no response, adding that he objects to Wiener’s continuing use of the word “misinformation”.

“It’s amazing to me that he can continue to call this ‘misinformation’ after we have proven it in the real world,” Offer-Westort said.

Earlier this month, more than 20 prominent LGBT activists, including eight former presidents of the Harvey Milk Club, signed a letter outlining their opposition to Wiener’s regulations, saying that the legislation raises the spectre of infamous sit/lie laws which targeted the hippies of the 1970’s but were instead used to drive gay men out of the Castro.

Inside the Occupy Oakland protest

Zelda Bronstein
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Inside the Occupy Oakland protest

UPDATE: We’ve corrected a few factual mistakes. We originally reported that protesters forced open the door of the YMCA; in fact, they asked to be let in and they were. We regret the error.

An Occupy Oakland march that turned violent Jan. 28 led to the arrest of 400 people, including me.

The march, which peaked at about 2,000 protesters, was organized with the intention of entering a vacant building — the Kaiser Convention Center — and turning it into a new “Social Center” that participants in Occupy Oakland hoped to use to gather, teach, and organize.

The move was more than symbolic. Occupy activists have engaged in constant debate about tactics and goals, particularly when it comes to violence and property destruction, and it’s hard to argue at this point that Occupy Oakland is a nonviolent movement.

But many thought that the goal of occupying a vacant building made sense. When Occupy Oakland had a camp in Frank Ogawa Plaza, also known as Oscar Grant Plaza, commonly described as OGP, it created a strong community. It’s a community that bridged divides between the homeless and the housed, between students and labor organizers, and between Oakland residents of different races, genders and levels of ability in an unprecedented fashion.

Besides that, the camp had a kitchen that fed hundreds of people everyday. The camp had a network of shared tents and blankets that welcomed in hundreds who would have slept freezing on the streets, often feeling isolated from other residents of their city and made to feel inferior. Now, they had a place to stay that was warmer, more safe and secure, and was embedded in a community bound together by ties of solidarity.

That community was able to thrive in it’s centralized camp location.

That was the practical reason for wanting to occupy a vacant building: to have a social center for Occupy Oakland.

Of course, there are other reasons. There’s the question that many squatters and homeless advocacy groups have been making for decades: why let buildings lie vacant while people freeze on the street?

The march set off from OGP at 1 p.m. Jan. 28. There was no ambiguity about group’s goal: Many pushed carts stacked with furniture, hoping to furnish the new center; others held a large banner reading “Vacant? Take it!” 

Many other Occupy groups around the world, including protesters in Washington DC, London, England, and Belfast, Ireland, have taken over vacant buildings in an attempt to create social centers, house homeless community members and protest injustice symbolized by buildings lying vacant while people live on the street.

In Oakland, the attempts were staved off when riot police lined up in front of the march and declared unlawful assemblies.

In front of the  Convention Center, police threw smoke bombs into the crowd and warned that those who refused to disperse would be arrested. The march continued around the corner to 12th St and Oak, where protesters and police were involved in another confrontation. Police shot smoke bombs and “pepper bombs,” canisters of pepper spray that explode on impact, into the crowd. Some in the march responded by throwing canisters, along with plastic bottles, back at police. Masked protesters in the front of the group brandished makeshift shields. Protesters say the shields were there to protect them from rubber bullets and bean bag rounds.

The cops had a different perspective. “It became clear that the objective of this crowd was not to peacefully assemble and march, but to seek opportunity to further criminal acts, confront police, and repeatedly attempt to illegally occupy buildings,” said Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan in a press release.

In a tense moment, hundreds knelt to hide behind the frontline shields while police fired rubber bullets into the crowd.
When police began to advance at both the front and back end of the group, protesters retreated, marching on 12th St back to Ogawa/Grant Plaza.

As they marched on 12th street, Occupy Oakland-affiliated street medics treated injuries from tear gas, pepper spray, and rubber bullets. Police followed in the rear of the march, continuing to project exploding flash-bang grenades at the crowd.

At about 5:30, another march left from the plaza, again with the stated attention of occupying a building. Police marched behind protesters. When the march cut through Fox Square in Oakland’s Uptown neighborhood, police filled in all surrounding sides of the march. Protesters have used the term “kettling” to describe a situation in which police line up on all sides of a group, blocking anyone in the group from leaving.
After “kettling” hundreds of protesters at this location, police began to deploy tear gas. Some protesters with makeshift plastic and metal shields, many marked with the “circle-A” anarchy symbol, advanced towards police. Several police beat the shield back with batons and struck some protesters.

One 19-year-old woman who was struck with a baton to the kidneys was brought to the hospital and treated for internal bleeding.
At Fox Square, police announced that the gathering was an unlawful assembly. Minutes later, some protesters knocked over a line of chain-link fencing, allowing the march to exit the “kettle.” The march continued on Telegraph.

When the march arrived at Broadway between 22nd and 23rd streets, protesters asked to be let into the YMCA and someone who was in there opened the doors. Police later closed in on both sides until they had formed a line preventing the approximately 400 protesters from exiting.

On Broadway, there was no dispersal order issued. This is in violation of the Oakland Police Department’s crowd control policy, which states that “If after a crowd disperses pursuant to a declaration of unlawful assembly and subsequently participants assemble at a different geographic location where the participants are engaged in non-violent and lawful First Amendment activity, such an assembly cannot be dispersed unless it has been determined that it is an unlawful assembly and the required official declaration has been adequately given.”

About 6:30 p.m., police announced that all of the blocked-in group was under arrest.

It was more than six hours before the sidewalk was cleared of all detainees. Most are charged with failure to disperse. Some, such as those who entered the YMCA, have been charged with burglary.

Dozens of protesters who had avoided arrest marched back to City Hall. There, they illegally entered the building and committed several acts of vandalism. According to a press release, these included “breaking an interior window to a Hearing Room, tipping over and seriously damaging the historic model of City Hall, destroying a case containing a model of Frank Ogawa Plaza, and breaking into the fire sprinkler and elevator automation closet.” Protesters also report setting off fireworks in the counsel chambers.

Some protesters took an American flag from City Hall and burned it in front of the government building.

Oakland officials have complained about the cost of the protests. The city had reportedly spent $2.4 million policing Occupy Oakland protesters as of November 15, just weeks after announcing the decision to close down five elementary schools to save $2 million.
Occupy activists say the huge — expensive — police presence is an overreaction.

“The amount of property damage by protesters has been minimal next to Mayor Quan’s destruction of the humanitarian Occupy Oakland community and excessive force against peaceful people, said Wendy Kenin, an Occupy Oakland spokesperson. “The City of Oakland’s commitment to militarism far outweighs its investment in schools. 

Kenin said she was back at Occupy Oakland outside City Hall, with her four children, the day after the incidents.
There were no arrests made in the City Hall incident, partly because so many police resources were deployed at the YMCA.

Cities and counties that provided police reenforcements to handle the mass arrests include Alameda County, San Mateo County, Santa Clara County, San Francisco County and Marin County and the cities of Fremont, Hayward, Berkeley, Pleasanton, San Francisco and Union City/Newark; and the University of California-Berkeley, according to an Oakland Police Department press release. 

Dozens of those detained were brought to Glenn Dyer jail, which quickly filled up; the rest were brought to Santa Rita jail in Dublin.
Several members of the press, as well as passers-by who were on their way to work in the area, were swept up in the arrests.

In jail, those detained debated tactics involved in the day’s demonstrations and discussed the future of Occupy Oakland.

The number of injured protesters is unknown, but in the 19-person sampling of arrestees with whom I spent 20 hours, two had bruises from baton strikes, one suffered from an injured foot after a pepper-bomb exploded upon impact with her ankle, and most had irritation in their eyes, ears, and throat from exposure to tear gas and pepper spray.

Oakland police report that three officers were injured.

As of the morning of Jan. 30, about 100 remained in Santa Rita.

The college tuition problem

Zelda Bronstein
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The college tuition problem

President Obama wants to solve the horrible problem of college tuition costs and student loans by offering tax breaks and telling schools to keep their costs down. Memo to the prez: Holding the line on tuition increases won’t do it. Tuition is already way to high. Student loan requirements are already way too crippling.


It would be nice if governments would just raise the tax money necessary to subsidize costs at public universities again. But until that happens, there’s another interesting idea I heard on KPFA the other day: Why not do a federal bailout for students?


The Federal Reserve bought up trillions in toxic bank debt. Why not use the same principle to buy up the debt of a generation of college students, reduce the payments to an affordable level and do what other countries do, which is to waive all payments until the students get a job? What a great investment in the future — and what a great way to stimulate the economy. Put money in the pockets of young college graduates and guess what? They’ll spend it. Trust me on this.


I wonder if anyone in Washington is even thinking about this. If so, it’s awfully quiet.

Burning Man ticket requests far exceed supply

Sasha Cuttler
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Burning Man ticket requests far exceed supply

Burners’ worst fears are about to come true: they’ll be denied tickets to Burning Man when the results of the new lottery-based system are announced on Wednesday. But organizers say if everyone stays calm and relies on their community then they’ll probably still get tickets.

Substantially more people registered for tickets than organizers expected, so much so that they believe burners and their allies ordered way more tickets than they’ll need this year because of concerns about the new ticketing system and the fact that the event sold out early for the first time last year.

“It’s big enough that we believe that all the demand for tickets is not new folks,” Larry Harvey – chair of SF-based Black Rock City LLC, which stages the event – told the Guardian. He refused to say how many people registered for tickets, but the LLC did say each registrant ordered 1.7 tickets, indicating a higher than usual number ordering the maximum of two tickets.

If it’s true that most burners bought more than they needed, that also means there will be lots of tickets circulating through the Burning Man community, so Harvey and fellow board member Marian Goodell are urging everyone to not overreact, don’t buy expensive tickets from scalpers, and take advantage of the LLC’s new aftermarket ticket exchange program that will go online in a few weeks.

“If someone is looking for a ticket, we don’t want them to go to eBay or Craigslist, we want them to turn to their community,” Harvey said. “We think the community is a better distributor than anyone.”

Goodell emphasized that the burner ethos calls for people to only sell tickets for face value – which is $240-390 for the 40,000 tickets going out next week – and she said she believes there will be enough tickets to satisfy demand if people don’t panic and feed the scalpers’ market. Those who don’t follow that advice could also end up with counterfeit tickets, whereas the LLC will verify tickets it swaps.

“The secondary market is the community, and we don’t want people to feel they have a commodity in their hand that will help them make the rent,” she told us. “You’re really hurting your community if you’re treating this like a commodity.”

But the unknown factor is how many ticket buyers are more profit-minded than community-minded, particularly after tickets were selling for almost double-face-value on average after tickets sold out last year, according to a study by SeatGeek. Goodell said only burners can keep the scalpers’ market in check.

“We’re being optimistic, but we were able to get more than 50,000 people to remove their trash [from Black Rock City every year],” Goodell said. “We know we can train people to behave in ways that are more community-minded.”

Many people criticized Burning Man for replacing the usual Internet ticket sales with the lottery system this year, but Harvey and Goodell both said they think the over-registration problem had more to do with tickets selling out last year than the new system.

Still, Harvey told us the transition could have been handled better: “If we had it to do over, we might do some things differently.”

As for whether the new system will end up being OK, Goodell said, “We won’t know how it’s working until we get to the event and see if people are happy.” But in short run, she said, “I’m going to have a lot more unhappy people than I was counting on.”

In addition to managing ticket exchanges through its website, BRC does still have one more ticket sales session planned for March 28, when 10,000 tickets will be sold online in a first come, first served system, like first day sales used to be.

As I chronicle in my book, The Tribes of Burning Man: How an Experimental City in the Desert is Shaping the New American Counterculture, Burning Man has grown from a small gathering on Baker Beach in 1986 to a thriving year-round culture that builds a temporary city of more than 50,000 people in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert in late summer. Burners build the city and its art from scratch with their own resources, almost everything in this gift economy is offered for free, and everyone is encouraged to participate in its creation, enjoyment, and cleanup.

The event doubled in size since I started covered it in 2004, and it has spawned a network of regional events around the world, as well as offshoot organizations such as Black Rock Arts Foundation (which funds and facilitates public art off the playa), Burners Without Borders (which does disaster relief and other good works), and the Burning Man Project (a newly created nonprofit that will take over operations of the event in coming years).

The LLC is currently negotiating with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management for permits that will allow the event to grow up to 70,000 people within five years, but Goodell cautioned against those who might see growth as an answer to this year’s problems.

“Honestly, I don’t want more people until we do a little tweaking to the departure process,” Goodell said, noting that people waited as much as nine hours this year to get off the playa and onto the two-lane highway that leads to the Black Rock Desert.

I asked whether they were entertaining any big new ideas for managing the growth of the event, such as how the popular Coachella music festival this year created two events with identical lineups to handle demand. Harvey didn’t say specifically that was an option, but he did refer to his essay discussing this year’s art theme, Fertility 2.0, which just belatedly went online.

“If you read my theme,” he told me, “it’s all about the expansion of the culture.” Among other sentiments, Harvey wrote, “We are living in an age of mass production and consumption that is unsustainable. But culture, as a living system, has the power to create and recreate itself.”

Mayor Lee’s call for more hearings gets wary reception

Sasha Cuttler
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Mayor Lee’s call for more hearings gets wary reception

Labor and the Left came out strongly against Mayor Ed Lee’s proposed charter amendment to require all city legislation be delayed and subjected to hearings by the Small Business Commission and other commissions if it might cost private sector jobs, putting its prospects of making the ballot in doubt.

 “This legislation is one, unnecessary; two, unbalanced; and three, divisive,” Mike Casey, president of the San Francisco Labor Council – whose executive committee voted unanimously to oppose the legislation – said during today’s Rules Committee hearing on the measure.

He and other labor leaders noted that members of the business community have plenty of opportunities to weigh in on legislation it opposes, but Lee’s proposal would elevate employers’ interests far above those concerning the environment, consumers, public health, or workers. “This legislation gives one stakeholder undue power in the democratic process, which is undemocratic,” said Kate Hegé of La Raza Centro Legal, which represents day laborers and other immigrants.

Teacher Ken Tray of United Educators of San Francisco said, “Often times ‘jobs’ is used as a red herring to divert the city from doing what it needs to do.” It was a common theme, as opponents of the proposal noted that paid sick leave, the local minimum wage, and requiring employee health benefits were all fiercely opposed by the business community. “Anything that raises workers up, we’re told it’s a job killer,” said Larry Bradshaw of SEIU Local 1021.

Small business representatives – a bit sheepishly, given the tenor of the hearing, and without support from their downtown brethren – said they were simply looking for the ability to express their concerns. “We’ve tried to let small business have a voice at the Board of Supervisors,” said longtime small business advocate Scott Hauge, a regular at City Hall.
Keith Goldstein of Potrero Dogpatch Merchants Association said, “We feel we don’t have a say in this process.”

Mayor’s Office board liaison Jason Elliott emphasized that Lee’s charter amendment would create a delay and an extra hearing or two, but that supervisors would still be free to approve the legislation anyway. “This is about public participation and feedback,” Elliott said.

But Sup. David Campos, who led the questioning of Elliott, wasn’t buying it. “What’s the reason behind this? Is there a specific reason the Mayor’s Office has decided to do this now and through a charter amendment?” Campos said, probing for instances in which the Mayor’s Office thought the business community hadn’t been heard.

Elliott continued to say it was about emphasizing jobs and taking more public input, but he couldn’t explain what’s lacking currently or what’s muting employers. Campos thanked the Mayor’s Office for being willing to work with supervisors and accept amendments – including many introduced today, which delayed the vote on the measure until next week.
But Campos questioned the need for the legislation, comparing it to the hollow jobs rhetoric from the current field of Republican presidential candidates. “It’s not just the number of jobs you have, it’s the quality of those jobs,” Campos said.

(Side note: the Mayor’s Office issued a press release today celebrating the first two businesses to take advantage of last year’s controversial mid-Market payroll tax exemption, Zendesk and Pearl’s Deluxe Burgers, which created 56 jobs between them. And to help create those great burger joint jobs, Pearl’s got Redevelopment Agency assistance, a low-interest city loan, and an exemption from the payroll tax. For hiring burger flippers that probably make minimum wage. But I digress…)

Campos said that everyone in City Hall wants to see more good jobs in the city, “but I don’t believe this is a constructive approach.” Sup. Jane Kim echoed the sentiment, saying private sector job creation isn’t the only imperative. “Lowering our minimum wage to $3 or $1 an hour would create plenty of jobs in San Francisco,” she said.

Even the more conservative third committee member, Sup. Mark Farrell, said he tends to agree with his committee colleagues and made the motion to continue the item until next week, when its prospects for passage look weak unless Lee can convince them that there’s more to this measure than just political grandstanding.

Can SF follow Berkeley in dumping the big banks?

Zelda Bronstein
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Can SF follow Berkeley in dumping the big banks?

The City of Berkeley is considering dropping its contract with Wells Fargo and moving the city’s money to a credit union or a smaller community bank. That makes perfect sense — the Move Your Money Project has been urging individuals to do that, and there’s no reason why cities (which are huge customers of banking services) can’t do the same.


In fact, San Francisco ought to be next on the list.


This city puts all of its short-term money in Bank of America. It’s a lot of cash — if the city spends more than $6 billion a year, much of that at some point goes into a city account and most of the checks the city issues are paid on that account. We’re talking a plum deal for a big bank — particularly since the city’s checks aren’t going to bounce and the money comes in steadily.


Why B of A? Because the contract is put out to bid, and B of A was able to offer the best deal. But the bidding process didn’t consider the issues that Occupy has brought up — nor did it consider the number of local jobs that could be generated if the city put its money in a local bank that actually makes local loans to small businesses and homeowners instead of foreclosing on people and shipping the profits back to North Carolina every night.


I don’t know if there’s a local credit union or community bank big enough to handle the business of a client the size of San Francisco — but there’s no reason the entire contract has to go to one bank.


Besides, we could always create our own.

America’s Cup moves forward, but economic concerns remain

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In past weeks, several environmental and community organizations filed two appeals of the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) prepared for the America’s Cup yacht race in 2013.

Jan. 24, the Board of Supervisors rejected the appeal, allowing for construction on the several major projects contained in the America’s Cup proposal to move forward.

But some supervisors say that the many groups with environmental concerns about the America’s Cup brought up important issues, including economic issues that will still need to be addressed.

Organizations involved in the appeals include San Francisco Tomorrow, Telegraph Hill Dwellers, and the Golden Gate Audubon Society.

The biggest concession regards the jumbotron, a giant TV screen that was planned to project the race’s events. The America’s Cup event authority planned to float the jumbotron’s 44-foot wide screen on a 140-foot barge, and anchor it with large concrete blocks, dropped in Aquatic Park. Opponents said that the blocks would stir up potentially toxic sediments and that the whole plan put Aquatic Park, a preferred beach of bay swimmers, at risk of a diesel spill that would have long-term implications for the safety of its swimmers.

After a heated back-and-forth, attorney for the The America’s Cup event authority Mary G. Murphy stated that the Authority would ditch plans for the water-born jumbotron and look into landside options.

President of the Dolphin Club Reuben Hechanova said that the decision on the jumbotron was a clear victory. The club, whose members have been swimming in the cold waters of Aquatic Park since 1877, was vocal in its opposition for plans for the floating TV. Members of the Dolphin Club and their allies had been meeting with city officials for over a year, campaigning against the jumbotron.

Hechanova denied that Dolphin Club members had planned to disrupt the America’s Cup in a swim-in called “Occupy the Bay” if plans for the floating jumbotron proceeded.

“We were always going to continue to work with the governing agencies…we were not going to occupy the bay. The only official spokespersons of the club are the board members,” Hechanova told the Guardian.

Appellants were also concerned about effects on air quality from cruise ship emissions.

The EIR claimed that these air quality issues would be mitigated with a shore-side power source on Pier 70, but appellants questioned the feasibility of these mitigating measures. Michael Martin of the Mayor’s Office on Economic and Workforce Development commented on the issue, stating that since issuing the report the port, along with its shipyard partner, BAE San Francisco Ship Repair, had in fact secured the 5.7 million necessary for the shore-side power project.

Still, several supervisors remained skeptical about the feasibility of paying for all of the mitigating measures crucial to the adequacy and accuracy of the EIR. Supervisors will vote on these and other financial matters associated with the Cup at a Feb. 14 hearing.

“I have questions remaining about finances, about union jobs that will be created for San Franciscans in this project…as well as assuring that there would be no hit to the general fund,” said Supervisor John Avalos at the meeting’s end.

Other environmental concerns, such as impact on sea and shore birds and on neighborhoods adjacent the America’s Cup area, went largely unresolved.

However, in an amendment proposed by Supervisor David Chiu, the Board made clear that they would require additional environmental reviews, including, potentially, more EIRs, for subsequent projects.

Aaron Peskin, former President of the Board of Supervisors and longtime water rights advocate, has been a vocal opponent of many aspects of the America’s Cup. He said these agreements are a step in the right direction.

“I wouldn’t call it a victory, I’d call it a step. It’s a good step,” said Peskin.

After the appeals had been rejected, Campos thanks all parties involved, including the appellants.

“I do believe that the two appeals that have been filed have clearly made this project better, and not only on the environmental piece. I think the appeals have also raised some very important issues about financial terms of this deal,” said Campos.

Why the public thinks government is fat

Zelda Bronstein
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Why the public thinks government is fat

Polls from the PPIC are typically pretty accurate, so I have no reason to doubt the results of a recent one showing that a majority of Californnians still think government can be cut substantially without a reduction in services. It’s hard to fathom; as Brian at Calitics notes,


Cuts to government expenditures mean direct cuts to services. There is simply no way to provide the same level of services for an ever decreasing amount of money. Go take a look at your local government offices and then compare it to the offices of your local bank corporate office.  There are no fancy waterfalls and lavish breakrooms offering wide selections of Odwalla and Rice Krispies, there are just a dwindling level of state employees working ever harder to keep up.  


So, while most voters strongly support raising taxes on the rich, 59 percent also think that government can easily be cut just by eliminating waste. Even Arnold Schwarzenegger, who took office pledging the same thing, left saying there wasn’t much waste left to cut. And while I fully believe that any organization that spends $80 billion a year is going to have some things in the budget that don’t belong — it’s simply humanly impossible to run anything, public or private, that big without some employee sleeping in the supply room or somebody sneaking cookies on the company dime — it’s also the case that what’s missing in the California budget is more important than what’s being mis-spent.


Why don’t people get this? Part of the reason is a 30-year concerted campaign by the right wing to convince people that the public sector is a waste of money. But part of the reason is also that the news media, by its very nature, is much more likely to report on waste in government than similar (or worse) waste in the private sector.


For one thing, it’s easy: Government records are public. Figuring out how Enron, which kept its records private, stole $40 billion from the state of California is really, really hard. There’s also the (correct) notion that the government is spending OUR money, so we ought to watch where it goes.


And of course, corrupt politicians like Willie Brown give everyone in government a bad name, and there are plenty of them.


But remember: The government typically spends a lot of our money on private contracts with companies that don’t make their records public. How many employees of the contractors building the Central Subway are sleeping on the job, double-billing, charging fancy lunches and wasting the public’s dollars? That takes a lot more digging — weeks of investigative reporting — and it’s not the sort of stuff that can just pop up in a Matier and Ross column, the way a city worker who pulls in a lot of overtime can (and does).


I think there’s also a general lack of interest in exposing corporate wrongdoing. PG&E’s records are public, and all the money the company spends is OUR money (we’re ratepayers, and we have no choice). But how much do you see about overpaid PG&E executives compared to how much you see about (far less) overpaid city employees? PG&E has hundreds of executives making far more than the most bloated City Hall salaries, and they all have nice pensions — but you never hear about PG&E needing pension reform, or how the utility needs to tighten its belt to keep rates low in a recession.


When you’re bombarded day after day with stories about a deputy sheriff or a nurse who works a huge amount of overtime and takes home $150,000 a year, you can’t help but think that the public sector’s wasting your money. But the private sector does a lot worse.


And sure, under capitalism, a wasteful private company should pay the price in the marketplace — but we all know that a lot of the big private companies don’t really compete much (see: the financial sector), and when it comes to regulated utilities like PG&E, they don’t compete at all. You think ATM fees and checking account fees and all the other shit that banks hit us with isn’t in part a result of waste, fraud and bloated payrolls? Isn’t that my money, too?


 


 

How should San Franciscans vote?

Sasha Cuttler
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How should San Franciscans vote?

The Board of Supervisors Rules Committee will consider competing proposals for changing how elections are conducted in San Francisco tomorrow (Thu/26) at 2 p.m., taking public testimony and voting on which ideas should go before voters in June.

Sups. Sean Elsbernd and Mark Farrell propose to end the ranked-choice voting (RCV) system and go back to runoff elections, while Sups. David Campos and John Avalos propose modifying RCV to allow more than three candidates to be ranked and changing the public campaign financing system to make qualifying more difficult and thus thin the electoral herd a bit. They would also consolidate odd-year elections for citywide offices into a single year, a proposal that Sup. Scott Wiener is also offering as a stand-alone measure.

“We believe our current election system fundamentally works. However, we heard concerns from voters during our last election that it was difficult to discern the different ideas and ideologies of the numerous candidates in the race. We are introducing an ordinance today that is designed to address this concern,” Avalos said in a public statement on Jan. 10 when their measure was introduced.

That package came in reaction to the proposal to repeal the RCV system that voters approved in 2002, a campaign that has been strongly promoted for years by political moderates, downtown groups such as the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, and the San Francisco Chronicle and other mainstream media outlets.

During a forum at the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association last week, Elsbernd debated Steven Hill – the author and activist who created the city’s RCV system – on the issue. Much of it came down to differences over how to gauge the will of voters and allow them to make good decisions.

Hill’s argues that runoff elections – which have traditionally been held in December, although the current proposal could create either June/November or September/November elections – tend to have very low turnout of voters (who tend to be more white, rich, and conservative than in general elections). And they are usually dominated by nasty, corporate-funded independent expenditures campaigns designed to sully the more progressive candidate.

“Let’s face it, December was just a terrible time of year for an election,” Hill said, adding that September would be just as bad, June is too early, and both options would also likely have low turnouts.

Hill said that while RCV may have flaws, so does every electoral system, but that RCV is an accurate gauge of voter preference. He displayed charts and statistics showed that the winning candidate in every election since RCV started has won a majority of the continuing ballots, which are those that remain after a voter’s first three choices have been eliminated.

But Elsbernd seized on that idea to say, “Continuing ballots, that’s what this issue is all about.” He made the distinction between continuing ballots and total ballots cast, saying the latter is what’s important and that few winners under RCV receive a majority of total ballots cast.

“Our elected officials should be elected by a majority of the votes cast,” Elsbernd said.

He said that runoff elections offer voters a clear distinction between different candidates and their ideologies, and he even dangled a proposition that might have appealed to progressives in the last mayor’s race: “Wouldn’t we have loved our month of Ed Lee debating John Avalos about the future of San Francisco?”

Elsbernd cited crowded field free-for-all races like the District 10 race of 2010, in which Malia Cohen came from behind to win using RCV, saying they muddy up the contests. “The benefit of the runoff is you get that true one on one,” Elsbernd said, calling for “real discussion, real debates, about what San Franciscans want.”

Yet Hill said the crowded fields of candidates in some recent races wasn’t caused by RCV, a system that promotes real democracy by giving voters more than one choice of candidates rather than being stuck with the lesser of two evils. And rather than showing the problems with RCV, Hill said Cohen’s election (an African-American woman elected to serve a largely African-American district) and that of Mayor Jean Quan in Oakland (who came from behind to beat Don Perata, who many perceived as a corrupt party boss) show how RCV can help elevate minority and outsider candidates.

All those arguments – and many, many more – will likely be made during what’s expected to be a long afternoon of public testimony.

Milk Plaza vote raises public-space issues

Zelda Bronstein
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Milk Plaza vote raises public-space issues

The supervisors will vote Jan. 31 on new rules for the use of Harvey Milk Plaza and Jane Warner Plaza, rules that could have an impact on the future use of small public parklets. Sup. Scott Wiener introduced the legislation, which has stirred up a lot of opposition — and in the end, the decision will probably come down to how Sup. David Chiu decides to vote. Activists involved in the battle say it’s likely the progressives will oppose the measure, and the supervisors who typically side with the more conservative bloc will support it, and Chiu (and maybe Sup. Malia Cohen) will be the swing votes.


There’s an online petition against the measure; you can sign it here.

Redistricting: A Guardian Forum

Zelda Bronstein
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Redistricting: A Guardian Forum

The new supervisorial districts could change the makeup of the board and have a lasting impact on local politics. There’s been a lot of discussion about individual districts — but not so much talk about how the new map will affect progressive politics citywide. We’re holding a Guardian forum Jan. 26 to look at that issue, discuss different scenarios and come up with some alternatives. Panelists include Calvin Welch (who helped draw the first district elections lines in 1976), Quintin Mecke (who was on the redistricting panel 10 years ago when the current lines were drawn), Norman Fong (who runs the Chinatown Community Development Center and Fernando Marti (a community architect and housing activist who has some proposals for new lines).


If you’re interested and want to join the discussion, the event starts at 6 p.m. at the Mission Campus of City College, 1125 Valencia. We’ll be done by 8 p.m., I promise.

Occupy and the State of the Union

Zelda Bronstein
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Occupy and the State of the Union

Have all of the Occupy actions made any difference? Gee — I wonder.


I wonder if a president who acted a year ago as if economic justice wasn’t even an issue in this country would have devoted a substantial part of his State of the Union speech to fairness in tax policy. I wonder if he would have said this:


Right now, we’re poised to spend nearly $1 trillion more on what was supposed to be a temporary tax break for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans. Right now, because of loopholes and shelters in the tax code, a quarter of all millionaires pay lower tax rates than millions of middle-class households. Right now, Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary.


Do we want to keep these tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans? Or do we want to keep our investments in everything else –- like education and medical research; a strong military and care for our veterans?


Or this:


Tax reform should follow the Buffett Rule. If you make more than $1 million a year, you should not pay less than 30 percent in taxes. And my Republican friend Tom Coburn is right: Washington should stop subsidizing millionaires. In fact, if you’re earning a million dollars a year, you shouldn’t get special tax subsidies or deductions. On the other hand, if you make under $250,000 a year, like 98 percent of American families, your taxes shouldn’t go up. You’re the ones struggling with rising costs and stagnant wages. You’re the ones who need relief.


Now, you can call this class warfare all you want. But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense.


or this:


No American company should be able to avoid paying its fair share of taxes by moving jobs and profits overseas. From now on, every multinational company should have to pay a basic minimum tax.


Now: Not saying any of that is going to happen right away, or even that Obama will put tax reform at the top of the agenda. And changing the tax code to charge people like Mitt Romney 30 percent is nowhere near enough; in the 1960s, those people paid 80 percent of their marginal dollars in federal taxes. The Repubs in Congress won’t let any of this happen anyway.


But all of the major newspapers (which a year ago didn’t even know how to spell economic injustice) made his pitch for greater fairness in the economy the lead of their reports and all of the headlines talked about it. And when pollster Stan Greenberg tracked the responses of Democrats, Republicans and independents to the speech, the vast majority were pleased by and agreed with the commments that I cited above. That’s not just 80 percent of the Dems but 70 percent of the GOP voters.


The other thing Obama said — in indirectly — is that government is important. Beyond the flag-waving salute to the troops and the talk about the Navy Seals (Yay! We killed a guy! No arrest, no trial, just summary execution!), Obama was setting the tone for a debate over the role of the public sector in America. He talked about building the Hoover Dam, the Golden Gate Bridge and the interstate highway system. He talked about the importance of public support for research. That’s a direct contradiction to what the Republicans are saying about making government much smaller and less significant in people’s lives. I wonder what happens if the Republican candidate and Obama get out of the platitudes are actually have that discussion this fall.


Of course, he also said the solution to most business problems was tax cuts and incentives, which is not only GOP dogma but silly, since tax cuts for business almost never have the intendent effect. Tax penalties won’t keep companies from moving offshore (although I still support the idea), and tax cuts won’t bring them back.


It’s notable that Obama didn’t mention corporate personhood, which is going to be a huge part of the Occupy agenda this year. And that’s something that could actually change business behavior. Corporate charters are granted by the government — and with a few changes in law, could be revoked by the government, too. Screw your workers, cheat on taxes and move jobs to low-wage non-union areas where children work 14 hours a day making your products? Guess we’ll have to revoke your corporate charter. No more protection for personal liability for the owners and shareholders. Too bad.


And while his populist stuff struck a chord, the energy and environmental policy suggestions were just horrible. Yeah, I’m for ending tax breaks for oil companies — but opening up 75 percent of the potential offshore areas to drilling? Encouraging more natural gas drilling? Not much in the way of serious talk about investing a fraction of that money in renewables?


Oh, and I love this: Obama’s going to force natural gas drillers to “disclose the chemicals they use.” That’s going to keep us safe, yesiree. Thank you, mister driller, for telling me how your poisoning my water. Not that I can do anything about it, of course; you can keep right on going. But now, thanks to our bold president, I know about it.


Occupy the natural gas wells. I’m ready to go.


 

Mirkarimi’s not going anywhere

Zelda Bronstein
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Mirkarimi’s not going anywhere

Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi may be guilty of domestic violence, and if he is — as I’ve said repeatedly — it’s a serious crime and he should be held accountable. It will be very hard for him to remain in office with a DV conviction, even if it’s just a misdemeanor.


But right now, the charges are just that — charges. In the eyes of the law, he’s innocent until proven guilty. So I don’t see how Mayor Ed Lee can suspend him.


Lee’s under a lot of pressure, and under the City Charter, he has the sole authority to suspend an office holder for “official misconduct,” which is defined as “wrongful behavior by a public officer in relation to the duties of his or her office.” If there’s a suspension, the Ethics Commission and the Board of Supervisors would both have to vote to remove Mirkarimi permanently.


But here’s the thing: Lee has no evidence of official misconduct — not unless the district attorney decides to turn over to the mayor all of the files in the criminal case, at which point Ethics and the supes would be holding mini trials of their own on evidence that hasn’t been adjudicated in court (and a court may rule some of it inadmissable).


That doesn’t seem likely (and it would be very odd for the D.A. to join the mayor in what would amount to a second prosecution).


And all of this would be going on at a time when the actual criminal trial is only four weeks away.


The courts have interpreted “official misconduct” fairly narrowly. If Mirkarimi is convicted, then the city attorney can get into the argument over whether domestic violence has any “relation to the duties” of the Sheriff’s Office, and since he’s a law-enforcement officer, that might not be too hard to argue. Certainly the charge of influencing a witness would be subject to that interpretation. So after a conviction, Lee would be in a position to think seriously about suspension — if Mirkarmi didn’t step down on his own.


But right now, there’s no conviction. In terms of the court system (that would have to get involved) Mirkarimi isn’t guilty of anything yet.


Mirkarimi could decide to take a leave of absence, although he doesn’t seem inclined to do that. But whatever the merits of the case, and whatever the political arguments about whether the sheriff can do his job in the middle of this media circus, I — admittedly as a nonlawyer — can’t see how Lee could possibly invoke the suspension provisions of the Charter.


Maybe I’m missing something. 

Big changes to the DCCC?

Zelda Bronstein
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Big changes to the DCCC?

Half the city probably doesn’t realize there is such a thing as the Democratic County Central Committee, and most of the other half doesn’t realize how powerful it is. The daily papers never cover the DCCC meetings and rarely write about the elections that choose the members of an organization that runs the local Democratic Party — and controls local party endorsements. But it’s a serious factor in local politics — the party slate in a Democratic town is one of the most influential endorsements around. And a lot of the city’s current elected leaders started off as members of the DCCC.


For the past few years, progressives have held a majority on the DCCC, but it’s always up in the air, particularly since every elected state and federal Democrat who lives in SF is automatically an ex-officio voting member. So Senator Dianne Feinstein, Rep. Nancy Pelosi both get to vote (actually, the never show up; they send proxies). Gavin Newsom had a vote until he moved to Marin. You get the picture.


And now, with reapportionment, the part has to change its rules. Under the current system, 12 members are elected from each of the city’s two Assembly districts — but under the new lines, Tom Ammiano’s Assembly district will expand beyond the eastern side of town and he’ll now represent 61 percent of the Democratic voters in the city. Fiona Ma’s district moves south into San Mateo, and she’ll only represent 39 percent of the Democrats.


So now the state has to reapportion the DCCC. Three LGBT members describe the process in a B.A.R. piece here. It seems to me that the easiest thing to do is to add five more members on the east side of town. Good for getting more San Franciscans involved in local politics. Good for the diversity of the DCCC. And good because the more directly elected members you have, the less the ex officios influence the committee.


Seems like a fair easy fix. 

Will Obama bring the populist fire in tonight’s speech?

Sasha Cuttler
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Will Obama bring the populist fire in tonight’s speech?

President Barack Obama has a choice for how he uses his State of the Union speech this evening. He could follow the advice of Blue Dog Democrats like Mark Penn, who wrote in The Hill today that Obama should avoid “rhetoric that could be interpreted as class warfare.” Or he can find his inner populist and give the speech that the 99 percent needs to hear by announcing that the rich and the Right have already declared that war, and now he intends to win it on behalf of the people.

I’m rooting for the latter, but fearful that Obama is no William Jennings Bryant – or either of the Presidents Roosevelt – and that he is just not up for seizing this moment and going to war with the powerful plutocrats who are ruining this country.

But there are signs that Obama is at least prepared to “double down on taxing the rich,” as the Christian Science Monitor put it today. Certainly, all signs indicate that he will at least raise the economic inequity issue again tonight, and it’s a positive sign that the invited audience will include Debbie Bosanek, the secretary to billionaire investor Warren Buffet that he famously complained shouldn’t be paying his same tax rate. Certainly, Obama intends to push for his “Buffet rule” that would tax investment returns as income rather than at lower capital gains rates.

But those sorts of reasonable arguments aren’t enough. Obama has been calling for higher taxes on the rich throughout his presidency, albeit never as forcefully as he did on the presidential campaign trail in 2008. And since then, he’s repeatedly betrayed that pledge in cutting deals with Republicans in Congress, exacerbating historically high concentrations of wealth and betraying his own stated principles.

The Occupy movement and most of the left – and even segments of the Tea Party right that complain about the economic elites – no longer trust Obama and the Democrats to fight for the interests of the commoner. We’ve become cynical about putting any hopes in a president poised to shatter campaign fundraising records this year.

Yet as Obama prepares to run for reelection against either a vulture capitalist or hypocritical moralist – both of whom will be openly shilling for the 1 percent – he should realize that it’s both good policy and good politics to capitalize on the opportunity that the Occupy movement has opened up, join the class war, and help us finally win it and seize the resources we need to deal with this country’s myriad problems.

Today’s Chronicle includes a front page story about Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s hopes that Democrats will pick up the 25 seats needed to retake the House of Representatives this year – along with analysts poo-pooing that possibility. The only hope they offered for Pelosi’s plan is a meltdown by the Republican presidential nominee.

But that sort of clear contrast between Democrats and Republicans won’t simply happen on its own, it is something that Obama and the Democrats will need to force by finally relying more on populist ire than using campaign contributions from the wealthy to tarnish their opponents. Simply winning the presidential election won’t help Obama break this country’s political gridlock, he needs to make this race about the undue power of the rich and the Right and win it on those terms.

Pelosi acknowledged that her best hopes for gaining a substantial number of Congressional seats are in California, but they don’t seem to realize that the real potential here is with changing the political dialogue and tapping the 58 percent of California voters who said in a November Field Poll that they agree with the economic critiques that sparked the Occupy movement (and even higher percentages have supported taxing millionaires). Even those who didn’t join the Occupy movement agree with its basic analysis that the few are exploiting the many.

There is a simmering populist discontent that will play out in unpredictable ways this year. And it’s possible that many of the left will never trust Obama until his deeds finally match his words. But there is no larger mainstream political podium in this country than the State of the Union speech, and if Obama misses this opportunity to declare his allegiance with the 99 percent – and his willingness to fight for us – then we may all just be in for the nastiest yet most meaningless presidential election in modern history.

Strong opposition to Wiener plaza plan

Zelda Bronstein
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Strong opposition to Wiener plaza plan

More than 20 prominent LGBT activists, including eight former presidents of the Harvey Milk Club, have signed a letter opposing legislation by Sup. Scott Wiener that would put some restrictions on the use of the two plazas near Castro and Market.

Harvey Milk Plaza and Jane Warner Plaza are both in an odd legal situation — they aren’t city parks, and they aren’t city streets or sidewalks, so they don’t fit under any existing codes. The park code, for example, bars camping; the sit-lie law applies to sidewalks, but not to these plazas.

So Wiener is seeking some clarity — but his proposal has drawn the ire of the Coalition on Homelessness and the ACLU — and now a group of people who trace their political roots back to Milk, and who say that restricting the use of a plaza with his name is a terrible idea: Here’s their letter:

We, the undersigned members of the Harvey Milk Club, write in opposition to the proposed new regulations for Harvey Milk and Jane Warner Plazas.

We are writing because Harvey Milk’s name is attached to one of the two plazas for which this legislation was written and is a historic space that for decades has been a site of free speech. In the 1970s, Harvey Milk fought against that era’s sit/lie law—a law that had been written to target the hippies of the Haight-Ashbury, but was, in Milk’s day, used as an excuse to attempt to drive gay men out of the Castro. Those of us who have been around long enough, or who are at all in touch with our community’s history, are familiar with the image of Harvey Milk and his megaphone at the plaza which was eventually given his name. To propose to prohibit sitting in that very plaza is not just ironic, it disrespects our community’s legacy.

The interests of the LGBT community have always been united with the interests of public space. As a community that is forced—far too often and for far too long—to spend much of our collective lives “in the closet,” the ability to be free in public spaces has been tremendously liberating. Harvey Milk knew that liberation was only possible if we escaped the shadows of anonymity and invisibility. When we restrict these spaces—even when those restrictions are meant, initially, to be applied to another group of people—we damage ourselves.

We must also recognize that this law does not apply, in any very meaningful way, to another group of people: It applies to us. A great many—perhaps the majority—of homeless people who spend time in the Castro are LGBT San Franciscans, who came from somewhere else, but who came here seeking community and safety. This is most especially notable for the youth of LYRIC. Cuts to the City budget have reduced LYRIC’s drop-in hours to only a few every week. During the other hours, homeless LGBT youth are faced with the choice of either heading to drop-in services in the Mission or Tenderloin—services that are already so overburdened that they must turn clients away, and which likely feel to most youth to be outside of their own communities—or using open spaces in the Castro. With Collingwood Park fenced in, Harvey Milk and Jane Warner Plazas are the last open community spaces in the neighborhood. They are the last places in our community where our community’s most marginalized youth can be.

We have read and share the grave concerns expressed by the ACLU.  Much of the law infringes on important constitutional freedoms, and as they noted, cannot be cured.  We respectfully ask the Board of Supervisors to vote no.

Sincerely,

Tom Ammiano, Assembly member
Harry Britt, Co-Founder, Harvey Milk Club,  Former Supervisor who replaced Harvey Milk on the Board of Supervisors
Cleve Jones, Co-Founder, Harvey Milk Club, Human Rights and AIDS activist, Co-founder of SF AIDS Foundation and AIDS Memorial Quilt
The Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club
Stephany Joy Ashley, President, Harvey Milk Club
Gabriel Haaland, Former President, Harvey Milk Club, Former Commissioner
Laura Thomas, Harvey Milk Club member, AIDS activist
Anna Glendon Conda Hyde, Harvey Milk Club member, Commissioner
Esperanza Macias, Former Vice-President, Harvey Milk Club
Eileen Hansen, Harvey Milk Club member, Former Commissioner
Rafael Mandelman, Former President, Harvey Milk Club, Former Commissioner
Gwenn Craig, Former President, Harvey Milk Club, Former Commissioner
David Waggoner, Former President, Harvey Milk Club
Nate Albee, Former President, Harvey Milk Club
Tamara Ching, Harvey Milk Club member
Lisa Feldstein, Harvey Milk Club member, Former Commissioner
Suzanne Rueker, Harvey Milk Club officer
Carol Stuart, Vice-President, Harvey Milk Club
Kim-Shree Maufus, Vice President, Harvey Milk Club, Commissioner
Matt Dorsey, Harvey Milk Club member, SFDCCC
Brian Bassinger, Former President, Harvey Milk Club
Debra Walker, Former President, Harvey Milk Club, Former Commissioner

Protesters “occupy” vacant building

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After a long day of protest that began at 6 a.m., 1200 joined a march affiliatiated with Occupy SF  last night. The march aimed to “liberate the commons”; organizers said they succeeded when they were able to enter a vacant building, the former Cathedral Hill Hotel at 1101 Van Ness.

The march left from Justin Herman Plaza just after 5 p.m. and arrived at the former hotel around 7 p.m. after rallying at several sites along the way.

There, protesters were greeted by a police line and barricades protecting the buildings.

SFPD Officer Carlos Manfredi reports that protesters tried to remove barricades with the hooks of their umbrellas, and then threw “rocks, bottle and bricks” at police. Police responded by pepper spraying a dozen protesters.

Many eyewitness reports confirm manipulation of barricades, but deny that anything was thrown at police, instead attributing the pepper spray usage to anti-police slogans chanted by the crowd.

After the confrontation, the march turned down Van Ness. Some protesters broke windows at a Bentley dealership at 999 Van Ness.

The march soon turned back around, and protesters regrouped near the building’s back entrance on Franklin between Geary and Post.

There, the crowd looked up to see figures on the roof unfurl a banner reading “Liberate the Commons.” The back door was then opened from the inside by activists, largely from Homes Not Jails, who had broken into the building.

Soon after, demonstrators began streaming into the building.

Police arrived around 8 p.m. and redirected traffic, blocking Geary between Van Ness and Franklin, while a mass of several hundred protesters continued to block Franklin street between Post and Geary.

At 8:30, Manfredi said that police had no plans to rush into the “occupied” building.

“RIght now officer safety is our number one priority so we’re not going to go in there and rush into this event. Obviously Van Ness and Geary is a very busy street…We’re monitoring the situation, we’re talking with the owner, and we’re going to come up with a game plan…We’re going to see if we can open up some line of communication and speak to them, and see if we can come to some form of resolution,” Said Manfredi.

Manfredi also discussed the difficulties police find in communicating with Occupy SF protesters, noting that “a lot of times with these protesters, there’s not one single person responsible for leading the pack. So it’s very difficult, when you talk to one person they may not agree with the other ten. So that’s where the problem comes in.”

This “leaderless” quality, as well as privileging immediate human needs like shelter and food over some aspects of capitalism such as property rights, has been a running theme in the Occupy movement. Homeless advocacy was a large part of the Occupy SF focus in past months, as the encampment at Justin Herman Plaza created a community of homeless and housed activists.

Homes Not Jails, an organization that has been working with Occupy SF, was crucial in planning the “liberate the commons” protest. The group insists that the 30,000 vacant housing units in San Francisco should be used to shelter the city’s homeless, which they estimate at 10,000. San Francisco’s Human Services Agency reports the number of homeless at 6,455.

The cold rain pouring down throughout the night’s events increased the urgency many felt to find shelter for homeless colleagues. Said one demonstrator, “if we can prevent just one homeless person from dying of exposure in the rain tonight, the building takeover was worth it.”

The former Cathedral Hill Hotel, which has been vacant since it closed in 2009, is now owned by Sutter Health and California Pacific Medical Center, with plans to open a hospital at the site in 2015.

The project has been a target of several protests campaigns, including opposition from SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West, UNITE HERE Local 2, and the California Nurses Association (CNA). They also say the hospital will not cater to patients with medicare and medicaid.

At a press conferenece Jan. 18, CNA member Pilar Schiavo announced a protest at the site for the afternoon of Jan. 20.

Said Schiavo, “A huge hospital is being planned which is being likened by Sutter to a five-star hotel. At the same time, Sutter is gutting St. Lukes Hospital, which is essential to providing health care for residents in the Mission, the Excelsior and Bayview-Hunter’s Point. We know that the five-star hospital’s not aimed at serving the 99 percent, and we must hold Sutter accountable to all communities, not just those fortunate enough to have private insurance.”

Police cleared the street of protesters and entered the building around 9:30. Those who wished to were allowed to leave; several did, while about 15 remained. Protesters discussed plans to continue the building occupation through the night.

But most protesters providing support from the outsid had left by midnight, and those inside decided to leave voluntarily, according to organizer Craig Rouskey.

This post has been updated.

Boxer, Feinstein both supported SOPA/PIPA

Zelda Bronstein
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Boxer, Feinstein both supported SOPA/PIPA

The grassroots and corporate tech rebellion against two Internet censorship bills was, by all accounts, a stunning success and a demonstration of the clout of online politics and web organizing — and the emergence of Big Tech as a potential counterbalance to Big Entertainment. But it’s worth noting as the dust settles that two of the biggest supporters of SOPA and PIPA were the senators from California, Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein.


Raw Story points out that Boxer was a major recipeint of Hollywood money:


Far and away, the top beneficiary in the Senate from interest groups that support PIPA is Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), who’s taken in just short of a million dollars from those groups, according to data from OpenSecrets.org. She’s also the most recent Senator to co-sponsor PIPA, adding her name to the list on Dec. 12.


Most of the Bay Area delegation opposed the bill. S.F.’s Nancy Pelosi was against it early on, as was Barbara Lee of Oakland. Jackie Speier of San Mateo and the South Bay’s Pete Stark were also both opposed. If Lynn Woolsey, the retiring rep. from Marin, has taken a position, it’s not clear what it is; she’s listed by most of the anti-censorship groups as undecided.


But for the two senators, both from Northern California, the SoCal position carried the day.

More on the Mirkarimi case

Zelda Bronstein
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More on the Mirkarimi case

I wrote up the Jan. 19 hearing on the domestic violence charges against Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi, but a few more points are worth thinking about as the embattled sheriff prepares for another court hearing Jan. 23.


For one, the stay-away order that Judge Susan Breall issued doesn’t allow Mirkarimi to have any contact with his two-year-old son for the next 45 days. That seems not only harsh but bad for the kid, who doesn’t understand why he can’t see his daddy and is, not surpisingly, confused and upset. There are no winners in this case (except the folks who would just as soon see Mirkarimi gone and replaced with a more traditional law-enforcement sheriff), but the biggest loser, the one I feel worst about, is the kid. If the judge was really worried about Mirkarimi being a danger to his son (which, frankly, seems like a huge stretch), then she could have authorized supervised visitation. That’s not at all unusual in these kinds of cases, and would at least give the child a chance to have contact and a relationship with his father during the period when all of this is being sorted out in adult court.


There’s not a lot of talk about the inherent conflicts of interest in this case, issues that come about from a sheriff who was once an investigator in the District Attorney’s Office facing criminal charges filed by that same office, which is now run by a former police chief who the sheriff clashed with repeatedly when he was a supervisor. I don’t know the law on this or how it could possibly play out, but there’s an interesting article about it all here.


It’s odd that the conflict piece ran in a publication that makes its living bashing local progressives, but everything about the media in this case is odd (except that fact that it’s become an international zoo). The one writer who has talked seriously about Mirkarimi’s right to be treated as innocent until proven guilty — and the only major voice in the media urging him not to step down — is the Chron’s conservative columnist Debra Saunders. 


Another interesting media tidbit: I don’t know Mirkarimi will enough to have any insight into his behavior in romantic relationships, but one person who really does — his longtime former girlfriend, journalist Evelyn Nieves — has been quoted only once in the bottom of a New York Times/Bay Citizen story, to wit:


“I was shocked when I read about it,” Evelyn Nieves, a journalist and a past partner of Mr. Mirkarimi’s, said in an e-mail. “Ross and I were together for the better part of a decade — eight years or so — and never once did he even come close to being physical during an argument.”


“It’s just not his way,” Ms. Nieves added. “He was way more prone to proposing that disagreements be talked out. He could talk and talk.”


Again: Doesn’t mean he’s not guilty. Doesn’t mean he hasn’t changed. Just interesting that only one publication has even tried to contact and get a quote from Nieves.


I’m not a lawyer, of course, but it seems to me that the defining moment in this case will not be the trial but the pre-trial hearing in which Mirkarimi’s lawyer tries to get a judge to rule that the videotape of Eliana Lopez talking about her injury and her fear of her husband can’t be used in court. Bob Egelko has an excellent piece here; he points out that if the video isn’t admissible as evidence, the case will collapse. If a judge rules (and the legal arguments seem to support it) that the prosecution can’t introduce the video or show it to the jury, then I suspect the district attorney will have to drop the charges; if Lopez refuses to testify against her husband, there’s nothing else to go on.


But this is a domestic violence case, and judges (no surprise) are political, and how many members of the local bench really want to be the one who ended such a high-profile case (and in effect, let the suspect walk) on what the media will call “a technicality?”


 


 


 


 


 

The GOP primary: Enjoy the show

Zelda Bronstein
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The GOP primary: Enjoy the show

The 49ers game isn’t until Sunday, but in the meantime, I hope everyone’s enjoying the spectacle that is the Republican primary in South Carolina. First off, we have John King asking His Newtness about allegations that he wanted an “open marriage” and setting off a classic Newtron bomb. Then we have all the discussion on CNN about Mitt Romney’s (allegedly) huge penis. And of course, the SuperPac ads accusing Romney of being a serial killer (“Mitt the Ripper.”) Oh, and by the way: Did anybody actually win the Iowa Caucuses? Does anybody actually care?


Party on, Repubs. You’re doing better every day.

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