Board of Supervisors

Ed Lee is San Francisco’s interim mayor

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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After a unanimous vote by San Francisco’s newly installed Board of Supervisors on Jan. 11, City Administrator Edwin M. Lee was sworn in as interim mayor of San Francisco. The swearing-in was regal affair staged in the rotunda of City Hall. A host of prominent political figures, including Oakland Mayor Jean Quan, congregated to witness the changing of the guard.

Former Mayor Willie Brown served as master of ceremonies, standing behind a podium on the grand staircase with members the newly elected board to his right and former Mayor Gavin Newsom and Mayor-elect Ed Lee to his left.

Newsom offered advice to Lee on how to govern the city, saying, “Figure out what it is you want to accomplish, and work backward from there.”

Rose Pak, the powerful head of the Chinatown Chamber of Commerce, was seated near the front row for a close-up view of the ceremony. Speaking to the historic nature of the first Asian American holding the office of mayor in San Francisco, Lee singled out Pak, whom he called his good friend, saying, “Today, Rose, our struggle is here, and it’s succeeding.”

Newly anointed as mayor, Lee expressed gratitude to Brown, Newsom, Pak, and the members of the Board of Supervisors who supported him.

He also noted that several weeks ago, he hadn’t even anticipated such a momentous change. “It’s been a whirlwind for me,” he said.

Lee promised to be “a mayor who tackles things head on, and moves the bar forward.” He also vowed to be inclusive – and if he is true to his word, it will mark a dramatic difference from Newsom’s administration, which tended to exclude anyone who disagreed with the mayor.

“I want to say to all of you: I will do my very best to represent all the communities,” Lee said. “I’m going to open up that Room 200 to everybody.”

Following the swearing-in was a reception featuring tables piled high with sushi, gourmet finger foods, and fancy cheese, plus a bar serving wine and beer. Several observers remarked to the Guardian that they had never seen such a feast offered up to the public at City Hall.

Revolution 101

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Revolution 101

caitlin@sfbg.com

CAREERS AND ED Of course, you could just stop paying for school all together. Instead of putting their hopes for the future of education behind state reinvestment in university systems, a group of SF radical intellectuals are seeking to revamp the definition of learning by introducing the Free University of San Francisco. The nascent institution holds its first teach-in Feb. 5-6.

“Education is revolution,” says the incubator of the Free University, writer and poet Alan Kaufman. This ain’t Kaufman’s first rodeo. In 2004, while an instructor at SF’s Academy of Art University, he organized a student walk-out to protest the school’s violations of free speech rights. Employed through a temporary contract with the academy, Kaufman was not hired back the next term.

For him, it was a wake-up call that the current university system was teaching for the wrong reasons, not the least of which was the hefty price tag for classes that left his pupils in poverty. One student, he said in a recent phone interview with SFBG, had been “starving before my eyes, surviving on Ramen Noodle Cups” — all she could afford on top of tuition fees. He gave her $60 for food. But it wasn’t enough. Something had to be done.

When asked what he thinks the point of education is, Kaufman barely hesitates. “Liberation, freedom.” The current trends of privatization in public colleges, coupled with soaring school fees that far outpace students’ budgets, is symptomatic of a system that, as he prettily puts it, “funnels hearts and minds into narrowing corridors of survival. Creating profits for the university — that is the end game.”

He’s not the only person who thinks so. Kaufman and other Free University supporters have organized a teach-in next month that will feature college-level lectures from leading Bay Area artists and intellectuals, including Beat poet and SF poet laureate Diane Did Prima, former president of the Board of Supervisors Matt Gonzalez, and Pirate Cat Radio’s Diamond Dave Whitaker. The courses are no-credit, but the event is a symbol that the current educational system isn’t fulfilling some basic student needs. Instructors will teach on subjects that range from 19th-century poetry to natural geography.

Eventually Kaufman he envisions an “actual mobile university” capable of bringing the possibility of a college education to places where such a thing might be considered unattainable. And it wouldn’t just be beneficial to students. Guest faculty could experience “a kind of cleansing,” a temporary return to their original ideal of academia.

Of course, there are a few — ahem — challenges involved in starting a school that has no tuition, teacher salaries, or even monetary donors (Kaufman says the Free University will accept gifts in the form of books or other resources, but no cash). University supporters have decided to eschew accreditation for now, and true to Kaufman’s nomadic vision of the school, no location for classes has been set. First the teach-in, Kaufman says, and based on feedback, the consensus-based, hierarchy-free project will take it from there. The idea of the Free University, it would seem, is the thing for now.

It’s been done before. In the wake of the French Revolution, France established its Grandes Écoles system, a 250-school system that remains for the large part, tuition-free. The East Bay Free Skool is one outlet in the Bay that offers skill training, gratis. So for all the pie-in-the-sky idealism involved, perhaps the true test of the Free University of San Francisco won’t be its creation at all — crazy things have happened, haven’t they? Instead, it may be the extent that humanist students can steel a harsh economic climate that tends to reward monetarily-driven educations.

So why would a student chuck their pursuit of an accredited degree to participate in an uncertain radicalization of education? “Would it have practical application in a corporatized universe? Good question!” Kaufman chuckles. He launches into a torrid Marxist prediction: that our patently unfair education system cannot stand. “The system must be changed. When the pain is bad enough, people start to change.” *

FREE UNIVERSITY TEACH-IN

Feb. 5–6, 9 a.m.–5 p.m., free

Viracocha

998 Valencia, SF

(415) 374-7048

fusf.wordpress.com

Editor’s Notes

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Editor’s Notes

tredmond@sfbg.com

Former Mayor Willie Brown says that choosing a person of color for a leadership position should be a progressive value. Board of Supervisors President David Chiu says the new mayor, Ed Lee, is a progressive. Several supervisors and other political observers say the six-vote progressive majority on the board is gone.

And nobody really talks about what that word means.

Progressive is a term with a long political vintage, but it’s changed (as has the political context) since the 1920s. (Progressives these days aren’t into Prohibition.) So I’m going to take a few minutes to try to sort this out.

I used to tell John Burton, the former state senator, that a progressive was a liberal who didn’t like real estate developers. But that was in the 1980s, when the Democratic Party in town was funded by Walter Shorenstein and other developers who were happy to be part of the party of Dianne Feinstein, happy to be liberals on some social issues (Shorenstein insisted that the Chamber of Commerce hire and promote more women), and happy to promote liberal candidates like John and Phil Burton for state and national office — as long as they didn’t mess with the gargantuan money machine that was high-rise office development in San Francisco.

But these days it’s not all about real estate; it’s that the level of economic inequality in the United States has risen to levels unseen since the late 1920s. So I sat down on a Saturday night when the kids went to bed(yeah, this is my social life) and made a list of what I think represent the core values of a modern American progressive. It’s a short list, and I’m sure there’s stuff I’ve left off, but it seems like a place to start.

This isn’t a litmus test list (we’ve endorsed plenty of people who don’t agree with everything on it). It’s not a purity test, it’s not a dogma, it’s not the rules of entry into any political party … it’s just a definition. My personal definition.

Because words don’t mean anything if they don’t mean anything, and progressive has become so much of a part of the San Francisco political dialogue that it’s starting to mean nothing.

For the record: when I use the word "progressive," I’m talking about people who believe:
1. That civil rights and civil liberties need to be protected for everyone, even the most unpopular people in the world. We’re for same-sex marriage, of course, and for sanctuary city and protections for immigrants who may not have documentation. We’re also in favor of basic rights for prisoners, we’re against the death penalty, and we think that even suspected terrorists should have the right to due process of law.
2. That essential public services — water, electricity, health care, broadband — should be controlled by the public, not by private corporations. That means public power and single-payer government run health insurance.
3. That the most central problem facing the city, the state, and the nation today is the dramatic upward shift of wealth and income and the resulting economic inequality. We believe that government at every level — including local government right here in San Francisco — should do everything possible to reduce that inequality. That means taxing high incomes, redistributing wealth, and using that money for public services (education, for example) that tend to help people achieve a stable middle-class lifestyle. We believe that San Francisco is a rich city, with a lot of rich people, and that if the state and federal government won’t try to tax them to pay for local services, the city should.
4. That private money has no place in elections or public policy. We support a total ban on private campaign contributions, for politicians and ballot measures, and support public financing for all elections. Corruption — even the appearance of corruption — taints the entire public sector and helps the fans of privatization, and progressives especially need to understand that.
5. That the right to private property needs to be tempered by the needs of society. That means you can’t just put up a highrise building anywhere you want in San Francisco, of course, but it also means that the rights of tenants to have stable places for themselves and their families to live is more important than the rights of landlords to maximize return on their property. That’s why we support strict environmental protections, even when they hurt private interests, and why be believe in rent control, including rent control on vacant property, and eviction protections and restrictions on condo conversions. We think community matters more than wealth, and that poor people have a place in San Francisco too — and if the wealthier classes have to have less so the city can have socioeconomic diversity, that’s a small price to pay. We believe that public space belongs to the public and shouldn’t be handed over to private interests. We believe that everyone, including homeless people, has the right to use public space.
6. That there are almost no circumstances where the government should do anything in secret.
7. That progressive elected officials should use their resources and political capital to help elect other progressives — and should recognize that sometimes the movement is more important that personal ambitions.

I don’t know if Ed Lee fits my definition of a progressive. He hasn’t taken a public position on any major issues in 20 years. We won’t know until we see his budget plans and learn whether he thinks the city should follow Gavin Newsom’s approach of avoiding tax increases and simply cutting services again. We won’t know until he decides what to tell the new police chief about enforcing the sit-lie law. We won’t know until we see whether he keeps Newsom’s staff in place or brings in some senior people with progressive values.
I agree that having an Asian mayor in San Francisco is a very big deal, a historic moment — and as Lee takes over, I will be waiting, and hoping, to be surprised.

Power and pragmatism

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Power and pragmatism

steve@sfbg.com

After an epic week at City Hall, the political dynamics in San Francisco have undergone a seismic shift, with pragmatism replacing progressivism, longtime adversarial relationships morphing into close collaborations, and Chinese Americans as mayor and board president.

It was a week of surprises, starting Jan. 4 when City Administrator Ed Lee came out of nowhere to become the consensus choice for interim mayor, and ending Jan. 9 when Mayor Gavin Newsom appointed Police Chief George Gascón to be the new district attorney, Newsom’s last official act as mayor before belatedly taking his oath of office as lieutenant governor on Jan. 10.

In between, the outgoing Board of Supervisors held a special final meeting Jan. 7, at which progressive supervisors fell into line behind Lee, some of them reluctantly, and accepted the new political reality. The next day, the new Board of Supervisors took office and overwhelmingly reelected David Chiu as board president, with only the three most progressive supervisors in dissent.

After Chiu played kingmaker as the swing vote for making Lee the new mayor, the board and Mayor’s Office are likely to enjoy far closer and more cooperative relations than they’ve had in many years. And the sometimes prickly, blame-game relations between the Police Department and D.A.’s Office should also get better now that the top cop has switched sides. But what it all means for the average San Franciscan, particularly the progressive voters who created what they thought was a majority on the Board of Supervisors, is still an open question.

One thing that is clear is the ideological battles that have defined City Hall politics — what Chiu called the “oppositional politics of personality” during his closing remarks on Jan. 8 — have been moved to the back burner while the new leaders try a fresh approach.

Newsom — with his rigid fiscal conservatism and open disdain for the Board of Supervisors, particularly its progressive wing — is gone. Also leaving City Hall is Sup. Chris Daly, a passionate and calculating progressive leader whose over-the-top antics caused a popular backlash against the movement.

In a way, Newsom and Daly were perfect foils for one another, caustic adversaries who often reduced one another to two-dimensional caricatures of themselves. But they were each strongly driven by rival ideologies and political priorities, despite Newsom’s rhetorical efforts to turn “ideology” into a dirty word applied only to his opponents.

“This year represents a changing of the guard, a transition,” Chiu said, pledging to continue pushing for progressive reforms, only with a more conciliatory approach, a theme also sounded by Sups. Eric Mar and Jane Kim, who each broke with their progressive colleagues to support Chiu over rival presidential nominee Sup. John Avalos.

“I will always support policies that will make our city more equitable and just,” Kim said after being sworn in to replace Daly, although she also made a claim about the new board with which her predecessor probably wouldn’t agree: “I think we have a lot more in common than we don’t.”

With a focus on diversity and compromise, “respect and camaraderie,” Mar said, “I think this new board represents the evolution of the progressive movement in San Francisco.”

If indeed City Hall is enjoying a “Kumbaya” moment, the path to this point was marred by backroom deal-making and old-school power politics, much of it engineered by a pair of figures from the previous era who are by no means progressives: former Mayor Willie Brown and Rose Pak, head of the Chinatown Chamber of Commerce.

Pak was seated front and center — literally and figuratively — during the board’s Jan. 7 vote for Lee and its Jan. 8 vote for Chiu, following media reports that it was she and Brown who persuaded Lee to take the job and city leaders (particularly Newsom, Chiu, and outgoing Sups. Bevan Dufty and Sophie Maxwell) to give it to him.

It all seemed sneaky and unsettling to board progressives, who questioned what kind of secret deal had been cut, even as they voiced their respect for Lee’s progressive roots and long history of service to the city. The sense that something unseemly was happening was exacerbated on Jan. 4 when Dufty abandoned a pledge of support for Sheriff Michael Hennessey — who five progressive supervisors supported for interim mayor — and left the meeting to confer with the Mayor’s Office before returning to announce his support for Lee.

Sups. David Campos, Ross Mirkarimi, and Avalos pleaded with their colleagues for time to at least talk with Lee, who was traveling in China since he reportedly changed his mind about wanting the interim mayor job. Maxwell was the only Lee supporter in the 6-5 vote for delaying the interim mayor item by a few days so the supervisors could speak with Lee by phone.

Pak and other Chinatown leaders put together a strong show of force by the Chinese American community at that Jan. 7 meeting, where the board voted 10-1 for Lee, with only Daly in dissent. Afterward, some of Lee’s strongest supporters — including the Rev. Norman Fong and Gordon Chin with the Chinatown Community Development Center — admitted that the process of picking Lee was flawed.

“Part of the problem was Ed’s because he couldn’t make up his mind. The process was bad,” Fong told the Guardian after the vote. Although Fong said he knows Lee to be a strong and trustworthy progressive, he admitted that the way it went down raised questions: “Some people were concerned about who he’ll listen to.”

Specifically, the concern is that Lee will be unduly influenced Brown and Pak, who each represent corporate clients whose interests are often at odds with those of the general public. And both operate behind the scenes and play a kind of political hardball that runs contrary to progressive values on openness, inclusion, and accountability.

“If there is a phone call from Willie Brown to Rose Pak, Ed Lee is going to go along with it,” predicted a knowledgeable source who has worked closely with all three, recalling the way they did business during Brown’s mayoral administration. “There was no real discussion of issues. The fix was always in.”

But Pak insisted that there was nothing wrong with the process of selecting Lee, and that all concerns about the nomination were driven by anti-Asian racism. “You have a plantation mentality,” Pak told the Guardian as she held court in front of a crowded press box before the Jan. 8 meeting. “The Bay Guardian has never given people of color a fair shot.”

While Newsom, Chiu, and Pak-allied political consultant David Ho all insisted “there was no deal” to win support for Lee, Pak seemed to revel in the high-profile role she played, with Bay Citizen reporter Gerry Shih labeling her “boastful” in his Jan. 6 article “Behind-The-Scenes Power Politics: The Making of Ed Lee,” which ran the next day in The New York Times.

“This was finally our moment to make the first Chinese mayor of a major city,” Pak reportedly told Shih. “How could you let that slip by?”

Chiu downplayed Pak’s influence, telling the Guardian that Lee was his top choice since November, and telling his colleagues before the Jan. 7 vote, “Ed is someone who does represent our shared progressive values.” But he also made it clear that helping the city’s progressive movement wasn’t what drove his decision.

“This is a decision beyond who were are as progressives and who we are as moderates. It’s about who we are as San Franciscans,” Chiu said. “This is a historic moment for the Chinese-American community,” calling it “a community that has struggled, a community that has seen discrimination.”

The next day, shortly after being elected to a second term as board president, Chiu acknowledged the “very real differences” in ideology among the supervisors, “but leadership is about working through those differences.” Ultimately, he said, “none of us were voted into office to take positions. We were voted into office to get things done.”

Chiu and pragmatism win over the new board

Sasha Cuttler
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Despite the re-election of David Chiu as president of the Board of Supervisors today, there was a palpable shift in the political dynamics at City Hall. “Ideology” has been deemed a dirty word by a majority of the Board of Supervisors, while the politics of identity and “getting things done” is the new imperative.
That shift was most evident in the 8-3 vote for Chiu, with progressive Sups. John Avalos, David Campos, and Ross Mirkarimi supporting Avalos for the post through two rounds of voting. Chiu won it on the second round after fiscal conservative Sup. Sean Elsbernd withdrew his nomination, with he and his other three backers – Sups. Carmen Chu, Scott Wiener, and Mark Farrell – all supporting Chiu in the second round.
“This year represents a changing of the guard, a transition,” Chiu told us, noting the departure of both Mayor Gavin Newsom and supervisors that include Chris Daly. “We’re going to have to get past the oppositional politics of personality.”
In place of a progressive politics based on principled positions and aggressively challenging the influence that powerful downtown interests still exert on City Hall, Chiu is advocating for more pragmatic solutions to the considerable challenges facing the city, starting with a projected budget deficit of almost $400 million.
“None of us were voted into office to take positions, we were voted into office to get things done,” Chiu said.
His approach has occasionally earned him the scorn of progressives over the last two years, particularly in Chiu’s high-profile compromises with Newsom over cuts to Muni and city programs, business tax breaks, and other issues, as Avalos noted. But as Avalos told Chiu, “Clearly today, you have been validated in your hard work.”
Chiu was backed in both rounds of voting by progressive Asian-American Sups. Jane Kim and Eric Mar, both of whom also struck pragmatic notes in their comments. But they also noted that the board’s new civility and diversity are progressive values. “I think this new board represents the evolution of the progressive movement in San Francisco,” Mar said.
Newsom has been pointedly criticizing the notion of ideology for years – apparently unaware that his anti-tax, pro-business philosophy is an ideology – and it was echoed by several supervisors, including Farrell, who said he wants “to turn City Hall into a place based on issues and ideas and not ideology.”
Now, we’re all left to wait and see what kinds of issues and ideas take root. We’ll have much more on an extraordinary week at City Hall – with a new board and new incoming Mayor-select Ed Lee – in next week’s Guardian.

Historic mayoral vote followed a flawed process

Sasha Cuttler
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Ed Lee would be San Francisco’s first Chinese-American mayor right now – if Mayor Gavin Newsom wasn’t delaying his swearing in as lieutenant governor. And Lee might also have had 10 votes on the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, as he had today, if the process hadn’t involved backroom deals and moderate, lame-duck supervisors kowtowing to the outgoing mayor. In other words, this historic occasion just didn’t need to be sullied the way it was this week.
There was real jubilation at City Hall when I left there a few minutes ago, and for good reason, even though today’s vote will have to be repeated by the new board after Newsom officially resigns. “This is a historic moment for the Chinese-American community,” Board President David Chiu told a packed board chambers, calling it, “a community that has struggled, a community that has seen discrimination.”
Chiu braved the taunts of Sup. Chris Daly and some progressive activists for supporting Lee on Tuesday, steadfastly maintaining that Lee is progressive and the best candidate for this job, despite his five progressive colleagues voting for Sheriff Michael Hennessey. And Lee does have progressive roots and support, as the progressive supervisors have attested publicly.
Once the progressive supervisors were given the chance to talk to Lee – whose openness to accepting the nomination came out of nowhere, reportedly at the urging of Chinatown power broker Rose Pak and former Mayor Willie Brown – all but Daly voted to support Lee.
Yet all of them also publicly noted how the process was deeply flawed and contrary to progressive principles of openness and accountability. “I have questions about the process and how we got to this point,” Sup. John Avalos said before announcing his support for Lee based on a half-hour telephone conversation yesterday (Lee has been in China through his public consideration as interim mayor).  
Sup. David Campos said he nominated Hennessey as a compromise caretaker mayor based on the representation from Newsom that he was acceptable and after being told by Sup. Bevan Dufty that he would support Hennessey. Instead, Dufty refused to vote until calling for a recess and marching down to the Mayor’s Office on Tuesday, returning to be the swing vote for Lee.
“I’m very disappointed in the way this process has gone down,” Campos said, adding that Hennessey “did not deserve the kind of treatment he received.” Sups. Ross Mirkarimi and Eric Mar echoed the point, with Mirkarimi saying he still doesn’t understand why Dufty flipped or what happened when he went to visit the Mayor’s Office.
Through the whole hearing, Dufty – a candidate for mayor himself – didn’t say a word. At one point, he even started clearing out his desk in Board Chambers, throwing away recycled papers and filling a big envelope full of paper clips. He didn’t stick around the hallway for the celebration that he helped enable, instead going straight into his office, where I found him and asked for a reaction to his colleagues’ questioning of his motives and integrity.
“My actions speak for themselves,” was all Dufty would say.
Perhaps they do, but even Lee’s strongest supporters acknowledged that the process of picking him was flawed. “Part of the problem was Ed’s because he couldn’t make up his mind,” Rev. Norman Fong told the Guardian. “The process was bad.”
Without a public discussion or the ability of reporters or supervisors to talk to Lee, Fong acknowledged why some progressives worried that a deal had been cut to continue with Newsom’s policies and personnel. “Some people were concerned about who he’ll listen to,” Fong said, but he said, “I’ve fought with Ed Lee and I know his heart…He’ll do the right thing.”
Gordon Chin of Chinatown Community Development Center said he has worked closely with both Lee and Hennessey and both would have been good interim mayors, and he said this should not have been a partisan fight. “Who nominated Mike Hennessey as the nominee of all of progressive San Francisco?” Chin asked, noting that few progressive constituencies were consulted on the choice or offered their buy-in.
Yet he also acknowledged the unseemly way in which Lee came out of nowhere to get the nomination, with little public vetting, “If Ed was out there a week earlier, it would have been a lot better. It was a flawed process,” Chin said.
So flawed that Daly and many progressive activists are still smarting about what happened and wary of what kind of mayor Lee will be. “No more backroom deals,” queer activist and blogger Michael Petrelis repeatedly shouted at Rose Pak as she was being interviewed outside board chambers.
But Fong just shrugged and told me, “There’s backroom deals on the left too.”

Elsbernd defends Lee (but ducks the Tapas)

Zelda Bronstein
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Elsbernd defends Lee (but ducks the Tapas)

Well, Sean didn’t stop by for tapas at Que Syrah last night, but he did take the time to send me a long letter answering my questions about why he “mysteriously”  nominated CAO Ed Lee for interim mayor in Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting.

I appreciate the letter and it’s to Sean’s credit that this is his modus operandi with the Guardian (and others) in answering questions, even pesky ones.

I am printing his letter in full below and offering him the opportunity to continue this illuminating conversation since his letter raises even more questions about his nomination of Lee.

For example, the Bay Citizen section of today’s New York Times, on the morning of the followup supervisors’ meeting this afternoon, laid out a detailed story by Gerry Shih  of how former Mayor Willie Brown, Rose Pak, a powerful Chinatown political operative, and Mayor Newsom orchestrated the Lee nomination to keep the mayor’s office safe for PG&E, the downtown gang, and Willie/Pak’s clients and allies.

The headline: “Behind-the-Scenes Power Politics: The Making of a Mayor,” with  pictures of Newsom, Willie, and Pak. The motivation for the orchestration, according to the story, was that on Sunday afternoon “Word had  trickled out that the main contenders for the job were Sheriff Michael Hennessey, former Mayor Art Agnos and former board chairman Aaron Peskin” and the three were “deemed too liberal” by Pak, Brown and Newsom.

Then, the story said that over the next 48 hours, Pak, Brown and the Newsom administration “engaged in an extraordinary political power play, forging a consensus” on the board, “outflanking the board’s progressive wing” and persuading Lee at the last moment  shortly before he boarded  a plane to  Taiwan to agree “to become San Francisco’s first Asian-American mayor, even though he had told officials for months that he had no interest in the job.”

The story noted that Pak was “in a boastful mood the next day, several hours before she planned to have celebratory drinks with Brown at the Chinese Hilton,” (Willie, last time I checked, was on an annual PG&E retainer of $200,000 plus.) The story ended with a telling quote from Pak: “Now you know why they say I play politics like a blood sport.”

So the new questions I have for Sean (and other supervisors who voted for Lee) is what did they know and when did they know it? Or were they even informed about the deal and how it came down? Is this the West Portal supervisor’s idea of how to choose a mayor?

P.S. Sean and his fellow Lee supporters may not think it’s important for the Guardian (or other media or citizens) to be able to ask questions of Lee or other candidates  before making him mayor.

Well, I think  it’s important and I have some basic questions: What is Lee’s position on rent control? On progressive taxation to help solve the crushing budget crisis? On rubberstamping Newsom/Pak/Brown policies as mayor? And on community choice aggregation and public power and kicking PG&E out of the mayor’s office?  The last question on PG&E  is critical, because this is the key litmus test in political San Francisco.  Any politician, elected or appointed or emerging,  who supports PG&E and opposes public power/CCA is not to be trusted.  Did anybody get to ask Lee any of these questions or any others? Let’s lay out the questions and Lee’s answers before making him the reluctant mayor.

Here’s Elsbernds letter to me:

Bruce,

Good to hear from you.  As always, I enjoy the conversation, particularly
with those District 7 constituents who so often and consistently advocate
positions contrary to the vast majority of residents in District 7 (e.g.
the Guardian’s endorsement against Proposition G, which received over 70%
of the vote in District 7), but every now and then, present a fresh
perspective worth analysis.

 

I believe Ed Lee will make an outstanding Interim Mayor. You asked me the
following questions to justify this.  Let me give it my best shot.

Why did I nominate Ed Lee for Interim Mayor when he was out of town?  His
presence was immaterial to me.  I had the opportunity to discuss his
interest in the position with him prior to the vote, and I have worked with
him for nearly 10 years, and know where he stands on various positions.  I
did not need him in the room on Tuesday evening to answer questions as I
had done my homework before showing up to class.

 

Why did I nominate Ed Lee when he was not publicly “out there” or “in
public discussion” as a candidate or even known by the Supervisors to be a
legitimate candidate?  Whether or not Ed Lee’s name was known to you, your
readers, or other Supervisors, is not a fact to which I can speak.  After
all, I do not fit any one of those 3 criteria.  Ed was always a candidate
to me, and, most importantly, the qualities of an Interim Mayor were “in
public discussion.”  These qualities, which I heard from residents in
district 7 and throughout the City, were that the individual be someone not
wanting to run for re-election, someone, who had a demonstrated ability to
appeal to all cross sections of the political spectrum, someone who knows
the City (both how it functions as a government as well as its many
neighborhoods), and, someone with demonstrated experience in a variety of
areas of public policy.

 

Why did I nominate Ed Lee when he has not publicly stated his views on any
of the major issues coming before the Mayor?  Yes, it’s true he has not
filled out a Bay Guardian questionnaire, or been grilled by your editorial
Board.  However, an astute observer of Ed’s career can decipher well his
positions.  Moreover, Ed was most recently confirmed unanimously to serve
as CAO of the City and County, for the second time.  During that
confirmation process, I had the opportunity, as did every other member of
the Board and the public to present issues to Ed for his analysis.  The
tough issues facing the Mayor, are the same tough issues facing the CAO,
the Supervisors, and everyone else charged with the duty of serving the
public.

 

Why did I nominate Ed Lee when he was not available for questioning by the
Board when the discussion and vote came down?  Yes, Ed was not present.
However, as I stated earlier, Ed had always been available to talk prior to
his departure.  I was able to ask my questions before he left.

 

Why did I nominate Ed Lee when he is not as qualified for this tough post
in these tough times as the other public candidates?  Well, this question
implies a bit of a comparison to the other candidates.  I respect the other
candidates too much to say anything negative about them.  Simply put, I
believe Ed is the lone candidate with the sufficient breadth, most
relevant, and most timely experience across City government, and the one
who had the greatest ability to bring all sides of the political spectrum
together.

 

Why did I nominate Ed Lee when he was obviously part of a backroom deal
orchestrated by Mayor Newsom and his downtown allies?  I love questions
based on evidence and fact.  This question, however, is merely a question
based on your opinion.  I disagree with that opinion.  Ed Lee was elected
Interim Mayor because he is the most qualified candidate.

 

Finally, thanks for the invitation to Que Syrah this evening.
Unfortunately, as a working parent, my weeknight evenings do not belong to
me – they belong to my son.  I’ll be with him tonight.  I hope you’re still
able to enjoy yourself without me.

 

All the best,
Sean

 

P.S.  It’s the “Village Grill,” not the “Village Inn .”  Perhaps you need
to get out on West Portal a bit more and learn the name of the
establishments along the street.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

City Hall’s mad political swirl

Sasha Cuttler
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1
City Hall’s mad political swirl

It was common knowledge around City Hall that Chinatown power broker Rose Pak and former Mayor Willie Brown were lurking behind the sudden emergence of Ed Lee as the pick for interim mayor, but Bay Citizen reporter Gerry Shih does an excellent job showing how it actually went down in a story that appeared in today’s New York Times.

Pak is also expected to orchestrate a big show of Chinese-American power during this afternoon’s Board of Supervisors meeting, and progressive supervisors tell the Guardian that they have been personally lobbied by Pak to get behind Lee. Some supervisors hold out the hope that Michael Hennessey might still have a shot, or that Ed Harrington might be put back in play, but I wouldn’t bet on it. Lee seems like he’ll be the guy, at least with this board.

In addition, the rumor mill is buzzing that David Chiu will declare his candidacy for mayor in the coming weeks, although other sources indicate he hasn’t made a final decision yet. And given that the new board still has to confirm the current board’s selection, don’t be too surprised if someone makes a play to name Chiu as interim mayor, but that’s a longshot.

Following right on the heels of today’s interim mayor vote will be tomorrow’s swearing in of the new board and vote on president, which Chiu would like to hold onto. But after crossing his progressive colleagues on Tuesday to support Lee over Hennessey, most progressives are expected to push for Sup. John Avalos, while fiscal conservative Sup. Sean Elsbernd is also expected to make a bid for the presidency. None appear to have six votes yet.

Despite media reports about the board’s “progressive majority,” the current political dynamics don’t really give any faction a majority, with identity politics holding heavier sway than ideology right now. So the only prediction that political watchers can make right now is that it’s going to be interesting.

Daly goes down swinging

Sasha Cuttler
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7

The League of Pissed of Voters made a Daly roast video honoring the “biggest asshole in San Francisco politics”

Between last night’s epic Chris Daly Roast and Daly’s crazy-man antics on Tuesday night, Daly is ending his 10-year tenure on the Board of Supervisors in fitting fashion: as a passionate leader of the progressive movement who has also been its – and his own – worst enemy.

A huge crowd packed The Independent to honor and make fun of Daly and other political figures, and it definitely had the feel of an alcohol-fueled progressive love-fest, right down to conservative Chronicle columnist CW Nevius taking a pie in the face after stepping off the stage for the evening’s most tedious session behind the microphone.

Well, at least it was until Daly took the mike, going on and on in often tasteless fashion and resisting efforts by his wife, Sarah Low, and others to get him to give up the spotlight. Daly just isn’t ready to leave the stage yet, despite buying and running the Buck Tavern, soon to be renamed Daly’s Dive. He’s even half seriously talking about running for mayor.

But for all of Daly’s many accomplishments – he is the most productive supervisor of his era and the most passionately progressive – his personal grudges also create problems for the movement. On Tuesday, Daly led the effort to name Sheriff Michael Hennessey as interim mayor, twisting Sup. Eric Mar’s arm to get him to come along, only to fall one vote short.

Even though Hennessey and Ed Lee are similar figures, Daly turned Board President David Chiu’s support for Lee into an act of epic ideological betrayal, aggressively menacing Chiu at the meeting and shouting at him, “I will haunt you! I will politically haunt you! It’s on like Donkey Kong.” He spoke over his colleagues as they had the floor and tried to talk, including repeatedly yelling at Sup. Michela Alioto-Pier, “You are a representative of the rich!” And when the board reconvened after a short recess, Daly remained in the audience, periodically flipping the bird to the board.

But for all Daly’s current ire toward Chiu, it should be noted that Chiu became board president two years ago because Daly led the opposition to Sup. Ross Mirkarimi becoming board president, giving Chiu far more political power than he would otherwise have. Daly has long prided himself on his good political instincts, and at times he has indeed been a masterful political tactician, but his ego sometimes gets the better of him. He’s hyper competitive and just wants to win, even when victory carries an unacceptable price.

When the new Board of Supervisors takes the oath of office at noon on Saturday, the progressive movement will lose a passionate leader in Chris Daly. But as it elects a new president and its political dynamics take shape, someone will need to take Daly’s role as the whip and conscience of the board, a role even his enemies acknowledged that he played.

“Chris, I think San Francisco is better because you served,” Sup. Sophie Maxwell said on Tuesday, gritting her teeth in praising someone who has at times scorned and belittled her. It will be interesting to see how Daly’s role is filled on the new board, and whether we can still have the passion without its pitfalls.

Chiu rejects DA job and defends his support for Lee

Sasha Cuttler
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22

Amid speculation that he was angling to be appointed district attorney – and questions about whether that goal influenced his support for Ed Lee to be named interim mayor – Board of Supervisors President David Chiu has issued a press release announcing that he’s withdrawing from consideration for the DA’s job.

“Right now my strong belief is that I can best serve San Francisco from City Hall. The challenges ahead of us will require a new level of collaboration between our elected leaders—many of them new to office—and all San Franciscans who care about the future of our incredibly diverse and inclusive City,” Chiu said in the prepared statement, thanking Mayor Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Kamala Harris for their consideration and for recent meetings with Chiu on the appointment.

When I spoke with Chiu yesterday afternoon, he said that he was leaning against taking the job, partly out of concern that Newsom would replace him with a fiscal conservative like Joe Alioto Jr. “I would not want to leave my seat to someone whose perspective on issues is drastically different than mine,” Chiu told me.

He also strongly emphasized that there was no connection at all between his discussion with Newsom over the DA appointment and with Chiu’s pivotal support for Lee, and Chiu said Newsom did not raise the issue during their conversations. On Tuesday, Chiu broke with his progressive colleagues to be the sixth vote in favor of Lee.

Chiu said that he has long been supportive of Lee and Chiu disagrees with the assertion that Lee is a less progressive pick than Sheriff Michael Hennessey, who had the support of five progressive supervisors. “He’s someone who has tremendous progressive roots,” Chiu said of Lee, noting that Chinese-American progressives have long considered him one of their own. “We have been working with Ed Lee for years and we know where his heart is.”

Chiu argued that Lee is experienced in a broad range of city functions and issues while Hennessey’s knowledge of city government issues is limited mainly to law enforcement. While the strong and sudden support for Lee among fiscal conservatives has been worrisome to many progressives, Chiu noted that “unfortunately, the moderates are far more disciplined than we are on the progressive side.”

“We have many competing and diverse constituencies that led us to be unable to get to consensus around one candidate,” Chiu said.

The current Board of Supervisors will convene for a final time at 3 p.m. tomorrow to vote on Lee after progressive supervisors successfully pushed for a delay in the vote on Tuesday. In addition to Chiu and the five supervisors to his ideological right, Sup. Eric Mar has announced that he will also support Lee, and Sups. John Avalos and David Campos said they are open to backing Lee after they get the chance to speak with him.

Tapas with Sean: Some modest questions for a West Portal supervisor

Zelda Bronstein
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9
Tapas with Sean: Some modest questions for a West Portal supervisor

Ever since the Brugmann family moved into the West Portal area in 1964 (with the help of local realtor John Barbagelata), I have been annoyed with the fact that many of our West of Twin Peaks supervisors prance around in their neighborhoods as “neighborhood supervisors,” then go to City Hall and vote to protect PG&E and vote the downtown/bigdeveloper/real estate line without blushing.

Barbagelata and  Quentin Kopp were notable exceptions. Barbagelata, when he was elected supervisor, even refused to go downtown to the election night parties and staged his own party in his West Portal real estate office and made the statement that there was a big difference between neighborhood and downtown issues.

Sean Elsbernd, my current supervisor, is good on some issues, shows some independence on occasion, and comes to the phone and answers emails and comes to the Guardian for interviews. In fact, I was emailing back and forth with him on Tuesday afternoon over my annual holiday card (and my note to “fear the beard in 2011″) shortly before the historic board meeting on the interim mayor. I asked him why he wasn’t more visible in West Portal and that I didn’t see him in the Manor coffee shop (he replied he was a Village Inn type of guy) and that I didn’t see him at Que Syrah, our local Best Of wine tasting gem. (He said he and his wife had gone to Que Syrah over the holidays but they were closed.) I explained that proprietors Stephanie and Keith McCardell had taken a week off.)

Anyway, a few hours later, Sean “mysteriously” nominated Ed Lee, the CAO traveling in Hong Kong, to take on the key city post of interim mayor. How in the world did this happen?

Was Sean once again demonstrating he was a neighborhood guy out in West Portal, but at City Hall the mayor’s go-to -guy in the smelly deal to preserve the mayor’s office and take control of the Board of Supervisors for PG@E and the mayor’s downtown allies?

So I sent him an email with my questions as his constituent. And I invited him to come as guests of my wife Jean and I for the Thursday night special at Que Syrah (230 West Portal Ave), with flights of small production wines and tapas by Val, styled in wondrous Barcelona fashion. I gave him a deadline (noon today) to answer my questions and I invited him to comment on my Bruce blog or send me a letter or email that I would be happy to publish on my blog. Stay alert for news on what my West Portal supervisor is really up to at City Hall.

To Sup. Sean Elsbernd:

You baffle me once again.

I am curious, as a constituent,  why you nominated Ed Lee for interim mayor when he was (a) out of town in Hong Kong, (b) not publicly “out there” or “in public discussion” as a candidate or even known by the supervisors to be a legitimate candidate, (c) has not publicly stated his views on any of the major tough issues coming before the mayor, (d) was not available for questioning by the board when the discussion and vote came down, (e) is not as qualified for t his tough post in these tough times as the other public candidates, and (f) was obviously part of a backroom deal orchestrated by Mayor Newsom and his downtown allies?

I wait patiently  for  your reply.  And I hope you drop by Que Syrah Thursday night,  for tapas and wine flights, so you can explain personally  to the West Portal throngs what you are really  up to at City Hall these days. Jean and I will be there to host you.

Respectfully, Bruce B. Brugmann, 2262 14th Ave, West Portal

Backroom Ed Lee mayoral deal raises suspicions

Sasha Cuttler
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11

Last night’s dramatic eight-hour Board of Supervisors meeting, at which six supervisors suddenly came together around naming City Administrator Ed Lee to succeed Gavin Newsom as mayor, was a classic case of backroom dealing making, the full results of which the public still doesn’t know. And it is those unknowns that have progressives rightfully pissed off and distrustful of the choice.
On the surface, both Lee and the progressives’ preferred pick, Sheriff Michael Hennessey, are similar figures who fit Newsom’s demand for a nonpolitical caretaker mayor. He has publicly said both would be acceptable, and both have some impressive progressive credentials as well.
Lee was a civil rights attorney who help run the Asian Law Caucus before being hired by then-Mayor Art Agnos as an investigator for whistleblower complaints, and he’s worked for the city ever since, serving as executive director of the Human Rights Commission and director of the Department of Public Works. Newsom moved him in the powerful post of city administrator in 2005 and he was recently approved for a second five-term for that job, unanimously approved by the Board of Supervisors.
Sup. Bevan Dufty and other supervisors had even talked to Lee about being interim mayor, and he has consistently said that he didn’t want it – until a couple days ago. That’s when Newsom and the fiscal conservatives on the board suddenly coalesced around Lee, who apparently changed his mind while on a trip to China, from which he is scheduled to return on Sunday, although that might be moved up now that the board has delayed the vote choosing him until Friday afternoon.
That delay was won on a 6-5 vote, with moderate Sup. Sophie Maxwell heeding progressive requests for an opportunity to at least be able to speak with Lee before naming him the city’s 43rd mayor. “I don’t think we should make such a decision blindly,” Sup. John Avalos said.
It was a reasonable request that neither the fiscal conservatives nor Board President David Chiu, the swing vote for Lee in what his progressive supporters angrily call a betrayal, would heed. And the question is why. What exactly is going on here? Because it’s not just progressive paranoia to think that a deal has been cut to maintain the status quo in the Mayor’s Office, as Newsom’s downtown allies have desperately been seeking.
Just consider how all of this went down. Sources have confirmed for the Guardian that Chiu met with Newsom at least twice in recent days, and that Newsom offered Chiu the district attorney’s job, hoping to be able to put a fiscal conservative into the D3 seat and topple a bare progressive majority on the board. Chiu reportedly resisted the offer and tried to influence who Newsom would name to succeed him, and we’ll find out as soon as today who the new district attorney will be.
Closed door meetings also apparently yielded Lee as Newsom’s choice for successor mayor, with both Chiu and Sup. Eric Mar initially inclined to back Lee, who would be the city’s first Chinese-American mayor. After pushing his colleagues for weeks to name a new mayor, Daly tried to thwart the Lee pick by initially seeking a delay, then finally persuading Mar to go with Hennessey as his first choice.
“Politically, he will work for the other side, my progressive colleagues,” Daly said at the hearing, calling it “the biggest fumble in the history of progressive politics in San Francisco.”
As the deliberations began, Mar called Lee his mentor at the Asian Law Caucus and someone whom he respects, but that he preferred to keep Lee in his current post and to support Hennessey, who got five votes on the first round, while Lee got four, including Chiu.
Dufty – who said that he would be supportive of Hennessey for mayor – and Sup. Sophie Maxwell abstained from voting for anyone during the first round. On the second round, Maxwell went with Lee, leaving Dufty as the kingmaker. But rather than decide, he asked for a recess at 8:45 pm, and he and Maxwell went straight to Room 200 to confer with Newsom.
When the board reconvened, Dufty announced his support for Lee. Dufty denies that Newsom offered him anything, but he did confirm that Newsom indicated a preference for Lee and a willingly to help Lee return to his current post next year, which requires some tricky maneuvering around city ethics laws. Similarly, Chiu denies that his support for Lee was anything less than his unconditional preference.
But it’s hard to know. After weeks of Newsom playing games with leaving the Mayor’s Office to assume his duties at lieutenant governor (a stand egged on by his downtown allies and Chronicle editorial writers), it seems likely that Lee has given them some kind of assurance that he won’t rock the boat or side with board progressives on key issues.
Some progressives aren’t ready to accept that Lee will be our next mayor, believing that Chiu, Dufty, or Maxwell can still be shamed into changing their minds, but that seems unlikely. Instead, progressive Sups. John Avalos, David Campos, and Ross Mirkarimi just want to talk to Lee and they hope to be convinced that he’ll work cooperatively with the board and not simply be a Newsom puppet.
“I have been open and I remain open to supporting Ed Lee,” Campos said in support of the motion to continue the meeting to Friday at 3 pm, the day before the new Board of Supervisors is sworn in.
But he and the other progressives are openly questioning the Lee power play. After all, Campos said, his nomination of Hennessey was already an olive branch to Newsom’s side, saying he wasn’t the progressives’ first choice but simply the most acceptable from Newsom’s list. “It was in the spirit of one side of the political spectrum saying to the other side, ‘We want to come together,’” Campos said.
Instead, it was a backroom political deal with carried the day, a deal that Chiu went along with.
“I feel amazingly betrayed right now,” Jon Golinger, Chiu’s campaign manager, told us after the meeting. “It’s a shock…Process-wise, Ed Lee came out of nowhere.”
And that’s antithetical to the progressive values on transparency and public process. So now, it’s up to Lee, Chiu, and the other involved in this deal to fill in a few of the many blanks, and to assure the public that this choice is in the best interests of the whole city.

Dufty the swing vote — and talking to Newsom

Zelda Bronstein
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5

The Board of Supervisors has gone into recess with a split vote on either Ed Lee or Mike Hennessey as interim mayor. One supervisors have voted no on both nominees — and now holds the power to decide who the next mayor will be.

And Bevan Dufty, the wing vote, along with Sophie Maxwell, was just seen walking into the mayor’s office.

Not the way anyone thought this would come down; David Chiu wasn’t even nominated, and Art Agnos, who at one point looked close to the magic number of 6, only got 3 votes. It’s going to be close, with all the conservative supervisors voting for Lee and all the progressives except Chiu voting for Hennessey. It’s entirely possible that we’ll have at least a prospective new mayor tonight — that is, if Newsom ever decides to leave town.

 

 

Alerts

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0

Alerts are compiled by Nicole Dial and Jackie Andrews

alert@sfbg.com

FRIDAY, JAN. 7

 

Noam Chomsky interview

Pick the brain of linguist and author Noam Chomsky as Wild Wild West Radio hosts an interactive cyber-convo with the influential professor and political dissident. Listeners may phone in questions or chat with Chomsky online for a unique, collective experience.

3 p.m., free

Wild Wild Left Radio

www.wildwildleft.com

 

San Francisco Bike Party

The new year brings a new kind of mass bicycle ride, one a bit more civilized than Critical Mass. Join the inaugural San Francisco Bike Party, a new monthly ride that begins at AT&T Park and follows a planned route through the city, obeying most traffic laws along the way. But it will still be a rolling party, complete with a mobile sound system and three party stops for dancing and socializing along the way.

7:30 p.m., free

Giants Stadium, Willie Mays Gate

www.sfbikeparty.org

SATURDAY, JAN 8

 

Board of Supervisors swearing-in

Members of the newly elected Board of Supervisors take their oath of office, followed immediately by the election of a new board president, who could also become acting mayor once Gavin Newsom is sworn in as California’s new lieutenant governor. Or if Newsom resigns by then, the board could also directly select a new interim mayor. It promises to be high political drama under the dome.

Noon, free

Room 250, City Hall

1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Dr., SF

www.sfbos.org

 

Writers with Drinks

Writers with Drinks mixes genres and authors and throws in a dash of alcohol. It’s more than just a reading series, it’s also a celebration of performers, intellectuals, and writers from all over. This month it features writers Jane Wiedlin, Ethan Watters, Jesús Ángel García, and Blake Charlton. More good news: proceeds benefit the Center for Sex and Culture. 7:30 p.m.; doors open at 6:30 p.m.

$5 to $10, sliding scale The Make Out Room 3225 22nd St., SF www.writerswithdrinks.com

SUNDAY, JAN. 9

 

Found the Free University of SF

Matt Gonzalez, Alan Kaufman, and others are forming the new Free University of San Francisco, and they want public input. Organizers ranging from political activists to poet laureates will put on a public meeting to discuss plans for the university. The Free U aims to promote free higher level education for anyone who wants it. Future plans include a weekend-long teach-in Feb. 5–-6. Come down and help promote and organize free education. 10 a.m., free Viracocha 998 Valencia, SF 415-573-5766

 

Guantánamo Means Torture

Attend a public planning meeting for the national demonstration scheduled for Jan. 11 against the continuation of Guantánamo Bay’s detention facility. World Can’t Wait hosts the meeting here in San Francisco, and then travels to Washington, D.C., with Witness Against Torture, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and other activists to demand an end to the horrors of Guantánamo. 2:30 p.m., free Mechanics Library 57 Post, 415 864 5153

sf@worldcantwait.org

Jerry Brown wants to eliminate Redevelopment

Mary Magee
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10
Jerry Brown wants to eliminate Redevelopment

Calitics reveals today that newly sworn-in Gov. Jerry Brown told the Sacramento Bee that he’s proposing to eliminate local redevelopment agencies as part of a set of austerity measures that he is proposing in a purported effort to shock folks into approving new revenues

Brown’s shocking proposal got me calling tenants rights activist Calvin Welch and Arc Ecology executive director Saul Bloom, who both have strong and well- informed views on what’s up with local redevelopment agencies and how they could be improved. And interestingly neither Bloom nor Welch was in favor of eliminating redevelopment.

Welch, who hadn’t yet had time to read the article when I called him, actually laughed when I outlined Brown’s basic idea, which admittedly is big on shock value and thin on explanations, at least at this point.
‘That would be very interesting, but the devil’s in the details.” Welch observed, noting that voters just approved Prop. 22 in Nov. 2010 to prevent the state from taking city redevelopment money to balance the budget in Sacramento. (Unfortunately, Prop. 22’s passage still doesn’t protect San Francisco from having its budget raided by the state, since it’s defined as both a city and a county.)

“That’s an astounding idea,” Welch added, trying to wrap his mind around Brown’s out-of-the-blue proposal. “Because in San Francisco, there are redevelopment areas, including Bayview Hunters Point, Mission Bay and the Transbay Terminal, that have already been authorized for another 25-30 years.”

“Perhaps the language would be ‘no new redevelopment’ but I don’t know how you would do that,” Welch added, noting that Brown has not only been governor before, but was also mayor of Oakland. (During his term as mayor, Brown was credited with starting the revitalization of Oakland but was also accused of being more interested in downtown redevelopment and economic growth than political ideology.)

Welch noted that San Francisco was fortunate in being able to reshape its Redevelopment financing arrangements in 1990 under then mayor Art Agnos.

“It was probably the most progressive and long standing reform of Art Agnos’ administration—and no one understands it,” Welch said. As Welch tells it, when Agnos came into office, he inherited a city that had been bankrupted by a decade of mayor Dianne Feinstein’s business-friendly policies, much like how San Francisco has been milked in the past decade by Newsom’s business-friendly policies.

“Redevelopment doesn’t pay its way in the post Prop. 13 world,” Welch stated. “Under Mayor Gavin Newsom, we’ve had the most market rate housing produced and the biggest deficits in what was a real estate collapse, as part of the collapse of the economic markets. And under Mayor Feinstein’s 10-year rule, we saw massive amounts of commercial office space built that never paid its way, leaving Agnos with a $103 million deficit.”

Welch notes that Agnos also inherited a huge homeless crisis (something Welch says Feinstein was in denial over) and that Agnos sought to reform Redevelopment in large part as a way to address the city’s growing lack of affordable housing. “Art basically said, let’s take a look at tax increment financing,” Welch said, referring to a tax financing arrangement, under which a municipality can a) do an assessed value of an area before redevelopment takes place, b) estimate what that same area’s local taxes would be after redevelopment, and c) borrow money against the incremental difference between a) and b).

“Art said, ‘I want to do that and I want to use the hundreds of millions of dollars available through redevelopment for affordable housing,’” Welch recalled. He noted that Agnos succeeded in his mission by shifting the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency’s mission from ‘urban renewal’ (which had negative connotations following the displacement of African American and other low-income communities from the Fillmore in the 1960s) to ‘community development,’ making Redevelopment subject to the same budgetary process as other departments, and insisting that 20 percent of tax increment financing dollars be devoted to affordable housing.
“But we said, ‘no, 50 percent has to be devoted to affordable housing and Art agreed, and that’s been the case since 1990,” Welch recalled. “And since then our Redevelopment Agency has been the principal source of affordable housing revenue in San Francisco.”

So, in another words, the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency is pretty much alone in the state, in terms of devoting half its tax increment financing revenues to affordable housing. But by the same token, San Francisco’s Redevelopment Agency is pretty much alone in the state in terms of not being governed directly by a city council or a county Board of Supervisors. Instead, it’s governed by a Commission, whose members are appointed solely by the mayor . And therein lies the problem, Welch says.
‘It would only take six votes on the Board of Supervisors, or eight votes to override a mayoral veto, to change that,” Welch observed.

But to date there haven’t been eight votes to do that, even with a progressive Board.
Welch believes the problem is that supervisors, who currently each only have two legislative aides, fear swampage from Redevelopment responsibilities.
“To contemplate taking over a multibillion dollar agencies and taking on the likes of Catellus with only two staffers, well it’s a recipe for disaster,” Welch said, acknowledging that additional reforms, including splitting appointments on the Redevelopment Commission between the mayor and the Board, or allowing the Board to hire additional legislative staff to work on redevelopment issues, could solve the problem.

Bloom, who recently sued after the Redevelopment Commission threw his non-profit under the bus, said his non-profit’s recent experience perfectly illustrates why and how Redevelopment should be reformed, rather than completely eliminated.
“Redevelopment is a process that has been much abused, so it’s easy to say, let’s get rid of it, but I’m not there, ”Bloom said, noting that his beef has been with the way his non-profit was treated by Redevelopment Commissioners, rather than Redevelopment staff.
“But I do believe there needs to be a modification of the process, in which redevelopment is put in the hands of an entity that is answerable to the public.”

Bloom believes this modification could be achieved by making the Board of Supervisors the governing body of the Redevelopment Agency, which is already the case in almost all municipalities in California.
“Give that role to the Board of Supervisors because you can fire your supervisor,” Bloom said, noting that currently there are no limits on how long individuals, who are appointed by the mayor, can serve on the Redevelopment Commission. ‘If you give that role to the supervisors, they will be able to utilize more staff to become better Board members. So, this is an opportunity to increase people’s participation in the process.”

Meanwhile, it’s possible that Brown’s threat to eliminate Redevelopment will be like the time Warren Buffett, who’d just been announced as then newly elected Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s financial adviser, caused a brou-haha when he threatened to reform that even holier of cows, Prop. 13.

 

Backroom meetings precede today’s mayoral succession vote

Sasha Cuttler
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12
Backroom meetings precede today’s mayoral succession vote

There’s been a flurry of political speculation and backroom discussions leading up to today’s final meeting of the current Board of Supervisors, which is scheduled to consider appointment of a successor mayor to Gavin Newsom starting at 3 p.m., despite Newsom’s refusal to vacate the office and assume the duties of lieutenant governor as he was supposed to yesterday.

After Kamala Harris took her oath of office as attorney general yesterday, Newsom now has the power to appoint a new district attorney, which he’s likely to wrap into his efforts to thwart progressive supervisors from appointing an interim mayor of their liking. So all eyes are on Newsom, as well as Board President David Chiu, and sources tell the Guardian that the two men met this morning behind closed doors.

Could Newsom appoint Chiu as the new DA in exchange for his support on naming a moderate as caretaker mayor? That possibility has progressives bristling with anger and privately threatening to aggressively go after Chiu if he cuts that kind of deal. The other way that Chiu might earn the progressive wrath is if he cuts a deal to become interim mayor that involves lots of support from the moderates.

But it’s also possible that most board progressives would back Chiu for interim mayor, although Sup. David Campos has so far been the most reluctant among progressives to support Chiu, who generally votes with progressives but who has cut a few high-profile deals with Newsom. Sup. Chris Daly told us that he will nominate Aaron Peskin for interim mayor today and Sup. Ross Mirkarimi is backing Art Agnos, who appears to have five votes but probably not six. The moderates are likely to push for Sheriff Michael Hennessey, although Newsom’s stated hope that the board consider his Chief of Staff Steve Kawa is a fantasy that only Newsom is seriously entertaining.

So far, Chiu and his people have been playing their cards fairly close to their vests, so it will be high drama going into today’s meeting. But what happens today is anyone’s guess, with the possibilities ranging from a deal to name a new mayor and DA to another anticlimactic punt of the decision on to the next board, which will be sworn in this Saturday.

Stay tuned.

Progressive supervisors block mayoral appointments

Sasha Cuttler
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15

UPDATED: Progressives on the Board of Supervisors have finally started to push back on Mayor Gavin Newsom for his petulant refusal to vacate Room 200 unless his conditions for choosing a successor mayor are met, with the Rules Committee today blocking nine [UPDATE: seven] of 10 of the mayor’s committee and commission appointments.

Led by Sups. David Campos and Eric Mar, the three-member committee has been voting to continue consideration of the appointees to a future date at the discretion of Chairman Campos, even those who they voice support for. But they are trying to force a more equitable approach to governing the city during this transition period. The meeting is ongoing at this writing and can be viewed live here.

The one exception so far has been San Francisco Public Utilities Commission appointee Vince Courtney, with Mar and Campos voicing the urgency of filling the appointment on a body that is now moving forward Clean Power SF and other important initiatives. But they have blocked the appointment of Andrew Wolfram, Richard Johns, and Karl Kasz to the Historic Preservation Commission, Harry Kim and Herb Cohn to the Relocation Appeals Board, Florence Kong to the City Hall Preservation Advisory Board, Leona Bridges to the Municipal Transportation Agency Board of Directors, and Michael Kim and Leslie Katz to the Port Commission.

Former Sup. Amos Brown lashed out at the move, telling the committee, “I’m appalled to witness what’s happening here.”

But progressives have been equally appalled at Newsom for delaying today’s scheduled swearing in as lieutenant governor, reportedly to Jan. 10 after the new board is sworn in, and for demanding that the supervisors guarantee him that they will only support one of his preferred moderate caretakers for the interim mayor position. Newsom’s office did not return a Guardian call for comment on today’s meeting.

UPDATE 1:25 PM: After hearing more than an hour’s worth of testimony in support of Bridges, the committee unanimously voted to recommend her nomination to the MTA, citing that agency’s urgent need for a nominee from the African-American community who has a strong financial management background. The full board will consider her nomination tomorrow.

UPDATE 2:20 PM: Shortly before adjourning, the committee also unanimously recommended Katz be appointed to the Port Commission, saying that agency urgently needs another good appointee, although Mar indicated he didn’t think Kim was right for the position and that nomination was continued.

Out with the old

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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6
Out with the old

On the chilly morning of Dec. 21, a crowd of prominent local and state figures huddled in an industrial parking lot overlooking the brick smokestack of the Potrero power plant, which has been in operation for more than 40 years. It was the winter solstice, the morning after a lunar eclipse, and an historic environmental moment for San Francisco.

A longstanding battle to shut down the aging, polluting power plant was finally coming to an end, and it would be effectively shuttered as the calendar flipped to the new year. Although the past decade had been marked by political infighting and a relentless push to persuade the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) to shut it down sooner, the tone that day was buoyant as people made the rounds, embracing one another and offering congratulations and thanks.

Among those who lined up before the media were Mayor Gavin Newsom, who will be sworn in as lieutenant governor in early 2011; Sup. Sophie Maxwell, whose 10 years on the Board of Supervisors is coming to a close; City Attorney Dennis Herrera, who’s thrown his hat into the mayoral race; and San Francisco Public Utilities Commission General Manager Ed Harrington, whose name has been floated as a contender for interim mayor.

Each of these local politicians played a role in the contentious battle to close the plant, and each candidly admitted that shouting matches on the subject had erupted over the years. Yet they all expressed thanks to one another and to community members in the Potrero Hill, Dogpatch, and Bayview/Hunters Point neighborhoods, where residents were most directly affected by the noxious air pollution generated by the plant.

“They say it takes a village to raise a child. Well, it takes a state and a city to close this power plant,” said Maxwell, whose District 10 includes the neighborhoods affected by the power plant. “I started working on these plants when I took office, and now the plants are leaving with me.” Maxwell was credited with displaying dogged persistence and playing an instrumental role in pushing for the shutdown the plant.

“There were a lot of phone calls, there were a lot of arguments, there were a lot of disputes. But the fact of the matter is that everybody was focused on the same goal — and that was getting this plant shut down,” said Herrera, who has also been a key player in the decade-long fight to shut down the plant.

Newsom sounded a similar note. “I want to compliment everybody for their steadfastness and their devotion to this process,” the mayor said. “We didn’t always necessarily agree.”

Joshua Arce, who worked with community members to shut down the plant as part of his work with the Brightline Defense Project, was clearly pleased by the announcement. “It’s a fantastic day. We’re at last going to see the billowing smokestack come down, and for good,” Arce said.

The shutdown finally came to pass because the CalISO, which regulates the state power grid, was willing to accept new energy system upgrades as sufficiently reliable. For years, despite the community’s insistence that the plant was having an unacceptable impact on public health and disproportionately affected low-income communities of color, CalISO refused to terminate a contract requiring the plant to stay in operation for grid-reliability purposes.

However, new pieces to the city’s energy puzzle were recently fitted into place. The Trans Bay Cable, a 53-mile submarine power line that can transmit 400 megawatts of electricity from a Pittsburg generating station to San Francisco, became fully operational Nov. 23, months behind schedule. Meanwhile, a Pacific Gas & Electric Co. re-cabling project deemed important to San Francisco’s electricity reliability was completed Dec. 5.

“This plant has been part of the reliable supply for San Francisco … for a long time. And more recently, it actually provided the security for San Francisco should anything happen outside of San Francisco,” Yakout Mansour, president and CEO of the CalISO said during the shutdown ceremony. “But the time is here to replace the plant with an alternative to make the city more secure and reliable with much less polluting options.”

The CalISO issued a letter to the plant owner, which recently merged with another company and changed its name from Mirant to GenOn, stating that the must-run agreement would be terminated effective Jan. 1. The date of the final termination is Feb. 28, pending approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).

Now the major question is what will become of the power plant site, a vast strip of industrial real estate wedged between Illinois Street and the waterfront. “Many ideas have been thrown out there. People have come to us and said everything from office and industrial and research and development, to wind turbines,” noted Sam Lauter, a local spokesperson for GenOn. Lauter noted that community meetings would be held soon to discuss the future site use.

The site was previously owned by PG&E, and the utility is responsible for cleaning up lingering toxic residue including lampblack, a byproduct of coal processing, left behind when PG&E sold the site. Because of the pollution, residential units cannot legally be constructed on the site, even after cleanup.

There is one unfortunate consequence to shuttering the plant. According to plant manager Mike Montany, five or six of the 28 employees of the plant will lose their jobs. The rest will either retire or go to work at a new facility, he said.

While San Francisco will be poised to ring in the new year with improved air quality thanks to the elimination of its last polluting energy facility, residents of the area where the city’s power will now be sourced from won’t be so lucky. They are faced with the construction of two new power plants. The undersea Trans Bay Cable will run from the PG&E’s substation in San Francisco — a humming network of cables and transformers located beside the power plant that will stay put after the shutdown — to a generating station in Pittsburg, located in the delta near the confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers.

GenOn owns the Pittsburg power plant, and it recently held a groundbreaking ceremony for a new power plant in neighboring Antioch, called Marsh Landing. At the same time, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) recently gave the green light for another new power plant in that area. The $1.5 billion PG&E facility would be located in Oakley, which borders Antioch. It won commission approval Dec. 16, despite an earlier decision rejecting the proposal.

The plans for new power plants were approved just after the conclusion of an important United Nations convention on Climate Change in Cancún, Mexico, and amid news reports highlighting scientists’ conclusion that polar bears have a shot at survival only if serious efforts are taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. While the cheerful ceremony to shut down the Potrero power plant was a satisfying conclusion to a long battle, there’s a long road yet ahead in the overarching struggle against climate change.

Alerts

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0

steve@sfbg.com

FRIDAY, DEC. 31

 

Critical Mass

Pedal your way toward a strong finish of 2010 by taking part in Critical Mass, a monthly San Francisco tradition for more than 15 years. As always, this leaderless group bicycle ride follows no set route and obeys no traffic laws or authorities, except yielding to pedestrians and emergency vehicles. This month, a group of anarchists (marked with black flags or other variations on that theme) plans to end up in the Mission District liberating a public space for a DIY New Year’s Eve celebration, so look out for that if that’s your bag.

6 p.m., free

departs from Justin Herman Plaza

Market and Embarcadero, SF

www.sfcriticalmass.org

MONDAY, JAN. 3

 

The next mayor?

In order to finally facilitate a public discussion of who San Francisco’s next mayor should be and how the prospective nominees would run the city, the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club is sponsoring a forum for mayoral hopefuls. Club members have been concerned about the lack of public process for replacing Mayor Gavin Newsom (see “Mayoral dynamics,” Dec. 22), so they’ve invited the top candidates — including former Mayor Art Agnos, Sheriff Michael Hennessey, SFPUC head Ed Harrington, and others — to share their vision for 2011 and beyond. The event is cosponsored by SEIU Local 1021 and moderated by Guardian Executive Editor Tim Redmond.

6 p.m., free

SF LGBT Center

1800 Market, SF

www.milkclub.org

TUESDAY, JAN. 4

 

Newsom’s last stand

Join the outgoing San Francisco Board of Supervisors for its final scheduled meeting — and the final opportunity for the current board to select Mayor Gavin Newsom’s successor before the newly elected board takes over Jan. 8. At press time, Newsom was still threatening to delay his Jan. 3 swearing-in as California’s new lieutenant governor to prevent the current board from replacing him, so come see how that drama plays out and weigh in with your thoughts.

2 p.m., free

Room 250, City Hall

1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Dr., SF

www.sfbos.org

WED. JAN. 5

 

Chris Daly Roast

We don’t usually list events for the following week’s paper, but this is one that lovers and haters of outgoing Sup. Chris Daly — which pretty much describes most San Franciscans — will want to mark on their calendars. The classic roast features John Burton, Aaron Peskin, Carolyn Tyler, and Dan Noyes, with Mistresses of Ceremonies Melissa Griffin and Beth Spotswood.

8 p.m., $20 (benefits St. James Infirmary ), or $5 after 10 p.m.

The Independent

628 Divisadero, SF.

Mail items for Alerts to the Guardian Building, 135 Mississippi St., SF, CA 94107; fax to (415) 437-3658; or e-mail alert@sfbg.com. Please include a contact telephone number. Items must be received at least one week prior to the publication date.

 

Trash talk

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Trash talk

sarah@sfbg.com

The fate of the city’s mountains of garbage — 1,400 tons a day — will be decided some time in the next few months. Maybe.

Two competing proposals for hauling away the trash have been up for consideration since last spring. But the San Francisco Board of Supervisors still doesn’t seem to know which alternative is better, and the board still hasn’t scheduled a hearing on the issue.

Waste Management Inc. has the current contract and trucks waste to the Altamont landfill. Recology now wants to ship the garbage by rail three times as far away, to the company’s Ostrom Road landfill in Yuba County (“A Tale of Two Landfills,” 06/15/10).

David Assmann, deputy director of San Francisco’s Department of the Environment told the Guardian that his department asked for a hearing in October on its proposal to award the contract to Recology when the city’s contract at Altamont landfill expires in 2015.

“But that hearing request got delayed,” Assmann said. “With a new board, new committees, and maybe new chairs of committees coming in January, I’m not sure when the hearing will take place,” he added. “But I’d be surprised if it’s before Jan. 15.”

Sup. David Campos told the Guardian he still has many questions about the contract. “I don’t know if it’s the correct way to go at this point,” he said. “I’m trying to figure it out.”

That sentiment seems to be shared by Sups. John Avalos and Eric Mar, who took a road trip earlier this year to see both landfills. And some local waste management experts have suggested that Recology’s plan would be greener if the city barged its trash to Oakland, then loaded it onto trains, instead of driving it across the Bay Bridge.

Assmann acknowledged that the barging question keeps coming up, but said would be cost prohibitive since trash would have to be loaded and unloaded both sides of the bay. “It would be horrendously expensive, so it’s not a likely option unless folks want their rates to go up dramatically.”

And now Yuba County officials are rethinking how much to charge the city to dump it waste in their rural county’s backyard. Yuba County Supervisor Roger Abe told the Guardian his board has asked the county administrator to look into the process for raising disposal fees at Ostrom Road.

“We’re supposed to receive a report on that, plus parameters on what you can change,” Abe said, noting that fees at Ostrom Road were set at $4.40 per ton in 1996. “So it’s a 14-year-old fee. Clearly, the cost of living is a lot higher now. And when the landfill was established, it was only serving Yuba County. But now it’s being touted as a regional landfill, an approach that is depleting our county’s ability to dispose of its own trash. So if people outside the county are using our landfill, they should be paying more.”

But Assmann doesn’t think the rate hikes would torpedo the city’s plan. “Whichever one of the two landfills is chosen can always opt to raise fees. But that would also impact the fees of local residents, so it’s a self-inhibiting factor,” he said.

“And who knows the implications of Prop. 26 on this,” he continued, referring to the statewide proposition voters approved in November that requires a two-thirds supermajority vote in the state Legislature and at the ballot box in local communities to pass fees, levies, charges, and tax revenue allocations that previously could be enacted with a simple majority vote.

“But even if the fees double in Yuba County, they’ll still be less expensive that at Altamont,” he said. “So our recommendation is to go forward with the Ostrom Road landfill proposal.”

Abe agreed that Prop. 26 could have an impact on the fee-raising process. “But I find it difficult to believe that Yuba County would have a problem raising fees on out of town garbage,” he said. “If I had a choice, I’d say no to Recology. But if it’s coming anyway, I know that $4.40 per ton is not going to be sufficient compensation — and this county is desperate for funds.”

DoE director Melanie Nutter has claimed the Recology contract is environmentally friendlier and could save ratepayers $125 million over the life of the contract. “This is a good deal for San Francisco and for the environment,” Nutter stated when DoE was pushing for a board hearing in October. “Ostrom Road is a state-of-the-art facility that employs industry best practices, and the price is dramatically lower than the competition. This will help us maintain reasonable refuse collection costs as we move toward zero waste.”

The landfill disposal contract is for 5 million tons or 10 years, whichever comes first. DoE predicts that this amount will decrease in the coming years because of prior success in waste prevention, recycling, and composting programs. San Francisco already recycles 77 percent of its waste stream, the highest diversion rate of any city nationwide.

But Abe notes that Waste Management proposes to use methane generated from trash disposed at its Altamont landfill to power its liquid natural gas trucks. “I can’t see how using trains would be greener,” he said.

Recology spokesperson Adam Alberti has told the Guardian that Recology’s waste disposal contract was environmentally superior, in part because San Francisco has mandatory composting legislation that reduces the amount of decomposing organics, a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, being sent to landfills. But Irene Creps, who has homes in San Francisco and Yuba County, pointed out that not all municipalities disposing trash at Ostrom Road have mandatory composting laws, which means the landfill will continue to generate methane. “A lot of places around here only have a black bin,” Creps said.

Meanwhile, Waste Management has threatened legal action if San Francisco awards the contract to Recology, alleging that Recology’s bid was procured under flawed and potentially unlawful application of administrative rules. In a Nov. 9, 2010 letter, WM’s Bay Area Vice President Barry Skolnick urged San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors to “reject the award to Recology and avoid entering into a high-priced 10-year contract that is not even necessary until 2015, at the earliest, and to apply the procurement process to all qualified bidders fairly and consistently, as the law requires.”

The local trash controversy continues as a grassroots movement to stop Recology from expanding at the Jungo Road Landfill in Humboldt County, Nev., won an interim round. At a Dec. 20 meeting, Humboldt County commissioners voted 4-1 to reject a proposed settlement agreement with Recology that would have allowed the landfill to continue.

Get out of the way, Mr. Mayor

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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4
Get out of the way, Mr. Mayor

EDITORIAL Let us begin with the obvious: Mayor Gavin Newsom has absolutely no business deciding who should replace him. His petulant statements suggesting that he will delay taking office as lieutenant governor until the supervisors pick a candidate he likes are an embarrassment to the city. If he actually refuses to take the oath of office Jan. 3, when his term in Sacramento begins, it will damage his reputation and political career.

Newsom knew when he decided to seek higher office that he’d be leaving the city early if he won. He knew that under the City Charter, the Board of Supervisors would choose a new mayor. He knew that a progressive majority on the board was likely to elect someone whose political views differ from his. If he didn’t want that to happen, he should have stayed in town and finished his term.

Instead, his ambition and ego drove him to Sacramento, and he needs to accept that he is now out of the process. He should publicly agree to follow the state Constitution and join Governor-elect Jerry Brown for a timely swearing-in ceremony. Meanwhile, the supervisors need to make it very clear that they won’t accept this sort of political blackmail and will choose the next mayor on their own terms.

There’s only one more regularly scheduled meeting of the current board, on Tuesday, Jan. 4, the day after Newsom’s term as lieutenant governor begins. It’s unfortunate that the progressive majority on the board hasn’t been able to find a consensus candidate, and it’s appearing more and more likely that the next mayor will be a short-termer, a caretaker who agrees to fill out Newsom’s term. We’ve consistently argued that Newsom’s successor ought to be someone who can run for a full term in November, but there’s certainly a case to be made for the right person to take on the job for just 11 months. A progressive caretaker could fire all the failed managers left over (at high salaries) from Newsom’s tenure and make cuts to sacred cows like the police and fire departments without worrying about reelection. We’d still rather see a candidate with the courage and skill to make the tough choices and run in November on that record. But if that’s not possible, it’s important that an interim mayor be chosen carefully.

It’s also important that the progressive supervisors consider the long-term implications of their choice: If the next mayor only serves out Newsom’s remaining time, who’s going to run in November — and what will the interim mayor do to promote the prospects of a progressive candidate?

A number of names are floating around as possible caretakers, and several would do at least an adequate and perhaps an exceptional job. Former Board President Aaron Peskin has brilliant political instincts and knows how to run the city; he’s let us down on a few votes, but would work well with the progressive board majority. Sheriff Mike Hennessey is popular with the voters and has good progressive credentials (other than the move to privatize jail health services, which makes him somewhat unpalatable to labor), but he’s never faced anything resembling the political nightmare of the city’s current fiscal crisis. Sup. Ross Mirkarimi has a great legislative record and has hinted that he’d consider the job, but he still has two years to go as supervisor and would have to give up his seat and put his political career on hold. Former Mayor Art Agnos is the only one on the list who’s actually run the city at a time of crisis and would certainly be willing to make the tough decisions. If he could run an open office and listen to a diverse constituency, he might make up for the mistakes he made his first time in the job.

None of these candidates could do the job alone — and if they want to serve a short term as mayor, they need to start talking openly about it, explaining what their plans would be and give San Franciscans (and not just six supervisors) a reason to support them.

EDITORIAL: Get out of the way, Mr. Mayor

Maria Poblet
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36

 Let us begin with the obvious: Mayor Gavin Newsom has absolutely no business deciding who should replace him. His petulant statements suggesting that he will delay taking office as lieutenant governor until the supervisors pick a candidate he likes are an embarrassment to the city. If he actually refuses to take the oath of office Jan. 3, when his term in Sacramento begins, it will damage his reputation and political career.

Newsom knew when he decided to seek higher office that he’d be leaving the city early if he won. He knew that under the City Charter, the Board of Supervisors would choose a new mayor. He knew that a progressive majority on the board was likely to elect someone whose political views differ from his. If he didn’t want that to happen, he should have stayed in town and finished his term.

Instead, his ambition and ego drove him to Sacramento, and he needs to accept that he is now out of the process. He should publicly agree to follow the state Constitution and join Governor-elect Jerry Brown for a timely swearing-in ceremony. Meanwhile, the supervisors need to make it very clear that they won’t accept this sort of political blackmail and will choose the next mayor on their own terms.

There’s only one more regularly scheduled meeting of the current board, on Tuesday, Jan. 4, the day after Newsom’s term as lieutenant governor begins. It’s unfortunate that the progressive majority on the board hasn’t been able to find a consensus candidate, and it’s appearing more and more likely that the next mayor will be a short-termer, a caretaker who agrees to fill out Newsom’s term. We’ve consistently argued that Newsom’s successor ought to be someone who can run for a full term in November, but there’s certainly a case to be made for the right person to take on the job for just 11 months. A progressive caretaker could fire all the failed managers left over (at high salaries) from Newsom’s tenure and make cuts to sacred cows like the police and fire departments without worrying about reelection. We’d still rather see a candidate with the courage and skill to make the tough choices and run in November on that record. But if that’s not possible, it’s important that an interim mayor be chosen carefully.

It’s also important that the progressive supervisors consider the long-term implications of their choice: If the next mayor only serves out Newsom’s remaining time, who’s going to run in November — and what will the interim mayor do to promote the prospects of a progressive candidate?

A number of names are floating around as possible caretakers, and several would do at least an adequate and perhaps an exceptional job. Former Board President Aaron Peskin has brilliant political instincts and knows how to run the city; he’s let us down on a few votes, but would work well with the progressive board majority. Sheriff Mike Hennessey is popular with the voters and has good progressive credentials (other than the move to privatize jail health services, which makes him somewhat unpalatable to labor), but he’s never faced anything resembling the political nightmare of the city’s current fiscal crisis. Sup. Ross Mirkarimi has a great legislative record and has hinted that he’d consider the job, but he still has two years to go as supervisor and would have to give up his seat and put his political career on hold. Former Mayor Art Agnos is the only one on the list who’s actually run the city at a time of crisis and would certainly be willing to make the tough decisions. If he could run an open office and listen to a diverse constituency, he might make up for the mistakes he made his first time in the job.

None of these candidates could do the job alone — and if they want to serve a short term as mayor, they need to start talking openly about it, explaining what their plans would be and give San Franciscans (and not just six supervisors) a reason to support them. 

 

 

Does Mayor Newsom represent SF workers or San Mateo politicians?

Mary Magee
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2

“Does Newsom represent local workers or San Mateo politicians?” That’s the question being asked  at City Hall today. And it’s threatening to deliver an unwelcome kick to Mayor Gavin Newsom on his way out of City Hall’s revolving doors, as dozens of unemployed construction workers deliver 1,000 Christmas cards that residents of Bayview Hunters Point, Chinatown, the Mission, the Tenderloin and South of Market have signed. The cards urge Mayor Gavin Newsom to “put the Merry into Christmas and the Happy back into New Year” and sign local hire law that the Board passed a week ago.

This special holiday season delivery has been in the works since Dec. 14, when Bayview-based job advocates Aboriginal Blackmen United (ABU) tried to meet with Newsom and get his signature on legislation that a super-majority on the Board support.

But after Newsom was a no-show and his chief of staff Steve Kawa refused to give ABU any assurances, community advocates Brightline Defense Project printed up a thousand of the cards urging Newsom to “put the Merry into Christmas”. And Brightline, ABU, Chinese for Affirmative Action, PODER, and the A. Philip Randolph Institute then asked unemployed workers, activists, and concerned citizens to sign this unusual set of greeting cards.

The move comes a day after the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to urge Newsom to veto Avalos local hire policy. Local hire advocates suspect this counter-move was orchestrated to give Newsom political cover, should he choose to make the seemingly Scrooge-like move of vetoing, just before the holiday season, legislation that would help San Francisco residents secure work on billions of dollars worth of local tax-payer funded construction projects .

But the San Mateo supervisors claim that San Francisco’s plan, which would mandate that 50 percent of workers on city-funded projects are local residents, threatens to hurt an already sluggish regional economy.

“This is not the time to put isolation around a community,” San Mateo Sup. Carole Groom reportedly said at a hastily convened Dec. 21 special session.
 “If this is rejected, it would be time for all of us to sit down and talk about this,” fellow San Mateo County Sup. Adrienne Tissier reportedly said.

Newsom has until Christmas Eve to either sign or veto the law, though the Board can still override his veto, provided Avalos still has eight votes in the New Year. And if Newsom doesn’t sign or veto the law by week’s end, it will go into effect in 60 days.


San Mateo officials are arguing that the local hire legislation particularly impacts their county, because the law contains a “70-mile” clause that includes the San Francisco Airport, the Hetch Hetchy water system and the San Bruno jail.

Sup. John Avalos previously told the Guardian that project labor agreements protect workers at the airport and working on projects that the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission funds. But Tissier reportedly claimed that San Francisco’s local hire policy would kick in, once new contracts are negotiated.

Reached by phone, Avalos said it’s not clear if the San Mateo supervisors have actually read his legislation
‘If they had, they’d see a lot of ways that is supports San Mateo workers,” Avalos said.

San Francisco’s local hire legislation, which is the nation’s strongest, requires that 20 percent of workers within each construction trade be local residents starting in 2011. That number increases 5 percent annually for seven years, as local workers join trades where community representation is lacking, before reaching 50 percent. In other words, 80 percent of the workforce could be non-city residents in 2011, and even at 50 percent local hire, half of the jobs will still be available to workers who don’t live in San Francisco.
 
“That’s hardly an exclusion especially when you consider that San Francisco taxpayers are making the investments on these projects,” Avalos stated.
He believes that the San Mateo County Building Trades Council pressured the San Mateo Board to pass their Dec. 21 resolution urging a veto on his measure. Either way,  Victor Torreano, vice president of the San Mateo County Building Trades Council was quoted in media coverage of the Dec. 21 vote, saying, “the need for housing in San Francisco and the Peninsula make it impossible for many blue collar workers from sinking family roots in the area.”

Avalos acknowledges that San Francisco International Airport is in San Mateo County, and its workers understandably wants jobs there,
“San Mateo County has to put up with the sound of the airport, and its residents deserve to have jobs there, but this is much ado about nothing,” Avalos said. “But it’s the Building Trades that are uncomfortable with changing slightly their practices.”

Mike Theriault, Secretary-Treasurer of the San Francisco Building Trades Council, acknowledged that his group has never been pleased with Avalos’ legislation.

“But we are resigned to seeing how it plays out,” Theriault told the Guardian. “We think there are better things they could have done to guarantee access of San Francisco residents to careers in our trades.”

Theriault believes that Avalos may not understand the project labor agreement are of limited duration.
“So, they will require an extension of the existing labor agreement,” Theriault said,  noting the legislation states that future extensions would have to comply with the new law.

But Theriault acknowledged that with or without Newsom, Avalos’ legislation still has a chance to move forward.
“If he vetoes it, I understand that the Board will have another crack at it, Jan. 4,” THeriault said, referring to the current Board’s last meeting in January.
 
The Bay Area Council has also announced its opposition to Avalos’ legislation,
 “This troubling trend of intra-county battles being started by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors needs to stop,: Bay Area Council President and CEO Jim Wunderman said in a Dec. 21 statement. “The Bay Area is one regional economy, not nine island states. We need to focus on nurturing the fragile economic recovery in our region, not setting bad policies that pit county against county.  The Bay Area Council urges Mayor Newsom to veto this foolhardy piece of legislation.  Right now, we do not need any more incentives for businesses to leave any county, the Bay Area, or California.”

But advocates for the legislation note that the San Francisco Controller recently estimated that the law will pump $270 million into the local economy over the next 10 years. They hope Newsom will emerge from his warren-like office today and sign the law, delivering a historic Christmas present to the city’s growing ranks of unemployed workers.


But even if he doesn’t, Avalos isn’t sweating it.


“Newsom probably won’t sign it, and he’ll write a letter saying he’s opposed to it,” Avalos predicted. “And even if the new mayor is [SFPUC director] Ed Harrington, he’s been supportive of the measure. So Newsom has to answer his own conscience and ask himself, if he’s going to represent local residents or San Mateo politicians.”


According to Brightline’s Joshua Arce, ABU led about 30 to 40 workers from Bayview, Chinatown, and the Mission up to Room 200 today to drop off 1,000 signed  cards from residents in every neighborhood asking the Mayor to sign the community’s local hiring law by Christmas.
 
“Room 200 was locked, but we kept knocking,” Arce told the Guardian. “Eventually the doors opened and out came [Mayor Gavin Newsom’s chief of staff] Steve Kawa. We showed him all of the Christmas cards that we had for his boss and he thanked us. Ashley Rhodes of ABU explained that since we heard how much the Mayor liked the ABU holiday card last week, we printed up 1,000 more and got them signed by people from every community in San Francisco.”
 
“We asked where the Mayor was in terms of making his decision, he said that the Mayor was still studying all of the issues,” Arce continued. “He brought up the opposition from the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors, so we asked him to tell the Mayor to support us, the thousands of unemployed and job-hungry San Franciscans, over four San Mateo politicians.”
 
“Steve Kawa said that they will be working around the clock to make sure all concerns are addressed, and we showed Steve a card signed by Sup. Bevan Dufty just moments before we came upstairs,” Arce addded. “Sups. John Avalos and Eric Mar also signed Christmas cards to the Mayor.”

According to Arce, ABU left the two huge Santa bags full of cards with Kawa, who picked them up, commenting “These bags are awfully heavy.” 

“I asked him to make sure to tell his boss that the cards were printed on 100% recycled paper,” Arce concluded. “Let’s hope that Mayor Newsom puts the Merry into Christmas and the Happy back into New Year!”

Newsom’s delay tactic would create a legal mess

Sasha Cuttler
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22
Newsom’s delay tactic would create a legal mess

In this week’s Guardian, I lay out the latest political dynamics surrounding who will become San Francisco’s next mayor. But in reporting out that story, I stumbled across some interesting potential implications to Mayor Gavin Newsom’s petulant promise to delay his swearing in as lieutenant governor.

There is little precedent and scant caselaw on the legality of Newsom’s gambit, as most lawyers and political observers have said, so Newsom would be taking the city and state into uncharted territory just the deny his nemesis, Sup. Chris Daly, a chance to vote on the successor mayor. And it could backfire on Newsom.

For example, what if the excitement of returning to the governor’s office gives Jerry Brown, 72, a fatal heart attack after he and the rest of the state constitutional officers (except Newsom) are sworn in on Jan. 3? If Newsom had taken the oath of office as he was supposed to, he would realize his dream of becoming governor.

Instead, here’s what California Government Code 12058 says would then happen: “In case of vacancy in the office of Governor and in the office of Lieutenant Governor, the last duly elected President pro Tempore of the Senate shall become Governor for the residue of the term,” so Darrell Steinberg would become governor. Having covered Steinberg when I worked in Sacramento, I think he’d make a far better governor anyway, so this is probably a good outcome.

Here’s another unlikely scenario I like even better: what if Gov. Jerry Brown suddenly remembers all the nasty things that Newsom said about him while running for the Democratic Party gubernatorial nomination and declares the lieutenant governor’s office vacant because of Newsom’s no-show at the constitutionally mandated swearing-in ceremony and decides to appoint a grown-up to the office.

Newsom’s stand also carries risks for San Francisco, beyond just the sudden transfer of power that Newsom and moderate supervisors have already created. The City Charter calls for the newly elected Board of Supervisors to be sworn into office at noon on Jan. 8. But, as I’ve learned in interviews with officials in the Clerk the Board of Supervisors Office, there’s a strange quirk in the charter that makes it unclear who the president of the board is between when the new supervisors are sworn in and when they elect a new president, which is their first order of business.

After all, oftentimes the outgoing president isn’t even a supervisor anymore, as was the case two years ago when Aaron Peskin yielded his D3 supervisorial seat to David Chiu. This year, the Clerk’s Office says Chiu will preside over the Jan. 8 meeting for ceremonial reasons until a new president is elected (which could take minutes, hours, or days depending on a nominee’s ability to get six votes).

Now, under normal circumstances, the city would have a duly elected or appointed mayor during that transition period, so it’s not terribly important that there is a gap in who serves as president of the board. Even when the mayor moves on to higher office, as is the case this year, the City Charter calls for the president to serve as acting mayor until the board can appoint an interim mayor.

But because of Newsom’s extralegal meddling in city affairs after his scheduled departure, Chiu doesn’t become acting mayor as he should for those five days. So what happens if Brown has his sudden heart attack at 12:05 pm on Jan. 8 and Newsom, seeing that his stunt may cost him the chance to be governor, rushed to Sacramento to take his oath of office before Brown flatlines?

In that circumstance, the Mayor’s Office would be vacant and so would the board presidency, leaving San Francisco leaderless until the board can come up with six votes each for a new mayor and board president.

Now, is any of this likely? No, but this and lots of other hypothetical possibilities illustrate just how selfish and irresponsible that Newsom and the downtown-based instigators of this drama are being, despite their hypocritical public claims to caring about the city and trying to prevent political games.

But as Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters recently wrote: “It’s impossible to predict how Newsom’s power play will turn out. It’s a stormy beginning for his new career in state politics – but given the irrelevance of his new office, it may also be the high point.”

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