Board of Supervisors

Supes move to restore salary cuts to public health workers

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By Rebecca Bowe

On Sept. 15, 500 certified nursing assistants (CNAs) and clerical workers with San Francisco’s Department of Public Health received pink slips informing them that they would be declassified out of their current jobs, and rehired at lower-paying positions.

The difference in terms of job responsibilities is slight, but money-wise, the downgrades represent a $15,000 annual pay cut on average for CNAs, and a $5,000 annual pay cut on average for clerical workers. Many of the people affected by the cuts are single moms who make less than $40,000 per year, so the income loss is significant.

At yesterday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, Sups. John Avalos and Chris Daly each pitched ideas that could bump those public health workers’ salaries back up. Avalos’ proposal would bolster the front-line workers’ salaries by skimming some excess from higher-ranking city jobs.

“Before cutting vital city services, if the city is going to reduce the wages of city workers, we should first look to those who have the most, not those who have the least,” Avalos said.

“Last year, a Controller’s report revealed that the city has become increasingly management-heavy, and revealed that over the last few years, MEA [Municipal Executive’s Association] has grown from around 700 positions to nearly 1,100 positions. After some scrutiny, it became clear that most of those new positions were actually mid-managers being promoted up from Local 21 to MEA positions. Many of these mid-managers received substantial wage increases, ranging from as much as $20,000 to $40,000 annually. In short, they were reclassified up.”

He then announced his request to the city controller to draft an annual salary ordinance, which would reclassify top management positions to free up enough funding to stop the demotions and wage reductions for the lower-paid Department of Public Health employees.

Mayor to ignore San Francisco’s wishes

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Text and images by Sarah Phelan

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Sups. David Campos, Ross Mirkarimi and Bevan Dufty shortly after they joined Board President David Chiu and Sups. John Avalos, Eric Mar, Sophie Maxwell and Chris Daly in amending the city’s sanctuary policy. Dufty has said that Mayor Newsom threatened not to endorse Dufty’s bid for mayor, if he supported the amendment.

Yesterday’s celebration of the Board’s veto-proof amendment of the sanctuary ordinance felt similar to the joy that surrounded the city’s decision to start marrying same-sex couples. Only this time, instead of leading the civil rights charge, Mayor Gavin Newsom appears to be opposing it, citing fears that the city could be sued.

Following the supervisors’ vote, supporters of the Campos amendment poured out of the Board Chambers, chanting “Yes we can,” in Spanish and English, and into the second-floor rotunda, joined by Sup. David Campos.

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Campos and immigration attorney Francisco Ugarte celebrate the Board’s historic Oct. 20 vote.

But even as Campos talked to the crowd about the importance of fighting for civil rights and against the slippery slope of a two-tiered system of justice, mayoral spokesperson Nathan Ballard appeared to be belittling the work of Campos and numerous civil and immigration rights experts, while vowing to ignore the Board’s amendment.

“The Campos bill isn’t worth the paper it’s written on—it’s unenforceable and he knows that,” Ballard told the Chron.
‘We are not going to put our law enforcement officers in legal jeopardy just because the Board of Supervisors wants to make a statement.”

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Ana Perez the director of CARECEN SF, shares her thoughts on the Board’s vote with the media.

But can Newsom selectively ignore laws that have been passed by a veto-proof majority of the Board, and have been vetted as being legally tenable by the City Attorney?

“I don’t know,” Campos told the Guardian. ” I’m still trying to figure out whether the mayor can do that. We’re going into uncharted legal territory.”

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A crowd of supporters, including civil rights experts, immigration attorneys and community leaders, gathered in the rotunda to celebrate, even as the Mayor’s Office announced it intends to ignore the Board’s sanctuary amendment.

Board changes sanctuary policy to give kids day in court

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Text and images by Sarah Phelan

Civil rights groups celebrated today, as the Board of Supervisors amended the city’s sanctuary policy to ensure that immigrant youth get their day in court before being handed over to the feds for deportation.

Under the new policy, which Sup. David Campos, Eric Mar, Ross Mirkarimi, Sophie Maxwell, Chris Daly, John Avalos, Bevan Dufty and Board President David Chiu co-sponsored, juveniles won’t be handed over to federal immigration authorities unless they are found guilty of a felony.

That marks a shift from the draconian olicy that Newsom ordered last year, the day after he announced his gubernatorial run. Under that policy, kids were referred to the feds at booking, meaning US citizens and immigrants who hadn’t committed a felony could be wrongly deported.

A huge crowd, including immigrants, civil rights experts, teachers and local high school kids, cheered when Board President Chiu announced that the Campos amendment (so-called because Sup. David Campos spearheaded the effort to move this legislation) passed on its first reading

“This is really for our youth, for our kids, because they deserve nothing more, nothing less, than just full equality when it comes to how the law treats them,” Campos said after the vote.

“The fact that you’re undocumented doesn’t mean you’re not a person under the United States Constitution,,” he said. “ If we can’t stand up for the Constitution in San Francisco, then where can we stand up for it in this country?”

Campos worked for over a year to fashion today’s amendment, working with civil rights experts and immigration lawyers to come up with a proposal that City Attorney Dennis Herrera has deemed legally tenable.

Mayor Gavin Newsom’s office vowed today to ensure that probation officers aren’t forced to break federal law in order to abide by the Campos legislation.

But Campos said the city’s CEO can’t pick and choose which city laws to follow.
“We expect the mayor’s office to follow the laws of the city and county of San Francisco – that’s his job,” Campos said. . “If he refuses to do that, the board will have to figure out what our options are.”

Meanwhile, Juvenile Probation Chief William Siffermann said he can’t prohibit officials from reporting instances where there’s a reasonable belief that civil immigration laws have been violated.

Extended meter hours proposal gets heard today

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By Steven T. Jones

In a couple hours, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency Board of Directors will consider a controversial proposal to extend parking meter hours to evenings and Sundays, but it’s still unclear whether that body is inclined to take any action.

Alternative transportation and urban planning activists are excited about the chance to weigh in on a proposal that would raise nearly $9 million per year and begin to balance out the fare hikes and service cuts that Muni riders absorbed this year, while some motorists and business owners are likely to express their opposition.

Mayor Gavin Newsom has been expressing opposition to the item through the San Francisco Chronicle, but an item buried in yesterday’s Matier & Ross column seems to indicate that he’s backing off a bit, although they don’t seem to understand that this is a decision for the MTA board, not the Board of Supervisors.

As I’ve written before, this proposal will be a big test of whether the MTA board, whose seven members are all appointed by Newsom, is actually the independent agency capable of making tough decisions without regard to political consequences that the intent of 2007’s Proposition A, which gave them full authority over parking and public transit in San Francisco.

The meeting starts at 2 p.m. in City Hall’s Room 400, and the parking meter proposal follows a discussion of the agency’s deficit-plagued budget, appropriately enough.

P.S. Streetsblog SF has an excellent discussion of the proposal with parking guru Donald Shoup, who makes it clear why this study is so different for the meter rates increases in Oakland that caused such controversy.

Prop. D and privatization

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By Tim Redmond

Randy Shaw has a piece in Beyond Chron today that takes issue with our endorsement on Prop. D.

It’s a fair discussion and a reasonable debate — I understand why some progressives support Prop. D, and I don’t think they’re wrong or evil for doing so. This one’s a tough call — I’m willing to accept stuff like electronic billboards that I don’t want to see in most parts of the city if it will really bring new life mid-Market, which desperately needs investment and energy.

But Shaw’s piece brings up a larger issue, one that’s part of the topic of our anniversary issue next week, so it’s worth comment.

Here’s what he wrote:

The San Francisco Bay Guardian said many good things about Prop D, but urged a No vote after focusing on the CBD factor: “But the process this measure describes isn’t at all democratic. The CBD board selects its own members, and the only oversight the city has is the ability of the Board of Supervisors to abolish the agency.”

Of course, any funding allocation process used by Prop D could have been similarly attacked. Would the Guardian prefer that the Mayor’s Office allocate Prop D funds? If so, its editorial board should reread my pieces on the Newsom Administration’s rigged RFP/RFQ processes.

Hard to argue with that, on the surface: Yes, the bidding process out of the Mayor’s Office is fucked up. Yes, there is almost always some level of corruption at City Hall (any City Hall).

But that doesn’t mean that the private sector ought to take over thing like zoning and resource allocation.

Private nonprofits like the Central Market Community Benefits District play a role in the city’s life, and that’s fine. Some nonprofits (like the one Randy Shaw runs) get city contracts to do work the city can’t do very well, and that’s also fine.

But the public sector — however flawed, however corrupt at times — still has to have the final say over regulations and the way money gets spent on public services. That’s how democracy works.

I remember once when we were intervieweing a very appealing, smart and generally progressive candidate for city assessor a few years back, and we asked him how he would go about bringing in more revenue. He told us he wasn’t sure that was a good idea, because “Willie Brown and his friends will just waste it.”

True — Brown and his friends wasted a lot of money. And that kind of corruption in government has helped the right wing push its anti-public-sector agenda. And people who says that “at least Willie Brown made the trains run on time” miss the point – corruption undermines faith in government.

But overall, using that argument to push for privatization of public resources is a dangerous way to go.

Remember: The money that would be paid by billboard owners to the CBD amounts to a tax on the new billboards. That tax ought to be collected by the city, and elected city officials should decide how it’s spent. Proponents of the measure told us they didn’t want to let the supervisors hold hearings, write the legislation or put it on the ballot because the city would then have control over the final shape of the measure. For example, Sup. Chris Daly wanted much of the billboard money to go for low-income housing — which isn’t where the CBD folks wanted it to go.

Sorry, but that’s a decision for elected officials to make. I’ll support new billboards when I know that there will be a public process (and public-sector process) determining how the boards are sited, how they’re taxed and where the extra cash is spent.

Walker and Meko differ on Prop. D

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By Steven T. Jones

Proposition D – which would overturn the voter-approved billboard ban on Market Street between 5th and 7th streets as a means of raising money to rehabilitate the neighborhood – has divided the progressive community, a division that is also playing out in the District 6 supervisorial race to replace Sup. Chris Daly (who is neutral on the measure).

The two leading progressive candidates in the race, Debra Walker and Jim Meko, differ on the measure. Walker, an artist who serves on the Building Inspection Commission, supports the measure and has actively campaigned for its passage. Meko, who serves of the Western SoMa Citizens Planning Task Force, opposes the measure.

“Billboards aren’t a cure for blight. They are blight,” Meko said, noting that his opposition stems from property owner David Addington’s placement of the flawed measure on the ballot without a proper vetting process: “The special use sign district might be a good thing, but I’m offended at the lack of process.”

Walker said she shares some of the concerns about process and the flaws in the measure – such as the unchecked fiscal authority given to the self-appointed Mid-Market Community Benefits District board – but she thinks they’re easily mitigated by the Board of Supervisors and the measure brings needed revenue to the area: “At some point, you’ve got to try it and see what happens.”

Billboards and blight

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Billboards and blight

GREEN CITY David Addington presents a tempting vision for revitalizing the seedy mid-Market area, a kind of something-for-nothing deal that helps the children, property owners, and residents of the Tenderloin and relieves that burden from the cash-strapped city government.

All we, as San Francisco voters, have to do is accept a few new billboards, which voters banned in 2002 by passing Proposition G. Well, actually, more than a few. More like a cacophony of flashy and interconnected electronic signs and large billboards on top of the area’s 52 buildings. Proposition D, which Addington wrote and sponsors, would allow an unlimited number of business and general advertising signs along Market Street between Fifth and Seventh streets.

"I’m not afraid of signs," Addington says in his Southern drawl as we walk the neighborhood where he owns the Warfield Theater, the old Hollywood Billiards building, and the new Show Dogs gourmet hot dog joint next to the Golden Gate Theater, and where he seems to know everyone from scruffy street souls to his fellow business people.

As Addington points out, this is the most dilapidated stretch of Market Street, rife with vacant storefronts and cheap retail outlets, but bordered by U.N. Plaza on one side and the bustling Westfield Mall and Powell Street cable car stop on the other. It’s a two-block stretch that is neglected and ignored by much of the outside world.

"To change that, you’re going to have to make a dramatic visual presentation," Addington said, laying out a vision of a glitzy, twinkling theater district that lights up the neighborhood and beckons visitors. And the kicker is that by doing so, advertisers would pour millions of dollars of revenue into improving and promoting the neighborhood.

Property owners would get most of that money: 60 percent for most of them, but 80 percent those with street-level theaters, museums, or other interactive uses. "The idea is to create more ground-floor entertainment uses," he said, which, in turn, would liven up the neighborhood.

The rest of the money — and all the sign permits and approvals — would be controlled by the Central Market Community Benefits District (CBD). Some of the money would go to things like a ticket kiosk, some to creating a master plan for the neighborhood, some to beautification programs, and some to youth programs in the Tenderloin, which Addington has used as a major selling point for Prop. D.

"This measure will change the lives of the kids of the Tenderloin next year," said Addington, whose money and vision have garnered significant support from across the political spectrum, including a majority of the Board of Supervisors, much of it locked down before most people even saw the measure coming.

But opponents say problems with the measure go far beyond just accepting billboards as the answer to blight, which is a tough enough sell in sign-wary San Francisco. They note that the measure for the first time usurps city authority over permits and gives it to a CBD, which profits from the signs and has no incentive to put the brakes on. Further, the vaguely written measure has no guarantees for how the money will be spent, or if the kids will indeed get any of it.

"We definitely need to do something about Market Street, but Prop. D isn’t the thing," said Tom Radulovich, executive director of Livable City and the measure’s chief critic. "It’s very disturbing for those of us who believe in public process."

The Planning Department also raises concerns. Planning Director John Rahaim wrote in a scathing July 24 memo that the measure creates vague structures and logistical difficulties and tries to regulate sign content and delegate city authority in ways that may be illegal.

"Such unprecedented delegation of power to a private entity may create the risk of legal liability for the city. Moreover, because of the new powers that would be assigned to the CBD, concern regarding the CBD’s membership, decision-making process, and accountability are apparent," he wrote.

Radulovich also takes issue with Addington’s contention that the measure is needed to restore the luster of the once-vibrant theater district. "There’s no legislative reason to do this if it’s theater marquees you want," Radulovich said. "Prop. D is really about big billboards on the tops of buildings."

New coach, new approach

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New coach, new approach

news@sfbg.com

The chief was running late. As a group of Guardian reporters filed into his modest, comfortable conference room on the fifth floor of the Hall of Justice, an aide told us that Police Chief George Gascón was still meeting with Mayor Gavin Newsom at City Hall, and that we’d all have to cool our heels for a while.

While we were waiting, Michelangelo Apodaca, a public affairs officer in the chief’s office (he called himself an “image strategist”) stressed the recent sea change at SFPD, labeling it “new coach, new approach.” (It appears, however, that the mayor is still pushing his so-called “quality of life” agenda. “I just came from a meeting where I got beat up for not doing enough about public drinking and public disorder,” the chief belatedly told us.)

But once we got into the interview, Gascón was friendly, candid, thoughtful, and accommodating, and spent nearly an hour discussing his philosophy of law enforcement, his vision for San Francisco, and his positions on some tricky and divisive problems.

We left with the impression that the new chief, although hardly in agreement with us on a number of issues, is far more open than his predecessor, willing to shake things up in the moribund department — and sometimes, interested in discussion and compromise on progressive concerns.

“My philosophy of policing is very heavy in community involvement, very transparent,” Gascón told us.

Gascón said he’s moving quickly on implementing many of the items that he’s promised, such as creating a COMPSTAT (computerized crime and staffing statistics) system that will be accessible to the public. He plans to launch it Oct. 21.

And beyond the technology, he seems interested in shifting the top-down structure of the department. “I said that we would reorganize the department in certain levels and do certain levels of decentralization to increase resources at the neighborhood level so that we actually have people within the police department who have greater ownership of neighborhood issues,” he said. “And we’re going to do that in November. I stated that we would have community police advisory boards at each of the stations, and those basically will be neighborhood-level people, anywhere from 10 to 20, for each station. We’ll work with our local captains on neighborhood-related issues.”

He said that improving how the department does community policing will have a two-fold impact. “One is, the cops get to understand better what the community really wants. The other is that the community gets to understand better what the resources really are.

“Everybody wants a foot-beat cop,” he continued. “Everybody wants a fixed-post cop. Everybody wants a cop in every bus. If we had 10,000 people, then perhaps we could fulfill all those wishes. The reality is that we don’t.”

 

EXPENSIVE CRACKDOWN

But the most tangible impact of Gascón’s tenure so far has been his crackdowns on drug-related activity in the Tenderloin, where more than 300 people at a time have been swept up in sting operations, and on marijuana-growing operations in the Sunset District, where 36 locations were raided (four of which Gascón said were discovered to be “legitimate” medical marijuana growers who had their crops returned by police).

The arrest surge generated a lot of positive press — but also is costing the city a bundle. Sheriff Michael Hennessey, who runs the county jail, told us that he had to reopen several jail housing units that had been slated to close to meet his budget for the current fiscal year. He said the average daily jail population in July was 1,861, but that it has risen to 2,146 in September, a 285 inmate increase.

If it stays at this level, Hennessey estimates that he’ll need up to $3.5 million in additional annual funding to house the larger population, as he indicated in a letter that he wrote to the Board of Supervisors last month, letting them know that he will probably need a supplemental budget appropriate this year.

When we asked Gascón whether affected city agencies — including the Sheriff’s Department, District Attorney’s Office, and Public Defender’s Office — should increase their budgets to deal with the SFPD’s new approach, he said they should.

There’s a touch of the corporate manager about Gascón. When we challenged him to defend the efficacy of the crackdowns, Gascón pulled out a pen and paper and started drawing a Venn diagram, with its three overlapping circles. He explained that many criminal justice studies have shown that about 10 percent of criminal suspects commit about 55 percent of the crime, that 10 percent of crime victims are the targets of about 40 percent of crimes, and that crime is often concentrated in certain geographic areas.

By concentrating on the overlap of these realms, Gascón said police can have a major impact on crime in the city. Although Gascón admits that “police can never arrest themselves out of social problem,” he also said “there are people who do need to be arrested … Most of the arrests are for serious felonies.”

It’s a potentially tricky approach — in essence, Gascón is saying that when you mix some people and some places (in this case, mostly people of color and mostly poor neighborhoods) you create crime zones. The difference between that and racial profiling is, potentially, a matter of degree.

But Gascón defended the surge in arrests over the last two months as targeting those who need to be arrested and, just as important, sending a message to the greater Bay Area that San Francisco is no longer a place where open-air drug dealing, fencing stolen goods, and other visible crimes will be tolerated.

“We need to adjust the DNA of the region,” he said.

And while Gascón said the arrest surge might not be sustained indefinitely, he also frankly said that the city will probably need to spend more money on criminal justice going forward. In other realms of the recent crackdown, such as the police sweeps of Dolores Park and other parks ticketing those drinking alcohol, Gascón said that was more of a balancing act that will involve ongoing community input and weighing concerns on both sides of the issue.

It was when we pushed for the SFPD to ease up busting people in the parks who were drinking but not causing other problems that Gascón told us that the mayor had a different opinion and had been chiding his new chief to be tougher on public drinking.

In light of several recent shootings by SFPD officers of mentally ill suspects, we asked Gascón whether he’s satisfied with how the department and its personnel handle such cases. He didn’t exactly admit any problems (saying only that “there’s always room for improvement”) but said he was concerned enough to create a task force to investigate the issue last month, headed by Deputy Chief Morris Tabak.

When we asked if we can see the report on the 90-day review, Gascón didn’t hesitate in answering yes, “the report will be public.”

 

FIRE TEN COPS?

If Gascón follows through with his promises, internal discipline — one of the worst problems facing the department — could get a dramatic overhaul. The new chief wants to clear up a serious backlog of discipline cases, possibly by reducing the penalties — but claims to be willing to take a much tougher stand on the serious problem cases.

In fact, Gascón said he wants the authority to fire cops — that power now rests entirely with the Police Commission — and said there are eight to 10 police officers on the San Francisco force who should be fired, now, for their past record of bad behavior. That would be a radical change — in the past 20 years, fewer than five officers have ever been fired for misconduct, despite the fact that the city has paid out millions in legal settlements in police-abuse cases.

Gascón also discussed controversial legislation by Sup. David Campos that would require due process before undocumented immigrant youths arrested by the SFPD are turned over to federal immigration authorities, an amendment to the sanctuary city policy that was weakened by Newsom.

Just days after arrived in town, Gascón had made comments to the San Francisco Chronicle supporting Newsom’s position and saying that under Campos’ legislation, “drug or even violent offenders could be released by judges on reduced charges in lieu of reporting them for possible deportation.”

But in the interview with us, while not backing away from his previous statement, Gascón seemed to take a more nuanced position that pointed toward the possibility of compromise. He reminded us that he’d spent time in Mesa, Ariz., tangling with a county sheriff, Joe Arpaio, who has gone far beyond any reasonable standard in trying to arrest and deport undocumented residents. He also told us that he doesn’t think the cops, by themselves, should decide who gets turned over the feds for deportation.

That alone is a significant step — and suggests that Gascón could turn out to be one of Newsom’s best hires.

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GASCON ON IMMIGRATION

SFBG Are you still concerned about waiting for the courts to determine a suspect’s guilt before turning him over to the feds? Gascón Yes, it’s very much a concern. And by the way, I fully understand the concerns Sup. David Campos brings to the table.

I have the benefit of being on the other side also, where you have police agencies aggressively engaged in immigration enforcement, where people that frankly were not engaged in any criminal activity other than being here without authority — which sometimes, by the way, is not criminal. In fact, depending on whose numbers you listen to, anywhere from 30 to 50 percent of people who are here without authority in this country have not committed a criminal violation; they have committed an administrative violation.

And people get deported. I have seen very young people, people that basically came to this country when they were three, four years old, they are actually staying clean, they are going to school, and they get stopped for a traffic violation at age 17 or 18, and now all of a sudden they are getting deported to a country where they really have no roots at all. I have seen that, and I’m very sensitive to that.

On the other hand, I think it’s important also to recognize that in any group, whether you were here legally or not legally, whether you were born here or not, whether you are green, red, or brown, there are people that for a variety of reasons aren’t willing to live by the social norms we all need to live by to be able to have a peaceful environment.

I think that allowing the process to go all the way to the point where a judge decides whether to allow this to continue … is probably too far down the food chain for my comfort level. On the other hand, I would not want to have police officers on the streets stopping people and trying to assess whether they are here legally or not.

So I think we need to find somewhere down the middle, that if person is arrested, there is a non-law enforcement review. And quite frankly, probably the best person would be the D.A. They determine whether they have a prosecutable case or not. If it’s prosecutable case and a predictable offense that requires reporting, then that would be a good time where a flag could go up.

SFBG But that’s not the process right now.  Gascón No, the process now is triggered by the Probation Department, which is a law enforcement entity. So I think we have a process where law enforcement is making a decision and Sup. Campos is looking at a process of adjudication.

SFBG It sounds as if you agree substantially with Sup. David Campos. Is there room for compromise? 

Gascón I’m hoping there is room for compromise, that is something we’re trying to work with.

Sarah Phelan and Rebecca Bowe contributed to this report.

Endorsements

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Endorsements

San Francisco is facing the worst budget crisis in modern history. More than 1,000 employees, mostly front-line workers in the Department of Public Health, have been laid off, and the red ink continues. Yet the only measure on the November ballot that would raise any money for the city is Sup. Bevan Dufty’s plan to sell off naming rights for Candlestick Park.

That’s pathetic. During the summer budget discussions, Mayor Newsom vowed to work with business, labor, and the supervisors to come up with a reasonable plan to bring in some new cash for the city. But that collapsed — largely because state law would have made it hard to raise taxes this fall without a unanimous vote of the supervisors. And while eight members were willing to put a revenue measure on the ballot, the three supervisors closest to the mayor — Sean Elsbernd, Carmen Chu, and Michela Alioto-Pier, all Newsom appointees — refused to go along. And the mayor made only a weak effort to change their minds.

So while Democrats everywhere decry Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s insistence on a cuts-only budget, the Democratic mayor of San Francisco has forced essentially the same approach on this city. The only revenue increases we’re seeing are fees, like Muni fare hikes, that amount to taxes on the poor.

That’s the state of San Francisco as we head into what will almost certainly be a low-turnout election. Only two elected officials are on the ballot, and both are unopposed. Five ballot measures — several fairly significant — round out the local ballot. And with no big-name races at the top, they will win or lose on the votes of a small majority.

That’s too bad, because the issues matter. Vote Nov. 3 — and let’s hope next year’s ballot actually includes some new, progressive taxes.

OUR RECOMMENDATIONS


City Attorney

Dennis Herrera

San Francisco hasn’t always had a good track record with city attorneys. George Agnost, who ran the office in the 1970s and 1980s, was a dour, secretive, conservative lawyer who let downtown call all the shots. Louise Renne, who took over from Agnost, ran the office in the 1990s as if it was a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pacific Gas and Electric Co. Herrera, who took over in 2001, has been a major improvement. He’s turned the office into a modern operation, professionalized the administration, and taken on an activist role on consumer, environmental, and public-interest issues. He’s been a big supporter of marriage equality and of the city’s landmark health-care legislation. On his own initiative, he sued to end gender rating in health insurance and crack down on predatory payday lenders. He also moved to enforce health codes in housing and has been out front going after corrupt landlords like Skyline Realty.

We have some concerns about Herrera. Although he’s been far more sunshine-friendly than his predecessors, open-government activists are still sometimes forced to sue the city to get access to records. He won’t use his power as city attorney to enforce the Raker Act and bring public power to San Francisco. And during the current budget crisis, he cut the number of city attorney hours the supervisors can use to draft legislation.

And if, as rumored, he wants to run for mayor, Herrera needs to start taking public stands on major issues — like the unfairness of the local tax code and the need for new revenue.

But we’re happy to endorse him for another term.

Treasurer

Jose Cisneros

The incumbent treasurer is running unopposed, and we see no reason not to endorse him. He’s done some very positive things: Cisneros worked to get the big downtown law firms and other partnerships to pay their fair share of city taxes. He closed a tax loophole exploited by the big airlines that put up flight crews in local hotels.

He also convinced local banks and credit unions to accept consular identification cards to allow immigrants to open accounts and has pushed those institutions to offer "second-chance banking" to people with past credit problems. During his tenure, more than half of the 50,000 households in the city that lacked bank accounts have been able to get away from predatory check-cashing outfits and open legitimate accounts.

As an elected official, however, he could be doing a lot more. The city still keeps all its short-term accounts in one bank — Bank of America, which isn’t even local. Cisneros has promised to open that deal up to competitive bidding, but doesn’t have a timeline. And although nobody knows better than the treasurer how unfair and regressive the city’s tax codes are, he has never spoken out or offered any solutions. Cisneros says he wants his office to be apolitical, but city money is, by its nature, a political issue, and we’d like to see a little more leadership from the person who handles it. But overall, he’s a professional money manager who’s done a decent job and deserves another term.

Proposition A

Budget process

YES

We’re a little nervous about Prop. A, which would institute a two-year budget cycle for the city. Sup. Chris Daly, who opposes it, points out that the city controller’s budget projections are often wrong — badly wrong — and trying to plan 24 months ahead when economic conditions (and thus the city’s revenue stream) can change so quickly and unpredictably is a dangerous game.

But on balance, the approach in Prop. A makes sense. The budget debates would still take place every year, and the supervisors would still have to approve an annual budget — although the budget would be a rolling two-year projection. So next year, the board would approve a budget for 2010 and 2011, the following year for 2011 and 2012, and so on — leaving plenty of room for adjusting to meet economic changes. And two-year cycles might make it easier for nonprofits that rely on city funding to do some serious long-term planning.

Equally important, Prop. A requires the police and firefighters to negotiate their union contracts the same time the other unions do — before the budget deadline. The current system allows those unions to make demands that are unrelated to — and often outside — the current year’s budget realities.

Every progressive on the board except Daly supports this, and Sups. Alioto-Pier, Elsbernd and Chu oppose it.

Proposition B

Board of Supervisors aides

YES

This one’s a no-brainer. The City Charter mandates that each supervisor be allowed to hire two aides. The requirement dates back to a long-ago era when city budgets were far smaller, problems were less pressing and complex, and the supervisors worked part-time. It makes perfect sense to take such an archaic law out of the City Charter and allow the supervisors to set their own budgets — and staffing levels — the same way the mayor does. Vote yes.

Proposition C

Candlestick Park Naming Rights

NO

You have to give Sup. Bevan Dufty, the author of Prop. C, credit for trying. He’s looking for any angle he can use to help keep the 49ers in town, and allowing a corporate sponsor to pay for naming rights might possibly help cover the immense cost of substantially renovating aging Candlestick Park. And, like Prop. D (see below), this measure has a nice beneficiary: part of the money from naming rights would go to save the jobs of recreation directors, many of whom have faced budget-driven layoffs.

We agree that rec directors play a crucial role, particularly in neighborhoods with large numbers of at-risk youth. And we wish the Chamber of Commerce, Sup. Elsbernd, and other supporters of Prop. C were willing to accept some progressive tax hikes to fund those jobs.

But this isn’t a good deal. The city owns the stadium; the taxpayers financed its construction and spent 30 years paying off the bonds. But the 49ers, a private outfit owned by a very wealthy family, would get half the money from any naming deal. And the money that would come in would be radically short of what the team would need to rebuild the ‘Stick. Vote no.

Proposition D

Mid-Market special sign district

NO

Again: credit for the effort. David Addington, who owns the Warfield Theater and several other properties on mid-Market Street, accurately notes that the city’s main thoroughfare, between Fifth and Seventh streets, is rundown, ignored, and badly in need of an economic boost. He argues that allowing new digital billboards would create something of a Times Square in San Francisco, attracting tourists and turning mid-Market into a thriving theater district. Nothing else the city has done has worked — why not give this a try?

We aren’t necessarily opposed to digital billboards and we’d love to see mid-Market reinvigorated. But Prop. D would give too much authority to an unelected, unrepresentative group. It would amount to privatizing city planning and set a terrible precedent.

Under the measure, the Central Market Community Benefits District, a private group of property owners, organizations, and residents, would be authorized to approve new general advertising billboards as large as 500 square feet. The ads would have to meet city codes, but the Planning Department and supervisors would have no ability to block new installations. And the money — potentially millions of dollars a year — would go entirely to the property owners and the CBD, which would decide how to distribute it.

Yes, like Prop. C, this measure would help a worthy group: some of the new money would go to youth programs in the Tenderloin. But the process this measure describes isn’t at all democratic. The CBD board selects its own members, and the only oversight the city has is the ability of the Board of Supervisors to abolish the agency and start over.

We’re open to new ideas for central Market Street. We’re open to lights and ads and maybe even billboards. But we’re not willing to turn over zoning and public finance decisions to a private group. Vote no.

Proposition E

Advertisements on city property

YES

Proposition E, written by former Sup. Jake McGoldrick, would freeze new commercial billboards and ads on street furniture at 2008 levels and outlaw advertising on public buildings. It’s an extension of existing city policy, which seeks to limit the increasing blight of commercial ads in public space. Vote yes.

Newsom reneges on parking, but the MTA shouldn’t

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By Steven T. Jones
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The Guardian explored the politics of parking in our July 1 cover package.

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, which will soon consider a long-awaited study into how to generate more than $1 million in additional parking meter revenue that was part of a May budget deal, faces another test of whether it is truly an independent agency or merely Mayor Gavin Newsom’s puppet.

As the backlash over extended meter hours in Oakland caused the City Council there to cave in to driver and merchant demands, Newsom – who likes to dress in green but has never really challenged the dominant car culture’s sense of entitlement – has signaled that he now wants to break the deal he helped broker and stop meter hours from being extended.

But under 2007’s Proposition A, which Newsom supported, this isn’t a decision for either the mayor or the Board of Supervisors, but instead for the theoretically independent MTA board. In fact, the whole argument for that change was based on giving that body the power to do the right thing even when craven, conflict-averse politicians get cold feet.

“Any decision on whether to extend meter hours is under the SFMTA Board of Directors,” confirmed SFMTA spokesperson Judson True, who also said the study is almost complete and could be released as soon as next week. He said it is a “study of parking with a variety of factors that will determine whether extended hours is a good idea.”

Drivers and merchants may squawk over extending meters into the evening hours, but with the city failing to put general revenue measures on the ballot and motorists not even coming close to paying for their full impacts and use of public spaces, this is a basic equity issue.

Muni riders took the biggest hit in the May budget deal, with their fares doubling since Newsom took office. Unlike in Oakland, San Francisco is well-served by public transportation, so there’s no good reason why motorists need such fiscal coddling. Newsom may be afraid, but the MTA board shouldn’t be.

After the peak

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After the peak

news@sfbg.com

To prepare for the inevitable decline in fossil fuel production, San Francisco’s Peak Oil Preparedness Task Force (see "Running on Empty," 1/30/08) has concluded the city needs to rapidly implement the community choice aggregation and its related renewable energy projects, beef up "buy local" programs, convert unused land (including some park and golf course property) into public food gardens, and consider implementing city carbon, gas, vehicle, and fast food taxes.

The task force presented its findings, contained in a 125-page report, to the Board of Supervisors’ Government Audit and Oversight Committee on Sept. 24. It notes the city’s weak current position with respect to the economy, food security, and transportation, yet it remains to be seen how the Board of Supervisors will answer the task force’s call. Sup. Ross Mirkarimi says he will look for ways to initiate some of the short- and long-term recommendations "to legitimize its most salient parts."

San Francisco is the largest U.S. city to produce a sweeping report on the potential impacts of peak oil, a term that refers to the point of maximum oil production, after which extracting dwindling supplies gets steadily more difficult and expensive. Although there isn’t consensus on when the peak will come, the task force’s message is clear: action must be taken now. "The transition cannot be done quickly; the city faces a limited window of opportunity to begin, after which adaptation will become enormously difficult, painful, and expensive," concludes the report. Without sufficient preparation, dwindling supplies of oil and fossil fuel could have dire impacts on San Francisco’s economy, food supply, and security.

Many actions recommended by the task force focus on developing local sustainability. For example, disaster planning needs to cover peak oil phenomena. If delivery of food is delayed or reduced due to fuel shortage, food prices could soar, creating a great need for local options, particularly for low-income families. So the report recommends maximizing the amount of time San Francisco can sustain itself locally.

Specifically, implementing an aggressive "Buy Local First" program that prompts public institutions to purchase regionally produced food when possible would encourage more local food production. A fast food tax could further support this goal. Other recommendations include establishing food production education programs and conducting a comprehensive evaluation of which public lands could be converted to food production. Although the Bay Area is capable of producing enough food to sustain itself, food currently being produced is not diverse enough, and much of it is exported.

The report also warns of the social unrest that could result from improper preparation. San Francisco’s economy depends heavily on travel and visitors, with about 18 percent of city revenue coming from tourism. Escautf8g energy costs and its myriad impacts could send the economy into a prolonged downward spiral.

"With food becoming increasingly expensive, travel and the distribution of goods significantly affected, and unemployment climbing, economically vulnerable populations — including a high percentage of people of color — could experience increasing malnutrition, and some may not be able to maintain health without government intervention," the report reads.

Such future scenarios should affect today’s decisions in all realms, including transportation. Tom Radulovich, executive director of Livable Cities and an elected BART board member, said at the Sept. 24 hearing that it doesn’t make sense to fund highway expansions when future resources might not be able to support even the current number of automobiles on the roads.

In fact, he said, there is a cultural shift already underway in which people want to move away from the car-dependant suburbs and into more pedestrian-friendly urban areas, although policymakers haven’t caught up with this trend yet. While BART and Muni fight uphill battles to expand public transit service with dwindling resources, Radulovich pointed out that the Bay Area Metropolitan Transport Commission (MTC) is proposing to direct $6.4 billion toward highway expansion, despite a decline in vehicle miles traveled. Livable Cities coauthored a resolution, recently approved by the Board of Supervisors, urging the MTC to redirect these funds toward improving transit.

As oil becomes scarcer, the need to create and improve communities where people can safely get around by foot or bicycle will be paramount. Ben Lowe, a task force member specializing in transportation security, noted how important it is to look for regional solutions that go beyond individual cities. There is no magic single solution, but dealing with limited-supply and cost-prohibitive oil requires numerous small solutions as we make this transition.

The main obstacle, as Mirkarimi sees it, is that the sense of urgency is not there. Public officials need to educate the public and "to find something, key pieces of legislation, to rally around," he said. He plans to look into formal ways to keep the seven task force members involved in this process, for example, by matching them with policy experts who can facilitate creation of pertinent legislation.

The task force’s mantra for dealing with forthcoming shortages in oil is to integrate peak oil consideration into government planning and all the decisions made by the mayor and Board of Supervisors. Mirkarimi warns that it would be myopic for San Franciscans not to deliberate on the dangers and opportunities outlined in this report.

Read the report at www.sfenvironment.org/our_policies/overview.html?ssi=20.

Pushing back against Newsom’s leaked memo war

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Text and photos by Sarah Phelan

Remember how Mayor Gavin Newsom leaked a confidential City Attorney memo about the implications of Sup. David Campos’ proposal to extend due process to undocumented youth?

And how Newsom made everyone else wait two weeks before deigning to release said memo, even though he told the Guardian that he had every right to waive his attorney-client privilege and distribute the Campos memo to whomsoever he pleased?

Well, this week a number of folks are preparing to file complaints with the Sunshine Taskforce a) about the Mayor’s Office’s selective release of this memo and b) his office’s subsequent refusal to release any other communications related to the leak.

And today, a group of civil rights organizations released a legal brief that responds to City Attorney Dennis Herrera’s leaked memo on the city’s immigrant youth policy. (You can read the brief in full here.)

Also today, Sup. David Campos participated in a tele-press conference in which legal experts and professors explained why Campos’ proposed amendment, which has an Oct. 5 hearing before the Board of Supervisors’ Public Safety Committee, is legally tenable and defensible.

And along the way, Campos and these experts, who included Angie Junck of the Immigrant Legal Resources Center, Robert Rubin of the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights, Julia Mass of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Northern California, Professor Bill Ong Hing of UC Davis Law School and Angela Chan of the Asian Law Caucus, succeeded in debunking a number of myths about the Campos amendment.

As the brief explains, the Campos’ proposal, “will allow immigrant youth to have their day in court and be heard by an impartial judge, ensuring due process is upheld for all of San Frnacisco’s youth,” “ensure that families are not torn apart because a youth is mistakenly referred for deportation,” “encourage cooperation between law enforcement and immigrant communities by reestablishing a relationship based on trust and therefore increasing public safety,” “lessen the risk that the city will be liable for racial profiling, unlawful detention and mistaken referrals of U.S. citizens and lawful immigrants for deportation,” and “bring the city’s juvenile probation practices into compliance with state confidentiality laws for youth.”

And as today’s brief further explains, the Campos proposal won’t prevent referral to ICE of youth who have sustained felony charges and won’t put the sanctuary ordinance at risk.

“The sanctuary ordinance has stood strong for twenty years, and the proposed amendment strengthens the ordinance by taking steps to bring the city’s practices more into compliance with state juvenile justice law,” states the civil rights brief, which was prepared by the Asian Law Caucus, Legal Services for Children, Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, Immigrant Legal Resource Center, San Francisco Immigrant Legal & Education Network, and the San Francisco Immigrant Rights Defense Committee.

“In short, the legislation is a measured step in the right direction that will help restore accountability and fairness in the City’s treatment of immigrant youth.”

And as Campos told reporters today, his proposed amendment, “ is something we drafted very carefully in close consultation with the City Attorney’s office.”

Living with water

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rebeccab@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY Here’s a sobering thought: By the middle of the century, the waters of the San Francisco Bay could rise up to 16 inches. By 2100, in a worst-case scenario, the water level could creep up 55 inches higher, affecting some 270,000 people and placing economic resources worth $62 billion at risk.

These projections, which are potential consequences of climate change, are outlined in San Francisco Bay: Preparing for the Next Level, a joint report issued by the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) and a team of Dutch research and engineering firms.

The Dutch have centuries of experience with flood mitigation. The low-lying, flood-prone territory of the Netherlands, adjacent to the North Sea, has forced Dutch engineers to become well versed in utilizing dikes, levees, and other adaptive techniques to contend with sea-level rise.

Drawing on that expertise, the San Francisco Bay study serves as a wake-up call and the beginnings of a roadmap for the Bay Area, listing 60 possible measures for addressing what appears to be an inevitable rise in sea level. Ideas range from sturdy levees, to mechanical floodwalls, to innovations such as floating houses.

"Adaptation is essential because it’s really too late to stop climate change and sea-level rise," Will Travis, executive director of BCDC, noted at a Sept. 21 symposium held to discuss the study. "If we shut down all the power plants, turn off all the lights, and park all the cars today, it’ll still continue to get warmer for at least a half a century or more."

Even with the world’s flood-mitigation experts on the case, the scenarios are daunting — and the implications are only beginning to come into focus for policymakers, planners, and the urban populations who inhabit coastal territories.

Waves in the bay could swell to about 25 percent higher on average. Intense storms are also expected to happen more often. If the sea level rose one foot, for instance, a storm-surge induced flood that used to occur roughly once a century would instead happen once a decade. The changes would be accompanied by an air-temperature increase of more than 10 degrees by 2100 — the difference between a typical summer day and a typical winter day in San Francisco.

"The reality of sea-level rise needs to be taken seriously," San Francisco Board of Supervisors President David Chiu, who delivered remarks at the symposium, told the Guardian. Chiu represents San Francisco on BCDC, one of the few bodies that can bring multiple stakeholders from throughout the region under one tent to plan for sea-level rise.

If the sea level in the San Francisco Bay rose three feet, some critical landmarks — Treasure Island, AT&T Park, and San Francisco International Airport — would end up underwater unless mitigation measures were in place.

Treasure Island, the site of one of the largest redevelopment projects currently moving forward in San Francisco, was cited in the report as a case study "for how large-scale development projects can deal with rising sea levels." Project developers are looking at artificially increasing island elevation to accommodate a three-foot rise in water level, according to Jack Sylvan, director of joint development for the city’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development.

Plans also include creating a buffer between new construction and the high-water line, and leaving open the possibility of shoring up the perimeter if it’s necessary to prevent flooding in the future, he said. "The fact that it’s an island forces us to address the issue," Sylvan told the Guardian.

In the report, proposed strategies for coping with climate change were presented along a continuum. One end emphasized fortress-like solutions that would support economic growth alone, while the opposite end featured more ecologically-oriented ideas like retreating from the waterfront and allowing nature to take its course.

The guiding philosophy from the Dutch was that the best approach would be to find a middle ground between these two extremes, and tailor solutions to each individual coastal area. "You should not only fight water," advised Bart Van Bolhuis, of the Consulate General of the Netherlands. "We want to share with you how we’ve mastered living with water."

Remaking Market Street

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steve@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY Market Street is a mess that doesn’t work well for any of its users. In famously fractious San Francisco, that’s something politicians and citizens of all political stripes can agree on — and it’s now something that a wide variety of city agencies and interest groups have finally started to work on improving, experiment by experiment.

Mayor Gavin Newsom’s Sept. 10 announcement of a series of pilot projects on Market Street — including a plan to divert many automobiles from Market Street that begins Sept. 29, followed by creation of more sidewalk seating areas and art projects in the coming months — drew from work started a year ago by his arch-rival, Sup. Chris Daly, who in turn was furthering plans for an eventually carfree Market Street initiated by former Mayor Willie Brown.

"I’m glad that it’s going to get done and we’re going to take cars off of Market Street," Daly told the Guardian after Newsom’s announcement. Newsom presented the changes in grander terms, saying in a prepared statement, "The new and improved Market Street will rival main streets around the world."

Among the streets Newsom cited as an example is Broadway in New York City, "for piloting ways to use streets as open space," according to the Mayor’s Office statement. But while many San Franciscans like Broadway’s new separated bike lanes and street-level open space, others covet Broadway’s flashy electronic signs and billboards, which this November’s Proposition D would bring to the mid-Market area.

"The next thing is going to happen whether Prop. D passes or not," said David Addington, the Warfield Theater owner who proposed the measure to allow more commercial signage on Market between Fifth and Seventh streets as a source of revenue to improve mid-Market. "This area could be fantastic."

Indeed, it appears that Market Street is bound for some big changes. And unlike efforts in the past, which involved long studies of ideas that were never implemented, there’s a sense of experimentation and immediacy that marks the latest push.

"I’m very excited about the Market Street changes and I think it’s good for San Francisco to be in a mode where we give ourselves permission to experiment with our streets," said Gabriel Metcalf, executive director of the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association, which is supporting Prop. D and Newsom’s Market plans.

"I really appreciative that the city is willing to start things in Market Street in trial phases so we can wade in," said Leah Shahum, executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. "Reducing the number of cars on Market Street will definitely be a benefit for those walking and biking, as well as speeding up transit."

Plans call for signs encouraging eastbound motorists on Market to turn right at 10th Street before requiring them to do so at Eighth Street and again at Sixth Street.

The San Francisco Transportation Authority (governed by the Board of Supervisors), which prepared the study on diverting cars from Market Street, was also poised to approve (on Sept. 22, after Guardian press time) some complementary measures to "calm the safety zone" on Market Street.

That plan is to create better markings on the street to delineate the spaces used by motorists, pedestrians, and bicyclists, including colored pavement and moving back the points where cars stop at intersections to create safer access to transit stops.

Once the court injunction against bike projects is lifted — for which a hearing is set Nov. 2 — the plan would also create colored "bike boxes" at Market intersections and a buffer zone between the bike lanes and cars between Eighth Street and Van Ness. "It would be the city’s first separated bike lane, with very little work," Shahum said.

The Mayor’s Office says various city agencies will monitor and evaluate the Market Street pilot projects being implemented over the next year, with full implementation of a designed Market Street coming in 2013 after taking community input.

"We’re excited about it. There’s a long history of ideas about what to do about Market," said Judson True, spokesperson for the Municipal Transportation Agency, which is guiding the improvements. "This is the start of the next phase on Market Street."

Crunch time

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sarah@sfbg.com

The proposal by city officials and Lennar Corp. to build more than 10,000 new housing units at Hunters Point Shipyard/Candlestick Point is entering a critical phase, particularly for Bayview-Hunters Point residents who want greater oversight and scrutiny of the project.

Candidates are lining up to replace termed-out District 10 Sup. Sophie Maxwell next year; the project’s draft environmental impact report will be released, considered for approval and potentially challenged; and Lennar officials will seek to get the final development agreement with the city signed before Mayor Gavin Newsom leaves office in 2011, or earlier.

The 770-acre redevelopment plan, which the Mayor’s Office is touting as a shining example of a public-private partnership, has come under repeated attack from community advocates after Lennar’s failures to monitor and control toxic asbestos dust at the shipyard. The crash of the housing market and plunge in the company’s stock price also triggered concerns about the project.

And in light of the U.S. Navy’s recent decision to dissolve the Hunters Point Shipyard Restoration Advisory Board (RAB), the community is concerned that decisions about radiologically-affected dumps and the shipyard’s early transfer from the Navy to the city could occur without important public oversight.

Another aspect of the project — a proposal to build condos on 42 acres of Candlestick Point State Recreation Area — was criticized by the Sierra Club, Arc Ecology, and Friends of Candlestick Park. Lennar argued it was necessary for the project to pencil out and this sale of state land was to be authorized by Senate Bill 792, sponsored by Sen. Mark Leno.

In August, Leno secured the neutrality of the environmental groups and the support of the California Assembly (but not Assembly Member Tom Ammiano, the lone dissenting vote) for an amended version of his bill, arguing that selling 23 acres for $50 million would spare the rest of Candlestick Point SRA from being closed by budget cuts. The legislation now awaits Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s signature.

Now, with the project’s EIR due to be released Sept. 28, people have the chance to register concerns about plans for such a massive development project, which includes condos on the Bayview’s only major park and a controversial bridge over Yosemite Slough.

On Sept. 15, community members packed the Board of Supervisors’ meeting to demand an investigation into their concerns, which also include the apparent inability of Newsom’s African American Out Migration task force to issue its overdue final report about the ongoing exodus of the city’s black population, which this project could exacerbate.

Sup. John Avalos told us he is now gathering information on the issue and hopes to schedule Land Use Committee hearings on the shipyard cleanup and Lennar’s economic health. "The documentation gives real strength and power to the community’s contentions," Avalos said.

He also noted that Maxwell is scheduling a hearing into the dissolution of the RAB, while Sup. Ross Mirkarimi is resurrecting legislation that seeks to put the San Francisco Redevelopment Authority under the control of the Board of Supervisors.

Arc Ecology director Saul Bloom said his group will study the project’s EIR to see if it accurately assesses the effects of Lennar’s development.

"We are concerned about the impact of truck traffic, the bridge over Yosemite Slough, and whether the transportation plan is going to effectively put the Bayview between three freeways," Bloom said. "But we’re going to be even-handed. If the EIR does a good job, we plan to say so."

Jaron Browne of the Bayview advocacy group POWER (People Organized to Win Employment Rights) told the Guardian that her group wants the shipyard cleaned up and the community respected.

"This is not just a Bayview issue," Browne said. "The whole city will be affected by the decisions that take place in terms of the future of affordable housing and environmental protection."

Stopping PG&E’s fraudulent initiative

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EDITORIAL A ballot measure that could spell the end of public power in California is headed for either the spring or fall 2010 ballot — and so far, the opposition is missing in action. This is a profoundly important issue, and every elected official, city council, board of supervisors, and utility agency in the Bay Area needs to immediately come out in opposition and start organizing to defeat it.

The source of the proposition, of course, is Pacific Gas and Electric Co. PG&E is facing political wildfires all over the state as communities rebel against bad service and high rates. In Marin County, a community choice aggregation (CCA) plan is moving along, full speed. In San Francisco, CCA is a little slower, but still on track. These efforts could turn two of PG&E’s most profitable territories into public power beachheads. Meanwhile, in San Joaquin County, a public power movement is trying to take over part of PG&E’s service area, and PG&E just spent millions of dollars fighting a similar effort in Davis.

So the utility has decided to fight back — not just in the local communities where activists can beat PG&E back, or in the state Legislature, where the giant company has fewer and fewer friends, but with a ballot initiative that has a misleading name, a misleading political message — and tens of millions of dollars to back it up.

Signature-gatherers are out in force already, collecting names for a measure called "New two-thirds requirement for local public electricity providers." The paid petition crews are describing it as a "right to vote" measure, giving the public a chance to weigh in on government action.

What the measure would really do is require a two-thirds affirmative vote before any public power agency could add new customers, or any local agency could get into the power business. It would force the existing CCA movements to get two-thirds of the local voters to approve their efforts.

That’s an almost impossible standard — particularly when PG&E spends millions to block public power efforts everywhere they appear.

The two-thirds voting requirement is increasingly being assailed as undemocratic. The state Legislature has been paralyzed by its own two-thirds requirement for passing a budget, and there are multiple moves to reduce that threshold. The two-thirds mandate for passing local taxes has been widely blamed for driving cities and counties to the brink of fiscal ruin.

And yet PG&E is trying to add a new, crushing mandate — aimed entirely at snuffing out public power advances. The impact on the state will be enormous. As Megan Rawlins reports on page 8, high PG&E rates and the lack of public power cost the San Francisco economy alone as much as $2.8 billion a year. Multiply that by a factor of 10 or 20, and you see what a devastating financial blow this PG&E move would be to California’s crumbling economy.

So where, exactly, is the opposition?

Sup. Ross Mirkarimi called a meeting last week at the offices of the Utility Reform Network (TURN) to try to get other public power communities involved in a statewide campaign. But it’s been slow going.

That’s not going to work. Every elected agency in the Bay Area needs to get this on the agenda — now. Every city official (starting with Mayor Gavin Newsom, who wants to be governor) and every state official (starting with Attorney General Jerry Brown, who also wants to be governor) needs to loudly and publicly denounce this move, help establish a high-level coalition to beat it back, and start raising money for the campaign.

There may be a legal strategy, too. The law that authorized cities and counties to set up CCAs bars PG&E and other private utilities from interfering with local CCA efforts — and it’s pretty clear that this initiative is designed to do exactly that. City Attorney Dennis Herrera needs to immediately investigate the possibility of suing to get this disastrous initiative off the ballot. *

Editorial: Stopping PG&E’s fraudulent initiative

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Every elected official, city council, board of supervisors, and utility agency in the state needs to immediately come out publicly in opposition to the initiative and start organizing to defeat it. San Francisco elected officials, including City Attorney Dennis Herrera, need to lead the charge since San Francisco is the only city in the U.S. mandated by federal law to have public power (which it doesn’t have, thanks to PG&E’s corrupting influence through the decades.)

EDITORIAL A ballot measure that could spell the end of public power in California is headed for either the spring or fall 2010 ballot — and so far, the opposition is missing in action. This is a profoundly important issue, and every elected official, city council, board of supervisors, and utility agency in the Bay Area needs to immediately come out in opposition and start organizing to defeat it.

The source of the proposition, of course, is Pacific Gas and Electric Co. PG&E is facing political wildfires all over the state as communities rebel against bad service and high rates. In Marin County, a community choice aggregation (CCA) plan is moving along, full speed. In San Francisco, CCA is a little slower, but still on track. These efforts could turn two of PG&E’s most profitable territories into public power beachheads. Meanwhile, in San Joaquin County, a public power movement is trying to take over part of PG&E’s service area, and PG&E just spent millions of dollars fighting a similar effort in Davis.

Business as usual at City Hall this fall?

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Tuesday marked a return to business, as the Board of Supervisors reconvened after a month-long recess.
It also seemed to mark a return to business as usual on the part of those elected officials who occupy City Hall, including Mayor Gavin Newsom, and, of course, the folks who love to hate them.
starchild10.jpg
Outside, former D8 supervisorial candidate, Libertarian Party member and sex worker Starchild, tanned and stripped down to the waist, was demanding an audit of the federal reserve as outlined in H.R. 1207, and as part of the “Campaign for Liberty.”

Where would we be without rent control?

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news@sfbg.com

OPINION This year marks the 30th anniversary of rent control in San Francisco. On June 13, 1979, the Board of Supervisors passed a law that was seen by tenant activists as a fairly weak version of rent control. The supervisors were acting under pressure from landlords, who were lobbying them to hurry up and pass a law before the November election, when landlords feared San Francisco voters would enact a stricter version.

So the supervisors went with a middle-of-the-road measure, but its passage was still a milestone. Today, San Franciscans in rent-controlled apartments shudder to think where they would be without this basic protection. Many would be priced out of the rental market — and out of the city altogether.

The original legislation has been amended many times to limit annual rent increases, to expand who is covered by rent control, and to give increased protections from eviction to seniors, disabled people, the catastrophically ill, and long-term tenants. To curb the use of Ellis Act evictions by real estate speculators, buildings where seniors or disabled tenants have been evicted are now barred from condo conversion. In the past few years, we have worked to raise mandatory relocation payments for tenants, and added increased protections against landlord harassment.

Tenants are still being pressured to leave their apartments with supposed voluntary buyouts, a type of roulette in which speculators wave cash and tenants need nerves of steel to resist the threat of little money and no apartment — or more money and no apartment. But tenants keep organizing and holding on.

The San Francisco Tenants Union, Housing Rights Committee, St. Peter’s Housing Committee, Tenderloin Housing Clinic, and the Eviction Defense Collaborative all work with limited staff and many dedicated, inspiring volunteers to inform tenants of their rights and represent them when they need legal assistance. Tenants Together, founded last year, is now organizing tenants statewide and making progress all over California.

Sup. Eric Mar is sponsoring legislation that would give eviction protection to families with children — currently an endangered species in San Francisco. Study after study has shown the negative effect of evictions on families with children. More than half of all families with children in San Francisco live in rent-controlled apartments. A recent nationwide report named San Francisco as the major metropolitan area with the lowest number of children. In addition to tenants groups, a broad coalition of education and health groups have given their support to the Mar legislation. If you haven’t already done so, write or fax your supervisor in support of the legislation.

Meanwhile, come celebrate the 30th anniversary of rent control by stopping by one of our tenants rights counseling booths Saturday, Sept. 19 between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. (see www.sftu.org for locations). Get info on our reduced price anniversary memberships and commemorative t-shirts. Then join us back at 558 Capp St., the Tenants Union office, for a barbecue, raffle, and Tenants Hall of Fame festivities where we can all celebrate 30 years of fighting for safe, fairly priced housing.

Susan Prentice is a San Francisco Tenants Union counselor/activist.

Mayor’s Office releases memo, two weeks later

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Text and photos by Sarah Phelan

Gavin.jpg
How can someone this pretty play so dirty?

Two weeks have passed since Mayor Gavin Newsom told me in person that he had every right to waive the attorney-client privilege in giving a confidential memo to the Chronicle.

And today—two weeks and many requests later– the Mayor’s Office finally sent a copy of this memo, which outlines llegal issues in connection with Sup. David Campos’ proposed legislation to extend due process to undocumented youth.
Campos15%.jpg
Sup. David Campos at the Aug.18 rally in support of his legislation. That same day, Newsom, whose office sits directly above the rally, leaked the memo to the Chronicle. Two days later, Newsom claimed he waived attorney-client privilege, but he kept the rest of the media waiting two weeks before sharing the memo with anyone else.

I guess someone in the Mayor’s Office finally got the other memo from the City Attorney’s Office–the one in which the City Attorney explains how the attorney client privilege cannot be reasserted once it’s been waived.

“You cannot un-ring the bell” is how it was explained to me two weeks ago. And no one in the City Attorney’s Office has told me anything different since.

But in the last two weeks, it has became painfully clear that Mayor Gavin Newsom and members of his staff feel entitled to play favorites in their treatment of the media. That’s unjust and totally sucks, and here’s why:

Up until this moment, the only people who have seen the memo have been the Mayor, members of the Board of Supervisors—and reporters at the Chronicle.

As a result, the only interpretation of what this memo says has been the Chronicle’s. And their interpretation was an extremely negative assessment that included damning quotes from Newsom and seemed to amount to sending a free road map of how to sue San Francisco to any anti-immigrant rightwing nuts who have it in for our city and its progressive policies.

Newsom and the Chronicle are entitled to their opinions. But what Newsom is not entitled to do, once he claims he has waivered the attorney-client privilege, is make sure that no other media outlet has the opportunity to read the memo and then report on what it does and doesn’t say.

But now that I have the memo in hand, I can really see just how dirty Newsom is playing around immigration reform.

As Angela Chan, staff attorney for the Asian Law Caucus, puts it, “The gist of the City Attorney’s memo is that the City could get sued more by anti-immigrant groups. It doesn’t say the City would lose. San Francisco is at the forefront of the civil and human rights movement, which is why it rightly takes on these kinds of issues.”

And as Chan further points out, the City Attorney’s memo does not point out the legal risks that the City is taking by allowing undocumented youth to be deported without due process.

Maybe that’s because the City Attorney’s office, understandably, has little or no experience of immigration law.

But those concerns have been outlined in a 20-page brief by the Asian Law Caucus and four other civil rights’ groups that have tons of experience dealing with these issues.

Sadly, the Chronicle has only dedicated one sentence to what this civil rights brief says, even though it outlines legal issues that are just as important to the City’s fiscal and legal well being.

Reached by phone, Sup. David Campos told me today that the Aug. 18 memo about his legislation identifies the challenges that the City could face under federal law.

“But those are challenges that apply to the whole concept of sanctuary, period,” Campos said. “There’s nothing new here.”

“If anything,” Campos added, “my legislation is arguably more legally defensible, because it’s predicated on state law and its unique treatment of juveniles. So, I don’t think that the way the Chronicle characterizes [the Campos proposal] is accurate. They are making it sound like my legislation makes the sanctuary ordinance politically less defensible.”

As Campos notes, his proposal doesn’t protect undocumented youth , if the court decide to charge them as adults.
“If a youth is charged of something so heinous that court decides to charge them as an adult, then they will be reported to ICE right away,” Campos said. “We decided to have a very modest and conservative approach to address a lot of the public safety concerns that law enforcement would have.”

Campos is also bummed that the Chronicle has never bothered to point out that a lot of legal memos are written, particularly when the city is doing something new and edgy.

As for why Newsom’s decided to release the memo about Campos’ proposal, Campos opined “People are terrified of this issue, and I can see why. I get a lot of hate mail, and this is not a way to promote your political career.”

One last point for now: when I asked SFPD Chief Goerge Gascón’s press officer Sgt. Lyn Tomioka to verify quotes he reportedly made in the Chronicle’s Aug. 19 article, expressing concern that under the Campos legislation, “drug or even violent offenders could be released by judges on reduced charges in lieu of reporting them for possible deportation,” Sgt. Tomoika replied that she has “suggested and Chief Gascón has agreed to read the entire Supervisor Campos legislation, and then give a statement.”

I don’t know about you, but my reaction in reading this reply was to think that it was unfair of Newsom to ask the Chief to comment on a memo about a piece of legislation that Gascón had not yet read.

Gavin&Gascon15.jpg
Newsom and Gascón during the Chief’s Aug. 21 swearing-in ceremony.

Desperate measures?

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sarah@sfbg.com

A proposal to open the first desalination plant on the San Francisco Bay inched forward Aug. 18 when the Marin Municipal Water District (MMWD) board voted 4-0 to build a facility that would convert 5 million gallons of seawater a day into fresh drinking water.

It’s the latest chapter in a saga that has pit environmentalists, who see the plant as too energy intensive, against business and development interests, which fear the district is going to run out of water.

The plant, which is planned for a seven-acre shoreline plot in San Rafael and could be up and running by 2014, would cost an estimated $105 million to build and another $3 million to $4 million a year to operate. MMWD says it will fund the project using bonds and a $3 to $5 increase in monthly water bills.

MMWD Board President David Behar and directors Larry Russell, Cynthia Koehler, and Jack Gibson also approved $400,000 to cover permits and design construction of the new facility

The Aug. 18 vote took place with the five-member MMWD board short a director (former Board President Alex Forman died July 9). And it came after hours of public comment, with opponents arguing that desalination is too expensive, detrimental to marine life, and will release climate-changing gases.

"When you look at the bigger picture, it makes no sense," said Mark Schlosberg, California Director for the Washington, D.C.-based Food & Water Watch, an environmental advocacy group.

In June, Food & Water Watch’s James Frye released a report titled "Sustaining Our Water Future," which argues that MMWD could meet its future water needs by intensifying conservation measures and improving reservoir operations. Frye’s report also indicated that the water district overestimated its expected water shortfall because it based its calculations on high-use years.

But MMWD’s general manager Paul Helliker contends the report was not realistic. "They are talking about everyone, business and homeowners, cutting landscape water use by 40 percent. That’s a phenomenal cut," Helliker told the Marin Independent Journal at the time.

Others see desalination as a drought-proof way to satisfy projected population and economic growth.

"We’re concerned about bringing supply and demand into balance," Hal Brown, president of the Marin County Board of Supervisors, said during public comment.

"Under a severe drought, the economy will be impacted tremendously," said Bill Scott, business manager of the Marin Building Trades Council.

When the board ultimately voted to green-light the next steps in the desalination plant building process, they noted that they will explore the use of alternative renewable energy sources, including solar, wind, wave/tidal, or landfill gas, to power the plant. They also pointed out that when the next drought hits, Marin won’t be able to build emergency pipelines and negotiate for more water from the Russian River, which is what the county did during previous droughts.

Today, Marin County relies on seven small local reservoirs. The district contends that the new facility will be insurance against longer dry spells, which are anticipated due to global warming.

"This has been hard," Board member Cynthia Koehler acknowledged, addressing the riled-up crowd and noting that the district still has "a number of off-ramps."

The MMWD is already on the vanguard of conservation statewide, Koehler noted, observing that no water district achieves its conservation goals. "So I don’t think six years is rushing," he said.

"We will not build a desalination plant without the need," MMWD director Larry Russell told the crowd. "We are not fast-tracking this. But if a drought comes, we will."

"I’d be lying if I said I have no concerns about de-sal, starting with the energy," MMWD director Jack Gibson told the agitated crowd. "So, why am I not there with you? I view it as being prepared."

Recalling how attitudes changed overnight when the drought hit in 1976 and 1977, Gibson added, "If we have a serious water crisis, people are going to be clamoring for water. My concern is that the Russian River, as a fish habitat, will be gone."

With four of five seats up for election in November 2010 election, the composition of the board could change dramatically before the desalination plant’s fate is sealed.

Supes ask AG to drop last SF8 charges

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By C. Nellie Nelson

Late last week, three members of the Board of Supervisors signed a letter urging Attorney General Jerry Brown to drop the charges against the remaining defendant of the San Francisco 8. The letter, signed by Supervisors Eric Mar, John Avalos and Chris Daly, calls the prosecution misguided: “Based on ‘confessions’ and other testimony extracted by torture and denial of right to counsel, this prosecution has been a disservice to the people of San Francisco.” They point out that the case has cost the city millions of dollars already.

In June Sup. Mar introduced a similar resolution urging the attorney general to drop the charges against the seven men (one had had charges dropped previously) to the Board’s Government Audit and Oversight Committee. The Committee opted to send the resolution to be heard by the full Board, but ended up postponing when budget disagreements literally overtook City Hall.

Then in early July, the prosecution agreed to drop the charges against five of the men, and allowed two men to accept much lesser charges, where they were credited with time served and received only probation. The one remaining defendant is Francisco Torres, who declined an offer to plead guilty to a lesser charge.

The case being largely dismissed, the board tabled the resolution. As there is now just one attorney and assistant, compared with an original team of sixteen attorneys, so the next hearing on the case was postponed to October 9.

The Attorney General’s office had not responded to the Guardian’s request for comment by Monday evening.

Restoring the sanctuary

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MORE AT SFBG
>>San Francisco groups launch campaign for federal immigration reform

sarah@sfbg.com

The week started off in celebratory mood for members of the local immigrant rights community who attended an Aug. 18 rally outside City Hall to support legislation by Sup. David Campos that would extend due process rights to immigrant youth. And it ended, as this issue has a way of triggering, in controversy and division.

"Si se puede," chanted the crowd, hoping that "yes, we can" reform city policies on deporting undocumented young people accused of crimes before their trials. Dozens of immigrant and civil rights leaders representing 70 community groups made powerful speeches, buoyed by the knowledge that seven other supervisors — John Avalos, Chris Daly, Bevan Dufty, Eric Mar, Sophie Maxwell, Ross Mirkarimi, and Board President David Chiu — support the proposal, giving Campos the eight votes needed to override a mayoral veto of his proposed legislation.

Campos, an attorney who came to the United States as an undocumented teenager from Guatemala, told the crowd that he hopes to ensure that undocumented juveniles can only be referred to federal authorities for deportation after a court finds that they have committed a felony.

The Campos proposal, which was introduced during a week-long effort to revive immigration reform efforts at the federal level, seeks to amend a policy shift that the Mayor’s Office rammed through last summer after somebody leaked confidential juvenile criminal records to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Those leaks revealed that city officials had been harboring adolescent crack dealers instead of referring them to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for deportation. Within days, Mayor Gavin Newsom — who had just announced his gubernatorial bid — ordered a change in policy.

In the year since that shift took place, city officials have reported an estimated 180 to 190 youths to ICE. But immigrant rights advocates say Newsom has refused to meet with more than 70 local community organizations to hear their concerns about how the change in policy violates due process rights.

"I hope Newsom will look at this proposal and see it for what it is: a balanced and measured process grounded in the values of San Francisco," Campos told his supporters, noting that his proposal does not seek to revert to the city’s original policy, under which no youths were referred to ICE, even when there was misconduct.

Instead, Campos’ proposal seeks to reform the policy that Newsom ordered and the city’s Juvenile Probation Department implemented last July without public debate. As Avalos observed at the Aug. 18 rally, "The policy that was introduced last year only produced a semblance of public safety. It caved in to the politics of intolerance. It was not in line with the city of St. Francis. A veto-proof majority has made sure this legislation passes. Young people deserve better."

But the next day, the mood in the immigrant community soured as they learned that the Mayor’s Office had leaked to the Chronicle a confidential memo from the City Attorney’s Office about the legal vulnerabilities of Campos’ proposed legislation. The paper ran a long, high-profile story on the memo along with critical quotes from Newsom, Police Chief George Gascón, and U.S. Attorney Joseph Russoniello.

As of press time, the Guardian had not been furnished a copy of the leaked memo. But it reportedly warns that passage of Campos’ legislation could jeopardize the city’s defense against the Bologna family, who claim that the city’s policy allegedly allowed Edwin Ramos, now 22, to kill Tony Bologna and his two sons last year. It also reportedly cautions that the Campos proposal could affect city officials who are being probed by a federal grand jury on whether the city’s previous policy violated federal law.

Missing from the Chronicle‘s coverage was any mention that the Ramos case is stalled, with Ramos claiming that he drove the car but did not fire the fatal rounds in the Bolognas triple slaying, and that the shooter has gone underground and is believed to have fled the country.

Nor did the Chronicle note that a committee vetting potential nominees for U.S. Attorney for Northern California has forwarded three names for Sen. Barbara Boxer to consider — Melinda Haag, Matthew Jacobs, and Kathryn Ruemmler. Russoniello, who launched this grand jury investigation and has been openly hostile to San Francisco’s sanctuary city policies, could soon be replaced.

And the Chronicle only dedicated one sentence to another legal memo — a 20-page brief prepared by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Asian Law Center, the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights, Legal Services for Children, and the San Francisco Immigrant Rights Defense Committee. Their memo was prepared to support Campos’ contention that Newsom’s new policy exposes the city to lawsuits, undermines confidence in the police, subverts core progressive values, ignores differences between adults and minors, and violates the city charter.

"In its haste to respond to media stories, the Mayor’s Office and JPD acted precipitously, usurping the role of the Juvenile Probation Commission under the City Charter and failed to abide by the measured approach embodied in the City of Refuge Ordinance," contends the civil rights memo.

The authors of this civil rights memo note that they repeatedly shared their concerns with the Mayor’ Office, JPD, and the City Attorney’s Office about the new policy — which, they observe, "was crafted behind closed doors and hastily adopted in 2008 without a public hearing."

"Yet the Mayor’s Office and JPD have rejected our invitation to work collaboratively with community partners to ensure that the youth are not referred for deportation based on a mere accusation or an unfounded suspicion, and to protect the city from exposure to liability for erroneously referring a youth who is actually documented for deportation," the civil rights memo states.

The civil rights memo recommends that youths not be referred to ICE until five conditions are met: the youth has been charged with a felony; the youth’s felony delinquency petition has been sustained; the youth has undergone immigration legal screening by an immigration attorney; JPD has comprehensive policies to minimize the risk that the youth will be erroneously referred to ICE because of language barriers; and the probation officer makes a recommendation to the court and the court agrees that ICE should be notified.

Reached shortly after the Mayor’s Office leaked the City Attorney’s confidential memo, Campos expressed shock at the manner in which it was released. "It’s an elected official’s obligation to protect the city, and elected officials also have a fiduciary duty," Campos said.

Confident that his legislation is legal, Campos observed that "legal challenges are a reality any time you try to do anything about immigration.

"But it’s interesting that we are talking about fear of being sued, when San Francisco has a long and proud history of facing legal challenges when we believe that we are correct," he added, pointing to the city’s willingness to fight for same-sex marriage, domestic partner benefits, and universal health care.

"The very same people who say that they are afraid of being sued here had no problem defending those issues," Campos said. "Perhaps it is not so popular to defend the right of an undocumented child as those other issues. But that does not negate the fact that we are right on this issue. We should stand up for what is right and we should not be afraid of litigation."

Avalos was equally appalled by this seemingly unethical leak by the Mayor’s Office. "I thought we just had something to celebrate, having a rally to support David Campos’ legislation and now we have memos being leaked," Avalos said. "It’s unfeeling at best. By leaking a confidential memo that contains privileged attorney-client information, you are undermining the city’s legal position on an issue. And obviously you are putting your personal career interests over the city. If the mayor’s political position is more important than the welfare of the city, that’s pretty worrying to the Board of Supervisors."

The City Attorney’s Office responded to the leak by issuing another memo, this time outlining the legal and fiscal perils of leaking attorney-client privileged materials. "Confidential legal advice is not intended to be fodder in political disputes," City Attorney Dennis Herrera stated, noting that he was "not aware of a city official or employee who has acknowledged responsibility for the disclosure."

And, initially, no one in the Mayor’s Office took responsibility for the leak.

"It is my understanding that the Chronicle got it from a confidential source," Newsom Press Secretary Nathan Ballard told the Guardian, claiming that "the Campos bill paints a target on us and puts our entire sanctuary city policy at risk."

But by week’s end, pressure was building on Newsom to reveal whodunit.

"While I welcome the issuance of the City Attorney’s legal guidance reminding the Mayor’s Office and the Board of Supervisors of their obligation to keep attorney-client privileged information confidential, a thorough investigation is needed to hold those responsible accountable," Avalos stated, asking the City Attorney’s Office and the Ethics Commission to get involved.

Shortly after Avalos asked for an investigation, I covered the swearing-in ceremony for Gascón at City Hall, during which Gascón told the assembled that "safety without social justice is not safety."

Struck by the chief’s words, I asked the mayor if he was concerned about the apparent breach of security that occurred in his office when the memo was leaked. Newsom responded angrily, noting that clients, in an attorney-client privilege arrangement, can release memos if they so choose.

"So, you did leak the memo to the Chronicle?" I asked.

"I handed it," Newsom answered, pausing to look at Ballard, "to some of my people." Chronicle reporter Heather Knight was also there and wrote in a story published the next day that Newsom "authorized the leak."

When I asked if leaking the memo was a preemptive strike against the Campos legislation, the mayor went into a rant about how Campos’ proposal could open the city to the threat of lawsuits and the loss of the entire sanctuary ordinance.

But concerns about lawsuits didn’t stop Newsom from pushing for same-sex marriage in 2004. When I asked Newsom to explain this disparity, he dismissed my question and Ballard announced it was time to move along.

Angela Chan, staff attorney with the Asian Law Caucus, challenged Newsom’s claim that Campos’ legislation puts the city’s entire sanctuary ordinance at risk, telling the Guardian, "It’s a false ultimatum."

Moving backward

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rebeccab@sfbg.com

San Francisco’s city budget was signed into law Aug. 4, but a group of city workers is pushing the Board of Supervisors to reverse a cut that they say reflects a giant step backward for progressive San Francisco values.

Service Employees International Union Local 1021, about 18,000 strong in San Francisco, has launched a campaign to restore pay cuts to certified nursing assistants (CNAs) and unit clerks who staff the city’s medical facilities, arguing that the demotions reverse a decades-old commitment pay equity between men and women.

Proposition H, approved by voters in November 1986, enshrined the principle of comparable worth in San Francisco. It required the city to ensure that municipal jobs dominated primarily by women provided wages on par with male-dominated jobs that have similar qualifications.

Jobs held by mostly female employees also tend be staffed by people of color, so the move to create equity in pay was meant to address systemic sexism and racial discrimination. Unit clerks and CNAs seem to fit the bill, and their salaries were gradually increased after 1986.

As part of the midyear budget cuts, 88 CNAs who work at SF General Hospital were laid off and simultaneously rehired as patient care assistants, a job with similar responsibilities but only 79 percent of the salary (from an average annual salary of $56,589 down to $45,032). Another group of CNAs is scheduled for similar demotions in November. Cuts to clerical workers’ wages are also pending and most will be reclassified with 15 percent less pay (from $52,845 to $45,266).

"It wipes out the advantage that they had," says Local 1021 health care industry chair Ed Kinchley. "Group by group, they’re wiping out the pay differential."

"This is the first wave of an overall effort to undermine comparable worth," union organizer Robert Haaland charged in a letter to the Board of Supervisors. "We ask you to join with progressives to defend the principle of equal pay for women and minorities."

SEIU held an Aug. 7 forum to discuss the cuts at SF General, with Sups. John Avalos, David Campos, Eric Mar, and Ross Mirkarimi in attendance. CNAs and unit clerks packed the audience — a crowd that was indeed made up of many women of color.

One was Theresa Rutherford, a CNA at Laguna Honda Hospital and Rehabilitation Center. "We’re the first ones to note when a patient is not doing well," Rutherford explained to the supervisors. "It’s a job that requires a lot of commitment." She described the long hours and the bonds that develop with patients, saying CNAs are counted on by "the person who has no family members left — so you become the family member."

"Best-quality care costs," Rutherford added. "It’s not cheap."

Avalos, who chairs the Budget and Finance Committee, said he was infuriated by the pay cuts. He spoke about a possible supplemental appropriation to address the issue. "We have to find the revenue for that to happen," he said. "Push as hard as you can on City Hall, and I’ll fight as well."

Tom Jackson, there representing Sup. Chris Daly, also urged the workers to apply pressure. "As far as labor practices go, this is a test," he said. "You’ve been fighting for decades [for pay equity] … and they’re ready to wipe it away because we have a bad economy."

Department of Public Health Chief Financial Officer Gregg Sass responded to SEIU’s charges by telling the Guardian: "We disagree with the SEIU comparable worth argument. Further, SEIU was not able to get member approval of a tentative agreement that might have prevented layoffs and position conversions during last fiscal year."

Supervisors added $500,000 back into the final budget to stave off some conversions. SEIU members contend that the add-back was supposed to retroactively restore cuts to the 88 CNAs, but Sass told us, "I am not aware of any action at the [Board of Supervisors] to that effect."

A memo that DPH Director Mitch Katz sent to Board President David Chiu noted that "difficult decisions had to be made to reach the financial target," and said the CNA conversions were made "following discussions with the city’s Department of Human Resources and SEIU."

At the forum, Halaand pointed to a report from the Controller’s Office revealing a 20 percent growth in management positions under Mayor Gavin Newsom’s administration. "There’s a lot of padding of their wallets at the top. At the bottom, they’re devaluing," he told the workers. "There seems to be money out there, but it’s just not for us."

Campos told us he plans to request a hearing to examine managerial promotions as well as the ethnic and gender makeup of the city’s highest-ranking positions. As for whether some of these cuts might be restored, he told us, "I think that’s a real possibility. I am hopeful it will happen."

A study released this year by San Francisco’s Department on the Status of Women compares women’s median salaries to average men’s earnings. According to the report, the median annual wage for Latina women is 52 percent of men’s earnings; African American women earn 58 percent; Asian women 63 percent; and white women 88 percent.

Another round of pink slips go out Sept. 16, so SEIU is planning a rally at City Hall that day to demand that the city uphold comparable worth.

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