District Attorney

Backroom meetings precede today’s mayoral succession vote

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stay tuned.

The next district attorney

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
34
The next district attorney

sarah@sfbg.com

By the time District Attorney Kamala Harris declared victory in the razor-close California attorney general race, two candidates had already filed to replace her. And their candidacies further complicate the delicate process of appointing a new district attorney when Harris gets sworn in Jan. 3 as the first woman and racial minority to become attorney general of California.

David Onek, a senior fellow at the Berkeley Center for Criminal Justice and a former police commissioner, filed in July and has raised $130,000 and collected 1,000 signatures.

Paul Henderson, a veteran prosecutor whom Harris tapped in 2007 as her chief administrator, filed Nov. 22 when his boss’ victory in the attorney general’s race looked assured.

And now Alameda County Assistant D.A. Sharmin Bock, a human trafficking expert, is reportedly mulling a bid.

Mayor Gavin Newsom has said that if Harris resigns before him, he’ll heed her recommendation for her successor. But whoever Newsom, or his successor, appoints will have a major advantage as the incumbent if he or she runs in November 2011.

Unlike the interim mayor, who will have to make unpopular cuts to balance the budget, the person who fills out Harris’ term will have a strong presumption of holding onto the office.

So far Harris has been silent on the topic of a replacement to the post she held since 2003, when she defeated two-term incumbent District Attorney Terence Hallinan.

A possible reason for Harris’ silence is that until recently San Francisco Superior Court Presiding Judge Katherine Feinstein, the only daughter of U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, was thought to be a front-runner for the post. This perception was based on the assumption that Sen. Feinstein wanted her daughter appointed, that Newsom would obey the senator’s wishes, and that no one in Democratic circles would dare to challenge Judge Feinstein in November given her mother’s political influence.

But it turns out that Feinstein, 53, whose peers unanimously elected her to succeed James J. McBride for a two-year term effective Jan. 1, 2011 as the Superior Court’s presiding judge, couldn’t legally accept an appointment anyway and would have to run in the November race.

And Superior Court spokeswoman Ann Donlan told the Guardian that Feinstein does not intend to give up her position as presiding judge. “Judge Feinstein has told court employees and her judicial colleagues that she has no intention of relinquishing her judicial duties in San Francisco,” Donlan stated.

 

THE HEIR APPARENT

That leaves Henderson as Harris’ presumptive heir; Onek, who is married to the daughter of Michael Dukakis, is a political force to be reckoned with; and former prosecutor Bill Fazio and police commissioner and former prosecutor Jim Hammer are possible appointments.

District Attorney’s Office spokesperson Erica Derryck would say nothing on the record about the appointment other than that it’s the mayor’s decision to make. But former D.A. Office spokesperson Debbie Mesloh noted that Harris has outlined the qualities she is seeking.

“Kamala has mentioned publicly that she is looking for someone with integrity who understands how the office works and will take over in such a way that allows people to continue their work,” Mesloh said. “That may sound like small potatoes, but it’s a big deal given how many folks work in the D.A.’s Office.”

Public Defender Jeff Adachi told us he finds it interesting that neither Harris nor Newsom has issued an endorsement in favor of anyone. “The silence is deafening,” Adachi said, “But what’s absolutely missing is a process to select a new district attorney. The D.A’s job involves major responsibilities in terms of running and managing a large law office, so I think there should be some kind of process.”

Adachi said the most important qualification is an understanding of how the D.A.’s Office operates and the respect of line staff. “That’s where trial experience comes in. You want someone with experience of homicide trials and serious cases. You’re overseeing a staff of trial attorneys, investigators, and their support staff — who are all litigators.”

Adachi warns that having a caretaker in that office for 11 months would create havoc. “The best choice would be someone who would allow for a smooth transition and have the qualifications and interest in running for office,” he said.

Sup. David Chiu, who became the first Chinese-American Board of Supervisors president in January 2008 and previously worked as a criminal prosecutor in the D.A.’s Office, has often been mentioned as a candidate. He told the Guardian that he enjoyed his time as a prosecutor but wants to stay put, for now.

“Kamala Harris did a good job in terms of her prosecutorial approach, and I understand she is anxious to make sure her legacy is not repealed,” Chiu said. “I’m happy to serve wherever to further the public interest, and the board is in a fragile and unstable place.”

 

IT WON’T BE SUP. ELSBERND

Former D.A. Terence Hallinan, who served two terms as a supervisor before being elected D.A., thinks it’s a big advantage to come from the board. “I knew how to use the budget process to get what I needed,” he said. “I held the key to that door.”

But a city insider who asked to remain anonymous said that if Chiu is thinking D.A., he’d be setting his sights too low. “The brass ring is right there for Chiu as mayor,” the source said.

According to the city charter, the D.A. must be a San Francisco resident who has been licensed to practice law in all California courts for at least five years. Sup. Sean Elsbernd, who qualified for the bar in 2000, has been mentioned in some circles. But Elsbernd told us that the rumors that Newsom would appoint him as D.A. and Newsom’s Chief of Staff Steve Kawa as D7 supervisor are baseless.

“They are just saying that because I’m an attorney,” said Elsbernd, who worked as a law clerk with Nielsen, Merksamer, Parinello, Mueller, & Naylor and with the D.A.’s Office prior to his August 2004 appointment to the board by Newsom and his November 2004 election.

So now the money remains on Newsom to appoint Henderson, who is a gay African American. “It’s important to take the diversity of the city into account,” our City Hall source said. “And Henderson can do the job. He’s extremely capable; the lawyer types like him; he reaches out to all groups and political factions; and his appointment would be a signal to the Democratic Party that whoever appoints him takes diversity seriously.”

Hallinan said he thinks Henderson will get the nod. “I think Kamala wants to keep a hand in that office,” Hallinan said. “And Paul is a nice guy, very competent, a good administrator — though not real experienced at trying cases.”

The D.A. doesn’t have time to try cases because there are administrative matters to deal with every day, Hallinan noted. “But trial experience is good because, although the job is administrative, you are selecting who should try what case,” he said. “So unless you have experience, it’s hard to judge what resources you have to be devoted.”

Fazio, who lost to Hallinan in the D.A.’s race in the 1990s, says he wants Henderson to get the appointment. “Henderson has been a loyal deputy. Onek has never been in a courtroom, and he doesn’t even work in San Francisco,” Fazio said.

Fazio doesn’t think Henderson’s bid will be hampered by ongoing crime lab and prosecutorial scandals in the D.A.’s Office since he wasn’t directly involved in the crime lab and police misconduct cases. “The biggest challenge for Paul will be turning all that around and running for office,” Fazio said. Insiders agreed that unless something highly unusual happens, an incumbent Henderson would get widespread political support in November.

But Onek sounds like he’s in the race for the duration, and he downplayed his lack of trial experience. “The bottom line is that I’m not going to be the chief trial attorney,” Onek said. “The role of the D.A. is to set policy, have a vision for the office, manage the office, work collaboratively with the community and law enforcement agencies, and finally, bring resources in from outside.”

“I’m spending my time building a criminal justice movement and not focusing on the politics of it all,” he added. “It’s speculation and the winds change every day.”

Onek observed that his entire career has been about criminal justice reform. “Kamala Harris did a great job of starting on that reform, and we need someone who can step in and continue the reform.”

How many suspects did SF cops frame?

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
1
How many suspects did SF cops frame?

EDITORIAL The job of a district attorney is bringing criminals to justice; everybody knows that. But it’s also the job of the city’s top law enforcement agent to make sure the innocent are protected — and that’s a part that many DAs ignore.

There’s considerable evidence that the San Francisco police have framed suspects, set up evidence, and illegally manipulated the legal system to put the wrong people behind bars. Repeatedly. That’s a crisis that requires active intervention from the District Attorney’s Office — and since Kamala Harris is on her way out the door, it has to be a top priority for her successor.

The latest example: Superior Court Judge Marla Miller ruled Dec. 14 that Caramad Conley was denied his constitutional rights and convicted of murder after San Francisco cops allowed a paid witness to lie on the stand.

Miller concluded that homicide inspector Earl Sanders, who later became police chief and is now retired on a nice pension, knew that witness Clifford Polk was lying and made no effort to correct it.

That’s not the first time Sanders has been tied to an improper conviction. John Tennyson and Antoine Goff were sentenced to 25 years to life in 1990 — and spent 13 years in prison for a crime they didn’t commit. They were convicted after Sanders, and his then-partner Napoleon Hendrix, failed to inform the defense about key evidence.

Tennison and Goff would still be behind bars — except that Tennison’s brother read a Guardian story about the case and put a copy on the windshield of every car in the parking lot where he worked. And some of the people who parked there were lawyers for the top-flight criminal defense firm of Keker & Van Nest LLP.

The lawyers helped Jeff Adachi, then a deputy public defender, convince a federal judge that Tennison and Goff were wrongly convicted, and the two left prison in 2003. The case has now cost the San Francisco taxpayers $7.5 million.

The evidence that may soon free Conley came to light during the Tennison/Goff case — and it looks an awful lot like there’s a pattern here. Sanders and Hendrix (who died of cancer in 2009) worked some 500 homicide cases — and it’s unlikely that these two are isolated instances.

Conley has a shot at leaving prison after 18 years only because lawyers working on another case stumbled on old files, some of them literally buried under debris in a police warehouse. We have to wonder: how many other innocent people are rotting away (at considerable cost to the state) because SF cops helped frame them? And how many killers are still wandering the streets because homicide inspectors and prosecutors took the easy way out and manufactured or suppressed evidence against the first obvious suspect — and sent away the wrong person?

When Harris leaves office next month, a new district attorney will take over responsibility for this mess. It’s not possible, given the limited resources of the department, to go back and review every single case that Sanders and Hendrix worked. But the Conley case involved a key witness who was paid by the cops — that is, an informant getting public money. It’s perfectly legal to pay informants — as long as defense lawyers know that a witness was on the tab at the time of trial. But that didn’t happen in Conley’s case — and there may be many others.

Harris’ successor will have to take on the problems of the crime lab mess and continue to review cases that may be tainted by bad forensic techniques. But he or she needs to assign someone to go back over all of the cases in which Sanders and Hendrix used paid informants and see if any of those convictions need to be reviewed.

In the meantime, Chief George Gascón ought to take the opportunity to review police policies for paying snitches who then take the stand in court. There’s abundant evidence that the current system has serious problems.

EDITORIAL: How many suspects did SF cops frame?

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
1

The job of a district attorney is bringing criminals to justice; everybody knows that. But it’s also the job of the city’s top law enforcement agent to make sure the innocent are protected — and that’s a part that many DAs ignore.

There’s considerable evidence that the San Francisco police have framed suspects, set up evidence, and illegally manipulated the legal system to put the wrong people behind bars. Repeatedly. That’s a crisis that requires active intervention from the District Attorney’s Office — and since Kamala Harris is on her way out the door, it has to be a top priority for her successor.

The latest example: Superior Court Judge Marla Miller ruled Dec. 14 that Caramad Conley was denied his constitutional rights and convicted of murder after San Francisco cops allowed a paid witness to lie on the stand.

Miller concluded that homicide inspector Earl Sanders, who later became police chief and is now retired on a nice pension, knew that witness Clifford Polk was lying and made no effort to correct it.

That’s not the first time Sanders has been tied to an improper conviction. John Tennyson and Antoine Goff were sentenced to 25 years to life in 1990 — and spent 13 years in prison for a crime they didn’t commit. They were convicted after Sanders, and his then-partner Napoleon Hendrix, failed to inform the defense about key evidence.

Tennison and Goff would still be behind bars — except that Tennison’s brother read a Guardian story about the case and put a copy on the windshield of every car in the parking lot where he worked. And some of the people who parked there were lawyers for the top-flight criminal defense firm of Keker & Van Nest LLP.

The lawyers helped Jeff Adachi, then a deputy public defender, convince a federal judge that Tennison and Goff were wrongly convicted, and the two left prison in 2003. The case has now cost the San Francisco taxpayers $7.5 million.

The evidence that may soon free Conley came to light during the Tennison/Goff case — and it looks an awful lot like there’s a pattern here. Sanders and Hendrix (who died of cancer in 2009) worked some 500 homicide cases — and it’s unlikely that these two are isolated instances.

Conley has a shot at leaving prison after 18 years only because lawyers working on another case stumbled on old files, some of them literally buried under debris in a police warehouse. We have to wonder: how many other innocent people are rotting away (at considerable cost to the state) because SF cops helped frame them? And how many killers are still wandering the streets because homicide inspectors and prosecutors took the easy way out and manufactured or suppressed evidence against the first obvious suspect — and sent away the wrong person?

When Harris leaves office next month, a new district attorney will take over responsibility for this mess. It’s not possible, given the limited resources of the department, to go back and review every single case that Sanders and Hendrix worked. But the Conley case involved a key witness who was paid by the cops — that is, an informant getting public money. It’s perfectly legal to pay informants — as long as defense lawyers know that a witness was on the tab at the time of trial. But that didn’t happen in Conley’s case — and there may be many others.

Harris’ successor will have to take on the problems of the crime lab mess and continue to review cases that may be tainted by bad forensic techniques. But he or she needs to assign someone to go back over all of the cases in which Sanders and Hendrix used paid informants and see if any of those convictions need to be reviewed.

In the meantime, Chief George Gascón ought to take the opportunity to review police policies for paying snitches who then take the stand in court. There’s abundant evidence that the current system has serious problems.

Chiu, the mayor and the next board

Zelda Bronstein
-
12
Chiu, the mayor and the next board

Matier and Ross today ran a piece saying exactly what everybody who follows local politics already knew: Board president David Chiu will have considerable influence over the choice of the next mayor. The thing is, Chiu has to make a decision, soon: Does he want to be interim mayor (thus giving up his board seat and risking losing in November) or go for the district attorney job (thus giving Newsom a swing-vote appointment to the board and pissing off the progressive constituency that got him elected and will be critical to his political future) or move to keep his position as board president (which means working some deals with the incoming board)?


He has to decide pretty soon, too.


Chiu can almost guarantee that the current board doesn’t choose a mayor. that will take six votes, and without Chiu, neither the progressives nor the moderates can count to six. That would put his fate (both as a potential mayor and board president) in the hands of the new board.


And while everyone at the Chron seems to accept at face value the notion that the new board will be more centrist, I don’t think we know that yet. The only way this board moves to the center is if Jane Kim, a former Green Party member  who replaces Chris Daly, starts to abondon her progressive principles. If that doesn’t happen, then all this talk of a more centrist new board is bunk.


Remember: D2, Farrell replaces Alioto-Pier — a wash. D4: carmen Chu re-elected. D6: Kim replaces Daly. D8: Wiener replaces Dufty — a wash. D 10: Cohen replaces Maxwell — probably a wash, since Maxwell was never part of the progressive majority.


The only twist is that Chiu supported Kim and they’re close, so she would back him for mayor. But Daly might, too.


The bottom line: Chiu has to decide pretty soon what he wants to do, and let the rest of us know.

More innocents in prison

Zelda Bronstein
-
3
More innocents in prison

It sounds like the Tennison and Goff story all over again: An innocent man has been locked up for 18 years on the basis of highly flawed testimony from a police informant. I know, I know, Caramad Conley hasn’t been proven innocent — but a Superior Court judge thinks he hasn’t been proven guilty, either. And it all traces back to retired homicide inspector and later police chief Earl Sanders.


District Attorney Kamala Harris is still talking about retrying Conley, but I don’t think that’s going to go anywhere — the one key witness is dead and his testimony has been utterly impeached be revelations that he lied on the stand.


What’s interesting is that none of this would have ever come out it the lawyers at Keker and Van Nest, along with Public Defender Jeff Adachi, hadn’t pursued the Tennison and Goff cases — and even then, a lot of the evidence was (literally) buried. So this makes two cases — so far — in which Sander and his partner, the late Napolean Hendrix, were accused of framing a defendant. I suspect there have to be more.


“When something like this happens, it’s usually a pattern and practice,” Adachi told me.


Dan Purcell, the Keker attorney who represented Conley, told me he thinks the district attorney should go back and review some of the other similar cases involving Sanders and Hendrix. “The documents show that there are other cases where they paid witnesses,” Purcell said. “Now, that’s perfectly fine if you inform the defense, but in this case they clearly didn’t.”


Adachi complained that “nothing happens to the inspectors” — and he’s right. Sanders is comfortably retired on a nice pension and Hendrix died of cancer in 2009. And since the pair handled more than 500 murders, it’s hard to imagine reviewing all of their cases.


But the district attorney can certainly go back and review the other cases in which Sanders and Hendrix paid witnesses — and any others where the evidence was slim. That’s a matter of basic justice. 

Class conflict in DC and SF

Sasha Cuttler
-
12
Class conflict in DC and SF

There’s an unmistakable whiff of class warfare in the air this holiday season, most obviously on the national level where President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans are helping the ultra-rich steal hundreds of billions of dollars from future generations and the country’s current needs. But we’re also seeing it right here in San Francisco, subtly playing out around who will be our next mayor.

During yesterday’s scheduled discussion at the Board of Supervisors on choosing a new mayor, members of the public – from African-American mothers of slain youth to representatives of immigrant communities to those representing labor and progressive groups – urged the board to choose a mayor who would finally represent all of San Francisco, not just the wealthy and the business community.

Then the progressive supervisors who represent the city’s working class districts talked about getting the process underway and voiced some of the things they’d like to see in a new mayor, such as compassion and a willingness to work with the board and community groups. It seemed like a good faith effort at having an open public discussion about the city’s needs.

But on the other side of the aisle, the supervisors who represent the city’s wealthiest neighborhoods voted to delay the discussion without offering a reason why. Sup. Chris Daly made good points about how incoming mayors usually have time to prepare for assuming this powerful office at a time of pressing city needs and tricky political dynamics, arguing for making this decision sooner than later.

And from the Establishment representatives: nothing. Not a word. Instead, we have Mayor Gavin Newsom threatening to delay his swearing in as lieutenant governor to thwart the current board from picking a successor, and being overtly urged to do so in a San Francisco Chronicle editorial and in disingenous, sanctimonious ruses from SF Chamber of Commerce officials.

Why? Well, here’s the closest thing the editorial offered to a reason: “It makes all the sense in the world to have the supervisors who will be working with the interim mayor make the selection. They are the ones who will have to find common ground and develop a working relationship with Newsom’s successor.”

But does it really make any sense to have an inexperienced group of new supervisors (as our current cover stories shows, none of the four new supervisors have held municipal office and two are new to politics) pick a mayor on their first day on the job, and then have that person immediately take on the complicated job of running the city with no staff in place? And to do that by flouting the the California Constitution and the City Charter?

That sounds like a recipe for disaster – and an opportunity for downtown power brokers to make mischief and ensure their interests aren’t threatened as part of whatever backroom deal gets cut to choose a new mayor, district attorney, and board president. Why else would they so vehemently oppose a deliberative public process that would lead to a decision by those who know the workings of City Hall better than anyone?

As we saw in the last election, wealthy San Franciscans are scared to death of progressive malcontents like Chris Daly, and they’re doing whatever they can to prevent him from being involved in this decision. They see, probably correctly, that the current political dynamics of the city could lead to perhaps the most progressive mayor since George Moscone, or maybe ever, and they’ll do whatever they can to prevent that from happening.

The rich of this city and this country have overplayed their hands, crippled the public sector, and, as Sen. Bernie Sanders so eloquently said recently on the floor of the US Senate, shown a selfish disregard for the needs and interests of the vast majority of citizens. The only question now is this: are we ready to finally stand up, fight back, and really give them something to fear? Or are we going to take our cues from Obama and treat anti-government conservatives as good faith actors when they have shown only contempt for our most cherished democratic processes and values?

I suppose next week, when this board reconvenes to try to choose a successor mayor, we’ll find out.

Prison for killer cop

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
0
Prison for killer cop

rebeccab@sfbg.com

On Nov. 5, former BART Police officer Johannes Mehserle was sentenced to two years in state prison for fatally shooting Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old African American rider, on the Fruitvale train platform on New Year’s Day 2009.

Mehserle, who is white, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in July in an incident that has become charged with racial undertones. He received credit for 292 days served in jail so far, which will considerably reduce his time in prison. It was the lightest prison sentence he could have received for the crime.

Grant supporters gathered in Frank Ogawa Plaza in downtown Oakland to express anger and sorrow upon hearing news of the sentence. “I’m not shocked,” said Cat Brooks, who helped organize an afternoon rally for the Coalition for Justice for Oscar Grant. “But I’m disgusted and distraught. It seems like the justice system didn’t work.”

After the rally came to a close and night fell, protesters spilled into the streets and marched toward the Fruitvale BART Station, the scene of the crime. But after a dozen car windows were smashed along the way, police officers in riot gear corralled the group into a residential neighborhood. Police then placed 152 protesters under mass arrest, mostly on charges of unlawful assembly. Roughly two-thirds of those arrested were Oakland residents, according to the Oakland Police Department, while others were from Berkeley, San Francisco, Hayward, and other local cities.

 

COMMUNITY RESPONDS

A stage outside Oakland City Hall was transformed into a venue for personal expression in the wake of the sentencing. Community members lined up to air their frustrations and resolve to keep fighting. They piled flowers onto a shrine that had been created with a picture of Grant’s face. Some painted pictures, while others gave spoken word or hip-hop performances. Several told stories of loved ones who’d died in police shootings.

Cephus Johnson, Grant’s uncle, was at the Los Angeles courtroom where Mehserle was sentenced, but shared some thoughts with the Guardian beforehand. Asked what he’d thought when the verdict had been announced, Johnson said, “My first thought was that we’re witnessing the criminal justice system failing to work as it should have worked.” If the sentence fell short of the 14-year maximum, he said, “it will be another slap in the face, signifying that black and brown men are worthless.”

East Bay labor organizer Charles Dubois was among those attending the Nov. 5 rally. “Every black parent, every brown parent, lives with this nightmare of their children being killed by some cops because they thought they had a gun,” Dubois said in an interview with the Guardian. “It’s been happening since I was a kid. It’s been happening then and it’s happening now, and it’s going to keep happening until we do something.”

California Assemblymember Tom Ammiano (D-SF) also weighed in during a phone call with the Guardian. “This verdict is outrageous,” he said. “It’s Dan White all over again.”

 

JUDGE DROPS GUN ENHANCEMENT

Judge Robert Perry sided with arguments presented by Mehserle’s defense attorney, Michael Rains, when he levied a reduced punishment. Mehserle could have served up to 14 years prison for involuntary manslaughter committed while wielding a gun, but Perry tossed out the firearm enhancement.

“No reasonable trier of fact could have concluded that Mehserle intentionally fired his gun,” the judge was quoted in media reports as saying. But that appears to be what the jury found, as the prosecution argued in a presentencing memorandum.

“The evidence was presented regarding the use of the gun, and in discussing the use of the gun in the jury room, somehow or another the jury decided he had used the gun illegally,” criminal defense attorney and National Lawyers Guild observer Walter Riley told the Guardian. “One has to believe the jury expected him to have exposure to a greater amount of jail time because of that.”

Perry said he believed Mehserle suffered a “muscle memory accident” that led him to draw and fire his service weapon instead of his Taser, a cornerstone of the defense’s case.

Rains wrote to the court prior to sentencing that jurors should never have been allowed to apply the firearm enhancement to an involuntary manslaughter conviction “because in this case, there is no logical way to square a verdict of involuntary manslaughter and a finding that Mehserle intended to use his gun.”

Prosecutor David Stein of the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office countered that the jury’s conviction showed they believed Mehserle intended to shoot, but not to kill, Grant. Yet Perry agreed with the defense, conceding he had mistakenly permitted the jury to enhance Mehserle’s sentence.

Riley said he sympathized with frustrations over the gun enhancement getting dismissed. “The use of guns is too prevalent in circumstances where law enforcement comes in contact with young black people,” he said. “Our society — our civil society, our judicial authority, and our communities — have to hold government and law enforcement officers to a higher level of accountability in their interactions with citizens. When people with guns shoot an inordinate number of people of one group, it’s worth tremendous scrutiny.”

 

ANOTHER NIGHT IN JAIL

Twice before, activists took to the streets in furious protest over this case. In January 2009, things escalated to the point where cars were set ablaze. In July 2010, a street rally gave way to rioting and looting. So on Nov. 5, many downtown Oakland storeowners boarded up and closed business early in anticipation of a third wave of vandalism.

Yet the turnout was smaller than the previous events. And while there were reports of smashed car windshields and other instances of vandalism along the circuitous path of the march, there was far less property destruction.

The community affair outside Oakland City Hall ended around 6 p.m., when the permit expired. Soon after, activists spilled into the intersection of 14th and Broadway streets, then began advancing down 14th Street chanting “No Justice! No Peace!” and “The whole system is guilty!” The march turned right onto Madison Street, then left onto 10th Street.

A police helicopter with a spotlight kept pace overhead while it progressed, and when protesters reached Laney College, police officers in riot gear blocked them in. So protesters cut through a park and wandered in a pack until they reached the intersection of East 18th Street and Sixth Avenue in a residential neighborhood. Once again, police surrounded the protesters. This time, the crowd was trapped.

Rachel Jackson, an activist who was barricaded in, began sounding off. “We were going to Fruitvale,” she explained. “We wanted to go to the scene of the crime. All night the police have been trying to suppress our free speech.” When a nearby TV news reporter asked her about windows that had been busted along the march, she was incensed. “We will not equate glass with Oscar Grant’s life!” she responded. “If we have to come out ourselves and board up windows, we’ll do that. But what we are concerned with right now is murder.”

Reporters were allowed to exit the confined area, but if anyone else had been inclined to leave peacefully, they were unable to. Police issued a call on a megaphone telling activists, “You are all under arrest. Do not resist arrest.” By the time the mass arrest was underway, public information officer Jeff Thomason told a group of reporters that there were more police officers on the scene than protesters.

“When the rocks were being thrown, it was declared an unlawful assembly,” Thomason explained. He said a dispersal order had been issued simultaneously. Yet it would have been impossible for the trapped crowd to comply with such an order.

Meanwhile, a resident of the Oakland neighborhood who had come outside when the commotion began told the Guardian that she sympathized with the protesters. “The only thing I don’t condone is the vandalism,” said Dyshia Harvey, who surveyed the scene from behind a fence with her six-year-old son.

Harvey had been anticipating word of Mehserle’s sentencing. “I was upset. I was frustrated, angry, and hurt” by the outcome, she said. But she wasn’t surprised. “I already knew we weren’t going to get no justice,” she said. “For taking a life, 14 years isn’t enough. It makes you feel like there’s no justice in the justice system.”

 

NOT OVER YET

Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley has not stated whether her office will appeal Perry’s ruling. Rains told reporters in L.A. that he would appeal Mehserle’s involuntary manslaughter conviction.

Meanwhile, the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice released a statement indicating that a federal investigation is in the works. “The Justice Department and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California have been closely monitoring the local prosecution of this case,” a USDOJ prepared statement notes. “Now that the state prosecution has concluded and consistent with department policy, we will thoroughly review the prosecution and its underlying investigation to determine whether further action is appropriate.”

BART settled a civil lawsuit filed on behalf of Grant’s daughter in January that is likely to total $5.1 million, according to civil rights attorney John Burris’ website. Two other lawsuits, one on behalf of Grant’s mother and one on behalf of five other men on the Fruitvale station platform that night, have been consolidated into a single trial that will begin in May 2011, Burris told the Guardian.

Meanwhile, Grant’s death marked just one of three police shootings that occurred Jan. 1, 2009 — the other two cases also sparked allegations of civil-rights violations, since both victims were African American men. Adolph Grimes, 22, was fatally shot 14 times, including 12 times in the back, by a group of New Orleans police officers, who erroneously believed he was a suspect who’d fled the scene of a shooting.

The same night, Robert Tolan, 23 — the son of a Major League Baseball player — was shot and seriously injured outside his home in an upscale Houston suburb by a police officer who mistakenly believed Tolan had stolen the vehicle he was driving. Sgt. Jeffrey Cotton, the white officer who shot him, was ultimately acquitted.

 

CREATIVE OUTLET

Not everyone in Oakland reacted to Mehserle’s sentence by charging through the streets. The Oscar Grant Foundation, which facilitated live art performances at Frank Ogawa Plaza Nov. 5, is calling for youth groups, Bay Area schools, and adults to participate in an art and poetry showcase inspired by Grant. Information can be found online at IamOscarGrant.org. The foundation is advertising a $1,000 grand prize. Three artists from the Trust Your Struggle Collective didn’t wait to join a contest, however, and spent the afternoon of Nov. 5 adorning plywood covering the Youth Radio building windows at 17th Street and Telegraph Avenue, a few blocks from Frank Ogawa Plaza.

The mural displayed a prominent image of Grant holding his daughter, Tatiana, who was four years old when Grant was killed. The pair are flanked by the names and figures of more than 20 people killed by police.

“We asked the youth inside what they wanted to see,” Miguel Perez, an artist with the Trust Your Struggle Collective, told the Guardian as he looked over the mural. “They said they wanted to see the names of people killed by police nationwide, not just in the Bay Area. The list is so huge, it’s hard to pick out specific names.”

Perez said Trust Your Struggle is a group of artists and educators with social-justice backgrounds who create art as activism. “Being a person of color, I’ve had racist stuff said to me by the police,” Perez said. “It seems like it’s slowly been changing for the past hundreds of years, but it’s still not enough — enough being fairness.” *

How not to choose a mayor

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
5
How not to choose a mayor

EDITORIAL There are plenty of good arguments among progressives about who would be the best person to replace Gavin Newsom as mayor and how the Board of Supervisors should make that decision. It’s a complicated situation: The next mayor will face a horrible budget deficit, all sorts of tough decisions — and then face the voters in 10 months. And if the board appoints a progressive, that person will face a hostile daily newspaper and several well-funded opponents in the fall.

But we know there are some very bad scenarios, some things the board and the potential mayor contenders shouldn’t do — because in the end, the process needs to be free of any sort of backroom taint.

Here are some basic ground rules for the next two months.

Newsom shouldn’t try to mess around with the selection of his successor. The mayor decided to run for state office with the full knowledge that he would leave behind a vacancy that the supervisors would fill. He has no business playing political and legal games to skew the results. For example, some say Newsom is considering delaying his swearing in, now set for Jan 3, 2011, for a week to prevent the current supervisors from voting on an interim mayor. That would be a bad faith, manipulative move. He made his choice; now he needs to get out of the way and let the City Charter process work.

The current board should have a fair shot at electing Newsom’s replacement. The day after Newsom takes office as lieutenant governor, the current board will meet for one last time — and by law, they should and will have a chance to find a candidate who can get six votes to serve out Newsom’s term. Any parliamentary moves that serve only to delay the vote and push the decision to the new board would be inappropriate.

The idea of a “caretaker” mayor is fraught with problems — and Willie Brown shouldn’t even be on the list. Newsom is pushing the idea of a true interim mayor, someone who won’t run for the job in November and will simply keep the lights on for 11 months. That means ignoring the city’s serious structural problems. A caretaker would have no authority and little ability change things. And the notion that’s being floated around of former mayor Willie Brown stepping in is disgraceful. Brown was a terrible mayor, and a rerun of that nightmare — even of only 11 months — is the last thing San Francisco needs.

Kamala Harris shouldn’t be a player in this game. If Harris, the current district attorney, is elected state attorney general, her job will be open too — and it’s easy to see how Newsom could use that as a plum to get his way. If Harris resigns before Newsom is sworn in, Newsom would get to appoint her replacement — and if that appointee is currently on the Board of Supervisors, Newsom would get to fill a seat on the board too. Harris needs to stay out of that unseemly sort of deal.

All the rules and procedures need to be made public, now. The legalities of this transition are tricky. Could the current board appoint an interim mayor now, knowing that a vacancy will occur, or must they wait until Newsom has actually resigns? Could Newsom delay his swearing in? The supervisors need to get legal advice on every possible scenario — and make it public. The last thing anyone needs in this confusion period is secrecy.

Plenty of people will be unhappy with whatever plays out. But if the process is bad, the result will be a mayor with no legitimacy.

Mayoral question perplexes the pundits

Sasha Cuttler
-
14
Mayoral question perplexes the pundits

Today’s post-election analysis session at the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association featured the usual room full of smart political minds from across the ideological spectrum – including those of hosts Alex Clemens and David Latterman – but nobody had any real insights into the big question on everyone’s minds: who will be the next mayor?

Everyone agrees that Gavin Newsom is headed to Sacramento in January, and state law calls for him to become lieutenant governor (and resign as mayor) on Jan. 3. At that point, Board President David Chiu becomes acting mayor, and the current Board of Supervisors is scheduled to meet Jan. 4 and could vote for a new interim mayor. The newly elected board takes office a week later and as its first order of business it will elect a new president, who becomes the new acting mayor, and if the old board can’t elect an interim, then the new one could elect an interim mayor, who would serve until after the mayoral election in November.

It’s tough enough for anyone to get to six votes, particularly considering supervisors can’t vote for themselves, but the deal-making could also involve the district attorney’s job. If Kamala Harris holds her slim current lead for attorney general, the new mayor would get to appoint her replacement. And if Rep. Nancy Pelosi decides to resign, that plum job would mix things up further. So everything is revolving around the vote for mayor right now.

“Everything comes back to this,” Latterman said, as he and Clemens basically had to shrug off questions about who has the inside track to be mayor. There are just too many variables involved, too many possible deals that could be cut, too many ambitious politicians in the mix, not to mention innumerable outsiders who could be tapped (hmmm…Mayor Jones, it does have a ring to it).

Latterman, a downtown consultant who helps update the Progressive Voter Index (created by SF State Professor Rich DeLeon), noted that the citywide results in the election once again showed that the overall city electorate is more moderate than progressive, particularly because the districts that have the strongest voter turnout (Districts 2, 4, and 8) are also some of the city’s most conservative.

As a result, he said, “The city is not voting for a far left mayor come November, so [progressives] will do whatever they can to get a mayor now.” Progressives are indeed hoping to get one of their own into Room 200 in January, and they hope that would allow whoever is chosen to win over enough voters to remain after November.

As a result, conservatives and most moderates will dig in, with many pushing the idea of a “caretaker mayor” so the playing field between left and right is still fairly even this fall.

“This is a World Series for political junkies,” Clemens said, who had the funniest way of casting the question: Normally, about 11 people run for mayor and the whole city picks one, he said, “but this is the opposite.” These 11 supervisors have the whole city to pick a mayor from, and at this point, it’s anyone’s guess who that will be.

Election 2010: SF’s season of political madness

Zelda Bronstein
-
7

You can draw — or not draw — all sorts of conclusions about the meaning of last night’s national election, but I can tell you what the state and local results mean: A season of political madness. As of the first week in January, San Francisco will have a new mayor and (probably) a new district attorney, and neither will be elected by the voters. And if some pundits are correct and Nancy Pelosi decides to retire rather than taking a seat on the back bench, then a once-in-a-lifetime change to take a safe seat in Congress will open up. And man, will the mad scramble be on.


Gavin Newsom will be sworn in as lt. governor the same day that Kamala Harris (if her lead in the polls holds) will be sworn in as attorney general. In theory, that means Board President David Chiu will become acting mayor — with the authority to appoint a new district attorney. That’s if Harris doesn’t step down a day early, allowing Newsom to appoint her replacement. Deals are being offered and tossed around already (and one of the interesting elements is that Chiu has always been interested in the D.A.’s job — which would open up not only the board presidency but his D3 seat.)


Then the current board members will have five days before their terms end to choose a new mayor by majority vote (except that no supervisor can vote form him or herself), and in the meantime, Chiu will be both acting mayor and board president. If the supes can’t make a decision, the new board — and we still don’t know who will be on that board — will get a chance to elect both a new board president (and acting mayor) and a new mayor.


And to make it more complicated, a number of the people being looked at for the mayor’s job — and some of the people who plan to run for mayor next November — would also be very interested in Pelosi’s seat.


This election isn’t over yet — but already, I promise you, the talks are on and everyone’s thinking about the deal.


It’s going to be crazy — and it also offers progressives a rare change to reshape city politics. No matter what happens with the D6 and D10 races, progressives will hold the board majority. If they can work together — thinking about the larger agenda, not just their personal egos — this could turn out very well indeed.

Calls for justice

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
0
Calls for justice

rebeccab@sfbg.com

Since the fatal shooting of Oscar Grant III on New Year’s Day in 2009, a photograph of the 22-year-old African American man from Hayward has become iconic. The picture shows Grant’s smiling face, and the black ski cap and a hooded sweatshirt he was wearing the day it was taken.

It has been copied onto posters and displayed like wallpaper in downtown Oakland cafes and along city blocks, manipulated with different hues and accents to produce scores of flyers, banners, hip-hop album jackets, T-shirts, and even masks. An expansive mural in Oakland displays Grant’s image on a larger-than-life scale, framed with roses.

The ubiquitous pictures of Grant, the victim of a shooting by police, are a constant reminder that his life was taken suddenly when BART cop Johannes Mehserle shot him in the back on the Fruitvale train platform. At the time, Grant was unarmed and physically restrained, having been arrested following reports of a fight.

Cell phone camera footage of the shooting went viral, and the case drew national attention. The defense argued that it was all a tragic accident, saying Mehserle had mistakenly drawn his firearm when he meant to draw his Taser.

Mehserle was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and his sentencing is expected Nov. 5. With all the attention surrounding the case, this final determination has taken on the proportions of a moment of truth.

Mehserle could be sent to prison for as long as 14 years, or merely be placed on probation. For many Grant supporters, it’s a question of whether the justice system will incarcerate a police officer for killing a young person of color, after so many other youths have been slain in police shootings that never went to trial. For Mehserle’s supporters, the outcome will signify something else entirely.

 

RIVAL NARRATIVES

Mehserle, a white Napa native in his late 20s who resigned from BART after the shooting, was tried on a murder charge. But a jury in Los Angeles (where the trial was moved because of the publicity here) found him guilty of involuntary manslaughter on July 8. Protesters, decrying the verdict as too lenient, converged in downtown Oakland for a street rally directly afterward that later gave way to bursts of rioting and looting.

The grassroots community leaders who urged supporters into the streets aren’t the only people now mobilizing around the sentencing. In the months following the verdict, the law enforcement community rallied in support of Mehserle, whose conviction for on-duty police conduct stood out as a rarity.

The former cop’s supporters have set up websites, hosted vigils, and arranged media interviews for Mehserle and his allies. A website called Justice4Johannes.com decries his conviction, denouncing the justice system as biased against police. “Do not let our officers fall victim to a spineless system,” the website urges, “who would rather protect criminals than protect our law enforcement officers who daily put their lives on the line for you!”

As the date of the sentencing approaches, each side has demonstrated that they are as active as ever. When the Giants played in AT&T Park in October, Mehserle’s father, Todd, made an appearance in McCovey Cove on a stately sailboat with “Free Johannes Mehserle” banners ruffling on its tall masts. But a smaller wooden ketch with activist Jared Aldrich at the helm, hoisted banners that read “Justice for Oscar Grant” and, on another occasion, “Jail Killer Cops.”

On Oct. 23, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 10 shut down Bay Area ports, using a stop-work day to hold a rally at the Port of Oakland calling for the maximum sentence for Mehserle.

“The litany of police killings of innocent young black and Latino men has evoked a public outcry in California,” Jack Heyman, a co-organizer of the rally, wrote in an article in CounterPunch. “Yet when it comes to killer cops, especially around election time, with both the Democratic and Republican parties espousing law and order, the mainstream media either expunges or whitewashes the issue.”

Heyman told the Guardian that he had visited Oakland high school classes to speak about the issue and found that in some classes, every single student raised a hand when asked if they knew the name Oscar Grant. “They happen to be sensitive to the issue of police brutality,” he noted. “A number of them had had problems with police.”

 

PRISON OR PROBATION?

On Oct. 26, opposing briefs on the sentencing were filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court. Defense Attorney Michael Rains submitted a 126-page memo urging the judge to drop the gun-enhancement charge and place Mehserle on probation, which would keep him out of prison. Meanwhile, prosecutors with the Alameda County District Attorney filed a 20-page memo indicating that Mehserle should be sent to prison, but stopped short of advocating for the maximum sentence.

Rains’ motion goes into great detail, quoting from letters sent to the court in Mehserle’s defense, in which the former transit officer is said to be “a gentle giant.” It even goes so far as to suggest that Mehserle’s infant son (born New Year’s Day, 2009) could suffer psychological difficulties later in life if he is separated from his father.

Grant, too, was a father — his daughter, Tatiana, is six — but the prosecution’s motion doesn’t mention how she may be psychologically affected later in life by her loss. Grant supporters sent some 2,000 letters to the judge, according to a posting on civil rights attorney John Burris’ website, but none were referenced in the briefing.

The DA argues that Mehserle intentionally shot Grant, implying that the Taser argument was a fabrication. In the moments following the shooting, the document notes, Mehserle told his fellow officer that he thought Grant was going for a gun. “If the sentence in this case is to serve any purpose whatsoever,” it notes, “it must serve as punishment.”

 

INSIDE THE POLICE LOBBY

The Peace Officers Research Association of California (PORAC) covered the cost of Mehserle’s defense. The 85,000-member, politically powerful police organization maintains a legal defense fund for officers facing legal troubles.

Technically, Mehserle wasn’t entitled to the financial assistance. According to PORAC’s website, an officer who voluntarily resigns may be ineligible for benefits, and Mehserle quit shortly after the shooting. Still, PORAC stepped up and put itself on the hook for millions in legal fees to ensure he had the best possible defense. PORAC was a driver behind the Peace Officers’ Bill of Rights, which established a unique set of protections for law enforcement officers under investigation for misconduct.

PORAC president Ron Cottingham acknowledged that its decision to fund Mehserle’s defense was discretionary, but declined to say more. It’s possible that PORAC was interested in preventing Mehserle’s trial from setting a precedent for other cases involving officers who use deadly force against unarmed suspects.

PORAC also played a role in the BART civilian oversight structure that was ultimately approved by the California Legislature. The transit agency’s lack of civilian oversight became a flashpoint in the wake of the shooting, prompting Assemblymember Tom Ammiano to draft legislation that would have created an Office of Citizen Complaints (OCC) for BART patterned after the system in place in San Francisco. PORAC fought it and the effort was stymied.

“PORAC … will actively oppose your bill as it is written,” Jesse Sekhon, president of the BART Police Officers’ Association, wrote in a letter to Ammiano’s office. “They also said that they will have every law enforcement agency in the state oppose the bill.” Ammiano’s bill would have prevented police officers from serving in oversight roles and would have granted more power to the OCC.

The bill that went forward instead, Assembly Bill 1586, was crafted by BART, supported by PORAC, and introduced by Assemblymember Sandre Swanson (D-Oakland). Under this system, the oversight process begins with a police auditor selected by the BART Board of Directors, and a citizen board — which may include police officers.

According to Lynette Sweet, a member of the BART Board who spoke about the bill during a community meeting in Oakland in August 2009, PORAC opposed Ammiano’s bill because it would have allowed the state to direct municipalities throughout California to create civilian-oversight offices. “PORAC doesn’t want to see that happen. So we’ve now become the lesser of two evils for them,” she said.

On Oct. 29, BART held a dedication ceremony for the new police auditor office and honored Swanson for bringing the legislation forward. The transit agency has initiated a search to fill the civilian-oversight positions. But the rifts in the community over this shooting are far from healed.

On one side, a politically powerful and financially robust police lobby is actively influencing civilian-oversight legislation and spending top dollar trying to keep Mehserle out of prison. On the other, a grassroots community movement furious about police brutality against black and Latino youth is gaining momentum.

Only Judge Robert Perry knows what his own personal interpretation of justice is, and he alone will determine if or for how long Mehserle will spend time behind bars. If he is spared from prison, the community will be outraged. If he is incarcerated, Mehserle supporters will be outraged. But regardless of the decision, Mehserle’s life will go on.

Endorsements 2010: San Francisco candidates

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
53
Endorsements 2010: San Francisco candidates

SUPERVISOR, DISTRICT 2


JANET REILLY


Frankly, we were a little surprised by the Janet Reilly who came in to give us her pitch as a District 2 supervisorial candidate. The last time we met with her, she was a strong progressive running for state Assembly as an advocate of single-payer health care. She was challenging Fiona Ma from the left, and easily won our endorsement.


Now she’s become a fiscal conservative — somewhat more in synch with her district, perhaps, but not an encouraging sign. Reilly seems to realize that there’s a $500 million budget deficit looming, but she won’t support any of the tax measures on the ballot. She’s against the hotel tax. She’s against the real estate transfer tax on high-end properties. She’s against the local car tax. She opposed Sup. David Chiu’s business tax plan that would have shifted the burden from small to larger businesses (even though it was clear from our interview that she didn’t understand it).


She talked about merging some of the nonprofits that get city money, about consolidating departments, and better management — solutions that might stem a tiny fraction of the red ink. But she wouldn’t even admit that the limited tax burden on the very rich was part of San Francisco’s budget problem.


Her main proposal for creating jobs is more tax credits for biotech, life sciences, and digital media and more public-private partnerships.


It’s too bad, because Reilly’s smart, and she’s far, far better than Mark Farrell, the candidate that the current incumbent, Michela Alioto-Pier, is backing. We wish she’d be realistic about the fiscal nightmare she would inherit as a supervisor.


On the positive side, she’s a strong supporter of public power and she has good connections to the progressive community. Unlike Alioto-Pier, she’d be accessible, open-minded, and willing to work with the progressive majority on the board. That would be a dramatic change, so we’ll give her the nod.


We were also impressed with Abraham Simmons, a federal prosecutor who has spent time researching city finance on the Civil Grand Jury. But he supports sit-lie, Prop. B and Prop. S, and opposes most new tax proposals and needs more political seasoning.


 


DISTRICT 4


NO ENDORSEMENT


We’ve always wanted to like Carmen Chu. She’s friendly, personable, intelligent, and well-spoken. But on the issues, she’s just awful. Indeed, we can’t think of a single significant vote on which she’s been anything but a call-up loyalist for Mayor Newsom. She even opposed the public power measure, Prop. H, that had the support of just about everyone in town except hardcore PG&E allies.


She’s running unopposed, and will be reelected. But we can’t endorse her.


 


DISTRICT 6


1. DEBRA WALKER


2. JANE KIM


3. GLENDON “ANNA CONDA” HYDE


CORRECTION: In our original version of this endorsement, we said that Jim Meko supports the sit-lie ordinance. That was an error, and it’s corrected below.


A year ago, this race was artist and activist Debra Walker’s to lose. Most of the progressive community was united behind her candidacy; she’d been working on district issues for a couple of decades, fighting the loft developers during the dot-com boom years and serving on the Building Inspection Commission. Then School Board member Jane Kim decided to enter the race, leaving the left divided, splitting resources that might have gone to other critical district races — and potentially helping to put the most pro-business downtown candidate, Theresa Sparks, in a better position to win.


Now we’ve got something of a mess — a fragmented and sometimes needlessly divisive progressive base in a district that’s key to holding progressive control of the board. And while neither of the two top progressive candidates is actively pursuing a credible ranked-choice voting strategy (Kim has, unbelievably, endorsed James Keys instead of Walker, and Walker has declined to endorse anyone else), we’re setting aside our concern over Kim’s ill-advised move and suggesting a strategy that is most likely to keep the seat Chris Daly has held for the past 10 years from falling to downtown control.


Walker is far and away our first choice. She understands land use and housing — the clear central issues in the district — and has well thought-out positions and proposals. She says that the current system of inclusionary housing — pressing market-rate developers to include a few units of below-market-rate housing with their high-end condos — simply doesn’t work. She supports an immediate affordable housing bond act and a long-term real estate transfer tax high enough to fund a steady supply of housing for the city’s workforce. She told us the city ought to be looking at planning issues from the perspective of what San Francisco needs, not what developers want to build. She’s in favor of progressive taxes and a push for local hiring. We’re happy to give her our first-place ranking.


Jane Kim has been a great SF School Board member and has always been part of the progressive community. But she only moved into District 6 a year and a half ago — about when she started talking about running for supervisor (and she told us in her endorsement interview that “D6 is a district you can run in without having lived there a long time.”) She still hasn’t been able to explain why she parachuted in to challenge an experienced progressive leader she has no substantive policy disagreements with.


That said, on the issues, Kim is consistently good. She is in favor of indexing affordable housing to market-rate housing and halting new condo development if the mix gets out of line. She’s for an affordable housing bond. She supports all the tax measures on this ballot. She’s a little softer on congestion pricing and extending parking-meter hours, but she’s open to the ideas. She supports police foot patrols not just as a law-enforcement strategy, but to encourage small businesses. She’d be a fine vote on the board. And while we’re sympathetic to the Walker supporters who would prefer that we not give Kim the credibility and exposure of an endorsement, the reality is that she’s one of two leading progressives and would be better on the board than the remaining candidates.


Hyde, a dynamic young drag queen performer, isn’t going to win. But he’s offered some great ideas and injected some fun and energy into the race. Hyde talks about creating safe injection sites for IV drug users to reduce the risk of overdoses and the spread of disease. He points out that a lot of young people age out of the foster-care system and wind up on the streets, and he’s for continuum housing that would let these young people transition to jobs or higher education. He talks about starting a co-op grocery in the Tenderloin. He proposes bus-only lanes throughout the district and wants to charge large vehicles a fee to come into the city. He’s a big advocate of nightlife and the arts. He lacks experience and needs more political seasoning, but we’re giving him the third-place nod to encourage his future involvement.


Progressives are concerned about Theresa Sparks, a transgender activist and former business executive who now runs the city’s Human Rights Commission. She did a (mostly) good job on the Police Commission. She’s experienced in city government and has good financial sense. But she’s just too conservative for what remains a very progressive district. Sparks isn’t a big fan of seeking new revenue for the city telling us that “I disagree that we’ve made all the cuts that we can” — even after four years of brutal, bloody, all-cuts budgets. She doesn’t support the hotel tax and said she couldn’t support Sup. David Chiu’s progressive business tax because it would lead to “replacing private sector jobs with public sector jobs” — even though the city’s own economic analysis shows that’s just not true. She supports Newsom’s sit-lie law.


Sparks is the candidate of the mayor and downtown, and would substantially shift the balance of power on the board. She’s also going to have huge amounts of money behind her. It’s important she be defeated.


Jim Meko, a longtime neighborhood and community activist, has good credentials and some solid ideas. He was a key player in the western SoMa planning project and helped come up with a truly progressive land-use program for the neighborhood. But he supports Prop. B and is awfully cranky about local bars and nightlife.


James Keys, who has the support of Sup. Chris Daly and was an intern in Daly’s office, has some intriguing (if not terribly practical) ideas, like combining the Sheriff’s Department and the Police Department and making Muni free). But in his interview, he demonstrated a lack of understanding of the issues facing the district and the city.


So we’re going with a ranked-choice strategy: Walker first, Kim second, Hyde third. And we hope Kim’s supporters ignore their candidate’s endorsement of Keys, put Walker as their second choice, and ensure that they don’t help elect Sparks.


 


DISTRICT 8


RAFAEL MANDELMAN


This is by far the clearest and most obvious choice on the local ballot. And it’s a critical one, a chance for progressives to reclaim the seat that once belonged to Harvey Milk and Harry Britt.


Mandelman, a former president of the Milk Club, is running as more than a queer candidate. He’s a supporter of tenants rights, immigrants’ rights, and economic and social justice. He also told us he believes “local government matters” — and that there are a lot of problems San Francisco can (and has to) solve on its own, without simply ducking and blaming Sacramento and Washington.


Mandelman argues that the public sector has been starved for years and needs more money. He agrees that there’s still a fair amount of bloat in the city budget — particularly management positions — but that even after cleaning out the waste, the city will still be far short of the money it needs to continue providing pubic services. He’s calling for a top-to-bottom review of how the city gets revenue, with the idea of creating a more progressive tax structure.


He’s an opponent of sit-lie and a supporter of the sanctuary city ordinance. He supports tenants rights and eviction protection. He’s had considerable experience (as a member of the Building Inspection Commission and Board of Appeals and as a lawyer who advises local government agencies) and would make an excellent supervisor.


Neither of the other two contenders make our endorsement cut. Rebecca Prozan is a deputy city attorney who told us she would be able to bring the warring factions on the board together. She has some interesting ideas — she’d like to see the city take over foreclosed properties and turn them into housing for teachers, cops, and firefighters — and she’s opposed to sit-lie. But she’s weak on tenant issues (she told us there’s nothing anyone can do to stop the conversion of rental housing into tenancies-in-common), doesn’t seem to grasp the need for substantial new revenues to prevent service cuts, and doesn’t support splitting the appointments to key commissions between the mayor and the supervisors.


Scott Wiener, a deputy city attorney, is a personable guy who always takes our phone calls and is honest and responsive. He’s done a lot of good work in the district. But he’s on the wrong side of many issues, and on some things would be to the right of the incumbent, Sup. Bevan Dufty.


He doesn’t support public power (which Dufty does). He says that a lot of the city’s budget problems can’t be solved until the state gets its own house in order (“we can’t tax our way out of this”) and favors a budget balanced largely by further cuts. In direct contrast to Mandelman, Wiener said San Franciscans “need to lower our expectations for government.” He wants broad-based reductions in almost all city agencies except Muni, “core” public health services, and public safety. He doesn’t support any further restrictions on condo conversions or TICs. And he has the support of the Small Property Owners Association — perhaps the most virulently anti-tenant and anti-rent control group in town.


This district once gave rise to queer political leaders who saw themselves and their struggles as part of a larger progressive movement. That’s drifted away of late — and with Mandelman, there’s a chance to bring it back.


 


DISTRICT 10


1. TONY KELLY


2. DEWITT LACY


3. CHRIS JACKSON


District 10 is the epicenter of new development in San Francisco, the place where city planners want to site as many as 40,000 new housing units, most of them high-end condos, at a cost of thousands of blue-collar jobs. The developers are salivating at the land-rush opportunities here — and the next supervisor not only needs to be an expert in land-use and development politics, but someone with the background and experience to thwart the bad ideas and direct and encourage the good ones.


There’s no shortage of candidates — 22 people are on the ballot, and at least half a dozen are serious contenders. Two — Steve Moss and Lynette Sweet — are very bad news. And one of the key priorities for progressives is defeating the big-money effort that downtown, the police, and the forces behind the Van Ness Avenue megahospital proposal are dumping into the district to elect Moss.


Our first choice is Tony Kelly, who operates Thick Description Theater and who for more than a decade has been directly involved in all the major neighborhood issues. He has a deep understanding of what the district is facing: 4,100 of the 5,300 acres in D10 have been rezoned or put under the Redevelopment Agency in the past 10 years. Planners envision as many as 100,000 new residents in the next 10 years. And the fees paid by developers will not even begin to cover the cost of the infrastructure and services needed to handle that growth.


And Kelly has solutions: The public sector will have to play a huge role in affordable housing and infrastructure, and that money should come from higher development fees — and from places like the University of California, which has a huge operation in the district and pays no property taxes. Kelly wants to set up a trigger so that if goals for affordable housing aren’t met by a set date, the market-rate development stops. He supports the revenue measures on the ballot but thinks we should go further. He opposes the pension-reform measure, Prop. B, but notes that 75 percent of the city’s pension problems come from police, fire, and management employees. He wants the supervisors to take over the Redevelopment Agency. He’s calling for a major expansion of open space and parkland in the district. And he thinks the city should direct some of the $3 billion in short-term accounts (now all with the Bank of America) to local credit unions or new municipal bank that could invest in affordable housing and small business. He’s a perfect fit for the job.


DeWitt Lacy is a civil-rights lawyer and a relative newcomer to neighborhood politics. He speaks passionately about the need for D10 to get its fair share of the city’s services and about a commitment to working-class people.


Lacy is calling for an immediate pilot program with police foot patrols in the high-crime areas of the district. He’s for increasing the requirements for developers to build affordable housing and wants to cut the payroll tax for local businesses that hire district residents.


Lacy’s vision for the future includes development that has mixed-use commuter hubs with shopping and grocery stores as well as housing. He supports the tax measures on the ballot and would be willing to extend parking meter hours — but not parking fines, which he calls an undue burden on low-income people.


He’s an outspoken foe of sit-lie and of gang injunctions, and with his background handling police abuse lawsuits, he would have a clear understanding of how to approach better law-enforcement without intimidating the community. He lacks Kelly’s history, experience, and knowledge in neighborhood issues, but he’s eminently qualified and would make a fine supervisor.


Chris Jackson, who worked at the San Francisco Labor Council and serves on the Community College Board, is our third choice. While it’s a bit unfortunate that Jackson is running for higher office only two years after getting elected to the college board, he’s got a track record and good positions on the issues. He talks of making sure that blue-collar jobs don’t get pushed out by housing, and suggested that the shipyard be used for ship repair. He wants to see the city mandate that landlords rent to people with Section 8 housing vouchers. He supports the tax measures on the ballot, but also argues that the city has 60 percent more managers than it had in 2000 and wants to bring that number down. He thinks the supervisors should take over Redevelopment, which should become “just a financing agency for affordable housing.” He wants to relocate the stinky sewage treatment plant near Third Street and Evans Avenue onto one of the piers and use the area for a transit hub. He’s still relatively unseasoned, but he has a bright political future.


Eric Smith, a biodiesel activist, is an impressive candidate too. But while his environmental credentials are good, he lacks the breadth of knowledge that our top three choices offer. But we’re glad he’s in the race and hope he stays active in community politics.


Malia Cohen has raised a lot of money and (to our astonishment) was endorsed No. 2 by the Democratic Party, but she’s by no means a progressive, particularly on tenant issues — she told us that limiting condo conversions is an infringement of property rights. And she’s way too vague on other issues.


Moss is the candidate of the big developers and the landlords, and the Chamber of Commerce is dumping tens of thousands of dollars into getting him elected. He’s got some good environmental and energy ideas — he argues that all major new developments should have their own energy distribution systems — but on the major issues, he’s either on the wrong side or (more often) can’t seem to take a stand. He said he is “still mulling over” his stand on sit-lie. He supports Sanctuary City in theory, but not the actual measure Sup. David Campos was pushing to make the policy work. He’s not sure if he likes gang injunctions or not. He only moved back to the district when he decided to run for supervisor. He’s way too conservative for the district and would be terrible on the board.


Lynette Sweet, a BART Board member, has tax problems (and problems explaining them) and wouldn’t even come to our office for an endorsement interview. The last thing D10 needs is a supervisor who’s not accountable and unwilling to talk to constituents and the press.


So we’re going with Kelly, Lacy, and Jackson as the best hope to keep D10 from becoming a district represented by a downtown landlord candidate.


 


SAN FRANCISCO BOARD OF EDUCATION


MARGARET BRODKIN


KIM-SHREE MAUFAS


HYDRA MENDOZA


Three seats are up on the School Board, and three people will get elected. And it’s a contested race, and in situations like that, we always try to endorse a full slate.


This fall, it was, to put it mildly, a challenge.


It’s disturbing that we don’t have three strong progressive candidates with experience and qualifications to oversee the San Francisco Unified School District. But it seems to be increasingly difficult to find people who want to — and can afford to — devote the time to what’s really a 40-hour-a-week position that pays $500 a month. The part-time school board is an anachronism, a creature of a very different economic and social era. With the future of the next generation of San Franciscans at stake, it’s time to make the School Board a full-time job and pay the members a decent salary so that more parents and progressive education advocates can get involved in one of the most important political jobs in the city.


That said, we’ve chosen the best of the available candidates. It’s a mixed group, made up of people who don’t support each other and aren’t part of anyone’s slate. But on balance, they offer the best choices for the job.


This is not a time when the board needs radical change. Under Superintendent Carlos Garcia, the local public schools are making huge strides. Test scores are up, enrollment is increasing, and San Francisco is, by any rational measure, the best big-city public school district in California. We give considerable credit for that to the progressives on the board who got rid of the irascible, secretive, and hostile former Superintendent Arlene Ackerman and replaced her with Garcia. He’s brought stability and improvement to the district, and is implementing a long-term plan to bring all the schools up to the highest levels and go after the stubborn achievement gap.


Yet any superintendent and any public agency needs effective oversight. One of the problems with the district under Ackerman was the blind support she got from school board members who hired her; it was almost as if her allies on the board were unable to see the damage she was doing and unable to hold her accountable.


Our choices reflect the need for stability — and independence. We are under no illusions — none of our candidates are perfect. But as a group, we believe they can work to preserve what the district is doing right and improve on policies that aren’t working.


Kim-Shree Maufas has been a staunch progressive on the board. She got into a little trouble last year when the San Francisco Chronicle reported that she’d been using a school district credit card for personal expenses. That’s not a great move, but she never actually took public money since she paid back the district. Maufas said she thought she could use the card as long as she reimbursed the district for her own expenses; the rules are now clear and she’s had no problems since. We don’t consider this a significant enough failure in judgment to prevent her from continuing to do what she’s been doing: serving as an advocate on the board for low-income kids and teachers.


Maufas is a big supporter of restorative justice and is working for ways to reduce suspensions and expulsions. She wants to make sure advanced placement and honors classes are open to anyone who can handle the coursework. She supports the new school assignment process (as do all the major candidates), although she acknowledges that there are some potential problems. She told us she thinks the district should go back to the voters for a parcel tax to supplement existing funding for the schools.


Margaret Brodkin is a lightening rod. In fact, much of the discussion around this election seems to focus on Brodkin. Since she entered the race, she’s eclipsed all the other issues, and there’s been a nasty whisper campaign designed to keep her off the board.


We’ve had our issues with Brodkin. When she worked for Mayor Newsom, she was part of a project that brought private nonprofits into city recreation centers to provide services — at a time when unionized public employees of the Recreation and Parks Department were losing their jobs. It struck us as a clear privatization effort by the Newsom administration, and it raised a flag that’s going to become increasingly important in the school district: there’s a coming clash between people who think private nonprofits can provide more services to the schools and union leaders who fear that low-paid nonprofit workers will wind up doing jobs now performed by unionized district staff. And Brodkin’s role in the Newsom administration — and her background in the nonprofit world — is certainly ground for some concern.


But Brodkin is also by far the most qualified person to run for San Francisco school board in years, maybe decades. She’s a political legend in the city, the person who is most responsible for making issues of children and youth a centerpiece of the progressive agenda. In her years as director of Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth, she tirelessly worked to make sure children weren’t overlooked in the budget process and was one of the authors of the initiative that created the Children’s Fund. She’s run a nonprofit, run a city department, and is now working on education issues.


She’s a feisty person who can be brusque and isn’t always conciliatory — but those characteristics aren’t always bad. Sup. Chris Daly used his anger and passion to push for social justice on the Board of Supervisors and, despite some drawbacks, he’s been an effective public official.


And Brodkin is full of good ideas. She talks about framing what a 21st century education looks like, about creating community schools, about aligning after-school and summer programs with the academic curriculum. She wants the next school bond act to include a central kitchen, so local kids can get locally produced meals (the current lunch fare is shipped in frozen from out of state).


Brodkin needs to remember that there’s a difference between being a bare-knuckles advocate and a member of a functioning school board. But given her skills, experience, and lifetime in progressive causes, we’re willing to give her a chance.


We also struggled over endorsing Hydra Mendoza. She works for Mayor Newsom as an education advisor — and that’s an out-front conflict of interest. She’s a fan of Obama’s Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, whose policies are regressive and dangerous.


On the other hand, she cares deeply about kids and public education. She’s not a big supporter of charter schools (“I’ve yet to see a charter school that offers anything we can’t do ourselves,” she told us) and while she was on the wrong side of a lot of issues (like JROTC) early in her tenure, over the past two years she’s been a good School Board member.


There are several other candidates worth mentioning. Bill Barnes, an aide to Michela Alioto-Pier, is a good guy, a decent progressive — but has no experience in or direct connection to the public schools. Natasha Hoehn is in the education nonprofit world and speaks with all the jargon of the educrat, but her proposals and her stands on issues are vague. Emily Murase is a strong parent advocate with some good ideas, but she struck us as a bit too conservative (particularly on JROTC and charter schools.) Jamie Wolfe teaches at a private school but lacks any real constituency or experience in local politics and the education community.


So given a weak field with limited alternatives, we’re going with Maufas, Brodkin and Mendoza.


 


SAN FRANCISCO COMMUNITY COLLEGE BOARD


JOHN RIZZO


The San Francisco Community College District has been a mess for years, and it’s only now starting to get back on track. That’s the result of the election of a few progressive reformers — Milton Marks, Chris Jackson, and John Rizzo, who now have enough clout on the seven-member board to drag along a fourth vote when they need it.


But the litany of disasters they’ve had to clean up is almost endless. A chancellor (who other incumbent board members supported until the end) is now under indictment. Public money that was supposed to go to the district wound up in a political campaign. An out-of-control semiprivate college foundation has been hiding its finances from the public. The college shifted bond money earmarked for an arts center into a gigantic, expensive gym with a pool that the college can’t even pay to operate, so it’s leased out to a private high school across the street.


And the tragedy is that all three incumbents — two of whom should have stepped down years ago — are running unopposed.


With all the attention on the School Board and district elections, not one progressive — in fact, not one candidate of any sort — has stepped forward to challenge Anita Grier and Lawrence Wong. So they’ll get another term, and the reformers will have to continue to struggle.


We’re endorsing only Rizzo, a Sierra Club staffer who has been in the lead in the reform bloc. He needs to end up as the top vote-getter, which would put him in position to be the board president. Rizzo has worked to get the district’s finances and foundation under control and he richly deserves reelection.


 


BART BOARD OF DIRECTORS, DISTRICT 8


BERT HILL


It’s about time somebody mounted a serious challenge to James Fang, the only elected Republican in San Francisco and a member of one of the most dysfunctional public agencies in California. The BART Board is a mess, spending a fortune on lines that are hardly ever used and unable to work effectively with other transit agencies or control a police force that has a history of brutality and senseless killing.


Fang supports the suburban extensions and Oakland Airport connector, which make no fiscal or transportation sense. He’s ignored problems with the BART Police for 20 years. It’s time for him to leave office.


Bert Hill is a strong challenger. A professional cost-management executive, he understands that BART is operating on an old paradigm of carrying people from the suburbs into the city. “Before we go on building any more extensions,” he told us, “we should take care of San Francisco.” He wants the agency to work closely with Muni and agrees there’s a need for a BART sunshine policy to make the notoriously secretive agency more open to public scrutiny. We strongly endorse him.


 


ASSESSOR-RECORDER


PHIL TING


San Francisco needs an aggressive assessor who looks for every last penny that big corporations are trying to duck paying — but this is also a job that presents an opportunity for challenging the current property tax laws. Phil Ting’s doing pretty well with the first part — and unlike past assessors, is actually stepping up to the plate on the second. He’s been pushing a statewide coalition to reform Prop. 13 — and while it’s an uphill battle, it’s good to see a tax assessor taking it on. Ting has little opposition and will be reelected easily.


 


PUBLIC DEFENDER


JEFF ADACHI


Adachi’s done a great job of running the office that represents indigent criminal defendants. He’s been outspoken on criminal justice issues. Until this year, he was often mentioned as a potential progressive candidate for mayor.


That’s over now. Because Adachi decided (for reasons we still can’t comprehend) to join the national attack on public employees and put Prop. B on the ballot, he’s lost any hope of getting support for higher office from the left. And since the moderate and conservative forces will never be comfortable with a public defender moving up in the political world, Adachi’s not going anywhere anytime soon.


Which is fine. He’s doing well at his day job. We wish he’d stuck to it and not taken on a divisive, expensive, and ill-conceived crusade to cut health care benefits for city employees.


 


SAN FRANCISCO SUPERIOR COURT


SEAT 15


MICHAEL NAVA


To hear some of the brahmins of the local bench and bar tell it, the stakes in this election are immense — the independence of the judiciary hangs in the balance. If a sitting judge who is considered eminently qualified for the job and has committed no ethical or legal breaches can be challenged by an outsider who is seeking more diversity on the bench, it will open the floodgates to partisan hacks taking on good judges — and force judicial candidates to raise money from lawyers and special interests, thus undermining the credibility of the judiciary.


We are well aware of the problems of judicial elections around the country. In some states, big corporations that want to influence judges raise and spend vast sums on trial and appellate court races — and typically get their way. In Iowa, three judges who were willing to stand on principle and Constitutional law and declare same-sex marriage legal are facing what amounts to a well-funded recall effort. California is not immune — in more conservative counties, liberal judges face getting knocked off the bench by law-and-order types.


It’s a serious issue. It’s worth a series of hearings in the state Legislature, and it might be worth Constitutional change. Maybe trial-court elections should be eliminated. Maybe all judicial elections should have public campaign financing. But right now, it’s an elected office — at least in theory.


In practice, the vast majority of the judicial slots in California are filled by appointment. Judges serve for four-year terms but tend to retire or step down in midterm, allowing the governor to fill the vacancy. Unless someone files specifically to challenge an incumbent, typically appointed judge, that race never even appears on the ballot.


The electoral process is messy and political, and raising money is unseemly for a judicial officer. But the appointment process is hardly pure, either — and governors in California have, over the past 30 years, appointed the vast majority of the judges from the ranks of big corporate law firms and district attorney’s offices.


There are, of course, exceptions, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has been better than his predecessor, Democrat Gray Davis. But overall, public interest lawyers, public defenders, and people with small community practices (and, of course, people who have no political strings to pull in Sacramento) have been frustrated. And it’s no surprise that some have sought to run against incumbents.


That’s what’s happening here. Michael Nava, a gay Latino who has been working as a research attorney for California Supreme Court Justice Carlos Moreno, was going to run for a rare open seat this year, but the field quickly got crowded. So Nava challenged Richard Ulmer, a corporate lawyer appointed by Schwarzenegger who has been on the bench a little more than a year.


We will stipulate, as the lawyers say: Ulmer has done nothing wrong. From all accounts, he’s a fine judge (and before taking the bench, he did some stellar pro bono work fighting for reforms in the juvenile detention system). So there are two questions here: Should Nava have even filed to run against Ulmer? And since he did, who is the better candidate?


It’s important to understand this isn’t a case of special interests and that big money wanting to oust a judge because of his politics or rulings. Nava isn’t backed by any wealthy interest. There’s no clear parallel to the situations in other areas and other states where the judiciary is being compromised by electoral politics. Nava had every right to run — and has mounted an honest campaign that discusses the need for diversity on the bench.


Ulmer’s supporters note — correctly — that the San Francisco courts have more ethnic and gender diversity than any county in the state. And we’re not going to try to come to a conclusion here about how much diversity is enough.


But we will say that life experience matters, and judges bring to the bench what they’ve lived. Nava, who is the grandson of Mexican immigrants and the first person in his family to go to college, may have a different perspective on how low-income people of color are treated in the courts than a former Republican who spent his professional career in big law firms.


We were impressed by Nava’s background and knowledge — and by his interest in opening up the courts. He supports cameras in the courtrooms and allowing reporters to record court proceedings. He told us the meetings judges hold on court administration should be open to the public.


We’re willing to discuss whether judicial elections make sense. Meanwhile, judges who don’t like the idea of challenges should encourage their colleagues not to retire in midterm. If all the judges left at the end of a four-year term, there would be plenty of open seats and fewer challenges. But for now, there’s nothing in this particular election that makes us fear for the independence of the courts. Vote for Nava.


 


>>BACK TO ENDORSEMENTS 2010

Endorsements 2010: State races

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
24
Endorsements 2010: State races

GOVERNOR

EDMUND G. BROWN

We have issues with Jerry Brown. The one-time environmental leader who left an admirable progressive legacy his first time in the governor’s office (including the Agricultural Labor Relations Board, the California Conservation Corps, and the liberal Rose Bird Supreme Court) and who is willing to stand up and oppose the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant has become a centrist, tough-on-crime, no-new-taxes candidate. And his only solution to the state budget problems is to bring all the players together early and start talking.

But at least since he’s started to debate Republican Meg Whitman face to face, he’s showing some signs of life — and flashes of the old Jerry. He’s strongly denouncing Whitman’s proposal to wipe out capital gains taxes, reminding voters of the huge hole that would blow in the state budget — and the $5 billion windfall it would give to the rich. He’s talking about suing Wall Street financial firms that cheated Californians. He’s promoting green jobs and standing firm in support of the state’s greenhouse-gas emissions limits.

For all his drawbacks (his insistence, for example, that the Legislature shouldn’t raise any taxes without a statewide vote of the people), Brown is at least part of the reality-based community. He understands that further tax cuts for the rich won’t solve California’s problems. He knows that climate change is real. He’s not great on immigration issues, but at least he’s cognizant that 2 million undocumented immigrants live in California — and the state can’t just arrest and deport them all.

Whitman is more than a conservative Republican. She’s scary. The centerpiece of her economic platform calls for laying off 40,000 state employees — thereby greatly increasing the state’s unemployment rate. Her tax plan would increase the state’s deficit by another $5 billion just so that a tiny number of the richest taxpayers (including her) can keep more of their money. She’s part of the nativist movement that wants to close the borders.

She’s also one of the growing number of candidates who think personal wealth and private-sector business success translate to an ability to run a complex state government. That’s a dangerous trend — Whitman has no political experience or background (until recently she didn’t even vote) and will be overcome by the lobbyists in Sacramento.

This is a critically important election for California. Vote for Jerry Brown.

 

LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR

 

GAVIN NEWSOM

Why is the mayor of San Francisco running for a job he once dismissed as worthless? Simple: he couldn’t get elected governor, and he wants a place to perch for a while until he figures out what higher office he can seek. It’s almost embarrassing in its cold political calculus, but that’s something we’ve come to expect from Newsom.

We endorsed Newsom’s opponent, Janice Hahn, in the Democratic primary. It was hard to make a case for advancing the political career of someone who has taken what amounts to a Republican approach to running the city’s finances — he’s addressed every budget problem entirely with cuts, pushed a “no-new-taxes” line, and given the wealthy everything they wanted. His immigration policies have broken up families and promoted deporting kids. He’s done Pacific Gas and Electric Co. a nice favor by doing nothing to help the community choice aggregation program move forward.

Nevertheless, we’re endorsing Newsom over his Republican opponent, Abel Maldonado, because there really isn’t any choice. Maldonado is a big supporter of the death penalty (which Newsom opposes). He’s pledged never to raise taxes (and Newsom is at least open to discussion on the issue). He used budget blackmail to force the awful open-primaries law onto the ballot. He’s a supporter of big water projects like the peripheral canal. In the Legislature, he earned a 100 percent rating from the California Chamber of Commerce.

Newsom’s a supporter of more funding for higher education (and the lieutenant governor sits on the University of California Board of Regents). He’d be at least a moderate environmentalist on the state Lands Commission. And he, like Brown, is devoting a lot of attention to improving the state’s economy with green jobs.

We could do much worse than Newsom in the lieutenant governor’s office. We could have Maldonado. Vote for Newsom.

 

SECRETARY OF STATE

 

DEBRA BOWEN

California has had some problems with the office that runs elections and keeps corporate filings. Kevin Shelley had to resign from the job in 2005 in the face of allegations that a state grant of $125,000 was illegally diverted into his campaign account. But Bowen, by all accounts, has run a clean office. Her Republican opponent, Damon Dunn, a former professional football player and real estate agent, doesn’t even have much support within his own party and is calling for mandatory ID checks at the ballot. This one’s easy; vote for Bowen.

 

CONTROLLER

 

JOHN CHIANG

Chiang’s been a perfectly decent controller, and at times has shown some political courage: When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger tried to cut the pay of state employees to minimum-wage level, Chiang refused to go along — and forced the governor to back down. His opponent, state Sen. Tony Strickland (R-Los Angeles), wants to use to office to promote cuts in government spending. Vote for Chiang.

 

TREASURER

 

BILL LOCKYER

Lockyer’s almost certain to win reelection as treasurer against a weak Republican, Mimi Walters. He’s done an adequate job and pushed a few progressive things like using state bonds to promote alternative energy. Mostly, though, he seems to be waiting for his chance to run for governor — and if Jerry Brown loses, or wins and decides not to seek a second term, look for Lockyer to step up.

 

ATTORNEY GENERAL

 

KAMALA HARRIS

This is going to be close, and it’s another clear choice. We’ve had our differences with Harris — she’s trying too hard to be a tough-on-crime type, pushing some really dumb bills in Sacramento (like a measure that would bar sex offenders from ever using social networking sites on the Internet). And while she shouldn’t take all the blame for the problems in the San Francisco crime lab, she should have known about the situation earlier and made more of a fuss. She’s also been slow to respond to serious problem of prosecutors and the cops hiding information about police misconduct from defense lawyers that could be relevant to a case.

But her opponent, Los Angeles D.A. Steve Cooley, is bad news. He’s a big proponent of the death penalty, and the ACLU last year described L.A. as the leading “killer county in the country.” Cooley has proudly sent 50 people to death row since he became district attorney in 2001, and he vows to make it easier and more efficient for the state to kill people.

He’s also a friend of big business who has vowed, even as attorney general, to make the state more friendly to employers — presumably by slowing prosecutions of corporate wrongdoing.

Harris, to her credit, has refused to seek the death penalty in San Francisco, and would bring the perspective of a woman of color to the AG’s office. For all her flaws, she would be far better in the AG’s office than Cooley. Vote for Harris.

 

INSURANCE COMMISSIONER

 

DAVE JONES

Jones, currently a state Assemblymember from Sacramento, won a contested primary against his Los Angeles colleague Hector de la Torre and is now fighting Republican Mike Villines of Fresno, also a member of the Assembly. Jones is widely known as a consumer advocate and was a foe of Prop. 17, the insurance industry scam on the June ballot. A former Legal Aid lawyer, he has extensive experience in health-care reform, supports single-payer health coverage, and would make an excellent insurance commissioner.

Villines pretty much follows right-wing orthodoxy down the line. He wants to replace employer-based insurance with health savings accounts. He argues that the solution to the cost of health insurance is to limit malpractice lawsuits. He wants to limit workers compensation claims. And he supports “alternatives to litigation,” which means eliminating the rights of consumers to sue insurance companies.

Not much question here. Vote for Jones.

 

BOARD OF EQUALIZATION, DISTRICT 1

 

BETTY YEE

The Board of Equalization isn’t well known, but it plays a sizable role in setting and enforcing California tax policy. Yee’s a strong progressive who has done well in the office, supporting progressive financial measures. She’s spoken out — as a top tax official — in favor of legalizing and taxing marijuana. We’re happy to endorse her for another term.

 

SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION

 

TOM TORLAKSON

We fully expected a November runoff between Torlakson and state Sen. Gloria Romero. Both Democrats had strong fundraising and political bases — and very different philosophies. Romero’s a big charter school and privatization fan; Torlakson has the support of the teachers unions. But to the surprise of nearly everyone, a wild-card candidate, retired Los Angeles educator Larry Aceves, came in first, with Torlakson second and Romero third. Now Aceves and Torlakson are in the runoff for this nonpartisan post.

Aceves is an interesting candidate, a former principal and school superintendent who has the endorsement of the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Francisco Green Party. But he’s too quick to take the easy line that the teachers’ unions are the biggest problem in public education, and he wants the unilateral right to suspend labor contracts.

Torlakson wants more charter-school accountability and more funding for primary education. He’s the far better candidate.

 

STATE SENATE

 

DISTRICT 8

Leland Yee

Yee’s got no opposition to speak of, and will easily be re-elected. So why is he spending money on a series of slick television ads that have been airing all over San Francisco, talking about education and sending people to his website? It’s pretty obvious: The Yee for state Senate campaign is the opening act of the Yee for San Francisco mayor campaign, which should kick into high gear sometime next spring. In other words, if Yee has his way, he’ll serve only a year of his next four-year term.

Yee infuriates his colleagues at times, particularly when he refuses to vote for a budget that nobody likes but everyone knows is necessary to keep the state afloat. He’s done some ridiculous things, like pushing to sell the Cow Palace as surplus state property and turn the land over to private real estate developers. But he’s always good on open-government issues, is pushing for greater accountability for companies that take tax breaks and then send jobs out of state, has pushed for accountability at the University of California, and made great progress in opening the records at semiprivate university foundations when he busted Stanislaus State University for its secret speaking-fees deal with Sarah Palin.

With a few strong reservations, we’ll endorse Yee for another term.

 

STATE ASSEMBLY, DISTRICT 12

 

FIONA MA

A clear hold-your-nose endorsement. Ma has done some truly bad things in Sacramento, like pushing a bill that would force the San Francisco Unified School District to allow military recruiters in the high schools and fronting for landlords on a bill to limit rent control in trailer parks. But she’s good on public power and highly critical of PG&E, and she has no opposition to speak of.

 

STATE ASSEMBLY, DISTRICT 13

 

TOM AMMIANO

Ammiano’s a part of San Francisco history, and without his leadership as a supervisor, we might not have a progressive majority on the Board of Supervisors. Ammiano was one of the architects of the return to district elections, and his 1999 mayoral campaign (against Willie Brown) marked a turning point in the organization, sophistication, and ultimate success of the city’s left. He was the author of the rainy day fund (which has kept the public schools from massive layoffs over the past couple of years) and the Healthy San Francisco plan.

In Sacramento, he’s been a leader in the effort to legalize (and tax) marijuana and to demand accountability for the BART Police. He’s taken on the unpleasant but critical task of chairing the Public Safety Committee and killing the worst of the right-wing crime bills before they get to the floor. He has four more years in Sacramento, and we expect to see a lot more solid progressive legislation coming out of his office. We enthusiastically endorse him for reelection.

 

STATE ASSEMBLY, DISTRICT 14

 

NANCY SKINNER

Skinner’s a good progressive, a good ally for Ammiano on the Public Safety Committee, and a friend of small business and fair taxation. Her efforts to make out-of-state companies that sell products in California pay state sales tax would not only bring millions into the state coffers but protect local merchants from the likes of Amazon. We don’t get why she’s joined with Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates to try to get rid of Kriss Worthington, the most progressive member of the Berkeley City Council, but we’ll endorse her for re-election.

 

STATE ASSEMBLY, DISTRICT 16

 

SANDRE SWANSON

Swanson’s a good vote most of the time in Sacramento, but he’s not yet the leader he could be — particularly on police accountability. The BART Police murdered Oscar Grant in Swanson’s district, yet it fell to a San Franciscan, Tom Ammiano, to introduce strong state legislation to force BART to have civilian oversight of the transit cops. Still, he’s done some positive things (like protecting state workers who blow the whistle on fraud) and deserves another term.

 

>>BACK TO ENDORSEMENTS 2010

The District 8 dilemma

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
13
The District 8 dilemma

tredmond@sfbg.com

Gabriel Haaland, a longtime queer labor activist, was talking to a friend from District 8 the other day, chatting about the race for a supervisor to fill the shoes of Harvey Milk, Harry Britt, Mark Leno, and Bevan Dufty. “She told me that she didn’t know who to vote for,” Haaland said, “because she didn’t know who the progressive was in the race.”

For supporters of Rafael Mandelman, that’s a serious challenge. “The polls are very consistent,” Haaland said. “Most of the voters in D-8 would prefer a progressive over a moderate, and when they know who the progressive is, they support that candidate.”

But oddly enough, although District 8 — the Castro, Noe Valley, and parts of the Mission — is one of the most politically active parts of the city, where voter turnout is consistently high, the supervisorial race is getting only limited media attention. The neighborhood and queer papers are doing a good job of covering the race, but for the rest of the media, it’s as if nothing’s happening. And that’s left voters confused about what ought to be a very clear choice.

The San Francisco Chronicle featured the District 6 race on the front page Sept. 19, with a long story about how demographic changes in the South of Market area would affect the successor to Sup. Chris Daly. District 10, with the mad political scrum of 22 candidates, no clear front runner and endorsements all over the map, has received considerable media attention.

Yet D–8 — which offers by far the most striking distinctions between candidates and the sharpest divisions over issues — has been flying under the radar.

Three major candidates are in the race, two gay men and a lesbian. All of them, for what it’s worth, are lawyers. Rafael Mandelman, who works for a firm that advises cities and counties, has the support of the vast majority of progressive leaders and organizations. Rebecca Prozan, a deputy district attorney, and Scott Wiener, a deputy city attorney, are very much on the moderate-centrist (some would say, by San Francisco standards, conservative) side of the political spectrum.

“As Barbara Boxer has said in her ads, the choice is clear,” Aaron Peskin, chair of the local Democratic Party and a Mandelman backer, told us. “Not to exaggerate, but this is like Boxer v. Carly Fiornia, and Rafael is our Boxer.”

Yet by almost all accounts, Wiener is ahead in the race.

 

ON THE ISSUES

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has been roughly divided in the past decade between the progressive camp and moderate camp. And while those labels are hard to define (the Chronicle won’t even use the term “progressive,” preferring “ultraliberal”), most observers have a basic grip on the differences.

The moderates, who tend to support Mayor Gavin Newsom, are social liberals but fiscal conservatives. They talk about the city surviving budget red ink without major tax increases. They talk about controlling government spending and increasing public safety. The progressives generally see local government as underfunded after four years of brutal cuts and support the idea of raising new revenue to fill the gap. They support tenants over landlords, seek stronger protections for affordable housing, support Sanctuary City, and oppose sit-lie.

Certainly with Wiener and Mandelman, it’s abundantly clear where the candidates fall. The two agree on some things (they both oppose Prop. B, the pension-reform measure that would reduce health care payments for the children of city employees) and they both support nightlife. But overall, they take very different political stands.

Wiener told us, for example, that the city’s structural budget problems won’t be solved without cuts. “We’re not going to able to tax our way out of this,” he said in an endorsement interview. “We have to lower our expectations for government.”

Other than Muni, public safety, and core public health services, cuts “will have to be across the board,” he said. “What are the things we really can’t do without?”

Wiener supports the sit-lie proposal, saying that he doesn’t think the local police have the tools they need to get poorly behaving people off the streets. He doesn’t support Sup. Ross Mirkarimi’s measure mandating foot patrols because, he told us, he doesn’t think the supervisors should micromanage the Police Department.

Sup. Bevan Dufty, who currently holds the D–8 seat, has voted with the progressives occasionally — but almost never on tenant issues. And Wiener, who has the support of the rabidly anti-tenant Small Property Owners of San Francisco, is likely to follow that approach. Although he told us he supports rent control (which just about everyone in local politics agrees on at this point), he’s not a fan of additional protections against evictions and condo conversions. “I’m not prepared to go beyond what we have now” on eviction protections, he said. He supported Newsom’s plan to allow people to buy their way out of the waiting list and lottery for condo conversions.

And when it comes to public power, he’s to the right of the incumbent: Dufty has said repeatedly that he supports the city taking over Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s infrastructure and putting the city in control of a full-scale public power system. Wiener says he supports community choice aggregation (CCA), but not full-scale public power.

Mandelman is a big supporter of local government and says, without hesitation, that the city needs more revenue. “The public sector is dramatically underfunded,” he told us in a recent interview. “There’s great wealth in the city and it needs to be tapped to preserve public services.” Mandelman said he’s not “tax happy,” but told us that the structure of how the city raises revenue is a mess. He supports a top-to-bottom review of the city’s revenue base with the goal of making taxation more progressive — and bringing in enough money to fund crucial services.

Mandelman is a foe of sit-lie, which he sees as punitive and ineffective. He opposes gang injunctions and supports Sanctuary City. And he’s a strong advocate for tenants, supporting stronger eviction protections and limits on condo conversions that take away affordable rental stock.

“You have to look at the candidates and ask what their priorities are,” he said. “Are the displacement of long-time residents critically important or something that’s not on the top of the list? Do you believe we need to rebuild the safety net? Or is queer politics all about property values?”

Prozan told us that she’s the one who can “bring the two sides together” and said that, like Dufty, she is “right up the middle.” She supports the hotel tax and the vehicle license fee and opposes sit-lie, but also thinks gang injunctions are a useful tool for law enforcement. She doesn’t see any reason to split appointments between the mayor and the supervisors for the board that oversees Muni or the Redevelopment Agency. She doesn’t think the city can or should do anything more about the conversion of rental property to tenancies in common, but supports the idea of taking over foreclosed properties to create housing for teachers, cops, and firefighters. So it’s safe to say the Prozan would probably be similar to the incumbent — with the progressives on a few things, against them on others.

 

UNDER THE RADAR?

Wiener and Mandelman agree on two basic points: there are stark differences between the candidates — and the city’s major media outlets aren’t paying enough attention. That’s probably because the relatively tame politics doesn’t compare to the sort of wild excitement you see in Districts 6 and 10.

“There’s less chaos than some of the other districts,” Wiener said. “The three major candidates are all hard-working, respected people who have all lived in the district a while.”

He also agreed that he and Mandelman have “very different visions” for the district and the city, and that there are sharp contrasts and divisions between the two candidates.

Prozan also argued that the political differences on issues aren’t going to be the only — or even the deciding — factor for many voters. “I think they’re looking for who’s got the courage and independence to do what’s right,” she told us.

But Mandelman told us there’s a crucial story here that needs to be told: “It’s a definitional fight about what the queer community is about in 2010. As goes D–8, so goes San Francisco.”

PG&E’s deadly failures

David Talbot
-
0
PG&E’s deadly failures

EDITORIAL In 1994, a fire raged through the tiny community of Rough and Ready in Nevada County. The inferno destroyed a dozen homes and caused $2 million in damage. The cause: tree limbs that Pacific Gas and Electric Co. should have trimmed brushed against high-voltage power lines.

A furious local district attorney filed criminal charges — and in a dramatic trial, evidence emerged that PG&E had intentionally taken $80 million in ratepayer money designated for tree trimming and diverted it into executive salaries and profits.

After a natural gas line that was installed in 1948 burst last week in San Bruno, killing five and devastating a community, local and state officials should be asking if the company is still taking money that should be spent upgrading and maintaining its system and spending it elsewhere.

There’s certainly evidence that the company’s safety record is shoddy. In 2003, a fire at a Mission District substation caused 100,000 people to lose power — and the CPUC chided PG&E for failing to follow its own rules and for general procedural laziness. In 2005, an underground explosion at Kearny and Post streets caused a fire that seriously injured a pedestrian on the sidewalk above. In June 2009, a fire at a PG&E vault at O’Farrell and Polk streets caused an explosion that roared up through a manhole and cut power to 8,600 customers.

In San Bruno, neighbors reported smelling gas in the days before the explosion. PG&E trucks had come to the scene and left without repairing the problem.

In the Rough and Ready fire, PG&E was found guilty of criminal negligence — and the San Mateo County D.A., James P. Fox, should immediately start looking into the possibility of filing charges against the company. In the meantime, San Francisco ought to be taking a long, hard look at the state of the private utility’s infrastructure in the city — and how much of it is vulnerable to deadly failure.

The mayor, the supervisors, and the city attorney should demand that PG&E produce a map of every gas line, power line, transformer, and substation in the city — with details about age, condition, and maintenance history. The city should hire an independent auditor to investigate how much of what PG&E has under and above the city streets is old, crumbing, poorly maintained, and likely to fail. The results should be made public — and the city should take whatever legal action is necessary to ensure that the company’s equipment doesn’t pose an imminent risk to local residents and businesses.

State Sen. Mark Leno is calling for a hearing, and PG&E officials should be forced to discuss, in public, how this disaster was allowed to happen. City officials, and the local Legislative delegation, should also be pushing the California Public Utilities Commission to investigate how PG&E has been spending the money it collects from ratepayers for maintenance and system upgrades. It’s clear that company profits were healthy enough for PG&E to spend $46 million on a failed ballot initiative that would have blocked public power in the state; why wasn’t that money used to replace the ancient natural gas pipes in San Bruno? Where else is the company skimping on facilities? How much of the company’s system needs immediate upgrades, and what’s PG&E’s budget and schedule for that work?

There’s a larger point here: none of the public power systems in Northern California have had this type of accident. None of the publicly run utilities have been found guilty of diverting maintenance money to executive salaries and profits. San Francisco’s first modest moves toward public power will come with the establishment of a community choice aggregation system — but that system will still rely on PG&E’s grid. The sooner the city can move to get rid of that private monopoly and build its own power system, block by block and neighborhood by neighborhood if necessary, the less likely it will be that a San Bruno-type catastrophe will happen here.

PG&E’s deadly failures

David Talbot
-
2

The CPUC should investigate how PG&E has been spending the money it collects from ratepayers for maintenance and system upgrades

EDITORIAL In 1994, a fire raged through the tiny community of Rough and Ready in Nevada County. The inferno destroyed a dozen homes and caused $2 million in damage. The cause: tree limbs that Pacific Gas and Electric Co. should have trimmed brushed against high-voltage power lines.

A furious local district attorney filed criminal charges — and in a dramatic trial, evidence emerged that PG&E had intentionally taken $80 million in ratepayer money designated for tree trimming and diverted it into executive salaries and profits.

After a natural gas line that was installed in 1948 burst last week in San Bruno, killing five and devastating a community, local and state officials should be asking if the company is still taking money that should be spent upgrading and maintaining its system and spending it elsewhere.

There’s certainly evidence that the company’s safety record is shoddy. In 2003, a fire at a Mission District substation caused 100,000 people to lose power — and the CPUC chided PG&E for failing to follow its own rules and for general procedural laziness. In 2005, an underground explosion at Kearny and Post streets caused a fire that seriously injured a pedestrian on the sidewalk above. In June 2009, a fire at a PG&E vault at O’Farrell and Polk streets caused an explosion that roared up through a manhole and cut power to 8,600 customers.

In San Bruno, neighbors reported smelling gas in the days before the explosion. PG&E trucks had come to the scene and left without repairing the problem.

In the Rough and Ready fire, PG&E was found guilty of criminal negligence — and the San Mateo County D.A., James P. Fox, should immediately start looking into the possibility of filing charges against the company. In the meantime, San Francisco ought to be taking a long, hard look at the state of the private utility’s infrastructure in the city — and how much of it is vulnerable to deadly failure.

The mayor, the supervisors, and the city attorney should demand that PG&E produce a map of every gas line, power line, transformer, and substation in the city — with details about age, condition, and maintenance history. The city should hire an independent auditor to investigate how much of what PG&E has under and above the city streets is old, crumbing, poorly maintained, and likely to fail. The results should be made public — and the city should take whatever legal action is necessary to ensure that the company’s equipment doesn’t pose an imminent risk to local residents and businesses.

State Sen. Mark Leno is calling for a hearing, and PG&E officials should be forced to discuss, in public, how this disaster was allowed to happen. City officials, and the local Legislative delegation, should also be pushing the California Public Utilities Commission to investigate how PG&E has been spending the money it collects from ratepayers for maintenance and system upgrades. It’s clear that company profits were healthy enough for PG&E to spend $46 million on a failed ballot initiative that would have blocked public power in the state; why wasn’t that money used to replace the ancient natural gas pipes in San Bruno? Where else is the company skimping on facilities? How much of the company’s system needs immediate upgrades, and what’s PG&E’s budget and schedule for that work?

There’s a larger point here: none of the public power systems in Northern California have had this type of accident. None of the publicly run utilities have been found guilty of diverting maintenance money to executive salaries and profits. San Francisco’s first modest moves toward public power will come with the establishment of a community choice aggregation system — but that system will still rely on PG&E’s grid. The sooner the city can move to get rid of that private monopoly and build its own power system, block by block and neighborhood by neighborhood if necessary, the less likely it will be that a San Bruno-type catastrophe will happen here.

PG&E’s history of blowups

Zelda Bronstein
-
4
PG&E’s history of blowups

By Noah Arroyo

We don’t yet know if the San Bruno fire is a horrific accident or an equally horrific mistake. But Pacific Gas and Electric Company, which owns and operates the gas line that ruptured, has a history of incidents that look a lot like this one. Some of these incidents have caused power outages. Others have blown things up, or injured people.

The company also has a history taking money that ought to go to maintenance and diverting it into fat corporate profits.

In December of 2003, a cable fire at the Mission Substation of the Golden Gate Control Center caused a more than 100,000 people to lose power. The California Public Utilities Commission inspected the incident and found that PG&E suffered from general procedural laziness, and that “PG&E failed to follow three recommendations made in its 1996 Root Cause Analysis Report following [a] 1996 fire.”


At the time, San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera noted: “The evidence is clear that PG&E knew about problems that endangered public safety and threatened to cost San Francisco businesses millions—and yet did nothing to fix them.”

Then, in August 2005, something exploded underground the intersection of Kearny and Post. A manhole cover shot into the air and the escaping fire severely burned a passer by. The event’s catalyst was a failed transformer, owned and operated by PG&E.

In June last year, a fire peeked and then roared from a manhole with enough force to resemble an explosion to onlookers. The electrical fire, at O’Farrell and Polk, was coming from a PG&E vault. The impact? 8,600 customers lost power. This, like Thursday’s fire at San Bruno, was a fire bigger and more resilient than what emergency responders at first assumed. At least in 2009, nobody died.

Another difference: In 2009, leading up to the explosion, PG&E didn’t know about the problem beforehand.

Why hadn’t PG&E replaced this natural gas pipe (the San Bruno fire’s origin) since its installation in 1948? Was the problem one of cost? If so, would replacing such a pipe cost more than the $46 million the company spent trying to push Proposition 16 in June’s election?

Or could this be a replay of the Rough and Ready fire of 1994?

That year, an inferno raged through the small Nevada County town, destroying a dozen homes and causing $2 million in damage. The cause of the fire? Tree limbs that PG&E was supposed to trim brushing against the company’s power lines.

The local district attorney sued, and during the trial, evidence came to light that PG&E had taken $80 million from ratepayers — money that was supposed to be used for tree trimming — and diverted it to executive salaries and to pad the bottom line.

The company was found guilty of criminal negligence and fined $2 million.

So if PG&E in fact failed to maintain its facilities, at great cost to the public, it wouldn’t be the first time.

 

Endorsement Interviews: Rebecca Prozan

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
-
18
Endorsement Interviews: Rebecca Prozan

Rebecca Prozan, a candidate for Disctrict 8, has the endorsement of incumbent Sup. Bevan Dufty, and she and Dufty seem to have a lot in common. “I’m able to bring both sides together,” she told us, noting that D-8 constituents “like people who are independent thinkers, who are right up the middle.”

An assistant District Attorney, LGBT and District 8 liaison under former Mayor Willie Brown, and a Recreation & Parks Commissioner, Prozan is familiar with San Francisco government from a number of angles — but she’s also perceptive of the level of mistrust that exists. “There isn’t a San Franciscan in District 8 that actually thinks government is spending every dollar as it should,” she said.

Prozan said she is supportive of a hotel tax to boost revenues, a vehicle license fee to help improve MUNI, and a parcel tax to raise money for schools. She likes the idea of conducting audits as a way to tighten up spending, but rejected the idea of requiring nonprofit organizations to disclose how they spend city funds that are allocated to them. She doesn’t see any reason for split appointments on the SFMTA Board or the Redevelopment Agency, and she believes that while it’s “not a witch hunt,” part of the solution for MUNI should be targeting salaries. She’s against the proposed sit / lie ordinance, she’s a big fan of the Community Justice Center, and she thinks gang injunctions are a useful tool for law enforcement.

Prozan also told us she thinks the city should focus on building more rental housing, and she has been shopping around the idea of figuring out how to convert 1,100 foreclosed San Francisco properties into affordable housing for “teachers, cops, and firefighters.” Listen to the full interview below.

rprozan by endorsements2010

Evaluating the criteria the city uses to classify folks as gang members

Mary Magee
-
7
Evaluating the criteria the city uses to classify folks as gang members

I recently asked Deputy City Attorney Yvonne Mere about the criteria the city uses to determine if someone is a member of a criminal street gang.

More precisely, I wanted to know if any of the 41 young black men named in City Attorney Dennis Herrerra’s recently filed gang injunction in Visitacion Valley were named simply because they were seen affiliating with documented gang members and frequenting gang areas.

I asked because those are two criteria local law enforcement officials use to classify gang members.

According to Penal Code Section 186.22, a minimum of two or more of the following criteria must be met to classify someone as a member of a criminal street gang:
1. Subject has admitted to being a gang member (to any peace officer, school official, or juvenile hall employee).
2. Subject has committed gang-related crimes or engaged in gang-related activities.
3. Subject has been identified as a gang member by a reliable informant/source.
4. Subject has been identified as a gang member by an untested informant or source with corroborative evidence.
5. Subject has been seen affiliating with documented gang members.
6. Subject has been seen displaying symbols and/or hand signs.
7. Subject has been seen frequenting gang areas.
8. Subject has been seen wearing gang clothing.
9. Subject has identifiable gang tattoos.
10. Subject is a registered gang member under Penal Code section 186.30
OR—as a single criteria:
11. Subject admits being a gang member in a custodial classification interview.

“I don’t have a cheat sheet that says X has number 3, 7 and 10 on that list,” Mere replied. “But I will tell you that this is not the case that these guys just happen to be hanging out in the area, and weren’t committing crimes, but just got swept up.”

Mere pointed to one of the declarations posted at the City Attorney’s website that alleges that one individual admitted to being a gang member, and was also convicted of second degree robbery, arrested in felony possession of firearms and ammunition, has been seen in the neighborhood with other documented gang members, frequenting gang areas and throwing a Down Below Gang’s hand sign.

“Our expert declaration lays out all the criteria,” Mere said. “And we have an opt out provision,” she added, noting that the Lawyer’s Committee has said it will help anyone with the opt-out petition. “But so far no lawyers or individuals have contacted us about opting out.”

Another expert declaration documents how the SFPD received a tip that gang members had buried a weapon after a chase with the police and that when the SFPD recovered the firearm, they found fingerprints of one of the individuals now on the Viz Valley list.
The declaration says that this individual was then arrested and found with a plastic baggie containing ten off-white rocks of suspected rock cocaine between his buttocks.
Another individual named on the list allegedly took police on a chase through the Britton Courts public housing project and was seen stopping to bury a small off-white object, which allegedly turned out to be two bags of suspected meth. On arrest, this individual, who is not on the Britton Courts lease, was found with a bag of marijuana on his person.

 I asked Mere if the City Attorney’s gang injunction could be impacted if voters approve Prop.19, which would legalize the sale of marijuana.

“I can’t say how Prop. 19 is going to affect numerous cases that have a gang component,” Mere said. “I will tell you that we put everything on the table. We have laid out our entire case. It gives transparency. And a judge still has to decide if the evidence is sufficient.”

But if there is all this evidence, why isn’t the District Attorney’s Office prosecuting these 41 individuals on criminal charges (a process that would also automatically give these men the right to a Public Defender)?

“I think [folks in the D.A’s office] do,” Mere said. “But we’re still seeing that despite the best efforts of the police department, that the nuisance behavior still occurs. This is just another tool to stop the violence.”

Mere said none of the funding to put together this particular case came from federal sources.
“We are the same eight lawyers that do neighborhood nuisance abatement,” Mere said.

Crackdown on gangs — or civil liberties?

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
1
Crackdown on gangs — or civil liberties?

Sarah@sfbg.com

City Attorney Dennis Herrera’s Aug. 5 decision to file a civil gang injunction against two alleged gangs in Visitacion Valley is being hailed by top local law enforcement officials as an important weapon in a war between heavily-armed members of two rival gangs in the Sunnydale housing projects.

“I consider this another vital tool in the prosecution of violent criminals,” District Attorney Kamala Harris said in a City Attorney’s Office press release announcing the suit against the Down Below Gangsters (DBG) and Towerside Gang.

But in the middle of a heated race for supervisor in District 10, the gang injunction also has become a political issue — and infuriated civil liberties activists who say it’s unfair and won’t work.

Herrera’s complaint names and identifies 41 young black men using declarations from gang task force members, police reports, photographs of the men sporting tattoos, flashing hand signs, and wearing purported gang clothing — and even extracts from a letter that one listed individual sent to another alleged gang member, who was in jail.

If Herrera’s request is granted in court Sept. 30, it will be San Francisco’s fourth civil gang injunction. Herrera secured similar injunctions against the Bayview-Hunters Point Oakdale Mob in October 2006; the Mission District’s Norteños in 2007; and the Western Addition’s Chopper City, Eddy Rock, and Knock Out Posse in 2007.

The City Attorney’s Office claims a “cooling off” effect as a result of those injunctions. “Since Herrera launched the civil gang injunction program at the end of 2006, 46 percent of identified gang members (43 of 93) have gone without even a single arrest in San Francisco for crimes other than minor violations of the injunction itself,” Herrera’s office states.

It claims that the data also show progressive improvements over time. “Only 14 percent of identified gang members (13 of 93) were arrested for noninjunction crimes so far in 2010 — down from 41 percent in 2007,” Herrera’s office states.

But San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi, civil rights lawyers, and community advocates worry that the injunction raises constitutional issues and practical problems that could be counterproductive in terms of Herrera’s stated effort to reduce violence in Visitacion Valley.

“The first difficulty you observe is that there is no right to counsel,” Adachi said, pointing to the three injunctions Herrera has already launched. “Instead, the burden is on the individuals named in the injunction to come forward and contest the injunction.”

Contesting an injunction is expensive and difficult, Adachi says.

“There’s a large amount of filing, and then there’s a hearing and a trial,” said Adachi, who represented individuals named in Herrera’s 2007 suit against the Norteños. “It costs between $10,000 and $20,000 to mount an adequate defense.”

Adachi claims Herrera’s past injunctions were mostly based on allegations and stale information that could have triggered more violence. “We saw that the city attorney based its injunction solely on what police officers had alleged, officers who in most cases were members of the Gang Task Force,” he said. “For instance, there was a woman who had been in a gang, but left years before. As a result of being named, her family was threatened and she was fearful there would be reprisals.” The woman’s name was ultimately removed.

Adachi represented a young man who had never been in trouble but found himself on Herrera’s Mission-based injunction list after he rapped about the Nortenos. “There was no evidence, but when we said there had been a mistake, the city attorney disagreed,” Adachi said. “In the end, a judge found there was insufficient evidence.”

Adachi worries about the impact on individuals mistakenly named in the suit. “When you name someone, that brands them. What we saw in other injunctions was that people lost jobs.”

He notes that only a few people came forward to challenge past injunctions. “But in at least four cases, people were found not to be gang members,” he said.

At the time of those injunctions, there was no way to get off the list. “So we worked with the ACLU to demand one and the City Attorney’s Office agreed,” Adachi said. “But I don’t know how many people have since filed paperwork.”

Ingleside police station Capt. Louis Cassenego told us that as of Aug. 20, 12 men had been served with the injunction — six allegedly from DBG, six from Ingleside.

“We had signage posted on utility poles, and no signs have been torn down,” Cassenego said. “And so far, the folks served have taken it in a matter-of fact fashion.”

But Sharen Hewitt, executive director of the C.L.A.E.R. Project, a community empowerment and violence prevention nonprofit, said she worries that people don’t understand the implications of being served and won’t take the trouble to opt out. “I talked to a young man after he got served and he tore up his notice,” Hewitt said.

Hewitt invited representatives from the City Attorney’s Office, Police Department, Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, Bay Area Legal Aid, and residents of the area to an Aug. 12 emergency debriefing. “We are sitting in the middle of a major war zone,” Hewitt said, referring to the meeting’s location at Britton Courts, a public housing project that Herrera claims is on DBG turf. “Although this situation threatens the community, it has also brought us together. And now we are trying to pull together a legal team.”

Deputy City Attorney Yvonne Mere explained that the suit seeks to ban criminal and nuisance conduct by creating a proposed safety zone that covers two-tenths of a square mile and encompasses both gangs’ alleged turf plus a buffer zone.

The injunction would impose a 10 p.m. curfew on the 41 men listed, who are a barred from trespassing, selling drugs, and illegally possessing firearms, loitering, displaying gang signs, and associating in public in neighborhoods surrounding the Sunnydale, Heritage Homes, and Britton Courts developments.

Some of this conduct is already against the law, but other activities, including assembling in groups, is typically protected by the Constitution, Mere explained.

Lt. Mikail Ali of the Ingleside station said many youngsters don’t want to be in a gang. “This is an out,” Ali said.

But some residents questioned whether some men on Herrera’s list are in a gang. “Who are you to say who is a gang member?” asked Sheila Hill, who was concerned that her son, the victim of a shooting a couple of years ago, was on the list. “Yes, they might have done something three or five years ago, but many of them have moved on, got married, and got a job. I don’t believe you guys are really checking your records.”

Mere disagreed (later clarifying that Hill’s son isn’t named by the injunction). “We looked at criminal records within the last five years, including shootings, shots fired, and weapons possessed, and it’s a pretty violent zone down here,” Mere said. Mere claims the war between DBG and the Towerside caused 10 murders in the last three years.

Leslie Burch, president of the Britton Courts Neighborhood Association and cofounder of the Visitacion Valley Peacekeepers, said a lot of the men named grew up together, playing sports, staying at each other’s houses overnight, and making affiliations.

“So I wouldn’t necessarily classify them as gangs,” Burch said. “They are just a bunch of friends who have common interests like music, sports, and hanging out together.”

Mere pointed to the opt-out option, part of a 2008 agreement between the city attorney, ACLU, and Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights.

“It’s an option for people to say, ‘No, you are wrong,'<0x2009>” Mere said. “They can submit letters from pastors and friends, and we’ll consider that between now and Sept. 30.“

But Burch challenged some of the evidence posted at the City Attorney’s wesbite, including photographs of people sporting alleged gang tattoos and clothing.

“Take the T sign,” Burch explained “The city attorney says it represents the Towerside. But I had a nephew who was murdered. His name was Trayon, and some people wear the letter T in remembrance of him. I was in court with a nephew who was trying to explain that he is not a gang member just because he’s wearing a hat with a T on it.”

Hewitt noted that the injunction follows budget cuts that decimated local nonprofits and that funding is desperately needed for programs that provide young men with jobs and other alternatives to crime.

Hewitt also noted that the injunction gives District 10 candidates an opportunity to show the community that they are tracking all the issues in this pivotal race. “D-10 has been reduced to the Lennar issue, and that’s what’s criminal,” Hewitt said, adding that coverage of the race has so far largely excluded Viz Valley, even though it’s home to the city’s largest public housing site.

Indeed, the injunction is becoming part of the dialogue in the District 10 supervisor campaign. Candidates Isaac Bowers, Kristine Enea, Chris Jackson, Nyese Joshua, Steve Moss, and Marlene Tran attended Sharen Hewitt’s Aug. 12 gang injunction debriefing. By meeting’s end, Bowers and Enea said they would help community members get legal representation. “A lot of people being served don’t know what an injunction is or don’t show up at the hearing, and then they become subject to the injunction,” Bowers said.

Jackson said he’s committed to helping these men get access to job and education opportunities.

Candidate Tony Kelly said if there are gangs in Viz Valley, Herrera’s injunction would be valid. “There is gang-like activity, but it’s small-scale turf wars, shootings. and retaliations. And it’s not organized,” Kelly claimed. “Instead, you’ve got unorganized young black men with no other options doing whatever it takes to get ahead. But instead of doing something constructive, the city attorney calls them gangs.”

DeWitt Lacy, also a candidate, said he remains concerned that gang injunctions are circumventing people’s due process rights. “In a criminal case, you have the right to an attorney — but that’s not so in a civil action.”

Rooting out the bad apples?

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
0
Rooting out the bad apples?

rebeccab@sfbg.com

The San Francisco Police Department will begin tracking the records of officers who have histories of misconduct or other red flags so the information can be disclosed to the district attorney if the officer is called to testify in a criminal trial.

Chief George Gascón announced the new protocol Aug. 20 in response to revelations in the wake of the crime lab scandal that San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris had failed to comply fully with a constitutional obligation to provide criminal defense attorneys with the misconduct records, which the defense could then seek to have admitted as evidence to undermine a witness’ credibility.

Harris’ office has to rely on police to determine whether any problems lurk in a police witness’ background, so the hiccup in compliance was blamed on weak communication between the two departments.

But there’s a big lingering question Gascón hasn’t directly addressed: the research will almost certainly turn up information that ought to lead to officer discipline, and in some cases to cops losing their jobs. How, exactly, will the department handle that?

Speaking at a press conference, Gascón said he’d worked closely with the DA’s office and San Francisco Police Officers Association (SF POA) to streamline the process to ensure compliance. “We believe this will be a model policy throughout the country,” Gascón said, flanked by high-ranking members of the department as a line of television cameras pointed toward him.

Since the constitutional requirement stems from the 1963 case Brady v. Maryland, a bureau order issued by the chief refers to negative marks on an officer’s personnel record that is determined to be admissible as evidence as “Brady material.” It could be as simple as a 10-year-old D.U.I. charge, or a more serious offense involving an officer’s conduct in the line of duty.

If an officer has been disciplined in the past for making false statements, for example, and that history is admitted as evidence in trial, the jury might be less inclined to take his or her word as gospel.

In the past, anytime the DA called on an officer to testify against a criminal defendant, the DA’s office was supposed to contact the SFPD to request a background check for that officer to see if any Brady material had to be turned over to the defense. Under Gascón’s new plan, SFPD will notify the DA in advance about officers who have potential “Brady material,” without revealing just what the historic offense is. If the DA calls a police witness whose name has been flagged, the prosecutor will have to file a motion for the court to open the personnel file and determine if the past misconduct is relevant to the case at hand.

So how does an employee get his or her name flagged? The SFPD has assembled a powerful new body with a hokey-sounding name, “the Brady Committee,” to determine whether an employee’s name should be forwarded to the DA. Comprised of various heads of SFPD divisions plus a retired judge with a background in criminal law, the committee will review personnel backgrounds and give employees a chance to make their case as to why the dirt the department has on them shouldn’t be counted as Brady material.

Not surprisingly, “the list” — as it’s being called — won’t be made available to the public, but at the Aug. 20 press conference, reporters wanted to know how many names were on it. Gascón indicated that it was too early to say. “There is unquestionably going to be a number that will start surfacing,” he responded. “At this point, we do not have a list.”

A host of questions surround this new development, and one of the first to emerge is whether officers who are still on patrol duty despite major offenses in their histories will ultimately be shown the door as a result of the internal investigative procedure. Gascón alluded to as much, saying, “When some one commits a criminal act, they taint the entire organization. When we have a bad apple, we’re going to deal with the bad apple.”

And while he declined to give a tally of the list, the chief did make it sound as if the investigations had already been completed. “We have basically gone through the process of assessing. We have vetted our entire department and to the greatest extent that we can tell, we know what needs to be known.”

In an era of economic austerity, another question that has been raised is what the impact will be for officers who have been reassigned to desk jobs in the wake of misconduct charges — earning salaries much higher than would-be civilians capable of performing the same tasks. A recently issued report by the Controller’s Office found that the SFPD could do more tighten its spending. “The department needs to improve its controls over overtime and premium pay,” the office concluded after an audit. “While the department has reduced overtime costs in recent years, it does not consistently follow its policies and procedures for earning, documenting, and approving court appearance premium pay and acting assignment pay.”

Aside from the spending issue are speculations about the political ramifications. Some have been wondering what kind of backlash could be prompted from the politically powerful SF POA if the new Brady protocol results in dismissals or demotions.

The issue of reassignments is alluded to briefly at the close of the chief’s bureau order. “This procedure does not address the situation in which the department determines that the existence of Brady material may prevent an employee from effectively testifying and consequently may limit the assignments available to the employee,” the order notes. “The department intends to implement a separate procedure to address that situation after [meeting] and conferring with the Police Officers Association and other affected employee organizations.”

But that alone is a red flag: SF POA will almost certainly resist any efforts to use the Brady material discipline officers — or to get rid of cops who shouldn’t be on the force. And if Gascón allows the union to set the terms, plenty of bad apples will remain in the barrel.

Editorial: Beyond Chief Gascon’s reforms

David Talbot
-
0

There are cops at every level on the force who ought to be fired for misconduct — and the discipline process has been so slow that it’s utterly ineffective.

EDITORIAL You have to give San Francisco Police Chief George Gascón credit: he talks more about reform, and seems to take discipline more seriously, than anyone who has headed the department in at least 30 years. In the wake of the crime lab scandal, he did what the department should have done years ago: ordered a complete investigation of the background of every officer on the force to determine if anyone has skeletons that might affect his or her ability to testify in criminal cases.

But if the list of problem officers becomes nothing more than a closely guarded secret used only when the district attorney fears for the future of a criminal case, the exercise will have only limited value.

The fallout from the crime lab revealed a much deeper problem in San Francisco law enforcement: the police and the district attorney had not been properly informing defense lawyers when cops who were taking the stand for the prosecution had problems in their past. Hundreds of convictions could be overturned by that failure to abide by Brady v. Maryland, which requires prosecutors to turn over to the defense any material in an officer’s record that could relevant to the credibility of the cop as a witness.

Gascón didn’t create the problem, and he has moved expeditiously to come up with a plan to address it. But as Rebecca Bowe reports on page 8, there’s another gigantic issue here. There are cops at every level on the force who ought to be fired for misconduct — and the discipline process has been so slow that it’s utterly ineffective.

There’s plenty of blame to go around — the Police Officers Association balks at anything that could possibly help clear out bad cops. The Police Commission is abysmally slow at holding disciplinary hearings. And the culture of secrecy in the department — enhanced by some really terrible state laws — makes it impossible for the public to find out where the problems really lie.

But if Gascón is serious, he can make some dramatic changes. For starters, he ought to make the disciplinary process as open as possible. He probably can’t release the names of every cop on the Brady list; that would run afoul of state law. But he can certainly tell the public how many names there are and what offenses are included.

He’s been pushing to change the role of the Police Commission in disciplining cops, asking that that ability to fire an officer, now reserved for the commission, be shifted to the chief, leaving the civilian panel in the role of an appellate body. We agree that the chief ought to be able to fire a bad cop — but so should the commission. If Gascón adopts that stance and asks for more personal authority without eliminating the fundamental powers of the commission, he’d have the support of nearly every progressive in town.

The commission needs to change its own practices, too. Serious discipline cases drag on for years because the commissioners don’t put the time into holding hearings. Either the panel should set a weekly schedule for disciplinary hearings, outside of its regular meetings, or hire hearing officers to do that work. The backlog is insane and needs to be cleared up.

The next few months will demonstrate whether the chief is serious about changing the climate of bad behavior in the department. If he steps up, he’ll get immense public support.

Beyond Chief Gascon’s reforms

David Talbot
-
0
Beyond Chief Gascon’s reforms

EDITORIAL You have to give San Francisco Police Chief George Gascón credit: he talks more about reform, and seems to take discipline more seriously, than anyone who has headed the department in at least 30 years. In the wake of the crime lab scandal, he did what the department should have done years ago: ordered a complete investigation of the background of every officer on the force to determine if anyone has skeletons that might affect his or her ability to testify in criminal cases.

But if the list of problem officers becomes nothing more than a closely guarded secret used only when the district attorney fears for the future of a criminal case, the exercise will have only limited value.

The fallout from the crime lab revealed a much deeper problem in San Francisco law enforcement: the police and the district attorney had not been properly informing defense lawyers when cops who were taking the stand for the prosecution had problems in their past. Hundreds of convictions could be overturned by that failure to abide by Brady v. Maryland, which requires prosecutors to turn over to the defense any material in an officer’s record that could relevant to the credibility of the cop as a witness.

Gascón didn’t create the problem, and he has moved expeditiously to come up with a plan to address it. But as Rebecca Bowe reports on page 8, there’s another gigantic issue here. There are cops at every level on the force who ought to be fired for misconduct — and the discipline process has been so slow that it’s utterly ineffective.

There’s plenty of blame to go around — the Police Officers Association balks at anything that could possibly help clear out bad cops. The Police Commission is abysmally slow at holding disciplinary hearings. And the culture of secrecy in the department — enhanced by some really terrible state laws — makes it impossible for the public to find out where the problems really lie.

But if Gascón is serious, he can make some dramatic changes. For starters, he ought to make the disciplinary process as open as possible. He probably can’t release the names of every cop on the Brady list; that would run afoul of state law. But he can certainly tell the public how many names there are and what offenses are included.

He’s been pushing to change the role of the Police Commission in disciplining cops, asking that that ability to fire an officer, now reserved for the commission, be shifted to the chief, leaving the civilian panel in the role of an appellate body. We agree that the chief ought to be able to fire a bad cop — but so should the commission. If Gascón adopts that stance and asks for more personal authority without eliminating the fundamental powers of the commission, he’d have the support of nearly every progressive in town.

The commission needs to change its own practices, too. Serious discipline cases drag on for years because the commissioners don’t put the time into holding hearings. Either the panel should set a weekly schedule for disciplinary hearings, outside of its regular meetings, or hire hearing officers to do that work. The backlog is insane and needs to be cleared up.

The next few months will demonstrate whether the chief is serious about changing the climate of bad behavior in the department. If he steps up, he’ll get immense public support.

1...91011...18Page 10 of 18

48hills.org is the official publication of the non-profit San Francisco Progressive Media Center.
Contact us: info@48hills.org