Bayview Archives — Page 17 of 21 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

Cold wind in the Bayview

June 3, 2008

When the chill wind of early returns showed Prop. G leading Prop. F in the polls, (67 percent to 33 percent ) the folks at the Prop. F campaign HQ put it down to all the money that Lennar spent to influence the election.

Inside the Prop. F party at 5030 Third Street, supporters munched on pizza, listening to the Nation of Islam’s Minister Christopher Muhammad expounding on “the $4 million of known money that Lennar has spent, not to mention the unknown slush funds.”

“I’m encouraged just by the fact that we forced them to spend so much,” Muhammad said, berating, “the Labor Council’s leadership for selling out its leadership in a backroom deal.”

Muhammad was referring to the community benefits agreement that the SF Labor Council negotiated with Lennar at the last minute, with Lennar promising to develop 32 percent affordable housing units at Bayview/Candlestick Point.

Bishop Ernest Jackson joined Muhammad in casting aspersions on Lennar ‘s deal with the SF Labor Council, by pointing to what he called Mayor Gavin Newsom’s “secret press conference” about the 2008-09 budget at the Hunters Point Shipyard on June 2, as a clue to why Labor capitulated to Lennar and Newsom’s demands.

Noting that Newsom announced his budget in a “police station surrounded by all kinds of weaponry and armored personnel carriers,” Jackson claimed that Newsom “held the unions hostage”.

“Newsom used the budget cuts as veiled threats over people of conscience,” Jackson said. “But the Prop. F movement proves there is another constituency in the Bayview. The City had no idea it would have its own cyclone in the southeast sector. This same groundswell can look at its supervisor and say, you’re not doing the right thing.”

Meanwhile, Muhammad was expressing his belief that San Francisco is going to the dogs, literally, a view he aired in the heart of the Bayview, earlier this week, as the following video shows:

“There are now more dogs than blacks living in the city,” Muhammad said, “San Francisco is becoming a playground for young urban multimillionaires.”

Cal-ISO totally changes tune on power plants

June 3, 2008

Oh my. For all you folks that have been following the controversy around building new power plants in San Francisco, it just got even better.

Mayor Gavin Newsom sent a letter to the Board of Supervisors today outlining a “more promising way forward than the current proposal” to build two natural gas-burning “peaking” power plants in the city.

The way forward: retrofit three existing diesel turbines at the Mirant-Potrero Power Plant, while at the same time shutting down Unit 3, the most polluting part of the power plant, as soon as the Transbay Cable comes online.

“On Friday, May 23, Ed Harrington [General Manager of the SFPUC], City Attorney Dennis Herrera and I met with president of Cal-ISO – Yakout Mansour, the chairman of the CPUC – Mike Peevey, the CEO of Mirant – Ed Muller, the CEO of PG&E – Bill Morrow, and our respective staffs. In this meeting we vetted the possibility of retrofitting the diesel turbines [currently owned and operated by Mirant] and asked each stakeholder to give us the necessary commitments to advance this alternative,” Newsom wrote to the Board.

For anyone who’s been closely following the nuances of this argument, this is a significant change in position from the California Independent System Operator [Cal-ISO], and it should be noted that it took — not just the Mayor sitting down at the table — but top dogs from PG&E and Mirant (who both stand to lose money by the city building its own power plants), as well as the CPUC’s Peevey, who’s never expressed a positive opinion about the true need for more power plants in the city.

Now, suddenly, Cal-ISO is departing significantly from all previously expressed demands that we build power plants.

The background: The state, through Cal-ISO, has for the last several years insisted that San Francisco needs 150 megawatts of peak electricity at the ready. We currently get this from Mirant-Potrero, but Unit 3 of that facility has a bad rep as the greatest single source of pollution in the city. People in the Bayview neighborhood, which have carried more of their fair share of pollution, have been waiting a long time for the plant to close. Stakeholders have been meeting for over seven years, working on ways to close the plant, and much of the leadership on the issue has come from Sup. Sophie Maxwell, who represents the Bayview district.

Cal-ISO has insisted that the only way to close Unit 3 is to build new peakers, which would be owned and operated by the city, run cleaner and more efficiently, and still supply that 150 MW of peak power. Even when the 400 MW Transbay Cable was approved, Cal-ISO insisted San Francisco would still need the peakers.

But in a June 2 letter, Cal-ISO suddenly had a different response for the Mayor.

Will the real Newsom stop campaigning?

June 2, 2008

As we predicted , Mayor Gavin Newsom used today’s budget announcement at at the Hunters Point Shipyard to campaign.
But there were, in fact, two Newsom’s at today’s event, but only one was told to shut it.

‘You can’t campaign here, it’s city property,” police told the guy, who was wearing a Newsom mask and protesting the Mayor’s Budget.

“I’m not campaigning,” the guy replied, his voice muffled by his mask, as his friend, who was wearing a Ronald Reagan mask handed out fliers that listed nine ways in which “Mayor Newsom terminates poor with massive budget cuts.”

(These included closing the Ella Hill Hutch shelter, Caduceus Outreach services, SRO Families United program, and a 22 percent cut of residential substance abuse and mental health treatment programs budgets.)

But no one said diddley when the guy who one was wearing a very well tailored suit and presenting the Mayor’s $6.5 billion budget, began to campaign by unashamedly pushing Prop. G, which out-of-town developer Lennar has spent $4 million to promote.

“You can’t have a budget speech about the future of the City and the structural challenges we face without talking about it,” Newsom said.

Nor did anyone say squat, when Newsom began to bash the competing Prop. F, which requires that 50 percent of housing built at the Shipyard and Candlestick Point be affordable to families of four who make $65,000 and under, which is the average median income for that size household in the Bayview.

Yes, it was cool to be inside the SFPD’s unit, without being on the wrong side of the law.

Mayor uses Shipyard to announce budget, Monday

May 30, 2008

It’s 4 PM on a Friday afternoon, that hour when most employees are counting the seconds to the weekend—and wishing that Monday morning wasn’t only 65 hours away.

But does the Mayor’s Office know what time it is?

And if so, why have we only just found out that Mayor Gavin Newsom is planning to make his Monday morning budget announcement, at 10: 30 am, June 2, at the Hunters Point Shipyard?

The announcement will be made at
View Larger Map“>606 Hunter’s Point Shipyard.
(Unless, Newsom is planning a repeat of his disappearing Olympic Torch stunt.)

The location happens to be the San Francisco Police Department’s Tactical Operations center. Press are being asked to present press credentials for entry.

Could it be that this announcement is being made at the very last minute because the choice of location gives Newsom the appearance of impropriety? Newsom backing Prop.G on the June 3 ballot, the measure that developer Lennar has spent over $3.5 million in an effort to grab even more of San Francisco’s waterfront real estate, adding highly desirable land at Candlestick Point to the shipyard’s wastelands, so it can develop even more luxury condos?

Or could it be because he didn’t want to tip of supporters of Prop. F, the competing measure on the June 3 ballot that requires that 50 percent of development in the Bayview is affordable to people who actually live there—households that tend to make $68,000 and under and can’t afford to buy $500,000 condos and million-dollar townhouses?

Whatever the reasons, the running dogs of the press weren’t the only ones left in the dark about the budget locale.

No one on the Board of Supervisors was informed until 4PM, Friday afternoon, either. That’s when a mayoral aide came by the office of Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, who sits on the Board’s Budget and Finance Committee, to deliver the news of this hitherto top secret location.

Normally, Board members get an invitation at least 10-14 days beforehand.

Mirkarimi calls the move “highly unorthodox and outrageous.”

“What’s really unforgivable is that we are facing the worst budget deficit in San Francisco’s history,” Mirkarimi said. “The Mayor needs to be fostering collaboration, and enlisting the support of everyone he can, especially those who have influence on the budget process. It’s unfortunate that the casualty in all this is our desire to work together.”

Where in the world is Carmen Policy?

May 29, 2008

Where in the world is Carmen Policy?

That’s what Prop. F supporters are wondering amid the deafening silence that has followed their invite to Lennar consultant and former 49ers president Policy to debate POWER community organizer Alicia Schwartz on Saturday, May 31, in the Bayview.

Back in February 2008, Policy made headlines when he was hired by Lennar executive Kofi Bonner to head what has since become the $3 million Prop. G campaign. That measure primarily involves a land exchange that would allow Lennar to build a new 49ers stadium atop the toxic Hunters Point Shipyard site, while building luxury condos and retail buildings on the former Monster Park site.

Prop. F campaign manager Chris Cassidy says that the Prop. F campaign, which would require 50 percent of all Lennar’s housing units to be truly affordable to the folks who currently live in the Bayview, decided to invite Policy to debate Prop. F’s Schwartz, “because of the money Policy has received from Lennar and because of his connections to the community from when he was president of the 49ers.”

Prop. G’s most recent campaign financial disclosures show that $40,915 was paid to Carmen Policy, $343,138 for attorneys’ fees, $1.3 million on advertising, and $767,607 on “consulting services.”

As Power’s Schwartz notes in a Prop. F press release, “Politics can be a contact sport, but it should also be a contest of ideals.”

Prop. F organizers say the debate will take place, with or without Policy, at 5030 3rd Street and Quesada Avenue, ( near the MUNI T-Line – Palou Ave. Stop) on Saturday May 31 – 6:30-8:00

Hey, at least Schwartz is challenging Policy to a dance-off…(watch Schwartz, third from left, do the Cha Cha slide).

“Fuck Lennar!”

May 28, 2008

I’ve witnessed my share of political rallies, but Prop. F’s “We Shall Not be Moved” event at 3rd Street and Palou in the Bayview takes the bumpin’-block-party prize.

Wedged between three cash checking stores, a beauty parlor, and a T-Third station, the rally was awash with multilingual “Yes on F” signs, edgy urban chic and fighting words.

But beyond the many powerful speakers who showed up to stir up the crowd, the afternoon’s three most memorable moments involved song, dance and the spoken word.

Turfaholics’ Johnal performed to a funky remix of “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair).

Prop. F supporters put a smile on the crowd’s face with their soulful attempts at the Cha Cha Slide.

And last but not least was hiphop emcee Cobe Obeah

Stay with the following video for a minute and you’ll get to the part where Cobe announces that he doesn’t usually cuss, then gets the crowd joining in a “Fuck Lennar!” chant, before delivering a final FU to San Francisco’s Mayor Gavin Newsom.

Assessing the deal

May 27, 2008

› sarah@sfbg.com

Mayor Gavin Newsom stood with San Francisco Labor Council executive director Tim Paulson, flanked by Sup. Sophie Maxwell and representatives from megadeveloper Lennar, the San Francisco Organizing Project, and the Association for Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) May 20 to announce "a historic community benefits agreement."

Lennar had been persuaded to promise more affordable housing and other giveaways in order to win some important new endorsements in their troubled bid to take control of Candlestick and Hunter’s points and cover them with about 10,000 new homes.

"This is a very big deal," Newsom said, plugging the Lennar-financed Prop. G and bashing Sup. Chris Daly for his leadership of the campaign to qualify Prop. F, which would require that half the new units be affordable to households making less than $75,000, a requirement that Lennar casts as a deal breaker.

"Prop. F is a pipe dream that guarantees you only one thing: what you already have," Newsom said. "We have to get the message out what a Trojan horse Prop. F is." Lennar’s top local executive, Kofi Bonner, added that the agreement "enables us to go forward, because now we have new allies."

The Labor Council’s ability to invigorate a campaign makes it an important ally. Yet Lennar’s giveaway of more than it had previously promised and the fact that the agreement comes just two weeks before the June 3 vote seem to indicate that the Prop. G supporters have grown desperate.

Lennar already has spent $3.26 million to promote Prop. G and oppose Prop. F, only to find polls showing Prop. F well ahead despite a campaign that has raised less than $10,000. The weak poll numbers clearly convinced Lennar and its backers in the political power structure that voters would be more likely to support Prop. G if Lennar came up with something that seemed legally binding.

But by supporting a deal that appears to pin down Lennar on levels of housing affordability and community investment, Newsom ironically seems to be validating the concern of Daly and Prop. F’s other backers that Prop. G lacks guarantees on these fronts (see "Promises and reality," 04/23/08).

Not even Newsom could deny that Prop. F’s presence on the political landscape pushed Lennar to seek a community benefits agreement with the Labor Council and ACORN, a group that had been a solid part of Daly’s affordable-housing constituency.

"It probably has," Newsom told the Guardian. "That said, I don’t think Prop. F should suggest the deal is better because of them. Perhaps it’s worse."

Daly dismissed Newsom’s attacks as more attempts to hurt Prop. F’s popularity by trying to attach it to Daly’s personal negatives. Daly also attacked the agreement as overstated in its promises and impossible to enforce.

"I really don’t know if there is any net gain from one deal to the next," Daly said. "And how is it enforceable? We’re not sure anything legally binding is on table now. If there was a development agreement then obviously we would have some surety, as we would if we had a development plan that had cleared the approval process — Lennar’s financial vulnerabilities notwithstanding."

Noting that the city has had "bad luck with big order projects before," Daly recalls how Lennar reneged on building rental units at the Shipyard’s Parcel A, where the developer also failed to properly monitor and control asbestos dust despite promising to do so.

The agreement, which doesn’t include the city or any government agency as a party, is certainly unconventional. But is the deal legally binding? And just who benefits from it?

The CBA purportedly commits Lennar to create 31.86 percent "affordable" housing units in the Bayview, contribute $27 million to provide affordable homes throughout District 10, rebuild the Alice Griffith public housing project, and give down payment and first-time homebuyer assistance on another 3 percent of the homes.

All told, Paulson claims the deal locks in an unprecedented 35 percent affordable housing into Lennar’s mixed-use proposal for the Bayview. The deal also obligates Lennar to invest $8.5 million in workforce development in District 10, hire locally, pay living wages, and allow worker organizing with a card check neutrality policy.

"This legally binding agreement is a way we can insure that our community gets the benefits it needs," said SFOP co-president and longtime Bayview resident Eleanor Williams.

Paulson said May 22 the deal is still being "lawyered up" to ensure its enforceability, and ACORN’s John Eller insists the deal was done with community input. "We have had numerous meetings in which the community was demanding accountability and clear commitments to the workforce and housing, including the possibility of home ownership," Eller told the Guardian.

But Julian Gross, director of the San Francisco–based Community Benefits Law Center, clarifies that the deal only becomes legally binding if Lennar builds a mixed-use project in Bayview/Candlestick Point. "A community benefits agreement gives people a way to work in a coalition," said Gross, who helped negotiate CBAs at Oakland’s Uptown and Oak to Ninth projects, and at Lennar’s development in San Diego’s Ballpark Village in 2005.

Michael Cohen, director of the Mayor’s Office of Economic Workforce and Development, said the city hopes to enter into its own legally binding agreement with Lennar over a mixed-use project by the end of 2009, once environmental reviews on the project are completed.

Given that the project is expected to take 12–15 years to complete, could Lennar change the CBA’s terms after it starts to develop the Bayview? Yes, says Donald Cohen of the San Diego–based Center for Public Policy Initiatives, but only if both sides agree to any changes.

"In a private deal between private parties, those parties can agree to change the terms of the deal at any time," Cohen explained.

That’s significant given the divisions over development within the Labor Council. As Paulson confirmed, the building-trade unions were pushing for outright endorsement of Prop. G and opposition to Prop. F, but he successfully pushed for the negotiations with Lennar, which lasted more than eight weeks and almost broke down several times, Paulson told us.

"I told them, I don’t think that’s where we are coming from because Prop. G doesn’t contain guarantees on affordable housing or jobs," Paulson said of his initial response to Prop. G supporters.

The agreement appears to stretch the definition of "affordable housing," reaching up to those earning 160 percent of area median income, which is essentially market-rate housing for the low-income southeast sector.

Prop. F supporter Alicia Schwartz of People Organized to Win Employment Rights said that what labor’s deal with Lennar means is that only 15.6 percent of the housing will truly be affordable to the folks who currently live in the Bayview. While "3,500 units sounds good," Schwartz observed, "Only 50 percent of them will be for families making 60 percent and less of area median income, while the other 50 percent are for 80 to 160 percent AMI. That means $500,000 condos, which 70 percent of the Bayview can’t afford."

Yet Cohen said it’s understandable that the Labor Council crafted a deal that caters to those with above-average incomes.

"Affordable-housing policies over the last 10 years have tended not to address the needs of many of their members," Cohen said. "Many families make more than $64,000, so they can’t qualify for affordable housing, but don’t make enough to buy. This provides a fantastic and large-scale opportunity to address the problem of the squeezing of the middle class in San Francisco."

Public records obtained from the Mayor’s Office show that prior to this latest deal, Lennar planned to build up to 75 percent market-rate housing at the site, including hundreds of million-dollar townhouses, thousands of high-rise units at $787,483, mid-rise units at $734,400, townhouses at $651,366, and low-rise units at $592,797.

But under the CBA, the top tier of condos that Lennar deems "affordable" cost about the same as the cheapest market rate units it had already planned to build, leaving only 1,566 rental units at rates truly affordable to San Francisco’s low-income workers.

Paulson believes the resulting agreement "ensures that residents, workers, tenants, and future homebuyers have a path to new jobs and housing." He also claims that it is tied to the land, "meaning that it would be transferable to other developers if Lennar pulls out."

Joseph Smooke, executive director of the Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center, said he believes the jobs agreements labor negotiated are good. "It’s the housing stuff where they gave away the store," Smooke said. "Why didn’t they stick to the jobs piece and support Prop. F?"

Pointing to the Board of Supervisors’ passage of policy saying that 64 percent of housing in eastern neighborhoods should be targeted at 80 percent of AMI and below, Smooke added, "There are ways to make 50 percent affordable work. This is free land. It’s not rocket science. But is it city policy to protect a developer’s stated desire for 18 to 22 percent profit?"

Meanwhile, Schwartz hopes SFOP and ACORN are being accountable to their base of low-income workers. "Lennar would like to tell you that if Prop. G doesn’t pass, nothing happens. But in reality, the community’s plan stays, plus now there is a 50 percent affordable-housing requirement," Schwartz said. "That’s a win-win."

"For Newsom and Lennar to say that Prop. F is a poison pill — the irony is not lost on the Bayview," Schwartz added, recalling the city’s failure to hold Lennar accountable for its promises and misdeeds. "We’re looking to change the way business is done in San Francisco." *

Hold out for Hunters Point

May 27, 2008

EDITORIAL In the late 1980s, Mayor Art Agnos put forward a plan for development at Mission Bay, which at that point was an underused plot of land that used to be a Southern Pacific railroad yard. He negotiated with the developer, Catellus Corp., and cut what he insisted was the best deal the city could possibly get. He insisted that any more demands — for, say, increased affordable housing — would have so damaged the project’s finances that nothing would ever be built.

Development opponents took the issue to the voters — and the mayor’s plan lost. Catellus promptly came back with a much sweeter deal.

It’s worth remembering that lesson, because next week voters will be faced with a stark choice for a massive Hunters Point–Bayview redevelopment plan. Mayor Gavin Newsom and his allies say the city has squeezed major concessions from the developer, Lennar Corp. The San Francisco Labor Council and two community groups have forced Lennar to sweeten the pot even more (see "Assessing the deal," page 11). At this point, the city’s supposed to have the best deal it can possibly get.

But with all due respect to the Labor Council, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), and the San Francisco Organizing Project, it’s not good enough.

The battle — which is shaping up as a very close contest — involves dueling ballot measures Propositions G and F. Prop. G is the deal Newsom and Lennar are pushing; it would give the financially troubled developer the right to build 10,000 new housing units, office and retail space, and a new football stadium, along with 300 new acres of parks, in one of the city’s most economically depressed areas. Some of the new housing would be available at below-market rates. Prop. F raises the ante a big notch: it would require that half of all Lennar’s housing be available to people making less than the median area income, which is $75,000 for a family of four.

For the record, it’s worth noting that the new concessions labor got would never have happened if Sup. Chris Daly and a group of Bayview–Hunters Point activists hadn’t placed Prop. F on the ballot. In fact, organized labor wasn’t terribly involved in the redevelopment project until a couple of months ago. That’s when Lennar’s team of political consultants realized that they might be facing a shellacking at the ballot June 3.

The polls show that Prop. F is very popular — and for good reason. It’s a simple proposal that makes excellent intuitive and practical sense. As housing activist Calvin Welch likes to say, San Francisco doesn’t have a housing crisis — the city has an affordable-housing crisis. Multimillionaires don’t have trouble finding places to live. And unfortunately, much of the new housing being built in this city is targeted to the very rich: typical market-rate one-bedroom condos start at around $500,000 and soar quickly into the millions. The rest of the city is getting forced out, and the dramatic, profound gentrification is transforming San Francisco.

Even the city planning department recognizes what’s going on: the Housing Element of the city’s General Plan states that 64 percent — nearly two-thirds — of all new housing ought to be affordable.

But the vast majority of the residents of Bayview–Hunters Point could never afford the vast majority of the new housing units Lennar wants to build. Prop. F seeks to address the deep imbalance in the proposed housing mix.

Lennar is squealing, saying it can’t possibly make the project pencil out with that much affordable housing. The company’s political team pushed the Labor Council to side with them, and in exchange for endorsing G and opposing F, labor got some worthy goodies. The level of what Lennar calls affordable housing is now higher than 30 percent — but when you actually look at those numbers, only about half of the 30 percent is truly affordable to the neighborhood residents who face being forced out of town. There’s also a new job training program and a mandate that new businesses allow their staff to unionize through a simple card-check process (although the city would almost certainly mandate that anyway).

But the bottom line is that the deal labor cut doesn’t meet what ought to be the standard for all new housing in San Francisco. Even after all the concessions, roughly 70 percent of the new units will be available only to rich people. That’s not acceptable in a city that is rapidly losing its artists, writers, musicians, immigrants, students … just about everyone who makes San Francisco such an exciting place to live is now an endangered species. And labor’s deal fundamentally does nothing to change that.

Vote yes on F and no on G. And if Lennar won’t build enough affordable housing, let’s scrap this deal and find someone who will. *

The Bike Issue: Behind the pack

May 13, 2008

Also in this issue:

>>10 things Bay Area cyclists should know

>>Don’t Stop: Bike lessons from Idaho

› steve@sfbg.com

There’s a strange dichotomy facing bicycling in San Francisco, and it’s spelled out in the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s "2007 Citywide Bicycle Counts Report," which features a cover photo of Mayor Gavin Newsom and me pedaling up Market Street together on Bike to Work Day two years ago.

That photo, its context, and the information contained in the report tell the story of a city that at one time set the pace for facilitating bicycling as a viable alternative to the automobile. But that city has been passed up since then by cities such as Chicago, New York, Washington DC, Seattle, and Portland, Ore.

San Francisco still has a higher per-capita rate of bicycle use than any major city in the United States, and that number has been steadily rising in recent years, even as construction of new bike facilities has stalled. The report’s survey found a 15 percent increase since the first official bicycle count was conducted in 2006.

"This increase is especially significant when viewed in light of the injunction against the City’s Bicycle Plan. This injunction has stopped the City from installing any new bicycle facilities since June 2006. Despite a lack of improvement or additions to the City’s bicycle route network, cycling use in San Francisco appears to be increasing," the report read.

It’ll take at least another year for city officials to wrap up the environmental studies on the 56 proposed bike projects and get Judge Peter Busch to lift the injunction (see "Stationary biking," 5/16/07). But it’s still an open question whether San Francisco’s three-year hiatus will be followed by the rapid installation of new bike lanes and other facilities.

City officials express confidence, and there are some hopeful signs. Newsom has been focused on environmental initiatives, the MTA has beefed up its bike staff from six full-time slots to nine, advocacy groups like San Francisco Bicycle Coalition are at the peak of their numbers and influence, and all involved say promoting bicycling is a cheap, effective way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution, and traffic congestion.

"I’d be very surprised if, within six months after the injunction being lifted, we don’t see a record number of bike lanes striped," said MTA spokesperson Judson True.

Yet there are still political barriers to overcome in a city where cars are the dominant transportation option — and the first barrier is Mayor Newsom. He has yet to show a willingness to back his green rhetoric with policies that actually take space from cars, which many of the bike lane projects will entail.

"I think we have seen this mayor talk big on some environmental problems, but I’ve been disappointed that on transportation, that thinking hasn’t been turned into action yet," said SFBC executive director Leah Shahum, whom Newsom appointed to the MTA board but then removed earlier this year before her term expired, a sign of the complex and largely adversarial relationship between the mayor and bicyclists.

Newsom has been able to avoid tough decisions on bikes and cars for the past two years because of the injunction and the wait for Muni and traffic congestion studies, which are being released throughout 2008. But that’s about to change with the court’s ban on new bike projects slated to end next year. So will Newsom, who may be running for governor at the time, be willing to make controversial decisions that back up all his green talk? It’s an open question.

The common denominator in all the cities that have pedaled past San Francisco in recent years is that they’ve had strong mayors who have embraced cycling and partnered with bike advocates to change the rules of the road, often contracting them to work directly on projects.

"We’re poised for it, but will we act on it?" Shahum said of the potential for a bike boom in San Francisco. "It’s going to be a real test next summer and I think the mayor’s role is crucial."

THE GREEN BUG

Like many big city mayors, Newsom has become enamored of all things green at the same time that he’s trying to manage an overtaxed transportation system. He is pushing for Muni improvements and has voiced support for congestion pricing initiatives that could make driving a car more expensive.

"This trend of big city mayors focused on transportation to deal with environmental problems is spreading, and I think Newsom has caught that bug," Shahum said.

SFBC and other groups have been meeting regularly with Wade Crowfoot, the mayor’s new director of climate change initiatives, to push the bike plan work forward, create an aggressive implementation strategy, and craft new initiatives like the recently unveiled "Healthways" proposal to close down the Embarcadero to cars on summer Sunday mornings, an idea borrowed from Bogotá, Colombia.

It’s a sea change from that ride I took with Newsom two years ago, three days after he vetoed Healthy Saturdays, which would have created another day of car-free roads in Golden Gate Park. He labeled the bike advocates as "divisive," and told me his veto decision was influenced by "people in the neighborhoods who just came out in force in ways that, frankly, I didn’t expect."

Those feelings, held by the half of San Franciscans who use a car as their primary mode of transportation, haven’t gone away. Newsom’s advisers and the MTA staffers working on the Bike Plan acknowledge the political challenges in completing the bike network, which advocates say is an important prerequisite for convincing more people that cycling is a safe, attractive option.

I asked Oliver Gajda, who is leading the MTA’s bike team, whether the 56 projects he’s now working on would be queued up and ready to build once the injunction is lifted. While the technical work will be done, he said that most projects still will require lots of community meetings and negotiations.

"Some of the projects will take a couple years of work with the community, and some will take less," Gajda said. "When you discuss the potential of removing lanes or parking spots, there are lots of different interests in San Francisco that have concerns."

That’s where the rubber meets the road. Yes, everyone wants to see more cycling in San Francisco — Newsom two years ago even set the goal of 10 percent of all vehicle trips being made by bicycle by 2010, a goal that nobody interviewed for this article thinks the city will meet — but is the city willing to take space from cars?

"The public priorities are already correct, but we need political leadership to implement those priorities even when there’s opposition," said Dave Snyder, transportation policy director with the San Francisco Planning Urban Research Association.

Crowfoot said Newsom is committed to creating better alternatives to the automobile.

"The mayor is fully supportive of expanding the bike network and that will involve tradeoffs," Crowfoot said, acknowledging that some projects involve losing lanes or parking spaces to close the bike network’s most dangerous gaps. "To the extent that the bike network continues to be a patchwork, people won’t get on bikes."

But the mayor also has been fully supportive of the Transit Effectiveness Project’s proposal to reform Muni, even though he recently suggested opposition to proposed parking fine increases might mean that some TEP proposals need to be scaled back.

Skeptics also note that Newsom removed Shahum from the MTA and has appointed no one else with connections to the bicycling community since then, even though that body has sweeping new authority under last year’s Proposition A to implement the bike plan and make decisions about which transportation modes get priority and funding.

"I’m pushing for that, and we’ll see what happens," Crowfoot said of his efforts to get a complete bike network going during the Newsom administration’s reign, acknowledging that, "the proof is in the pudding."

ZERO-SUM GAME

San Francisco’s strong bicycle advocacy culture, the creation of lots of new bike lanes between 2000 and 2004, and innovations like Critical Mass and the sharrow (a painted arrow on the road indicating where bikes should safely ride) made this city a leader in the bicycling movement.

Yet it is only in the last few years, when San Franciscans have been sidelined by the injunction, that the movement really gained mainstream political acceptance and begun to make inroads into the dominant car culture of the United States, slowly and belatedly following the lead of European cities like Amsterdam and Copenhagen.

"Interest in bike-friendly policies is surging, along with the growing number of adults who are riding more. Moreover, the movers and shakers of the biking scene are often smart, always passionate, and they believe strongly in what they are doing. Even when such groups are in the minority, they often enjoy significant political success, and they should never be discounted," J. Harry Wray, a political science professor from DePaul University in Chicago, argues in his new book Pedal Power: The Quiet Rise of the Bicycle in American Public Life (Paradigm, 2008).

Jeffrey Miller, executive director of Thunderhead Alliance, a national umbrella organization supporting regional bicycle advocacy groups, told us he’s pleased with the movement’s progress in recent years.

"There’s been an awakening by the decision-makers in both government and businesses that bicycling and walking can solve a lot of the environmental problems we’re facing," Miller said.

He cited Portland, Ore., Chicago, Seattle, Washington DC, and New York as the cities leading the way in prioritizing bicycling and creating systems that encourage the use of bikes, and said he was sad to see the setbacks in San Francisco.

"But advocates in each of those cities will say there’s so much more work to be done," Miller said.

Most of that work centers on changing how drivers and planners think about cities, and especially with those who see the competition for space as a zero-sum game. Miller noted that it’s good for motorists when more people are encouraged to opt for alternate forms of transportation.

"If you just get 10 to 20 percent of the drivers to use those other modes, it frees the freeways up for cars as well," Miller said. "I don’t see why we go out of our way to favor cars over every other form of transportation."

Like many advocates, he said a strong and consistently supportive mayor is crucial to change the priorities in cities.

"We have an executive leader in Mayor Daley who believes strongly that the bicycle is a big part of the solution to our environmental problems," said Rob Sadowsky, director of the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation.

"We have an incredible partnership with the city," he said, noting that the organization often works directly on city contracts to create more bicycle facilities, something that happens in other bike-friendly cities like Portland and New York. But it doesn’t happen much in San Francisco.

"There’s a real sense that we’ve turned a critical corner and things that we’re been fighting for, for years now, are in sight," said Paul Steely White, executive director of Transportation Alternatives in New York. "In the last year, there have been some significant policy advances."

Like Mayor Daley in Chicago, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has become a vocal advocate of green transportation alternatives and has been willing to stand firm against displaced drivers.

"Anything you give to cyclists is basically taken away from automobiles," White said, adding that New York officials "have not shied away from taking parking away, or even a lane on Ninth Avenue. And that shows how serious they are."

The problem isn’t just San Francisco’s, but California’s as well. It is the state’s decades-old California Environmental Quality Act that was used to stall the Bike Plan and make bike projects so cumbersome. Sadowsky said bike projects in Chicago are relatively easy to implement, with little in the way of hearings or environmental studies needed.

Oregon laws also helped make Portland a national leader, with a requirement that all new road construction include bike lanes, paid for with state funds. Yet here in the small, 49-mile square that is San Francisco, with ideal weather and a deeply ingrained bike community, many say the city could be on the verge of regaining its leadership role in the bicycle policy.

A poll conducted in November 2007 by David Binder Research found that 5 percent of residents use a bicycle as their main mode of transportation, and that 16 percent of San Franciscans ride a bike at least once a week. Even more encouraging is the fact that most reasons cited for not biking — not enough bike lanes or parking, bad roads, feeling threatened by cars — are all things that can be addressed by smart bike policies.

"If it’s going to happen anywhere, it’s going to happen in San Francisco — as far as making more bicycling a reality," Gajda told us. "I really feel like we’re poised after the injunction to take it to the next level."

GET INVOLVED

The SFMTA has a series of upcoming workshops on the city’s Bike Plan and network:

Central Neighborhoods May 21, 6–7:30 p.m., SoMa Recreation Center Auditorium, 270 Sixth St.

Southeastern Neighborhoods May 22, 6–7:30 p.m., Bayview Anna E. Warden Branch Library, 5075 Third St.

Western Neighborhoods June 3, 6–7:30 p.m., Sunset Recreation Center Auditorium, 2201 Lawton.

Northern Neighborhoods June 4, 6–7:30 p.m., Golden Gate Valley Branch Library, 1801 Green.

BIKE TO WORK DAY, MAY 15

Biking is easier and more fun than many people realize, so Bike to Work Day is the perfect excuse to try it on for size. There will be energizer stations all over town for goodies and encouragement, and lots of fellow cyclists on the road for moral support, including group rides leaving 11 different neighborhoods at 7:30 a.m. After work, swing by the SFBC’s Bike Away from Work party from 6–10 p.m. at the Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell St. For more details, visit http://www.sfbike.org/

Blasting Lennar’s land grab

May 13, 2008

By Maria Dinzeo
While we’ve already dubbed Lennar Corporation “the corporation that ate San Francisco,” representatives from five Bay Area environmental organizations today held a press conference to blast the corporation for creating Prop. G to gobble up the rest of Bayview Hunter’s Point and Candlestick Point.

Esselene Stancil, a resident of Bayview since the 1950’s, says this is nothing new. Change is often promised, but it always falls short. “I have seen many changes in the Bayview, and this change is not for us. We have plenty of parks. What we need is to take care of the one’s we have. They promise us houses, but there are no houses being built out there that people will be able to afford.”

There will, however, be plenty of luxury condominiums, chiefly in the Candlestick Point area, complete with a bridge connecting their wealthy owners with the freeway. John Rizzo of the SF Chapter of the Sierra Club said that Prop. G’s plan to build a thoroughfare through Yosemite Slough is just another way of economically marginalizing Bayview residents. “This bridge is specifically for residents of the luxury condos in Candlestick Point so they don’t have to drive through the Bayview and look at poor people,” said Rizzo.

Rizzo also noted the dubious nature of the Prop. G campaign that promises the Bayview jobs, housing, and a new park. “It’s deceptive advertising. Lennar promises the Bayview a park, but what they deliver are 15-story luxury condos and an astro-turf parking lot,” he said. “The Bayview deserves real parks, and maintenance of those that already exist.”

Said Stancil, “It’s just another gimmick that these corporations always have. They are trying to blind us from the truth. But don’t let them fool you.”

Peaker Plan moving forward

May 6, 2008

Early Monday morning about a hundred citizens gathered in front of City Hall to protest the construction of two natural gas-burning “peaker” power plants in the city — one at the airport and one in the Bayview/Portero district. Representatives opposed to the plan, from a coalition of 20 different environmental and social justice organizations, articulated in so many ways that San Francisco should be moving toward green energy and away from fossil fuels.

Then the crowd, about 100 strong, filed inside to speak their minds about it at a Government Audit and Oversight Committee hearing — last stop for the plan before it heads to the full Board of Supervisors. But 10 hours later, only a handful of people were still in the room when the chance to speak was finally given.

The insanely long hearing had a loaded agenda, with topics ranging from funding the airport to defunding Edgewood foster care center, not to mention six separate bits of legislation related to the peaker power plants. The public comment requests were piled high and proceedings slammed to a halt during Item #5 when Stephanie Gates, a rep for Edgewood, fainted to the floor in the middle of her testimony about foster care in San Francisco.

It was well into the evening and most of the audience had left for home or work by the time talk finally turned to the peakers.

Postal workers go postal with picket

May 2, 2008

*SEE UPDATED RESPONSE FROM RON MALIG BELOW*

A group of local postal workers are hitting the streets this afternoon, Friday, and going postal on their boss who they say won’t stop going postal on them. Okay, that’s not the best way to put it. Local postal carriers say there’s a guy working as a supervisor at the Bryant Annex Post Office in the Mission named Ron Malig who’s simply out of control. This postal boss, they allege, has long abused and discriminated against his underlings, behavior they describe as “obnoxious” from finding ways to punish fellow postal workers he dislikes to claiming certain colleagues are “disrespecting” him.

The highly publicized postal shootings of the ‘90s helped create an unfortunate image of letter carriers. But two union officials from the AFL-CIO’s National Association of Letter Carriers, Golden Gate Branch 214, told us that over the last few decades, their local hasn’t resorted to pickets all that often, maybe a handful of times. Mostly a quiet bunch, says union vice president Bill Thornton, at least compared to the ILWU, which briefly shut down West Coast ports this week on May Day to protest the Iraq war.

“We don’t picket. It has to be a really bad situation,” said Don Limin, a steward for Branch 214.

In fact, the last time Bryant Annex employees did hit the streets was for a vigil in late 2006 when a postal supervisor named Genevieve Paez from the 180 Napoleon St. post office in the Bayview was shot to death execution-style outside of her home in Visitacion Valley. Paez, who Limin said once worked at the Bryant Annex, had been involved in a dispute with another postal employee named Julius Tartt. The next day, Tartt himself was found in a Livermore parking lot dead from what the Alameda County Coroner’s Office declared was a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Police believed Tartt killed Paez and then took his own life.

Endorsements

April 29, 2008

>>Click here for the full-text version of this story

Wait, wasn’t the primary election back in February? Yes, it was — in a way. The California Legislature, in an effort to make the state more relevant (that turned out well, didn’t it?) moved the presidential primary several months earlier this year but left the rest of the primary races, and some key initiatives, for the June 3 ballot. There’s a lot at stake here: three contested Legislative races, two judicial races, a measure that could end rent control in California … vote early and often. Our endorsements follow.

National races

Congress, District 6

LYNN WOOLSEY

It’s an irony that the congressional representative from Marin and Sonoma counties is far to the left of the representative from San Francisco, but Lynn Woolsey’s politics put Nancy Pelosi to shame. Woolsey was against the Iraq war from the start and the first member of Congress to demand that the troops come home, and she continues to speak out on the issue. At the same time, she’s also a strong advocate for injured veterans.

Woolsey, who once upon a time (many years ago) was on welfare herself, hasn’t forgotten what it’s like to have trouble making ends meet. She’s a leading voice against cuts in social service spending and is now pushing a bill to increase food stamp benefits. She richly deserves reelection.

Congress, District 7

GEORGE MILLER

George Miller, who has represented this East Bay district since 1974, is an effective legislator and strong environmentalist. Sometimes he’s too willing to compromise — he worked with the George W. Bush administration on No Child Left Behind, a disaster of an education bill — but he’s a solid opponent of the war and we’ll endorse him for another term.

Congress, District 8

NO ENDORSEMENT

Cindy Sheehan, the antiwar activist, is moving forward with her campaign to challenge Nancy Pelosi as an independent candidate in November, and we wish her luck. For now, Pelosi, the Speaker of the House and one of the most powerful people in Washington, will easily win the Democratic primary.

But Pelosi long ago stopped representing her San Francisco district. She continues to support full funding for Bush’s war, refused to even consider impeachment (back when it might have made sense), refused to interact with war critics who camped out in front of her house … and still won’t acknowledge it was a mistake to privatize the Presidio. We can’t endorse her.

Congress, District 13

PETE STARK

You have to love Pete Stark. The older he gets, the more radical he sounds — and after 32 years representing this East Bay district, he shows no signs of slowing down. Stark is unwilling to be polite or accommodating about the Iraq war. In 2007 he announced on the floor of the House that the Republicans "don’t have money to fund the war or children. But you’re going to spend it to blow up innocent people if we can get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the president’s amusement." He happily signed on to a measure to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney. He is the only member of Congress who proudly admits being an atheist. It’s hard to imagine how someone like Stark could get elected today. But we’re glad he’s around.

Nonpartisan offices

Superior Court, Seat 12

GERARDO SANDOVAL

There aren’t many former public defenders on the bench in California. For years, governors — both Democratic and Republican — have leaned toward prosecutors and civil lawyers from big downtown firms when they’ve made judicial appointments. So the San Francisco judiciary isn’t, generally speaking, as progressive or diverse as the city.

Sup. Gerardo Sandoval, who will be termed out this year, is looking to become a judge — and there’s no way this governor would ever appoint him. So he’s doing something that’s fairly rare, even in this town: he’s running for election against an incumbent.

We’re happy to see that. It’s heartening to see an actual judicial election. Judges are technically elected officials, but most incumbents retire in the middle of their terms, allowing the governor to appoint their replacements, and unless someone files to run against a sitting judge, his or her name doesn’t even appear on the ballot.

Sandoval is challenging Judge Thomas Mellon, a Republican who was appointed by Gov. Pete Wilson in 1994. He’s not known as a star on the bench: according to California Courts and Judges, a legal journal that profiles judges and includes interviews with lawyers who have appeared before them, Mellon has a reputation for being unreasonable and cantankerous. In 2000, the San Francisco Public Defenders Office sought to have him removed from all criminal cases because of what the defense lawyers saw as a bias against them and their clients.

Sandoval hasn’t been a perfect supervisor, and we’ve disagreed with him on a number of key issues. But he’s promised us to work for more openness in the courts (including open meetings on court administration), and we’ll give him our endorsement.

State races and propositions

State Senate, District 3

MARK LENO

It doesn’t get any tougher than this — two strong candidates, each with tremendous appeal and a few serious weaknesses. Two San Francisco progressives with distinguished records fighting for a powerful seat that could possibly be lost to a third candidate, a moderate from Marin County who would be terrible in the job. Two people we genuinely like, for very different reasons. It’s fair to say that this is one of the hardest decisions we’ve had to make in the 42-year history of the Guardian.

In the end, we’ve decided — with much enthusiasm and some reservations — to endorse Assemblymember Mark Leno.

We will start with the obvious: this race is the result of term limits. Leno, who has served in the state Assembly for six years, argues, convincingly, that he is challenging incumbent state Sen. Carole Migden because he feels she hasn’t been doing the job. But Leno also loves politics, has no desire to return to life outside the spotlight, and if he could have stayed in the Assembly, the odds that he would have taken on this ugly and difficult race are slim. And if Leno hadn’t opened the door and exposed Migden’s vulnerability, there’s no way former Assemblymember Joe Nation of Marin would have thrown his hat into the ring. We’ve always opposed term limits; we still do.

That said, we’ll hold a few truths to be self-evident: In a one-party town, the only way any incumbent is ever held accountable is through a primary challenge. Those challenges can be unpleasant, and some — including Migden and many of her allies — argue that they’re a waste of precious resources. If Migden wasn’t scrambling to hold onto her seat, she’d be spending her money and political capital trying to elect more Democrats to the state Legislature. But Leno had every right to take on Migden. And win or lose, he has done a laudable public service: it’s been years since we’ve seen Migden around town, talking to constituents, returning phone calls and pushing local issues the way she has in the past few months. And while there will be some anger and bitterness when this is over — and some friends and political allies have been at each other’s throats and will have to figure out how to put that behind them — on balance this has been good for San Francisco. Migden has done much good, much to be proud of, but she had also become somewhat imperious and arrogant, a politician who hadn’t faced a serious election in more than a decade. If this election serves as a reminder to every powerful Democratic legislator that no seat is truly safe (are you listening, Nancy Pelosi?), then the result of what now seems like a political bloodbath can be only positive.

The Third Senate District, a large geographic area that stretches from San Francisco north into Sonoma County, needs an effective, progressive legislator who can promote issues and programs in a body that is not known as a bastion of liberal thought.

Both Migden and Leno can make a strong case on that front. Leno, for example, managed to get passed and signed into law a bill that amends the notorious pro-landlord Ellis Act to protect seniors and disabled people from evictions. He got both houses of the Legislature to approve a marriage-equality bill — twice. During his tenure in the unpleasant job of chairing the Public Safety Committee, he managed to kill a long list of horrible right-wing bills and was one of the few legislators to take a stand against the foolish measure that barred registered sex offenders from living near a park or school. Migden helped pass the landmark community-aggregation bill that allows cities to take a big step toward public power. She’s also passed several key bills to regulate or ban toxic substances in consumer products.

Migden’s record isn’t all positive, though. For a time, she was the chair of the powerful Appropriations Committee — although she gave up that post in 2006, abandoning a job that was important to her district and constituents, to devote more time to campaigning for Steve Westly, a moderate candidate for governor. When we challenged her on that move, she showed her legendary temper, attacking at least one Guardian editor personally and refusing to address the issue at hand. Unfortunately, that isn’t unusual behavior.

Then there’s the matter of ethics and campaign finance laws. The Fair Political Practices Commission has fined Migden $350,000 — the largest penalty ever assessed against a state lawmaker — for 89 violations of campaign finance laws. We take that seriously; the Guardian has always strongly supported ethics and campaign-finance laws, and this level of disregard for the rules raises serious doubts for us about Migden’s credibility.

Sup. Chris Daly posted an open letter to us on his blog last week, and he made a strong pitch for Migden: "While there are only a few differences between Carole and Mark Leno on the issues," he wrote, "when it comes to San Francisco politics, the two are in warring political factions. Carole has used her position in Sacramento consistently to help progressive candidates and causes in San Francisco, while Leno is a kinder, gentler Gavin Newsom."

He’s absolutely right. On the local issues we care about, Migden has been with us far more than Leno. When the public power movement needed money and support in 2002, Migden was there for us. When the University of California and a private developer were trying to turn the old UC Extension campus into luxury housing, Migden was the one who helped Sup. Ross Mirkarimi demand more affordable units. Migden was the one who helped prevent a bad development plan on the Port. Migden stood with the progressives in denouncing Newsom’s budget — and Leno stood with the mayor.

The district supervisorial battles this fall will be crucial to the city’s future, and Migden has already endorsed Eric Mar, the best progressive candidate for District 1, and will almost certainly be with John Avalos, the leading progressive in District 11. Leno may well back a Newsom moderate. In fact, he’s made himself a part of what labor activist Robert Haaland aptly calls the "squishy center" in San Francisco, the realm of the weak, the fearful, and the downtown sycophants who refuse to promote progressive taxes, regulations, and budgets at City Hall. His allegiance to Newsom is truly disturbing.

There’s a war for the soul of San Francisco today, as there has been for many years, and Leno has often tried to straddle the battle lines, sometimes leaning a bit to the wrong camp — and never showing the courage to fight at home for the issues he talks about in Sacramento. We’ll stipulate to that — and the only reason we can put it aside for the purposes of this endorsement is that Leno has never really had much in the way of coattails. He supports the wrong candidates, but he doesn’t do much for them — and we sincerely hope it stays that way.

While Leno is too close to Newsom, we will note that Migden is far too close to Gap founder and Republican leader Don Fisher, one of the most evil players in local politics. She proudly pushed to put Fisher — who supports privatizing public schools — on the state Board of Education.

A prominent local progressive, who we won’t identify by name, called us several months ago to ask how were going to come down in this race, and when we confessed indecision, he said: "You know, I really want to support Carole. But she makes it so hard."

We find ourselves in a similar position. We really wanted to support Migden in this race. We’d prefer to see the state senator from San Francisco using her fundraising ability and influence to promote the candidates and causes we care about.

But Migden has serious political problems right now, baggage we can’t ignore — and it’s all of her own making. Migden says her problems with the Fair Political Practices Commission are little more than technical mistakes — but that’s nonsense. She’s played fast and loose with campaign money for years. When it comes to campaign finance laws, Migden has always acted as if she rules don’t apply to her. She’s treated FPPC fines as little more than a cost of doing business. This latest scandal isn’t an exception; it’s the rule.

Unfortunately, it’s left her in a position where she’s going to have a hard time winning. Today, the election looks like a two-person race between Leno and Nation. And the threat of Joe Nation winning this primary is too great for us to mess around.

Despite our criticism of both candidates, we would be happy with either in the state Senate. We’re taking a chance with Leno; he’s shown some movement toward the progressive camp, and he needs to continue that. If he wins, he will have a huge job to do bringing a fractured queer and progressive community back together — and the way to do that is not by simply going along with everything Newsom wants. Leno has to show some of the same courage at home he’s shown in Sacramento.

But right now, today, we’ve endorsing Mark Leno for state Senate.

State Senate, District 9

LONI HANCOCK

This is another of several tough calls, another creature of term limits that pit two accomplished and experienced termed-out progressive assembly members against each other for the senate seat of termed-out Don Perata. We’ve supported both Loni Hancock and Wilma Chan in the past, and we like both of them. In this one, on balance, we’re going with Hancock.

Hancock has a lifetime of experience in progressive politics. She was elected to the Berkeley City Council in 1971, served two terms as Berkeley mayor, worked as the US Department of Education’s western regional director under Bill Clinton, and has been in the State Assembly the past six years. On just about every progressive issue in the state, she’s been an activist and a leader. And at a time when the state is facing a devastating, crippling budget crisis that makes every other issue seem unimportant, Hancock seems to have a clear grasp of the problem and how to address it. She’s thought through the budget calculus and offers a range of new revenue measures and a program to change the rules for budget passage (two-thirds vote in the legislature is needed to pass any budget bill, which gives Republicans, all but one who has taken a Grover Norquist–inspired pledge never to raise taxes, an effective veto).

Chan, who represented Oakland in the assembly for six years, is a fighter: she’s taken on the insurance industry (by cosponsoring a major single-payer health insurance bill), the chemical industry (by pushing to ban toxic materials in furniture, toys, and plumbing fixtures), and the alcoholic-beverages lobby (by seeking taxes to pay for treatment for young alcoholics). She’s an advocate of sunshine, not just in government, where she’s calling for an earlier and more open budget process, but also in the private sector: a Chan bill sought to force health insurance companies to make public the figures on how often they decline claims.

But she seems to us to have less of a grasp of the budget crisis and the level of political organizing it will take to solve it. Right now, at a time of financial crisis, we’re going with Hancock’s experience and broader vision.

State Assembly, District 12

FIONA MA

We were dubious about Ma. She was a pretty bad supervisor, and when she first ran for Assembly two years ago, we endorsed her opponent. But Ma’s done some good things in Sacramento — she’s become one of the leading supporters of high-speed rail, and she’s working against state Sen. Leland Yee’s attempt to give away 60 acres of public land around the Cow Palace to a private developer. She has no primary opponent, and we’ll endorse her for another term.

State Assembly, District 13

TOM AMMIANO

This one’s easy. Ammiano, who has been a progressive stalwart on the Board of Supervisors for more than 15 years, is running with no opposition in the Democratic primary for state Assembly, and we’re proud to endorse his bid.

Although he’s certain to win, it’s worth taking a moment to recall the extent of Ammiano’s service to San Francisco and the progressive movement. He authored the city’s domestic partners law. He authored the living wage law. He created the universal health care program that Mayor Newsom is trying to take credit for. He sponsored the 2002 public-power measure that would have won if the election hadn’t been stolen. He created the Children’s Fund. He authored the Rainy Day Fund law that is now saving the public schools in San Francisco. And the list goes on and on.

Beyond his legislative accomplishments, Ammiano has been a leader — at times, the leader — of the city’s progressive movement and is at least in part responsible for the progressive majority now on the Board of Supervisors. In the bleak days before district elections, he was often the only supervisor who would carry progressive bills. His 1999 mayoral challenge to incumbent Willie Brown marked a tectonic shift in local politics, galvanizing the left and leading the way to the district-election victories that brought Aaron Peskin, Matt Gonzalez, Jake McGoldrick, Chris Daly, and Gerardo Sandoval to office in 2000.

It’s hard to imagine the San Francisco left without him.

Ammiano will do a fine job in Sacramento, and will continue to use his influence to push the progressive agenda back home.

State Assembly, District 14

KRISS WORTHINGTON

This is another tough one. The race to replace Loni Hancock, one of the most progressive and effective legislators in the state, has drawn two solid, experienced, and well-qualified candidates: Berkeley City Council member Kriss Worthington and former council member Nancy Skinner. We like Skinner, and she would make an excellent assemblymember. But all things considered, we’re going with Worthington.

Skinner was on the Berkeley council from 1984 to 1992 and was part of a progressive majority in the 1980s that redefined how the left could run a city. That council promoted some of the best tenant protection and rent control laws in history, created some of the best local environmental initiatives, and fought to build affordable housing and fund human services. Skinner was responsible for the first local law in the United States to ban Styrofoam containers — a measure that caused McDonald’s to change its food-packaging policies nationwide. She went on to found a nonprofit that helps cities establish sustainable environmental policies.

Skinner told us that California has "gutted our commitment to education," and she vowed to look for creative new ways to raise revenue to pay for better schools. She’s in touch with the best economic thinkers in Sacramento, has the endorsement of Hancock (and much of the rest of the East Bay Democratic Party establishment), and would hit the ground running in the legislature.

Worthington, Berkeley’s only openly gay council member, has been the voice and conscience of the city’s progressive community for the past decade. He’s also been one of the hardest-working politicians in the city — a recent study by a group of UC Berkeley students found that he had written more city council measures than anyone else currently on the council and had won approval for 98 percent of them.

Worthington has been the driving force for a more effective sunshine law in Berkeley, and has been unafraid to challenge the liberal mayor, Tom Bates, and other leading Democrats. His campaign slogan — "a Democrat with a backbone" — has infuriated some of the party hierarchy with its clear (and intended) implication that a lot of other Democrats lack a spine.

"All of the Democrats in the assembly voted for 50,000 more prison beds," he told us. "We needed a Barbara Lee [who cast Congress’ lone vote against George W. Bush’s first war resolution] to stand up and say, ‘this is wrong and I won’t go along.’"

That’s one of the things we like best about Worthington: on just about every issue and front, he’s willing to push the envelope and demand that other Democrats, even other progressive Democrats, stand up and be counted. Which is exactly what we expect from someone who represents one of the most progressive districts in the state.

It’s a close call, but on this one, we’re supporting Kriss Worthington.

State ballot measures

Proposition 98

Abolition of rent control

NO, NO, NO

Proposition 99

Eminent domain reforms

YES, YES, YES

There’s a little rhyme to help you remember which way to vote on this critical pair of ballot measures:

"We hate 98, but 99 is fine."

The issue here is eminent domain, which is making its perennial ballot appearance. Californians don’t like the idea of the government seizing their property and handing it over to private developers, and the most conservative right-wing forces in the state are trying to take advantage of that.

Think about this: if Prop. 98 passes, there will be no more rent control in California. That means thousands of San Francisco tenants will lose their homes. Many could become homeless. Others will have to leave town. All the unlawful-evictions laws will be tossed out. So will virtually any land-use regulations, which is why all the environmental groups also oppose Prop. 98.

In fact, everyone except the Howard Jarvis anti-tax group hates this measure, including seniors, farmers, water districts, unions, and — believe it or not — the California Chamber of Commerce.

Prop. 99, on the other hand, is an unapologetic poison-pill measure that’s been put on the ballot for two reasons: to fix the eminent domain law once and for all, and kill Prop. 98 if it passes. It’s simply worded and goes to the heart of the problem by preventing government agencies from seizing residential property to turn over to private developers. If it passes, the state will finally get beyond the bad guys using the cloak of eminent domain to destroy all the provisions protecting people and the environment.

If anyone has any doubts about the motivation here, take a look at the money: the $3 million to support Prop. 98 came almost entirely from landlords.

This is the single most important issue on the ballot. Remember: no on 98, yes on 99.

San Francisco measures

Proposition A

School parcel tax

YES, YES, YES

Every year, hundreds of excellent teachers leave the San Francisco Unified School District. Some retire after a career in the classroom, but too many others — young teachers with three to five years of experience — bail because they decide they can’t make enough money. San Francisco pays less than public school districts in San Mateo and Marin counties and far less than private and charter schools. And given the high cost of living in the city, a lot of qualified people never even consider teaching as a profession. That harms the public school system and the 58,000 students who rely on it.

It’s a statewide problem, even a national one — but San Francisco, with a remarkable civic unity, is moving to do something about it. Proposition A would place an annual tax on every parcel of land in the city; the typical homeowner would pay less than $200 a year. The money would go directly to increasing pay — mostly starting pay — for teachers. The proposition, which has the support of almost everyone in town except the Republican Party, is properly targeted toward the newer teachers, with the goal of keeping the best teachers on the job past that critical three to five years.

Parcel taxes aren’t perfect; they force homeowners and small businesses to pay the same rate as huge commercial property owners. The way land is divided in the city most big downtown properties sit on at least five, and sometimes as many as 10 or 20 parcels, so the bill will be larger for them. But it’s still nowhere near proportionate.

Still, Prop. 13 has made it almost impossible to raise ad valorum property taxes (based on a property’s assessed value) in the state, and communities all around the Bay are using parcel taxes as a reasonable if imperfect substitute.

There’s a strong campaign for Prop. A and not much in the way of organized opposition, but the measure still needs a two-thirds vote. So for the sake of public education in San Francisco, it’s critical to vote yes.

Proposition B

City retiree benefits change

YES

San Francisco has always offered generous health and retirement benefits to its employees. That’s a good thing. But in this unfortunate era, when federal money is getting sucked into Iraq, state money is going down the giant deficit rat hole, and nobody is willing to raise taxes, the bill for San Francisco’s expensive employee benefit programs is now looking to create a fiscal crisis at City Hall. Officials estimate the payout for current and past employees could total $4 billion over the next 30 years.

So Sup. Sean Elsbernd and his colleagues on the Board of Supervisors have engineered this smart compromise measure in a way that saves the city money over the long run and has the support of labor unions (largely because it includes an increase in the pensions for longtime employees, partially offset by a one-year wage freeze starting in 2009) while still offering reasonable retirements benefits for new employees.

Previously, city employees who worked just five years could get taxpayer-paid health benefits for life. Under this measure, it will take 20 years to get fully paid health benefits, with partially paid benefits after 10 years.

It’s rare to find an issue that has the support of virtually everyone, from the supervisors and the mayor to labor. Prop. B makes sense. Vote yes.

Proposition C

Benefit denials for convicts

NO

On the surface, it’s hard to argue against Prop. C, a measure promoted as a way to keep crooks from collecting city retirement benefits. Sup. Sean Elsbernd’s ballot measure would update an ordinance that’s been on the books in San Francisco for years, one that strips public employees found guilty of "crimes of moral turpitude" against the city of their pensions. A recent court case involving a worker who stole from the city raised doubt about whether that law also applied to disability pay, and Prop. C would clear up that possible loophole.

But there are drawbacks this measure.

For starters, the problem isn’t that big: cases of rejected retirement benefits for city workers are rare. And the law still uses that questionable phrase "moral turpitude" — poorly defined in state law, never clearly defined in this measure, and as any older gay person can tell you, in the past applied to conduct that has nothing to do with honesty. The US State Department considers "bastardy," "lewdness," "mailing an obscene letter" and "desertion from the armed forces," among other things, to be crimes of moral turpitude.

Besides, Prop. C would apply not only to felonies but to misdemeanors. Cutting off disability pay for life over a misdemeanor offense seems awfully harsh.

The law that Elsbernd wants to expand ought to be rethought and reconfigured for the modern era. So vote no on C.

Proposition D

Appointments to city commissions

YES

Prop. D is a policy statement urging the mayor and the supervisors to appoint more women, minorities, and people with disabilities to city boards and commissions. It follows a study by the Commission on the Status of Women that such individuals are underrepresented on the policy bodies that run many city operations.

Despite the overblown concerns raised by local Republicans in the ballot arguments, this advisory measure would do nothing to interfere with qualified white males — or anyone else — getting slots on commissions.

Vote yes.

Proposition E

Board approval of San Francisco Public Utilities Commission appointees

YES

"The last thing we need is more politics at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission," was the first line in Mayor Gavin Newsom’s ballot argument against Prop. E. That’s ironic: it was Newsom’s recent political power play — including the unexplained ousting of SFPUC General Manager Susan Leal and the partially successful effort to reappoint his political allies to this important body — that prompted this long overdue reform.

The SFPUC is arguably the most powerful and important of the city commissions, controlling all the vital resources city residents need: water, power, and waste disposal chief among them. Yet with the mayor controlling all appointments to the commission (it takes a two-thirds vote of the Board of Supervisors to challenge an appointment), that panel has long been stacked with worthless political hacks. As a result, the panel never pursued progressive approaches to conservation, environmental justice, public power, or aggressive development of renewable power sources.

Prop. E attempts to break that political stranglehold by requiring majority confirmation by the Board of Supervisors for all SFPUC appointments. It also mandates that appointees have some experience or expertise in matters important to the SFPUC.

If anything, this reform is too mild: we would have preferred that the board have the authority to name some of the commissioners. But that seemed unlikely to pass, so the board settled for a modest attempt to bring some oversight to the powerful panel.

Vote yes on Prop. E — because the last thing we need is more politics at the SFPUC.

Proposition F

Hunters Point-Bayview redevelopment

YES

Proposition G

NO

On the face of it, Proposition G sounds like a great way to restart the long-idle economic engine of the Bayview and clean up the heavily polluted Hunters Point Shipyard.

Who could be against a plan that promises up to 10,000 new homes, 300 acres of new parks, 8,000 permanent jobs, a green tech research park, a new 49ers stadium, a permanent home for shipyard artists, and a rebuild of Alice Griffith housing project?

The problem with Prop. G is that its promises are, for the most part, just that: promises — which could well shift at any time, driven by the bottom line of Lennar Corp., a financially stressed, out-of-state developer that has already broken trust with the Bayview’s low-income and predominantly African American community.

Lennar has yet to settle with the Bay Area air quality district over failures to control asbestos dust at a 1,500-unit condo complex on the shipyard, where for months the developer kicked up clouds of unmonitored toxic asbestos dust next to a K-12 school.

So, the idea of giving this corporation more land — including control of the cleanup of a federal Superfund site — as part of a plan that also allows it to construct a bridge over a slough restoration project doesn’t sit well with community and environmental groups. And Prop. G’s promise to build "as many as 25 percent affordable" housing units doesn’t impress affordable housing activists.

What Prop. G really means is that Lennar, which has already reneged on promises to create much-needed rental units at the shipyard, now plans to build at least 75 percent of its housing on this 770-acre waterfront swathe as luxury condos.

And with the subprime mortgage crisis continuing to roil the nation, there is a real fear that Prop. G’s final "affordability" percentage will be set by Lennar’s profit margins and not the demographics of the Bayview, home to the city’s last major African American community and many low-income people of color.

There’s more: The nice green space that you see in the slick Lennar campaign fliers is toxic and may not be fully cleaned up. Under the plan, Lennar would put condo towers on what is now state parkland, and in exchange the city would get some open space with artificial turf on top that would be used for parking during football games. Assuming, that is, that a deal to build a new stadium for the 49ers — which is part of all of this — ever comes to pass.

In fact, the lion’s share of a recent $82 million federal funding allocation will be dedicated to cleaning up the 27-acre footprint proposed for a new stadium. In some places, the city is planning to cap contaminated areas, rather than excavate and remove toxins from the site.

If the environmental justice and gentrification questions swirling around Prop. G weren’t enough, there remains Prop. G’s claim that it will create 8,000 permanent jobs once the project is completed. There’s no doubt that the construction of 10,000 mostly luxury homes will create temporary construction jobs, but it’s not clear what kind of jobs the resulting gentrified neighborhood will provide and for whom.

But one thing is clear: the $1 million that Lennar has already plunked down to influence this election has overwhelmingly gone to line the pockets of the city’s already highly paid political elite, and not the people who grew up and still live in the Bayview.

But there’s an alternative.

Launched as a last-ditch effort to prevent wholesale gentrification of the Bayview, Proposition F requires that 50 percent of the housing in the BVHP/Candlestick Point project be affordable to those making less than the median area income ($68,000 for a family of four).

That’s a reasonable mandate, considering that the city’s own general plan calls for two-thirds of all new housing to be sold or rented at below-market rates.

And if the new housing is built along Lennar’s plans, it will be impossible to avoid large-scale gentrification and displacement in a neighborhood that has the highest percentage of African Americans in the city, the third highest population of children, and burgeoning Latino and Asian immigrant populations.

Lennar is balking at that level, saying a 50-percent affordability mandate would make the project financially unfeasible. But if Lennar can’t afford to develop this area at levels affordable to the community that lives in and around the area, the city should scrap this redevelopment plan, send this developer packing, and start over again.

San Francisco has an affordable housing crisis, and we continue to doubt whether the city needs any more million-dollar condos — and we certainly don’t need them in a redevelopment area in the southeast. Remember: this is 700 acres of prime waterfront property that Lennar will be getting for free. The deal on the table just isn’t good enough.

Vote yes on F and no on G.

Proposition H

Campaign committees

NO

This one sounds just fine. Promoted by Mayor Gavin Newsom, Proposition H is supposedly aimed at ensuring that elected officials don’t solicit money from city contractors for campaigns they are sponsoring. But it lacks a crucial legal definition — and that turns what ought to be a worthy measure into little more than an attack on Newsom’s foes on the Board of Supervisors.

The key element is something called a "controlled committee." It’s already illegal for city contractors to give directly to candidates who might later vote on their contracts. Prop. H would extend that ban to committees, typically run for or against ballot measures, that are under the control of an individual politician.

Take this one, for example. Since Newsom put this on the ballot, and will be campaigning for it, the Yes on H campaign is under his control — he would be barred from collecting cash from city contractors, right? Well, no.

See, the measure doesn’t define what "controlled committee" means. So a group of Newsom’s allies could set up a Yes on H fund, raise big money from city contractors, then simply say that Newsom wasn’t officially aware of it or involved in its operation.

When Newsom first ran for mayor, the committee supporting his signature initiative — Care Not Cash — raised a fortune, and the money directly helped his election. But that wasn’t legally a "controlled committee" — because Newsom never signed the documents saying he was in control.

Prop. H does nothing to change that rule, which means it would only affect campaign committees that a politician admits to controlling. And guess what? Newsom almost never admits that, while the supervisors, particularly board president Aaron Peskin, are a bit more honest.

When Newsom wants to clearly define "controlled committee" — in a way that would have brought the Care Not Cash effort under the law — we’ll go along with it. For now, though, vote no on H.

San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee

The DCCC is the policy-making and operating arm of the local Democratic Party, and it has a lot of influence: the party can endorse in nonpartisan elections — for San Francisco supervisor, for example — and its nod gives candidates credibility and money. There’s been a struggle between the progressives and the moderates for years — and this time around, there’s a serious, concerted effort for a progressive slate. The Hope Slate, which we endorse in its entirety, has the potential to turn the San Francisco Democratic Party into a leading voice for progressive values.

There are other good candidates running, but since this group will have consistent support and is running as a slate, we’re going with the full crew.

13th Assembly District

Bill Barnes, David Campos, David Chiu, Chris Daly, Michael Goldstein, Robert Haaland, Joe Julian, Rafael Mandelman, Aaron Peskin, Eric Quezada, Laura Spanjian, Debra Walker

12th Assembly District

Michael Bornstein, Emily Drennen, Hene Kelly, Eric Mar, Jake McGoldrick, Trevor McNeil, Jane Morrison, Melanie Nutter, Connie O’Connor, Giselle Quezada, Arlo Hale Smith

Alameda County races

Superior Court judge, Seat 21

VICTORIA KOLAKOWSKI

There are two good candidates running for this open seat. Dennis Hayashi, a public-interest lawyer, would make a fine judge. Victoria Kolakowski would make history.

Kolakowski, who works as an administrative law judge for the California Public Utilities Commission, would be the first transgender person on the Alameda bench and, quite possibly, in the entire country. That would be a major breakthrough and important for more than just symbolic reasons: transpeople have extensive interactions with the judicial system, starting with the work to legally change their names; and, all too often, members of this marginalized community wind up in the criminal justice system. Having a sitting TG judge would go a long way toward educating the legal world about the importance of trans sensitivity.

Kolakowski is eminently qualified for the job: as a private intellectual property lawyer and later an ALJ at the CPUC, she’s handled a range of complex legal issues. She currently oversees administrative hearings that are very similar to court proceedings, and she has a calm and fair judicial temperament.

That’s not to denigrate Hayashi, who also has an impressive résumé. He’s spend much of his life in public-interest law, working for many years with the Asian Law Caucus, and he was co-counsel in the historic case that challenged Fred Korematsu’s conviction for refusing to report to a Japanese internment camp during World War II. He’s run the state’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing and was a civil rights lawyer in the Clinton administration.

We’d be happy to see either on the bench, but we’re going to endorse Kolakowski.

Board of Supervisors, District 5

KEITH CARSON

Keith Carson, the leading progressive on the board, has no real opposition this time around. He’s been a voice for protecting the fragile social safety net of the county, and we’re happy to endorse him for another term.

Oakland races

City Attorney

JOHN RUSSO

John Russo, who has made no secrets of his political ambition, failed in a bid to win the State Assembly seat for District 16 in 2006, and now he’s running unopposed for reelection. Russo has voiced some pretty ridiculous sentiments: he told a magazine for landlords in May 2006 that he opposed all forms of rent control and was against laws requiring just cause for evictions. That’s a horrible stand for a city attorney to take in a city with a huge population of renters. But Russo is smart and capable, and he’s one of the few city attorneys who consistently supports sunshine laws. We’ll endorse him for another term.

City Council, District 1

JANE BRUNNER

An attorney and former teacher, Jane Brunner spends a lot of time pushing for more cops; crime is the top issue in the North Oakland district she represents. And while we’d rather see anticrime approaches that go beyond hiring more officers, we appreciate that Brunner takes on the police department over its hiring failures. We also find her far more preferable on the issue than her opponent, Patrick McCullough, a longtime neighborhood activist who has become something of a celebrity since he shot a teenager who was hassling him in front of his house in 2005.

Brunner is one of the council’s strongest affordable housing advocates and has worked tirelessly for an inclusionary housing law. She deserves reelection.

City Council, District 3

NANCY NADEL

Nadel is hardworking, effective, a leader on progressive economic and planning issues, and one of the best members of the Oakland City Council. She asked the hard questions and demanded improvements in the giant Oak to Ninth project (although she wound up voting for it). She’s pushing for better community policing and promoting community-based anticrime efforts, including a teen center in a part of her district where there have been several homicides. She was a principal architect of the West Oakland industrial zoning plan, which she hopes will attract new jobs to the community (although she also pissed off a few artists who fear they’ll be evicted from living spaces that aren’t up to code, and she needs to address the problem). We’re happy to endorse her for another term.

City Council, District 5

MARIO JUAREZ

Somebody has to try to oust Ignacio De La Fuente, and this time around, Juarez is the best bet. A small-businessperson (he runs a real-estate operation with around 60 employees), he has some surprisingly progressive positions: he not only supports inclusionary housing but told us that he wanted to see the percentage of affordable units increased from 15 to 25 percent. He wants to see community policing integrated fully into Oakland law enforcement. He suggested that Oakland look into putting a modest fee on all airport users to fund local education. And he’s in favor of stronger eviction controls and tenant protections.

De La Fuente, the City Council president, has been the developers’ best friend, has run meetings with a harsh hand, often cutting off debate and silencing community activists, and needs to be defeated. We know Juarez isn’t perfect, but his progressive grassroots-based campaign was strong enough to get him the nod of both the Democratic Party and the Alameda County Greens. We’ll endorse him, too.

City Council, District 7

CLIFFORD GILMORE

Neither of the candidates in this race are terribly impressive, but incumbent Larry Reid has been so terrible on so many issues (supporting big-box development, inviting the Marines to do war games in Oakland, supporting condo conversions, etc.) that it’s hard to imagine how Clifford Gilmore, director of the Oakland Coalition of Congregations, could be worse.

City Council, at large

REBECCA KAPLAN

Rebecca Kaplan is exactly what the Oakland City Council needs: an energetic progressive with the practical skills to get things done. As an AC Transit Board member, she pushed for free bus passes for low income youths — and defying all odds, managed to get all-night transit service from San Francisco to the East Bay. She did it by refusing to accept the conventional wisdom that transit agencies on the two sides of the bay would never cooperate. She put the key players together in a meeting, convinced the San Francisco supervisors to allow AC Transit buses to pick up passengers in the city late at night, and put through an effective program to get people across the bay after BART shuts down.

Kaplan is running for City Council on a progressive platform calling for affordable housing, rational development, and community policing. Her latest idea: since Oakland has so much trouble attracting quality candidates for vacancies in its police department, she suggests the city recruit gay and lesbian military veterans who were kicked out under the Pentagon’s homophobic policies. Her proposed slogan: "Uncle Sam doesn’t want you, but Oakland does."

Vote for Rebecca Kaplan.

School Board, District 1

JODY LONDON

The Oakland schools are still stuck under a state administrator; the district, which was driven by mismanagement into a financial crisis several years ago, paid the price of a state bailout by giving up its independence. The school board has only limited authority of district operations, though that’s slowly changing. The state allowed the board to hire an interim superintendent, meaning issues like curricula and programs will be back under local control. So it’s a time of transition for a district that has had horrible problems, and the board needs experienced, level-headed leadership.

We’re impressed with Jody London, a parent with children in the public schools who runs a small environmental consulting firm. She has been active in the district, co-chairing the 2006 bond campaign that raised $435 million and serving on the bond oversight committee. She has a grasp of fiscal management, understands the challenges the district faces, and has the energy to take them on.

Her main opposition is Brian Rogers, a Republican who has the backing of outgoing state senator Don Perata and is a big fan of private charter schools. Tennessee Reed, a young writer and editor, is also in the race, and we’re glad to see her getting active. But on balance, London is the clear choice.

School Board, District 3

OLUBEMIGA OLUWOLE, SR.

Not a great choice here — we’re not thrilled with either of the two contenders. Jumoke Hinton Hodge, a nonprofit consultant, is too willing to support charter schools. Oluwole, who works with parolees, has limited experience with education. But on the basis of his community background (he’s on the board of the Oakland Community Organization) and our concern about Hodge and charter schools, we’ll go with Oluwole.

School Board, District 5

NOEL GALLO

Noel Gallo, the incumbent, is running unopposed. He’s been a competent member of the board, and we see no reason not to support his reelection.

School Board, District 7

ALICE SPEARMAN

Alice Spearman, the incumbent, isn’t the most inspiring member of the board — and she’s known for making some ill-considered and impolitic statements. But her main opponent, Doris Limbrick, is the principal of a Christian school and has no business running for the board of a public school district. So we’ll go with Spearman again.

Alameda County measures

Measure F

Utility users tax

YES

Measure F extends and slightly increases the utility tax on unincorporated areas of the county. It’s not the greatest tax, but it’s not terrible — and it provides essential revenue to pay for services like law enforcement, libraries, and code enforcement. The parts of Alameda County outside any city boundary have been dwindling as cities expand, but the county provides the only local government services in those areas. And, like every other county in California, Alameda is desperately short of cash. So Measure F is crucial. Vote yes.

Oakland Measure J

Telephone-user tax

YES

Measure J would update a 40-year-old tax on phone use that goes for local services. The tax law applies only to old-fashioned land lines, so cell phone users get away without paying. This isn’t the world’s most progressive tax, but Oakland needs the money and Measure J would more fairly share the burden. Vote yes.

Weigh in on the peakers

April 29, 2008

The city’s proposal to build two fossil-fuel burning “peaking” power plants on our precious peninsula (one in Portrero/Bayview, the other at the airport) has become a hot topic.

On one side we have Supervisors Michela Alioto-Pier, Chris Daly, and Ross Mirkarimi, allied with PG&E and a host of environmental groups and activists like the Sierra Club, GreenAction, SPUR, and Van Jones, who think building any fossil fuel plants – even if they burn the cleanest fuel available – is a bad idea.

On the other, we have Mayor Gavin Newsom, City Attorney Dennis Herrera, and Supervisors Aaron Peskin and Sophie Maxwell, who believe this is a necessary handshake with the Devil – in order to close down the older, reportedly more polluting Mirant Portrero power plant, the peakers must replace it. (See the $2 million handshake here.) Public power advocates also tend to favor this position as the peakers will be owned by the city and considered a crucial player in energy independence from our local utility monopoly. This is why PG&E, disguised as the CloseIt Coalition, hates the idea.

We can see Mirant’s stack from our Guardian offices, and though we love public power, we hate the idea of replacing one fossil fuel plant with another – particularly if the $250 million for the project could be used to build more city-owned renewable generation for our Community Choice Aggregation power co-op. Last week we ran an editorial suggesting the city explore floating the peakers on a barge, but overall, to build or not to build is the tricky part of this issue. We’ve been watching the back and forth with interest. Follow the jump to read some leading locals weighing in, as well as more data from our research. Feel free to add your own comments, information, and critiques.

Lennar drops another million on June election

April 24, 2008

They say money talks. So what does Lennar’s latest campaign expenditures tell you?

One day after our latest article about Lennar’s plans to takeover the Bayview came out, the developer’s most recent campaign filings show that between March 18 and April 19, Lennar Homes spent another million dollars to influence the Battle for the Bayview.

To date, this an out-of-state developer has spent a total of $2.23 million to defeat Prop. F (which requires that 50 percent of Lennar’s proposed 10,000 new units of housing be truly affordable to people living in the Bayview)supporting instead an initiative that would allow it to build at least 75 percent of these new units as luxury condos.

Pics: Goats and green at Heron’s Head Park

April 23, 2008

By Ariel Soto

The EcoCenter at Heron’s Head Park groundbreaking ceremony was held yesterday, April 22, in San Francisco’s Bayview/Hunters Point. The EcoCenter will be the first LEED-certified building in the southern part of the city and first building to run completely off the grid. Heron’s Head Park was opened in 1999 to provide an open and natural space for the communities nearby, and since then more than 1,200 volunteers have helped restore the area by removing invasive plants and trash and replacing them with native plants. With the continuous support and effort of the Port of San Francisco and Literacy for Environmental Justice (LEJ), the EcoCenter will finally open, giving students the opportunity to learn in hands-on programs about issues such as clean air and water, renewable energy, healthy foods and open space restoration. (To get involved in the Heron’s Head Park project, contact Laurie Schoeman at: lcprojectmanager@lejyouth.org) Here’s some pics from the event.

The entrance to Heron’s Head Park with the old PG&E plant in the background that’s in the process of being demolished.

Goats are used in Heron’s Head Park as a natural method of weed control.

Volunteers gather at Heron’s Head Park before the beginning of the groundbreaking ceremony.

A Scrophularia californica, or Bee Plant, is just one example of the many native California plants that will be re-introduced into Heron’s Head Park.

Beautiful Heron’s Head Park.

Milton Reynolds, a member of Literacy for Environmental Justice, started the day’s events at the groundbreaking ceremony for the new EcoCenter at Heron’s Head Park.

Peaker plan afloat

April 23, 2008

› amanda@sfbg.com

A proposal to build two natural gas–fired power plants is still floating through the city’s planning process, set for approval by the Board of Supervisors as soon as May, but no one seems truly comfortable with the deal.

"It’s not my first choice or my second choice, but it’s the choice I have," Board president Aaron Peskin told the Guardian. The choice seems to be either the city builds newer, potentially cleaner power plants — known as "peakers" because they would be used mainly during times of peak energy demand — or does nothing to shut down the super-polluting Mirant Potrero power plant.

The combination gas- and diesel-burning power plant spews a cocktail of toxins from its stack every year and draws 226 million gallons of water a day from the bay to cool its generators yet it’s mandated by the state to keep operating. The discharge flows back into the bay significantly altered, with microorganisms and fish larvae replaced by mercury, dioxins, and PCBs.

The California Independent System Operator (CAL-ISO), the state agency that oversees electricity reliability, said it would break the Mirant contract if the peakers came online. The city-owned plants would use recycled water and more up-to-date air quality controls, making for cleaner facilities at the two proposed sites — the airport and the intersection of 25th and Maryland in the Bayview.

They also would be city-operated, giving a little more leg to the local public power movement. But they still burn fossil fuel, and at a time when the climate is in crisis and natural gas prices are only rising, many say this isn’t the direction a trend-setting city like San Francisco should be heading.

"This isn’t the progressive way to go," said Sup. Chris Daly. "We need to be more forcefully installing renewables that are municipally owned."

Daly, along with supervisors Ross Mirkarimi and Michela Alioto-Pier and the city’s current power provider Pacific Gas and Electric Co., have lined up against building the peakers in what Mirkarimi calls an "unholy alliance."

PG&E, lobbying under the guise of the "Close It! Coalition," states that the peakers "further San Francisco’s reliance on fossil fuels and add to global warming." The $12 billion utility company currently gets 40 percent of its power the same way and is in the process of constructing several similar plants throughout the state. Nevertheless, the company has submitted detailed proposals to the city and state outlining demand response measures and transmission upgrades that would mitigate the need for more energy.

Mayor Gavin Newsom and City Attorney Dennis Herrera support building the peakers in order to close the Mirant plant, and Sups. Sophie Maxwell, Bevan Dufty, and Jake McGoldrick are carrying the legislation that would seal the contract with Cleveland, Ohio-based Industrial Construction Company to start the $252 million project.

That legislation points out that Mirant’s water permit is set to expire Dec. 31, and the Regional Water Quality Board has indicated it has no plans to renew it unless Mirant upgrades to best practices. This has been suggested as an alternative way to close the plant. When asked whether Cal-ISO’s reliability demands trump the Water Board’s requirements, Cal-ISO’s Gregg Fishman wrote in an e-mail, "What happens if the Potrero unit’s water permits expire? Simply put — we’re not sure."

Beyond that, a number of questions remain: Should the requirement for a full feasibility study for city contracts more than $25 million really have been waived for this project? Is it fair to put the new power plant in the neighborhood that has always endured the lion’s share of the city’s pollution? What if they were on movable barges instead? And has the city been forceful enough with CAL-ISO when it comes to planning the city’s energy future?

Alioto-Pier has introduced two resolutions addressing a couple of these issues. One calls for a straight-up feasibility study — which supporters of the peakers have waived. "The city has a policy of conducting a full fiscal analysis of capital projects over $25 million," Alioto-Pier said in a press release. "This should be no exception." Her other resolution asks for an independent analysis of the whole thing and a revised 2008 Energy Action Plan for the city.

For several years, Cal-ISO has said Mirant could stop operating if San Francisco can provide an alternate "firm" power source in its Energy Action Plan. In 2004, San Francisco’s Public Utilities Commission proffered the peakers, and that became the city’s power plan before adopting the CCA (community choice aggregation) plan for the city to develop an energy portfolio of at least 51 percent renewables.

Though the SFPUC has continuously asked Cal-ISO if the 2004 Action Plan is still the way to go now that the Trans Bay Cable and other line improvements have come into play, Josh Arce, a lawyer for Brightline Defense, which sued to stop the peaker plan, says they’ve been framing the question all wrong: "The PUC has essentially been saying, ‘Does the Action Plan include all four combustion turbines?’ And Cal-ISO has said, ‘Yes, it includes all four.’ Instead, the PUC needs to come up with a new Action Plan and give it to Cal-ISO and say we’re doing this instead."

Alioto-Pier’s resolution, if passed, could prompt a fresh response from Cal-ISO about what the city really needs — one, two, or three peakers, or maybe none at all. Maxwell’s resolution includes a caveat that the city must determine if needs could be met by building smaller plants with fewer than the four turbines currently proposed.

Peskin, who chairs the city’s Government Audit and Oversight Committee and will hear both Alioto-Pier resolutions on May 5, as well as the Maxwell plan to move to build the peakers, told us, "This is one of the toughest decisions that’s been before me in the eight years that I’ve been on the Board of Supervisors."

No one, it seems, really wants to build two fossil fuel–burning power plants on San Francisco soil. But what if they weren’t on our soil? What if they were floating on barges?

Another resolution pending in the Land Use Committee, brought by Mirkarimi, proposes putting the two power plants on barges, which could be moored alongside the city when needed and dispatched elsewhere when they’re not. What if, a few years from now, citizens are able to cut down their power needs, CCA brings more renewables online, and the city finds it no longer needs the 200 megawatts generated by natural gas power plants?

Proponents say it’s an option worth considering if the city really intends to eventually close the plants. Dismantling a facility if the city decides to sell leaches away 20 to 30 percent of its overall cost. But if it’s on a barge, the natural gas, electricity, and mooring lines are simply cast off. A barge would be steadier in an earthquake and continue to float if the sea level rises — a climate change scenario that could swamp both current bayside power plant sites. Barges also can be dispatched to emergencies, leased down the river to other cities in the Bay Area, or sold for a profit. They’ve been in use around the world since the 1940s and have been called a more regional approach to energy planning.

"It’s 145 MW of portable energy," said Rick Galbreath, Mirkarimi’s aide. "You can pull it up, plug it in, and you’re on the grid. It’s really a dynamic solution."

Paul Fenn, the brain behind the city’s CCA plan, points out that if CAL-ISO still insists the peakers are needed now but not in the future, a power barge is the kind of flexible solution that could pay off in the long run. "It’s making a temporary measure for an urgent situation," he said, adding that such a temporary solution should reflect the city’s long-term goals. "If the city is planning to replace them with renewables, it’s important to get the city to make that commitment. This is one of those strategic decisions that’s going to impact the future."

The San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission generally opposes building anything in the bay if it can be built on land first. "The proponents would have to do an analysis and convince our commission that this is really a good idea for the region," said Will Travis, a BCDC spokesperson.

But Dave Nickerson, owner of Houston-based Power Barge Corporation, said he’s looked at the city’s peaker plans and thinks it would cost about $100 million to build a three-CT barge. "We would probably build the plant here and ship it up," he said, pointing out that the city’s turbines are already in storage down in Texas and it’s cheaper to build it in a shipyard. To claims of environmental degradation, he says, "It would have the environmental footprint of a state of the art land-based plant."

He also pointed out that there’s a scarcity of these particular turbines now, which are worth about $1 million more every year. This year it’s around $16.5 million apiece, with $18 million as the projected 2008 price.

Emma Lierley contributed to this story.

Promises and reality

April 23, 2008

› sarah@sfbg.com

The Lennar-financed "Yes on G" fliers jammed into mailboxes all across San Francisco this month depict a dark-skinned family strolling along a shoreline trail against a backdrop of blue sky, grassy parkland, a smattering of low-rise buildings, and the vague hint of a nearly transparent high-rise condo tower in the corner.

"After 34 years of neglect, it’s time to clean up the Shipyard for tomorrow," states one flier, which promises to create up to 10,000 new homes, "with as many as 25 percent being entry-level affordable units"; 300 acres of new parks; and 8,000 permanent jobs in the city’s sun-soaked southeast sector.

Add to that the green tech research park, a new 49ers stadium, a permanent home for shipyard artists, and a total rebuild of the dilapidated Alice Griffith public housing project, and the whole project looks and sounds simply idyllic. But as with many big-money political campaigns, the reality is quite different from the sales pitch.

What Proposition G’s glossy fliers don’t tell you is that this initiative would make it possible for a controversial Florida-based megadeveloper to build luxury condos on a California state park, take over federal responsibility for the cleanup of toxic sites, construct a bridge over a slough restoration project, and build a new road so Candlestick Point residents won’t have to venture into the Bayview District.

Nor do these shiny images reveal that Prop. G is actually vaguely-worded, open-ended legislation whose final terms won’t be driven by the jobs, housing, or open-space needs of the low-income and predominantly African American Bayview-Hunters Point community, but by the bottom line of the financially troubled Lennar.

And nowhere does it mention that Lennar already broke trust with the BVHP, failing to control asbestos at its Parcel A shipyard development and reneging on promises to build needed rental units at its Parcel A 1,500-unit condo complex (see "Question of intent," 11/28/07).

The campaign is supported by Mayor Gavin Newsom, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, and District 10 Sup. Sophie Maxwell, as well as the Republican and the Democratic parties of San Francisco. But it is funded almost exclusively by Lennar Homes, a statewide independent expenditure committee that typically pours cash into conservative causes like fighting tax hikes and environmental regulations.

In the past six months, Lennar Homes has thrown down more than $1 million to hire Newsom’s chief political strategist, Eric Jaye, and a full spectrum of top lawyers and consultants, from generally progressive campaign manager Jim Stearns to high-powered spinmeister Sam Singer, who recently ran the smear campaign blaming the victims of a fatal Christmas Day tiger attack at the San Francisco Zoo.

Together, this political dream team cooked up what it hopes will be an unstoppable campaign full of catchy slogans and irresistible images, distributed by a deep-pocketed corporation that stands to make many millions of dollars off the deal.

But the question for voters is whether this project is good for San Francisco — particularly for residents of the southeast who have been subjected to generations worth of broken promises — or whether it amounts to a risky giveaway of the city’s final frontier for new development.

Standing in front of the Lennar bandwagon is a coalition of community, environmental, and housing activists who this spring launched a last minute, volunteer-based signature-gathering drive that successfully became Proposition F. It would require that 50 percent of the housing built in the BVHP/Candlestick Point project be affordable to those making less than the area median income of $68,000 for a family of four.

Critics such as Lennar executive Kofi Bonner and Michael Cohen of the mayor’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development have called Prop. F a "poison pill" that would doom the Lennar project. But its supporters say the massive scope and vague wording of Prop. G would have exacerbated the city’s affordable housing shortfalls.

Prop. F is endorsed by the Sierra Club, People Organized to Win Employment Rights, the League of Conservation Voters, the Chinese Progressive Association, St. Peter’s Housing Committee, the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club, Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth, the Grace Tabernacle Community Church, Green Action, Nation of Islam Bay Area, the African Orthodox Church, Jim Queen, and Supervisor Chris Daly.

Cohen criticized the coalition for failing to study whether the 50 percent affordability threshold is feasible. But the fact is that neither measure has been exposed to the same rigors that a measure going through the normal city approval process would undergo. Nonetheless, the Guardian unearthed an evaluation on the impact of Prop. F that Lennar consultant CB Richard Ellis prepared for the mayor’s office.

The document, which contains data not included in the Prop. G ballot initiative, helps illuminate the financial assumptions that underpin the public-private partnership the city is contemputf8g with Lennar, ostensibly in an effort to win community benefits for the BVHP.

CBRE’s analysis states that Lennar’s Prop. G calls for "slightly over 9,500 units," with nearly 2,400 affordable units (12 percent at 80 percent of area median income and 8 percent at 50 percent AMI), and with the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency "utilizing additional funding to drive these affordability levels even lower."

Noting that Prop. G. yields a "minimally acceptable return" of 17 to 18 percent in profit, CBRE estimates that Prop. F would means "a loss of $500 million in land sales revenue" thanks to the loss of 2,400 market-rate units from the equation. With subsidies of $125,000 allegedly needed to complete each affordable unit, CBRE predicts there would be a further cost of "$300 million to $400 million" to develop the 2,400 additional units of affordable housing prescribed under Prop. F.

Factoring in an additional $500 million loss in tax increments and Mello-Roos bond financing money, CBRE concludes, "the overall impact from [the Prop. F initiative] is a $1.1 to $1.2 billion loss of project revenues … the very same revenues necessary to fund infrastructure and community improvements."

Yet critics of the Lennar project say that just because it pencils out for the developer doesn’t mean it’s good for the community, which would be fundamentally and permanently changed by a project of this magnitude. Coleman’s Advocates’ organizing director Tom Jackson told us his group decided to oppose Prop. G "because we looked at who is living in Bayview-Hunters Point and their income levels.

"Our primary concern isn’t Lennar’s bottom line," Jackson continued. "Could Prop. F cut into Lennar’s profit margin? Yes, absolutely. But our primary concern is the people who already live in the Bayview."

Data from the 2000 US census shows that BVHP has the highest percentage of African Americans compared to the rest of the city — and that African Americans are three times more likely to leave San Francisco than other ethnic groups, a displacement that critics of the Lennar project say it would exacerbate.

The Bayview also has the third-highest population of children, at a time when San Francisco has the lowest percentage of children of any major US city and is struggling to both maintain enrollment and keep its schools open. Add to that the emergence of Latino and Chinese immigrant populations in the Bayview, and Jackson says its clear that it’s the city’s last affordable frontier for low-income folks.

The problem gets even more pronounced when one delves into the definition of the word "affordable" and applies it to the socioeconomic status of southeast San Francisco.

In white households, the annual median income was $65,000 in 2000, compared to $29,000 in black households — with black per capita income at $15,000 and with 14 percent of BVHP residents earning even less than $15,000.

The average two-bedroom apartment rents in San Francisco for $1,821, meaning households need an annual AMI of $74,000 to stay in the game. The average condo sells for $700,000, which means that households need $143,000 per year to even enter the market.

In other words, there’s a strong case for building higher percentages of affordable housing in BVHP (where 94 percent of residents are minorities and 21 percent experience significant poverty) than in most other parts of San Francisco. Yet the needs of southeastern residents appear to be clashing with the area’s potential to become the city’s epicenter for new construction.

San Francisco Republican Party chair Howard Epstein told the Guardian that his group opposed Prop. F, believing it will kill all BVHP redevelopment, and supported Prop. G, believing that it has been in the making for a decade and to have been "vetted up and down."

While a BVHP redevelopment plan has been in the works for a decade, the vaguely defined conceptual framework that helped give birth to Prop. G this year was first discussed in public only last year. In reality, it was hastily cobbled together in the wake of the 49ers surprise November 2006 news that it was rejecting Lennar’s plan to build a new stadium at Monster Park and considering moving to Santa Clara.

As the door slammed shut on one opportunity, Lennar tried to swing open another. As an embarrassed Newsom joined forces with Feinstein to find a last-ditch solution to keep the 49ers in town, Lennar suggested a new stadium on the Hunters Point Shipyard, surrounded by a dual use parking lot perfect for tailgating and lots of new housing on Candlestick Point to pay for it all.

There was just one problem: part of the land around the stadium at Candlestick is a state park. Hence the need for Prop. G, which seeks to authorize this land swap along with a repeal of bonds authorized in 1997 for a stadium rebuild. As Cohen told the Guardian, "The only legal reason we are going to the voters is Monster Park."

As it happens, voters still won’t know whether the 49ers are staying or leaving when they vote on Props. F and G this June, since the team is waiting until November to find out if Santa Clara County voters will support the financing of a new 49er stadium near Great America.

Either way, Patrick Rump of Literacy for Environmental Justice has serious environmental concerns about Prop. G’s proposed land swap.

"Lennar’s schematic, which builds a bridge over the Yosemite Slough, would destroy a major restoration effort we’re in the process of embarking on with the state Parks [and Recreation Department]," Rump said. "The integrity of the state park would easily be compromised, because of extra people and roads. And a lot of the proposed replacement parks, the pocket parks … don’t provide adequate habitat."

Rump also expressed doubts about the wisdom of trading parcels of state park for land on the shipyard, especially Parcel E-2, which contains the landfill. Overall, Rump said, "We think Lennar and the city need to go back to the drawing board and come up with something more environmentally sound."

John Rizzo of the Sierra Club believes Prop. G does nothing to clean up the shipyard — which city officials are seeking to take over before the federal government finishes its cleanup work — and notes that the initiative is full of vague and noncommittal words like "encourages" that make it unclear what benefits city residents will actually receive.

"Prop. G’s supporters are pushing the misleading notion that if we don’t give away all this land — including a state park — to Lennar, then we won’t get any money for the cleanup," Rizzo said. "But you don’t build first and then get federal dollars for clean up! That’s a really backwards statement."

The "Yes on G" campaign claims its initiative will create "thousands of construction jobs," "offer a new economic engine for the Bayview," and "provide new momentum to win additional federal help to clean up the toxins on the shipyard."

Michael Theriault, head of the San Francisco Building and Construction Trades, said his union endorsed the measure and has an agreement with Lennar to have "hire goals," with priority given to union contracts in three local zip codes: 94107, 94124, and 94134.

"There will be a great many construction jobs," Theriault said, though he was less sure about Prop. G’s promise of "8,000 permanent jobs following the completion of the project."

"We endorsed primarily from the jobs aspect," Theriault said. The question of whether the project helps the cleanup effort or turns it into a rush job is also an open question. Even the San Francisco Chronicle, in a January editorial, criticized Newsom, Feinstein, and Pelosi for neglecting the cleanup until "when it seemed likely that the city was about to lose the 49ers."

All three denounced the Chronicle‘s claims, but the truth is that the lion’s share of the $82 million federal allocation would be dedicated to cleaning the 27-acre footprint proposed for the stadium. Meanwhile, the US Navy says it needs at least $500 million to clean the entire shipyard.

Sup. Ross Mirkarimi said the city should wait for a full cleanup and criticized the Prop. G plan to simply cap contaminated areas on the shipyard, rather than excavate and remove the toxins from the site.

"That’s like putting a sarcophagus over a toxic wasteland," Mirkarimi told us. "It would be San Francisco’s version of a concrete bunker around Chernobyl."

Cohen of the Mayor’s Office downplays the contamination at the site, telling us that on a scale of one to 10 among the nation’s contaminated Superfund sites, the shipyard "is a three." He said, "the city would assume responsibility for completing the remaining environmental remediation, which would be financed through the Navy."

But those who have watched the city and Lennar bungle development of the asbestos-laden Parcel A (see The corporation that ate San Francisco, 3/14/07) don’t have much confidence in their ability to safely manage a much larger project.

"Who is going to take the liability for any shoddy work and negligence once the project is completed?" Mirkarimi asked.

Lennar has yet to settle with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District over asbestos dust violations at Parcel A, which could add up to $28 million in fines, and investors have been asking questions about the corporation’s mortgage lending operations as the company’s stock value and bond rating have plummeted.

To secure its numerous San Francisco investments, including projects at Hunters and Candlestick points and Treasure Island, Lennar recently got letters of intent from Scala Real Estate Partners, an Irvine-based investment and development group.

Founded by former executives of the Perot Group’s real estate division, Scala plans to invest up to $200 million — and have equal ownership interests — in the projects, which could total at least 17,000 housing units, 700,000 square feet of retail and entertainment, 350 acres of open space, and a new football stadium if the 49ers decide to stay.

Bonner said that, if completed, the agreement satisfies a city requirement that Lennar secure a partner with the financial wherewithal to ensure the estimated $1.4 billion Candlestick Point project moves forward even if the company’s current problems worsen.

Meanwhile, Cohen has cast the vagaries of Prop. G as a positive, referring to its spreadsheet as "a living document, a moving target." Cohen pointed out that if Lennar had to buy the BVHP land, they’d get it with only a 15 percent affordable housing requirement.

"Our objective is to drive the land value to zero by imposing upon the developer as great a burden as possible," Cohen said. "This developer had to invest $500 million of cash, plus financing, and is required to pay for affordable housing, parks, jobs, etc. — the core benefits — without any risk to the city."

But Cohen said the Prop. F alternative means "nothing will be built — until F is repealed." He also refutes claims that without the 49ers stadium, 50 percent affordability is doable.

"Prop G makes it easier to make public funds available by repealing the Prop D bond measure," Cohen explained. "But Prop. G also provides that there will be no general fund financial backing for the stadium, and that the tax increments generated by the development will be used for affordable housing, jobs, and parks."

But for Lennar critics like the Rev. Christopher Mohammad, who has battled the company since the Islamic school he runs was subjected to toxic dust, even the most ambitious promises won’t overcome his distrust for the entity at the center of Prop. G: Lennar.

In a fiery recent sermon at the Grace Tabernacle Community Church, Mohammad recalled the political will that enabled the building of BART in the 1970s. "But when it comes to poor people, you can’t build 50 percent affordable. That will kill the deal," Mohammad observed.

"Lennar is getting 700 prime waterfront acres for free, and then there’ll be tax increment dollars they’ll tap into for the rebuild," he continued. "But you mean you can’t take some of those millions, after all the damages you’ve done? It would be a way to correct the wrong."

Dark days

April 15, 2008

› amanda@sfbg.com

› sarah@sfbg.com

Like a lot of San Franciscans, John Murphy wants to put solar panels on his roof. He’s worried about the environment, but it’s also about money: “I want it to pay for all my electricity,” he said one recent evening as we chatted in front of his house.

Murphy pays top dollar for power from Pacific Gas and Electric Co., every month hitting the highest tier of energy use and getting spanked 34 cents a kilowatt hour for it. He’s tried to cut costs by switching to energy-efficient appliances and light bulbs with motion sensors — with little incentive from PG&E’s billing department.

Murphy thought installing solar panels would be worth the up-front cost, especially if federal and state rebates made it more feasible. His roof — sturdy and pitched toward the south, unshaded by trees or other buildings, and located in the fogless hollow of the Mission District — seemed perfectly suited for solar energy.

So last fall he invited a representative from a local solar installation company to the house for a free consultation. He was told his roof could only fit a 2.8 kilowatt system, which would cover about 60 percent of his energy needs — and cost about $25,000.

Murphy is apoplectic about the results. “What’s 60 percent? That’s like going out with her for three-quarters of the night. I want to take her home,” he said.

While the federal incentive shaves $2,000 off the cost, the state rebate program — in place since January 2007 — is a set allocation that declines over time: the later you apply, the less you get. Today Murphy can get about $1.90 per watt back from the state, whereas at the start of the program it was $2.50 per watt. To him, the upfront costs are still too steep and the results won’t cover his monthly PG&E bill.

“The snake oil salesmen of yesterday are the solar panel installers of today,” Murphy said.

But Murphy still wants to install panels — and he’s not alone. The desire for clean, green energy runs deeply through San Francisco and the state as a whole. After the launch of the California Solar Initiative, the number of solar megawatts, represented by applications to the state, doubled what they’d been over the last 26 years. Almost 90 percent of the installations were on homes, indicating that citizens are jumping at the chance to decrease their carbon output.

Yet in San Francisco, where environmental sentiment and high energy costs ought to be driving a major solar boom, there’s very little action.

Back in 2000, then-mayor Willie Brown announced a citywide goal of 10,000 solar roofs by 2010. That would add up to a lowly 5 percent of the 200,000 property lots within the city of San Francisco.

But even that weak goal seems beyond reach: it’s now 2008, and the number of solar roofs in San Francisco stands at a grand total of 618 installations by the end of 2007. In terms of kilowatts per capita, the city ranks last in the Bay Area. The city’s total electricity demand runs about 950 megawatts; only 5 megawatts is currently supplied by solar.

WHAT’S WRONG?

Well, it’s not the weather. While heavy cloud cover can hinder panels, fog permits enough ambient light to keep panels productive. San Francisco’s thermostat isn’t much of a factor either — panels prefer cooler temperate zones, not blazing desert heat.

It’s also not for a lack of political ideas — Mayor Gavin Newsom is pushing a major solar proposal and several others are floating around, too.

But Newsom is clashing with the supervisors over the philosophy and direction of his plan. It’s complicated, but in essence, the mayor and Assessor-Recorder Phil Ting put together a task force that included representatives of solar installers and PG&E — but nobody from the environmental community and no public-power supporters.

The plan they hatched gives cash incentives to private property owners, takes money away from city-owned solar installments, and does nothing to help the city’s move to public power.

While all this plays out, the solar panels so many San Franciscans want aren’t getting installed.

SUN AND SUBSIDY

What makes solar work, according to local solar activists, is a combination of sun and subsidies. “Almost every area in the United States has better sun exposure than Germany, and Germany is leading the solar market worldwide today,” said Lyndon Rive, CEO of Solar City, a Foster City-based solar installer.

The price per kilowatt hour, with current state and federal subsides, is about 13 cents for solar, just two cents more than PG&E’s base rate for energy produced mostly by nuclear power and natural gas.

Still, the average installation for the average home hovers between $20,000 and $30,000. For many, that kind of cash isn’t available.

“The biggest reason for lack of adoption [of solar energy] is that the cost to install in San Francisco is higher than neighboring cities,” Rive said. It’s about 10 percent more than the rest of the Bay Area, according to a December 2007 report of the San Francisco Solar Task Force.

Why? According to Rive, system sizes are smaller. Solar City’s average Bay Area customer buys a 4.4 kilowatt system, but the average San Franciscan — with a smaller house and smaller roof — usually gets a 3.1 kilowatt installation. The smaller the system, the more the markup for retailers amortizing certain fixed costs such as material and labor. On top of that, San Francisco’s old Victorians can have issues — weak rafters need reinforcement; steep roofs require more scaffolding; wires and conduits have to cover longer distances. It adds up.

“There’s an extra cost to doing business in San Francisco,” said Barry Cinnamon, CEO of Akeena Solar and a member of the SF Solar Task Force. “I can expect $100 in parking tickets for every job I do.”

That was the motivation for Ting to establish the Solar Task Force in 2007, with the goal of creating financial incentives, including loans and rebates, to bring down the costs of San Francisco solar. The 11-member task force came up with an ambitious program that involved a one-stop shop for permits, a plan to give property owners as much as $5,000 in cash subsidies, and a system to lend money to homeowners who can’t afford the up-front costs.

The task force said installing 55 megawatts of solar would combat global warming, improve air quality by reducing pollution caused by electricity generation, and add 1,800 green collar jobs to the local economy.

The streamlined permit program is in place. None of the rest has happened.

THE MAYOR’S MONEY

The first obstacle was the loan fund. Newsom and Ting wanted to take $50 million currently sitting unspent in a bond fund for seismic upgrades on local buildings. Sup. Jake McGoldrick wanted to know why the money wasn’t being used to upgrade low-income housing; the city attorney wasn’t sure seismic safety money could be redirected to solar loans.

Then Newsom decided to take $3 million from the Mayor’s Energy Conservation Fund to pay for the first round of rebates. Over the next 10 years, that could add up to $50 million. McGoldrick balked again. That money, he said, was supposed to be used on public facilities (like solar panels at Moscone Center and Muni facilities and new refrigerators for public housing projects). Why should it be diverted to private property owners?

There’s a larger issue behind all this: should the city be using scarce resources to help the private sector — or devoting its money to city-owned electricity generation? “In 10 years, there could be $50 million in the fund,” McGoldrick said. “That’s a lot of money, and it’s power the city could own.”

Sup. Chris Daly agrees. “I would support this program if we were running out of municipal [solar] projects,” he said. “But we’re not.”

In addition, the progressive members of the Board of Supervisors, who have all advocated a citywide sustainable energy policy known as community choice aggregation, or CCA, weren’t represented on the Solar Task Force.

The fund Newsom wanted to tap for his project is also the source of funding for the community choice aggregation program, which the progressive supervisors see as the city’s energy plan, which in turn constitutes a far more comprehensive response to climate change, with a goal of relying on 51 percent renewable energy by 2017.

Sup. Gerardo Sandoval is working on a loan program that would allow residents to borrow money from the city for renewable energy and efficiency upgrades for their homes and pay it back at a relatively low interest rate folded into their monthly tax bills. (See “Solar Solutions,” 11/14/07.) Sandoval’s plan would enable loans of $20,000 to $40,000 at 3 percent interest to people who voluntarily put solar on their homes.

The city of Berkeley is pursuing a similar plan. But the task force never consulted Sandoval — in fact, he told us that he had no idea Ting’s task force was meeting until a few months ago.

The supervisors’ Budget and Finance Committee is slated to review Newsom’s plan April 16.

Solar installers aren’t happy about the delays: “I’m on the disappointed receiving end of that start and stop,” Cinnamon said.

While city officials duke out where the money should come from and who gets it, San Franciscans interested in purchasing panels are left in limbo. Jennifer Jachym, a sales rep from Solar City who used to handle residential contracts in San Francisco, said, “I have worked all over the Bay Area and I’d have to say it seems that the delta between interest and actual purchase is highest here.

“It was hard to get people to pull the trigger,” she continued. “What the San Francisco incentive program basically did was bring the cost incentives here to where they are everywhere else.”

The holdup has dispirited customers and solar companies. Cinnamon said he wasted 10,000 advertising door hangers because of the delay. Solar City also put on hold a handshake deal with the Port of San Francisco to rent a 5,000-square-foot warehouse in the Bayview District for a solar training academy that could turn out 20 new workers a month.

“As a San Francisco resident, I really want to see it happen there, but as a business, I have to think about it differently,” said Peter Rive, chief operating officer of the company. “Almost every city in the Bay Area is aggressively trying to get us to build a training academy in their city.”

TENANTS AND LANDLORDS

Another reason we don’t see more panels on San Francisco roofs is that most San Franciscans are renting and have no control over their roofs. “The landlord doesn’t care. They don’t pay the electric bill,” Cinnamon said. When asked if there were any inroads to be made there, he said, “Nope. That’s not a market I see at all.”

In spite of that, solar companies still are eager to do business here, which means there’s either enough of a market — or enough of a markup.

Rive wouldn’t tell us their exact markup for panels, but said, “The average solar company adds 15 to 25 percent gross margin to the installation. Our gross margin is in line with that.”

Rive’s company has another option for cash-poor San Franciscans, a new “solar lease.” In this scenario, Solar City owns the panels and leases them to homeowners for 15 years. The property owner pays a low up-front cost of a couple of thousand dollars and a monthly lease fee that increases 3.5 percent per year.

For Murphy, the price would be $2,754 down and $88 a month. The panels would still cover only 64 percent of his energy needs, so he would owe PG&E about $70 a month. Because he would be using less energy, PG&E would charge a lower rate, which is something Solar City typically tries to achieve with a solar system.

However, people can’t make money off their solar systems. “People ask about it all the time,” Jachym said. “Especially people in San Francisco. They say ‘I have a house in Sonoma with tons of space. Can I put panels there and offset my energy here?'”

The answer, unfortunately, is no, which means San Franciscans have no incentive to put up more panels than they need and recoup their costs by selling the energy to the grid. Unlike Germany, for example, where people are paid for the excess solar energy they make, California’s net metering laws favor utility companies. If you make more power than you use, you’re donating it to the grid. PG&E sells it to someone else.

If the law was changed — which could be a feature of CCA — citizens could help the city generate more solar energy to sell to customers who don’t have panels, helping the city to meet its overall goal of 51 percent renewable by 2017.

Under Solar City’s lease program, the company gets the federal and state rebates. If Murphy leased for 15 years he’d have an option to buy the used panels, upgrade to new ones, and end or continue the lease. If San Francisco launches the incentive program, the $3,000 from the city could cover the up-front cost and he could get the whole thing rolling for almost no cash. It sounds like a sweet deal.

Except it’s not going to work. Solar City only leases systems of 3.2 kilowatts or more, and only 2.8 could be squeezed onto Murphy’s roof. “I think it’s Murphy’s Law,” Jachym says wryly. “If you have a house that wants solar, a whole row of houses on the street nearby are better suited for it.”

She says the 3.2 cutoff has to do with the company’s bottom line. “If it’s any less than 3.2 the company is losing money.” Ironically, she tells me, “the average system size in San Francisco is even smaller” — usually less than 3.1. Solar City has set the bar high in a place where many people like Murphy are prevented from leasing.

He tells us he isn’t interested in a lease anyway: “I don’t own that.” He’s now more interested in a do-it-yourself situation and wishes the city would put some energy toward that. “If they were serious they would have a city solar store,” he said, imagining a kind of Home Depot for solar, where one could buy panels and wiring, talk with advisors, contract with installers, or just fill out the necessary paperwork for the rebates.

Some people are going ahead anyway, without city support. Nan Foster, a San Francisco homeowner now installing photovoltaic panels and solar water heating, says her middle-class family borrowed money to do these projects, “because we want to do the right thing about the environment and reduce our carbon footprint. It would be a great help to get these rebates from the city.

“The public money for the project would increase the spending of individuals to install solar — so the public funds would leverage much more investment in solar on the part of individuals and businesses,” Foster argued.

There’s another approach that isn’t on the table yet. Eric Brooks, cofounder of the Community Choice Energy Alliance, told us that the city, through CCA, could buy its own panels to place on private homes and businesses, giving those homes and businesses a way to go solar — free.

“Clearly there would be a much higher demand for free solar panels over discounted ones that are still very expensive,” he said. “And because the panels would be owned by the city, all of the savings and revenue could be put right back into building more renewables and efficiency projects, instead of going into the pockets of private property owners.”

Proponents of the mayor’s plan argue that the city can build more solar panels — faster — by diverting public funds to the private sector. “While on its face this is technically true, it is actually a dead-end path,” Brooks said. “Yes, a little more solar would be built a little more quickly. However, once those private panels are built the city will get nothing from them.”

Full disclosure: Murphy is Amanda Witherell’s landlord.

The 100-yard diet

April 8, 2008

› news@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY Locavorism — the practice of eating only or mostly food raised with a 100-mile distance — has been a hot trend the past couple of years. It’s a concept that makes a lot of sense — even organic food grown hundred or thousands of miles away can hardly be considered sustainable once you figure in the resources used to ship it.

But a committed breed of urban farmers is challenging even the 100-mile definition of local food. These folks are cultivating their own cornucopia in their backyards and community garden plots, pruning their own fruit trees, raising their own chickens….

Hold on a minute. Chickens? In the city?

It’s true. Not only is it possible to raise your own small brood (four or less) in San Francisco, but it’s less labor intensive and materially more rewarding than caring for your household pets. Do you need to take a chicken out for walks? No. Does your Chihuahua lay eggs? No.

And you can expect to reap more than just eggs from your new feathered friends. As Walter Parenteau of the Panhandle puts it, "Chickens fill an important spot in the cycle of a sustainable backyard." From their nitrogen-rich manure (an excellent catalyst for compost) to their enthusiasm for pest control, chickens earn their keep — even without the dozen eggs a week you’ll get from each pair of first-year layers.

A major issue for raising chickens in your backyard is space. In San Francisco, the city’s Department of Public Health requires that chicken coops be situated at least 20 feet from all buildings — which rules out keeping chickens on your patio or in your living room. Chickens also need space to thrive in: their run should ideally provide a minimum of four square feet per chicken and include a predator-proof covering of chicken wire or nonmetallic "poultry netting," which also will prevent escapees (contrary to popular belief, chickens can fly, albeit clumsily and infrequently).

A fully enclosed chicken coop built of sturdier materials — plywood or bamboo — is also necessary. Interior nesting boxes should be about one square big foot — just large enough for one chicken. For cleanliness and insulation, a thick layer of straw or hay should be scattered over all the surfaces and changed every couple of months. The old, excrement-laden material can then be composted immediately.

The other main consideration for urban chickens is protection from predators.

"We never saw raccoons in our garden until they discovered we had chickens," says Walter, a San Francisco chicken farmer. "But when they did, we saw them in there every night for three weeks." The unwelcome visitors’ persistence finally paid off when the coop was left unlocked, and the coons made off with one of two hens.

Brian W., who raised chickens for 10 years in the Bayview District, also cites hawks as a major threat to chickens living in uncovered runs, and says that rats are attracted to unclean or unsupervised coops.

"You have to think hard about how you’re going to shelter your chickens from predators," agrees Paul Glowaski, who teaches workshops on raising urban poultry at SF’s Garden for the Environment. "You might need to get creative with your space."

These considerations aside, city-dwelling chicken farmers remain overwhelmingly positive about their experiences. Inexpensive to feed (kitchen scraps, garden snails, and cracked corn play the biggest dietary roles) and content, for the most part, with entertaining themselves, backyard birds provide a gentle gateway experience for novices to animal husbandry. They offer benefits to the ecology of their environment, and help restore a connection to the food production chain. Chickens are the missing link to perfecting what Novella Carpenter of Oakland calls "the 100-yard diet." Even as a hobby, raising chickens can impart an irresistible element of eco-chic to their respective owners.

"At the end of the day, you get to be the ‘guy with chickens in his backyard,’ " Walter says. "And that can be a lot of fun."

After Home Depot

April 8, 2008

EDITORIAL The proposal to build a Home Depot store on Bayshore Boulevard was a textbook example of terrible city planning. The community never asked for a big-box chain store; no city plans ever discussed how big-box retail would help the local economy. Instead, about eight years ago the giant Atlanta-based corporation decided it wanted a store in San Francisco, hired Jack Davis, a political consultant close to then-Mayor Willie Brown, and, after a brutal and unpleasant battle, got permission to build a giant suburban-style outlet of more than 100,000 square feet with a massive parking garage in a city where transit and pedestrian access are considered primary land-use values.

And now that Home Depot has decided, based on its business projections, that the whole thing was a bad idea and is backing out, San Francisco has a chance to turn the big empty lot on Bayshore into something that serves the community. There’s a chance to make this a model for city planning, an example of how to do economic development right for a change. The mayor, city planners, and the supervisors need to insist on a credible process.

From the start, the fight over Home Depot was toxic, pitting small business owners, who feared that the discount chain would destroy local merchants, and Bernal Heights residents, who feared the traffic, noise, and pollution a car-dependent outlet would bring to the area, against Bayview-Hunters Point residents who desperately needed jobs. Home Depot lobbyists did their best to push the divide, arguing that employment opportunities at the store would help spur economic development in one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods.

Lost in the rhetoric was the fact that the chain promised only about 200 new jobs, and would offer only a "good-faith effort" to hire half of those people from the neighborhood. In other words, at best, an eight-acre project — one of the biggest retail developments in the city — would lead to 100 new jobs for Bayview residents. That was, to put it mildly, an abysmal deal.

An environmental impact report on the project essentially dismissed all of the neighborhood concerns, even arguing that air-quality impacts from increased car exhaust wouldn’t count as an impact. The report tossed aside the fate of small businesses, particularly hardware stores, by saying that the store owners could simply start selling something else. Still, the supervisors voted to approve the project.

But now, after all that bitterness and expense, Home Depot is walking away, citing a sluggish market for home-improvement products. Mayor Gavin Newsom is begging the company not to abandon the plans altogether; he’s urging Home Depot executives to put the project on hold until the economy improves. That’s tantamount to saying that the Bayshore site should stay vacant for a few more years — which does no good for anybody. Instead of whining and begging a big corporation to bestow its blessings on poor San Francisco, Newsom ought to look at this as an opportunity.

Sup. Tom Ammiano, whose district borders on the site and who led the opposition to Home Depot, is calling for a community planning process that would bring the key stakeholders to the table to talk about how that land should be used. Sup. Sophie Maxwell, a Home Depot supporter whose district includes the site, ought to join with him. The goal ought to be a planning process that starts with the right questions: What sort of development does the community want? What use would create the most jobs that best fit the local labor pool and the employment needs of the area? What would benefit the city’s economy without damaging small business? Should part of the site be used for affordable housing?

There are all sorts of possibilities, but given Newsom’s pledge to be a "green mayor" and the value of new green-collar jobs, one obvious idea might be turning the place into a solar-energy center. Proper zoning, incentives, and public encouragement might attract solar manufacturing, solar installation services, and a solar hardware store with do-it-yourself kits for homeowners.

The city obviously can’t dictate what sorts of businesses would want to move to Bayshore, but planners can set criteria to steer development. That process ought to begin now, openly, with every interested party involved — and it should have a bottom line: no more suburban chain stores in San Francisco.

Rip up the mayor’s club-violence plan

April 1, 2008

EDITORIAL Back in January, 34-year-old Clarence Corbin was shot and killed during a fight outside Jelly’s Dance Café nightclub in Mission Bay. Mayor Gavin Newsom leapt into action, announcing that this sort of violence was unacceptable. We’re with the mayor on that, although we wish he’d shown the same kind of energy in dealing with the epidemic of shootings in the Bayview and Western Addition over the past few years.

But his solution — a crackdown on nightclub promoters — is unlikely to do anything about violence and will almost certainly damage the creative underside of the city’s entertainment scene.

Sup. Sophie Maxwell is carrying the mayor’s legislation, which she introduced March 4. Some of the provisions just seem silly: the bill, for example, would ban "loitering" within 10 feet of a club between 9 p.m. and 3 a.m. Of course, people stand outside clubs all the time — among other things, to smoke cigarettes — so the bill says smokers would be exempted. So would people who are waiting for cabs. People who simply wanted some fresh air or to make a phone call (or to make out away from the dance floor) would be subject to fines. The loitering law, like most similar laws, seems like a blueprint for discriminatory and illegal enforcement. (Will young African American men get cited more often than white people? Of course they will.)

How are the cops going to decide who’s really waiting for a ride (cabs can take half an hour to arrive on a Saturday night) and who’s just hanging out? Might potential troublemakers just light up a cigarette and thus be free from legal action? It’s hard to see the practical logic here.

Then there’s the provision that would require promoters who hold two or more club events a year to obtain a permit (and presumably, pay a fee). Applicants would have to have proof of $1 million in liability insurance.

That, frankly, would kill a whole lot of small-time events in San Francisco.

Although Newsom complained to the press about "fly-by-night promoters," the city’s full of well-established people who do shows at various clubs with various programs a few times a year or a few times a month — and most of them are small-time operators. Very few have ever had any problems with the law, or promoted a show that led to violence — but most of them would have to shut down, because the $1 million in insurance money would be too expensive.

The Bay Area Reporter suggested March 13 that the bill could harm nonprofit events promoters by forcing them to devote much of the charitable take from their shows to paying for insurance and security plans.

We just don’t see how any of this really addresses the problem of violence outside of San Francisco clubs (and we don’t really see that clubs are to blame for much of the violence in the city anyway). When Sup. Ross Mirkarimi tried to get Mayor Newsom to put cops on foot in high-crime areas, the mayor balked. When Sup. Chris Daly tried to create a violence-prevention program that might have actually gotten to the root causes of this horrible pattern of kids killing one another, the mayor rejected it.

Instead, he wants to create a strange and ineffective plan to give police an excuse to arrest the wrong people that will penalize the small promoters who every week give so much to the city’s cultural landscape.

If club owners are concerned about crowds fomenting violence outside their doors, then the problem needs to be addressed. But this is an ass-backward way to do it. The supervisors need to rip this plan apart and start fresh.

Careers & Ed: Symphony of instruction

April 1, 2008

› culture@sfbg.com

It may have been San Francisco’s Davies Symphony Hall, but at times it felt more like a Pentecostal revival meeting. Forget about rules or decorum: when the spirit moved them, this crowd let loose. Imaginary batons twirled. Heads tick-tocked. Feet tapped. Giggling and applause burst out at all the wrong times.

You haven’t really experienced the symphony until you’ve sat among 2,200 first and second graders at their first live orchestra performance, hundreds of them conducting the orchestra from their seats.

"Movement is exactly what we want," says Ronald Gallman, director of the San Francisco Symphony’s Education Programs, Youth Orchestra and Adventures in Music (AIM) program. "We wouldn’t be doing our jobs if they were sitting with their hands folded in their laps."

Not everyone acts like inspired little savages; others revel in acting like adults. One girl watched the performance through a pair of improvised opera classes — tiny binoculars she brought from an explorer’s kit at home.

It’s somewhat of a relief to learn that kids of the iPod generation can still appreciate classical music. It helps that musicians in the AIM program understand a few basic principles of child psychology: keep performances short, allow plenty of opportunities to shout out and move around, and throw in a fart joke or two for good measure (the tuba player who introduced his instrument with a flatulent blast got the biggest laughs of any joke in the performance).

Founded in 1988, the AIM program serves first through fifth graders at every public elementary school in San Francisco — an impressive 75 schools — as well as third through fifth graders in some private and parochial schools, totaling more than 22,000 children. Beyond the innovation, this is only possible because the AIM program is funded entirely by private donors, foundations, and events like the Black and White Ball — which means that it’s offered at no cost to the schools. According to Gallman, this level of commitment to building equitable access to music education in public schools makes the San Francisco Symphony stand apart as a national leader.

The symphony performance is just one piece of the larger AIM curriculum, which includes four ensemble shows per year at each school as well as comprehensive materials to help teachers build interdisciplinary lesson plans around the AIM performances. Each school is able to choose the ensembles it wants — with options including jazz and all varieties of world music — thus allowing for culturally appropriate programming at different schools.

At the Claire Lilienthal School in the Richmond District on a recent school day, the Drei Brass trio had been chosen to perform for a gymnasium full of first and second graders seated on the floor, each of whom had been given a brightly colored plastic kazoo.

"Our show today is about three brass instruments and vibration!" announced Alicia Telford, the Drei Brass french horn player, her eyes wide and one eyebrow arched. She showed the kids how to feel the vibration in their vocal chords when they sung by placing a hand on the front of their neck.

Each of the brass players introduced himself as "an ambassador of ppppfffft," demonstrating that the music coming out of their instruments begins with a simple pppfffft blown into the mouthpiece — the same ppppfffft sound that the kids blow into their kazoos.

They also peppered their classical performance with recognizable tunes that the kids could intuitively follow, like the finger-snapping Pink Panther theme.

Kazoo-induced hyperactivity aside, it seems that teachers by and large are nothing but grateful for the AIM programming in their schools.

"Music is a great way to keep some children engaged who might not be the best readers or [who are] a bit behind. It’s a great way to keep them in the school system through high school."

According to JR Jowkalsky, a reading teacher at Willie L. Brown Jr. elementary school in the Bayview, the number of students who pursue orchestra or band in middle school has "mushroomed" as a result of the AIM Program.

Keith Jones, who has been teaching for 20 years and currently runs the 40-piece band at Willie L. Brown, reports that about one-sixth of the potential band students participate in the music program. Anything over 10 or 15 percent participation is considered good.

"AIM has given me 10 violins, symphony tickets for the kids, concerts here at school," he said. "It provides things that I could never provide to my students."

While the AIM program alone cannot revive public-school music education in an era of restricted funding, it’s not a far stretch to say that exposing every single public school student by the end of fifth grade to five symphony visits and 20 ensemble performances must help pick up the slack.

Now, if only there was something AIM could do to preserve the sense of wonder and complete abandon with which these kids enjoyed the symphony for the first time, conducting wildly from their seats like no one is watching.

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