SFBG Blogs

Gift List #2: Where to shop for the holidays

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To help with the holiday hullaballoo, the SFBG staff is revealing — at last! — its secret shopping secrets, to perhaps give you some gift inspiration. In this installment: Entertainment and Sponsorship Manager Dulcinea Gonzalez‘s retro-flavored giving pleasures. Previously, Marke B. shared his faves.

Check out more suggestions in our ginormous 2008 Holiday Guide — and enter our contest to win $500 in gift certificates if you spend $100 locally. Wowza.

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Suds for Santa: City Beer Store

The Other Shop
This is a great go-to store for quirky, vintage, fun stuff whether you are looking for a kitschy painting, funky ’60s vase, mid-century lamp or used vinyl.
327 Divisadero, SF. (415) 621-5424

Mickey’s Monkey
Here’s a the perfect place to hunt down ’60s and ’70s style dressers, tables, and chairs for non-collector prices. Plus, they have fun little gifty odds and ends like deer antlers, owl art, and more all sure to impress your friends.
218 Pierce, SF. (415) 864-0693

Rooky’s Records
If your guy or gal is into old 45’s this place is the vinyl holy land! Tell the owner Dick what you’re into …. the Madison, the Monkey, the Twist — it’s all there. Ask Dick about his own CD compilations of the oldies too — they’re packaged super cute and make for great parent gifts.
448 Haight, SF. (415) 864-7526, www.rookyricardosrecords.com

Double take: Raconteurs, Ricky Skaggs, and Ashley Monroe collabo on video

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By Kimberly Chun

Jack White and company push forward with their passion for American roots music with this video collaboration – a rework of the Raconteurs’ single, “Old Enough,” shot by rock photographer Autumn de Wilde – alongside longtime bluegrass revivalist Ricky Skaggs and country vocalist Ashley Monroe.

Britpop Faves: Pulp pulverized

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By Daniel N. Alvarez

Part of a continuing series: Britpop Faves.

When Pulp, the perpetual Britpop outsiders, went into the studio to follow up their first taste of commercial success, the Gold-certified His ‘n’ Hers (Island, 1994), few would have guessed the unassuming quintet would craft a groundbreaking album that would transcend the Britpop scene, while also creating a recording that was quintessentially British.



While Different Class (PolyGram/Island, 1995) contains the same new wave/glam hybrid of His ‘n’ Hers, it surpasses their previous effort due to frontperson Jarvis Cocker’s development into the most compelling, perceptive figure in rock music at the time. The full-length sees Cocker, a cross between Robert Smith and Morrissey with a keen understanding of sociology, come into his own as a songwriter, weaving tales of sex, drugs, and the rigid, enduring class system that has afflicted England for centuries. Though many UK bands played with the class system (the Verve, the Happy Mondays), none of them investigated it – and rallied against it – like Cocker.



For the love of…: Pulp’s “Common People.”

Sonic Reducer Overage: Mixmaster Mike, Los Amigos Invisibles, Wu-Tang Clan, Morning Benders, and more

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Say hello to my little invisible friend: Los Amigos Invisibles’ “Cuchi Cuchi.”

Ask and the city provides – good times and solid sounds for all. Here’s the good schtuff that didn’t make it to print.

WU-TANG CLAN
The Wu is with you – though RZA and Ghostface Killah were MIA when the group last played Ess Ef. Wed/3, 8 p.m., $45. Grand Ballroom at Regency Center, Van Ness and Sutter, SF. (415) 421-8497.

LOS AMIGOS INVISIBLES
This year the Venezuela group impressed at Outside Lands and threw out its first live DVD – and a new studio album is said to be in post-production. With Funky-C and DJ Felina. Thurs/4, 9 p.m., $22. Independent, 628 Divisadero, SF. (415) 771-1421.

Sleigh bells ring, are you drinking?

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By Molly Freedenberg

Oh, it sure is party season. How do I know? The costumes and formalwear strewn across my floor, the open bottle of hangover-fighting Vitamin B on my nightstand, and the sense of anticipation I get just looking at the calendar. Now, I know San Francisco is a party town, and there’s really no season that isn’t chock full of events worth attending. So what makes this one special? Its my favorite party season. I love the rain and the cold. I love Christmas in all of the ways it’s taken seriously (Dickens Fair) and not so seriously (Santacon).

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All Santa wants for Christmas is a mashup party! Bootie SF on Dec. 13 is the official post-Santacon event again this year.

Now, I have friends who would argue that party season officially started with Burning Man. But as far as I’m concerned, it started last Friday night with a fete at the Ambassador hosted by Hendrick’s gin (open bar! ouch.) and Nerve.com. Not only was this schizophrenically-themed 20s/30s/Edwardian/Victorian party was hosted in the perfect venue, and not only did almost every guest actually dress up (bonus points for the fact that I knew only a handful of the fedora-ed attendees), and not only were the cocktails so tasty that they pleased even this gin-skeptic, but the performances were fantastic.

Miss Kitten on the Keys, a regular at Hubba Hubba Revue, was the right combination of bubbly and bawdy. Trixie Little and the Evil Hate Monkey took Acrobalancing and burlesque to a place that was both funny and sexy. The two stripping chanteuses dazzled with voices, costumes, and choreography. And I’m not sure what to say about the blonde bombshell who lost her clothes and gained a giant martini glass chair except that I’ve never seen such a professional burlesque dancer up close.

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The lovely Trixxie Carr, pretty in purple (with some guy) at Bootie SF on Nov. 22, will make an apperance at the Lusty Lady Holidy Party on Dec.9. Photo by Tim Farris.

I barely sobered up in time to stop by the next night’s Bootie SF, an always fabulous party (which my dance troupe, the Cheese Puffs, happened to perform at) that featured an all-request set by live mashup band Smashup Derby. I’d be hard pressed to find a more generous, fun-loving crowd than Bootie, or more impressive and lovable hosts than Adrian, Mysterious D, and Trixxie Carr. Next up was the Black Rock Arts Foundation fundraiser at the Bentley Reserve, where we managed to miss all the entertainment but not the gorgeous setting and even more gorgeous crowd (plus, beds? how can you go wrong?). And Sunday saw the burner beourgeoisie headed to Supperclub (beds again! The weekend’s theme?) for the Five & Diamond anniversary party, a beautiful and celebratory affair featuring pretty clothes and even prettier people.

It took nearly ’til Thanksgiving to recover from all that beauty (OK, and booze), but I think I’m ready for what’s coming up in the next few weeks. If my health and hangover remedies cooperate, I’ll be attending a good portion of the following:

THURSDAY, DEC. 4

Visual Vaudeville & Built Burlesque
6pm, free
Brava Theater
2789 24th St., SF
pandorastrunk.com

Brava Theater and Pandora’s Trunk (the art/fashion collective on Lower Haight co-founded by designer Miranda Caroligne) take over the enormous and gorgeous vaudeville theater to fill it with music, burlesque, a narrative fashion presentation, and an indie craft and design show. Featured designers include Bad Unkl Sista, Miss Velvet Cream, Medium Reality, and Ghetto Goldilocks. Sure to be a good time, helped along by Patz & Hall wine and Lagunitas beer.

Pirate Cat Radio Benefit Debacle!
9pm, $7 donation to Pirate Cat Radio
Fat City
314 11th St., SF

I don’t know much about Pirate Cat Radio, but I do know about Hubba Hubba Revue – and if those crazy burlesqueteers are involved (which they are!), you know you’re in for a good time. The evening features live burlesque and performances by The Yes Go’s, Stigma 13, and October Allied.

Comrade Newsom slices and dices

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By Steven T. Jones

After watching Mayor Gavin Newsom’s virtual State of the City speeches (delivered on You Tube rather than the traditional venue of City Hall) – and reading the criticism of them today in both the Chronicle and the Examiner, even from Newsom’s two BFF columnists – I’m torn between two metaphors.

In the first few minutes, Newsom seemed like a salesman in a late night infomercial, telling me how I could get a complete set of Ginsu knives for just $19.99. “But wait, there’s more,” Newsom seems to say, if I order now then he’ll throw in a comprehensive climate change plan, absolutely free, the first city in the country to make an offer like this. Operators are standing by.

But then it just went on and on and on (there are almost eight hours of this stuff being rolled out this week) until Newsom seemed to morph into Fidel Castro or some other Soviet Bloc dictator, just droning on endlessly about the glories of the State (or in this case, The City) with the self-assuredness and lack of self-censorship that flow from feeling omnipotent and beloved by subservient subjects.

And to add to the surreal nature of this strange exercise in over-inflated egoism, Newsom flacks Nathan Ballard and Eric Jaye (apparently the brainchildren – so to speak – behind this fiasco) are trying to cast this cyber-lecture as facilitating a dialogue with the community (even though they turned off the comments section on the You Tube posting).

We’ve long argued that Newsom is overdue for some real dialogue, particularly with progressives and the city’s legislative branch, which was why the city charter called for an annual State of the City address in the first place. So if Newsom now prefers the online world to the real one, please use our comments section to place your orders or offer dear leader some healthy feedback.

Stop PG&E’s corporate welfare!

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Click here to read a recent Bruce blog, PG&E’s new move to screw residential customers.

Stop PG&E’s corporate welfare

The best way to boost the business climate in this recession era is to promote consumer spending

Guardian Editorial

EDITORIAL Just in time for the holiday season — and the colder weather — Pacific Gas and Electric Co. wants to shift millions of dollars in fees off big industrial customers and force residential consumers to pay more for natural gas.

The move would set a terrible precedent, and San Francisco officials should join the consumer groups that are calling on the California Public Utilities Commission to reject the plan.

Gift List: Where to shop for the holidays

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To help with the holiday hullaballoo, the SFBG staff is revealing — at last! — its secret shopping secrets, to perhaps give you some gift inspiration. Our first installment: Senior Culture and Web Editor Marke B.‘s giving pleasures. Check out more suggestions in our ginormous 2008 Holiday Guide — and enter our contest to win $500 in gift certificates if you spend $100 locally. Wowza.

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The fabulous Fiona’s Sweet Shoppe

Green Apple Books & Music
The absolute, ultimate one-stop for everyone on my list. I snag some snazzy calendars for the in-laws I know so little about, and some books and CDs (and occasionally vinyl) for the immediate fam. Plus, it’s a great excuse to lose myself for a day among cozy dead-tree media. Could it get any better? Only if they served hot chocolate.
506 Clement, SF. (415) 387-2272, www.greenapplebooks.com

Kayo Books
Yep, another bookstore, but one that simply screams “creative stocking stuffers!” Kayo specializes in rare and vintage pulp paperbacks from sometime last century. (The last window display, focusing on “Naughty Nurse” novelettes, had me transfixed for hours.) If you want to watch a beloved hipster’s eyes light up in lurid, bemused wonderment, Kayo ’em.
814 Post, SF. (415) 749-0554, www.kayobooks.com

Nancy Boy
“Strong enough for a woman, but made for a man” could be the motto of this cute little Hayes Valley store and local manufacturer of all-natural beauty products. Check off all the males on your list (and some females as well) with impeccably packaged skin lotions, shaving accoutrements, hair products, and more. And don’t forget a little something for yourself.
347 Hayes, SF. (415) 552-3636, www.nancyboy.com

Fiona’s Sweet Shoppe
More delectable stocking stuffers and treats for those you’re not on intimate terms with (or those you are — hello, Scotch Whiskey Fudge). Fiona’s, just off Union Square, proffers lovely little old-fashioned candies selectively imported from Britain and Europe, with totally adorable packaging to boot.
214 Sutter. (415) 399-9992, www.fionassweetshoppe.com

Upper Playground
Forget those San Francisco tourist traps when shopping for unique mementos of the City for those back home (or here, for that matter). This cooler-than-thou boutique features men’s and women’s apparel and accessories designed by the creme de la creme of local grafitti artists. Make the unbuyable-for teen in your life very happy with one of UP’s indelible designs.
220 Fillmore. (415) 861-1960, www.upperplayground.com

Great day for biking

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by Amanda Witherell

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More please. Image courtesy of San Francisco Bicycle Coalition

In spite of the dreary un-bicycle friendly weather today, things are looking up for cyclists in the “safety” and “free shit” categories.

First off, this afternoon City attorney Dennis Herrera filed a request with San Francisco Superior Court Judge Peter J. Busch to amend the injunction against the city’s Bike Plan. The city is banned from making any bicycle-related infrastructure improvements until an Environmental Review of the plan is completed, a draft of which was released last Friday.

But, the injunction was recently waived for the deadly intersection of Fell and Masonic Streets, which allowed the city to alter the traffic flow and install a bike signal. It’s great. We love it. (Though I still see cars blowing right through it occasionally, so don’t take it for granted, fellow pedalers.)

Similar to the Fell and Masonic waiver, Herrera is asking the court to review more than 100 pages of supporting evidence detailing an alarming increase in the number of collisions between bicycles and automobiles at locations throughout San Francisco. You can read the full pleading here.

“We are confident that our motion today makes a compelling case for how we can best address and alleviate hazards to cyclists and pedestrians while respecting the limits of the court’s injunction,” Herrera said in a press release. “With more and more commuters making use of bicycles as their preferred means of transportation, we have an obligation to do what we can to make bicycling as safe as possible on San Francisco streets.”

Top of Herrera’s hit list is Market and Octavia where, according to the press release, at least fifteen bicyclists have been struck by cars since the 101 highway entrance opened on Sept. 9, 2005. Cars routinely make illegal right turns and clip cyclists who have right of way to cross. The city is asking to change the traffic lanes so cars and bikes queue up in front of each other, rather than side by side.

Five other sketchy places to ride are also listed for safety improvements. They, and their collision totals as of 2003, are as follows:

Chevron not guilty

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by Amanda Witherell

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The jury didn’t think so.
Image courtesy of Justice in Nigeria Now

A federal court jury in San Francisco has found Chevron not guilty in a case alleging the corporation was complicit in the shootings, killings, and torture of protesters on a Chevron oil platform off the Niger Delta in 1998.

Plaintiffs in the case, who include Larry Bowoto, injured when Nigerian police opened fire on the unarmed protesters, have announced they will appeal the decision to the 9th Circuit, the most liberal appeals courts in the country.

“The fact that Bowoto v. Chevron made it this far in the process is a victory in and of itself, because it means that we have demonstrated that there is a clear pathway in the US court system for holding corporations accountable to the rule of law,” said Laura Livoti, founder of the group Justice in Nigeria Now, in a press release after the verdict. “This is the first time a case against a company for aiding and abetting human rights violations overseas has even gone before a jury.”

The case was filed under the Alien Tort Statute, an 18th century law that allows foreign victims of human rights crimes inflicted by US-based corporations to sue them in US courts, and a ‘guilty’ verdict would have been a first – similar cases settled out of court in the past.

So, this is a victory for Chevron, which has been spending a lot of cash on its image lately and was dealt a losing hand from voters on Election Day with the passage of Measure T, a business tax reform measure that will cost the billion-dollar corporation $26 million. The money will go to Richmond city coffers and Green Party Mayor Gayle McLaughlin has said funds will be allocated for projects through an open public process, according to a story in today’s Chronicle.

Street Threads: What the heck are you wearing?

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Photos and text by Ariel Soto. Peep more Street Threads here.

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Arina, 9th Ave and Irving

Winter is making its way into the Bay, and it seems that every gal in San Francisco has gotten herself a pair of flashy, colorful tights. So remember: As the days gets darker and drearier, always try to add a bit of skin-hugging flair to help keep your spirits bright and fabulous.

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Babette, 7th Ave and Irving

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Geoff, 9th Ave and Lincoln

PG&E’s new move to screw residential customers

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By Bruce B. Brugmann

(Scroll down to see the David Lazarus LA Times column and the CPUC administrative law judge’s draft decision to reject PG&E’s latest move to hammer residential ratepayers in San Francisco)

David Lazarus, the talented San Francisco Chronicle consumer reporter who is now writing for the Los Angeles Times, exposes in a Nov. 24 column the proposal by the state’s three largest private utilities to shift $90 million in fees for natural gas paid each year by business customers onto residential customers.

Lazarus asks quite rightly, “Is it equitable to raise rates for families while allowing them for the likes of Chevron and Bank of America? Is it equitable to offer a helping hand to employers by increasing the financial burden on employees?”

The Lazarus column ran in the Fresno Bee and other California papers. It did not run in the Chronicle/Hearst nor did the Chronicle do its own story. It is, I might add, the kind of story that Lazarus would find it difficult to write while working on the Chronicle because of the long standing sweetheart relationship that Hearst has had with PG&E. The most recent example of this unholy alliance came when PG&E and Hearst ganged up once again this fall to help PG&E defeat a clean energy/public power initiative that would have brought millions of dollars in savings for San Francisco ratepayers.

Wild Beasts roar amid a tempestuous rush of ideas

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WILD BEASTS
Limbo, Panto
(Domino)

By Todd Lavoie

I find myself flirting with hyperbole when I ponder the preening, careening chaos that is Limbo, Panto, the debut from Leeds, England’s elegantly lurid Wild Beasts – and I fear I may give in.

Hearing the disc for the first time was a bit of a blindsiding experience, and successive listens have confirmed for me what I’d felt on that initial spin: these guys are clearly out on their own, hurling every idea in their lusty little hearts up against the wall, eager to see which ones stick. Mercifully, nearly every one of the quartet’s fits of whimsy does stick – many of them, in fact, do so with spectacular results.

Gitane: Sexy, sophisticated gypsy food. Really.

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By Molly Freedenberg

To take a page from Dani Leone’s book, I have a new favorite restaurant. It’s Gitane, opened by the same people who brought us Cafe Claude, and it’s fantastic. Of course, I might be a bit biased. The name “Gitane” means “gypsy woman,” and indeed, the restaurant’s interior and menu was designed with gypsy culture in mind. Having been told my whole life that I’m descended from gypsies and horse thieves (on Mom’s side, from the Slavias), I felt a kinship with this place before I’d set foot inside the deceptively small building. Plus, in a town brimming with neuvo Californian, Asian fusion, Pan-American, and upscale Southern cuisines, there was simply something refreshing about someone doing something I’d never heard of before.

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Ammiano refuses to give pardons

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Today’s Ammianoliner:

Ammiano to leave oval office. Refuses to pardon Ed Jew.

(From the telephone answering machine in the home of Sup. Tom Ammiano on Friday, Nov. 28, 2008. Wednesday Nov 26 was Amminano’s last day as San Francisco Supervisor. He is moving on to the State Assembly.)

What more damage can Bush do?

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By Bruce B. Brugmann

For sometime now, I have been asking the question, how much more damage can Bush do before he heads back to clear brush at his ranch in Crawford.

The damage notices are coming almost daily. For example, today (11/28/08)a story in the Los Angeles Times (on how a $200 billion lending plan hurts students and consumers on predatory, usurious loans) and an editorial in the New York Times (on the stripping of a key provision in the Clean Air Act will harm clean air) makes the point yet again in 96 point tempo bold. Get Bush and his cadre out and start the campaign of damage reversal and control. And get the congressional investigations going allegro furioso.

Click here to read Amit R. Paley’s Friday November 28 article in the L.A. Times, Private student loan rescues opposed: A $200-billion federal consumer-lending plan shouldn’t benefit private providers of student loans, several groups tell Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

Click here to read the Friday November 28 editorial in the New York Times, A Clean Air Rule to Keep.

Akbar: India’s Agony

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Here is a column by M. J. Akbar from Project Syndicate’s The World in Words series. Akbar, a former member of India’s parliament and advisor to the late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, was the founding editor of The Asian Age and is an Asia Society Associate Fellow.

India’s Agony

By M.J. Akbar

MUMBAI – In most cities of South Asia, hidden beneath the grime and neglect of extreme poverty, there exists a little Somalia waiting to burst out and infect the body politic. This netherworld, patrolled and nourished by criminals who operate a vast black-market economy, has bred, in Mumbai, a community that has utter contempt for the state, because it knows that its survival depends on corrupting the police. Like underground magma, that underworld has now burst into the streets of Mumbai.

SF slowly pedals forward

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By Steven T. Jones

City officials finally released the Draft Environmental Impact Report for the San Francisco Bicycle Plan, and while I’m still working my way through this 1,353-page tome, the pre-ordained conclusion seems painfully obvious: bicycling is good for the environment, and facilitating more bicycling is even better for the environment.

Why exactly did we need to spend two and a half years and over $1 million on this again? Oh yeah, because anti-bike zealot and occasional also-ran supervisorial candidate Rob Anderson sued the city for not adequately studying bicycling before proposing to complete the bicycle network and almost double the city’s current 45 miles in lanes, leading the courts to impose an injunction against any new bike projects until we can get this EIR certified.

“So far, it’s just a black hole for money, time, frustration… and cyclists are paying the price,” Leah Shahum, executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, told me.

But the good news is that by next year at this time, the city’s burgeoning population of regular cyclists — which an SFBC-commissioned study placed at about 16 percent of the city’s population and growing rapidly — could start seeing new lanes, bike racks, and safety markings known as “sharrows,” assuming that Anderson and his ilk don’t stall this process further after the public hearings for the DEIR begin in January.

Meanwhile, activists and city officials have been quietly working on reforming how the city analyzes traffic impacts (known as LOS reform, which I wrote about here and which we’ll have another story on in our next issue), which could spare bicycle and pedestrians projects from this expensive, ridiculous EIR process. And I’ve heard from people inside both the Mayor’s Office and Board of Supervisors that they’re excited about moving it forward, so perhaps our creation of a more sustainable transportation system could soon move into high gear.

Kosher salami: Mickey Avalon at Slim’s

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By Chloe Schildhause

So many things in this world are disgusting yet delightful at the same time. For some that may be sniffing the smell of gasoline, hearing the sound of a squeaky chair, or watching someone undergo intensive surgery. Such is the case with rap artist Mickey Avalon, whose creepy look – which combines Marilyn Manson, Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow, and a character from a John Waters film – is simultaneously repellent and adorable.

I caught Avalon’s Nov. 20 show at Slim’s, the second show of a two-night stand, and got a taste of his lyrical genius as well as his performance style. The stage was set up to look like a sketchy dark alley with a wire fence, parking meters, a trash receptacle, and a bench tagged with the words “Mickey Avalon” and fit well with Avalon’s rhymes about friends who’ve died from lead poisoning and how the performer himself must “spend another day waiting to die.”

Now what with this power plant, Mayor?

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By Amanda Witherell

The Board of Supervisors voted unanimously against Mayor Gavin Newsom’s proposal to retrofit Mirant Potrero power plant at their Nov. 25 meeting.

Everyone’s been calling this political theatre, as the legislation was originally tabled, then dragged off the table at the last moment by Sup. Aaron Peskin. At the Board’s Nov. 18 meeting Peskin and Sup. Sean Elsbernd rattled sabers over whether or not tabling equaled death to the legislation and all it contains. The supervisors agreed with Peskin to take it off the table and vote it down properly, in a 7-4 vote (sans Elsbernd, Carmen Chu, Michela Alioto-Pier, and Chris Daly, who, in an aside to the press box, said he voted ‘no’ on everything related to the power plant. “If I keep voting ‘no’ there will be no power plant.”)

Anyway, the big, bad ‘no’ vote happened yesterday. But that doesn’t mean the issue is dead as the Mayor will still need board approval for a contract or any kind of deal with Mirant.

The other political undercurrent is the mayor’s introducing of the legislation in the first place. If you read the actual language [PDF], it would have given him, his staff, and the SFPUC sole authority to negotiate a retrofit with Mirant. If it had passed it would have essentially given the mayor pre-approval for what ever crackpot plan they come.

And, as Peskin and Maxwell uncovered in committee hearings on the issue, retrofitting Mirant is pretty crackpot. It’s something that’s never been done to any similar power plant and may actually be technologically impossible.

So. they moved the Mayor’s legislation forward in order to forcefully kill it. It was Alioto-Pier who called for tabling it. The board went along with the idea, thinking that tabling is effectively killing legislation. but, as Maxwell said yesterday at the hearing, “Originally on this item, I asked for a no vote. Sup. Alioto-Pier asked for a table, and it was tabled. This is just an assurance that no is no. This is not about the Mayor. I’m voting no on this issue, not the Mayor.”

The other day I spoke with Elsbernd about a different issue, but he mentioned the tabling thing and told me, “You can only pull it off the table the week after it’s been tabled.”

Mary Red, clerk for the Rules Committee, told me this is true, but also said tabled legislation can be brought back for up to 12 months — but if more than a week lapses after the tabling, then it has to go back to committee and all the way through the legislative process again.

This is really a minor legislative distinction and its very likely we’ll see a new proposal to retrofit Mirant at some point, but there is a certain kind of message that gets out there when a piece of controversial legislation gets voted down unanimously. For example, the SF Chronicle headline on the story reads, “S.F. supervisors kill mayor’s power plant plan.”

Sounds like a done deal, right?

Eastern Neighborhoods moving forward

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by Amanda Witherell

The Board of Supervisors, at their Nov. 25 meeting, moved the Eastern Neighborhoods plan a little farther along in the legislative process. The political peregrinations that occurred at the previous meeting, during which the legislation was splintered into several pieces for political reasons, were resolved and the entire package is once again unified

As we reported in this week’s issue, Sup. Aaron Peskin had made some last minute amendments to add more accountability to parts of the plan. Sup. Sean Elsbernd didn’t like the move and severed them – effectively making them their own individual pieces of the legislation and vulnerable to line-item vetos from Mayor Gavin Newsom. Why would Newsom veto them? Why would speculating developers want to be required to start building within three years? Right.

Additionally, with Sup. Tom Ammiano outbound for Sacto and Sup. Chris Daly recused from voting because he owns property in the plan area, the board majority on this issue withers to six, with already suspicious intentions coming out of Sup. Gerardo Sandoval.

Anyway, yesterday the Board agreed to mend fences and move forward by rolling all the amendments back into the original legislation, which no longer allows Newsom to target specific parts of it. Most of the amendments still weren’t favored by Elsbernd, Chu, and Alioto-Pier, and Sandoval was the sole vote against a “use it or lose it” provision to reduce speculation (See above link, and our story that details his own precious amendment designed to benefit one developer in particular.)

The legislation will get its last read and vote at the Dec. 9 meeting.

New member of the SFPUC?

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by Amanda Witherell

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From left, Juliet Ellis with Manuel Pastor from UC Santa Cruz and Lori Reese-Brown with the city of Richmond

The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission has had two empty seats for months, but Mayor Gavin Newsom has finally made another appointment to the body that oversees the city’s water and power infrastructures. Juliet Ellis has been offered the “advocacy” seat on the five-member board.

For the past seven years she’s been executive director of Oakland-based Urban Habitat, a non-profit social and environmental justice organization that works on affordable housing, transportation, and land use planning issues throughout the Bay Area, though mostly in the East Bay. The organization has been around since 2004, and receives most of its funding from grants. [PDF of its most recent 990.] (A quick check of grants made by Pacific Gas & Electric since then showed none to Urban Habitat, unlike other purported community groups.)

Ellis told the Guardian she’s interested in joining the SFPUC because it will bring her focus back toward San Francisco, where she’s been living since 1995. She currently resides in Bernal Heights.

When asked how her experiences have prepared her to be a public utilities commissioner, she said, “I have a long track record of working with folks who are often the most left out of the process,” she said, and that would continue at the SFPUC. If appointed, she plans to keep her job at Urban Habitat.

“Our organization is really interested in justice components,” she said, and in particular, climate justice. “What are the implications for low income communities if sea levels rise? If air pollution increases?” And, she pointed out, what kinds of mitigations can protect more vulnerable communities when it comes taxation through congestion pricing or the continual siting of power plants in areas where people live, with their pollution and carbon offsets occurring elsewhere?

That relates intimately to long term water and power issues under discussion in San Francisco, like the 51 percent renewable energy projections for the Community Choice Aggregation plan and what to do about the Mirant Power Plant that’s still operating in the mostly black, mostly low-income, and, consequently, most cancerous part of town, as well as how to move the city toward more affordable energy bills.

Ellis didn’t have much to say on specific issues like Mirant or CCA, admitting that she hasn’t “gone deep enough, I haven’t learned all the information” about these heavily nuanced and political issues.

But, her thinking seemed to fall along the right lines of public accountability and control, citing “the more obvious benefits of having more control than when it’s privatized. It seems like CCA would provide more clean energy and control and that in and of itself makes it something that’s attractive.”

Ellis said she sees real opportunities to connect the SFPUC with the communities she’s been helping at Urban Habitat. “The main issues I’m excited about are job opportunities and thinking through how to position those,” she said, pointing out that the SFPUC is projecting 24,000 jobs through the Water System Improvement Plan. She would like to see some of those jobs go to people who are low-income and jobless now. She’s also interested in “out of the box thinking for mitigating impacts for communities like Bayview Hunters Point and Potrero on water and energy issues.” She said most people don’t understand the scale of work undertaken by the SFPUC and she’d like to build a better relationship between it and low income and communities of color.

She said the recommendation to join the SFPUC came from Fred Blackwell, a former Urban Habitat board member who was appointed by Newsom to head the Redevelopment Agency in 2007. So far she’s met with several members of the Board of Supervisors and her appointment will be heard by the Rules Committee during their Dec. 4 meeting.

I want to be a porn star when I grow up: Meet Lorelei Lee

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Intrepid reporter Justin Juul hits the streets each week for our Meet Your Neighbors series, interviewing the Bay Area folks you’d like to know most.

Remember that anti-drug commercial from the mid-eighties where the college kid is running in slow-motion as dark, ominous music plays in the background? “When I grow up, I want to be a track star,” says an invisible toddler. Then the scene starts to change. The camera zooms out to show that the kid isn’t running toward victory at the finish line like it seemed; he’s running from a cop. At this point, a deep and serious voice says “Nobody ever says, ‘I want to be a junkie when I grow up.’” The message is obvious: kids don’t choose to do drugs; they just fall into it because nobody ever told them that jogging is better. That’s the kind of thing porn stars have to deal with all the time: not the cop-chase stuff, but the idea that whoever participates in “deviant” behavior must be the victim of bad parenting or psychological malfunctioning. These commercials suggest that to shun societal norms is to doom yourself to a life of addiction and incarceration. But that’s not always the case.

I mean, my grandmother has been smoking weed for thirty years and she’s healthy and kind-hearted and free. In fact, I know lots of people who sell, do, and talk about drugs on a daily basis, and you know what? They’re awesome too. Some of them have good jobs, kids, nice houses — all that shit. Well, it’s the same with porn stars.

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Veterans against war protest Friday

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Iraq Veterans Against War to Occupy Union Square (SF) on FRIDAY

* THIS PRESS RELEASE IS BEING SENT BY THE WORLD CAN’T WAIT AS A COURTESY TO THE IRAQ VETERANS AGAINST THE WAR; Please contact IVAW with inquiries

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, From Iraq Veterans Against the War, www.ivaw.org Tuesday, November 25, 2008 Press Contact: Eddie Falcon, Iraq Vets Against the War: (714) 381-9825 eddiefalcon400@hotmail.com

*Iraq Veterans Against the War to Occupy Union Square*
*Street Theater Showing the Brutal and Unjust Consequences of Occupying a Foreign Country*

What: Operation First Casualty (OFC), San Francisco

When: FRIDAY, November 28
11am-2pm

Where: Union Square (Start; “Round-Ups”) – 11am sharp
Moscone Center (Mock Interrogations)
Powell St. Turnaround (Die-In)
U.N. Plaza Fountain *(PRESS CONFERENCE)- 1pm *
*PHOTO OPS

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