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HANC gets a new eviction notice

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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The City and County of San Francisco voluntarily dismissed an eviction notice it had issued to the Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council Recycling Center, but then the Recreation & Parks Department promptly sent a new one with a deadline of June 30.

The HANC recycling center and native plant nursery has continued operating in Golden Gate Park’s Kezar Triangle despite an effort initiated last year under former Mayor Gavin Newsom to evict the facility. The recycling center, which also offers compost for urban gardeners and a place to drop off used veggie oil, has been in Golden Gate Park for decades and has formed partnerships with community gardening projects throughout the city.

Rec & Park started making plans to replace it with a community garden last year amid concerns about “quality of life” issues. Some neighbors were bothered by recyclers filling up shopping carts with containers plucked from their sidewalk recycling bins, to trade in for small amounts of cash. Members of HANC, meanwhile, saw the eviction as political payback from Newsom, who encountered stiff opposition from the progressive neighborhood group when he led the charge to place San Francisco’s sit / lie ordinance on the ballot. 

The request for dismissal, filed May 26 in San Francisco Superior Court and signed by Attorney David Ammons in the office of City Attorney Dennis Herrera, doesn’t provide a clear reason for the move. But Robert De Vries, HANC’s attorney, said the tactic was likely meant to avert legal entanglement by dissolving the first, and more legally problematic, attempt at eviction and replacing it with a new one that may be harder to challenge in court. In a letter to Rec & Park commissioners dated Dec. 2, 2010, De Vries wrote that the first eviction notice was illegal under the structure of the lease that HANC had signed with the city, and asserted that HANC could legally possess the property until June 30, 2011.

Because the dismissal of the first eviction was done “without prejudice,” there was nothing preventing Rec & Park from issuing a new eviction notice, which it did the same day. Rec & Park did not respond to an email seeking comment.

“Your attorney has argued in court that the notice was not effective to terminate the lease,” notes a May 26 letter from Rec & Park General Manager Phil Ginsburg. “While we continue to believe that we gave you more than adequate notice of the Lease termination and to disagree with the assertion that the Lease has continued on a year-to-year basis, to avoid that dispute, we are superseding the earlier notice with this one.”

HANC’s Jim Rhoads told the Guardian that he wasn’t very surprised by Rec & Park’s latest move. “We knew this would happen,” he said. “We’re going to meet with our lawyers, and decide on the legal front what we do next.”

De Vries said he could not discuss all the possible legal angles that HANC could use to try and fight the eviction, but he hinted that the eviction could be considered retaliatory. “This … termination was initiated under Newsom as payback for my client [for opposing] sit / lie,” he said.

Sacramento deadline: Some key bills

Zelda Bronstein
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0
Sacramento deadline: Some key bills

A bunch of key bills come up in the state Legislature this week — and some of them are going to be very close. Assemblymember Tom Ammiano is pushing hard to get AB 1017, which would eliminate mandatory felony charges for pot cultivation, throught the Assembly floor (in fact, when I called his press secretary, Quintin Mecke, today (June 1) at about 11 a.m., Ammiano was on the floor making his 1017 pitch.) Ammiano also has a key tenant bill, AB 265, which would allow tenants who are a few days late with the rent to avoid eviction.


Dean Preston, executive director of Tenants Together, has a great rundown on the major tenant bills here. Sen. Mark Leno’s bill, SB 184, which is critical to protecting the rights of cities to demand affordable housing as part of a development deal, is going to be very close. So is Assemblymember Mike Feuer’s AB 934 — a nobrainer that simply clarifies tenant protections that have been threatened by recent court cases. (Preston told me that San Francisco Assemblymember Fiona Ma is not among the bill’s supporters at this point; you can call her office at  557-2312 and let her know you want her to vote for it.)


Sen. Leland Yee has gotten two bills through, one that would allow pharmacies to sell sterile syringes without a prescription and one that mandates more sunshine in the courts. His bill forcing the University of California to open up its foundation records will almost certainly clear the Senate now that UC had dropped its opposition. Tougher going, I expect, for SB 9, which would end life without parole sentences for juveniles.


Leno’s bill legalizing infusion drinks at bars cleared the Senate. He’s also pushing a Community Choice Aggregation bill, SB 790, and  the long-awaited, much-fought-over cell phone, SB 932, which would require modest disclosure of cell-phone radiation.


The difference between this session and the last one is that a lot of these bills might actually get the governor’s signature.

SFBG Radio: The drug war and kids

Zelda Bronstein
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10
SFBG Radio: The drug war and kids

It’s fine to belive that drugs ought to be legal — but how do you talk to your kids about it? Johnny and Tim have a lively discussion after the break.

KidsNDrugs by endorsements2010

FBI spying will be an issue for new Police Commissioner

Mary Magee
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1

When Police Chief Greg Suhr got sworn in at City Hall a month ago, reporters each got to ask one question during a hastily convened media roundtable inside Mayor Ed Lee’s office. And since the Guardian’s story about the FBI’s secret agreement with the San Francisco Police Department had just hit the streets, I asked the new Chief, if he would welcome clarification around the duties of SFPD officers assigned to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Taskforce.

Chief Suhr said he believed an examination of the wording of the FBI’s most recent memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the department was already under way. “I believe that the MOU is being revisited,” Suhr said. “I have not been a part of that, but again I think we have a real good policy with regard to our intelligence gathering and that does supercede any ask of any other agency. The officers are bound by policies and procedures. And that policy was well thought out with tremendous community and group input years and years ago, from situations that have not since repeated themselves. I think a lot of people back then couldn’t believe they happened in the first place, but I think measures were well thought out and put in place to make sure we don’t have a problem again.”

Fast forward three weeks, and Suhr found himself in the hot seat at a May 18 joint meeting of the Human Rights Commission and the Police Commission, where commissioners got an update about the Police Department’s response to community concerns about surveillance, racial and religious profiling of Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, and South Asian Communities and the potential reactivation of SFPD Intelligence Gathering.

After Suhr introduced his new Command Staff—and stressed their great diversity–Police Commission President Thomas Mazzucco, who was Suhr’s football coach in high school, tried to assure folks that the Police Commission, the Human Rights Commission, the FBI, the SFPD, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Asian Law Caucus had already addressed the community’s intelligence-gathering concerns, in part through a bureau order that Chief Suhr then introduced during the hearing, in which Suhr clarified that SFPD policies trump FBI guidelines every time.

And Mazzucco,  a former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California and a former Assistant District Attorney for San Francisco, before Mayor Gavin Newsom appointed him to the Commission in 2008, noted that the community’s concerns were based on allegations. not factual findings.

But his comments got folks wondering whether Mazzucco’s prior involvement with the feds left him with a blind spot that is preventing the Police Commission from dealing with the issue in a timely and effective manner, particularly since Commissioner Jim Hammer’s term has expired, and the rest of the Commission is waiting for the Board’s Rules Committee to decide between nominating David Waggoner, L. Julius Turman, Phillip Hogan or Vanessa Jackson as the next new Police Commissioner.

For, as members of the public observed during the meeting, if the Police Commission President himself expresses no outrage at finding that the Commission’s policies have been undercut for the past four years by secret agreements between SFPD and the FBI, how can San Francisco claim to have a credible system of civilian oversight?

Instead, they felt that Mazzucco seemed more concerned about defending federal practices and officials, who were unwilling to show up at the May 18 hearing, than worrying about the role and authority of the civilian oversight body he now represents. And attorneys with the ACLU and the Asian Law Caucus noted that though Suhr characterized his new order as being based on the Portland resolution and a prior proposal from community advocates, they believe Suhr’s approach can only work with the written consent of the FBI, (which SFPD doesn’t have) if the FBI’s 2007 contract is left in place.

“That’s why there is a need for a transition to a non-MOU, Portland-style resolution,” ACLU’s John Crew told the Guardian, noting that ACLU’s willingness to work collaboratively with the commissioners and the new Chief should not be confused with a willingness on ACLU’s part to roll over and accept an approach that is based on wishful thinking rather than the realities of the MOU that’s still in place.

During the May 18 joint hearing, Chief Suhr acknowledged “the validity of the perceptions raised by the community,” even as he insisted that SFPD has “very strict policies” in place to ensure appropriate oversight for investigation- involving activities.

Suhr summarized the history of those policies, including ACLU’s John Crew’s involvement in creating Department General Order (DGO) 8.10, which establishes that there must be reasonable suspicion before SFPD intelligence gathering can occur.

Suhr noted that SFPD joined FBI’s Joint Terrorism Taskforce (JTTF) after the September 11, 2001 attacks, and SFPD officers assigned to the JTTF subsequently came under control of the Department of Homeland Security unit, but starting now, they are back under SFPD’s special investigations.

“I gave the order today that JTTF will be moved back under SFPD’s special investigation unit,” Suhr said. “They will have the security clearance necessary to oversee the activities. The members are required to comply with all department policies, even if they can conflict with FBI policies. Simply said, San Francisco policies, procedures, laws, and statute trump any federal policy or procedure. Our officers are bound by those.”

Suhr said that to ensure everyone is clear about the chain of command, he’d drafted his May 18 bureau order. “It essentially turns back the clock and emphasizes that officers are responsible for our policies and procedures first, and our officers are bound to identify themselves as San Francisco police officers,” Suhr said, further noting that he’d be happy to further amend his new order as needed.

And Mazzucco noted that SFPD has absolutely no jurisdiction whatsoever over the Transportation Security Administration’s activities at the airport.

But while Human Rights Commission Chair Michael Sweet said Suhr’s new bureau order,  “goes a long way toward helping to alleviate some of the concerns,” he and many commissioners noted that this was their first chance to read the order. And Sweet said he saw the May 18 joint hearing “as by no means the end of the discussion.”

HRC director Theresa Sparks, who was on the Police Commission when the FBI drafted its 2007 JTTF MOU, noted that the issue is not whether we should opt out, but what we can do to ensure that officers involved in activities have “strong civilian oversight of their activities and report activities through the established civilian oversight mechanisms and procedures defined in DGO 8.10.”

” Our approach to achieve this objective is to publish internal directives ensuring our officers only participate in activities that meet our local standards of reasonable suspicion,” Sparks stated, claiming that Suhr’s order will “ give the city control over misconduct charges and allegations of misconduct charges.”

Sparks noted that the May 18 hearing was a status report about “alleged violations by the FBI and SFPD, as well as airport police,” and that the HRC “did no independent investigation” to verify these allegations.

Sparks added that HRC and the Immigrant Rights Commission has a tentative agreement to move forward with townhall meetings to address community concerns, and will encourage the Board to appoint a special prosecutor to determine if the prosecution of terrorism cases is valid and fair, and discuss the need for an Ombudsman at the airport. And she talked about the need for SFPD to establish legal safeguards, mechanisms for greater transparency and oversight, and conduct more detailed yearly audits.

“Tonight was a real dialogue about the issues,” Sparks said, further noting that civilian oversight of local JTTFs is also a popular discussion in Oakland and in Portland, Oregon, which has decided to rejoin its local JTTF after opting out in March 2005. But she didn’t mention that Portland had entered into a resolution with the FBI, instead of signing a new MOU with the feds.

That explanation was left to Veena Dubal of the Asian Law Caucus and ACLU’s Crew– in between explaining why they believe Suhr’s Bureau Order isn’t enough. “The good news is that we all collectively agree that SFPD policies should apply to SFPD officers assigned to the JTTF,” Dubal said. “The bad news is that the recently released MOU, which was secret for four years, doesn’t reflect our collective desires.”

Dubal stated that the FBI won’t amend its 2007 MOU with the SFPD.
“And that is why the Chief issued the bureau order,” Dubal stated, claiming that the FBI Special Agent in Charge of JTTF involvement recently told ALC and the ACLU that the FBI will continue to block key parts of local policy central to accountability and oversight.

“But there’s a solution and it doesn’t necessitate a divorce from the joint terrorism task force,” Dubal continued, noting that there are now two ways for local law enforcement officers to participate in JTTFs: an MOU, in which SFPD resources are put into the hands of FBI with relatively no local control, as in the SFPD’s 2007 agreement with the FBI. Or via a resolution which the federal government just approved in Portland, which allows participation in the JTTF, but provides much better protection for civil rights and gives the police department and the police commission more control of the relationship.

Dubal noted that in the decade since 9/11, the FBI has expanded its intelligence powers, and its agents are now allowed to conduct intelligence without a factual connection to criminal activity.

“Given these massive shifts in FBI activity, the question is, what should the relationship between the SFPD and the FBI look like?” Dubal said.

“Unlike the FBI, the SFPD is not a national security organization, “ Dubal continued, noting that when SFPD signed up to work with the JTTF under an MOU that preserved local control and policies, “it wasn’t assuming that some of its officers, paid for by San Francisco taxpayers, could be transformed into national security agents.”

”The SFPD signed on without telling anyone, not even the police commission,” Dubal said, noting that SFPD cannot afford to participate in these practices. “We need community trust to keep all of our communities safe.”

ACLU’s Crew noted that the FBI came to the SFPD in 2007 with a new MOU. “And perhaps inadvertently, there was no review by the City Attorney, and no notice to the police commission,” Crew said. “And it’s a drastically different MOU, unfortunately.”

“Now, we didn’t know about that MOU because it was kept secret at the insistence of the FBI for four years,” Crew continued, further noting that when ACLU and ALC met with the SFPD in 2010, they were suddenly told that the police department couldn’t talk about these issues without FBI permission.

“That set off a warning sign,” Crew observed, noting that in early April, when the ACLU and ALC finally got the MOU released, their worst suspicions were confirmed.

“There was no public discussion of transforming the SFPD into a national intelligence gathering association,” Dubal said. “The problem is that the FBI changed the deal, and the SFPD signed it, without telling anyone.”

Dubal noted stark differences between the FBI’s 2002 MOU and the one the SFPD signed in 2007, along with stark changes to FBI guidelines that occurred in 2008, in the dying days of the Bush administration, and that now allow a new assessment category, that does not require reasonable suspicion and has been criticized by civil liberties groups.

And according to Crew, the FBI’s new MOU “puts at risk the very concept of civilian control.” As Crew noted, between the mid 1990s, when the SFPD developed DGO 8.10, which governs its officers’ intelligence-gathering policies and procedures, and 2007, when the FBI prepared a new JTTF MOU, there’d been little controversy over intelligence-gathering in San Francisco.

 “And then, perhaps inadvertently, the SFPD signed that MOU and it was drastically different and kept secret at the insistence of the FBI for four years,” Crew observed.

And in 2010, the SFPD suddenly said it couldn’t talk about the issue without the permission of the FBI, Crew added, noting that “Unnecessary secrecy breeds suspicion.”

“We don’t think the Bureau Order is sufficient,” Crew concluded. “This is an issue that has to be dealt with at the Police Commission level.”

Crew noted that the Portland City Council chose not to enter into an MOU, “specifically because it restricts the ability to provide local control and local oversight. “

“So, we are not saying opt out, but we are saying there needs to be a transition to a resolution that maintains local control over the assignment of officers and provides all these elements of civilian oversight,” Crew continued.

He claimed that the federal government says a resolution is possible, as long as you’re not doing it under an MOU.
“So the question is, if that level of protection is available now to the people in Oregon, why would San Francisco not take the same deal?” Crew said. “All you have to do is give 60 days’ notice to the FBI that are you going to start this transition to a resolution. That notice period allows the FBI to have any comments or express any concerns they want, I think it’s very regrettable that they chose not to participate tonight and unfortunately I think it says something in terms of how seriously they take these concerns.”

Crew concluded that such a transition would be a win-win situation.

”If we went to a resolution that merely asserted local policy, then they could keep doing exactly what they’re doing now,” Crew said. “On the other hand, if it turns out that there’s activities SFPD is involved in that they shouldn’t be involved in, don’t we want those stopped?

“The one comment I will make of the bureau of general order is that I’m thankful to hear it’s a work in progress,” Crew added, noting that ACLU and ALC “don’t think a bureau order is sufficient. That’s because it can be changed at any time without the notice of the police commission, without a public hearing.”

But Mazzucco disagrees with ACLU and ALC’s claims that FBI intelligence-gathering guidelines have been relaxed since 2008.
 “There are no random assessments, and there has to be a predicate of a criminal violation,” Mazzucco told commissioners, noting that ” with honorable people like Bob Mueller” (Mazzucco’s former boss) “running the FBI, there should be a level of confidence that there will not be any violations.

And in a follow-up call, Mazzucco told the Guardian that he thought Suhr’s bureau order clarifies that “local officers follow SFPD rules.”

Mazzucco also suggested that Police Commission oversight, “is more over policy and procedures and less about operations,” by way of explaining how the SFPD’s 2007 MOU  with the FBI never came before the Commission.
“But I suggested that we see the next MOU in this area,” Mazzucco added.

And he proposed “a simple solution” moving forward, namely transparency and educating the public,” about the JTTF.

“SFPD is probably the most diverse police department in the country,” Mazzucco said. “And there is civilian oversight. We won’t let anything untoward happen.”

And he praised the new US Attorney for Northern California Melinda Haag, and FBI Special Agent Stephanie Douglas for their participation in recent meetings with city officials about the community’s intelligence-gathering concerns.
“The good news is that nothing controversial is going on here,” he said, noting that out of the broad array of community advocates who showed up at the May 18 joint hearing, there were maybe five citizens who spoke about encounters with the FBI, and only one from the Bay Area. ”My goal is to make everyone feel comfortable,” he said.
 
But HRC Chair Sweet acknowledged at the May 18 joint hearing that it was “very difficult” to know from a first reading of Suhr’s Bureau Order if it fully addressed the community’s intelligence-gathering concerns. “I think a great deal of discussion really needs to take place on that particular issue,” he said.

And HRC Vice Chair Douglas Chan dug into the details, starting with the apparently now classified question of how many SFPD officers are currently assigned as deputized FBI officers.
”We don’t generally discuss the specific numbers, but I will tell that you we’ve never had less than two officers assigned to the JTTF,” Suhr replied.

And he told Chan more work can be done on the Bureau Order. 
“The intent of the order was to align it with DGO 8.10 and to close any gap that was in the 2007 MOU,” Suhr said.

Chan asked if SFPD has in mind “ a framework or an approach” if a case arises, wherein an officer, in order to defend himself against an allegation of misconduct, or a citizen seeking to discover facts and other evidence relating to an incident, bumps up against this need to know and the fact that apparently JTTF activities are, “under a federal classified information.”

“I think that would probably need to be flushed out in subsequent drafts of the bureau order,” Suhr replied. “I think we could turn the clock back to where the officers are ultimately accountable to the police department, the commission and the citizens of San Francisco.  I think that the most recent MOU, as has been discussed, there was somehow a mishap where it was not reviewed.”

 And while Police Commissioner Petra DeJesus said Suhr’s Bureau Order was, “a step in the right direction,” she added that she felt it needs to be amended to clarify how the Police Commission would truly have oversight of SFPD officers’ JTTF activities.
‘Even though a commissioner is going to look at what’s been done monthly, that commissioner doesn’t have the clearance, and we’d only see a sanitized version of the events,” she observed. “And we need to look at the auditing report part of it.”
 
 And Police Commissioner R. James Slaughter said he thought everyone was “frustrated that the FBI is not here to answer some of these questions.” I think that would help us.”

And now, with four candidates vying to replace Jim Marshall as the seventh Police Commissioner, it’s not clear what the Police Commission will do beyond Suhr’s Bureau Order. But clearly that question now becomes part of the commission selection process.

And so here is the basic direction of Suhr’s new Bureau Order:

 
Under Suhr’s new Bureau Order (not to be confused with an FBI order) SFPD officers assigned to the FBI’s terrorism task force must abide by local policies protecting civil rights rather than looser federal rules.

 “It is the responsibility of the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) to prevent, investigate and respond to terrorism in the United States.” Suhr’s May 18 order states. “The FBI has established local Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTF) to share resources and coordinate among federal, state, tribal and local governments. It is the policy of the [San Francisco Police] Department to help prevent and investigate acts of terrorism, protect civil rights and civil libertes under United States and California law, and promote San Francisco as an open and inclusive community by participating in the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force.”

“The Chief may assign SFPD offices to work on JTTF investigations that comply with the requirements stated above regardless of whether or not the investigation is based in the City & County of San Francisco,” Suhr’s order, which was issued by Deputy Chief Kevin Cashman, continued.

 “SFPD offices shall work with the JTTF only on investigations of suspected terrorism that have a criminal nexus,” Suhr’s Bureau Order concludes. “In situations where the statutory law of California is more restrictive of law enforcement than comparable federal law, the investigative methods employed by SFPD officers working on JTTF investigations shall conform to the requirements of such California statutes. While cross-designated and deputized as federal officers for the purposes of their JTTF assignments, when not operating in a covert or undercover capacity, SFPD officers shall always identify themselves to members of the public as SFPD officers.”

Or as Suhr told commissioners May 18, “Our officers will follow our department orders.”
.

 

Muni strike averted as a tenative contract deal is reached

Sasha Cuttler
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2
Muni strike averted as a tenative contract deal is reached

After months of contentious negotiations and a vote by Muni workers to authorize a strike if necessary, San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency and the Transport Workers of America Local 250A have reached a tentative contract deal. But union members still need to review and ratify the deal, which is far from certain for a union whose members have been some of the most militant city workers.

“These contract talks were intense but both sides acted professionally. Ultimately, we arrived at a contract compromise that will produce significant cost savings and will change how Muni is managed over the long term,” MTA negotiator Debra Johnson said in a public statement distributed by the agency about an hour ago.

Local 250A Secretary-Treasurer Walter Scott cautioned that members still haven’t reviewed the deal, which they will vote on in 10-12 days. But he told the Guardian, “I’m glad that we came to a tentative agreement and we don’t have to go to arbitration.”

Among the terms proposed for this three-year contract are a wage freeze, a redefinition of overtime and other structural changes, provisions for hiring part-time workers, and other changes that MTA officials say will save the agency at least $21.3 million over the contract term. This was the first contract negotiation since voters approved Prop. G in November, ending the union’s guarantees of some of the nation’s highest driver salaries, thus giving the city more leverage in the collective bargaining process.

But Muni workers have been frustrated with the pace of negotiations and what they felt was a demonization of Muni workers by officials and media outlets in the city, leading union members to authorize a strike despite the prohibition on such work stoppages in their contract and in the city charter. Union officials had argued that a strike might have been legally permissible after the current contract expires on July 1, but the City Attorney’s Office disagreed.

At a time when public employee pension reform and the city budget are some of the biggest topics at City Hall, most political observers say a shutdown of the Muni system would have been a nightmare for both commuters and the union. Now, we’re all left to wait and see whether members accept the proposed deal or whether they want to keep fighting.

UPDATE (3:17 pm): Local 250A has issued a public statement announcing the deal and expressing irritation with the MTA and its public relations consultant for announcing the terms of the deal. Union President Rafael Cabrera said, “Part of our agreement with SFMTA was not to discuss the terms and conditions with the public until our members have had a chance to review the TA. It’s very disappointing that SFMTA’s outside media consultant Charles Goodyear has already violated the terms of our agreement with a detailed and inaccurate press release earlier today.” The union also said a vote on the deal will take place on June 8.

The funny side of sit/lie

Zelda Bronstein
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64
The funny side of sit/lie

Nato Green, a local comedian, has a funny rant on sit-lie. His basic point: Nearly 100 percent of all crime is caused by people who are not lying down. In fact, getting people to lie down is a good way to prevent crime. And if you don’t want to look at freaky people on the streets, there’s a train to Walnut Creek every 20 minutes. Check out the video after the jump.

SFBG Radio: Is college worthless?

Zelda Bronstein
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8
SFBG Radio: Is college worthless?

Is college worthless? Too expensive? One of the founders of PayPal thinks so, and he’s paying kids to drop out. Johnny thinks — well, maybe. Tim thinks that’s completely ridiculous. Plus: a rant on American Idol. Check it out after the jump.

CollegeWorthlessSoIsAI by endorsements2010

James Durbin, California Idol

Zelda Bronstein
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76
James Durbin, California Idol

Okay, here’s a really important political issue for the long weekend.


Now that American Idol is over, and the wrong people made it to the final, and our own James Durbin, the Santa Cruz kid who was by far the most talented performer on the show, was kicked off way to early in favor of a pair of southern god-fearing country types, maybe it’s time for California to make a statement.


After all, Durbin’s a hard rock guy from a crazy Left Coast town, has become an inspiration for people with disabilities, and is all aobut the California spirit. So we ought to show him some love. How about the state Legislature declares Durbin the “California Idol 2011?” Invite him up to perform outside the Capitol. Have a party. Rock out. Tell the southerners that, with all due respect, we stand by our man.


At least it would take everyone’s mind off the budget for a few hours.


Who wants to introduce the resolution?

Great news! More BART Police tasers!

Zelda Bronstein
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7
Great news! More BART Police tasers!

I cannot contain my joy and excitement: BART is buying 130 new Tasers so every cop can have one! Imagine — more ways for the not-ready-for-prime-time police force to hurt people!


I’m dubious about BART police carrying guns — the seem to shoot the wrong people pretty often. And this new policy won’t replace lethal weapons with “less lethal” ones — the idea is to give the BART cops TWO ways to shoot people.


As we all know, “less lethal” is like “a little bit pregnant.” Either a weapon kills you or it doesn’t. Tasers are known to kill people.


But the larger point is that cops with Tasers are going to use them — and use them in circumstances where other alternatives tha don’t involve shooting anyone with anything were also possible. Tasers are a shortcut, an easy way to subdue a suspect. And I don’t care how much training the BART cops get; there are going to be mistakes, possibly deadly mistakes.


Why is the BART Board allowing this to happen?

Guardian poll: Top issues in the mayor’s race

Zelda Bronstein
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25
Guardian poll: Top issues in the mayor’s race

What’s the most important issue in the mayor’s race? I mean, there are so many, and it’s hard to rank them or to choose one, but just for fun (and some insight into how Guardian readers see the city’s political priorities) I thought we’d do a poll on the top issues. Sadly, you can only vote for one (my polling software isn’t that sophisticated). But give it a shot after the jump.


 





Free polls from Go2poll.com

Ammiano’s TRUST Act passes the Assembly

Mary Magee
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10
Ammiano’s TRUST Act passes the Assembly

Tom Ammiano’s TRUST Act (AB 1081) passed the California Assembly in a 47-26 vote. It now heads to the Senate for approval. Ammiano says his bill “seeks to repair the damaging impacts of the Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) Agency’s “Secure” Communities program.”  The feds’ Secure-Communities program, in which fingerprints taken in local jails are automatically shared with immigration enforcement officials, has increasingly been accused of undermining public safety without transparency or local oversight. Today’s vote came a year after San Francisco Sheriff Mike Hennessey blew the whistle on ICE’s plan to silently activate S-Comm in San Francisco. And it followed on the heels of a series of damaging revelations about how S-Comm has mostly resulted in the deportation of non-violent immigrants, and has led to complaints that local municipalities received confusing information about their participation options.


Following a request from Congressmember Zoe Lofgren and Sen. Robert Menendez, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of the Inspector General recently announced it will investigate questions about S-Comm’s success in meeting its stated criminal targets, and look into charges that misinformation was provided to states and localities about their ability to opt out. Earlier this month, llinois Gov. Pat Quinn tried to cancel his state’s participation in the program and the Congressional Hispanic Committee asked Obama to put a moratorium on the program.  



 “S-Comm is a farce,” Assemblymember Ammiano charged. “ICE misled local jurisdictions from the beginning and blurred the lines between law enforcement and immigration, striking unnecessary fear into innocent people’s lives. The TRUST Act is a practical solution that will re-build trust with our immigrant communities and by doing so will restore some balance to this dysfunctional and unjust program.”


 

David Chiu helps Leland Yee

Zelda Bronstein
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118
David Chiu helps Leland Yee

It’s nice, sometimes, to be in Sacramento. You can run for local office without having to vote on local issues. Witness State Sen. Leland Yee, who didn’t have to take a formal position on the Park Merced project — and now can bask in the wonder of seeing David Chiu hand him thousands of tenant votes.


Here’s the deal: Chiu and Yee are both fighting for progressive voters in the mayor’s race. Most progressive groups will endorse John Avalos, but Yee and Chiu want those second-place votes, badly. Yee’s already got his West-side base, and getting a number two nod from, say, the Milk Club or SEIU 1021 won’t hurt him a bit with those voters. But he’s not strong with Chinatown leaders (Rose Pak despises him) and he’s in a race with three (so far) Asian candidates. He’s also contending with a bunch of other center-moderate types (Dennis Herrera, Bevan Dufty) in a very crowded race.


His strategy — and it’s smart — is to court the left, get those second- and third-place nods on the East side of town and emerge from the pack when all the votes are counted. Problem is, that’s Chiu’s natural constituency (or should be) — he talks about “our shared progressive values,” was elected as a progressive and, frankly, can’t win this race just by sticking to the center. It’s just too crowded there with too many people who have won citywide races.


And Chiu just gave up a huge chunk of the city’s left by alienating every tenant group in town.


As Dean Preston of Tenants Together put it in BeyondChron (which is generally quite friendly to Chiu):


 Chiu reached a backroom deal with the developer and provided the crucial sixth vote to approve the largest demolition of rent-controlled housing in San Francisco since the redevelopment of the Fillmore. Despite a good record on tenant rights issues before his work on Parkmerced, Chiu has now earned the distrust of tenants across the city.


The tenants aren’t always a solid bloc. Mitchell Omerberg of the Affordable Housing Alliance and Ted Gullicksen at the Tenants Union don’t always agree on candidates or issues. But there was no division or dissent on this one. Omerberg, who has been known to slide to the center, was adamant that Chiu’s vote — the swing vote to move the project forward — was “deeply disappointing.” He told us: “In general it’s an unwise, immoral plan to demolish a neighborhood. When you demolish people’s homes, you always regret it later.”


So now Yee can go to progressives and say — as he did at the Democratic County Central Committee — that he has all kinds of concerns about Park Merced and make it sound as if he opposes it, and use that leverage to peel some endorsements and votes away from Chiu. It’s ironic: When he was on the Board of Supervisors, Yee was hardly known as a pro-tenant vote. His record on tenant issues, while ancient history in political terms, was going to haunt him with some progressives (and still may). But now he’s gotten a boost — if only because he and Chiu are the ones most agressively working to get endorsements from progressive groups, and Chiu just shot himself in both feet.


 

Activists speak out at Chevron’s shareholder meeting

Sasha Cuttler
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2
Activists speak out at Chevron’s shareholder meeting

Police and security guards were out in full force in San Ramon yesterday, (Wed/25) where activists and shareholders of Chevron’s valuable stock converged at the company’s annual shareholders meeting at its headquarters.

Inside, the meeting, Chevron Board Chairman John Watson touted the oil corporation’s “community engagement” and market growth. Outside, around 140 activists from all over the world held signs to the speedy traffic on Bollinger Canyon Way, beseeching the general public to understand the costs of Chevron’s high profits. Some even made it inside.

“Our people have been dying,” said Tom Evans of the Sugpiat People of the Alutitiq Tribe in the native village of Nanwalek, Alaska, choking back tears during the 45-minute Q&A session with Watson.

“You are all a bunch of liars and thieves,” said Rev. Kenneth Davis, a Richmond resident who was arrested last year at Chevron’s shareholders meeting in Houston, Texas. He claimed he could see Chevron’s refinery from a window in his home. “People are dying, you steal from all over the world and process it in Richmond,” he said.

“When will Chevron embody in its operations environmental and social justice?” Elias Isaac of Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa asked the chairman.

After giving one of his canned responses of “we are a force for good everywhere we operate,” Watson conceded, “Perhaps it’s not enough, and we could always do more.”

Chevron just came out of a record-breaking year with $20 billion in profits, making it the largest corporation in California and the 11th in the world, with expectations of more growth in the years to come. It has nine new exploration projects it hopes to start in the next decade that will make Poland, Romania, Western Australia, China and other countries a part of the at-risk catalog of nations where Chevron chooses to do business.

It has claimed over 14 million acres of land for “exploration activities.” It’s also planning the world’s largest carbon sequestration project in Australia on a nature reserve and turtle habitat. If all this information isn’t scary enough, Chevron also makes huge messes and ducks out of cleaning them up.

Recently, the corporation appealed a guilty verdict from an Ecuadorian court for $8.6 billion in damages because of massive environmental degradation. The 18-year lawsuit stems from the destruction and mismanagement of the diseased Amazonian land that Chevron acquired when it bought Texaco in 2001. Ecuadorian Servio Curipoma lost his mother due to Chevron’s toxic sludge and was present at the meeting with other indigenous community members pleading with Watson and Chevron’s shareholders to change its policies in Ecuador.

“Take it up with your government,” Watson said to the speakers. “Petroecuador has not been a good partner,” he added, passing the blame onto Ecuador’s state-owned oil company. Chevron execs decided that was a good time to roll a video about the lawsuit and smeared the plaintiff’s lawyer, Steven Donziger, showing outtakes of the documentary “Crude,” emails and other private meetings, displaying Donziger to be haughty about the case. As the film rolled, most of the stockholders applauded Chevron’s PR efforts.

Seven items on the meeting’s agenda pertained to stockholders’ proposals on various subjects, including hiring a third party director with environmental expertise, creating a human rights committee, and disclosing the guidelines for Chevron’s country selection. None of the stockholders proposals passed, including one on the controversial process of “fracking,” which extracts natural gas from rock, that obtained 41 percent of the preliminary votes.

Once the meeting ended, the activists in attendance were met with a hero’s welcome out on the streets. Gitz Crazyboy of the First Nation Dene/Pikini in Alberta, Canada told the crowd he didn’t buy Chevron’s excuses that they were just following government mandates.

“If that were true we wouldn’t be here right now,” he said.

Antonia Juhasz of Global Exchange and the co-editor of the recently released The True Cost of Chevron: An Alternative Annual Report, said that although Chevron wasn’t as responsive as they hoped it was a victory nonetheless for the protesters.

“What was spit back at us was spin,” she said to the crowd. “We didn’t hear a truly substantive response to the damning human rights abuses that Chevron has caused.”

Sit-lie isn’t working. Imagine that.

Zelda Bronstein
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14
Sit-lie isn’t working. Imagine that.

Guess what? The much-hyped sit-lie law ins’t working. That’s what the Bay Citizen reports today in a story that should surprise nobody who has any sense.


When the measure was headed for the ballot, I had this discussion with then-Chief Gascon, with then-Mayor Gavin Newsom’s staff, with other supporters of sit-lie and anyone else who would listen. My point: Even beyond the civil liberties issues (which are huge), this was going to be a waste of time. Why? Because if there are people sitting on the sidewalk, and they’re told they can’t, they’ll …. stand up. No more violation. Still people on the street.


And guess what Lt. Belinda Kerr from Park Station has to report?


There has been “a prolific amount of arrests, citations and warnings … but I haven’t seen that it’s done a whole lot,” Kerr said.


She said the transients will often get up when they see officers drive by in their patrol cars, but “unfortunately are getting up and going around the block and then sitting down again.”


See? Tell people they can’t sit down and they’ll stand up. Then sit down again.


You want to deal with street crime? Deal with crime. Don’t make sitting on the street a crime.


When Gascon and I talked about this, I told him that two uniformed beat cops walking up and down Haight Street from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day would solve any street crime problem without a new law. He agreed. Then he said it would be too expensive. I wonder what all these pointless citations — and the legal work of prosecuting and defending them — is going to cost. I suspect foot patrols would be cheaper.


 

SFBG Radio: The hopeless GOP hopefuls

Zelda Bronstein
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0

Is there anyone in the Republican presidential field who can actually win both the primaries and the general election? Could we be facing another Texas governor trying for the White House? Check out the discussion after the jump.

NoHopeGOP by endorsements2010

SEIU 1021 withholds support for newly unveiled pension proposal

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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19

San Francisco’s largest labor union, Service Employees International Union 1021, is not on board with a proposed charter amendment that would reform the city’s pension system for public employees.

The pension reform proposal was unveiled by a coalition of city officials, labor representatives, and business leaders at a press conference in the mayor’s office in City Hall this morning, May 24. The plan would yield an estimated savings of $800 million to $1 billion in savings over the course of a decade, the bulk of it coming from increased employee contributions to retirement funds of up to six percent for future and current employees. The proposal would raise the retirement ages from 62 to 65, or 55 to 58 for public-safety workers, and impose caps on pensionable salaries for new employees. Mayor Ed Lee described the plan as “a serious, comprehensive plan and one that reflects the consensus.” The proposed charter amendment must go through the Board of Supervisors’ Rules Committee and win the approval of the full board before it can be placed on the ballot in November.

Lee emphasized that the pension plan had been crafted with a consensus-building approach over the course of several months, which brought business, labor, and city officials together. Billionaire Warren Hellman delivered comments about the historic nature of the proposal, and Rebecca Rhine from the Municipal Executives Association and Steve Falk from the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce each voiced support for the plan.  Sups. Sean Elsbernd and Board President David Chiu spoke of the collaborative and democratic process that had brought everyone in the city family under one tent.

Well, almost everyone.

“We’re stuck on one issue,” noted SEIU 1021 Vice President Larry Bradshaw. Under the plan, a pay cut would go into effect for three groups of lower-paid workers on the same date that they would be responsible for making new pension contributions, July 1, 2012, he explained. The affected workers include nursing assistants, security guards, and clerical workers, he said. While the mayor’s proposal requiring new pension contributions builds in an exemption for city workers making less than $50,000 per year, many of these SEIU employees would fall just above that cutoff mark, Bradshaw said.

“We’ve got workers that are just about at the $50,000 threshold … so they’re going to be paying about $2,000 a year out of their pocket,” toward new pension contributions, he said. “So the mayor’s plan has these workers, who are our lowest-paid workers, taking this huge pay cut, and then they want us to agree to this increase in contributions. And the scale of these pay cuts are just enormous. For someone who’s making $50,000 a year, to ask them to take $2,000 or $3,000 on top of $12,000 in a pay cut, is impossible.”

The pay cut is a leftover from the administration of former Mayor Gavin Newsom. For certified nursing assistants, the shift would amount to a roughly $12,000 annual pay cut, Bradshaw said. Security guards would face an estimated $5,000 per year cut, and clerical workers could face anywhere from $1,000 to $11,000 per year. Bradshaw estimated that a total of about 570 city employees would be affected. The workers faced getting fired and re-hired at lower-paid classifications in a prior budget year to make up for a revenue shortfall, but the union reached an agreement to stave off the worst pay cuts for those “de-skilled” employees by imposing a one percent across-the-board cut for all members in order to restore the salary cuts.

“This was such a sore point with our membership, the membership would not allow us to turn our backs on these workers, and we couldn’t get the city to restore the pay cuts,” Bradshaw said. “So we voluntarily took a one percent pay cut for every member to make up the loss in pay that these workers suffered.”

This arrangement would no longer be possible under the pension reform proposal, he said, because most union members would be asked to contribute 3.5 to 5 percent toward their pensions. “We’re already paying one percent more, so we’re not going to have that option of asking our members to keep funding these workers who have taken this 20 percent pay cut,” he said. “So the same day this goes into effect, these people take this horrible hit in their pay. And these are primarily women and people of color. Our problem is, we can’t leave these workers behind.”

Until that issue is resolved, the union cannot get on board with the plan, he said. “We’ve been waiting three weeks to meet with the mayor, and we can’t fix the problem if we can’t sit down with the mayor and talk about it,” he said, noting that  union representatives had been able to sit down with mayoral chief of staff Steve Kawa. Restoring the pay cut would have an estimated financial impact of $5 to $6 million.

Bradshaw said SEIU 1021 had hoped to fix the problem in order to be able to get on board and voice their support during the announcement this morning. “We were at the table until 11:30 last night,” he said. “We called the mayor, we had Tim Paulson at the [San Francisco Labor Council] text the mayor, we asked the city team to ask the mayor to come in. The mayor was a no show.” The Guardian has placed calls to the mayor’s office seeking comment, but hasn’t yet heard back.

Asked what he thought the outcome might be, Bradshaw said, “We think this situation cries out for justice. We think there are lots of ways to solve this problem, and we keep putting ideas on the table that are rejected by the mayor’s office. We’re hopeful. But, until we sit down with the mayor, it’s kind of a big question mark.”

SEIU 1021 represents around 17,000 city workers, making it the largest and one of the most politically powerful labor unions in the city.

Pattie Tamura attended the press conference on behalf of SEIU 1021, but stopped short of voicing support for the proposal when reporters questioned whether the union was on board with the plan, saying only that negotiations were ongoing. Bradshaw said they sent a representative as a sign of respect for the collaborative process that had been spearheaded by coalition leaders, particularly Warren Hellman.

Chevron’s critics gather before annual shareholder meeting

Sasha Cuttler
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2
Chevron’s critics gather before annual shareholder meeting

Chevron destroys everything, except profits. And by everything, we mean everything. The Amazon rainforest and its indigenous communities? Check. The Boreal Forest in northern Canada and its indigenous communities? Check. The Niger Delta? Check. Indonesia, Texas, and Iraq? Check, check and check. And even San Francisco’s own neighbor, Richmond, the home of one of Chevron’s largest oil refineries in the world? A big, whopping check.

Not that oil companies taking the lives, resources, and spaces of millions of people is something to take lightly. In fact, the opposition to Chevron is strong and growing, with many people across a network of international communities planning to stand up at Chevron’s shareholder meeting tomorrow (Wed/25) in San Ramon to give faces and names to the enormous destruction the company caused, which coincides with the release of the 3rd annual report on the company’s many misdeeds, The True Cost of Chevron.

At a press conference this morning (Tues/24) at a Chevron station in San Francisco, activists and representatives from places adversely affected by Chevron’s drilling, dumping, land grabbing, and environmental degradation told stories about losing mothers to cancer, women having miscarriages due to contaminated water, clear-cutting forests used by their ancestors for hunting and farming, and losing one’s sense of home.

“I have personally witnessed this devastation,” Servio Curipoma of the Amazon Defense Coalition in Ecuador said of Chevron’s operations within his country. “And I will fight to the bitter end and never give up,” he said after showing a photo of his mother who died of cancer. After an 18-year lawsuit by the people in Educator against the oil corporation, Chevron was found guilty of massive environmental crimes. But Chevron has yet to take note of its transgressions, and aggressively pursues communities at risk of complete disintegration.

Elias Isaac with the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa spoke about entire fishing communities in Angola going days without catches as they rely on the waters that Chevron polluted through its operations in the country. “The pollution is effecting livelihoods,” said Isaac. “And it’s getting worse.”

Communities for a Better Environment also understands the nefarious ways in which Chevron puts its stock above its virtue. For example, the company doesn’t pay taxes to extract oil from California. “They had the audacity to ask for an exemption from the law,” said Jessica Tovar of the Oakland based advocacy group. Recently Chevron’s Richmond refinery was denied the possibility to process dirtier, heavier crude oil only after opponents went to court to stop the proposal.

The bitter truth, said Antonia Juhasz of Global Exchange and the co-editor of alternative report, is that no matter where Chevron decides to set up shop, the stories are the same: corporate side-stepping of responsibilities to the community, polluted water, love ones lost, environmental disaster that cannot be undone.

Just like the exploitation Chevron is responsible for through its operations across the globe, its profits are also ever increasing. Last year the company made $20 billion in profits, bolstering its standing as the 11th largest corporation in the world, and the largest in California.

In order to make a dent in its exploitative practices, members of different organizations will be voicing their opposition in Chevron’s shareholders meeting tomorrow, some through legal proxies of current shareholders.

There is a resolution activists hope will be discussed that will appoint a third party with expertise who will oversee operations to further prevent environmental disasters, said Mitchell Anderson, the Corporate Campaigns Director of Amazon Watch, which is based in San Francisco.

“We came to tell them that we disagree with their ads. It’s not a rosy image. It’s a lie,” said Juhasz. “Chevron knows how to do better but chooses to do worse.”

 

 

 

 

Arizona to kill prisoner with illegal drugs

Zelda Bronstein
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14
Arizona to kill prisoner with illegal drugs

The state of Arizona is preparing to execute a prisoner with drugs that were obtained illegally, records obtained by the Bay Guardian and the ACLU of Northern California show.


Donald Edward Beaty is set to die by lethal injection early in the morning May 25. However, DEA records show that the sodium thiopental that will be used in the execution was not imported legally — and may not meet U.S. standards for drug quality.


“Arizona is about to execute someone with an illegal substance, and the federal government is ignoring its responsibility to enforce the law,” said Natasha Minsker, Death Penalty Policy Director for the ACLU of Northern California.


Documents obtained recently show that the Drug Enforcement Administration is investigating the illegal importation of the death drugs, and has seized thoipental stocks in several states. But Arizona’s prison system still has custody of the sodium thiopental that it imported.


And documents released May 24 show that Arizona — along with Nebraska, South Dakota and Arkansas — imported the drugs from either the U.K. or India without filing the proper DEA import declarations. That means the prison systems violated federal law.


“The DEA records demonstrate that Arizona and other states broke the law,” Minsker said. “We cannot understand why the DEA has failed to act but has allowed the states to keep these illegal and dangerous drugs. When state officials break the law in order to carry out an execution, it makes a mockery of our justice system and puts us all at risk. State and federal officials must follow and enforce the law—that’s their duty and what the public expects and deserves.”


 

Stop the AT&T boxes!

Zelda Bronstein
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15
Stop the AT&T boxes!

By the League of Pissed Off Voters


More than 60 people showed up on the steps of City Hall May 21 to demand that AT&T engage in the same old basic planning process that even small-scale businesses have to go through.  (Read: even little people without expensive corporate lobbyists.)


Neighborhood organizations, disabled and senior representatives and environmentalists all pushed the supervisors to make the sensible vote at tomorrow’s full board meeting: support a full Environmental Impact Review of the consequences of 726 giant metal lockboxes cluttering up our public sidewalks.  As Julian Davis, a longtime community activist put it: “Why would you plunk down 726 giant Buicks all over the city when you have a perfectly good underground high speed rail?”


True that.  San Francisco currently has miles of fiber optic cable pulsing beneath our city streets, and even that is already becoming outdated.  So now AT&T’s brilliant idea is to litter our sidewalks with what amounts to giant crusty supercomputers? And what happens when they’re obsolete?  Basically, taxpayers just got stuck with a bunch of metal junk on our sidewalks, while AT&T expanded its profit margins.


Why do small cafes have to pay hundreds of dollars in permit fees to put two piddly tables outside their shops, while AT&T gets a blanket “categorical exemption” for almost no money to nail down ugly boxes that will block the sidewalk and attract graffiti?  (Hmm, we can probably think of some choice graffiti actually…)


The last time we heard from the folks at AT&T, they were helping the NSA wiretap our private calls from a secret room in their headquarters, so excuse us if we’re a little hesitant about giving the company a free pass to put creepy lock boxes in front of our homes. 


According to the Department of Public Works at the last public hearing on this issue, DPW staffers are relying on AT&T’s “expert analysis” to guide them on whether or not AT&T should receive a categorical exemption – in other words, DPW is relying on AT&T to do its job, and the community just got cut out of the process.  An independent EIR is necessary to address these blatant conflicts of interest. 


Speaking of conflicted interests: The latest scuttlebutt inside City Hall has some progressive supervisors desperately looking to cut a deal to save face in the midst of election season.  And what would that deal look like?  Cutting the number of boxes and giving neighborhoods an opportunity to decide whether they want 4’x4’x7′ lock boxs on their blocks. 


So, basically, if your block doesn’t have a home owner association advocating on your behalf, guess what you’re going to be walking around everyday?  As Juan Monsanto of San Francisco Beautiful pointed out, most of these boxes will be installed in less affluent communities without strong representation at City Hall.   AT&T’s sweetheart deal gives the supervisors cover to punt their responsibility to administer public space safely and equitably. 


So, to recap: we are now officially a city that will arrest human beings for sitting or lying in the middle of the sidewalk, but the board is working overtime to try and figure out how to exempt AT&T from city oversight process so it can stick giant immovable metal boxes in our right of way?


Oh, it’s okay because they’re going in the Bayview. Or in a neighborhood that already has a bunch of blight, so what’s a little more?  Lame.  Call your supervisor today and tell him or her to get a backbone.  It’s tough being the swing vote, you know?  Help ’em out, let ’em know you’re watching – and voting.


The San Francisco League of Pissed-Off Voters is the local chapter of the League of Young Voters, a national organization that engages young people in the political process, organizes around progressive issues and takes it beyond just “get out the vote.” 


 


 

Environmentalists rappel off Richmond Bridge to protest Chevron

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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4

This morning, May 23, activists from Amazon Watch and the Rainforest Action Network rappelled off the Richmond Bridge and unfurled a 50 foot banner which read: “Chevron Guilty: Clean Up Amazon.”

Anchored to the bridge deck, three brave souls dangled airborne above the bay alongside the banner, within view of an oil tanker. The banner drop was carried out to draw attention to Chevron’s environmental contamination in the Amazon Rainforest in Ecuador.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfCtDl1Jf2A

In an historic court victory in Ecuador on Feb. 14, Chevron was found guilty of causing $18 billion worth of environmental damage to a Rhode Island-sized swath of the Amazon. The widespread soil and water contamination, caused by decades of toxic dumping by Texaco and Chevron, has been linked to high rates of cancer and birth defects. Amazon Watch has been campaigning to get Chevron to clean up the oil pollution for 18 years.

“Chevron has said they are going to appeal the decision,” noted Paul Paz y Miño, managing director of Amazon Watch. “They’ve said they’ll fight it till hell freezes over.” So activists are keeping the pressure on.

Chevron will hold its annual shareholder meeting on May 25 in San Ramon, and a coalition of environmental organizations are using the occasion to draw attention to environmental problems the company has caused worldwide.

Three community leaders from the impacted Ecuadorian region traveled to California to share their stories and join in protests outside the shareholders meeting.

Their personal stories are moving. Humberto Piaguaje is a leader of the indigenous Secoya people of Ecuador’s northern Amazon rainforest, whose numbers in that region have dwindled from thousands to just several hundred since Texaco arrived in the area nearly 50 years ago.

Carmen Zambrano moved to the Amazonian region affected by Chevron in 1984, and according to her bio, tells stories “of how the company told people that the crude was good for their health, and that the contaminated water was safe to bathe and wash in, to drink from. … Her own children are terminally ill and developmentally disabled. Her sister-in-law suffers from cancer; her brother-in-law has serious heart problems. Her neighbors have died and almost everyone she knows has skin ailments.”

Serbio Curipoma, a cacao farmer from the Orellana province of Ecuador, lost his parents and sister to cancer. According to his bio, “He realized six years ago that the house his family has lived in for 20 years had been built directly atop an unremediated covered oil pit; digging just a few meters into the earth reveals thick crude.”

The trio from Ecuador will be joined by leaders from Chevron-affected communities in Nigeria, Indonesia, Canada, Angola, and Alaska at a teach-in at Berkeley’s David Brower Center May 23 from 7 to 9 p.m. on “The True Cost of Chevron.”

Paz y Miño noted that Amazon Watch is hoping to amass 30,000 signatures for the 30,000 plaintiffs in the Chevron case in a petition the group plans to deliver to company shareholders and executives during the meeting. They are also hoping to raise funds to cover the cost of the delegation.

Big launch for Avalos, emphasizing unity and integrity

Sasha Cuttler
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69

John Avalos launched his mayoral campaign yesterday with a spirited event in a sunny SoMa park that drew several hundred enthusiastic supporters, ranging from elected officials such as Assemblymember Tom Ammiano and Sups. Ross Mirkarimi and Eric Mar to representatives of a wide variety of progressive and community organizations.

There was also an unlikely supporter: Sen. Leland Yee, who is also running for mayor but spoke to reporters wearing an Avalos sticker and said he was pleased that Avalos is in the race. The two men were each endorsed by the SF Bay chapter of the Sierra Club over weekend, and Yee’s campaign appears to be trying to court the second place votes from supporters of Avalos, the only solid progressive in the race.

But political sideshows aside, this was a day for Avalos and his supporters to shine, and they demonstrated a larger and more energetic event than other mayoral candidates have managed to pull together so far. And the crowd took the opportunity to emphasize Avalos’ progressive values of integrity and collaboration, in the process taking subtle swipes at the ambitions and egocentrism of other mayoral candidates.

“We are for John Avalos because John Avalos is for all of us,” was the repeated refrain in a strong speech by “progressive Christian pastor” and blogger Bruce Reyes-Chow.

Ammiano noted that it was the birthday of Harvey Milk and said that Avalos is the heir to Milk’s legacy of promoting progressive change through community organizing. “Harvey Milk knew the secret and the secret was grassroots…Without that tethering together, we never move forward,” said Ammiano, whose endorsement of Avalos could be a significant factor in the race, particularly as Bay Area Reporter writers and other LGBT entities support other candidates.

Ammiano offered a few reasons for his endorsement, joking that, “He has the best hair of all the candidates.” But even more important was the issue of integrity and trustworthiness, where Ammiano said Avalos really shines. “Trust is a significant attribute and you don’t see a lot of that [in public life]. And John is honorable,” Ammiano said.

Other speakers from labor and progressive organizations emphasized how Avalos has been fighting for progressive causes his entire adult life. “John cares about the issues we care about and he listens,” said Andrea Buffa of Global Exchange, who also worked with Avalos on campaigns against corporate dominance when she worked for Media Alliance.

“I’m here to fight for John because John fights for all of us,” was the conclusion of the fifth-grade student from San Francisco Community School, who introduced Avalos.

During his speech, Avalos said he was touched by the huge turnout and display of enthusiasm. “It’s such a joy to see you here. My heart is swollen,” he said, before introducing his family and telling a story of his father’s lifetime of union activism on behalf of Los Angeles dock workers. “I learned from him the value of hard work and devotion to something much greater than yourself,” Avalos said.

And the main cause that Avalos has devoted himself to in San Francisco has been the progressive movement, with its commitment to workers rights and social and economic justice. “We see that wealth is accumulating into fewer and fewer hands,” Avalos said, one of several core problems that he said his candidacy is committed to addressing, later adding, “I’m running for mayor to even the playing field.”

While he advocated for creating safe streets for pedestrians and cyclists, stimulating job growth, and adopting a housing policy designed to promote diversity by creating more homes for low- and middle-income San Franciscans, he devoted much of his address to addressing the core problem of wealthy special interests getting their way at City Hall.

“We cannot have the same business as usual that greases the wheels with lobbyists,” Avalos said. “I’ll put the interests of the collective above the interests of the few, day in and day out.”

Avalos cast this year’s mayoral election as pivotal to San Francisco’s future. “As a city, we are at the crossroads and only we can turn the tide,” Avalos told a crowd from which almost 400 people signed up to volunteer on his campaign, closing with a line that echoed Milk’s refrain from almost 40 years ago: “I want to recruit you to this movement.”

Why the right keeps winning

Zelda Bronstein
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6
Why the right keeps winning

Robert Cruikshank, who is one of the best political bloggers around, has a fascinating piece today on Calitics about Cornel West’s attack on Obama, the politics of coalitions, and the fate of the Democratic Party. His thesis: The Republicans know how to make a coalition work, and the Democrats don’t.


Conservative communication discipline is enabled only by the fact that everyone in the coalition knows they will get something for their participation. A right-winger will repeat the same talking points even on an issue he or she doesn’t care about or even agree with because he or she knows that their turn will come soon, when the rest of the movement will do the same thing for them.


Progressives do not operate this way. We spend way too much time selling each other out, and way too little time having each other’s back. This is especially true within the Democratic Party, where progressives share a political party with another group of people – the corporate neoliberals – who we disagree with on almost every single issue of substance. But within our own movement, there is nothing stopping us from exhibiting the same kind of effective messaging – if we understood the value of coalitions.


More:


 If one part of the coalition gets everything and the other parts get nothing, then the coalition will break down as those who got nothing will get unhappy, restive, and will eventually leave. Good coalitions understand that everyone has to get their issue taken care of, their goals met – in one way or another – for the thing to hold together.


He points out, correctly, that the Democratic Party these days is actually two parties, and the only thing that holds them together is social issues. The neoliberals generally support same-sex marriage and abortion rights and can’t join the religious nuts who have taken over the GOP. But on economic issues, they might as well be two entirely distinct parties with very different messages.


It’s worth thinking about in the context of San Francisco politics, where a lot of people — including Board President David Chiu — talk about being part of a progressive coalition. And on a lot of issues, six of seven members of the board — and most people who call themselves progressives — agree. There ought to be a progressive coalition tha controls the political agenda in San Francisco, and there’s no reason that can’t happen.


But those of us who are part of what we can only call the economic left — the people who believe that the rich don’t pay enough taxes and the poor don’t get enough services and the public sector (yes, Government) is part of the solution — aren’t getting much of anything out of the coalition right now. Our issues (new revenue that matches or exceeds any cuts and a vigorous campaign by our elected leaders to make that happen) always disappear when the final deals are cut.


We’re always there on the non-economic issues — there was some grumbling, but in the end the progressives on the board all voted for Chiu’s yellow pages ban — but when it comes to budget time, we get thrown under the bus. And in the long term, that’s not going to hold a progressive coalition together.

SFBG Radio: Do you get a Rapture Mulligan?

Zelda Bronstein
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9
SFBG Radio: Do you get a Rapture Mulligan?

Gee, what happens if the Rapture doesn’t come about? Does the crackpot behind all of this hype (who runs a $73 million operation) get another crack at it? Johnny and Tim discuss the end of the world after the jump.

sfbgradio5202011 by endorsements2010

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