City Attorney Dennis Herrera

Defying the injunction

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While City Attorney Dennis Herrera can claim victory in winning court approval for his controversial gang injunctions, at least one targeted group is openly defying the terms of the preliminary order, trying to make a statement that they should be given a chance to heal the wounds they helped create.

Alleged members of the Eddy Rock gang in the Western Addition, from the Yerba Buena Plaza East housing complex at Eddy and Buchanan streets, have continued to hold small film festivals and other gatherings in an attempt to show the public that despite being labeled violent criminals, they are making a positive contribution to the community.

As the San Francisco Police Department and City Attorney’s Office say they are preparing to enforce the injunction, many of the named parties in the Western Addition say they will continue to congregate within the four-block "safety zone," an area where they are forbidden to loiter, be in the company of other gang members, or engage in other banned activities. In defying the injunction, they risk being jailed for up to five days.

"They’re trying to force us out of our community, but we’re [going to] fight it," Maurice Carter, a 32-year-old alleged gang member, told the Guardian.

The decision by targeted members to forge ahead with their community-building efforts is an attempt to sway city officials into easing the restrictions of the injunction, a prospect that seems unlikely at this stage.

"We’ve got the most influence of anybody," said Paris Moffet, whom the city attorney has identified as the leader of Eddy Rock, a label the 27-year-old disclaims. "But they don’t think so. Instead of putting us down, if they want to stop the violence, why aren’t they helping us?"

Superior Court Judge Peter Busch granted three injunctions sought by Herrera on Oct. 18 against two other gangs in the Western Addition and the Norteños in the Mission. The date for enforcing the injunction remains tentative, and city attorney spokesperson Matt Dorsey said, "Out of an abundance of caution, we will not begin to enforce the injunction against an enjoined gang member until after the proof of service for that individual has been filed with the court."

The city attorney is also holding sessions, with the help of the Gang Task Force, to properly train local police to enforce the measure. However, Lt. Ernie Ferrando of the task force said his unit can and likely will apply the restrictions to those who have already been served.

As of Nov. 26, 33 individuals have been served with injunctions, Dorsey said. Twenty people from the Western Addition — five from Chopper City, 10 from Eddy Rock, and five from the Knock Out Posse — have been given notice, along with 13 Norteños from the Mission.

Despite the measures being taken by police and the city attorney, which involve careful efforts to make sure only people named on the injunctions are prosecuted, critics of the approach say the injunctions may no longer be necessary in the Western Addition, where many of the targeted individuals seem to have made great strides over the past few months.

"I’ve been coming down here for four years, and this is the first summer that I haven’t had to drive over caution tape," said Sheryl Davis, program director of Mo’ Magic, which is based in the nearby African American Art and Culture Complex on Fulton Street. "So something is working."

The last gang-related homicide occurred in May, Northern Police Station captain Croce Casciato said. Police say the reasons for the decrease in violence are varied, but few can argue against its scope. The alleged gang members who have been targeted maintain that they — not outside forces or the injunction — are most responsible for the turnaround.

"There’s been a lot of bloodshed here. We’re trying to clean that bloodshed," Moffet said. About the looming threat of the injunction, he added, "We’re [going to] stand tall no matter what they say. Everybody makes mistakes. The main thing is trying to better yourself. That’s my leadership — stopping the violence."

Davis, who helped the film fest at Plaza East secure a digital projector, agreed that the respite in killings is directly attributable to the alleged perpetrators. While she didn’t criticize outright the efforts of the city attorney, she did say the recent positive actions by alleged gang members should be noted and that the injunction will likely act as a deterrent to such activities.

Of community-based efforts in the Western Addition, Davis said, they "should be duplicated, not shut down."

But proponents of the injunctions say they won’t hinder positive efforts. Nor will it be impossible for targeted gang members to be removed from the list. Public Defender Jeff Adachi is currently pushing for an opt-out provision that would permit injunction targets to petition for their removal by proving they are not involved with gangs. It’s an idea that has been supported in concept by the city attorney, though the details have yet to be worked out.

Lt. Ferrando pointed out that the injunctions might help gang members to escape the lifestyle without fear of retribution.

"This gives some guys the chance to leave the area for good," he said, noting that after the first injunction was approved, against the Oakdale Mob in Bayview–Hunters Point, several members simply never came back to the area and were never served.

Still, those named as members of Eddy Rock expressed concern that their recent positive efforts may go to waste.

"Some of the guys doing the good work are on the injunction. I find that very unique," said Marquez Shaw, a 26-year-old who is described in court papers as a member of the gang, though he is not on the list of targeted individuals.

In a video made by the group during a recent gathering, 20-year-old alleged member Hannibal Thompson says, "We got a lot of good stuff going on right now. Don’t take it away from us."

A real public voting system

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EDITORIAL San Francisco, it appears, will have new voting machines in place for the February 2008 presidential primary, thanks to a deal that doesn’t really thrill anybody. But the city should take this opportunity to start looking at the long term — and the Board of Supervisors ought to consider abandoning its reliance on the private sector and bringing voting technology back to the public itself.

The November municipal election was a mess: Election Systems and Software, the vendor with the contract to provide local voting equipment, couldn’t meet the requirements of the secretary of state, so the city’s polling equipment was invalid and votes had to be counted by hand. Now City Attorney Dennis Herrera has initiated legal action against the company, and the city is prepared to hire a new vendor. Sequoia Systems of Oakland is poised to get a four-year contract to provide voting equipment that will meet state standards, handle the local ranked-choice-voting system, and, presumably, make election results available within a few hours after the polls close.

There are problems with the deal: Sequoia, like all private election-machine makers, refuses to release its source code. So the public (and city officials) has no way of knowing if the software is accurate, susceptible to hacking, or easily corrupted. Sequoia has agreed to let the city pick a neutral third party that will be given access to the code for the purpose of verifying its quality, but ideally, the source code for something as critical to democracy as a voting machine ought to be made public as a matter of course. And as long as private companies, which consider their code a trade secret, control the market for voting machines, that’s never going to happen.

Steven Hill, director of the Political Reform Program at the New America Foundation, has an excellent idea: the state of California or some group of cities ought to create a public, open-source election system. If San Francisco did that, the city could even franchise it — act as a vendor and make a little money licensing the program to other municipalities.

Creating a voting-machine system isn’t cheap or easy; in fact, most experts say it would take several years. But San Francisco has several years now — the Sequoia contract will carry through 2012. That ought to be enough time to either create our own system or form a consortium with, say, Los Angeles, Sacramento, and a few others to finance and build a true public voting system that can be vetted by outside experts, approved by the secretary of state, modified for new projects like RCV, and used for years at little or no additional cost. An open-source system would give the public confidence in the results. And it would put control of voting back where it belongs — in the public sector.

The supervisors should create a task force to begin looking into this, with the idea of having an operational alternative available when the Sequoia contract runs out.

SF sues its elections vendor

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San Francisco may have to wait weeks for election results and undergo an complicated ballot-counting procedure, but we may not end up having to pay for it. That’s because the city is suing its election vendor, ES&S, for breach for contract, City Attorney Dennis Herrera and other city officials announced this morning. His press release follows:

Campaign sewer overflows

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› amanda@sfbg.com

The flow of election cash is often a filthy river that you wouldn’t want to drink from, and a recent local lawsuit, coupled with a new bit of state legislation, has muddied the waters even more.

On Sept. 20, US District Court Judge Jeffery S. White granted a preliminary injunction preventing the city from enforcing key sections of its Campaign Finance Reform Ordinance.

Two local groups with a sordid history of influencing elections with large chunks of cash — the Building Owners and Managers Association and the Committee on Jobs — argued in court that campaign contribution limits violate the First Amendment by financially curbing the ability to communicate a message (see "Pressing the Scales," 8/22/07). The contribution limits of independent-expenditure committees stumping for candidates were set by the voter-passed Proposition O in 2000 after the 1999 reelection of Mayor Willie Brown, in which deep-pocketed business interests backed the mayor in exchange for preferential treatment by city hall.

Prop. O capped contributions to IEs at $500, and people and corporations are allowed to give no more than $3,000 total (e.g., $500 each to six committees).

Those caps are no longer enforceable.

Similar injunctions have been granted in San Jose and Oakland, also destroying local contribution caps in those cities. San Jose appealed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and is waiting for a ruling. Ann O’Leary, a lawyer in City Attorney Dennis Herrera’s office, told us San Francisco is waiting to see what happens in San Jose before making the next move, though an appeal is planned regardless of that outcome. In the past the Supreme Court has ruled that the appearance of corruption in elections is sufficient grounds for restricting campaign contributions, and San Francisco’s history provides ample examples from which to draw to support that decision.

"We don’t know if it will get back to court before November 2008," O’Leary said of the case, "but it’s certainly something to watch in that election."

Meanwhile, over in Sacramento, legislators on cruise control recently passed a bill that may make it impossible for San Francisco to write its election laws anyway. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger just signed Assembly Bill 1430, and according to the legislative digest, the new law "prohibits local governments from adopting campaign finance ordinances that restrict communications between an organization and its members unless state law similarly restricts such communications, or by regulation by the Fair Political Practices Commission."

Proponents say the new law will resolve conflicting interpretations of campaign finance regulations, but opponents say it preserves wide-open loopholes in the Political Reform Act that local jurisdictions have tried to close. For example, a person may be prohibited by the city from giving more than $500 to support a certain candidate. That person can, however, give as much as $30,200 to the Democratic Party, which can then "communicate" a message of support for that candidate to its members.

A recent and egregious example: in San Diego the county Republican Party spent almost $1 million on local races in 2006.

The bill was authored by Carlsbad Republican Martin Garrick and flew through the State Assembly unopposed. Assemblymember Mark Leno told us it came to the Elections Committee, on which he sits, with no vocal opposition, so he gave it an aye. One of his aides, however, became concerned and started making calls. Eventually, Common Cause and the League of Women Voters rallied against it, but it only hit a speed bump in the State Senate. There was still too much support from the Democrats to kill it. Leno said, "It’s an uncommon situation to have the left and right supporting something that in fact runs counter to local election laws."

Only nine senators opposed the bill, including Carole Migden and Leland Yee. "She thought it was an end around campaign finance laws," Migden aide Eric Potashner told us.

San Francisco’s Ethics Commission also took a look at the bill and gave it a 5–0 thumbs-down, resolving to send a letter to both the mayor and the Board of Supervisors urging them to speak against it. Neither did. "The Mayor supports AB1430," his press secretary, Nathan Ballard, told us by e-mail. "He has some concerns about the local control issue, but ultimately those concerns are overridden by his belief that groups like labor unions and the Democratic Party should be allowed to communicate directly with their members."

The governor’s signature now makes it more difficult to pass future measures like Prop O.

Neither the injunction nor the new law seems to be affecting the Nov. 6 election — the FPPC won’t be ruling on AB 1430 until January, though the commission is holding a hearing for interested people to speak in Sacramento on Nov. 2.

Though BOMA and the Committee on Jobs stated in their filing for the injunction that the law harms their ability to raise and spend money for candidates in this November’s election, nothing on record with the Ethics Commission shows they’ve been putting up a lot of money for Newsom, Kamala Harris, or Michael Hennessey. But there’s always next year.

Jim Rivaldo, 1947-2007

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› tim@sfbg.com

There aren’t many political consultants in the world who deserve the term "sweet person." There aren’t many who last in that often vicious and horrible business who care more about their personal political principles than they do about money. There aren’t many who are universally liked, even by the people they routinely oppose.

Jim Rivaldo was weird that way. I knew him for almost 25 years, since I began watching the nasty world of insider San Francisco politics, and I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who had anything bad to say about him.

Rivaldo was one of the first openly gay political consultants in the country, an advisor and campaign manager for Harvey Milk and an innovator in the early days of the business of using graphic art and direct-mail technology to elect people to public office. He was the state’s first openly gay commissioner, serving as Milk’s regional representative on the Coastal Commission.

Rivaldo and his business partner, Dick Pabitch, managed the campaign that defeated the Police Officers Association juggernaut to create the Office of Citizen Complaints in 1983. He helped elect Milk and his successor, Harry Britt, helped found what is now the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club, and was one of the key players who put gay politics on the map, making the queer community a force to be reckoned with in San Francisco. He was the treasurer of the first campaign to bring district elections to San Francisco.

Rivaldo was also one of the first political activists to make connections between the gay and the African American communities. He ran the campaigns of nearly every black politician elected to office in the 1970s and ’80s. In other words, his professional résumé was, by any standard, impressive.

But when you ask people today about him, what they remember most is his sense of humor, his passion for what he cared about — and the fact that he was, above all, a wonderful human being.

"He was such a great guy," said City Attorney Dennis Herrera, who hired Rivaldo to run his first campaign. "I think it’s a measure of the integrity of the man that everyone in town had a fond spot in their hearts for him."

"He had principles," San Francisco Information Clearinghouse activist Rene Cazenave recalled. "He was sort of a socialist, with a real understanding of class, and he really believed in it."

State senator Carole Migden said, "He was the sort of person who could cross all political lines. He was like a UN ambassador."

Rivaldo was born in Rochester, NY, in 1947. It wasn’t an easy place to be a young gay man, but he persevered, as he always did later in life, and wound up graduating from Harvard. He arrived in San Francisco in the early 1970s, just as the gay pride movement was getting into full swing, and quickly became a part of community politics.

He set up a political consulting firm when managing campaigns for money was still a new line of work — and quickly demonstrated that he had an innate skill for it. With Pabitch, he set up shop in a second-floor office in the 500 block of Castro Street and started promoting queer candidates as citywide contenders.

"He was the first one to use turquoise and hot pink for political fliers," Migden recalled.

And over the next two decades, as many of his industry colleagues began to make a lot of money — and some became very wealthy — Rivaldo always seemed to barely get by. After he and Pabitch split up he moved to a little office near City Hall and took on a string of candidates who were often barely able to pay their bills.

"He wasn’t the ruthless, get-ahead-at-all-costs type," Migden said. "That’s why he wasn’t rich."

I always liked talking to Rivaldo. He never called to talk trash about someone else. I didn’t always like his candidates, but I knew he always did; when he told me about someone he thought should be in office I always knew he was telling the truth. He actually cared about people and issues, and when things went badly (when, for example, a candidate he helped elect to the school board voted the wrong way on the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps and infuriated the queer community) he felt personally let down, just like the rest of us.

AIDS has ravaged his generation of gay men in San Francisco, and there aren’t many people left in politics who are links to the days of Milk, who can remember and tell stories of a time when the idea of a queer person serving at City Hall was considered an astounding breakthrough. And it’s in part because of him that San Francisco now has two queer supervisors, two queer state legislators, and queer representation at virtually every other level of government.

But I think the most remarkable fact of Rivaldo’s life is that he was such a decent guy that he could be friends with so many people who were so often at odds, often to the point of not speaking. He talked to Jack Davis and Tom Ammiano, to Migden and Mark Leno, to Terence Hallinan and Kamala Harris. They all liked him; they all respected him. They’ll all miss him. And so will I.

Jerry Brown gives City green light to sue Jew

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Jewsmall.jpg
Photo by Charles Russo

The sun may be shining, but it’s raining legal cats and dogs for suspended Sup. Ed Jew.

On the eve of a preliminary hearing by the City’s Ethics Commission into charges of official misconduct by Supervisor Jew, California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. has granted City Attorney Dennis Herrera’s application for leave to sue in quo warranto to remove Jew from the Board of Supervisors for failure to comply with the City Charter’s residency requirements .

The ruling comes a little more than three weeks after Mayor Gavin Newsom initiated official misconduct proceedings against Jew and suspended the District 4 supervisor, replacing him, at least for now, with political rookie Carmen Chu.

City Attorney Herrera says that in llight of the Ethics Commission’s preliminary hearing tomorrow, he intends, “to carefully evaluate” the legal options.
“In the coming days, I will decide how best to represent the City’s interest in concluding a crisis that has clouded the legitimacy of San Francisco’s representative government for too long,” Herrera said in a press release.

Tomorrow’s preliminary Ethics Commission hearing takes place at 1:30 p.m. in Room 416, City Hall.

Should I resign? The $20K Question

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For all the grief Kimo Crossman gets for making public records requests of city officials, you gotta love some of the stuff he comes up with.

After Mayor Gavin Newsom called for voluntary resignations from all department heads and appointed commissioners with little apparent foresight, Crossman made a records request of the City Attorney’s office for the accumulated amount of billable hours that office spent providing advice to their city clients on the legality of resigning.

The total: 112.75, according to a response emailed to Crossman from the city attorney’s deputy press secretary Alexis Thompson. That number is a “comprehensive summary of the number of hours this Office has spent from September 10, 2007 through the present date on its work and advice concerning ‘the Newsom mass resignation request,'” Thompson wrote.

Matt Dorsey, press secretary for city attorney Dennis Herrera confirmed to us that $200 is a good estimate of a billable hour of city attorney time. (Some bill higher, some lower, and there’s a range to the quantity and quality of advice given.)

That’s a total of $22,550 spent advising a swath of city officials, when Newsom could have just pointed a finger at the 10 or so he wants out.

Injunction dysfunction

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When seven people were shot in the span of 12 hours in June at the Friendship Village and Yerba Buena Plaza East housing complexes in the Western Addition, city and community leaders decided immediate action was necessary to remedy the increasing level of gang violence.

Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, who represents the area, demanded 24-hour police patrols as a temporary measure. Rev. Regnaldo Woods of Bethel AME had a broader vision — get the gangs to call a truce. But City Attorney Dennis Herrera already had his own plan well in the works, a controversial approach that has nonetheless been embraced at City Hall by leaders desperate for solutions to the intractable and escautf8g problem of gun violence.

Herrera and his staff in July announced they were seeking civil gang injunctions in the Western Addition and the Mission District modeled on a similar effort last year against the Oakdale Mob in Bayview–Hunters Point. He went after alleged members of the Norteña gang in the Mission and targeted three gangs in the Western Addition, all centered on Eddy Street and the public housing complexes that stretch from Gough to Divisadero: Eddy Rock, Chopper City, and Knock Out Posse.

Two Superior Court judges, Patrick Mahoney and Peter Busch, heard arguments for and against the injunctions Sept. 18 and are expected to issue rulings at any time. The injunctions would prevent the alleged gang members they name from associating with one another within a prescribed area, among other restrictions.

The injunctions have pitted Herrera and his allies against Public Defender Jeff Adachi, civil liberties advocates, and some community groups, who have rallied to stop the injunctions and criticize them as a "criminalization of people of color," a charge Herrera stridently rejects and has publicly condemned as "race-baiting."

But beyond the emotional politics of this controversial tactic, there are some practical problems with the injunctions, particularly in the Western Addition, where they may stifle community-based solutions to the problem of gang violence.

"[The injunctions] slowed us down considerably," Woods, a life-long Fillmore resident, told the Guardian. "It’s going to impact the movement if it stays as it is. I think there needs to be changes."

Woods and other leaders from Bethel and from his nonprofit, Up from Darkness, met with the gang members a total of 43 times throughout the summer. When word of the injunctions spread, Woods said he had to restart from square one. Rather than bring people together for a dialogue, he had to explain why this was happening, what the injunctions meant, and how the injunctions would affect those included.

Woods planned to hold a summit, which "shot callers" from each of the gangs would attend and at which they would call a truce as well as receive access to employment guidance and mental health services. The summit never happened, but gang violence in the Western Addition nevertheless decreased rapidly in the following months. Northern Police District Capt. Croce Casciato said there hasn’t been a gang-related homicide in the district since May.

The American Civil Liberties Union says the injunctions will strip alleged gang members of due-process rights and give police a roving warrant to harass whomever they deem a gang member. Adachi and Kendra Fox-Davis, of the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights, said their offices have received numerous complaints from youths in the Mission and the Western Addition that police are already using the injunctions to hassle people even before they’ve been approved.

"There’s been a tremendous amount of misinformation about the injunctions," Adachi said. He questions the effectiveness of injunctions and said these give police carte blanche to harass anyone they suspect of being affiliated with gangs. His biggest issue, though, is the fact that the alleged members don’t have the necessary resources to contest the label.

Herrera derided the racial implications levied by Adachi, and in an e-mail to us, press secretary Matt Dorsey wrote, "The fact is, the debate over these proposed injunctions — most especially the one in the Mission — has been characterized by increasingly dishonest and inflammatory rhetoric. This isn’t just someone’s innocent misunderstanding, either: ‘the criminalization of people of color’ is wildly misrepresentative, and it’s deliberate."

Herrera acknowledges people’s concerns, but he stands by his decision.

"I really wish it wasn’t necessary that it has come to this point where I say, ‘Hey, this is a tool we have to pursue,’" Herrera told us. "But the facts are the facts. We have a gang problem in San Francisco. I think I’d be neglecting my responsibility if I didn’t bring another tool to the table to help address the issue."

Woods doesn’t raise the same racial concerns that Adachi does, and he isn’t too animated about the civil liberties issues. To him, the injunctions are just too broad and counterproductive to the community-based approaches that have the best chance of addressing the problem. He thinks the gang members themselves must help solve the problems they’ve created.

"It’s us getting together every day and doing something positive," said Steve Johnson, a 27-year-old targeted member of Eddy Rock, which claims the Plaza East housing complex as its turf. "It has nothing to do with the injunction. We’re trying to get all the different complexes in the Western Addition together."

Paris Moffet, the alleged leader of Eddy Rock, added, "We’re the only ones stopping the violence. We needed to. We are going to stop this."

It may come as a surprise that reputed gang members might be helping to stop the violence that was once a part of their daily lives, and several members of Eddy Rock acknowledged they have a long way to go in reshaping their images.

But, they say, they are committed to reforming themselves, and they recently held a barbecue at the complex parking lot to display some of their positive work. In the small community center at Plaza East — locally known as the OC, for "Outta Control" — Eddy Rock, with the help of Woods and others, has created Open Arms, a nonprofit geared toward educating the younger kids in the complex about staying in school and computer literacy.

Asked about the sudden turnabout by Eddy Rock, Marquez Shaw, a 26-year-old alleged member of the gang, explained that the level of violence at Plaza East had taken its toll on everyone, not just uninvolved residents. "[The violence] affected me, very much so," he said. "There’s been more bloodshed here than anywhere else in the community. We’re the only ones man enough to do something."

But Herrera said the recent relative quiet in the area doesn’t make up for more than five years of chaos. "Has there been a lull? Yeah," he said. "But earlier in the summer there were some brazen shootings. June isn’t that long ago."

Woods acknowledged that the members shouldn’t be given a free pass, considering their troubled past. "They’re not angels," he said. "But let’s try to help them before they go to prison. That way you might save the old lady’s life. You might save a youngster’s life. If they had something to do, they wouldn’t do the shootings."

At the Aug. 14 Eddy Rock barbecue, about 50 or so people from the Plaza East complex snacked on ribs, chicken, hot links, and spaghetti. Two beat officers from the Northern Station stood in the distance and oversaw an impromptu football game between juveniles and alleged gang members.

A clipping of a newspaper article hangs on the wall in the community center; it’s about how director Spike Lee is urging inner-city youths to make films about their experience growing up with violence and to use the Internet to broadcast them to others.

Given a camera, Shaw has done just that. During a recent visit to Plaza East, he was using iMovie to edit a video that he planned to post on YouTube. On the video, an older black man says, "Now it’s time to look at what’s going on, not what’s happened in the past."

Nas’s "I Know I Can" plays on Hannibal Thompson’s video as he flatly explains how the area is deprived of proper resources and lacks preventative measures. Thompson, a 20-year-old named in one of the injunctions as a member of Eddy Rock, says six of his friends have been murdered since 2005 — three of them less than a block away, at Eddy and Laguna, where cameras affixed to streetlights are meant to deter criminal activity. He said increased police presence and the work of Woods have led to the decrease in violence, something he embraces.

"The best thing that ever happened to this community was the 24-hour police patrol. That’s way better than the injunction," he said. "They should have done that years ago."

Casciato doesn’t doubt that Eddy Rock, which has terrorized residents for years, might have turned the corner. But he calls the injunctions one additional tool to fight the long-term battle against gang violence. Casciato said it was too soon to tell how an injunction would affect regular police procedure. Like others in the community, though, he emphasized the effectiveness of outreach work.

"There has been a great collaborative effort on the community’s part," Casciato said. On gang members reforming themselves, he said, "I’m sure they did. Success is going to come from within, not from the outside. All our efforts are for naught if there’s no buy-in."

Under the current terms of the injunctions, the aforementioned barbecue would be prohibited, since it involved literally the whole gang. The targeted individuals could freely associate with one another inside the community center but would need to go in and out separately, which critics say is not a realistic scenario. If targeted members violate the injunctions, they can be charged with misdemeanors and put in jail for up to five days.

The injunction tactic "undermines antiviolence efforts of community advocates and organizations working in the Western Addition, like Woods, by effectively preventing the individuals most in need of support services from participating in them," Fox-Davis wrote in an e-mail.

Herrera and his deputies submitted more than 4,000 pages of evidence, including expert declarations from the gang task force, which detailed the reign of terror of the three gangs. He said they’ve been careful to name only shot callers in the injunctions and to carefully detail the case against them.

Fox-Davis and other critics contend the Western Addition injunction is too broad, unlike the first one in Oakdale, which only covered four square blocks. A total of 15 blocks are designated as the "safety zone" in the Western Addition, stretching from Eddy and Gough in the east to Eddy and Webster in the west, bordered by Turk and Ellis to the north and south, for Eddy Rock.

For Chopper City and KOP — which had in the past aligned themselves against Eddy Rock — the safety zone is a six-block area north of Turk to Ellis, between Divisadero and Steiner, which includes the Marcus Garvey and Martin Luther King housing complexes. In Bayview, only one of 22 targeted members lived in the housing complex, whereas a total of seven of 19 identified members of Eddy Rock live within that purposed safety zone, according to the City Attorney’s Office.

"The restrictions that are proposed in this injunction go far beyond what is necessary to address the nuisance the city attorney claims is being caused by gang violence," Fox-Davis said.

But Herrera says the "nuisance" amounts to communities being terrorized by violence and his office would be remiss to not address the problem. A total of 11 homicides in three years have been linked to the three Western Addition gangs, according to court documents.

"I’ve never been one to say we should be dissuading communities from being involved and trying find solutions and making contributions to solving the problem. To me it’s not mutually exclusive. It’s not an either-or proposition. I think it’s important that we get the community to be a vital stakeholder in trying to stem the tide of violence," Herrera said. "But there has to be accountability."

To quell critics’ concerns, Herrera said his office has included numerous safeguards, including training cops to properly enforce the injunctions. Targeted members also have a "buyout option," meaning if they can prove that they are no longer involved in gang activity, they can appeal to have their names removed from the list.

Herrera points to the perceived success of the injunction in Bayview as proof that the tactic is effective in restoring calm and peace to neighborhoods once plagued with murder. Herrera also notes that the Board of Supervisors passed a resolution almost unanimously that supported injunctions by the city attorney.

Mirkarimi, however, said his support of the current injunctions being sought was "tentative at best" and said he considered them "an act of desperation." He too said community work and traditional police enforcement — like the 24-hour patrols — are better ways of addressing the root causes of gang violence.

The alleged members of Eddy Rock agree.

"We just need something to do," said Maurice Carter, 32. "We did the crime, we did the time. Now we just want a second chance."

No bus shelter secrecy

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EDITORIAL Clear Channel Communications, the notorious national media conglomerate that has been monopolizing (and dumbing down) radio for years, is poised to take over the contract to rebuild the city’s bus shelters. The deal gives the company, which also dominates the local billboard market, the right to sell ads on the shelters for 15 years. It’s worth a lot of money — and it’s not at all clear that the city is getting its fair share. That’s because Clear Channel refuses to open its books and allow the public to see what sort of profits it expects to rake in through the program.

Keeping that information secret is probably illegal under the city’s Sunshine Ordinance. It’s certainly bad public policy. The supervisors should block this deal until the financial figures come to light.

The bus shelter program is a classic example of the city using a private partnership to provide a service that ought to be paid for with tax money. The deal requires the vendor to build and maintain shelters at more than 1,000 bus stops, something the city, which hasn’t been aggressive about raising new revenue, can’t afford to do. In exchange, the vendor gets to sell ads all over the shelters, turning Muni stops across the city into commercial marketing devices.

It’s too late to stop that train altogether (although Proposition K would slow it down a bit). Clear Channel has won, in a competitive bidding process, the right to negotiate a final contract with Muni. But the deal will have to go before the supervisors eventually, and when it does they should demand that Clear Channel release its financial projections.

That’s already the intent of city law. The Sunshine Ordinance, passed by the voters in 1999 as Proposition G, includes language specifically tailored to this kind of circumstance. Section 67.32 states, in part, "The city shall give no subsidy in money, tax abatements, land, or services to any private entity unless that entity agrees in writing to provide the city with financial projections (including profit and loss figures), and annual audited financial statements for the project thereafter, for the project upon which the subsidy is based and all such projections and financial statements shall be public records that must be disclosed."

It’s pretty hard to argue that allowing Clear Channel to build advertising structures on city land, as a part of the city’s bus system, with millions of captive customers who are city transit users, is anything but a subsidy within the meaning of Prop. G. City Attorney Dennis Herrera should look into that, and if necessary the supervisors should ask for a specific opinion on whether the city can legally do any business with Clear Channel on this deal before the company releases its finances. The Sunshine Ordinance Task Force should hold a hearing on the deal and advise the mayor and supervisors on whether it complies with the Sunshine Ordinance.

But lawyers can wriggle around words like subsidy, and even if Herrera and the Clear Channel legal team come up with some strange argument allowing the contract to move forward, the supervisors should have none of it. If a giant media monolith wants an exclusive right to sell ads on city property, then the city ought to know how much money is involved so that city officials, in full view of the public, can determine if the contract is a good deal. Clear Channel argues that it’s a private company, and that’s true — but the contract is exclusive, so there are no competitive issues. And if Clear Channel doesn’t want to comply with the city’s sunshine requirements, Muni should put the contract back out to bid and find someone who does.

Jew, You’ll be a Woman, soon

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Photo by Charles Russo
Or at least your District 4 replacement might be

With the legal noose tightening at the federal and the state level around beleagured Sup. Ed Jew’s neck, and City Attorney Dennis Herrera preparing to file a civil lawsuit to remove Jew from office, two San Francisco women, b have sent a letter to Mayor Gavin Newsom, urging him to name a woman to replace Jew.
In their letter Alix Rosenthal, President, National Women’s Political Caucus (SF chapter) and SaskiaTraill, President, San Francisco Women’s Political Committee note that during Newsom’s administration, “the number of women who serve in elected office has been reduced, after you replaced two women, Assessor Mabel Teng and Treasurer Susan Leal, with men.”

The full text of the letter follows:

Dear Mayor Newsom,

When you appoint a replacement for Supervisor Ed Jew, we strongly urge you to name a woman. It is important that you continue to demonstrate your commitment to gender equity at the highest levels of government.

On Saturday, September 15, forty-five elected officials and leaders of women’s organizations met at the San Francisco Women’s Policy Summit 2007, with the aim of determining our top priorities to improve the lives of women in San Francisco. The Summit participants agreed unanimously that our highest priority is to get more women elected and appointed to public office.

One of every three citywide elected offices in San Francisco is held by a woman. In addition, only two members of the Board of Supervisors are female. During your administration, the number of women who serve in elected office has been reduced, after you replaced two women, Assessor Mabel Teng and Treasurer Susan Leal, with men.

We are confident that you will select a woman who has the energy and the experience to restore District 4’s confidence in their elected representative. Until women hold half of the seats of power in San Francisco, a woman’s perspective will not be adequately represented in City Hall. We will be happy to meet with you at any time to discuss this further.

Sincerely,

Alix Rosenthal – President, National Women’s Political Caucus (SF chapter)
and
Saskia Traill – President, San Francisco Women’s Political Committee

Hey, did Gavin think about this?

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We know at this point that Mayor Newsom didn’t seek legal counsel before he decided to ask for everyone who runs anything in town to resign. If he had, and he’d thought about it a little bit, he might have discovered what City Attorney Dennis Herrera did: This could cost the city big money.

I’m not talking about lawsuits by forcibly resigned employees — Newsom had ever legal right to do what he did. No, what’s fascinating is a two-sentence note at the end of the city attorney’s seven-page opinion on the mass resignations. It says:

“The resignations of certain department heads or commissioner may present other legal issues for the City depending on the particular facts and circumstances. For example, There could be questions about whether to make public disclosures under certain City bonds or municipal debt issuances.”

What that means is that the city might have to notify the financial markets — the bond holders and brokers — about the mass almost-firings, the same way a company that holds public debt would have to notify debtors that all of its senior staff had resigned.

If the bond-rating agencies decide that a mass exodus of all the experience and talent managing the city is a bad thing for San Francisco’s financial stability, we could see a downgrading of our bonds — and that could cost us a lot of money.

I wonder if Gavin ever thought about that.

Green City: Signs of asbestos

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› sarah@sfbg.com

A new front has opened up in the fight for environmental justice in the asbestos-dusted Bayview–Hunters Point community, this time featuring a Nation of Islam–affiliated nonprofit that’s using Proposition 65 — California’s "right to know" law — to force Lennar Corp. to take responsibility for what activists say is a failure to provide clear and reasonable warning that thousands of Californians are being exposed to asbestos on a daily basis in Bayview–Hunters Point.

It’s a creative use of the 21-year-old law to promote environmental justice.

On Aug. 2, the Center for Self-Improvement and Community Development, which runs the Muhammad University of Islam school next to the Parcel A work site, filed suit individually, and on behalf of the public, against Lennar Corp., Lennar Homes of California, Lennar Communities, Lennar BVHP, Lennar Associates Management, and Lennar’s subcontractor, Gordon N. Ball.

At issue is the alleged failure of Lennar and its subcontractor to notify the surrounding community of exposures to asbestos dust during the 16 months that an entire hilltop has been graded on Parcel A of the Hunters Point Shipyard in preparation for developing a 1,500-unit condominium complex.

The suit contends that Lennar and Ball engaged in construction site activities, including grading, scraping, and excavation of materials containing asbestos as well as storage and transportation of materials off site, and continues to engage in these activities without first providing "the adjacent community and persons working at the site with toxic health hazard warnings under California’s ‘right to know’ law."

Enacted in 1986, Prop. 65 was intended to protect California citizens and the state’s drinking water sources "from hazardous chemicals and to inform [citizens] about exposure to any such chemicals." As such, it requires the state to maintain lists of hazardous chemicals and requires businesses to provide a "clear and reasonable warning" before exposing individuals to any of these listed chemicals.

But though asbestos has been listed as a carcinogen since 1987 and has been subject to Prop. 65’s warning requirements since 1988, Minister Christopher Muhammad, who heads the school, claims he first learned that asbestos was in Lennar’s Parcel A construction dust six months after grading began in 2006 —and two months after Lennar admitted to the city that its air monitoring equipment hadn’t been working.

"I did not know that the dust contained asbestos until a young worker, Christopher Carpenter, blew the whistle in October 2006, the same day he got fired from the site after asking the crew to stop digging on account of the dust being too heavy," Muhammad told the Guardian. He recalled how Carpenter visited the school, worried it hadn’t been notified after he saw children playing right next to Lennar’s site.

"The dust clouds were so thick during the summer of 2006, they were like minitornadoes on the hill, which is surrounded by water, so the wind swirls upwards," Muhammad said. He noted that the baseball courts, classroom windows, and jungle gym are 10 feet from a chain link fence that is the only thing separating Lennar’s site from the school, and noted that a Boys and Girls Club, a public housing project, and many residences lie in close proximity to Parcel A, whose dust was seen drifting across the entire neighborhood.

There’s a strong case here: there’s no doubt that the construction project was generating asbestos dust — and still may be. The suit seeks to prohibit Lennar and Ball from engaging in construction activities or any other work at the site "without first providing clear and reasonable warnings to each exposed person residing, working, or visiting the adjacent community and to workers at the site regarding asbestos exposures."

Enforcing Prop. 65 is the responsibility of the state attorney general, the local district attorney, or the city attorney, but as attorney Andrew Packard told us, the law also allows private entities to sue.

Matt Dorsey, spokesperson for City Attorney Dennis Herrera, said the office is "keeping an eye on the situation, including this private effort, and would take it very seriously if a determination is made that a case of action exists in favor of the city."

Comments, ideas, and submissions for Green City, the Guardian‘s weekly environmental column, can be sent to news@sfbg.com.

Will the pro-parking Prop. H remain on the ballot?

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Livable City executive director Tom Radulovich has asked the city Elections Department to remove the controversial pro-car measure Prop. H from the fall ballot after discovering a fairly significant misstatement of city law in the ballot summary that its downtown advocates circulated to get on the ballot. The measure, funded by Republican Don Fisher and condo developer WebCor, invalidates most city parking policies and drastically expands people’s rights to build parking spots.
The summary, prepared by the City Attorney’s Office, said current law allows at least one parking spot for every four housing units in the downtown districts and up to one spot for every three units. But as Radulovich’s letter (which follows) indicates, city law actually allows up to one parking spot per unit in downtown residential zones and two spots for every three units in the commercial C-3 zone downtown.
Guardian phone calls to the City Attorney Office, Elections Department, and Prop. H advocate Jim Maxwell have not yet been returned.
Political consultant Jim Stearns, who is running the campaign against Prop. H, told us state law requires the city to remove the measure. He cited the precedent of City Attorney Dennis Herrera last year invalidating a successful referendum drive challenging the creation of the Bayview Hunters Point Redevelopment area because those circulating petition didn’t carry with them the complete plan, only the ordinance that approved it. If the city doesn’t remove the measure, Stearns said opponents will seek a court injunction doing so.

PG&E’s latest lies

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EDITORIAL Pacific Gas and Electric Co., which has made a lucrative practice over the years of co-opting environmentalists, is launching one of its boldest and most disgraceful initiatives yet — a campaign seeking to convince the Potrero Hill and Bayview–Hunters Point communities to oppose the city’s new peaker power plants by arguing that they’ll add pollution to the air.

Remember: This is the company that for many years ran the single worst source of air pollution in the region, a foul power plant that was finally shut down a few years back after a long and bitter battle. This is the same company that operates a nuclear power plant on an earthquake fault. The same company that polluted the wells in Hinkley, as depicted in the movie Erin Brockovich. This is a company that’s been lying to communities like Bayview–Hunters Point and Potrero for decades. Nobody should trust PG&E today.

We explained the background last week (see "Peaker Plants and SF’s Energy Future," 8/8/07), but the summary is this: San Francisco wants to install three small-scale power plants at the foot of Potrero Hill. The city’s argument: unless the peakers, which would provide backup power at peak demand times, are in place, the state’s regulators won’t allow the shutdown of the dirty Mirant power plant in the same neighborhood.

Some environmentalists, including San Francisco Public Utilities Commission member Adam Werbach, say San Francisco doesn’t need the peakers or the Mirant plant, but the powerful Independent System Operator, which controls the state’s power grid, disagrees.

That means Mirant will continue to spew poison unless the peakers operate — and PG&E is trying to stir up opposition with the threat that the neighborhood will wind up with both the peakers and Mirant. PG&E, of course, won’t own the peakers; they’ll be run by a company called J-Power USA for 10 years, at which point (if they’re still even needed) they’ll revert to the city. So the private utility is trying to stop the new plants to avoid future competition.

It’s a cynical ploy, but it might be effective — and there’s an easy way the city can stop it. The supervisors, the mayor, and the city attorney should simply announce that the contract with J-Power will state that the peakers can’t operate, even for a second, until the Mirant plant is shut down for good. It’s a simple, clean solution; what is everyone waiting for? *

PS As Amanda Witherell reports in this issue, the public San Joaquin Valley Power Authority has taken legal action against PG&E, charging that the company is vioutf8g state law by interfering with the creation of a Community Choice Aggregation program. There’s some solid evidence that PG&E is doing the same thing in San Francisco, and City Attorney Dennis Herrera should immediately open an investigation into whether this city should file its own complaint against PG&E.

Peaker plants and SF’s energy future

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EDITORIAL Over the next few weeks, the Board of Supervisors will be looking at two major electric-power programs that could add a lot of new generation capacity (and possibly new pollution) to southeast San Francisco and a new source of backup power from out of town. Both projects seem to have broad support at City Hall.

The main questions that city officials ought to be asking about plans for a new power plant in Potrero Hill and a new power cable to bring electricity across the bay are:

•Do we really need either?

•What is motivating the powerful but little-known state agency to demand that San Francisco — the only US city with a federal public power mandate — prepare for a future in which energy use continues to grow, conservation lags, the private sector controls the city’s power supply, and the city’s plans for cutting power use are a failure?

The California Independent System Operator, known as Cal-ISO, was created in the wake of the wretched energy deregulation plan that the State Legislature concocted in 1996. The outfit, run by a five-member board appointed by the governor, is supposed to ensure that every part of California has enough electricity — now and in the future.

But the board members are almost all former utility executives, including a retired Pacific Gas and Electric Co. official, and like most utility executives, they seem to believe that the only track for electricity use is upward.

So Cal-ISO has informed San Francisco that it doesn’t have enough power on hand to make it through 2010. That means the city needs to either find a new way to import more power (the only significant current pathway is a cable that runs up the Peninsula and is owned by PG&E) or build more power plants inside its limits.

The problem with building more plants, particularly the kind of plants Cal-ISO likes — fossil fuel burners that can run day and night without interruption — is that San Francisco residents are trying to get rid of the last big polluting plant, Mirant Corp.’s facility at the foot of Potrero Hill, not build more.

So the latest solution involves the installation of three natural gas–<\d>fired generators known as peakers, which would run only when demand is high and other sources (including the solar facility the city plans to build) aren’t operating. The mayor and the supervisors are referring to these plants as "city-owned generation," making this sound like a big step on the way to public power.

And on one level, it is: San Francisco won the turbines (which are essentially big jet engines) as part of a settlement with Williams Energy after the energy crisis, and they could be part of a municipal utility. But the current plans call for the Chicago subsidiary of a Tokyo company, J Power, to build the structures that would house the turbines and hook them up to the power lines, then operate the plants for 10 years. Only then would they revert to city ownership.

So already San Francisco is waffling on the public power issue. (Why, for example, can’t the city build the facilities itself and hire its own engineers to hook up the turbines and run them? Why do we even need a private, outside partner?)

Then there’s the environmental impact. In theory, if the peakers only ran a few hours a day, they would spew less junk into the air than the Mirant plant currently does. And Cal-ISO is only willing to allow the Mirant plant to shut down if San Francisco develops some other form of firm local generation. But there’s nothing in writing anywhere to guarantee that the foul exhaust from Mirant would cease when the peakers fired up; in fact, it’s possible that the southeast part of the city could wind up living with both.

The other project, called the Trans Bay Cable, would be a privately owned venture carrying power from Pittsburg across the bay and into San Francisco. The power plants that would feed the cable are largely nonrenewables, and although they’re outside town, this is hardly an environmental advance.

The big question, though, is why San Francisco has to go through this exercise.

Cal-ISO predicts that the city will run short of power in a few years — but that forecast is awfully suspect. For starters, the entire projected shortfall is five megawatts in 2010, growing by 10 MW per year after that. And the city’s projections for Community Choice Aggregation suggest that conservation measures can cheaply reduce demand, by 107 MW, over the same period. Conservation, also known as demand-side management, is by far the least expensive and most environmentally sound alternative.

In fact, with an aggressive conservation plan and an aggressive solar program, it’s possible that the city could handle the local load just fine without the Mirant plant or the peakers.

That, of course, would leave much of the power in the hands of PG&E — and make the city too heavily reliant on the one Peninsula cable. That’s what makes the giant extension cord from Pittsburg seem so appealing. But the city has also been talking about extending its power line from Hetch Hetchy, which now ends in Newark, across the bay — and that city-owned, city-run alternative would make far more sense. (The company that would own the Trans Bay Cable, Babcock and Brown, has offered San Francisco a handful of cash, a total of $75 million over 25 years, to make the deal sound sweeter. But that’s birdseed compared with the revenue the city would get by building its own line and moving to create a full public power system.)

Infrastructure decisions like these tie the city down for many years to come, and the supervisors need to be careful. They should, at a minimum:

•Conduct an independent study, outside the purview of Cal-ISO, to see what the city’s energy needs really will be in the future and how they can be met with renewables and conservation.

•Direct the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission to prepare a plan to build the peaker facilities as a city project, with no private-sector partner getting control of the power for 10 years.

•Guarantee the people of Bayview and the other southeast neighborhoods that if the peakers are installed, they won’t be fired up until the Mirant plant is shut down.

But there’s a larger point here. San Francisco has never had a detailed energy-options study that looks at how the city overall should address its energy needs for the next 25 years. A study like that would consider everything from tidal and wind power to public power, infrastructure needs, and extending the Hetch Hetchy line across the bay to CCA.

Instead, at the bidding of an unaccountable state agency filled with people who think like private-utility executives, the city is making a bunch of piecemeal moves that will create a patchwork of programs that may not be the right ones, may not be properly connected, and may not even be needed.

The only outfit that’s demanding we move quickly here is Cal-ISO — and before city officials decide to let the governor’s people determine our energy future, City Attorney Dennis Herrera should prepare a memo on what legal authority, if any, Cal-ISO has over the city and how San Francisco can defy that agency and determine its own future.*

Ed Jew and the never-ending residency saga

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By Sarah Phelan

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Contrary to appearances, Ed Jew is not the supervisor for Chinatown/Burlingame.

Another missive from Ed Jew’s attorney, Steven F. Gruel.
This time following his July 16 arraignment in San Francisco Superior court on the District Attorney’s charges. And this time insisting that, contrary to City Attorney Dennis Herrera’s “speculation and argument that the criminal proceedings will be protracted, Supervisor Jew did NOT waive his rights to a speedy trial.”

Hey, with Gruel anticipating a trial before mid-October, maybe Jew will inspire a whole new category of Halloween costumes. Like a cardboard cutout of Jew standing outside his D4 house.

Ed Jew’s lawyer goes into ironic attack dog mode

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By Sarah Phelan

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In what could be the most ironic moment of the Ed Jew saga so far, Jew’s attorney Steven Gruel is accusing the City Attorney’s response to a recent public records disclosure request of being “woefully incomplete.”

This from the attorney of the “D4″ Supervisor, who still hasn’t been able to prove that he actually lives in the district that he is supposed to be representing at City Hall.

Gruel’s ironic accusation followed Jew’s July 11 request that the City Attorney’s office immediately disclose all communications regarding the investigation of Jew”s “official Residence or any allegations of his ‘official misconduct.'”

When Deputy City Attorney Chad Jacobs invoked an extension–citing the ‘voluminous nature” of Gruel’s request, plus the fact that other docs might be covered by “attorney work product privilege” –Gruel accused City Attorney Dennis Herrera of “skirting” the public records act request.

This from the attorney who applied for and got an extension from the City Attorney on behalf of his client not once but three times, but still failed to provide complete materials or make his client available for an interview–a request that doesn’t seem that hard given that Jew’s office is just around the corner from Herrera’s.

How’s the mayor’s Hump Day going!? Oooooh, not so good

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By G.W. Schulz

> Homicides are up 20 percent this year over the same time last year, and much of it cannot be blamed on gang violence, according to the Chron, which suggests, like it or not, that City Attorney Dennis Herrera’s gang injunctions can go only so far. It’s hardly July, but we’ll put good money on any bet that the mayor won’t be cheerfully taking credit for the city’s homicide rate next January. As usual, we should make clear that this conversation still doesn’t take into account nonfatal shooting injuries. San Francisco General does a remarkable job saving people who’ve been shot, meaning the homicide rate is not really a reliable indicator by itself of how well the city’s doing on street-level violence.

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More Ed Jew fireworks

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By Sarah Phelan

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City Attorney Dennis Herrera issued a statement at about 7 PM tonight, concerning Sup. Jew’s reply brief
to the Attorney General’s in Quo Warranto Action–and Herrera sounded none too pleased.

Maybe it was because Jew’s attorneys filed the beleagured supervisor’s reply brief just moments before the close of business today, (when most of the City had already left early in preparation for July 4.) Or maybe Herrera was incensed by Jew’s attorneys, who are arguing that City Attorney Dennis Herrera’s quo warranto petition, which seeks permission to sue for Jew’s removal from elective office, should be denied.

In a nutshell, Jew’s attorneys say that the City Attorney’s civil case should be stayed pending the adjudication of criminal charges against the District Four supervisor, which means, until the feds are done with him.

All of which got City Attorney Dennis Herrera issuing the following statement, which should be read while drinking beer, watching the fireworks and reminiscing on your favorite Ed Jew story:

“The citizens of San Francisco have a right to legitimate representation in their democracy that clearly outweighs the right of one politician to remain in office in violation of the law. The evidence is overwhelming that Supervisor Jew failed to meet the basic residency requirements to seek or continue to hold his office. It would be a terrible injustice if the legitimacy of our Board of Supervisors were to remain in doubt for the duration of a criminal process, which could take years.”

Herrera’s response brief is due to Attorney General Jerry Brown by July 13, 2007. Thirteen, Huh? That should be interesting. In the meantime, to review all the materials the City Attorney’ has collected as part of this investigation check out www.sfgov.org/cityattorney/ .

Remove Jew now

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EDITORIAL Sup. Ed Jew should have resigned from the Board of Supervisors immediately after admitting to reporters that a May 18 FBI raid of his homes and offices recovered $40,000 in cash that he demanded from a constituent with regulatory issues.

Even if one believes his implausible story about intending to give the money to a playground project, Jew’s actions are still unethical, unseemly, and illegal. Politicians must never, under any circumstances, accept cash payments in exchange for services, and those who do belong in prison.

But he didn’t resign, choosing instead to put his personal ambition and stubborn refusal to take responsibility for his actions ahead of what’s best for the city and his constituents. Then, when public records and testimony from neighbors made it clear that Jew didn’t really live in District 4, as the law requires and as he declared in sworn statements under penalty of perjury, Jew should have been honest with the public instead of spinning still more elaborate and unbelievable lies. Again, he should have done the honorable thing and resigned.

But if the surreal rally his supporters staged June 15 at City Hall is any indication, Jew intends to keep fighting this until someone drags him from the building.

That’s what needs to happen now. It’s no longer about Jew but about whether a system designed to prevent these kinds of abuses works. People need to have their confidence in city government restored, and that requires immediate action by Mayor Gavin Newsom, Attorney General Jerry Brown, and the courts.

District Attorney Kamala Harris did her job when she investigated the residency issue and filed nine felony charges against Jew on June 12. City Attorney Dennis Herrera did his job when he set reasonable deadlines for Jew to prove his residency, then announced June 18 that he was pursuing action to remove Jew from office.

Now it’s Newsom’s turn. The time has come for him to do his job, and that means doing everything in his power to ensure that Jew is ejected from City Hall as soon as possible.

Same thing for Brown, who should immediately certify Herrera’s request to file a quo warranto lawsuit that would deem Jew unqualified for the office he holds and remove him. Whatever Superior Court judge gets the case should put this on the fast track and help give District 4 residents a qualified, reputable representative.

They don’t have that now. And until they do, there is a dark cloud hanging over City Hall that affects everyone inside. It’s time for Jew or the system to remove that cloud. *

City Attorney says Jew must go

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By Sarah Phelan

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Things do not look good for beleagured Sup. Ed Jew. Today. City Attorney Dennis Herrera announced that the evidence against the rookie supervisor is “overwhelming,” as he waved a thick wad of documents at the running dogs of the media, during a filled-to-bursting press conference. These documents, said Herrera, establish that Jew did not lawfully seek or hold office, and therefore his office is actively seeking his removal.
Herrera made this announcements after four weeks of investigations that included interviews with three dozen neighbors who saw no signs that Jew was living at his Sunset District residence, either 30 days before Jew filed to run in the District 4 2006 election, or anytime thereafter up until the FBI raid in May, plus a compilation by the City Attorney’s office of utility, phone and tax records that underscore Jew’s almost complete absence from his D4 property.

How to remove Jew

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Photo by Charles Russo

By Steven T. Jones
Why can’t all of Ed Jew’s persecutors just get along? And who is going to finally force the hopelessly tarnished supervisor from office: City Attorney Dennis Herrera, District Attorney Kamala Harris, Attorney General Jerry Brown, the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office, Mayor Gavin Newsom, the Ethics Commission, or the Board of Supervisors? Those are just a couple of the many questions that I’ve been seeking answers to over the last few days as I interviewed people close to the case and read the relevant documents, including the voluminous criminal complaint.

What I’ve discovered is that while Harris may have leapfrogged past Herrera (whose deadline for Jew to comply with his requests for information and an interview is tomorrow) and the feds into the lead role, it’s an open question whether her criminal case will convince a jury to convict on most counts, and if there is a conviction, whether Jew will still be a sitting supervisor by then.

The fate of District 4

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EDITORIAL Sup. Ed Jew may be able to explain the $40,000 cash in his safe to federal prosecutors. He may be able to convince the authorities that he did nothing illegal when he personally took payment for work that a permit expediter did and kept half the money for so-far-undefined community improvements. Those are criminal issues and a matter for the feds, Jew’s lawyer, and possibly a judge and jury. And while we agree with Sup. Chris Daly — it sure looks terrible — Jew is innocent until proven guilty.

His residence is something else.

The daily papers have produced enough evidence over the past few weeks to raise real doubts about whether Jew actually lives at the address he listed on his voter registration and candidacy forms. By law, he had to be a resident of the district 30 days before he filed for supervisor, but the water service at his 28th Avenue house had been turned off for four months before he announced his candidacy. Current water records show very little use. Neighbors have said the house has been vacant for some time.

So either Jew comes and goes at very odd hours, never sees his neighbors, and doesn’t shower or wash dishes at home, or he’s got a real problem. City Attorney Dennis Herrera has asked Jew to submit proof by June 8 that he is a resident of District 4, but there’s no reason the supervisor should wait for that deadline. He needs to immediately make public his home address and provide evidence to the voters of his district that he’s actually a resident. And if he can’t do that, then he ought to save the city and the district a long legal battle and simply step down.

Under the City Charter, the mayor has the authority to fill a vacancy on the Board of Supervisors, although the person appointed has to face the voters at the next regularly scheduled election. If Jew leaves office soon, it’s likely that both Gavin Newsom and his appointee will be on the November ballot.

And right now, the odds are that Newsom will appoint the man he endorsed and campaigned for last November — Doug Chan. That would be a mistake. As we reported in "PG&E’s Candidates" (10/25/06), Chan is an attorney for Pacific Gas and Electric Co. His firm, Chan, Doi, and Leal, received more than $200,000 in legal fees from PG&E in 2005 and 2006, and as a partner, Chan received at least $10,000 of that (according to his own disclosure forms). If Newsom appointed him, Chan would be the first supervisor in modern history who directly received income from PG&E. At a time when the city is moving toward a public power system and is already involved in millions of dollars’ worth of litigation with PG&E, that would be an unacceptable conflict.

Besides, the voters have already had something to say on the question. Chan finished fourth in the balloting last fall, behind Jew, Ron Dudum, and Jaynry Mak. Dudum, who is far too conservative for our taste, was the first runner-up — but there were four Asian candidates in the race, and together they far outpolled him. So there’s a good case for appointing an Asian to this seat.

We endorsed Mak in the race, and we still think she would be the best of the candidates who ran in 2006 — and if the mayor wants to go beyond that field and find someone new, he’ll have to make a strong case for defying the will of the voters. 2

City Attorney smacks down Jew’s PUC investigation request, launches investigation into Jew

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Sarah Phelan

In addition to telling Supervisor Ed Jew that disclosure of his public records, including his PUC water usage records is permitted “because you stated in your letter and in comments to the public that your father’s home is also your residence”, City Attorney Dennis Herrera has asked the beleagured supe to provide the following information before next Tuesday, May 29 (which could be tricky since Jew is currently in China),: a copy of Jew’s 2006 state and federal tax returns; a copy of his driver’s licence; a copy of his vehicle registration cards; a copy of his utility bills–gas and electric, waste removal; cable or satellite TV bills; and telephone bills for his 28th Avenue residence between June 1and April 30, 2007. (Note to self: don’t get into hot water with city attorney, until you’ve got your personal records filed and ready to go.)
Meanwhile, further analysis of Jew’s water usage shows that no water was consumed in March and April 2007, that only 3 units (3 x 748 gallons) was consumed in January and February 2007, and I unit (748 gallons) was consumed in November and December 2006. Prior to that, the only water units shown are from an unbilled balance already on the account before Jew established service there on September 11, 2006.

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