SFBG Blogs

They have issues: Members of the new Board speak

Mary Magee
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20

Board President David Chiu touched off a broad political discussion in recent weeks with his statement that officials were elected “not to take positions, but to get things done.” Delivered just before his reelection as Board President with the solid backing of the board’s moderate faction, Chiu’s comment has been viewed in light of City Hall’s shifting political dynamic, a subject the Guardian explores in a Jan. 19 cover story. Politics aside, Chiu’s statement also begs the question: Just what do members of the board hope to get done, and how do they propose to accomplish the items on their agenda?
Last week, Guardian reporters tracked down every member of the board to find out. We asked, what are your top priorities? And how do you plan to achieve them? Some spoke with us for 25 minutes, and others spoke for just 5 minutes, but the result offers some insight into what’s on their radar. Not surprisingly, getting the budget right was mentioned by virtually everyone as a top priority, but there are sharp differences in opinion in terms of how to do that. Several supervisors, particularly those in the moderate wing, mentioned ballooning pension and healthcare costs. Aiding small business also emerged as a priority shared by multiple board members.

Sup. Eric Mar
District 1

Issues:
*Budget
*Assisting small businesses
*Programs and services for seniors
*Food Security
*Issues surrounding Golden Gate Park

Elected in 2008 to represent D1, Sup. Eric Mar has been named chair of the powerful Land Use & Economic Development Committee and vice chair of the City Operations and Neighborhood Services Committee.

Asked to name his top priorities, Mar said, “A humane budget that protects the safety net and services to the must vulnerable people in San Francisco is kind of the critical, top priority.”

It’s bound to be difficult, he added. “That’s why I wish it could have been a progressive that was chairing the budget process. Now, we have to work with Carmen Chu to ensure that it’s a fair, transparent process.”

A second issue hovering near the top of Mar’s agenda is lending a helping hand to the small businesses of the Richmond District. “There’s a lot of anxiety about the economic climate for small business. We’re trying to work closely with some of the merchant associations and come up with ideas on how the city government can be more supportive,” he said. Mar also spoke about the need to respond to the threat of big box stores, such as PetCo, that could move in and harm neighborhood merchants. “I’m worried about too many of the big box stores trying to come in with an urban strategy and saying that they’re different — but they sure have an unfair advantage,” he noted.

Programs and services for the senior population ranked high on his list. Mar noted that he’d been working with senior groups on how to respond to a budget analyst’s report showing a ballooning need for housing – especially affordable housing – for seniors. “It’s moving from the Baby Boom generation to the Senior Boomers, and I think the population, if I’m not mistaken, by 2020 it’s going up 50 percent,” he said. “It’s a huge booming population that I don’t think we’re ready to address.”

Addressing food security issues through the Food Security Task Force also ranked high on Mar’s list, and he noted that he’s been working with a coalition that includes UCSF and the Department of Public Health to study the problem. “We’ve had a number of strategy meetings already, but we’re trying to launch different efforts to create healthier food access in many of our lowest income neighborhoods,” Mar said.

Finally, Mar talked about issues relating to the park. “I do represent the district that has Golden Gate Park, so I’m often busy with efforts to preserve the park, prevent privatization, and ensure enjoyment for the many residents not just in the Richmond but throughout the city that enjoy the park.” Although it’s not technically in his district, Mar noted that he is very supportive of HANC Recycling Center – and plans to advocate on their behalf to Mayor Lee.

Sup. Mark Farrell
District 2
Issues:
*Pension reform
*Long-term economic plan for city
*Job creation
*Quality-of-life issues

Elected to replace termed-out D2 Sup. Michela Alioto-Pier, Farrell has been named vice-chair of the Government Audits & Oversight Committee and a member of the Rules Committee. A native of D2, Farrell told the Guardian he believes his roots in the city and background as a venture capitalist would be an asset to the city’s legislative body. “I know at the last board, Carmen [Chu] was the only one who had any finance background,” he said. “To have someone come from the private sector with a business / finance background, I really do believe … adds to the dialogue and the discussion here at City Hall.”

Along those lines, Farrell said one of his top priorities is the budget. “I’m not on the budget and finance committee this time around, but given my background, I am going to play a role in that,” he said.

So what’s his plan for closing the budget deficit? In response, he alluded to slashing services. “In the past, there have been views that we as a city don’t provide enough services and we need to raise revenues to provide more, or the perspective that we first need to live within our means and then provide more services. Everyone’s going to disagree, but I’m in the latter camp,” he said. “I do believe we need to make some tough choices right now – whether it be head count, or whether it be looking at …pension reform. I do believe pension reform needs to be part of the dialogue. Unfortunately, it’s unsustainable.”

He also said he wanted to be part of “trying to create and focus on a framework for a long-term financial plan here in San Francisco.”

Secondly, Farrell discussed wanting to put together a “jobs bill.”

“Jobs is a big deal,” he said. “It’s something I want to focus on. There are only so many levers we can pull as a city. I think the biotech tax credits have spurred a lot of business down in Mission Bay.”

Next on Farrell’s agenda was quality-of-life issues, but rather than talk about enforcing San Francisco’s sit/lie ordinance – supported by political forces who organized under the banner of maintaining ‘quality-of-life’ – Farrell revealed that he is incensed about parking meter fines. “It is so strikingly unjust when you are 1 minute late to your parking meter and you have a $65 parking fine,” he said.

Farrell also mentioned development projects that would surely require time and attention. “CPMC is going to be a major dominant issue,” he said. He also mentioned Doyle Drive, and transitional age youth housing projects proposed in D2 – but as far as the housing project planned for the King Edward II Inn, which has generated some controversy among neighborhood groups, he didn’t take a strong position either way, saying he wanted to listen to all the stakeholders first.

Board President David Chiu
District 3
Issues:
*Budget
*Preserving neighborhood character
*Immigrant rights
*Preserving economic diversity
*Transit

Elected for a second two-year term as President of the Board, D3 Sup. David Chiu is rumored to be running in the mayor’s race, after he turned down former Mayor Gavin Newsom’s offer to appoint him as District Attorney. That offer was made after Kamala Harris won the state Attorney General’s race this fall. And when Chiu turned it down, former Mayor Gavin Newsom shocked just about everybody by appointing San Francisco Police Chief George Gascon, who is not opposed to the death penalty and was a longtime Republican before he recently registered as a Democrat, instead.

A temporary member of the Board’s Budget acommittee, Chiu is also a permanent member of the Board’s Government Audits & Oversight Committee.

Asked about his top priorities, Chiu spoke first and foremost about  “ensuring that we have a budget that works for all San Franciscans, particularly the most vulnerable.” He also said he wanted to see a different kind of budget process: “It is my hope that we do not engage in the typical, Kabuki-style budget process of years past under the last couple of mayors, where the mayor keeps under wraps for many months exactly what the thinking is on the budget, gives us something on June 1 for which we have only a couple of weeks to analyze, and then engage in the tired back-and-forth of debates in the past.” Chiu also spoke about tackling “looming pension and health care costs.”

Another priority, he said, was “Ensuring that our neighborhoods continue to remain the distinctive urban villages that they are, and protecting neighborhood character,” a goal that relates to “development, … historic preservation, [and] what we do around vacant commercial corridors.”

*Immigrant rights also made his top-five list. “I was very sad that last November we didn’t prevail in allowing all parents to have a right and a voice in school board elections,” he said, referencing ballot measure Proposition D which appeared on the November 2010 ballot. “I think we are going to reengage in discussion around Sanctuary City, another topic I have discussed twice already with Mayor Lee.”

Another issue for Chiu was  “ensuring again that hopefully San Francisco continues to remain an economically diverse city, and not just a city for the very wealthy.” He spoke about reforming city contracts: “In particular, dealing with the fact that in many areas, 70 to 80 percent of city contracts are awarded to non-San Francisco businesses. … I think there is more significant reform that needs to happen in our city contracting process.” Another economic-diversity measure, he said, was tax policy, “particularly around ensuring that our business tax is incenting the type of economic growth that we want.”

Finally, Chiu spoke about “Creating a transit-first city. This is not just about making sure MUNI is more reliable and has stable funding, but ensuring that we’re taking steps to reach a 2020 goal of 20 percent cycling in the city. Earlier this week I called for our transit agencies to look at pedestrian safety, because we are spending close to $300 million a year to deal with pedestrian deaths and injuries.”

Sup. Carmen Chu
District 4
*Budget
*Core Services
*Jobs
*Economy

Chiu has just named Sup. Carmen Chu as chair of the powerful Board and Finance Committee. And Chu, who worked as a budget analyst for Newsom’s administration, says the budget, core services, employment and the economy are her top priorities.

“My hope is that this year the budget is going to be a very collaborative and open process,” Chu said.

Chu believes workers benefits will be a central part of the budget-balancing debate.
“Any conversation about the long-term future of San Francisco’s budget has to look at the reality of where the bulk of our spending is,” she said.

Chu noted that the budget debate will have to take the state budget into account.
“At the end of the day, we need to take into account the context of the state budget, in terms of new cuts and taxes, because anything we do will be on top of the state level.

“We need to ask who do these measures really impact,” she added, noting that there were attempts to put revenue measures on the ballot last year.

Sup. Ross Mirkarimi
District 5
* Local Hire / First Source / Reentry programs
* Budget / generating revenue
* Infrastructure improvements
*Reversing MTA service cuts

With only two years left to serve on the Board, D5 Sup. Ross Mirkarimi has been named chair of the Board’s Public Safety Committee and vice-chair of the Budget and Finance Committee.

“One of my top priorities is building on and strengthening the work that I’ve already done and that Avalos is doing on mandatory local hire and First Source programs,” Mirkarimi said. He also spoke about “strengthening reentry programs for those coming out of the criminal justice system, because we still have an enormously high recidivism rate.”

The budget also ranked high on Mirkarimi’s list, and he stressed the need for “doing surgical operations on our budget to make sure that services for the vulnerable are retained, and looking for other ways to generate revenue beyond the debate of what’s going on the ballot.

“For instance, I helped lead the charge for the America’s Cup, and while the pay-off from that won’t be realized for years, the deal still needs to be massaged. What we have now is an embryonic deal that still needs to be watched.”

Mirkarimi mentioned safeguarding the city against privatization, saying one of his priorities was “retooling our budget priorities to stop the escalating practice of privatizing city services.”

 He spoke about “ongoing work citywide to make mixed-use commercial and residential infrastructure improvements, which coincide with bicycle and pedestrian improvements.”

Finally, Mirkarimi said he wanted to focus on transportation issues. “As Chair of the Transportation Authority, if I even continue to be chair, to take the lead on signature transit projects and work with the M.T.A. to reverse service cuts.”

Sup. Jane Kim
District 6
Issues:
*Jobs
*Economic Development
*Small Business
*Pedestrian Safety
*Legislation to control bedbug infestations

Elected to replace termed-out D6 Sup. Chris Daly, Kim has been named chair of the Rules Committee and a member of the Budget & Finance committee.

Kim believes that she will prove her progressive values through her work and she’s trying to take the current debate about her allegiances on the Board in her stride.

“The one thing I learned from serving on the School Board was to be really patient,” Kim told me, when our conversation turned to the issue of “progressive values.”

“I didn’t want to be President of the School Board for the first few years, because I loved pushing the envelope,” Kim added, noting that as Board President David Chiu is in the often-unenviable position of chief negotiator between the Board and the Mayor.

But with Ed Lee’s appointment as interim mayor, Kim is excited about the coming year.
“There are a lot of new opportunities, a different set of players, and it’s going to be very interesting to learn how to traverse this particular scene.”

Kim is kicking off her first term on the Board with two pieces of legislation. The first seeks to address bedbug infestations. “Particularly around enforcement, including private landlords,” Kim said, noting that there have also been bedbug problems in Housing Authority properties.

Her second immediate goal is to look at pedestrian safety, a big deal in D6, which is traversed by freeways with off-ramps leading into residential zones.
“Pedestrian safety is a unifying issue for my district, particularly for all the seniors,” Kim said, citing traffic calming, speed limit enforcement and increased pedestrian traffic, as possible approaches.

Beyond those immediate goals, Kim plans to focus on jobs, economic development and small businesses in the coming year. “What can we do to create jobs and help small businesses? That is my focus, not from a tax reduction point of view, but how can we consolidate the permitting and fees process, because small businesses are a source of local jobs.”

Kim plans to help the Mayor’s Office implement Sup. John Avalos’ local hire legislation, which interim Mayor Ed Lee supports, unlike his predecessor Mayor Gavin Newsom.

“Everyone has always liked the idea of local hire, but without any teeth, it can’t be enforced,” Kim observed. “It’s heartbreaking that young people graduate out of San Francisco Unified School District and there’s been not much more than retail jobs available.”

She noted that jobs, land use and the budget are the three overarching items on this year’s agenda. “I’m a big believer in revenue generation, but government has to come half-way by being able to articulate how it will benefit people and being able to show that it’s more than just altruistic. I think we have to figure out that balance in promoting new measures. That’s why it’s important to be strong on neighborhood and community issues, so that folks feel like government is listening and helping them. I don’t think it’s a huge ask to be responsive to that.”

Kim said she hoped the new mayor would put out a new revenue measure, enforce local hire, and implement Sup. David Campos’ legislation to ensure due process for immigrant youth.

“I think Ed can take a lot of the goodwill and unanimous support,” Kim said. “We’ve never had a mayor without an election, campaigns, and a track record. Usually mayors come in with a group of dissenters. But he is in a very unique position to do three things that are very challenging to do. I hope raising revenues is one of those three. As a big supporter of local hire, I think it helps having a mayor that is committed to implement it. And I’m hoping that Ed will implement due process for youth. For me, it’s a no brainer and Ed’s background as a former attorney  for Asian Law Caucus is a good match. Many members of my family came to the U.S. as undocumented youth, so this is very personal. Kids get picked up for no reason and misidentified. People confuse Campos and Avalos, so imagine what happens to immigrant youth.”

Sup. Sean Elsbernd
District 7
Issues:
*Parkmerced
*Enforcing Prop G
*Pension & healthcare costs
*CalTrain

With two years left to serve on the Board, D7 Sup. Sean Elsbernd has been named vice-chair of the Rules Committee and a member of the City Operations & Neighborhood Services Committee. He was congratulated by Chinatown powerbroker Rose Pak immediately after the Board voted 11-0 to nominated former City Administrator Ed Lee as interim mayor, and during Lee’s swearing-in, former Mayor Willie Brown praised Elsbernd for nominating Lee for the job.

And at the Board’s Jan. 11 meeting before the supervisors voted for Lee, Elsbernd signaled that city workers’ retirement and health benefits will be at the center of the fight to balance the budget in the coming year.

Elsbernd noted that in past years, he was accused of exaggerating the negative impacts that city employees’ benefits have on the city’s budget. “But rather than being inflated, they were deflated,” Elsbernd said, noting that benefits will soon consume 18.14 percent of payroll and will account for 26 percent in three years. “Does the budget deficit include this amount?” he asked.

And at the afterparty that followed Lee’s swearing in, Public Defender Jeff Adachi, who caused a furor last fall when he launched Measure B, which sought to reform workers’ benefits packages, told the Guardian he is not one to give up lightly. “We learned a lot from that,” Adachi said. “This is still the huge elephant in City Hall. The city’s pension liability just went up another 1 percent, which is another $30 million.”

As for priorities, Elsbernd broke it down into district, city, and regional issues. In D7, “Hands-down, without question the biggest issue … is Parkmerced,” he said, starting with understanding and managing the environmental approval process. If it gets approved, he said his top concerns was that “the tenant issue. And the overriding concern of if they sell, which I think we all think is going to happen in the near-term – do those guarantees go along with the land?”

Also related to Parkmerced was planning for the traffic conditions that the development could potentially create, which Elsbernd dubbed a “huge 19th Avenue issue.”

Citywide, Elsbernd’s top priorities included enforcing Proposition G – the voter-approved measure that requires MUNI drivers to engage in collective bargaining – and tackling pension and healthcare costs. He spoke about “making sure that MTA budget that comes to us this summer is responsive” to Prop G.

As for pension and healthcare, Elsbernd said, “I’ve already spent a good deal of time with labor talking about it, and will continue to do that.” But he declined to give further details. Asked if a revenue-generating measure could be part of the solution to that problem, Elsbernd said, “I’m not saying no to anything right now.”

On a regional level, Elsbernd’s priority was to help CalTrain deal with its crippling financial problem. He’s served on that board for the last four years. “The financial situation at CalTrain – it is without question the forgotten stepchild of Bay Area transit, and the budget is going to be hugely challenging,” he said. “I think they’ll survive, but I think they’re going to see massive reductions in services.”

Sup. Scott Wiener
District 8
Issues:
*Transportation
*Reasonable regulation of nightlife & entertainment industry
*Pension reform

Elected in November 2010 to replace termed-out D8 Sup. Bevan, Wiener has been named a temporary member of the Board’s Budget and Finance Committee and a permanent member of the Land Use and Economic Development Committee.

“Transportation is a top priority,” Wiener said. ‘That includes working with the M.T.A. to get more cabs on the street, and making sure that the M.T.A. collectively bargains effectively with its new powers, under Prop. G.”

“I’m also going to be focusing on public safety, including work around graffiti enforcement, though I’m not prepared to go public yet about what I’ll be thinking,” he said.

“Regulating nightlife and entertainment is another top priority,” Wiener continued. “I want to make sure that what we do is very thoughtful in terms of understanding the economic impacts, in terms of jobs and tax  revenues, that this segment has. With some of the unfortunate incidents that have happened, it’s really important before we jump to conclusions that we figure out what happened and why. Was it something the club did inappropriately, or was it just a fluke? That way, we can avoid making drastic changes across the board. I think we have been very reactive to some nightclub issues. I want us to be more thoughtful in taking all the factors into consideration.”

“Even if we put a revenue measure on the June or November ballot, we’d need a two-thirds majority, so realistically, it’s hard to envision successfully securing significant revenue measure before November 2012,” Wiener added. “And once you adopt a revenue measure, it takes time to implement it and revenue to come in, so it’s hard to see where we’ll get revenue that will impact the 2012 fiscal year. In the short term, for fiscal year 2011/2012, the horse is out of the barn”

“As for pension stuff, I’m going to be very engaged in that process and hopefully we will move to further rein in pension and retirement healthcare costs.”

Sup. David Campos
District 9
Issues:
*Good government
*Community policing
*Protecting immigrant youth
*Workers’ rights and healthcare

Elected in 2008, D9 Sup. David Campos has been named chair of the Board’s Government Audit & Oversight Committee and a member of the Public Safety Committee. And, ever since he declared that the progressive majority on the Board no longer exists, in the wake of the Board’s 11-0 vote for Mayor Ed Lee, Campos has found his words being used by the mainstream media as alleged evidence that the entire progressive movement is dead in San Francisco.

“They are trying to twist my words and make me into the bogey man,” Campos said, noting that his words were not a statement of defeat but a wake-up call.

“The progressive movement is very much alive,” Campos said. “The key here is that if you speak your truth, they’ll go after you, even if you do it in a respectful way. I didn’t lose my temper or go after anybody, but they are trying to make me into the next Chris Daly.”

Campos said his overarching goal this year is to keep advancing a good government agenda.

“This means not just making sure that good public policy is being pursued, but also that we do so with as much openness and transparency as possible,” he said.

As a member of the Board’s Public Safety Committee, Campos says he will focus on making sure that we have “as much community policing as possible.

He plans to focus on improving public transportation, noting that a lot of folks in his district use public transit.

And he’d like to see interim mayor Ed Lee implement the due process legislation that Campos sponsored and the former Board passed with a veto-proof majority in 2009, but Mayor Gavin Newsom refused to implement. Campos’ legislation sought to ensure that immigrant youth get their day in court before being referred to the federal immigration authorities for possible deportation, and Newsom’s refusal to implement it, left hundreds of youth at risk of being deported, without first having the opportunity to establish their innocence in a juvenile court.
‘We met with Mayor Lee today,” Campos told the Guardian Jan. 18. “And we asked him to move this forward as quickly as possible. He committed to do that and said he wants to get more informed, but I’m confident he will move this forward.”

Campos also said he’ll be focusing on issues around workers’ rights and health care.
“I want to make sure we keep making progress on those fronts,” Campos said.

“It’s been a rough couple of days,” Campos continued, circling back to the beating the press gave him for his “progressive” remarks.“But I got to keep moving, doing my work, calling it as a I see it, doing what’s right, and doing it in a respectful way. The truth is that if you talk about the progressive movement and what we have achieved, which includes universal healthcare and local hire in the last few years, you are likely to become a target.”

Sup. Malia Cohen
District 10
Issues:
*Public safety
*Jobs
*Preserving open space
*Creating Community Benefit Districts
*Ending illegal dumping
Elected to replace termed-out D10 Sup. Sophie Maxwell, Cohen has been named chair of the City & School District committee, vice chair of the Land Use and Economic Development Committee and vice chair of the Public Safety Committee.

Cohen says her top priorities are public safety, jobs, open space, which she campaigned on, as well as creating community benefits districts and putting an end to illegal dumping.

“I feel good about the votes I cast for Ed Lee as interim mayor and David Chiu as Board President. We need to partner on the implementation of local hire, and those alliances can help folks in my district, including Visitation Valley.”

“I was touched by Sup. David Campos words about the progressive majority on the Board,” she added. “I thought they were thoughtful.”

Much like Kim, Cohen believes her legislative actions will show where her values lie.
“I’d like to see a community benefits district on San Bruno and Third Street because those are two separate corridors that could use help,” Cohen said. 

She pointed to legislation that former D10 Sup. Sophie Maxwell introduced in November 2010, authorizing the Department of Public Works to expend a $350,000 grant from the Solid Waste Disposal Clean-Up Site trust fund to clean up 25 chronic illegal dumping sites.
“All the sites are on public property and are located in the southeast part of the city, in my district,” Cohen said, noting that the city receives over 16,000 reports of illegal dumping a year and spends over $2 million in cleaning them up.

Sup. John Avalos
District 11
*Implementing Local Hire
*Improving MUNI / Balboa Park BART
*Affordable housing
*Improving city and neighborhood services

Sup. John Avalos, who chaired the Budget committee last year and has just been named Chair of the Board’s City Operations and Neighborhood Services Committee, said his top priorities were implementing local hire, improving Muni and Balboa Park BART station, building affordable housing at Balboa, and improving city and neighborhood services.

“And despite not being budget chair, I’ll make sure we have the best budget we can,” Avalos added, noting that he plans to talk to labor and community based organizations about ways to increase city revenues. “But it’s hard, given that we need a two-thirds majority to pass stuff on the ballot,” he said.

Last year, Avalos helped put two measures on the ballot to increase revenues. Prop. J sought to close loopholes in the city’s current hotel tax, and asked visitors to pay a slightly higher hotel tax (about $3 a night) for three years. Prop. N, the real property transfer tax, h slightly increased the tax charged by the city on the sale of property worth more than $5 million.

Prop. J secured only 45.5 percent of the vote, thereby failing to win the necessary two-thirds majority. But it fared better than Prop. K, the competing hotel tax that Newsom put on the ballot at the behest of large hotel corporations and that only won 38.5 percent of the vote. Prop. K also sought to close loopholes in the hotel tax, but didn’t include a tax increase, meaning it would have contributed millions less than Prop. J.

But Prop. N did pass. “And that should raise $45 million,” Avalos said. “So, I’ve always had my sights set on raising revenue, but making cuts is inevitable.”

Do free trips influence SF’s elected officials?

Sasha Cuttler
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Do free trips influence SF’s elected officials?

San Francisco public officials have received $44,000 in trips and travel expenses from private interests in the last two years – with Board of Supervisors President David Chiu the biggest recipient and controversial Chinatown power broker Rose Pak the biggest giver – according to “Flying Through Loopholes,” a report by a new group named San Franciscans for Clean Government.

The report questions whether the gift of free trips, a rare exception to the city’s otherwise strict ban on gifts to public officials, is a way of currying favor with decision-makers. “The appearance of thousands of dollars changing hands doesn’t look good and it could be easily fixed,” says attorney Jon Golinger, Chiu’s former campaign manager and a founder of the group. He raises the question, “Is a person who paid for a trip more likely to get a return phone call?”

The disclosure of Pak’s largesse comes in the wake of reports that she engineered the selection of Ed Lee as the city’s new mayor. The records show that Pak and the Chinatown Chamber of Commerce she heads gave travel gifts totaling nearly $20,000, almost half of the total. Most of that was for sending Sups. Chiu, Eric Mar, and Carmen Chu to southern China in November at a cost of $6,122 each. Pak also sent Chiu to China in September, with the World Economic Forum Young Leaders Program also kicking in another $1,544 for the trip.

Chiu was by far the largest recipient of the travel funds, taking in $16,640 for seven trips, including trips to the Netherlands, Taiwan, Washington DC, and Cambridge, Mass., in addition to his two China trips. Neither Pak nor Chiu have returned Guardian calls for comment yet, but we’ll update this post when and if they do. UPDATE: Chiu returned our call and said, “Our trips provide significant public benefits to San Francisco, from advocating for federal stimulus funds in Washington DC, to strengthening ties with government leaders in San Francisco’s sister cities, to learning about comparative transit first practices.  The report shows that our system of full disclosure of travel is working, and I welcome the conversation.”

The group is calling for the city to close the travel gift loohole and require fuller reporting of the details of the trips – such as where they stayed and other indicators of how lavishly the officials were treated – as well as calling on elected officials to voluntarily refuse to accept gifts. Golinger also raised questions about the influence that Pak is exerting on city government, which is largely invisible considering that she doesn’t even register as a lobbyist even though she’s known to be in regular contact with public officials.

“That is the bigger issue that needs to be looked at,” he said, “now that it’s become clear that Rose Pak and her group are so influential.”

Live Shots: Chaka Khan, The Warfield, 01/14/2011

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Sometimes going to a show is not just about the artist, but also about the audience. Fans have the ability to bring so much energy and excitement to a performance, and that’s exactly what went down this past Friday night at the Warfield, when super diva extraordinaire Chaka Khan took the stage.

Of course, Chaka’s peeps were there to see her. (Dare I say worship her?) But they were also there to get loud, funky, and show off some mighty fine threads. Before the performance even started, people were up from their seats, dancing in the aisles, woot-wooting in unison, to whatever the heck the DJ decided to play next, as they waited for Chaka to come out.

But before Chaka, there was Chrisette Michele, an up-and-coming R&B artist, whose chill tunes and limitless eyelashes really could take your breath away. And then Chaka arrived and the theater packed with groupies totally lost it. For some reason the Warfield decided to put seats out for this show, but there was no way anyone was going to sit on them, at all. Chaka found her groove long, long ago, and she still has it — and somehow I know she always will.

SFBG Radio: Truth and MLK Day

Zelda Bronstein
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2
SFBG Radio: Truth and MLK Day

Today Johnny and Tim talk about how Martn Luther King Jr. Day celebrations tend to ignore the history of the civil rights leader who was also a progressive on labor and economic issues — and an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam war. Listen after the jump. 

sfbgradio1182011 by endorsements2010

Static at KUSF – station sold, public meeting planned

John Elberling
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Static at KUSF – station sold, public meeting planned

 

Today the University of San Francisco (USF) announced that its radio station, KUSF, is moving to an online-only classical music format.

Before its transmission unceremoniously went to dead air and static, KUSF had been on air for 34 years. An important independent media source, it’s been one of the Bay Area’s chief sites for new and innovative music, with DJ-informed playlists devoted to local, experimental, international, “loud,” and “other” music, in addition to genres such as rock/pop and hip-hop.

Some volunteers and staff members discovered the change in-person. “When I came in [this morning] they’d just shut things off,” said Miranda Morris, the station’s Marketing and Advertising Coordinator. “They proceeded to have facility management change the locks, and I was asked to go home for the day.”

According to a statement from the university, the FCC license for 90.3 FM has been assigned to the USC-owned Classical Public Radio Network, which plans to launch a Bay Area non-commercial classical musical station. “The move to online-only distribution gives KUSF a powerful opportunity to grow its worldwide audience,” the statement declares.

USF’s President, Rev. Stephen A. Privett, would not comment on the sale. His office directed calls to Gary McDonald, USF’s Assistant Vice President for Public Affairs, who did not respond by press time.

Before the sale, “there’d been rumblings in terms of a possible move [of the office],” said Irwin Swirnoff, the KUSF DJ behind “Sleeves on Hearts,” a weekly music show that frequently includes guest spots and interviews with local and touring musicians. “Our monthly staff meeting [in January] was eagerly anticipated because the move would be discussed. But on Monday we got an email that the meeting was canceled.

“We as volunteers decided we would meet anyway, even if it was outside. Right before the meeting, we got an email from the station manager that said staff were forbidden to meet because [the University] wasn’t ready to present details about the move, that we were moving within campus, and it would be business as usual. We took that statement at face value.”

At the moment, the amount that KUSF was sold for is unverified, as is the impetus behind the sale. “Steve Runyon, the station’s general manager, thinks the station and its transmitter were sold for about 5 million dollars,” said Andre Torrez, a KUSF volunteer. “The call letters were not sold.”

A meeting at which questions regarding the sale will be addressed is planned for 7 p.m. on Wed., Jan. 19, at Fromm Hall in the USF Campus at 2130 Fulton St., SF.

“We want to show the university the cultural and community importance of KUSF, and we want listeners to show their support of KUSF and independent media,” said Swirnoff.

“First of all this a school that prides itself on its Jesuit beliefs and values. Right now the values they are acting on are greed and dishonesty.”

Editorial: New Mayor Ed Lee should stop the recycling eviction

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Mayor Ed Lee needs to demonstrate, as we noted in last week’s editorial, that he’s making a clean break from the politics and policies of the Newsom administration — and there are things he can do immediately to reassure San Franciscans that he’s going to offer more than another 11 months of a failed administration.

He can start by calling off the eviction of the Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Recycling Center.

The move by Newsom to evict the recycling center, on the edge of Golden Gate Park, was part of his administration’s war on the poor. It made no sense from a financial or environmental perspective. The center, which pays rent to the city, would be replaced by a community garden, which would pay nothing. The center creates green jobs that pay a living wage; all the workers would be laid off under Newsom’s plan. The center also operates a native plant nursery and provides a drop-off recycling site for local businesses.

A community garden makes only limited sense in a shady area that gets fog most of the year.

The only reason Newsom was determined to get rid of the place is that low-income people who collect bottles and cans around the city (an environmentally positive activity, by the way) come by the center to drop them off and pick up a little cash. Some of the wealthier residents of the Haight don’t like poor people wandering through their neighborhood. It’s class warfare, declared by the Newsom administration — and Lee, who got his start as a poverty lawyer, doesn’t have to tolerate it.

Lee should direct the Recreation and Parks Department to cease the eviction proceedings and negotiate a long-term lease for the Frederick Street site.

It seems like a small item in the long list of issues the new mayor will have to deal with — but the HANC recycling center has strong symbolic importance. Ending the eviction and allowing the center to stay would be a sign that Lee intends to be a mayor who is willing to work with the progressives and that he’s not going to try to solve all the city’s problems by blaming, harassing, and criminalizing people who are barely surviving in San Francisco.

The new mayor could take another simple step toward broad credibility by opening up his office — to the public and the press. Under Newsom, Room 200 was an unfriendly place to outsiders, and often the news media were treated as enemies. Lee should start holding regular press conferences — not just stage-managed events designed to showcase one issue, but broad-ranging, open sessions where reporters can ask questions about anything his administration is doing. And he ought to direct his press office to make compliance with the Sunshine Ordinance a priority.

For starters, he could release whatever proposed budget cuts Newsom left behind. It’s hard to believe the former mayor just turned them over to Lee without a list of things that were on the chopping block. The sooner the public sees where the previous administration was going, the sooner we can all determine what, if anything, Lee will do differently.  

John Ross dies at 72

Zelda Bronstein
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21
John Ross dies at 72

When John Ross left Terminal Island, the federal prison in Los Angeles, after serving a couple of years for refusing the Vietnam draft, the warden shook his head and said: “Ross, you never learned how to be a prisoner.”


I’m not writing the epitaph for whatever gravestone he has or doesn’t have, wherever it might be in the world, but that’s what I’d put on it: “John Ross, 1938-2011. Never learned how to be a prisoner.”


John, who died over the weekend, was a poet, author, activist, agitator and uncontrollable shit disturber, utterly and sometimes insanely fearless, pure of heart and devoted to the cause of social justice so deeply that he could never let up, even for a minute. He was also my friend.


John was a tenant organizer in San Francisco in the 1960s. He ran for supervisor once on a platform of rent control and ending the war; he was kicked off the ballot on the basis that he was a convicted felon. He never got his filing fee back.


After a while, he headed north for Arcata, back to the land, so to speak, and became something of a farmer. He wrote poetry, self-published maybe half a dozen books, most of which I have, some of which are probably lost forever. He wrote freelance for the Guardian, but he had no phone; you’d call him at a bar in Arcata (he swore later that Thomas Pynchon was one of his barmates), leave a message and he’d check in when he got it.


Then in 1984, he showed up at our office in San Francisco, fleeing the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting, which had raided his plot, trashed his house, thrown his typewriter out the window and missed capturing him by a few minutes. He sold the last of the crop in the city, found a room and started writing for us regularly.


He was one of the single most talented writers I’ve ever met — and a reporter willing to go anywhere for a story. He was also an absolute pain in the ass to work with. Every John Ross story I ever edited was a nightmare. He hated editors, almost as a matter of religion; every single word was sacred, and anytime I tried to mess with what he’d created he’d threaten to quit. “Take my name off the masthead; I’m never working for you again” was almost a mantra with us. It got to the point where I had to say: No, John. You can’t quit. You’re part of this operation forever, like it or not. And he always came around.


But it’s not a surprise that he never held down a real job for long.


Sandy Close at Pacific News Service sent him to Mexico City after the big earthquake in 1985, and he wound up at the Hotel Isabel, where he lived for the next 25 years. He took on stories nobody else would do or could do; he’d go places nobody else would dare. “Tim,” he’d always tell me, “you have to go where the story is.”


When the Zapatistas began their rebellion, he hitched a ride south from Mexico City, then hiked into the hills in Chiapas with a bag of granola and a couple of bottles of water, found the rebels in a little hamlet, met Subcommander Marcos and got interviews and information that left the rest of the media in the dust. In the first story he sent me, he described seeing a couple of reporters from the San Francisco Chronicle zipping by in a fancy rented jeep, with about $1,000 worth of camera gear, totally befuddled. They were out of their league; John was right at home.


He called me once, late at night, to ask if I knew any doctors in town. Turns out he’d been beaten pretty badly by the Mexican authorities just before getting on a plane to SF. I asked him how it happened, and he told me that he’d decided, on his own, to stand in the Mexico City airport and make a speech denouncing the government. The cops didn’t respond kindly.


He went to Iraq before the war to serve as a human shield in Baghdad (his emails were all signed “John Ross, humanshield”), left after having some clashes (imagine that) with his Iraqi government minders, travelled all over the world writing and selling his books, sent me pieces from everywhere, lost his eye to an old injury from fighting with the SFPD (his email signature became “Juan Eye”), won and refused an award from the City of San Francisco, wrote a major investigative piece on the death of journalist Brad Will and kept writing until the very end. When he was diagnosed with terminal liver cancer, he started signing his emails “John Ross, not dead yet.”


The last message I got was on Nov. 4. After complaining some more about the cops, he wrote:


“it appears ive written my last articles for the bay guardian — the doctors have given me six months on the outside and then its goodbye this cruel world — we raised some hell when i was here.” It’s signed: “insolidarity johnross enroute.”


Yes, John: We raised some some hell when you were here. Good luck enroute. And I will miss you forever.


John Ross leaves a son, Dante A. Ross, a daughter, Carla Ross-Allen, and a granddaughter, Zoe Ross-Allen, as well as a stepdaughter, Dylan Melbourne and her daugther Honore, as well as a sister, Susan Gardner. Memorial info is pending; I’ll keep you posted.


You can read some of John’s recent articles here and here and a lot more here.

Jukebox Jury: Anika

John Elberling
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0
Jukebox Jury: Anika

Anika‘s self-titled album on Stones Throw is getting play these days, but not as much talk about its cover versions as one might expect. The time seems right to serve up a few of the originals next to Anika’s versions and ask which you prefer. We’re able to do this with two songs: “Yang Yang,” written by Yoko Ono, and “I Go to Sleep,” written by Ray Davies and made popular by the Pretenders. (Produced by “beak,” a.k.a. Geoff Barrow of Portishead, Anika’s interpretation of the latter is very Joe Meek-meets-Cluster-meets Flying Lizards.) Before the jump, I’m also including links to some of the sources of other lovelorn tracks on Anika, including truly amazing live film/video recordings of the teen-death anthem “Terry” by Morrissey-favorite Twinkle, and Skeeter Davis’s plainly bereft “End of the World.”

Anika, “Yang Yang”:

Yoko Ono, “Yang Yang”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWU67u3yW7s

Anika,”I Go to Sleep”:

The Pretenders, “I Go to Sleep”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7cQyb4ejY0

 

A fiction writer that beats FOX News for war coverage

Andrew Lam
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0

Kudos to the New Yorker for bringing Daniel Alarcón to the attention of the eastern rag’s audience. The Oakland writer is one of the three West coast scribes from the New Yorker’s 20 Under 40 “young” writers anthology who will be reading at City Lights Books on Weds/19. I suggest you go check up on the event – if not for the magazine’s time-proven track record of tagging future lit stars, then because the more people in this country who read Alarcón, the less likely we are to plunge our country into madness.

Alarcón’s are war stories, but not in the sense that we grow up with in America, where the term brings to mind bombs and sharp, whizzing death. Alarcon draws on his cultural memory of home country Peru (where he left for Birmingham, Alabama when he was three years old) to speak of the more prosaic nature of conflict through the eyes of people to whom it is brought, not those that strap on uniforms and board helicopters to go to it. 

Take the novel he’s best known for, Lost City Radio (Harper Collins, 288 pages, $24.95). It takes place – in the grand tradition of Latin American epics — in a mythic town, or at least an unnamed city. A war has raged for years, resulting in the disappearance of radio star Norma’s husband, Rey. An orphaned boy from the city shows up and with him an end to her endless, ragged wonderings about what happened to Rey. Every one of the book’s characters is struggling to deal with the real nature of war: a messy business, sure — but not one where the women, children, and elderly are left at home, as they are in many of our country’s depictions of conflict.

There are few gunshots fired in Lost City Radio. Instead, the scene of war is rendered in social notes – illicit dance parties held after curfew, names you can and can’t say on the radio, acceptance of loss, confusion. The story that Alarcón contributes to 20 Under 40 is Second Lives, which tells the story of a Peruvian family who sends their eldest son away from inflation and civil war to America, where he promptly immerses himself in the American life, which is to say he starts water-skiing, job-hopping, and stops writing home to his mom, dad, and brother.

What would our wars — including the one we are waging on immigration — be like if the general populace of our country saw it this way, instead of through the clip art pyrotechnics of TV news channels? 

Plus, Alarcón is the only author I’ve ever heard to name-check a seminal tome from my childhood, The Phantom Tollbooth as being an influential one in his life. Plus, he lives in Oakland. The night’s other readers, Chris Adrian and Yiyun Li, both hail from the Bay too. The last time the New Yorker pulled this same anthology stunt in 1999 they pegged Junót Diaz, Jonathan Franzen, and Jhumpa Lahiri before their ascent into best-sellerdom, so it’ll be perfect if you’re the before-the-curve type about the national fiction scene.

 

20 Under 40: Stories from the New Yorker

Weds/19 7 p.m., free

City Lights Books

261 Columbus, SF

(415) 362-4921

www.citylights.com

 

Notes on tragedy in Tucson

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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Notes on tragedy in Tucson

A dear friend and former classmate of mine, Sarah “Uppie” Updegraff, recently began working the night shift as a nurse at the NICU, the Tucson hospital where Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is in intensive care.
 
Today, Uppie sent me a link to a blog she recently created to post her personal reflections on life as she makes the transition from nursing school to a career in health care. Just days after she began writing, she found herself processing not only what it’s like to be up all night caring for patients, but doing so in a highly charged atmosphere and media zoo that’s been thrust into the center of a national tragedy. I thought I’d share some excerpts, which offer a real-life, on-the-ground glimpse into what it’s like to be in Tucson in the wake of this horrific incident.

Here are a few of the thoughts and reflections from her blog, “The Uppie Update.”

From an entry titled, Sad Times in Tucson, City that I Love …

“Of course, then there are politics.  Our liberal wild-west gun laws.  The overall culture of dislike for Sarah Palin (with a comparable vigor to any liberal small college town), and my beloved NPR, blaming Republicans as usual. Usually I find it consoling to listen to news that agrees with me, but I’ve been rolling my eyes all morning, exhausted and unsatisfied.

“And then I think about this young man’s parents.  And this little girl’s parents. How terrible. It’s hard for me to understand these actions, to make sense of anything, other than to believe this boy must have had some psychological issues which compelled him. I can’t believe that a ‘regular’ person could just wake up one day and decide to shoot some people they have decided not to like. … I want to know more about this boy. What systems  have failed? I’ve been obsessively listening to the news, as though I’ll find an answer there. Instead, I find just more politics.”

Here’s more, from an entry titled, My First Week of Night Shift Amidst Tragedy.

“I just move through it, making too much eye contact or none – waiting in line to have multiple security people check my badge on my way to my floor. The Obama hospital parade – a pensive fanfare. 

“They show the little girl, smiling with her milk-carton-worthy optimism, making me notice feeling nauseous. 

“In my time off, I’m unable to focus on anything requiring attention. I find myself, wandering Target alone, watching people, eavesdropping. Listening to chatter, chatter about groceries, children, and shootings woven by many mouths – so strange. Is Target always this strange and solemn, or is it just me, in a disconnected haze of exhaustion? And of course everyone knew someone, everyone’s comparing notes on who they knew and how – as they do in newsworthy tragedies like these. Tucson is so small.  I haven’t met anyone yet who had no connection to the people killed or shot. Droning punctuated by sentences that seem to lift out of the shoppers around me: ‘It could have happened here, it could have happened anywhere.’ ‘I had just been at that Safeway the day before.’ ‘My brother works there.’ conversations laced in and out. This is my community after all, even at Target in the middle of the day/night. It feels lonely and connected at the same time.”

SFBG Radio: A split decison for Jerry Brown

Zelda Bronstein
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0
SFBG Radio: A split decison for Jerry Brown

In today’s episode, we look at Jerry Brown’s first week in office — and give him an A for perception and a weak C for reality. Listen after the jump.

sfbgradio1/14/2011 by endorsements2010

When will the gun madness stop?

Zelda Bronstein
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37
When will the gun madness stop?

Tucson was a disaster, a tragedy, possibly a result of overheated political rhetoric driving a deranged man to action. It was also the result of a national culture that makes it too easy to obtain a powerful weapon.

I looked at the top three stories on SFGATE this afternoon, and here they are:

1. More on the Tucson shootings.

2. 96-year-old woman and grandson shot to death in Livermore.

3. Man shot in Tenderloin coffee shop.

I know, the Chron loves to lead with mayhem, but seriously: That’s a lot of dead people for one day. And you can’t shoot someone if you don’t have a gun. You wonder when this madness will ever end.

 

 

George Gascon, longtime Republican

Mary Magee
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51
George Gascon, longtime Republican

One thing I didn’t know when I wrote about former police chief George Gascón’s shocking Jan. 9 appointment as San Francisco’s next district attorney is that he has Republican roots. But then I came across a January 10 Los Angeles Times article that revealed that in 2008, Gascón described himself to the L.A. Times “as a longtime Republican.”

Gascón is now registered as “decline-to-state” but his Republican leanings could become an issue in the D.A.’s race this November, depending on what happens between now and then, in terms of decisions Gascón makes, especially around cases the San Francisco Police Department refer to his new office.

Paul Henderson, who was D.A. Kamala Harris’ chief of staff before she won the Attorney General’s race, was rumored to be Harris’ preferred choice as her replacement. But he now finds himself in the awkward position of reporting to the man he will be running against this fall.

“I respect Gascón as a law enforcement officer and I appreciate that he called me personally to inform me of the mayor’s decision,” Henderson told me. “D.A. Gascón and I will be discussing next steps and I stand ready to help him address the pressing issues facing the office.”

Henderson said the atmosphere over at the D.A.’s office is “a little crazy these days.”

“Everyone is trying to figure out what is going to happen,” Henderson said.  “All of this happened out of the blue, out of left field.”

Or right field, if you consider Gascón’s former voter registration.

“I think a lot of people were expecting something and someone different,” Henderson observed. “That’s the reality and the truth. I know I have a lot of support, but I need a little time to weigh and evaluate things.”

Political consultant Jim Stearns told the Guardian that he believes Gascón and Newsom when they say Newsom’s offer of the post to Gascón was a spur-of-the-moment decision

“I know for a fact that [Board President] David Chiu was offered the D.A. position and that Chiu and Newsom were genuinely confused about whether Chiu was going to take it or not,” Stearns said. “Chiu had discussed it at length a long time ago and rejected the notion. But then, when the offer was actually made, he said ‘I don’t know’ for a few days. Then, when he turned it down, the Mayor’s Office was in a quandary. So, I think Newsom was trying to pull a rabbit out of the hat, but this is one of those appointments that you might not make, if you really thought about it.”

As Stearns notes, Gascón had only been SFPD Chief for 18 months, and before that he was chief in Mesa, Arizona, which as Stearns puts it, “is not what you’d call a big city.”

And while Gascón, who was former high-ranking official in the Los Angeles Police Department, has since scored high marks for reducing violent crime, there were a lot of issues between SFPD and the D.A.’s office during his tenure, leaving him at risk of being accused of conflict of interest in his new role.

Perhaps the biggest of these conflicts is the question of police misconduct, which became a political hot potato during the Attorney General’s race, when attention was brought to a law that’s been on the books since 1963, when the Supreme Court ruled in Brady vs. Maryland that the government has a duty to disclose material evidence to the defense which could tend to change the outcome of the trial.

In 1972, “Brady” was expanded to require District Attorneys to turn over any information that could impeach the credibility or veracity of a police officer’s testimony, or if an officer has a past record of falsifying reports or other conduct that could impact their truthfulness. But it turned out that San Francisco had never formalized a “Brady” policy. It’s true that Gascón as SFPD Chief requested that searches be done as far back as 1980 for any sustained discipline actions that could be interpreted as possible “Brady” issues, but his move to D.A. raises the issue afresh.

“What better way to keep a lid on it,” Stearns opined.

So far, the D.A.’s office has not released a statement on how Gascón intends to handle potential conflicts of interests, but I’ll update this post, if it does.

Stearns speculates that part of the decision to appoint Gascón was a result of the foot-dragging that went on as a result of Chiu’s indecision, allowing lots of competing camps to canvass for their preferred picks.

“The Gettys were pushing Bock,” Stearns said, referring to Alameda County Deputy District Attorney Sharmin Bock, an expert in human trafficking. “Others were pushing for [Assistant D.A.] Andy Clark, Paul Henderson, and [Deputy City Attorney] Sean Connelly [who represented the city in police excessive force cases].”

Other names floated were Chief Assistant District Attorney David Pfeifer, David Onek, senior fellow at the Berkeley Center for Criminal Justice; and San Francisco attorney John Keker.

“Newsom may have concluded that if he pushed for any of these folks, he’d be taking sides, and that if he went for Gascón, he wouldn’t be pissing anyone off,” Stearns said.

But now it seems the whole law enforcement world in San Francisco is in an uproar, as folks start to try and figure out how the appointment impacts the D.A.’s race in November.

‘The politics of a D.A.’s office is unique,” Stearns observed. “You can be thrown a curve ball at any moment. You never know what crime is going to be committed, and all of a sudden you have to make a decision that can impact the race.”

Stearns notes that Gascón has some positives going for him.
“He has fairly well-known name recognition, he had good grades, mostly, from the mainstream press for the work he has done as police chief, and it sounds like he is a pretty good manager and administrator.”

On the downside, there’s his statement that he’s “not philosophically opposed to the death penalty,” and the latest shocker that he’s been a longtime Republican.

And then there are the vagaries of running for elected office under San Francisco’s instant run-off voting (IRV) system.
“He could end up like Don Perata,” Stearns said, referring to Perata’s recent loss to Jean Quan in the race for Oakland mayor. “He could have the most money, the most endorsements and even the most votes, but no second and third place votes, and therefore he loses. But that depends on who else is going to run against him.”

Calls to David Onek, who filed in the D.A.’s race last summer and has already raised over $130,000 and collected a ton of endorsements, went unreturned, but if he gets back, I’ll be sure to post his comments here.

And as Henderson previously stated, he doesn’t plan to make any decisions until he has a substantive conversation with Gascón.

“Paul is pretty anti-death penalty, but like Gascón he came out in favor of sit-lie,” Stearns said, noting that Gascón may not feel he has to actively campaign to win in November.

“It’s a shock to the system what you have to go through to campaign in this city, especially if you believe in authority and hierarchy, and all of a sudden you have to go to every Democratic Club in town and listen to everyone’s questions and comments. But he sounds pretty serious about running, and I certainly believe that every election is competitive, so it remains to be seen what kind of candidate Gascón is and the deals he makes”.

Kim remains mum during Pledge of Allegiance

Sasha Cuttler
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70
Kim remains mum during Pledge of Allegiance

As the old progressive majority on the Board of Supervisors dissolves into uncertain new political dynamics, everyone has been looking for signs of what’s to come, large and small. Do the new committee assignments mean the moderates will have more power? Have identify politics moved to the forefront? If the new marching order is “getting things done,” what kinds of things will get done?

It feels a bit like the end of an era after 10 years of progressives running the show, but there are small signs that progressivism under the dome isn’t dead yet. Here’s one: on Saturday, when the new Board of Supervisors was sworn in, new Sup. Jane Kim stood for the Pledge of Allegiance but remained mum, not saying a word.

When I asked her about it later, Kim said that she doesn’t believe in the pledge and has never said it throughout her tenure on the Board of Education. Her predecessor Chris Daly, as well as Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, generally say the pledge but pointedly drop the words “under God” from it, with Daly sometimes being quite loud and pronounced in his modified lyrics.

There’s no legal requirement for the Board of Supervisors to pledge allegiance to a flag, and there are many political jurisdictions that don’t say it. So, is dropping the pledge from the board agenda one of those things that the new board would like to get done? Don’t bet on it. But personally, it did make my heart go pitter-pat to watch Kim’s lips remain still as her colleagues aligned themselves with a piece of cloth.

And at this point, I plan to savor the small things.

A (not so brief) history of hate

Mary Magee
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9
A (not so brief) history of hate

Since the horrific shooting of Rep. Giffords and the loss of Judge Roll, Christina Green, and four other innocent bystanders, folks have been grappling with the role of violent rhetoric in triggering the tragedy. And now the National Day Laborer Organizing Network has set up A History of Hate: Political Violence in a Rogue State to chronicle political violence and intimidation in Arizona since 1987, which is when U2’s Bono received a death threat because of his stance on Martin Luther King.

“Something strange happened toward the end of the Joshua Tree tour,” Bono noted in a 2006 interview. “We had campaigned for Martin Luther King Day in Tempe, Arizona, where the tour opened back in April. There was a governor there called Mecham who was holding out against it, and we had got involved in local politics there and took a stand. We went back to Tempe at the end of the tour, in December, to play the Sun Devil Stadium.”

“I was getting death threats throughout the tour,” Bono said. “This character was a racist offended by our work, he thought we were messing in other people’s business and taking sides with the Black man. One night the FBI said: ‘Look, it’s quite serious. He says he has a ticket. He said he’s armed.’… So we played the show, the FBI were around, everyone was a little unnerved. You just didn’t know, could he be in the building?”

A History of Hate’s stated mission is “collecting evidence of intolerance that have been brewing and boiling over in this country.” And it’s asking folks to  contribute their story to this growing archive, “so we can turn the tide from a history of hate to a future of progress.”

 “Our hearts go out to the victims and their families in this horrible tragedy,” NDLON director Pablo Alvarado stated. “We mourn alongside them in part because as day laborers, we understand deeply the experience of being targeted by violent hatred and extremism. If there is one lesson from those who have built the historical rights and privileges we enjoy, it is this: hate must be confronted so it can be overcome by love. It cannot be ignored and the world needs to know,” Alvarado continued. “What Arizona needs, and what all of us need, is to confront the hard truth of our current political environment with unifying steps. After we have paused to comprehend the immeasurable tragedy in Arizona, we must now do our part to make a more just society.”

Sounds like a good idea. Hey, maybe immigrant rights advocates and the communities they represent can submit all the hate mail and death threats they regularly receive –a burden they have so far largely borne alone and in silence.

 

 

Live Shots: Willie Nelson, The Fillmore, 01/11/2011

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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1

Sam Love and I rented a camper van and decided it would be our home for the next three weeks, as we made our way loop-dee-loop around the south island of New Zealand. A few hours in, we realized that there aren’t that many people in New Zealand (but tons of sheep!) and townships are quite spread out, resulting in very few radio stations.

This was a problem. We planned on driving, like hundreds of miles. But with no music? No way. No how! As we pulled into Queenstown, we had a mission. A thrift store needed to be found – CDs needed to be purchased. And there it was, the Salvation Army (or Sallie’s as they like to call it there). They did have CDs … and guess what? They were ALL Willie Nelson. Every-single-one. So we got one titled “Willie Stripped” which includes a CD booklet with photos of Willie sitting naked in the bath. Bonus! So now, when I think of New Zealand, I think of Willie Nelson, Sam Love and me belting out “Bring Me Sunshine” as we chugged in our little van through the mind blowing landscape of the Fiordland National Park.

So seeing Willie last night, live at the Fillmore, was like a triple/quadruple bonus. This man is an icon, who stands for peace, love and tons of free flowing whiskey. And even though he is such an American symbol, Willie Nelson will forever remind me of that New Zealand roadtrip.

The problem with parking tickets

Zelda Bronstein
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63
The problem with parking tickets

Naturally, C.W. Nevius is outraged that the poor drivers in San Francisco are going to get hit with more parking tickets since the Municipal Transportation Agency has a budget shortfall. We’re going to hear the usual whining form the cars-have-rights-too crowd; why is everybody always picking on the owners of internal combustion vehicles? I mean, they pollute the air and are destroying the planet, but paying for the right to drive in a city is such a horrible oppresive burden. 


But here’s the thing: In this case, I don’t thing Nevius and the gang are entirely wrong.


Parking tickets were never meant to be primarily a revenue source. If you ask any rational urban planner or transporation expert, they’ll tell you that parking meter rates should be designed to encourage turnover of spaces and fines should be used to discourage illegal parking. In a perfect urban setting, the parking fines would be adequate to keep everyone following the rules, and there would be no revenue from tickets at all.


You start depending on illegal behavior as a source of revenue and you get into trouble fast. You get to the point where the city wants you to break the law so there will be enough money to pay for Muni service. Which makes no sense.


The system is also utterly unfair. Some people will never get parking tickets in San Francisco — because they have garages where they live (and garages seriously jack up the cost of housing) and garages where they work (and subsidized parking is an untaxed benefit for the few that harms society as a whole) and large parking lots where they shop (which encourages people to use big chain stores instead of neighborhood merchants.) Those people who never get tickets do just as much damage to the environment — and pay nothing for it.


In the end, parking fines are a somewhat regressive source of revenue. The very rich either don’t pay them or don’t care (in which case the deterrent is missing). Companies that do a lot of deliveries in congested parts of the city just factor the tickets into the cost of doing business — which means the drivers have no reason not to double-park. The average person who is five minutes late to pick the kids at child care (and is getting a $1 a minute penalty for being late; that’s standard in this city) and in desperation sticks the damn car in a yellow zone for just a couple of seconds and gets caught — that person is paying the cost of everyone else’s bad behavior.


But there’s no question that cars have serious negative impacts on the city, and San Franciscans shouldn’t be subsidizing their use. In fact, car users should be subsidizing Muni, big time. It just ought to be fair.


So for once, I’m with Nevius: Let’s use parking fines to discourage illegal parking, free up spaces and stop the damn double-parkers, who screw up everything, particularly Muni service (ever watch a trolley coach try to pull around a double-parked delivery truck downtown?). But when it comes to MTA revenue, we should try to go for a single, annual, progressive car tax. And it should be based on the value of the car.


You own and operate a $50,000 car in San Francisco? Costs you $500 a year in city taxes. Your car’s a 15-year-old beater worth $5,000? Pay $50. Yes, some people will cheat and pretend to live in Berkeley (although once we make this work, every other Bay Area city’s going to join us). Some people always cheat. If they get caught, their car gets towed and impounded. Most people will pay the tax.


Oh, and the neighborhood parking stickers need to be fixed. It costs, what, $300 a month to rent a garage these days — and for $70 A YEAR, you get the equivalent of a city-owned parking space on the street, all yours, all the time. That should be at least doubled. Then in exchange we can cut back on the street sweeping in neighborhoods.


I’ve always suspected that the city’s street-cleaning program was largely a post-Prop.13 way of raising revenue by taxing the people who are well enough off to own a car but not rich enought to have a garage. Sure, the city needs to clean Mission Street three times a week, but where I work, in Potrero Hill, the streets would be fine with a monthly sweeping. Save the city some money, too.


Owning a car in the city should be expensive. But the taxes ought to be fair. That’s all I’m saying.


 


 


 

The Ed Lee files

Mary Magee
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9

Ed Lee’s swearing-in as San Francisco’s first Asian American mayor was a historic occasion, especially in light of the city’s dark history of supporting the Chinese Exclusion Act. And it led to an impressive hands-across-the-water moment when Oakland Mayor Jean Quan arrived to see the Board vote for Lee.


But after Campos declared the progressive majority dead, folks across the city started debating the meaning of “progressive.” And after San Francisco got its first sighting of Mayor Lee’s wife and family, everyone was left wondering what his rapid ascension means for the mayor’s race in November.

Chiu stiffs progressives on key committee appointments

Sasha Cuttler
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21

Belying his repeated claims to being part of the progressive movement, Board of Supervisors President David Chiu has ousted his progressive colleagues from key leadership positions on board committees, placing fiscal conservatives into the chairs and majorities on the three most important committees and giving downtown interests more control over city legislation and projects than they’ve had in a decade.

Most notably, the chair of the Budget & Finance Committee was taken away from Sup. John Avalos – who challenged Chiu for the board presidency on Saturday – and given to Sup. Carmen Chu. While Chu did work on budget issues as a staffer in the Mayor’s Office before being appointed supervisor, which Chiu cited in support of his decision, she has consistently voted with the three-member minority of fiscal conservatives throughout her tenure as supervisor, opposing even the most widely accepted revenue proposals and progressive initiatives.

Chiu also placed himself in the swing vote role on that committee, naming Sups. Ross Mirkarimi and Jane Kim as the permanent committee members and Scott Wiener and himself as the temporary members who serve on the committee from March 1 through budget season. Asked if that was intentional, Chiu told us, “Sure was.” With the city facing a budget deficit of almost $400 million after seven years of budget deficits that were closed almost entirely through service cuts and fee increases – rather than general revenue increases targeted at the city’s richest individuals and corporations – the committee will be a key battleground between progressives and fiscal conservatives this year.

“The makeup of the committee reflects a real need for collaboration at this time of transition,” Chiu said of the Budget Committee. But Sup. David Campos was among the many progressives calling the committee assignments a major political realignment, telling us, “I don’t see how you can look at the committee assignments and not see some kind of realignment. The progressives are no longer in control of the key committees.” Avalos called it, “the price of moderates voting for Chiu.”

Also disappointing to progressives were Chiu’s choices for the Rules and Land Use committees. On the Rules Committee, which confirms mayoral appointments, approves the placement of charter amendments on the ballot, and will play a big role this year in approving the redrawing of supervisorial districts in the wake of the 2010 Census, Chiu named Kim and Sups. Sean Elsbernd and Mark Farrell, the latter two childhood buddies who represent the city’s two most conservative districts.

The committee takes the lead role in proposing the board’s three appointees to a task force that will draw the new legislative lines, as well as reviewing the other six appointees (three each from the Mayor’s Office and Elections Commission) and approving the plan that the task force produces. Downtown groups are expected to use the opportunity to negate the gains progressives have made in electing supervisors, probably in collaboration with Elsbernd and Farrell, a venture capitalist new to politics.

“Sean and Mark understand that if they push things through Rules that are outside the mainstream of who the board is, I expect that the full board will stop them,” Chiu told us. He also emphasized that Kim is chairing the committee, a role that can influence what items the committee considers: “On Rules, Sup. Kim will set the agenda there.”

Chiu sounded a similar rationale in defending a makeup on the Land Use & Economic Development Committee, to which he named new Sups. Scott Wiener and Malia Cohen – who were backed by development interests and opposed by tenant groups in last year’s election – along with Sup. Eric Mar as chair.

“With Eric at the helm, he will do a very good job at fighting for neighborhoods, tenants, and other interests,” Chiu said. But Avalos noted that Mar will have his hands full trying to manage a high-stakes, high-profile agenda with little help from his colleagues. “There’s a lot on Eric Mar’s shoulders. It’s his coming of age moment and he’ll have to step up big time to run that committee,” Avalos said.

Avalos said he was disappointed to be removed from the Budget Committee after working on it for eight of the last 10 years, first as Sup. Chris Daly’s legislative aide and then as a supervisor. “But I’m going to work behind the scene on the budget to make sure the communities are well-spoken for,” he said.

Chiu said he has gotten assurances from both Chu and Mayor Ed Lee “about the need for an open, transparent, and community-based budget process.” Carmen Chu echoed the point, telling us, “My hope is that this year the budget is going to be a very collaborative and open process.”

But on the need for need for revenue solutions, which Avalos has said are vital, David Chiu only went this far: “I am open to considering revenues as part of the overall set of solutions to close the budget deficit.” And Carmen Chu wouldn’t even go that far.

“At the end of the day, we need to take into account the context of the state budget, in terms of new cuts and taxes, because anything we do will be on top of the state level,” she told us, adding this about the revenue measures that she opposed last year, “We need to ask who do these measures really impact.”

For progressives, the only bright spots in the committee appointments were Avalos chairing the City Operations & Neighborhood Services Committees, with Mar and Elsbernd also serving; and Sup. Ross Mirkarimi chairing the Public Safety Committee, with Cohen and Campos on it as well.

“I told people I was going to be fair in committee assignments and I have been,” Chiu said.

Sarah Phelan and Tim Redmond contributed to this report.

SFBG Radio: Why is Sarah Palin whining?

Zelda Bronstein
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8
SFBG Radio: Why is Sarah Palin whining?

It’s not bad enough that Sarah Palin is trying to take advantage of the tragedy in Tucson; she’s also complaining that she’s a victim. Johnny and Tim talk about how odd this is after the jump.

sfbgradio1122010 by endorsements2010

Will the “real” progressives please stand up?

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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9

Before Ed Lee was unanimously appointed interim mayor at the Jan. 11 Board of Supervisors meeting, Sup. David Campos delivered a speech about the progressive movement in San Francisco.

“Progressives are no longer in control of this Board of Supervisors,” Campos noted. “We have a president of the Board of Supervisors who was elected without a clear progressive majority, and who was elected with a clear backing of the moderate block of supervisors.”

Speaking to the notion that supervisors were not elected to take positions, but to get things done, an idea aired by Board President David Chiu, Campos demurred. “I don’t think it’s entirely accurate to say that none of us are elected to take certain positions,” he said.

“It’s important to get things done,” Campos continued. “But I don’t think getting things done is enough. We have to ask ourselves, what is it that we’re getting done? How is it that we’re getting things done? And for whom is it that we’re doing what we’re doing?”

Would things be done in the interests of the people, Campos wanted to know, “or the downtown corporate interests?”

Would things be done in a transparent way? “I hope we’re not getting things done behind closed doors,” Campos said.

Campos also took issue with the implication that “progressives cannot get things done.” He pointed to district elections, universal healthcare, domestic partner benefits, and police reform as accomplishments of the progressive community.

Despite Campos’ pronouncement that progressives were on the losing end, nearly every elected official who stood to speak throughout the course of the historic day uttered the P-word — including Lee himself.

“I was a progressive,” Lee said during his inaugural speech, “before progressive was a political faction in this town.” Lee pointed to his history of fighting for the rights of African Americans and Latinos, his move to establish a whistle-blower program, and his role in creating a recycling program for the city as evidence of his progressive credentials.

Supervisors Eric Mar, Ross Mirkarimi, and Chiu also touched on the issue of progressive politics in comments delivered before Lee was unanimously appointed. “Progressive politics needs to qualify its new definition,” Mirkarimi said, “which is more than just who we are by name or

by ethnicity or culture but by what we stand for.” Mirkarimi also spoke about the transition representing an opportunity to “inject a level of smart politics, not necessarily branded as a progressive or moderate or conservative, but smart politics that take us forward.”

Mar spoke about “our changing progressive movement,” and Board President David Chiu countered Campos’ charge that progressives had lost their control of the board, saying, “I do believe that the majority of this board shares progressive values.”

Chiu also said he believed that there is “a danger in an overly narrow definition of what is progressive.”

At this point, given so many different opinions and affiliations with the label, the very word “progressive” is starting to take on a confusing quality. Does this stem from a lack of a better term? Is it simply that many people with different sets of alliances and perspectives, sometimes at odds with one another, nonetheless identify as “progressives?”

Or is does this new, more complex version of “progressive” relate to the void left behind by two polarizing figures, who drew definitive battle lines between “progressives” and “moderates” by staking out furious opposition to each other? The transition of power in City Hall was marked not only by the introduction of new elected officials in the board chambers and Room 200, but by the departure of former Sup. Chris Daly and former Mayor Gavin Newsom, both towering white men known for relishing the limelight, delivering long-winded addresses, and waging fierce battles against their enemies.

If those elected officials once viewed as the solidly progressive block – former Sup. Chris Daly and Sups. John Avalos, David Campos, Eric Mar, and Ross Mirkarimi – were swept out of power with this shift, as Campos suggested, their political label seems to have survived intact. Despite the approving nod of the board’s moderates and two business-friendly powerhouses who hold tremendous sway even if they don’t hold office, the city’s top two officials — Chiu and Lee — nonetheless seemed eager to be associated with “progressive” values.

Hot sexy events: January 12-18

Andrew Lam
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0
Hot sexy events: January 12-18

Historically speaking, it’s good to be a geek. Think about it – has any era in history more readily rewarded those whose aptitudes shine in the areas of minutiae and social awkwardness? Thanks to the Internet, every geek has an audience – and thanks to the Internet there’s the Internet, a land where technological know-how gets you feature film bio-flicks and material fortune beyond your wildest science fiction fantasies. Basically, geeks get laid these days. Definitely prime time for Bawdy Storytelling to hold an evening of live show-and-tell entitled “Sex Wonk,” (Weds/12) wherein those who are super gungho about the old in-and-out can revel in their geekiness – and that Star Trek hand sign takes on new levels of perversion.

 

“A Penis Show”

Jack Davis crochets penis. Neither more nor less – the artist has whipped up hundreds, if not thousands of the little fellers since his first show upon graduating college. Thanks to his work, you can surround yourself with colorful, crochet cock and balls at Magnet, the free sexual health center in the Castro – take one home to make your apartment walls stand a little more erect. It’ll look great with your ’70s porn pillows!

Through Jan. 31 

Magnet 

4122 18th St., SF

(415) 581-1600

www.magnetsf.org


Bawdy Storytelling: Sex Wonk

The featured guests at this month’s sharing-is-caring story series include Sarah Dopp, eminent webmaster for the transgendered community, engineers, sex educators, and the good people from SF Sex Information, who will be on hand to answer all your pleasantly nerdy queries on boning in between the witty, touching, and downright blush-inducing stories from all the speakers. 

Weds/12 8 p.m., $10

The Blue Macaw

2565 Mission, SF

www.bawdystorytelling.com


Invasion: A Queer Takeover of the Citadel

The Citadel sheds all signs of straightness for a night: hosts Asher and Char preside over an evening of gay, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, fag, dyke, leatherman, leatherwoman, butch, femme, transgender, transsexual, and genderqueer-styled BDSM debauchery. Added bonus: for all you cheap queers, members are invited to volunteer for an hour at the event and get in gratis.  

Fri/14 8 p.m.-1 a.m., $25 members only

SF Citadel 

1277 Mission, SF

(415) 626-2746

www.sfcitadel.org


SF Spanking Society Munch

Do you ever attend BDSM munches and feel, well, a little soft core? Is all you really want a good spank (or ass to spank)? This is the get-together for you then, cause all that’ll be on the table are the possibility of red cheeks and the probability of kinky conversation. 

Sat/15 noon-2 p.m., free

The Thirsty Bear 

661 Howard, SF

www.soj.org/calendar


Heavy Petting Zoo

Surely this month’s Kinky Salon dress-up swinger’s ball has a theme that most SF weirdos can get down on: the furry, feathery, bescaled kingdom of animalia. Everyone has some kitty cat ears or frog-hued face paint lying around the house, don’t they? And even if you don’t, you can still get your bootie on: swipe your buddy’s denim overalls and viola! You, sir, are a farm hand. Now get to milking that cow.

Sat/15 10 p.m.-late, $30-35 members only

Mission Control 

2519 Mission, SF

www.missioncontrolsf.org


Bedroom Body Moves

Y’know all those classes that are the rage with your racy Aunt Carol in Modesto, the pole dance for exercise courses? Those things are all over the place. But what the hell, why strip for the caloric exodus? Seems silly when you could instead take it all off to get your partner off, amiright? Leaving aside all questions of “staying in shape,” then, we present to you this course, which focuses on the simple act of clothes removal and its seductive powers (especially when you’re sitting on someone’s lap). 

Tues/18 6-8 p.m., $20-25

Good Vibrations

1620 Polk, SF

(415) 345-0500

www.goodvibes.com

 

About pragmatism

Zelda Bronstein
-
8
About pragmatism

I want to say a word about pragmatism, about Sup. David Chiu’s contention that “we were voted into office to get things done.” 


I’ll all for pragmatism. I’ve even for compromise sometimes. And I’m certainly in favor of getting things done. But just for a moment, I want to take a step back and remember what Chris Daly (who was actually quite good at getting things done) said during his final board meeting:


“I’ve seen go along to get along. If you want to do more than that, if you think there’s a fundamental problem with the way things are in this world, then go along to get along doesn’t do it.”


Daly’s tactics weren’t always terribly helpful. And working with people who don’t always agree with you doesn’t necessarily mean “going along to get along.” But I share Daly’s basic premise: There are fundamental problemws with the way things are in this city, and “getting things done” has to be about changing the situation. It’s not enough to keep the lights on and the cogs spinning; the city under Mayor Newsom went in the wrong direction, and the new administration has to take a new path.


Civility is good, as far as it goes. Reaching across the aisle and forming a progressive-centrist alliance, as Paul Hogarth suggests, can be useful. But President Obama quickly learned the dangers of an obesssion with bipartisanship, and while we all try to work together, we have to remember: The financial interests that supported Newsom and the conservatives on the Board of Supervisors don’t want to compromise on the big issues. They don’t want substantive change. They want to win, on their terms. And sometimes you just have to fight back.


So the question for 2011 is this: How much is David Chiu a fighter who is willing to use his substantial political capital to push for a progressive agenda? At what point will he say, gee, love working with all of you but some things are right and some things are wrong and there really are two opposing visions of this city and only one of them can win?


I remain the optimist, as always. But naming Carmen Chu, who is strongly opposed to taxes and is one of the most fiscally conservative members of the board, as Budget Committe chair, is enough to make me nervous. 

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