BART

BART police legislation stuck in committee

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By Tim Redmond

Assemblymember Tom Ammiano’s bill that would force the BART police to create a civilian-oversight agency came before the Public Safety Committee for a hearing today, and the BART Board — the clueless, inexcusable BART Board — tried to derail it.

The BART directors sent a letter to the committee saying, in effect, Trust Us: We’re working away, with our closed-door committee, to draft our own oversight policy, and we’ll come up with something. Maybe by the end of the year.

Ammiano probably had the votes to pass the measure out, but the committee chair, Jose Solorio, declined to call for a vote, leaving AB 312 in limbo. Solorio said he wanted to wait to see what BART came up with, and then compare the BART proposal with Ammiano’s.

The problem is that BART isn’t going to come up with anything. This crew has had 17 years to come up with a civilian oversight program. At least three people have been improperly killed by the BART police. We should be done trusting BART — and an Orange County Democrat shouldn’t be telling the Bay Area delegation, most of whom support the bill, how to regulate BART.

So now Ammiano has to figure out how to get Solorio to call the measure up for a vote. “I’ll get it out of the Assembly,” Ammiano told me. But he’s going to need some help.

We haven’t heard much from Sandre Swanson on this. The recent killing of Oscar Grant happened in Swanson’s district; he ought to be a cosponsor of Ammiano’s bill, and he should have been there at the hearing today, and he ought to be helping Ammiano lobby Speaker Karen Bass to make sure this bill gets to the floor.

And Fiona Ma, who’s on the Public Safety Committee, didn’t say a word in support of the bill. That’s bogus, big time.

Protest the BART police — in Sacramento

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By Tim Redmond

The protests over the latest BART police killing continue, with one activist chased out of a BART Board meeting today after trying to throw red paint on General Manager Dorothy Dugger.

I’m not endorsing paint-throwing (though pies are always fun), but it’s clear that the BART protests need to continue, because the BART Board members simply will not accept adequate police oversight unless it’s forced on them.

And that’s what Assembly Member Tom Ammiano is trying to do. His bill to require civilian oversight for the BART Police will be heard in the Assembly Public Safety Committee April 14, 9 am, in the state Capitol Room 126. There needs to be a strong showing of support.

Assmbly member Fiona Ma is on that committee, and is weak on this issue. Call her office before the hearing ((916) 319-2012) and let her know you support the measure.

The BART cops will try to derail this. The BART Board is not on board. This will be up to the rest of us; let’s give Ammiano and civilian oversight a show of support.

Morality

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le_chicken_farmer@yahoo.com

Morality

CHEAP EATS Intoxicated by how pretty flowers are in the dark and wowed by the sheer size of the lit TVs in all my neighbors’ windows, I accidentally hit my head on a tree. Hard. The rest of my life is going to be a dream.

Here’s the part where Earl Butter sends a messenger pigeon saying he’s sick, but not sick, and will be sitting home and crying unless anyone comes over and drinks and eats vegetables with him.

Well, I have no particular plans for the evening. I was planning to stay home and cry, myself, so I tell Earl Butter’s bird to tell Earl Butter I’ll be right over. If I don’t hit my head too hard on too many trees, walking to BART.

Which I didn’t. One tree. Hard, but not hard enough to make my life much more than dreamy. What I failed to account for was all the distractions that would bonk and bewitch me on the other side of the pond, walking from BART to Earl Butter’s. Namely, and in no particular order: Pizzeria, the Mission’s first (that I know of) stone oven pizza, good ol’ Good Vibrations, and of course New Yorker’s buffalo wings because I needed some lube.

Butter and hot sauce, babe. That’s what I’m made of.

Buffalo wings remind me of Earl Butter, who got made in upstate New York and introduced me to buffalo wings and bowling as a way of life.

But a friend of a friend of mine died yesterday of either cancer or knife wounds. She had cancer and then got mugged and stabbed, see, and then died in her sleep after she got out of the hospital, hard to say why. So my friend wrote to me, even though I never knew her friend, and it was like an obituary.

"She loved camp comedians, naughty jokes, show tunes, Ireland, bubble baths, and take-out curry," my friend said of her friend. She said she wished she had a blog because she finds herself wanting to talk and write about her deceased pal. A lot.

And a light went on over my head. It’s rare that you get to do something concrete for a friend in need. But the thing is that I kind of do have a blog, or something very much like one. So why don’t I make myself useful for a change and write about my friend’s friend for her, a lot, in this restaurant review?

Her name was Mandy. She died at home, at night, in bed with her long-distance girlfriend Kristen, who had come that day from Kansas City to be with her, to help her get well.

Mandy was a psych nurse and sometimes kept baby hedgehogs under a heat lamp in her guest room, according to her friend (my friend), "rising during the night to bottle feed them." She didn’t have any brothers or sisters, yet had eight godchildren. Think about it. So whoever stabbed her stabbed someone who didn’t have any brothers or sisters, yet had eight godchildren and nursed both baby hedgehogs and human head cases.

Plus there’s the take-out curry factor. Nothing pokes the unfunny bone like an extinguished hankering for curry. Or the smell of paint. I could go on and on, on my friend’s behalf.

But I know a lot of my readers are muggers, so I’ll be succinct: If you take anything at all from this important restaurant review, take this: stop stabbing people, you fucking morons. We’re all dying anyway, of breast cancer and heart disease, and we don’t need knife wounds on top of it all, so fuck the fuck off. If you lack the skill or finesse to eke a living or pick a pocket cleanly, turn the knife inward and cut your gutless bowels out.

For those of you who aren’t muggers, your moral is quite different. When your friend sends a messenger pigeon, and sometimes even if they don’t, go to them. Bring lube, and/or vodka. Bring buffalo wings. Bring pizza.

Yes, Pizzeria has a dumb name, and a posh (and therefore empty) interior. But its pizza has that nice, thin, stone oven crispness. Which I so so so so love.

My friend’s friend Mandy did not like pizza.

PIZZERIA

Tue.–Thu., 3 p.m.–10 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., noon–11:30 p.m.; Sun., noon–10 p.m.

659 Valencia, SF

(415) 701-7492

Beer & wine

AE/D/MC/V

L.E. Leone’s new book is Big Bend (Sparkle Street Books), a collection of short fiction.

The BART Board is clueless

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› tredmond@sfbg.com

EDITORIAL The senseless and horrifying murder of four Oakland police officers March 21 has cast a pall over law enforcement agencies all over the Bay Area. It’s renewed calls for a federal ban on assault weapons, which is long overdue. (It’s also reminded us why a daily newspaper can be so valuable — Chronicle coverage of the incident, with numerous reporters quickly responding, is the kind of journalism that won’t happen if the city’s only major daily dies.)

Unfortunately, it’s also taken the focus away from other police issues, and while we mourn the four deaths of veteran officers who were killed trying to do their jobs, we can’t stop trying to solve the problems of cops who lack training, supervision, and oversight.

In that context, there is no other way to say this: the BART Board of Directors is as clueless as any governmental organization we’ve seen since the administration of George W. Bush declared victory in Iraq.

In the past 17 years, BART police officers have improperly shot and killed three people. There have been hundreds of complaints of unnecessary use of force. Most recently, a BART cop shot a young man point blank, and video recordings of the incident have created widespread anger and unrest.

Yet there is still nothing resembling a civilian oversight agency for that 200-member force — and the BART Board members are once again asking the public to trust them to take care of the situation.

Assembly Member Tom Ammiano and state Sen. Leland Yee are sponsoring state legislation that would force the BART Board to establish a San Francisco-style office of citizen complaints to handle all civilian complaints about BART police officer conduct. There are ways Assembly Bill 312 can be improved, and Ammiano, who is guiding the measure through its first legislative hearings, is open to productive suggestions. But when the BART Board sent a delegation to meet with Ammiano, the transit directors had only one basic message: they said AB 312 was "too prescriptive" — that is, it sought to set clear, strong rules for what BART has to do. BART would rather that the Legislature make some broad suggestions but let the folks who run the district shape the final outcome.

That’s simply unacceptable. BART has had plenty of time to address this problem, and plenty of notice that something is terribly wrong. In 1992 a BART cop shot and killed 20-year-old Jerold Hall near the Hayward Station, firing a shotgun into the back of Hall’s head as the unarmed young man was walking away. The shooting violated BART’s own police procedures and the rules that govern the use of deadly force at nearly every modern law enforcement agency in America — but the officer received no disciplinary action, not even a reprimand. In 2001 another BART cop shot and killed a mentally ill man who was lying naked on the ground. Again, BART declared the shooting perfectly okay. With that kind of lack of oversight, it’s not surprising that Oscar Grant was shot and killed early New Year’s Day — the BART police have never been held accountable for improper killings.

And the BART Board has never done a damn thing about it.

Now there is a special board committee that’s supposed to study police oversight. It has never held a single public meeting. Board member Tom Radulovich, who represents San Francisco and sits on the committee, told us there will be public meetings soon. But so far, all that the four-member panel has done is hold private discussions with local interest groups, with no public notice. We would argue that those meetings were a clear violation of the spirit, if not the letter, of the Brown Act, which mandates that government agencies hold open meetings. But more than that, the closed meetings suggest that the BART Board has no understanding of the public anger and impatience with its 17-year record of failing to keep its police force in line.

Ammiano and Yee should refuse to compromise the basic premise of their bill. The state of California, which gave BART the right to create a police force, must now mandate exactly how that force will be managed. The BART Board had its chance and failed. We simply can’t trust that ineffective agency to get it right this time. * *

Editorial: The BART Board is clueless

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The state of California gave BART the right to create a police force. Now it must mandate civilian oversight and exactly how that force will be managed.

EDITORIAL The senseless and horrifying murder of four Oakland police officers March 21 has cast a pall over law enforcement agencies all over the Bay Area. It’s renewed calls for a federal ban on assault weapons, which is long overdue. (It’s also reminded us why a daily newspaper can be so valuable – Chronicle coverage of the incident, with numerous reporters quickly responding, is the kind of journalism that won’t happen if the city’s only major daily dies.)

Unfortunately, it’s also taken the focus away from other police issues, and while we mourn the four deaths of veteran officers who were killed trying to do their jobs, we can’t stop trying to solve the problems of cops who lack training, supervision, and oversight.

The BART police committee mess

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By Tim Redmond

In the wake of the shooting of Oscar Grant, which was captured on videotape and inflamed the community, and 17 years after the shooting of Jerrold Hall, which was reported only by me and roundly ignored by BART’s establishment, the BART Board finally agreed to set up a subcommittee to look at police oversight and procedures. But if you haven’t heard much from that panel, it’s not surprising — Sweet Melissa reported last week that the police oversight committee hadn’t yet held any public meetings.

But wait — it gets even better.

I called Linton Johnson, the BART spokesperson, and asked him if Melissa had it right. “No, not at all,” he said. “The committee meets in public all the time.” When would that be? “At the regular BART Board meetings, every other Tuesday and Thursday.” Huh? I admit, I haven’t been to a BART Board meeting in a while, but it turns out, according to Johnson, that the committess all meet simultaneously with the full board. “The board goes into recess then reconvenes to hear reports from the various committees,” he explained.

That’s odd, I told him — no other agency I know of does that. Why BART? Well, he explained, the board members only get paid “their miserable $1,000” when they attend full meetings, and most of them didn’t want to take the time to come to an additional meeting on a different day.

Jesus, that’s lame. The San Francisco School Board members go to weekly meetings AND committee meetings AND spend about 30 hours a week working on school stuff, and they get $500 a MONTH. The BART Board members make four times as much and are too lazy to get to more than two meetings?

Wait — there’s more. Melissa told me that Linton’s story “was completely different from what he told me. He said he didn’t even know when the next meeting was.” And more: Quintin Mecke, who works for Assemblymember Tom Ammiano, was actually at the last BART Board meeting, and he told me that the police oversight committee reported that they had, in fact, been meeting on their own, with various community leaders and experts on police oversight — but they hadn’t given any public notice of those meetings and the sessions had been private.

I called BART Board member Tom Radulovich, who is on the committee, and he told me that “we will start having public meetings soon.” But he said he worried that public sessions might not be as productive — “I’ve been to a lot of public hearings at CIty Hall, and people say things differently in public than they do in private. We want to have conversations, and public hearings are not always conversations.”

Sure — but private meetings aren’t good, either. That’s why the state’s Brown Act requires most public agencies to do most of their work in public. How is BART getting away with this? Well, Johnson says, the folks at BART HQ have conveniently decided that the police oversight committee is actually just a subcommitee, and since it has four members, and there are nine BART Board members, a meeting of the subcommittee doesn’t include a quorum of BART Board members and thus doens’t require public notice.

Give me a fucking break.

I like Tom Radulovich, and he’s one of the very few decent members of a generally miserable board, but he’s missing the point here. Legal or not, it looks terrible for this committee to be holding secret meetings. This nonsense has to end.

We can’t trust the BART Board

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So the BART Board is looking at whether BART cops should carry handguns. Nice. They don’t do too well with shotguns, either.

Seriously, what that department needs, more than anything, is civilian oversight, and if this study is about deflecting that, then it’s a worthless idea.

Assembly member Tom Ammiano has a bill that would force the BART Board to create a San Francisco-style oversight agency.

Ideally, the state Legislature wouldn’t have to spend time on this issue; the BART Board would just do it. But the BART Board is made up largely of lame, lazy hacks who have ignored this issue for years. I called Tom Radulovich, one of the few decent members of that board, and he told me he’d support the bill, but wanted it amended. “It’s too prescriptive,” he said. “We all agree on what the elements should be, but I’m not sure locking a variety of the San Francisco Office of Citizen Complaints into state law is the best idea.”

Radulovich had some suggestions — audits, ways to measure how well the system is working, etc. — which all make sense. And I’m sure there are all sorts of ways that Ammiano’s bill can be improved. But here’s the bottom line:

The final measure that comes out of Sacramento MUST be prescriptive. It must outline in very clear detail exactly what the BART Board has to do. The very fact that Ammiano is pushing this issue, and that the BART Board hasn’t already established an effective oversight plan, is all the evidence you need that it simply won’t happen without a firm state mandate.

I like the OCC model; it’s as imperfect as any government system, and a weak or compromised director and a police chief who refuses to cooperate can undermine its effectiveness. But it does the right thing, which is to take all internal affairs-type civilian complaints out of the hands of the police.

I’m sure Ammiano would be more than open to amendments, but if the BART Board members try to argue that the state should simply set broad guidelines and let them handle the details themselves, the answer is simple:

You’ve had more than 20 years to do that, and you’ve failed, and at least three people who ought to be alive today are dead because of that. No way we’re trusting you to get it right this time.

RIP, Parkway Speakeasy Theater

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p267077-Oakland_CA-Parkway_Theatre.jpg

Say it ain’t so! Oakland’s Parkway Theater announced this week that its doors will close Sunday, March 22. According to the theater’s web site:

“After more than twelve years of serving the great cultural crossroad of Oakland, the Parkway Speakeasy Theater will be closing at the end of business day, Sunday March 22, 2009.

From African Diaspora to Thrillville to lesbian fashion shows and educational porn, the Parkway has offered an eclectic array of movies and events. It was the first theater in California to offer food, beer and wine service in a lounge style movie theater. With a nudge or a push from the community, there was little programming the Parkway theater would not try in order to better be a community center and a safe haven for diverse ideas. The Parkway brought Baby Brigade for the shuttered and abandoned parents of newborns, the first international black gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, transgender film festival and Sunday Salon, a free event for cultural and community enhancement. We, at the Parkway Speakeasy Theater, are deeply proud of the Parkway and will profoundly miss serving its community. Thank you for your patronage.”

Fortunately, all is not entirely lost — the Parkway owners still have their Cerrito Speakeasy Theater, which, like the Parkway, has beer and pizza (and sandwiches with cheeky names: “The Zombie Cow,” anyone?) on the menu, along with new films and special events, including the ever-cool monthly B-movie celebration, Thrillville. It’s also very BART-friendly — literally just a handful of blocks and a Bed, Bath, and Beyond parking lot’s length from the station.

The Parkway closes down with a trio of standout films from 2008: The Wrester, Revolutionary Road, and Let the Right One In (your choice — five bucks!), plus a movie about Lucha Libre that looks pretty unmissable (seven bucks for this one). Head over and show your support Sun/22, or hit up the Cerrito in the coming months to make sure it keeps unspoolin’ films and pourin’ pitchers of PBR.

Station leaves the train

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› steve@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY The Transbay Terminal rebuild is moving forward, but this multi-modal downtown transportation station seems to be pulling away from what was supposed to be its showcase centerpiece — the California High-Speed Rail Project — before it can satisfy the design and capacity needs rail officials require.

San Francisco officials from Mayor Gavin Newsom to Sup. Chris Daly, who sits on the Transbay Joint Powers Authority (TJPA) Board of Directors, all say high-speed rail must be a component of the Transbay Terminal. Yet they were caught off-guard when the California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) recently made clear that the station would need to handle up to 12 trains per hour, more than double what current station designs can accommodate.

Even as phase one of the station got underway in December (see "Breaking ground," 12/10/2008), it lacked the more than $300 million needed for a so-called train box that would make it easier and cheaper to later bring high-speed rail and Caltrain into what would otherwise be a $4.3 billion bus station and commercial complex.

TJPA officials were struggling with how to secure that money, ideally through federal stimulus funds, when officials from CHSRA and Caltrain told a Feb. 25 Metropolitan Transportation Commission meeting that current designs were inadequate for their needs (see "Stimuutf8g transit, 3/4/09).

While the demand for straight platforms, rather than the curved ones TJPA designed, can be fairly easily addressed, the volume issue is far more significant and costly. During a March 12 TJPA meeting on the issue, engineers said that adding the third floor of trains that would be needed to handle 12 trains per hour would add $1 billion to the cost. Even if no train box is built, TJPA officials say that just the foundation work and deeper dig needed for the higher capacity would add $500–$700 million to the cost of the project’s first phase.

The good news is the federal stimulus package sets aside $8 billion for high-speed rail development, and Transbay Terminal is one of the few shovel-ready projects out there that would qualify for immediate assistance. The bad news is the criteria for attaining those funds won’t be ready by the time TJPA plans to sign its construction contracts in late May.

Delaying the project would not only increase costs and forestall the immediate economic stimulus impacts of the construction, it would also anger bus transit agencies such as AC Transit, which kicked in $57 million to the project. "AC Transit expects the TJPA to meet its commitment to AC Transit and its passengers, as well as keep the construction of phase one on schedule," AC Transit attorney Kenneth C. Scheidig wrote to TJPA March 11.

At the March 12 meeting, TJPA members uniformly reacted with dismay to their dilemma, criticizing CHSRA for its unrealistic demands. Program manager Emilio Cruz said the agency had designed to high-speed rail specifications and only learned in January of the desire for trains to run up to every five minutes during peak hours.

"They were presented without adequate justification for why they need increased frequency," Cruz told the TJPA board as he offered his analysis for why that frequency isn’t needed to handle the 12 million annual riders the system predicts for 2030 and noting that Tokyo — which has far greater volume and density — is the only high-speed rail station in the world to run 12 trains per hour.

CHRSA executive director Mehdi Morshed said Cruz isn’t a rail expert and disputed his analysis, noting that Tokyo and Paris each have multiple stations that together run far more than 12 trains per hour. He also noted that the BART system is at capacity after just 30 years.

"We are building a train that has the capacity to hold not just the riders in 2030, but beyond that," he said. "They are trying to fit the high-speed trains of the future in a very limited space, and we’re telling them that’s not adequate."

Morshed said his agency is still years away from getting into station design, but has been as accommodating as possible with TJPA’s desire to move forward now. Daly and others have pointedly criticized CHSRA and its chair, Quentin Kopp, to which Morshed said, "Sure, we can take all the blame, but how is that going to help San Francisco get its station?"

Ammiano’s struggle on pot, BART cops

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By Tim Redmond

Assemblymember Tom Ammiano is finding that the moderate Democrats up in Sacramento can be just as annoying as the Republicans. Take two of his top priorities right now, a bill to force the BART police to adopt civilian oversight, and a measure to legalize marijuana.

The BART police measure is going to the Public Safety Committee, chaired by Jose Solorio, a moderate Democrat from Santa Ana.

Some of Ammiano’s Democratic colleagues are nervous about even bringing the bill up for a hearing. “They say is an incendiary situation, that even talking about this could cause riots. I’ve told them the opposite — that if there’s any whisper that we’re screwing around with this bill up here, that when the trouble is going to start.”

The pot bill is scheduled for a hearing in Public Safety March 31, and again, Ammiano worries that “they’re not taking it seriously.” They should — all the signs around the coutnry are changing. The federal government is going to stop chasing after medical pot clinics.
This is a way for the state, which is facing even more serious red ink than the governor admits, to bring in a billion dollars or so in taxes — not to mention the amount saved by not wasting police time (and jail space) on marijuana.

Stimuutf8g transit

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› news@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY Public transit agencies in the Bay Area are being hit with deep cuts to their operating budgets, thanks to the recent state budget deal, and are hoping to use money from the federal economic stimulus bill to maintain their operations.

That conflict played out during a Feb. 25 hearing by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission in Oakland, the agency that distributes federal transportation funds to the nine Bay Area counties, which was considering how to distribute $341 million in funding intended for public transit agencies and $154 million for road projects.

Caltrain, AC Transit, Bay Area Rapid Transit, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, other Bay Area districts, and transit user groups urged the MTC board to direct most of the money to immediate needs rather than long-term projects.

Community groups urged the MTC to abandon plans to use $70 million for BART’s Oakland Airport extension and $75 million for the Transbay Terminal rebuild in San Francisco.

“People who are most affected when Muni makes fare increases and service cuts are people who are transit-dependent,” said Razzu Engen, who represents the Tenderloin Housing Clinic and the Transit Justice Project. “You can have the best capital expansion project there is out there, but if you don’t have the money to run it, forget it, it’s not worthwhile.”

While the MTC voted to remove the Transbay Terminal expenditure — noting that it could tap into a separate pot of $8 billion for high-speed rail projects in the stimulus measure — they kept the BART extension project in place, leaving $271 million to be divided among the transit agencies.

“Our ongoing need is to maintain continuing operations. But maintenance doesn’t have a very big constituency on the commission. We have a firm commitment to capital programs,” MTC spokesperson Randy Rentschler told the Guardian.

Judson True, spokesperson for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (which operates Muni), said the money will help offset state funding losses of $61 million over the next two years and allow the agency to “rehabilitate the system.”

Among the expenditures approved by the MTC was $11 million to install 67 new Muni ticket vending machines and money for new Muni vehicles and rail interchanges.

Jose Luis Moscovich, executive director of San Francisco County Transportation Authority, supported the MTC’s decision. “[We’re] going to see money flowing through formulas to Muni to alleviate service conditions on the T-Third, N-Judah, the L.”

Moscovich maintains that the region “needs to take the opportunity of the stimulus package to do things that are going to change the way we live. Paradoxically, these big projects like the Transbay project are the things that are going to take us in that direction.”

Yet the removal of the Transbay Terminal funding, while upsetting to Sup. Chris Daly — who serves on both the MTC board and the Transbay Joint Powers Authority board — turns out to be even more complicated than it seemed at the time.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported March 2 (“Transbay high-speed rail station hits a snag”) that both the California High Speed Rail Authority and Caltrain — systems expected to share the new Transbay Terminal rail terminus — are now expressing doubts about whether they will use the facility after all because of design flaws with its rail component.

CHSRA chair Quentin Kopp was quoted as saying, “Three sets of engineers met and concurred that the design for the station was inadequate and useless for high-speed rail.”

TJPA spokesperson Adam Alberti, who has been sparring with Kopp in recent months over whether Transbay will be the terminus for a high-speed rail system extending from San Francisco to Los Angeles (see “Breaking ground,” 12/10/08), told the Guardian, “I don’t think it’s as bad as it sounds.”

He said the TJPA is currently working to resolve the engineering problems and handle the increased volume expected from high-speed rail and Caltrain and he hopes to have a solution in place by March 12, when he said the MTC will revisit the matter.

BART General Manager Dorothy Dugger also defended the Oakland Airport extension, telling the Guardian, “The challenge in transit is not one over the other. We need to address all those requirements if we’re going to end up with an effective, functioning system that continues to attract people out of their cars and into the smart environmental choice — which is public transit.”

 

Cruising Craigslist:This week’s best personals

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Each week, Justin Juul combs the SF Craigslist Personals and Missed Connections for true gems that prove there’s enough love for everyone. View his last installment here.

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Taking public transportation to work can be boring, but it doesn’t have to suck completely. I mean, you never know right? If you were to pull your head out of your iPhone for a second, you might just lock eyes with your future soul mate. You might find a drinking buddy or new member for your book club. And that’s just the beginning. MUNI and BART may be brimming with lost tourists, stuffy businessmen, and panhandlers, but those trains and busses are also full of sex…or at the very least, unrequited lust. If you could read the minds of your fellow passengers, you’d see that all those boring people are, in fact, pretty damn saucy. Take that preppy-looking girl with the curly hair who always gets off at Stockton & Kearny. She may look like she’s preoccupied with work stuff, but she’s actually in the middle of a hot and heavy groping session with the passenger behind her. Then there’s that scruffy old man who sits next to you on BART every morning. He likes the way you smell so much that he goes home everyday and…well, maybe it’s better we can’t read minds. And maybe we should hold off on acknowledging our neighbors until we check the missed connections posts on Craigslist to see who we’re dealing with.

2002 N-Judah Muni at Civic Center Station – w4m (downtown / civic / van ness)
Reply to: [redacted]
Date: 2009-02-19, 8:56AM PST

In 2002, I was riding an inbound N-Judah MUNI -not too crowded but a few people standing. I was sitting alone on the right aisle next to the door on the back half of the train facing the front… possibly listening to music and rather oblivious to my surroundings.
Then, when the train stopped at (what I’m pretty sure was) the Civic Center station, you tapped me on my shoulder from behind. Surprised, I turned in your direction and you said something like “you’re beautiful” to me as you were getting off the train with another male (friend).
I had no time to react because the door closed as soon as you stepped off.

I don’t really remember much of how you looked like other than I think you had curly dark (black) hair of medium-short length. This happened almost 7 years ago, but I still think about it constantly.

Notes from the Politics blog

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If you’ve been reading the Guardian‘s Politics blog, you know that battles between and within some major California labor unions — including Service Employees International Union, SEIU’s United Healthcare Workers, the newly formed National Union of Healthcare Workers, and the California Nurses Association — are dividing the movement at a crucial time for progressive politics.

From important federal legislation such as the landmark Employee Free Choice Act to state legislation like the single-payer healthcare bill that Sen. Mark Leno plans to reintroduce in the coming months, philosophical and turf battles between unions have hurt labor’s ability to successfully counter corporate power.

"The fight inside SEIU [involving all four unions mentioned above] is one that is going to hurt our ability to pursue and pass legislation important not just to health care workers but workers in general," labor writer David Bacon told the Guardian. "There’s lots of energy going into jurisdictional battles and I think employers will use this fight against us … Sometimes it feels like we’re going backward."

But the battles continue. On Feb. 18, NUHW plans to picket outside UHW’s Oakland offices, protesting SEIU’s efforts to hinder NUHW organizing efforts (which we discuss more online). Philosophical differences between SEIU (which has close relationships with national corporate and political leaders) and unions like NUHW and CNA (which take more adversarial roles with employers and push for fundamental reforms such as single-payer health care) animate the debate.

Meanwhile, even more radicalized unions such as the International Longshore Workers Union have increasingly taken strong stances on immigrant rights and social justice issues like the BART police shooting of passenger Oscar Grant, which they discussed at a Feb. 14 rally that featured UC Santa Cruz professor and activist Angela Davis.

For more on the unfolding labor movement battles and what it means for progressive politics, keep reading the Guardian‘s Politics blog.

Public safety adrift

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› sarah@sfbg.com

Shortly into his first term as mayor, Gavin Newsom told a caller on talk radio — who was threatening to start a recall campaign if the mayor didn’t solve the city’s homicide problem — that Newsom might sign his own recall petition if he didn’t succeed in reducing violent crime.

But Newsom didn’t reduce violence — indeed, it spiked during his tenure — nor did he hold himself or anyone else accountable. Guardian interviews and research show that the city doesn’t have a clear and consistent public safety strategy. Instead, politics and personal loyalty to Newsom are driving what little official debate there is about issues ranging from the high murder rate to protecting immigrants.

The dynamic has played out repeatedly in recent years, on issues that include police foot patrols, crime cameras, the Community Justice Court, policies toward cannabis clubs, gang injunctions, immigration policy, municipal identification cards, police-community relations, reform of San Francisco Police Department policies on the use of force, and the question of whether SFPD long ago needed new leadership.

Newsom’s supporters insist he is committed to criminal justice. But detractors say that Newsom’s political ambition, management style, and personal hang-ups are the key to understanding why, over and over again, he fires strong but politically threatening leaders and stands by mediocre but loyal managers. And it explains how and why a vacuum opened at the top of the city’s criminal justice system, a black hole that was promptly exploited by San Francisco-based U.S. Attorney Joseph Russoniello, who successfully pressured Newsom to weaken city policies that protected undocumented immigrants accused of crimes.

Since appointing Heather Fong as chief of the San Francisco Police Department in 2004, Newsom has heard plenty of praise for this hardworking, morally upright administrator. But her lack of leadership skills contributed to declining morale in the ranks. So when he hired the conservative and controversial Kevin Ryan as director of the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice — the only U.S. Attorney fired for incompetence during the Bush administration’s politicized 2006 purge of the Department of Justice, despite Ryan’s statements of political loyalty to Bush — most folks assumed it was because Newsom had gubernatorial ambitions and wanted to look tough on crime.

Now, with Fong set to retire and a new presidential administration signaling that Russoniello’s days may be numbered, some change may be in the offing. But with immigrant communities angrily urging reform, and Newsom and Ryan resisting it, there are key battles ahead before San Francisco can move toward a coherent and compassionate public safety strategy.

SHIFTING POLICIES


The combination of Ryan, Fong, and Newsom created a schizophrenic approach to public policy, particularly when it came to immigrants. Fong supported the sanctuary city policies that barred SFPD from notifying federal authorities about interactions with undocumented immigrants, but Ryan and many cops opposed them. That led to media leaks of juvenile crime records that embarrassed Newsom and allowed Russoniello and other conservatives to force key changes to this cherished ordinance.

Russoniello had opposed the city’s sanctuary legislation from the moment it was introduced by then Mayor Dianne Feinstein in the 1980s, when he serving his first term as the U.S. Attorney for Northern California. But it wasn’t until two decades later that Russoniello succeeded in forcing Newsom to adopt a new policy direction, a move that means local police and probation officials must notify federal authorities at the time of booking adults and juveniles whom they suspect of committing felonies

Newsom’s turnabout left the immigrant community wondering if political ambition had blinded the mayor to their constitutional right to due process since his decision came on the heels of his announcement that he was running for governor. Juvenile and immigrant advocates argue that all youth have the right to defend themselves, yet they say innocent kids can now be deported without due process to countries where they don’t speak the native language and no longer have family members, making them likely to undertake potentially fatal border crossings in an effort to return to San Francisco.

Abigail Trillin of Legal Services for Children, cites the case of a 14-year-old who is in deportation proceedings after being arrested for bringing a BB gun to school. "He says he was going to play with it in the park afterwards, cops and robbers," Trillin says. "His deportation proceedings were triggered not because he was found guilty of a felony, but because he was charged with one when he was booked. He spent Christmas in a federal detention facility in Washington state. Now he’s back in San Francisco, but only temporarily. This boy’s family has other kids, they are part of our community. His father is a big, strong man, but every time he comes into our office to talk, he is in tears."

Another client almost got referred to U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) even though he was a victim of child abuse. And a recent referral involved a kid who has been here since he was nine months old. "If the mayor genuinely wants to reach out to the immigrant community, he needs to understand how this community has perceived what has happened," Trillin said. "Namely, having a policy that allows innocent youth to be turned over to ICE."

Social workers point out that deporting juveniles for selling crack, rather than diverting them into rehabilitation programs, does nothing to guarantee that they won’t return to sell drugs on the streets. And making the immigrant community afraid to speak to law enforcement and social workers allows gangs and bullies to act with impunity.

"This is bad policy," Trillin stated. "Forget about the rights issues. You are creating a sub class. These youths are getting deported, but they are coming back. And when they do, they don’t live with their families or ask for services. They are going far underground. They can’t show up at their family’s home, their schools or services, or in hospitals. So the gang becomes their family, and they probably owe the gang money."

Noting that someone who is deported may have children or siblings or parents who depend on them for support, Sup. John Avalos said, "There need to be standards. The city has the capability and knows how to work this out. I think the new policy direction was a choice that was made to try and minimize impacts to the mayor’s career."

But Matt Dorsey, spokesperson for the City Attorney’s Office, told the Guardian that the Sanctuary City ordinance never did assure anyone due process. "The language actually said that protection did not apply if an individual was arrested for felony crimes," Dorsey said. "People have lost sight of the fact that the policy was adopted because of a law enforcement rationale, namely so victims of crime and those who knew what was going on at the street level wouldn’t be afraid to talk to police."

Angela Chan of the Asian Law Caucus, along with the San Francisco Immigrant Rights Defense Committee, a coalition of more than 30 community groups, has sought — so far in vain — to get the city to revisit the amended policy. "The city could have reformulated its ordinance to say that we’ll notify ICE if kids are found guilty, do not qualify for immigration relief, and are repeat or violent offenders," Chan said. "That’s what we are pushing. We are not saying never refer youth. We are saying respect due process."

Asked if Newsom will attend a Feb. 25 town hall meeting that immigrant rights advocates have invited him to, so as to reopen the dialogue about this policy shift, mayoral spokesperson Nathan Ballard told the Guardian, "I can’t confirm that at this time."

Sitting in Newsom’s craw is the grand jury investigation that Russoniello convened last fall to investigate whether the Juvenile Probation Department violated federal law. "Ever since the City found out that the grand jury is looking into it, they brought in outside counsel and everything is in deep freeze," an insider said. "The attitude around here is, let the whole thing play out. The city is taking it seriously. But I hope it’s a lot of saber rattling [by Russoniello’s office]."

Dorsey told the Guardian that "the only reason the city knew that a grand jury had been convened was when they sent us a subpoena for our 1994 opinion on the Sanctuary City policy, a document that was actually posted online at our website. Talk about firing a shot over the bow!"

Others joke that one reason why the city hired well-connected attorney Cristina Arguedas to defend the city in the grand jury investigation was the city’s way of saying, ‘Fuck You, Russoniello!" "She is Carole Migden’s partner and was on O.J. Simpson’s dream team," an insider said. "She and Russoniello tangled over the Barry Bonds stuff. They hate each other."

Shannon Wilber, executive director of Legal Services for Children, says Russoniello’s theory seems to be that by providing any services to these people, public or private, you are somehow vioutf8g federal statutes related to harboring fugitives. "But if you were successful in making that argument, that would make child protection a crime," Wilber says, adding that her organization is happy to work with young people, but it has decided that it is not going to accept any more referrals from the Juvenile Probation Department.

"We no longer have the same agenda," Wilber said. "Our purpose in screening these kids is to see if they qualify for any relief, not to deport people or cut them off from services."

Wilber’s group now communicates with the Public Defender’s Office instead. "Between 80 and 100 kids, maybe more, have been funneled to ICE since this new policy was adopted," Wilber said. "This is creating an under class of teens, who are marginalized, in hiding and not accessing educational and health services for fear of being stopped and arrested for no good reason, other than that their skin is brown and they look Latino".

Wilber understands that the new policy direction came from the Mayor’s Office, in consultation with JPD, plus representatives from the US Attorney’s office and ICE. "They bargained with them," Wilber said. "They basically said, what are you guys going to be satisfied with, and the answer was that the city should contact them about anyone who has been charged and booked with a felony, and who is suspected of being undocumented."

She hopes "something shifts" with the new administration of President Barack Obama, and that there will be "enough pressure in the community to persuade the Mayor’s Office to at least amend, if not eliminate, the new policy," Wilber said "The cost of what the city is doing, compared to what it did, is the flashing light that everyone should be looking at."

"It costs so much more to incarcerate kids and deport them, compared to flying them home," she explained. "And we have cast a pall over the entire immigrant community. It will be difficult to undo that. Once people have been subjected to these tactics, it’s not easy to return to a situation of trust. We are sowing the seeds of revolution."

WEAKEST LINK


When Newsom tapped Republican attorney Kevin Ryan to head the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice a year ago, the idea was that this high-profile guy might bring a coherent approach to setting public safety policy, rather than lurch from issue to issue as Newsom had.

Even City Attorney Dennis Herrera, who isn’t considered close to Newsom, praised the decision in a press release: "In Kevin Ryan, Mayor Newsom has landed a stellar pick to lead the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice. Kevin has been a distinguished jurist, an accomplished prosecutor, and a valued partner to my office in helping us develop protocols for civil gang injunctions. San Franciscans will be extremely well served by the talent and dedication he will bring to addressing some of the most important and difficult problems facing our city."

But the choice left most folks speechless, particularly given Ryan’s history of prosecuting local journalists and supporting federal drug raids. Why on earth had the Democratic mayor of one of the most liberal cities in the nation hired the one and only Bush loyalist who had managed to get himself fired for being incompetent instead of being disloyal like the other fired U.S. Attorneys?

The answer, from those in the know, was that Newsom was seriously flirting with the idea of running for governor and hired Ryan to beef up his criminal justice chops. "If you are going to run for governor, you’ve got to get to a bunch of law and order people," one insider told us.

Ryan proceeded to upset civil libertarians with calls to actively monitor police surveillance cameras (which can only be reviewed now if a crime is reported), medical marijuana activists with recommendations to collect detailed patient information, and immigrant communities by delaying the rollout of the municipal identity card program.

"In the long run, hopefully, dissatisfaction with Ryan will grow," Assembly Member Tom Ammiano told us last year when he was a supervisor. "He could become a liability for [Newsom], and only then will Newsom fire him, because that’s how he operates."

Others felt that Ryan’s impact was overstated and that the city continued to have a leadership vacuum on public safety issues. "What has happened to MOCJ since Ryan took over?" one insider said. "He doesn’t have much of a staff anymore. No one knows what he is doing. He does not return calls. He has no connections. He’s not performing. Everyone basically describes him with the same words – paranoid, retaliatory, and explosive – as they did during the investigation of the U.S. attorneys firing scandal."

"I’ve only met him three times since he took the job," Delagnes said. "I guess he takes his direction from the mayor. He’s supposed to be liaison between Mayor’s Office and the SFPD. When he accepted the job, I was, OK, what does that mean? He has never done anything to help or hinder us."

But it was when the sanctuary city controversy hit last fall that Ryan began to take a more active role. Sheriff’s Department spokesperson Eileen Hirst recalls that "MOCJ was essentially leaderless for five years, and Ryan was brought in to create order and revitalize the office. And the first thing that really happened was the controversy over handling undocumented immigrant detainees."

One prime example of Ryan’s incompetence was how it enabled Russoniello to wage his successful assault on the city’s cherished sanctuary ordinance last year. Internal communications obtained by the Guardian through the Sunshine Ordinance show efforts by the Newsom administration to contain the political damage from reports of undocumented immigrants who escaped from city custody.

Newsom solidly supported the Sanctuary City Ordinance during his first term, as evidenced by an April 2007 e-mail that aide Wade Crowfoot sent to probation leaders asking for written Sanctuary City protocols. But these demands may have drawn unwelcome attention.

"This is what caused the firestorm regarding undocumented persons," JPD Assistant Chief Allen Nance wrote in August 2008 as he forwarded an e-mail thread that begins with Crowfoot’s request.

"Agreed," replied probation chief William Siffermann. "The deniability on the part of one is not plausible."

Shortly after Ryan started his MOCJ gig, the Juvenile Probation Department reached out to him about a conflict with ICE. They asked if they could set up something with the U.S. Attorney’s Office but the meeting got canceled and Ryan never rescheduled it.

Six weeks passed before the city was hit with the bombshell that another San Francisco probation officer had been intercepted at Houston Airport by ICE special agents as he escorted two minors to connecting flights to Honduras. They threatened him with arrest.

"Special Agent Mark Fluitt indicated that federal law requires that we report all undocumenteds, and San Francisco Juvenile Court is vioutf8g federal law," JPD’s Carlos Gonzalez reported. "Although I was not arrested, the threat was looming throughout the interrogation."

Asked to name the biggest factors that influenced Newsom’s decision to shift policy, mayoral spokesperson Nathan Ballard cites a May 19 meeting in which Siffermann briefed the mayor about JPD’s handling of undocumented felons on matters related to transportation to other countries and notification of ICE.

"That morning Mayor Newsom directed Siffermann to stop the flights immediately," Ballard told the Guardian. "That same morning the mayor directed Judge Kevin Ryan to gather the facts about whether JPD’s notification practices were appropriate and legal. By noon, Judge Ryan had requested a meeting with ICE, the U.S. Attorney, and Chief Siffermann to discuss the issue. On May 21, that meeting occurred at 10:30 a.m. in Room 305 of City Hall."

Ballard claims Ryan advised the mayor that some of JPD’s court-sanctioned practices might be inconsistent with federal law and initiated the process of reviewing and changing the city’s policies in collaboration with JPD, ICE, the U.S. Attorney, and the City Attorney.

Asked how much Ryan has influenced the city’s public safety policy, Ballard replied, "He is the mayor’s key public safety adviser."

Records show Ryan advising Ballard and Ginsburg to "gird your loins in the face of an August 2008 San Francisco Chronicle article that further attacked the city’s policy. "Russoniello is quoted as saying, "This is the closest thing I have ever seen to harboring,’" Ryan warned. And that set the scene for Newsom to change his position on Sanctuary City.

PUSHED OR JUMPED?


When Fong, the city’s first female chief and one of the first Asian American women to lead a major metropolitan police force nationwide, announced her retirement in December, Police Commission President Theresa Sparks noted that she had brought "a sense of integrity to the department." Fellow commissioner David Onek described her as "a model public servant" and residents praised her outreach to the local Asian community.

Fong was appointed in 2004 in the aftermath of Fajitagate, a legal and political scandal that began in 2002 with a street fight involving three off-duty SFPD cops and two local residents, and ended several years later with one chief taking a leave of absense, another resigning, and Fong struggling to lead the department. "It’s bad news to have poor managerial skills leading any department. But when everyone in that department is waiting for you to fail, then you are in real trouble," an SFPD source said.

Gary Delagnes, executive director of the San Francisco Police Officers Association, hasn’t been afraid to criticize Fong publicly, or Newsom for standing by her as morale suffered. "Chief Fong has her own style, a very introverted, quiet, docile method of leadership. And it simply hasn’t worked for the members of the department. A high percentage [of officers] believe change should have been made a long time ago."

But Newsom refused to consider replacing Fong, even as the stand began to sour his relationship with the SFPOA, which has enthusiastically supported Newsom and the mayor’s candidates for other city offices.

"The day the music died," as Delagnes explains it, was in the wake of the SFPD’s December 2005 Videogate scandal. Fong drew heavy fire when she supported the mayor in his conflict with officer Andrew Cohen and 21 other officers who made a videotape for a police Christmas party. Newsom angrily deemed the tape racist, sexist, and homophobic at a press conference where Fong called the incident SFPD’s "darkest day."

"Heather let the mayor make her look like a fool. Who is running this department? And aren’t the department’s darkest days when cops die?" Delagnes said, sitting in SFPOA’s Sixth Street office, where photographs and plaques commemorate officers who have died in service.

Delagnes supports the proposal to give the new chief a five-year contract, which was part of a package of police reforms recommended by a recent report that Newsom commissioned but hasn’t acted on. "You don’t want to feel you are working at the whim of every politician and police commission," Delagnes said. But he doubts a charter amendment is doable this time around, given that the Newsom doesn’t support the idea and Fong has said she wants to retire at the end of April.

"I’d like to see a transition to a new chief on May 1," Delagnes said. "And so far, there’s been no shortage of applications. Whoever that person is, whether from inside or outside [of SFPD], must be able to lead us out of the abysmally low state of morale the department is in."

Delagnes claims that police chiefs have little to do with homicide rates, and that San Francisco is way below the average compared to other cities. "But when that rate goes from 80 to 100, everyone goes crazy and blames it on the cops. None of us want to see people killed, but homicides are a reality of any big city. So what can you do to reduce them? Stop them from happening."

But critics of SFPD note that few homicide cases result in arrests, and there is a perception that officers are lazy. That view was bolstered by the case of Hugues de la Plaza, a French national who was living in San Francisco when he was stabbed to death in 2007. SFPD investigators suggested it was a suicide because the door was locked from the inside and did little to thoroughly investigate, although an investigation by the French government recently concluded that it was clearly a homicide.

Delagnes defended his colleagues, saying two of SFPD’s most experienced homicide detectives handled the case and that "our guys are standing behind it."

A NEW DIRECTION?


Sparks said she didn’t know Fong was planning to retire in April until 45 minutes before Chief Fong made the announcement on Newsom’s December 20 Saturday morning radio show. "I think she decided it was time," Sparks told the Guardian. "But she’s not leaving tomorrow. She’s waiting so there can be an orderly transition."

By announcing she will be leaving in four months, Fong made it less likely that voters would have a chance to weigh in on the D.C.-based Police Executives Reform Forum’s recommendation that the next SFPD chief be given a five-year contract.

"The mayor believes that the chief executive of a city needs to have the power to hire and fire his department heads in order to ensure accountability," Newsom’s communications director Nathan Ballard told the Guardian.

According to the city charter, the Police Commission reviews all applications for police chief before sending three recommendations to the mayor. Newsom then either makes the final pick, or the process repeats. This is same process used to select Fong in 2004, with one crucial difference: the commission then was made up of five mayoral appointees. Today it consists of seven members, four appointed by the mayor, three by the Board of Supervisors.

Last month the commission hired Roseville-based headhunter Bob Murray and Associates to conduct the search in a joint venture with the Washington-based Police Executive Research Forum, which recently completed an organizational assessment of the SFPD. Intended to guide the SFPD over the next decade, the study recommends expanding community policies, enhancing information services, and employing Tasers to minimize the number of deadly shootings by officers.

"The mayor tends to favor the idea [of Tasers] but is concerned about what he is hearing about the BART case and wants closer scrutiny of the issue," Ballard told us last week.

Potential candidates with San Francisco experience include former SFPD deputy chief Greg Suhr, Taraval Station Captain Paul Chignell, and San Mateo’s first female police chief, Susan Manheimer, who began her career with the SFPD, where her last assignment was as captain of the Tenderloin Task Force.

"It would be wildly premature to comment on the mayor’s preference for police chief at this time," Ballard told the Guardian.

Among the rank and file, SFPD insider Greg Suhr is said to be the leading contender. "He’s very politically connected, and he is Sup. Bevan Dufty’s favorite," said a knowledgeable source. "The mayor would be afraid to not get someone from the SFPD rank and file."

Even if Newsom is able to find compromise with the immigrant communities and soften his tough new stance on the Sanctuary City policy, sources say he and the new chief would need to be able to stand up to SFPD hardliners who push back with arguments that deporting those arrested for felonies is how we need to get rid of criminals, reduce homicides, and stem the narcotics trade.

"The police will say, you have very dangerous and violent potential felons preying on other immigrants in the Mission and beyond," one source told us. "They would say [that] these are the people who are dying. So if you are going to try and take away our tools — including referring youth to ICE on booking — then we will fight and keep on doing it."

While that attitude is understandable from the strictly law and order perspective, is this the public safety policy San Francisco residents really want? And is it a decision based on sound policy and principles, or merely political expediency?

Sup. David Campos, who arrived in this country at age 14 as an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala, says he is trying to get his arms around the city’s public safety strategy. "For me, the most immediate issue is the traffic stops in some of the neighborhoods, especially in the Mission and the Tenderloin," said Campos, a member of the Public Safety Committee whose next priority is revisiting the Sanctuary City Ordinance. "I’m hopeful the Mayor’s Office will reconsider its position. But if not, I’m looking at what avenues the board can pursue.

"I understand there was a horrible and tragic incident," Campos added, referring to the June 22, 2008 slaying of three members of the Bologna family, for which Edwin Ramos, who had cycled in and out of the city’s juvenile justice system and is an alleged member of the notoriously violent MS-13 gang, charged with murder for shooting with an AK-47 assault weapon. "But I think it is bad to make public policy based on one incident like that. To me, the focus should be, how do we get violent crime down and how do we deal with homicides?"

Campos believes Ryan has sidetracked the administration with conservative hot-button issues like giving municipal ID cards to undocumented residents, installing more crime cameras, and cracking down on the cannabis clubs. "I’m trying to understand the role of the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice," Campos said, raising the possibility that it might be eliminated as part of current efforts to close a large budget deficit. "In tough times, can we afford to have them?"

The change in Washington could also counter San Francisco’s move to the right. Federal authorities, swamped by claims of economic fraud and Ponzi schemes, might lose interest in punishing San Francisco for its Sanctuary City-related activities now that President Barack Obama has vowed to address immigration reform, saying he wants to help "12 million people step out of the shadows."

"It’s hard to believe that there isn’t going to be some kind of change," another criminal justice community source told us. "A lot of this is Joe Russoniello’s thing. Sanctuary City ordinances and policies have been a target of his for years."

Rumors swirled last week that Russoniello might have already received his marching orders when Sen. Barbara Boxer announced her judicial nomination committees, which make recommendations to Obama for U.S. District Court judges, attorneys, and marshals.
Boxer will likely be responsible for any vacancies in the northern and southern districts, while Feinstein, who is socially friendly with the Russoniello family, will take charge of the central and eastern districts. Criminal justice noted that Arguedas, who San Francisco hired to defend itself against Russoniello’s grand jury investigation, is on Boxer’s Northern District nomination committee.
Boxer spokesperson Natalie Ravitz told the Guardian she was not going to comment on the protocol or process for handling a possible vacancy. "What I can tell you is that Sen. Boxer is accepting applications for the position of U.S. Attorney for the Southern District (San Diego), a position that is considered vacant," Ravitz told us. "Sen. Feinstein is handling the vacancy for the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District. Beyond that I am not going to comment. If you have further questions, I suggest you call the Department of Justice press office."
DOJ referred us to the White House, where a spokesperson did not reply before press time. Meanwhile Russoniello has been publicly making the case for why he should stay, telling The Recorder legal newspaper in SF that morale in the U.S. Attorney’s San Francisco office is much improved, with fewer lawyers choosing to leave since he took over from Ryan.
That’s small consolation, given widespread press reports that Ryan had destroyed morale in the office with leadership that was incompetent, paranoid, and fueled by conservative ideological crusades. Now the question is whether a city whose criminal justice approach has been dictated by Ryan, Fong, and Newsom — none of whom would speak directly to the Guardian for this story — can also be reformed.

Petitions demand more BART police prosecutions

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By Joe Sciarrillo

Civil rights leaders today delivered about 20,000 petitions to Alameda County District Attorney Tom Orloff urging him to prosecute BART police officer Tony Pirone for punching passenger Oscar Grant shortly before Grant was shot to death on New Year’s Day by fellow officer Johannes Mehserle, who Orloff has charged with murder.

The activists were led by ColorOfChange.org, which released a statement criticizing Orloff “failing to uphold California law in his refusal to bring charges against BART police officer Tony Pirone,” who was captured on video punching Grant in the face just before Mehserle shot Grant. Orloff has since refused to press charges against Pirone.

Alameda District Attorney Inspector Bob Conner has refused to comment on the case, citing the gag order imposed by Alameda County Superior Court Judge Morris Jacobson. When asked to comment on ColorOfChange’s planned event, Conner was not yet aware of the protest. He simply responded, “Everyone is entitled to protest.”

Ask a Porn Star: Privacy issues, small penises

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In which super sexy porn people answer questions — each week — from Bay Area locals. View the last installment here.
Mediated by Justin Juul

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Fielding your questions this month is local celebrity, Lorelei Lee. Lee specializes in fetish porn (water torture, whips-n-chains, electrocution, etc.) and has a blossoming side-career as a writer. Check out some of her movies/pics here and then stop into The Makeout Room on Valentines Day (02/14/09) to hear her read at Writers With Drinks.

Michelle M: Are you ever concerned about your privacy?

Lorelei Lee: I’m not exactly sure what aspect of my privacy this question is meant to refer to. I’m not that famous. I mean, no one (to my knowledge) is searching through my garbage or anything, although I do occasionally get recognized in the grocery store or at a bar or walking down the street.

Sometimes people will come up to me and say hello or stutter something endearingly unintelligible. Often, people will say, “you look so familiar,” but they won’t be able to remember why they recognize me. They’ll ask me if I’m “on television” and I’ll say, “Sort of.” Recently I was leaving a BART station and a boy riding by on his skateboard actually fell down on the sidewalk and shouted, “Holy shit!” I was startled and looked at him, and he said, “Uh… you’ve been in movies, haven’t you?” I couldn’t help but laugh. I shook his hand and said, “nice to meet you,” and he kind of stumbled off in the other direction.

Commercial politics: Yes we can!

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It’s something like an Obamanenon, the way his campaign catchphrases have infiltrated the wholly commercial realm quicker than you can say, “Yes we can!”

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We all know the most obvious instance, the fusion of Pepsi and Obama. Perhaps he triggered it by adopting a remarkably similar campaign symbol:

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But Pepsi is determined to consume him — and us. It’s impossible to walk through certain BART/Muni tunnels downtown without the special form of mind control that comes from placards that tease the corners of your eyes no matter which way you turn:

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Yet, without a doubt, my favorite Obama-imitator is a much smaller commercial entity, the TV ad specialist Roni Deutch. There’s something very Peppermint Patty about Roni. Yes you can fight the IRS, Chuck!:

I’m sure there are dozens of other Obama-influenced jingles out there. Yes you can tell us about them!

Regular protests mark Oscar Grant’s death

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Editor’s Note: Protests over the fatal shooting of Oscar Grant on New Year’s Day, for which former BART police officer Johannes Mehserle has been charged with murder, have been regular events in Oakland, including one scheduled for tomorrow and another on Valentine’s Day. Here’s an on-the-ground account of last week’s event.
Text and photos by Joe Sciarrillo

On Friday, Jan. 30, a group of up to fifty protesters gathered to denounce the Alameda County Superior Court’s decision to set a $3 million bail for BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle, who was charged with murdering the unarmed Oscar Grant on New Year’s Day. Nine people were arrested, compared to the previous Jan. 7 and Jan. 14 protests, when 105 and 18 were arrested, respectively.

At approximately 3:30pm during Friday’s protest, the group led by activists from CAPE (Coalition Against Police Executions) made its way from the Alameda County Superior Court to the downtown intersection of 14th Street and Broadway in Oakland. A member of CAPE hopped onto an idle AC Transit bus with a megaphone, pleading with protesters to intensify their actions. “The Black Panthers took a stand for something!” he said. “We gotta take a stand!”

SEIU seizes last holdout: UHW’s Oakland headquarters

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By Steven T. Jones

The takeover of United Healthcare Workers by Service Employees International was completed today as SEIU finally took physical control of UHW’s Oakland headquarters and changed the locks following a final standoff that had to be mediated by Oakland Police officers who were called to the scene.

“We went to the office and we asked to be able to do the work we need to do,” David Regan, who SEIU appointed as a trustee overseeing UHW, told the Guardian. But they were turned away by UHW members still loyal to ousted president Sal Rosselli, who has formed a new rival union. “The police came and we sorted it all out.”

“We have been contacting tens of thousands of our members from all over the state over last few days and talking to them about the core work we should be doing,” Regan said, noting how important it is right now to present a united worker front to counteract deep proposed budget cuts by the state and its 58 counties.

SEIU took possession of UHW’s Los Angeles office shortly after the trusteeship was imposed on Tuesday afternoon, “and it’s a mess,” said SEIU spokesperson Michelle Ringuette. In their calls to members, she said that “a silent majority” are anxious to get past this union turf and aren’t likely to disaffiliate and join Rosselli’s new union.
But John Borsos, a spokeperson for the ousted UHW leaders, said members want a say in their union and “I believe thousands of current UHW members will seek to become part of this new union,” known at National Union of Healthcare Workers.

Both Ringuette and Regan downplayed the Oakland standoff, saying members are more important that offices. “But at the day, the reason the office is important is because it has tools we need to run the union effectively,” Regan said, citing membership data, payroll records, and files on ongoing contract negotiations as examples.

Check back here last and look in next week’s Guardian for more, including a report from Guardian intern Joe Sciarrillo, who was at the scene in Oakland (but who’s now following another protest of the murder of BART rider Oscar Grant after the officer who shot him was paroled)

Transportation bonanza

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› steve@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY The first year of President Barack Obama’s term could see the biggest federal investment in transportation projects since the creation of the interstate highway system, so there’s now a mad scramble to determine where — both geographically and in terms of transportation modes — that money will go.

Transportation activists were already geared up for this October’s omnibus transportation bill reauthorization, the first serious chance in four years to alter federal policies and spending priorities. But now that Congress is considering economic stimulus bills as large as $825 billion — including $71 billion to $85 billion in transportation projects — it’s looking like a potentially even more bountiful year.

Many Bay Area groups and agencies have forwarded their wish lists to state and federal policymakers and transportation officials, from the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s $500 million in capital projects to the $1.6 billion "Bay Area Conference of Mayors Transit Infrastructure Wish List," which claims it would create 14,197 jobs.

San Francisco has the biggest chunk of that latter proposal at $713.9 million, including such big ticket items as $200 million for the so-called train box in the new Transbay Terminal project (see "Breaking ground," 12/10/08), $275 million for projects associated with Muni’s Transit Effectiveness Project, and $100 million for the Doyle Drive rebuild.

Randy Rentschler, public affairs directors for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, told us that for too long, the federal government has simply deferred transportation decisions to the states.

"Just having a block grant program to states does not assert a federal interest in transportation," he said.

Yet Rentschler acknowledges the difficulty of creating federal transportation mandates. Unlike programs such as carbon capture, which affect large factories, or fuel standards, which affect automakers, making big changes to transportation policy potentially impacts every citizen.

"When you talk about transportation, what you’re really asking for is the participation of 300 million Americans," he said.

Tom Radulovich, director of Livable City and an elected BART board member, is worried about the political dynamics of the stimulus package.

"Stimulus is sort of garbage in, garbage out," Radulovich said, noting that the federal imperative for "shovel-ready projects" that can break ground in a matter of days or weeks means that road projects that have been lined up waiting for money will get priority over more complicated, visionary efforts to create a green infrastructure and better alternatives to the automobile.

Radulovich and other activists have been focused on the quadrennial transportation bill, and on persuading Congress to shift priorities that reflect the current 80 percent of federal transportation dollars that go to automobile projects.

"The danger is Congress will shoot its wad now on all these highway projects and then say they’re out of money," Radulovich said.

Rod Diridon, executive director of the Mineta Transportation Institute and a board member on both the American Public Transit Association and California High-Speed Rail Authority, agrees that a shift in federal priorities is overdue.

"You see a lot more money in the highway and bridge projects than you see for transit," he told the Guardian.

Yet Diridon expressed more hope than Radulovich that Democrats in Washington, DC, particularly Obama and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, are taking the right steps to promote the transformation we need. He said the stimulus bill is a good example.

"Speaker Pelosi has been a real crusader for doing this the right way," Diridon said, noting that she is refusing to allow members to attach earmarks for favored projects; instead she is basing the list of recipients on Department of Transportation criteria.

Quentin Kopp, chair of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, is trying to get more money for the $33 billion first phase of the high-speed rail project that voters approved a $10 billion down payment for in November.

"You don’t want to expect anything. You want to be pleasantly surprised," Kopp said. "I’m not counting on the money, but we will seek several billion dollars on the theory that we can get contracts with people who are threatened or have encountered employment setbacks."

Finally, BART police oversight

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By Tim Redmond

It’s taken three deaths, but the BART Board has finally taken the first step toward creating civilian oversight for its 200-member police force. There’s now an actual committee of the board charged with monitoring the cops, and BART Board member Tom Radulovich told us he thinks that the board may actually be ready to start establishing an oversight agency.

I have to say, I love cell phone videos. Best thing that’s ever happened to the BART police. I’ve been calling for civilian oversight for these guys since 1992, and since both of the prior killings we’ve covered happened with no cameras around, BART was able to duck. And since most of the BART Board members were, and are, pretty damn lazy, nothing ever happened.

But now the evidence is clear and obvious, and I hope that the protesters will continue to be vigilant and pressure the board, not just on this one killing but on the structural reforms we need to keep it from happening again.

The Hard Times Handbook

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We all have high hopes for the new administration. We’d all like to believe that the recession will end soon, that jobs will be plentiful, health care available to all, and affordable housing built in abundance.

But the grim reality is that hard times are probably around for a while longer, and it may get worse before it gets better.

Don’t despair: the city is full of fun things to do on the cheap. There are ways to save money and enjoy life at the same time. If you’re in trouble — out of work, out of food, facing eviction — there are resources around to help you. What follows is a collection of tips, techniques, and ideas for surviving the ongoing depression that’s the last bitter legacy of George W. Bush.

BELOW YOU’LL FIND OUR TIPS ON SCORING FREE, CHEAP, AND LOW-COST WONDERS. (Click here for the full page version with jumps, if you can’t see it.)

MUSIC AND MOVIES

CLOTHING

FOOD

CONCERTS

WHEELS

HEALTH CARE

SHELTER

MEALS

COCKTAILS

DATE NIGHTS

YOGA

PLUS:

HOW TO KEEP YOUR APARTMENT

HOW TO GET UNEMPLOYMENT

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FREE MUSIC AND MOVIES

For a little extra routine effort, I’ve managed to make San Francisco’s library system my Netflix/GreenCine, rotating CD turntable, and bookstore, all rolled into one. And it’s all free.

If you’re a books-music-film whore like me, you find your home maxed out with piles of the stuff … and not enough extra cash to feed your habits. So I’ve decided to only buy my favorites and to borrow the rest. We San Franciscans have quite a library system at our fingertips. You just have to learn how to use it.

Almost everyone thinks of a library as a place for books. And that’s not wrong: you can read the latest fiction and nonfiction bestsellers, and I’ve checked out a slew of great mixology/cocktail recipe books when I want to try new drinks at home. I’ve hit up bios on my favorite musicians, or brought home stacks of travel books before a trip (they usually have the current year’s edition of at least one travel series for a given place, whether it be Fodor’s, Lonely Planet, or Frommer’s).

But there’s much more. For DVDs, I regularly check Rotten Tomatoes’ New Releases page (www.rottentomatoes.com/dvd/new_releases.php) for new DVD releases. Anything I want to see, I keep on a list and search www.sfpl.org for those titles every week. About 90 percent of my list eventually comes to the library, and most within a few weeks of the release date.

And such a range! I recently checked out the Oscar-nominated animated foreign film, Persepolis, the entire first season of Mad Men, tons of documentaries, classics (like a Cyd Charisse musical or Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy’s catalog), even Baby Mama (sure, it sucked, but I can’t resist Tina Fey).

A music fanatic can find virtually every style, and even dig into the history of a genre. I’ve found CDs of jazz and blues greats, including Jelly Roll Morton, John Lee Hooker, Bessie Smith, Muddy Waters, kitschy lounge like Martin Denny and singer Julie London, and have satiated rap cravings with the latest Talib Kwali, Lyrics Born, Missy Elliott, T.I. or Kanye (I won’t tell if you won’t).

Warning: there can be a long "holds" list for popular new releases (e.g., Iron Man just came out and has about 175). When this happens, Just get in the queue — you can request as many as 15 items simultaneously online (you do have a library card, right?) You’ll get an e-mail when your item comes in and you can check the status of your list any time you log in. Keep DVDs a full seven days (three weeks for books and CDs) and return ’em to any branch you like.

I’ve deepened my music knowledge, read a broader range of books, and canceled GreenCine. Instead, I enjoy a steady flow of free shit coming my way each week. And if I get bored or the novelty of Baby Mama wears off, I return it and free up space in my mind (and on my shelf) for more. (Virginia Miller)

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STYLE FOR A SONG

Shhh. The first rule about thrifting, to paraphrase mobsters and hardcore thrift-store shoppers, is don’t talk about thrifting — and that means the sites of your finest thrift scores. Diehard thrifters guard their favorite shops with jealous zeal: they know exactly what it’s like to wade through scores of stained T-shirts, dress-for-success suits, and plastic purses and come up with zilcherooni. They also know what it’s like to ascend to thrifter nirvana, an increasingly rarified plane where vintage Chanel party shoes and cool dead-stock Western wear are sold for a song.

Friendships have been trashed and shopping carts upended in the revelation of these much-cherished thrift stores, where the quest for that ’50s lamb’s fur jacket or ’80s acid-washed zipper jeans — whatever floats your low-budg boat — has come to a rapturous conclusion. It’s a war zone, shopping on the cheap, out there — and though word has it that the thrifting is excellent in Vallejo and Fresno, our battle begins at home. When the sample sales, designer runoff outlets, resale dives, and consignment boutiques dry up, here’s where you’ll find just what you weren’t looking for — but love, love, love all the same.

Community Thrift, 623 Valencia, SF. (415) 861-4910, www.communitythrift.bravehost.com. Come for the writer’s own giveaways (you can bequeath the funds raised to any number of local nonprofits), and leave with the rattan couches, deco bureaus, records, books and magazines, and an eccentric assortment of clothing and housewares. I’m still amazed at the array of intriguing junk that zips through this spot, but act fast or you’ll miss snagging that Victorian armoire.

Goodwill As-Is Store, 86 11th St., SF. (415) 575-2197, www.sfgoodwill.org. This is the archetype and endgamer of grab-and-tumble thrifting. We’re talking bins, people — bins of dirt cheap and often downright dirty garb that the massive Goodwill around the corner has designated unsuitable, for whatever reason. Dive into said bins, rolled out by your, ahem, gracious Goodwill hosts throughout the day, along with your competition: professional pickers for vintage shops, grabby vintage people, and ironclad bargain hunters. They may not sell items by the pound anymore — now its $2.25 for a piece of adult clothing, 50 cents to $1 for babies’ and children’s garb, $4 for leather jackets, etc. — but the sense of triumph you’ll feel when you discover a tattered 1930s Atonement-style poison-ivy green gown, or a Dr. Pimp-enstein rabbit-fur patchwork coat, or cheery 1950s tablecloths with negligible stainage, is indescribable.

Goodwill Industries, 3801 Third St., SF. (415) 641-4470, www.sfgoodwill.org Alas, not all Goodwills are created equal: some eke out nothing but stale mom jeans and stretched-out polo shirts. But others, like this Hunter’s Point Goodwill, abound with on-trend goodies. At least until all of you thrift-hungry hordes grab my junk first. Tucked into the corner of a little strip mall, this Goodwill has all those extremely fashionable hipster goods that have been leached from more populated thrift pastures or plucked by your favorite street-savvy designer to "repurpose" as their latest collection: buffalo check shirts, wolf-embellished T-shirts, Gunne Sax fairy-princess gowns, basketball jerseys, and ’80s-era, multicolored zany-print tops that Paper Rad would give their beards for.

Salvation Army, 1500 Valencia, SF. (415) 643-8040, www.salvationarmyusa.org. The OG of Mission District thrifting, this Salv has been the site of many an awesome discovery. Find out when the Army puts out the new goods. The Salvation soldiers may have cordoned off the "vintage" — read: higher priced — items in the store within the store, but there are still plenty of old books, men’s clothing, and at times hep housewares and Formica kitchen tables to be had: I adore the rainbow Mork and Mindy parka vest I scored in the boys’ department, as well as my mid-century-mod mustard-colored rocker.

Savers, 875 Main, Redwood City. (650) 364-5545, www.savers.com When the ladies of Hillsborough, Burlingame, and the surrounding ‘burbs shed their oldest, most elegant offerings, the pickings can’t be beat at this Savers. You’ll find everything from I. Magnin cashmere toppers, vintage Gucci tweed, and high-camp ’80s feather-and-leather sweaters to collectible dishware, antique ribbons, and kitsch-cute Holly Hobbie plaques. Strangest, oddly covetable missed-score: a psychiatrist’s couch.

Thrift Town, 2101 Mission, SF. (415) 861-1132, www.thrifttown.com. When all else fails, fall back on this department store-sized megalith. Back in the day, thrift-oldsters tell me, they’d dig out collectible paintings and ’50s-era bikes. Now you’ll have to grind deeply to land those finds, though they’re here: cute, mismatched, mid-century chairs; the occasional designer handbag; and ’60s knit suits. Hint: venture into less picked-over departments like bedding. (Kimberly Chun)

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FREE FOOD

San Francisco will not let you starve. Even if you’re completely out of money, there are plenty of places and ways to fill your belly. Many soup kitchens operate out of churches and community centers, and lists can be downloaded and printed from freeprintshop.org and sfhomeless.net (which is also a great clearinghouse of information on social services in San Francisco.)Here’s a list of some of our favorites.

Free hot meals

Curry without Worry Healthy, soul pleasing Nepalese food to hungry people in San Francisco. Every Tues. 5:45–7 p.m. on the square at Hyde and Market streets.

Glide, 330 Ellis. Breakfast 8-9 a.m., lunch noon-1:30 p.m. everyday. Dinner 4-5:30 p.m., M-F.

St. Anthony Dining Room, 45 Jones, Lunch everyday 11:30 a.m.–1:30 p.m.

St Martin de Porres Hospitality House, 225 Potrero Ave. Best bowl of oatmeal in the city. Tues.-Sat. breakfast from 6:30-7:30 a.m., lunch from noon-2 pm.. Sun. brunch 9-10:30 a.m. Often vegetarian options.

Vegetarian

Food not Bombs Vegetarian soup and bread, but bring your own bowl. At the UN Plaza, Mon., 6 p.m.; Wed., 5:30 p.m. Also at 16th and Mission streets. Thurs. at 7:30 p.m.

Mother’s Kitchen, 7 Octavia, Fri., 2:30-3:30. Vegan options.

Iglesia Latina Americana de Las Adventistas Seventh Dia, 3024 24th St. Breakfast 9:30-11 a.m., third Sun. of the month.

Grab and go sandwiches

Glide, bag meals to go after breakfast ends at 9 a.m.

St. Peter and Paul Catholic Church, 666 Filbert. 4-5 p.m. every day.

Seniors

Curry Senior Center, 333 Turk. For the 60+ set. Breakfast 8-9 a.m., lunch 11:30 to noon every day.

Kimochi, 1840 Sutter St. Japanese-style hot lunch served 11:45 am (M-F). $1.50 donation per meal is requested. 60+ only with no one to assist with meals. Home deliveries available. 415-931-2287

St. Anthony Dining Room, 10:30-11:30 a.m., 59+, families, and people who can’t carry a tray.

Free groceries

San Francisco Food Bank A wealth of resources, from pantries with emergency food boxes to supplemental food programs. 415-282-1900. sffoodbank.org/programs

211 Dial this magic number and United Way will connect you with free food resources in your neighborhood — 24/7.

Low-cost groceries

Maybe you don’t qualify for food assistance programs or you just want to be a little thriftier — in which case the old adage that the early bird gets the metaphorical worm is apropos. When it comes to good food deals, timing can be everything. Here are a couple of handy tips for those of us who like to eat local, organic, and cheap. Go to Rainbow Grocery early and hit the farmers markets late. Rainbow has cheap and half-price bins in the bread and produce sections — but you wouldn’t know it if you’re a late-riser. Get there shortly after doors open at 9 a.m. for the best deals.

By the end of the day, many vendors at farmers markets are looking to unload produce rather than pack it up, so it’s possible to score great deals if you’re wandering around during the last half hour of the market. CAFF has a comprehensive list of Bay Area markets that you can download: guide.buylocalca.org/localguides.

Then there’s the Grocery Outlet (2001 Fourth St., Berkeley and 2900 Broadway, Oakland, www.groceryoutlets.com), which puts Wal-Mart to shame. This is truly the home of low-cost living. Grocery Outlet began in 1946 in San Francisco when Jim Read purchased surplus government goods and started selling them. Now Grocery Outlets are the West Coast’s version of those dented-can stores that sell discounted food that wasn’t ready for prime-time, or perhaps spent a little too long in the limelight.

Be prepared to eat what you find — options range from name brands with trashed labels to foodstuffs you’ve never seen before — but there are often good deals on local breads and cheeses, and their wine section will deeply expand you Two-Buck Chuck cellar. Don’t be afraid of an occasional corked bottle that you can turn into salad dressing, and be sure to check the dates on anything perishable. The Grocery Outlet Web site (which has the pimpest intro music ever) lists locations and ways to sign up for coupons and download a brochure on how to feed your family for $3 a day. (Amanda Witherell)

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LIVE MUSIC FOR NOTHING — AND KICKS FOR FREE

Music should be free. Everyone who has downloaded music they haven’t been given or paid for obviously believes this, though we haven’t quite made it to that ideal world where all professional musicians are subsidized — and given health care — by the government or other entities. But live, Clive? Where do can you catch fresh, live sounds during a hard-hitting, heavy-hanging economic downturn? Intrepid, impecunious sonic seekers know that with a sharp eye and zero dough, great sounds can be found in the oddest crannies of the city. You just need to know where to look, then lend an ear. Here are a few reliables — occasional BART station busks and impromptu Ocean Beach shows aside.

Some of the best deals — read: free — on world-class performers happen seasonally: in addition to freebie fests like Hardly Strictly Bluegrass every October and the street fairs that accompanying in fair weather, there’s each summer’s Stern Grove Festival. Beat back the Sunset fog with a picnic of bread, cheese, and cheap vino, though you gotta move fast to claim primo viewing turf to eyeball acts like Bettye Lavette, Seun Kuti and Egypt 80, and Allen Toussaint. Look for the 2009 schedule to be posted at www.sterngrove.org May 1.

Another great spot to catch particularly local luminaries is the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival, which runs from May to October. Rupa and the April Fishes, Brass Menazeri, Marcus Shelby Trio, Bayonics, and Omar Sosa’s Afreecanos Quintet all took their turn in the sun during the Thursday lunchtime concerts. Find out who’s slated for ’09 in early spring at www.ybgf.org.

All year around, shopkeeps support sounds further off the beaten path — music fans already know about the free, albeit usually shorter, shows, DJ sets, and acoustic performances at aural emporiums like Amoeba Music (www.amoeba.com) and Aquarius Records (www.aquariusrecords.org). Many a mind has been blown by a free blast of new sonics from MIA or Boris amid the stacks at Amoeba, the big daddy in this field, while Aquarius in-stores define coziness: witness last year’s intimate acoustic hootenanny by Deerhoof’s Satomi and Tenniscoats’ Saya as Oneone. Less regular but still an excellent time if you happen upon one: Adobe Books Backroom Gallery art openings (adobebooksbackroomgallery.blogspot.com), where you can get a nice, low-key dose of the Mission District’s art and music scenes converging. Recent exhibition unveilings have been topped off by performances by the Oh Sees, Boner Ha-chachacha, and the Quails.

Still further afield, check into the free-for-all, quality curatorial efforts at the Rite Spot (www.ritespotcafe.net), where most shows at this dimly lit, atmospheric slice of old-school cabaret bohemia are as free as the breeze and as fun as the collection of napkin art in back: Axton Kincaid, Brandy Shearer, Kitten on the Keys, Toshio Hirano, and Yard Sale have popped up in the past. Also worth a looky-loo are Thee Parkside‘s (www.theeparkside.com) free Twang Sunday and Happy Hour Shows: a rad time to check out bands you’ve never heard of but nonetheless pique your curiosity: Hukaholix, hell’s yeah! And don’t forget: every cover effort sounds better with a pint — all the better to check into the cover bands at Johnny Foley’s (www.johnnyfoleys.com), groove artists at Beckett’s Irish Pub in Berkeley (www.beckettsirishpub.com), and piano man Rod Dibble and his rousing sing-alongs at the Alley in Oakland (510-444-8505). All free of charge. Charge! (Kimberly Chun}

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THE CHEAPEST WAY TO GET AROUND TOWN

Our complex world often defies simple solutions. But there is one easy way to save money, get healthy, become more self-sufficient, free up public resources, and reduce your contribution to air pollution and global warming: get around town on a bicycle.

It’s no coincidence that the number of cyclists on San Francisco streets has increased dramatically over the last few years, a period of volatile gasoline prices, heightened awareness of climate change, poor Muni performance, and economic stagnation.

On Bike to Work Day last year, traffic counts during the morning commute tallied more bicycles than cars on Market Street for the first time. Surveys commissioned by the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition show that the number of regular bike commuters has more than doubled in recent years. And that increase came even as a court injunction barred new bike projects in the city (see "Stationary biking," 5/16/07), a ban that likely will be lifted later this year, triggering key improvements in the city’s bicycle network that will greatly improve safety.

Still not convinced? Then do the math.

Drive a car and you’ll probably spend a few hundred dollars every month on insurance, gas, tolls, parking, and fines, and that’s even if you already own your car outright. If you ride the bus, you’ll pay $45 per month for a Fast Pass while government will pay millions more to subsidize the difference. Riding a bike is basically free.

Free? Surely there are costs associated with bicycling, right? Yeah, sure, occasionally. But in a bike-friendly city like San Francisco, there are all kinds of opportunities to keep those costs very low, certainly lower than any other transportation alternative except walking (which is also a fine option for short trips).

There are lots of inexpensive used bicycles out there. I bought three of my four bicycles at the Bike Hut at Pier 40 (www.thebikehut.com) for an average of $100 each and they’ve worked great for several years (my fourth bike, a suspension mountain bike, I also bought used for a few hundred bucks).

Local shops that sell used bikes include Fresh Air Bicycles, (1943 Divisidero, www.fabsf.com) Refried Cycles (3804 17th St., www.refriedcycles,com/bicycles.htm), Karim Cycle (2800 Telegraph., Berkeley, www.teamkarim.com/bikes/used/) and Re-Cycles Bicycles (3120 Sacramento, Berkeley, www.recyclesbicycles.com). Blazing Saddles (1095 Columbus, www.blazingsaddles.com) sells used rental bikes for reasonable prices. Craigslist always has listings for dozens of used bikes of all styles and prices. And these days, you can even buy a new bike for a few hundred bucks. Sure, they’re often made in China with cheap parts, but they’ll work just fine.

Bikes are simple yet effective machines with a limited number of moving parts, so it’s easy to learn to fix them yourself and cut out even the minimal maintenance costs associated with cycling. I spent $100 for two four-hour classes at Freewheel Bike Shop (1920 Hayes and 914 Valencia, www.thefreewheel.com) that taught me everything I need to know about bike maintenance and includes a six-month membership that lets me use its facilities, tools, and the expertise of its mechanics. My bikes are all running smoother than ever on new ball bearings that cost me two bucks per wheel, but they were plenty functional even before.

There are also ways to get bike skills for free. Sports Basement (www.sportsbasement.com) offers free bicycle maintenance classes at both its San Francisco locations the first Tuesday of every month from 6:30-7:30 p.m. Or you can turn to the Internet, where YouTube has a variety of bike repair videos and Web sites such as www.howtofixbikes.com can lead you through repairs.

The nonprofit The Bike Kitchen (1256 Mission, www.thebikekitchen.org) on Mission Street offers great deals to people who spend $40 per year for a membership. Volunteer your time through the Earn-a-Bike program and they’ll give you the frame, parts, and skills to build your own bike for free.

But even in these hard economic times, there is one purchase I wouldn’t skimp on: spend the $30 — $45 for a good U-lock, preferably with a cable for securing the wheels. Then you’re all set, ready to sell your car, ditch the bus, and learn how easy, cheap, fast, efficient, and fun it is to bicycle in this 49-square-mile city. (Steven T. Jones)

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LOW-COST HEALTH CARE

When money’s tight, healthcare tends to be one of the first costs we cut. But that can be a bad idea, because skimping on preventive care and treatment for minor issues can lead to much more expensive and serious (and painful) health issues later. Here is our guide to Bay Area institutions, programs, and clinics that serve the under- and uninsured.

One of our favorite places is the Women’s Community Clinic (2166 Hayes, 415-379-7800, www.womenscommunityclinic.org), a women-operated provider open to anyone female, female-identified, or female-bodied transgender. This awesome 10-year-old clinic offers sexual and reproductive health services — from Pap smears and PMS treatment to menopause and infertility support — to any SF, San Mateo, Alameda, or Marin County resident, and all on a generous sliding scale based on income and insurance (or lack thereof). Call for an appointment, or drop in on Friday mornings (but show up at 9:30 a.m. because spots fill up fast).

A broader option (in terms of both gender and service) is Mission Neighborhood Center (main clinic at 240 Shotwell. 415-552-3870, www.mnhc.org, see Web site for specialty clinics). This one-stop health shop provides primary, HIV/AIDS, preventive, podiatry, women’s, children’s, and homeless care to all, though its primary focus is on the Latino/Hispanic Spanish-speaking community. Insurance and patient payment is accepted, including a sliding scale for the uninsured (no one is denied based on inability to pay). This clinic is also a designated Medical Home (or primary care facility) for those involved in the Healthy San Francisco program.

Contrary to popular belief, Healthy San Francisco (www.healthysanfrancisco.org) is not insurance. Rather, it’s a network of hospitals and clinics that provide free or nearly free healthcare to uninsured SF residents who earn at or below 300 percent of the federal poverty level (which, at about $2,600 per month, includes many of us). Participants choose a Medical Home, which serves as a first point-of-contact. The good news? HSF is blind to immigration status, employment status, and preexisting medical conditions. The catch? The program’s so new and there are so many eligible residents that the application process is backlogged — you may have a long wait before you reap the rewards. Plus, HSF only applies within San Francisco.

Some might consider mental health less important than that of the corporeal body, but anyone who’s suffered from depression, addiction, or PTSD knows otherwise. Problem is, psychotherapy tends to be expensive — and therefore considered superfluous. Not so at Golden Gate Integral Counseling Center (507 Polk. 415-561-0230, www.goldengatecounseling.org), where individuals, couples, families, and groups can get long- and short-term counseling for issues from stress and relationships to gender identity, all billed on a sliding scale.

Other good options

American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine (450 Connecticut, 415-282-9603, actcm.edu). This well-regarded school provides a range of treatments, including acupuncture, cupping, tui ma/shiatsu massage, and herbal therapy, at its on-site clinics — all priced according to a sliding scale and with discounts for students and seniors. The college also sends interns to specialty clinics around the Bay, including the Women’s Community Clinic, Haight Ashbury Free Medical Clinic, and St. James Infirmary.

St. James Infirmary (1372 Mission. 415-554-8494, www.stjamesinfirmary.org). Created for sex-workers and their partners, this Mission District clinic offers a range of services from primary care to massage and self-defense classes, for free. Bad ass.

Free Print Shop (www.freeprintshop.org): This fantabulous Webs site has charts showing access to free healthcare across the city, as well as free food, shelter, and help with neighborhood problems. If we haven’t listed ’em, Free Print Shop has. Tell a friend.

Native American Health Center (160 Capp, 415-621-8051, www.nativehealth.org). Though geared towards Native Americans, this multifaceted clinic (dental! an Oakland locale, and an Alameda satellite!) turns no one away. Services are offered to the under-insured on a sliding scale as well as to those with insurance.

SF Free Clinic (4900 California, 415-750-9894, www.sffc.org). Those without any health insurance can get vaccinations, diabetes care, family planning assistance, STD diagnosis and treatment, well child care, and monitoring of acute and chronic medical problems.

Haight Ashbury Free Clinics (558 Clayton. 415-746-1950, www.hafci.org): Though available to all, these clinics are geared towards the uninsured, underinsured "working poor," the homeless, youth, and those with substance abuse and/or mental health issues. We love this organization not only for its day-to-day service, but for its low-income residential substance abuse recovery programs and its creation of RockMed, which provides free medical care at concerts and events. (Molly Freedenberg)

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THE BEST HOMELESS SHELTERS

There’s no reason to be ashamed to stay in the city’s homeless shelters — but proceed with awareness. Although most shelters take safety precautions and men and women sleep in separate areas, they’re high-traffic places that house a true cross-section of the city’s population.

The city shelters won’t take you if you just show up — you have to make a reservation. In any case, a reservation center should be your first stop anyway because they’ll likely have other services available for you. If you’re a first-timer, they’ll want to enter you into the system and take your photograph. (You can turn down the photo-op.) Reservations can be made for up to seven days, after which you’ll need to connect with a case manager to reserve a more permanent 30- or 60-day bed.

The best time to show up is first thing in the morning when beds are opening up, or late at night when beds have opened up because of no-show reservations. First thing in the morning means break of dawn — people often start lining up between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m. for the few open beds. Many people are turned away throughout the day, although your chances are better if you’re a woman.

You can reserve a bed at one of several reservation stations: 150 Otis, Mission Neighborhood Resource Center (165 Capp St.), Tenderloin Resource Center (187 Golden Gate), Glide (330 Ellis), United Council (2111 Jennings), and the shelters at MSC South (525 Fifth St.) and Hospitality House (146 Leavenworth). If it’s late at night, they may have a van available to give you a ride to the shelter. Otherwise, bus tokens are sometimes available if you ask for one — especially if you’re staying at Providence shelter in the Bayview-Hunters Point District.

They’ll ask if you have a shelter preference — they’re all a little different and come with good and bad recommendations depending on whom you talk to. By all accounts, Hospitality House is one of the best — it’s small, clean, and well run. But it’s for men only, as are the Dolores Street Community Services shelters (1050 S. Van Ness and 1200 Florida), which primarily cater to Spanish-speaking clients.

Women can try Oshun (211 13th St.) and A Woman’s Place (1049 Howard) if they want a men-free space. If kids are in tow, Compass Family Services will set you up with shelter and put you on a waiting list for housing. (A recent crush of families means a waiting list for shelters also exists.) People between 18 and 24 can go to Lark Inn (869 Ellis). The Asian Woman’s Shelter specializes in services for Asian-speaking women and domestic violence victims (call the crisis line 877-751-0880). (Amanda Witherell)

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MEALS FOR $5: TOP FIVE CHEAP EATS

Nothing fancy about these places — but the food is good, and the price is right, and they’re perfect for depression dining.

Betty’s Cafeteria Probably the easiest place in town to eat for under five bucks, breakfast or lunch, American or Chinese. 167 11th St., SF. (415) 431-2525

Susie’s Café You can get four pancakes or a bacon burger for under $5 at this truly grungy and divine dive, right next to Ed’s Auto — and you get the sense the grease intermingles. , 603 Seventh St., SF (415) 431-2177

Lawrence Bakery Café Burger and fries, $3.75, and a slice of pie for a buck. 2290 Mission., SF. (415) 864-3119

Wo’s Restaurant Plenty of under-$5 Cantonese and Vietnamese dishes, and, though the place itself is cold and unatmospheric, the food is actually great. 4005 Judah, SF. (415) 681-2433

Glenn’s Hot Dogs A cozy, friendly, cheap, delicious hole-in-the-wall and probably my favorite counter to sit at in the whole Bay Area. 3506 MacArthur Blvd., Oakl. (510) 530-5175 (L.E. Leone)

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CHEAP DRINKS

When it comes to free drinks I’m a liar, a whore, and a cheat, duh.

I’m a liar because of course I find your designer replica stink-cloud irresistible and your popped collar oh so intriguing — and no, you sexy lug, I’ve never tried one of those delicious-looking orange-juice-and-vodka concoctions you’re holding. Perhaps you could order me one so I could try it out while we spend some time?

I’m a whore because I’ll still do you anyway — after the fifth round, natch. That’s why they call me the liquor quicker picker-upper.

And I’m a cheat because here I am supposed to give you the scoop on where to score some highball on the lowdown, when in fact there’s a couple of awesome Web sites just aching to help you slurp down the freebies. Research gives me wrinkles, darling. So before I get into some of my fave inexpensive inebriation stations, take a designated-driver test drive of www.funcheapsf.com and www.sf.myopenbar.com.

FuncheapSF’s run by the loquacious Johnny Funcheap, and has the dirty deets on a fab array of free and cheap city events — with gallery openings, wine and spirits tastings, and excellent shindigs for the nightlife-inclined included. MyOpenBar.com is a national operation that’s geared toward the hard stuff, and its local branch offers way too much clarity about happy hours, concerts, drink specials, and service nights. Both have led me into inglorious perdition, with dignity, when my chips were down.

Beyond all that, and if you have a couple bucks in your shucks, here’s a few get-happies of note:

Godzuki Sushi Happy Hour at the Knockout. Super-yummy affordable fish rolls and $2 Kirin on tap in a rockin’ atmosphere. Wednesdays, 6–9:30 p.m. 3223 Mission, SF. (415) 550-6994, www.knockoutsf.com

All-Night Happy Hour at The Attic. Drown your recession tears — and the start of your work week — in $3 cosmos and martinis at this hipster hideaway. Sundays and Mondays, 5 p.m.–2 a.m. 3336 24th St., (415) 722-7986

The Stork Club. Enough live punk to bleed your earworm out and $2 Pabsts every night to boot? Fly me there toute suite. 2330 Telegraph, Oakl. (510) 444-6174, www.storkcluboakland.com

House of Shields. Dive into $2 PBR on tap and great music every night except Sundays at the beautiful winner of our 2008 Best of the Bay "Best Monumental Urinal" award. (We meant in the men’s room, not the place as a whole!) 39 New Montgomery, SF. (415) 975-8651, www.houseofshields.com

The Bitter End. $3 drafts Monday through Friday are just the beginning at this Richmond pub: the Thursday night Jager shot plus Pabst for five bucks (plus an ’80s dance party) is worth a look-see. 441 Clement, SF. (415) 221-9538

Thee Parkside Fast becoming the edge-seekers bar of choice, this Potrero Hill joint has some awesome live nights with cheap brews going for it, but the those in the know misplace their Saturday afternoons with $3 well drinks from 3 to 8 p.m.1600 17th St., SF. (415) 252-1330, www.theeparkside.com

Infatuation. One of the best free club nights in the city brings in stellar electro-oriented talent and also offers two-for-one well drinks, so what the hey. Wednesdays, 9 p.m.–2 a.m. Vessel, 85 Campton Place, SF. (415) 433-8585, www.vesselsf.com

Honey Sundays. Another free club night, this one on the gay tip, that offers more great local and international DJ names and some truly fetching specials at Paradise Lounge’s swank upstairs bar. Sundays, 8 p.m.–2 a.m. Paradise Lounge, 1501 Folsom, SF. (415) 252-5018, www.paradisesf.com (Marke B.)

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IMPRESS A DATE WITH DINNER UNDER $50

You’ve got a date this weekend, which you’re feeling pretty good about, but only $50 to spend, which feels … not so good. Where should you go?

You’ll appear in-the-know at the underrated Sheba Piano Lounge (1419 Fillmore, www.shebalounge.com) on lower Fillmore Street, right in the middle of the burgeoning jazz revival district. Sheba was around long before Yoshi’s, offering live jazz (usually piano, sometimes a vocalist) and some of the best Ethiopian food in the city in a refined, relaxed lounge setting. Sure, they’ve got Americanized dishes, but skip those for the traditional Ethiopian menu. Sample multiple items by ordering the vegetarian platter ($13) or ask for a mixed meat platter, which is not on the menu ($16 last time I ordered it). One platter is more than enough for two, and you can still afford a couple of cocktails, glasses of wine or beer, or even some Ethiopian honey wine (all well under $10). Like any authentic Ethiopian place I’ve eaten in, the staff operates on Africa time, so be prepared to linger and relax.

It’s a little hipster-ish with slick light fixtures, a narrow dining room/bar, and the increasingly common "communal table" up front, but the Mission District’s Bar Bambino (2931 16th St., www.barbambino.com) offers an Italian enoteca experience that says "I’ve got some sophistication, but I like to keep it casual." Reserve ahead for tables because there aren’t many, or come early and sit at the bar or in the enclosed back patio and enjoy an impressive selection of Italian wines by the glass ($8–$12.50). For added savings with a touch of glam, don’t forget their free sparkling water on tap. It’s another small plates/antipasti-style menu, so share a pasta ($10.50–$15.50), panini ($11.50–$12.50), and some of their great house-cured salumi or artisan cheese. Bar Bambino was just named one of the best wine bars in the country by Bon Apetit, but don’t let that deter you from one of the city’s real gems.

Nothing says romance (of the first date kind) like a classic French bistro, especially one with a charming (heated) back patio. Bistro Aix (3340 Steiner, www.bistroaix.com) is one of those rare places in the Marina District where you can skip the pretension and go for old school French comfort food (think duck confit, top sirloin steak and frites, and a goat cheese salad — although the menu does stray a little outside the French zone with some pasta and "cracker crust pizza." Bistro Aix has been around for years, offering one of the cheapest (and latest — most end by 6 or 7 p.m.) French prix fixe menus in town (Sunday through Thursday, 6–8 p.m.) at $18 for two courses. This pushes it to $40 for two, but still makes it possible to add a glass of wine, which is reasonably priced on the lower end of their Euro-focused wine list ($6.25–$15 a glass).

Who knew seduction could be so surprisingly affordable? (Virginia Miller)

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FREE YOGA

You may be broke, but you can still stay limber. San Francisco is home to scores of studios and karmically-blessed souls looking to do a good turn by making yoga affordable for everyone.

One of the more prolific teachers and donation-based yoga enthusiasts is Tony Eason, who trained in the Iyengar tradition. His classes, as well as links to other donation-based teachers, can be found at ynottony.com. Another great teacher in the Anusara tradition is Skeeter Barker, who teaches classes for all levels Mondays and Wednesdays from 7:45 to 9:15 p.m. at Yoga Kula, 3030a 16th St. (recommended $8–$10 donation).

Sports Basement also hosts free classes every Sunday at three stores: Bryant Street from 1 to 2 p.m., the Presidio from 11a.m. to noon, and Walnut Creek 11 a.m. to noon. Bring your own mat.

But remember: even yoga teachers need to make a living — so be fair and give what you can. (Amanda Witherell)

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HOW TO KEEP YOUR APARTMENT

So the building you live in was foreclosed. Or you missed a few rent payments. Suddenly there’s a three-day eviction notice in your mailbox. What now?

Don’t panic. That’s the advice from Ted Gullicksen, executive director of the San Francisco Tenants Union. Tenants have rights, and evictions can take a long time. And while you may have to deal with some complications and legal issues, you don’t need to pack your bags yet.

Instead, pick up the phone and call the Tenants Union (282-6622, www.sftu.org) or get some professional advice from a lawyer.

The three-day notice doesn’t mean you have to be out in three days. "But it does mean you will have to respond to and communicate with the landlord/lady within that time," Gullicksen told us.

It’s also important to keep paying your rent, Gullicksen warned, unless you can’t pay the full amount and have little hope of doing so any time soon.

"Nonpayment of rent is the easiest way for a landlord to evict a tenant," Gullicksen explained. "Don’t make life easier for the landlady who was perhaps trying to use the fact that your relatives have been staying with you for a month as grounds to evict you so she can convert your apartment into a pricey condominium."

There are, however, caveats to Gullicksen’s "always pay the rent" rule: if you don’t have the money or you don’t have all the money.

"Say you owe $1,000 but only have $750 when you get the eviction notice," Gullicksen explained. "In that case, you may want to not pay your landlord $750, in case he sits on it but still continues on with the eviction. Instead, you might want to put the money to finding another place or hiring an attorney."

A good lawyer can often delay an eviction — even if it’s over nonpayment or rent — and give you time to work out a deal. Many landlords, when faced with the prospect of a long legal fight, will come to the table. Gullicksen noted that the vast majority of eviction cases end in a settlement. "We encourage all tenants to fight evictions," he said. The Tenants Union can refer you to qualified tenant lawyers.

These days some tenants who live in buildings that have been foreclosed on are getting eviction notices. But in San Francisco, city officials are quick to point out, foreclosure is not a legal ground for eviction.

Another useful tip: if your landlord is cutting back on the services you get — whether it’s a loss of laundry facilities, parking, or storage space, or the owner has failed to do repairs or is preventing you from preventing you from "the quiet enjoyment of your apartment" — you may be able to get a rent reduction. With the passage of Proposition M in November 2008 tenants who have been subjected to harassment by their landlords are also eligible for rent reductions. That involves a petition to the San Francisco Rent Stabilization and Arbitration Board (www.sfgov.org/site/rentboard_index.asp).

Gullicksen also recommends that people who have lost their jobs check out the Eviction Defense Collaborative (www.evictiondefense.org).

"They are mostly limited to helping people who have temporary shortfalls," Gullicksen cautioned. But if you’ve lost your job and are about to start a new one and are a month short, they can help. (Sarah Phelan)

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OUT OF WORK? HERE’S STEP ONE

How do you get your unemployment check?

"Just apply for it."

That’s the advice of California’s Employment Development Department spokesperson Patrick Joyce.

You may think you aren’t eligible because you may have been fired or were only working part-time, but it’s still worth a try. "Sometimes people are ineligible, but sometimes they’re not," Joyce said, explaining that a lot of factors come into play, including your work history and how much you were making during the year before you became unemployed.

"So, simply apply for it — if you don’t qualify we’ll tell you," he said. "And if you think you are eligible and we don’t, you can appeal to the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board."

Don’t wait, either. "No one gets unemployment benefits insurance payments for the first week they are unemployed," Joyce explained, referring to the one-week waiting period the EDD imposes before qualified applicants can start collecting. "So you should apply immediately."

Folks can apply by filling out the unemployment insurance benefits form online or over the phone. But the phone number is frequently busy, so online is the best bet.

Even if you apply by phone, visit www.edd.ca.gov/unemployment beforehand to view the EDD’s extensive unemployment insurance instructions and explanations. To file an online claim, visit eapply4ui.edd.ca.gov. For a phone number for your local office, visit www.edd.ca.gov/unemployment/telephone_numbers.

(Sarah Phelan)

We’ll be doing regular updates and running tips for hard times in future issues. Send your ideas to tips@sfbg.com.

Ammiano, Yee take on BART police

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By Tim Redmond

There’s action on the state level to force the BART Board to create some level of civilian oversight for the BART police.

The action comes in the wake of the fatal shooting Jan. 1 of Oscar Grant — an apparent case of gross police misconduct caught on numerous cell-phone videos.

Assemblymember Tom Ammiano and state Sen. Leland Yee are introducing legislation to require some form of civilian oversight for the BART police. The state has every right to do that; the BART police only exist as a force with full peace officer powers because the state Legislature granted BART that authority in 1976.

Yee and Ammiano were responding to the shooting and to a Guardian editorial pointing out the long history of problems with the BART police and calling for civilian oversight.

Sup. David Campos will introduce a similar resolution at the Board of Supervisors soon.

Meanwhile, the BART police are saying they can’t talk to the officer because he’s resigned. That’s such nonsense — the guy is no longer a cop, so Internal Affairs can’t question him, but he is, by any standard, a homicide suspect, and the BART police, Oakland police and Alameda County Sheriff’s office can all seek to question him.

In fact, it’s likely he resigned because his lawyer suspects there might be criminal charges.

Editor’s Notes

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› tredmond@sfbg.com

When I saw KTVU’s excellent report Saturday night about the BART police officer shooting an unarmed man, all I could think was: I’ve been here before.

In 1992, Officer Fred Carbtree, a 15-year veteran of the BART police force, shot and killed an unarmed kid named Jerrold Hall in the parking lot of the Hayward station. That was way before cell phones and ubiquitous video; there were no pictures of the shooting and few witnesses would come forward. BART made a monumental effort to cover it up; I spent an entire month working seven days a week to break through that brick wall. In the end, I got the story: Crabtree, who was white, had heard a report of an armed robbery on the train, saw Hall, who was black, leaving the station and called him over. Hall, who had no weapon, argued with the cop and told him he’d done nothing, then turned and started to walk away. Crabtree racked his shotgun, fired a warning shot over Hall’s head, then fired again, killing him.

There is no police agency in the United States that allows its officers to fire warning shots. There is no police agency that authorizes an officer to shoot an unarmed suspect who is fleeing the scene. I thought Crabtree should be prosecuted for homicide, but at the very least, he violated his own agency’s clearly written rules.

Nothing happened. He was not subject to any discipline at all. BART called the shooting justified.

Back then, I raised the question: Who’s in charge of the BART police? Where’s the civilian oversight?

There wasn’t any. And 17 years later, there still isn’t.

This latest incident is going to cost BART at least $10 million when the lawsuits are over. That could fund a modest civilian oversight operation for 20 years. And maybe it will save someone’s life.

>>Read the Guardian’s previous BART tragedy coverage here

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