Elections

Man for the moment?

Andrew Lam
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25
Man for the moment?

steve@sfbg.com

This year’s supervisorial race in District 5 — representing the Haight, Panhandle, and Western Addition, some of the most reliably progressive precincts in the city — has been frustrating for local leftists. But as the long and turbulent campaign enters its final week, some are speculating that John Rizzo, whose politics are solid and campaign lackluster, could be well-positioned to capitalize on this strange political moment.

Appointed incumbent Sup. Christina Olague has been a disappointment to some of her longtime progressive allies, although she’s now enjoying a resurgence of support on the left in the wake of her vote to reinstate Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi. Now two allies of the mayor — tech titan Ron Conway and landlord Thomas Coates — are funding a $120,000 last-minute attack on Olague.

The campaign of one-time left favorite Julian Davis lost most of its progressive supporters following his recent mishandling of accusations of bad behavior toward women (see “Julian Davis should drop out,” 10/16).

The biggest fear among progressive leaders is that London Breed, a well-funded moderate candidate being strongly supported by real estate and other powerful interests, will win the race and tip the Board of Supervisors to the right. The final leg of the campaign could be nasty battle between Breed and Olague and their supporters, who tend to see it as a two-person race at this point.

But in a divisive political climate fed by the Mirkarimi and Davis scandals and the unprecedented flood of hundreds of thousands of dollars in real estate and tech money, it’s hard to say what D5 voters will do, particularly given the unpredictably of how they will use ranked-choice voting to sort through this mess.

Running just behind these three tarnished and targeted candidates in terms of money and endorsements are Rizzo and small business person Thea Selby, who described their candidacies as “the grown-ups in the room, so there’s an opportunity there and I’m hopeful.”

Selby hasn’t held elective office and doesn’t have same name-recognition and progressive history as Rizzo, although she has one of the Guardian’s endorsements. It probably didn’t help win progressive confidence when the downtown-backed Alliance for Jobs and Sustainable Growth recently did an independent expenditure on behalf of both Selby and Breed.

And then there’s Rizzo, who has been like the tortoise in this race, quietly spending his days on the streets meeting voters. Between fundraising and public financing, Rizzo collected about $65,000 as of Oct. 20 (compared to Breed’s nearly $250,000), but he’s been smart and frugal with it and has almost $20,000 in the bank for the final stretch, more than either Olague or Davis.

But perhaps more important than money or retail politics, if indeed D5 voters continue their strongly progressive voting trends, are two key facts: Rizzo is the most clear and consistent longtime progressive activist in the race — and he’s a nice, dependable guy who lacks the oversized ego of many of this city’s leaders.

“I see consistency there and a lack of drama,” Assembly member Tom Ammiano, an early Rizzo endorser, told us. “He’s looking not like a flip-flopper, not like he owes anyone, and he doesn’t have a storied past.”

 

PROGRESSIVE HISTORY

Rizzo, who was born in New York City 54 years ago, is downright boring by San Francisco standards, particularly given his long history in a local progressive movement known for producing fiery warriors like Chris Daly, shrewd strategists like Aaron Peskin, colorful commenters like Ammiano, bohemian thinkers like Matt Gonzalez, and flawed idealists like Ross Mirkarimi.

Rizzo is a soft-spoken family man who has lived in the same building on Waller Street in the Haight-Ashbury for the last 27 years. Originally, he and Christine, his wife of 25 years, rented their apartment in a tenancy-in-common building before they bought it in the early 1990s, although he’s quick to add, “In all the years we’ve owned it, we never applied for condoship.”

He supports the city’s limits on condo conversions as important to protecting working-class housing, although he said, “The focus should be on building new affordable housing.” That’s an issue Rizzo has worked on since joining the Sierra Club’s San Francisco Bay Chapter more than 20 years ago, an early advocate for broadening the chapter’s view of environmentalism.

He’s a Muni rider who hasn’t owned a car since 1987.

Michelle Myers, director of the Sierra Club’s San Francisco Bay Chapter, said Rizzo brings a wealth of experience, established relationships, and shrewd judgment to his role as the group’s political chair. “We really rely on John’s ability to weigh what is politically feasible, not just what’s ideal in our minds,” she told us.

Yet that political realism shouldn’t be confused for a lack of willingness to fight for big, important goals. Rizzo has been an advocate for public power in San Francisco for many years, strategizing with then-Sup. Ammiano in 2001 to implement a community choice aggregation program, efforts that led to this year’s historic passage of the CleanPowerSF program (with a key vote of support by Olague) over the objections of Mayor Lee and some business leaders.

“CleanPowerSF was carried by John Rizzo, who has been working on that issue for 10 years,” Myers said.

Rizzo is a technology writer, working for prospering computer magazines in the 1990s “until they all went away with the dot.com bubble,” as well as books (his 14th book, Mountain Lion Server for Dummies, comes out soon).

He sees the “positives and the negatives” of the last tech boom and this one, focusing on solving problems like the Google and Genetech buses blocking traffic or Muni bus stops. “On the one hand, these people aren’t driving, but on the other hand, they’re unregulated and using our bus stops,” he said. “We need to find some solution to accommodate them. Charge them for it, but accommodate them.”

That’s typical of how Rizzo approaches issues, wanting to work with people to find solutions. As president of the City College of San Francisco Board of Trustees, Rizzo suffered the bad timing of the district having its accreditation threatened just as his supervisorial race was getting underway, but he’s steadily worked through the administrative problems that predated his tenure, starting with the criminal antics of former Chancellor Phil Day and continuing with “a management structure still in place, and it had calcified.”

Despite being on the campaign trail, Rizzo called the trustees together six times in August to deal with the accreditation problems. “We now have a plan that shows all the things the district needs to do to keep it afloat. City College is back on track.”

 

WEAKNESS BECOMES STRENGTH

Eileen Hansen — a longtime progressive activist, former D8 supervisorial candidate, and former Ethics Commissioner — gave her early endorsement to Rizzo, who never really seemed to catch fire. “There hasn’t been a lot of flash and I would love for there to be more energy,” she admitted.

So, like many progressive leaders, she later offered her endorsement to Davis, believing he had the energy needed to win the race. But after Davis’ problems, Hansen withdrew that endorsement and sees Rizzo as the antidote to its problems.

“We are in such a mess in D5, and I’m hoping they will say, ‘enough already, let’s find someone who’s just good on the issues, and that’s John,” Hansen said. “As a progressive, if you look at his stands over many years, I’d be hard-pressed to find an issue I don’t agree with him on. He’s a consistent, strong progressive voice, someone you can count on who’s not aligned with some power base.”

Other prominent progressive leaders agree.

“What some people may have viewed as his weak point may end up being his strength,” said former Board President Aaron Peskin, who endorsed Rizzo after the problems surfaced with Davis. “A calm, steady, cool, collected, dispassionate progressive may actually be the right thing for this moment.”

Sup. Malia Cohen, a likable candidate who rose from fourth place on election night to win a heated District 10 supervisorial race two years ago, is a testament to how ranked-choice voting opens up lots of new possibilities.

“Ranked choice voting defies conventional wisdom,” Peskin said. “There may be Julian Davis supporters and Christina Olague supporters and London Breed supporters who all place John Rizzo as their second.”

In fact, during our endorsement interviews and in a number of debates and campaign events, nearly every candidate in the race mentioned Rizzo as a good second choice.

Yet Rizzo doesn’t mince words when he talks about the need for reconstitute the progressive movement after the deceptions and big-money interests that brought Mayor Lee and “his fake age of civility” to power. Lee promised not to seek a full term “and he broke the deal,” Rizzo said. “And it was a public deal he broke, not some backroom deal.” 

That betrayal and the money-driven politics that Lee ushered in, combined with the divisive political climate that Lee’s long effort to remove Mirkarimi from office created, has deeply damaged the city’s political system. “I think the climate is very bad It’s bad for progressives, and just bad for politics because it’s turning voters off,” Rizzo said.

He wants to find ways to empower average San Franciscans and get them engaged with helping shape the city’s future.

“We need a new strategy. We need to regroup and think about things long and hard. I think it’s not working here. We’re doing the same things and it’s not working out. The money is winning.” He doesn’t think the answers lie in continued conflict, or with any individual politicians “because people are flawed, everyone is,” Rizzo said.

Yet Rizzo’s main flaw in the rough-and-tumble world of political campaigns may be that he’s too nice, too reluctant to toot his horn or beat his chest. “That kind of style is not me. That aggressive person is not who I am,” Rizzo said. “But I think voters like that. Voters do want someone who is going to focus on policy and not themselves.”

Labor money fighting Prop. 32

Andrew Lam
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Labor money fighting Prop. 32

Modern California politics can be tug of war between corporate interests and the public interest. On one side is a gang of the biggest, toughest, strongest kids on the playground. On the other side is everyone else.

The labor movement isn’t always on the side of the disenfranchised — the prison guards union, for example, has long used its clout to push for greater incarceration levels, costing the taxpayers hundreds of millions and destroying lives in the process.

But overall, with the huge expense that’s now involved in running a political campaign in this state, labor — using the combined money of millions of dues-paying members — is often the only force that can stand up to the big-business bullies.

“The working class doesn’t have enough institutions through which to makes its voice heard,” says Nelson Lichtenstein, Director of the Center for the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy at UC Santa Barbara.

That’s why some of the richest and most powerful corporate interests in the country are trying, once again, to cut labor money out of politics — and why the battle over Proposition 32 is so critical for the state’s future.

And, ironically, the fight over an initiative whose backers say it’s aimed at limiting campaign spending by special interests has become one of the most expensive ballot battles in state history.

BILLIONAIRE’S BANQUET

Prop. 32, to put it bluntly, is backed by a handful of rich people. Billionaire Republican Charles Munger, hedge fund manager William Oberndorf, and investment manager Jerrold Perenchio have between them put up nearly $24 million to get the measure on the ballot and pass it.

The Yes on 32 campaign talks about limiting both corporate and union spending. Again, in a biting irony, backers capitalized on the public’s concern with Citizen’s United, which gave corporations the same constitutional rights as people and enabled them to spend unlimited amounts of money on political campaigns.

But the measure really only affects one side. Corporations don’t use paycheck deductions to collect political money — and partnership, limited liability companies and many other entities could give as they wish. So, of course, could rich individuals, like the ones behind Prop. 32.

“All we’re doing is exposing the truth,” says Eric Heins, Vice President of the California Teachers Union, which has thrown more than $20 million dollars to block 32. The truth, he says, is that it will exempt corporations while limiting the voice of unions. “All you really need to do is just follow the money and follow who is exempted from it. We’re not doing anything other than telling it like it is.”

Labor’s efforts seem to be working. A September 21 survey by UC Berkeley and the Field Poll showed that just 38 percent of voters favored the measure while 44 percent opposed it. Another late September poll from USC and the Los Angeles Times showed similar results. The latest numbers from the Public Policy Institute of California show labor’s efforts have made more gains with just days before the election.

“The No on 32 campaign has been working overtime,” says Chris Daly, political director for the Service Employees International Union local 1021. “I think in the beginning the feeling was 32 started with a lead and as we educated voters about what it really is, support evaporated.”

Part of the labor effort has been to remind voters that they have seen this kind of proposition before. In 1998 it was called the “Paycheck Protection” initiative that aimed to establish new requirements with regard to payroll deductions for political activity. It was defeated at the polls. A 2005 measure aimed to do the same thing, but after a hard fought campaign and millions of dollars spent, it too was blocked.

Unions have also reached out to young people. “Voters 18 to 35 are a key demographic,” says Daly. “They tend to be much more progressive voters and more concerned about corporate power.”

For years the anti-union movement has argued that payroll deductions for political use without consent from employees is unethical and corrupt. They’re also one of the few ways working people can compete with wealthy corporate donors in politics and are necessary to keep the playing field somewhat balanced.

So while the corporate world is contributing money to silence one side of the debate, the other is using money to keep its voice alive. According to Maplight — a nonpartisan research group that tracks money in politics — spending on 32 has surpassed $100 million, with supporters spending roughly $45 million and the opposition $58 million.

THE FINAL PUSH

And there’s still a significant amount of money to be spent before November 6. The campaign finance database on Secretary of State Debra Bowen’s official website breaks down the 18 committees formed to support or oppose the measure. Of the five pro-32 committees, three have a combined $7 million dollars left to spend on their agenda while eight of the 13 opposition committees have roughly $9.7 million left.

The labor folks argue that their big money is different than big corporate money. “When we put money into a campaign its money that’s been cobbled together from a lot of people,” says Heins. “There’s a big difference with CTA putting in money as opposed to Munger putting in a check of $20 million that he won’t even miss.”

In addition to direct support from wealthy individuals like Munger, Prop. 32 has received money from a number of political action committees that aren’t required to disclose their donors. So while it’s pretty clear who the teachers union is and what its members want, its hard for voters to know the agenda of The American Future Fund — a PAC that’s donated $4 million raised from anonymous sources.

AFF has close ties to right-wing billionaires Charles and David Koch — but their names aren’t anywhere on any disclosure forms. “The ability to hide behind large PACS is corrosive and I think everybody knows it,” says Barbara O’Connor, Emeritus Professor of Communications at California State University, Sacramento.

The campaign financing behind Prop 32 is symptomatic of what’s happening across the country in the world the US Supreme Court has created with its Citizens United decision. At the national level, the Obama and Romney campaigns combined will have spent more than $1 billion by Election Day. While the President’s campaign has spent more money, Romney’s camp has benefited from enormous amounts of outside cash from super PACS, erasing Obama’s edge.

Could this be a new normal for election spending and campaigning?

O’Connor says change will likely come sooner than later. But as Prop. 32 demonstrates, that change will be tricky. What would happen if 32 passed? Would other states follow? Would one-sided campaign laws be the next frontier in reform?

“Discourse has gotten more bipolar,” says O’Connor, noting the change in the political atmosphere since Citizens United became law.

What everyone wants to know is whether or not this is the new normal for elections. “I think people on both sides are seeing the impact and skewing of citizen voting and once the fury calms down it will change. You’re going to see a big shift in how we campaign after this election.”

The sleazy money typhoon

Zelda Bronstein
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The sleazy money typhoon

CORRECTION: This article has been updated to correct inaccurate information.

 

The flood of money into the San Francisco elections over the past month is mind-boggling. We’ve never seen this level of independent-expenditure attacks in district elections. We’ve never seen an out-of-nowhere conservative candidate with no political experience at all spend half a million of his own money to buy a San Francisco Assembly seat. It could be a very ugly Nov. 6.

The most dramatic entry in the last-minute sewer-money contest is the political action committee just formed to attack Sup. Christina Olague over her vote to retain Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi. San Francisco Women for Responsibility and Accountable Supervisor exists only to oppose Olague; Ron Conway, a close ally Mayor Ed Lee, has thrown $20,000 into the group, and his wife Gayle put up $49,000. Linda Voight, who is married to real-estate industry mogul and rent-control foe Thomas Coates, put up another $49,000. That more than $100,000 coming in during the last 10 days of a campaign and it’s an unprecedented amount of negative money for a district race.

The idea that a tech titan and a big landlord would use the Mirkarimi vote in a hit-campaign is disturbing to a lot of people, particularly Ted Gullicksen, who runs the San Francisco Tenants Union:

Conway’s committee attacks Christina Olague for supporting Ross Mirkarimi.  But really he is just using the issue of domestic violence as a tool to unseat a political opponent.  By doing so, he is cheapening the issue of domestic violence to further his crass political agenda of repealing rent control.

(Conway, in an Oct. 30 note, says he does not oppose San Francisco’s rent control laws. Coates has put significant money into anti-rent-control efforts.)

It’s also, apparently, payback from two of the mayor’s money guys — and it makes a screwy election even stranger. Particularly since none of the other prominent candidates in D5 are out there going after Olague on her vote and most of them probably would have voted the same way.

Conventional wisdom is that attacking Olague helps London Breed, who is the candidate the landlords have chosen (and spent $40,000 on). But nobody knows exactly what will happen when all the ranked-choice ballots are counted. John Rizzo has largely weathered the story of attacks from all sides and will be #2 on a lot of ballots. I think Julian Davis is finished, and more of his supporters will go to Rizzo or Olague than to Breed.

Still, it’s entirely possible that the most progressive district in the city will be represented by someone who is likely to be more aligned with the moderates and conservatives than with the left.

Then there’s Michael Breyer, who has now put more than $500,000 of his own money into the Assembly race against Assessor Phil Ting. Breyer’s never done anything in local politics; he claims to talk about old-fashioned San Francisco values and hypes his family members from past generations who have been active in the community, but he grew up on the East Coast and moved here in 2002. But with that kind of money, the more conservative candidate has been able to bring the race close to even.

And if he can use his own fortune to top Ting — who’s been a decent Assessor and has long ties to the community — it’s going to be a bad moment for San Francisco politics.

 

 

Realtors and tech spending big to flip the Board of Supervisors

Sasha Cuttler
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93

Wealthy interests aligned with Mayor Ed Lee, the real estate industry, big tech companies, and other downtown groups are spending unprecedented sums of money in this election trying to flip the balance of power on the Board of Supervisors, with most of it going to support supervisorial candidates David Lee in D1 and, to a lesser degree, London Breed in D5.

The latest campaign finance statements, which were due yesterday, show Lee benefiting from more than $250,000 in “independent expenditures” from just two groups: the Alliance for Jobs and Sustainable Growth PAC, which got its biggest support from tech titans Mark Benioff and Ron Conway; and the Coalition for Responsible Growth, funded by the San Francisco Association of Realtors.

Lee’s campaign has also directly spent another nearly $250,000 on its race to unseat incumbent Sup. Eric Mar – bringing total expenditures on his behalf to more than $500,000, an unheard-of amount for a district election. Mar has spent $136,000 and has $24,100 in the bank, and he is benefiting from another $125,000 that San Francisco Labor Council unions have raised on his behalf.

Breed has benefited from more than $40,000 in spending on her behalf by the two groups. Her campaign is also leading the fundraising field in her district, spending about $150,000 so far and sitting on more than $93,000 in the bank for a strong final push.

Incumbent D5 Sup. Christina Olague has done well in fundraising, but the reports seem to indicate that her campaign hasn’t managed its resources well and could be in trouble in the final leg. She has just $13,369 in the bank and nearly $70,000 in unpaid campaign debts, mostly to her controversial consultant Enrique Pearce’s firm.

Slow-and-steady D5 candidates John Rizzo and Thea Selby seem to have enough in the bank ($20,000 and $33,000 respectively) for a decent final push, while Selby also got a $10,000 boost from the the Alliance, which could be a mixed blessing in that progressive district. Julian Davis still has more than $18,000 in the bank, defying the progressive groups and politicians who have pulled their endorsements and pledging to finish strong.

In District 7, both FX Crowley and Michael Garcia have posted huge fundraising numbers, each spending around $22,000 this year, but Crowley has the fiscal edge going into the final stretch with $84,443 in the bank compared to Garcia’s less than $34,000. But progressive favorite Norman Yee is right in the thick of the race as well, spending $130,000 this year and having more than $63,000 in the bank.

The following is a detailed look at the numbers (we didn’t do Districts 3, 9, and 11, where the incumbents aren’t facing serious or well-funded challenges) for the biggest races:

 

Independent Expenditures

 

Alliance for Jobs and Sustainable Growth PAC

The downtown-oriented group is run by notorious campaign attorney Jim Sutton. It has raised $447,500 this year, including $225,000 in this reporting period (Oct. 1 to Oct. 20).

It has spent $107,808 this period and $342,248 this reporting period. It has $243,599 in the bank and $105,334 in outstanding debt.

Donors include: Salesforce CEO Mark Benioff ($100,000), venture capitalist Ron Conway ($35,000), San Francisco Police Officers Association ($25,000), Healthplus Share Services out of Walnut Creek ($20,000), Committee on Jobs ($47,500), and Operating Engineers Local 3 ($10,000)

The Alliance has spent $143,763 this year, including $16,921 in this reporting period, supporting D1 supervisorial candidate David Lee and attacking his opponent Eric Mar; and $10,205 each in support of D5 candidates Thea Selby and London Breed.

 

Coalition for Sensible Growth (with major funding by the SF Association of Realtors)

Raised nothing this reporting period but $225,000 this year.

Spent $75,636 this period and $287,569 this year. Has $170,744 in the bank and $152,000 in outstand debts.

It has spent $101,267 supporting D1 candidate David Lee, $26,405 support of David Chiu in D3, $2,739 each supporting FX Crowley and Michael Garcia in D7, $12,837 opposing Norman Yee in D7, $29,357 backing London Breed in D5, and $20,615 promoting Prop. C (the Housing Trust Fund).

The San Francisco Labor Council Labor & Neighbor PAC has raised $84,563 for its various member unions and spent $93,539 this year on general get-out-the-vote efforts.

The Labor Council also supports three Teachers, Nurses and Neighbors groups supporting Eric Mar in D1 (raising $125,000 and spending $85,437), FX Crowley in D7 (raising $50,000 and spending $40,581), and Christina Olague in D5 (raising $15,000 and spending $15,231)

 

Supervisorial Races:

District 1

Eric Mar

Raised $18,270 this period, $135,923 this year, and got no public finances this period.

He has spend $61,499 this period, $187,409 this year, and has $24,180 in the bank with no debt.

Donors include: Sup. David Chiu ($250), board aides Judson True ($100) and Jeremy Pollock ($100), redevelopment attorney James Morales ($200), developer Jack Hu ($500), engineer Arash Guity ($500), community organizer James Tracy ($200), Lisa Feldstein ($250), Marc Salomon ($125), Petra DeJesus ($300), and Gabriel Haaland ($200).

David Lee

Raised $4,174 this period, $140,305 this year, and no public financing matches this period.

He has spent $245,647 this year and $55,838 this period. He has $5,871 in debts and $26,892 in the bank.

Donors include the building trades union ($500), property manager Andrew Hugh Smith ($500), Wells Fargo manager Alfred Pedrozo ($200), and SPO Advisory Corp. partner William Oberndorf ($500).

District 5

John Rizzo

Raised $5,304 this period (10/1-10/20), $29,860 this year, and $14,248 in public financing

He has $19,813 in the bank

Donors are mostly progressive and environmental activists: attorney Paul Melbostad $500), Hene Kelly ($100), Bernie Choden ($100), Dennis Antenore ($500), Clean Water Action’s Jennifer Clary ($150), Matt Dorsey ($150), Arthur Feinstein ($350), Jane Morrison ($200), and Aaron Peskin ($150).

 

Julian Davis

Raised $8,383 this period, $38,953 YTD, and got $16,860 in public financing in this period (and $29,510 in the 7/1-9/30 period).

He has $67,530 in YTD expenses, $18,293 in the bank, and $500 in debts.

Some donors: Aaron Peskin ($500), John Dunbar ($500), Heather Box ($100), Jim Siegel ($250), Jeremy Pollock ($200), BayView publisher Willie Ratcliff ($174), and Burning Man board member Marian Goodell ($400). Peskin and Dunbar both say they made those donations early in the campaign, before Davis was accused of groping a woman and lost most of his progressive endorsements.

 

London Breed

Raised $15,959 this period, $128,009 YTD, got $95,664 in public financing this period.

Total YTD expenditures of $150,596 and has $93,093 in the bank

Donors include: Susie Buell ($500), CCSF Board member Natalie Berg ($250), Miguel Bustos ($500), PG&E spokesperson and DCCC Chair Mary Jung ($250), SF Chamber of Commerce Vice President Jim Lazarus ($100), Realtor Matthew Lombard ($500), real estate investor Susan Lowenberg ($500), Municipal Executives Association of SF ($500), Carmen Policy ($500), SF Apartment Association ($500), SF’s building trades PAC ($500), and Sam Singer ($500).

 

Christina Olague

Raised $7,339 this period, $123,474 YTD, and got $39,770 in public financing this period.

Has spent $54,558 this period, $199,419 this year, has $13,367 in the bank, and has $69,312 in outstanding debt.

Donors include: former Mayor Art Agnos ($500), California Nurses Association PAC ($500), a NUHW political committee ($500), the operating engineers ($500) and electrical workers ($500) union locals, Tenants Together attorney Dean Preston ($100), The Green Cross owner Kevin Reed ($500), SEIU-UHW PAC ($500), Alex Tourk ($500), United Educators of SF ($500), and United Taxicab Workers ($200).

Some expenses include controversial political consultant Enrique Pearce’s Left Coast Communications ($15,000), which documents show is still owed another $62,899 for literature, consulting, and postage.

 

Thea Selby

Raised $5,645 this period, $45,651 YTD, and got $6,540 in public financing this period.

Spent $29,402 this period, $67,300 this year, and has $33,519 in the bank.

Donors include:

David Chiu board aide Judson True ($100), One Kings Lane VP Jim Liefer ($500), SF Chamber’s Jim Lazarus ($100), Harrington’s Bar owner Michael Harrington ($200), and Arthur Swanson of Lightner Property Group ($400).

 

District 7

 

Norman Yee

Raised $8,270 this period and $85,460 this year and received $65,000 in public financing.

Spent $15,651 this period, $130,005 this year, and has $63,410 in the bank and no debt.

Donors include: Realtor John Whitehurst ($500), Bank of America manager Patti Law ($500), KJ Woods Construction VP Marie Woods ($500), and Iron Work Contractors owner Florence Kong ($500).

 

FX Crowley

Raised $5,350 this period, $163,108 this year, and another $25,155 through public financing.

He spent $76,528 this period, $218,441 this year, and has $84,443 in the bank and $7,291 in unpaid debt.

Donors include: Alliance for Jobs & Sustainable Growth attorney Vince Courtney ($250), Thomas Creedon ($300) and Mariann Costello ($250) of Scoma’s Restaurant, stagehands Richard Blakely ($100) and Thomas Cleary ($150), Municipal Executives Association of SF ($500), IBEW Local 1245 ($500), and SF Medical Society PAC ($350)

 

Michael Garcia

Raised $8,429 this period, $121,123 this year, and $18,140 through public financing.

He spent $45,484 this period, $222,580 this year, and has $33,936 in the bank.

Donors include: Coalition for Responsible Growth flak Zohreh Eftekhari ($500), contractor Brendan Fox ($500), consultant Sam Lauter of BMWL ($500), Stephanie Lauter ($500), consultant Sam Riordan ($500), and William Oberndorf ($500)

 

The Clear and Present Danger to Prop. 30 (and all of us)

Zelda Bronstein
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The Clear and Present Danger to Prop. 30 (and all of us)

This is suddenly getting serious, very serious. A secretive super PCA out of Arizona, where all bad things seem to originate, just put $11 million into a No on 30/Yes on 32 operation, and while it’s likely not enough to pass 32, which is trailing pretty far behind in the polls — and might actually benefit from news that a group allegedly pushing for campaign transparency is living off shadowy money, the money’s already hurting 30.

Let us remember: If Prop. 30 goes down, the state goes off a fiscal cliff. Schools get his with cuts so brutal that the school year my have to be cut by a couple of weeks or more. The University of California and California State University systems will cease to function in anything remotely resembling their current state, which is already a disaster. Cities and counties will get hit, social services will suffer, more parks will close — it’s almost too awful to think about.

I didn’t write Prop. 30; I would have left out the sales tax and hiked the rate even more on the wealthiest. But it’s a compromise deal, and it’s not only good for the state it’s absolutely essential. And the Big Boys out of the state of Joe Arpaio are trying to undermine it.

Add that in to Molly Munger’s unconscionable efforts to take down Prop. 30 (at this point, it seems like nothing but sour grapes since her Prop. 38 is clearly going to lose) and you have a recipe for disaster.

Look, we all know Obama’s going to win California, and some of us don’t have a contested supervisorial election. But there’s lots of stuff on the local ballot that matters — and if Prop. 30 goes down, nothing else is going to matter because (unless by some miracle the Dems get a two-thirds majority in both houses and can pass other taxes) this state’s going down the tubes.

So go vote Yes on 30. Vote yes on 38, too, if you want, although a lot of people are mad enough at Munger to vote no. But 30 is the one that matters. Vote early and often.

 

Dick Meister: Missing a vital election issue!

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By Dick Meister 

Dick Meister, former labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom has covered labor and politics for more than a half-century. Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister.com, which includes more than 350 of his columns.

 

Repeal the Taft-Hartley Act!  That’s a cry working people and their unions very much need to hear, but have not heard in this year’s election campaigning.

It’s hardly surprising that Republican candidates are silent, since repeal would be a great boost to labor. But if only for that reason, President Obama and other pro-labor Democrats should demand immediate repeal.

The law was passed in 1947 in response to a wave of strikes that were called just after World War II by workers attempting to make up for pay lost because of wage controls during the war. President Truman vetoed Taft-Hartley, but Congress overrode the veto to enact what unions of the time denounced as “the slave-labor bill.”

Taft-Hartley drastically amended the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), which was enacted during the Great Depression to encourage unionization. It reversed the NLRA’s intent by authorizing employers to take a wide variety of anti-union actions.

Most significantly, employers were granted the legal right to intervene in union organizing campaigns. Rather then remaining neutral as before, employers are allowed to wage anti-union campaigns that include requiring workers to listen to their arguments against unionization during working hours, often at mandatory meetings.

Taft-Hartley seriously limits workers’ ability to act in solidarity with others by prohibiting workers from waging sympathy strikes – secondary boycotts – in support of striking members of other unions.

Another key provision outlaws the closed shop, which required workers seeking jobs with unionized employers to join the union representing the workers before they could be hired. The law does allow the union shop, which requires workers to join the union after being hired, but allows states to enact so-called right-to-work laws that ban the union shop.

Twenty-two states, including Texas, the country’s second largest, have such laws. They greatly weaken unions by allowing workers to reap the benefits that unions get in negotiating contracts with unionized employers, but without having to help pay the unions’ costs by joining the unions and paying dues.

Taft-Hartley denies union rights to workers designated by employers as “supervisors,” a category of workers that has been growing steadily. What’s more, employers can fire supervisors who nevertheless try to unionize.

Employers also can use a wide assortment of devices to delay for months, sometimes for years, negotiating contracts with unions that win representation elections.  They also have the right to call for new elections to take away the union rights of election winners.

Unions calling strikes with potentially great national impact face the prospect of the federal government moving in to require an 80-day cooling off period while mediators try to bring about a settlement.

There’s more, none of it designed to further the basic civil right of unionization, but rather to hinder it. Repealing Taft-Hartley obviously should have been a prime issue throughout the 2012 election campaign.

Dick Meister, former labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom has covered labor and politics for more than a half-century. Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister.com, which includes more than 350 of his columns.

 

 

 

Life-and-death decision

Andrew Lam
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7
Life-and-death decision

news@sfbg.com

Proposition 34, the initiative to end the death penalty in California, is trailing in the polls, but proponents are focusing on a surprisingly large voting block that could still put it over the top: undecided voters.

“Anything can happen on Election Day,” said Natasha Minsker, campaign manager for Yes on 34. “I think what this election comes down to is who’s able to reach the undecided voter.”

The Los Angeles Times reports the race is 38-51 against the measure, while the Field Poll survey has it at 42-45 against. Both polls report that 11-13 percent of voters were undecided, and a more recent poll conducted by SurveyUSA shows the undecided vote may have grown to 20 percent.

Those large numbers, with less than two weeks until the election, raise an interesting and troubling question: on a decision as serious as whether we allow the state to kill someone in our name — a practice that is as costly to state finances as it may be to our very souls — why have so many voters failed to form an opinion?

REACHING VOTERS

Leading the charge to win over these ambivalent voters is a coalition of justice organizations, supported by prominent individuals and groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Amnesty International.

The campaign has raised more than $6 million in less than a year, outspending the opposition 35-to-1. Minsker told us the campaign is focusing hard on undecided minority voters, devoting most of its resources to an area they believe will help them win.

“We have more of a focus on young Latino, Asian, and African American voters, specifically in LA County,” she said. “These are voters who, once they hear about the facts of the proposition, they vote for it.”

Prop. 34 would replace California’s death penalty with a maximum sentence of life in prison with no chance of parole. The proposition would also make convicted felons work to pay restitution to their victims’ families.

The Field Poll reports that of all the regions surveyed, Los Angeles County contains the highest percentage of undecided voters, at 17 percent. Once voters learn that executions don’t prevent murders (numerous studies show it doesn’t act as a deterrent to crime) or save money (life-in-prison is cheaper than housing someone on Death Row and hearing legal appeals), support for capital punishment falls.

The Field Poll reports that 15 percent of voters aged18-39 are undecided, while minority voters (Latino, Asian and African American) contain even higher rates of undecided voters, ranging from 16-19 percent, higher than undecided white voters, at 11 percent.

Unlike on many liberal-leaning campaigns, this one also has strong support from the Catholic Church.

“The energy the Catholic community has brought to the initiative has been fantastic,” Minsker said. “It is certainly one of the few issues to bring together the ACLU and the Catholic Church, but it’s just wonderful to see.”

But in order for the proposition to pass, undecided voters must decide soon.

Field Poll Director Mark Dicamillo said that at this stage in the contest, the team that is leading in the polls usually wins.

“In our experience, with [two] weeks left, undecided voters usually vote no, if they haven’t figured out where they stand yet,” he said.

But Jeanne Woodford, executive director of Death Penalty Focus, a nonprofit group dedicated to educating the public about capital punishment, says these undecided voters are taking their time to get the facts straight before they decide.

“I think that [undecided voters] are very thoughtful voters who are not going to vote on this issue from a moral perspective,” she said. “Those are voters who are going to want to know the facts.”

DECIDING ISSUES

With the election just around the corner, why are so many “thoughtful voters” still undecided about ending the death penalty?

UC Berkeley Public Policy Professor Bruce Cain attributes the undecided electorate to the state’s inconsistency toward capital punishment.

“Historically, the state of California has flipped on its [death penalty] policy,” he said. “My guess is that it is a little bit hard for voters to navigate through now.”

But at a time when California is in a fiscal crisis and federal judges have ordered the state to substantially reduce the population in its overcrowded prison system, Prop. 34 proponents have been making fiscal arguments more than moral ones.

According to the state’s Legislative Analyst’s Office, ending the Death Penalty would save taxpayers $130 million a year, and set aside a $100 million annual fund for law enforcement agencies to use in solving homicide and rape cases.

Prop 36, reform of the harsh Three Strikes and You’re Out law, is the other big sentencing reform initiative on the ballot. Prop 36 would save taxpayers about $100 million a year, yet it is a 3-1 favorite in the polls, a stark contrast to Prop 34.

“The death penalty has been overshadowed by the Three Strikes prop, and that’s possibly another aspect of the undecided voters,” Cain said. “But remember people that are undecided at the end are the people that only get information from their TV.”

That’s something that Yes on 34 is well aware of and about to address.

The campaign has reported spending more than $3 million since July producing television and cable ads, which are launching this week.

“You’ll be seeing TV and radio which will provide much more information to the public, and when they have that information, the facts speak for themselves,” Woodford said.

But No of 34 campaign has fear and emotional arguments on its side. Spokesperson Peter Demarco told us, “Prop 34 isn’t about saving money. It’s the centerpiece of the liberal ACLU’s agenda to weaken California’s public safety laws.”

Cain thinks Prop 34 has a chance, but the real test is yet to come.

“If indeed the no people plan to throw money into this and really land some hard-hitting emotional ads, then you could see voters being moved dramatically,” he said. “If people see these emotional ads and don’t move, then that tells you that the electorate has changed.”

LONG ROAD

Executions in California go back to its earliest settlements, and it was first authorized in the state’s penal code in 1872.

In 1972, the California Supreme Court ruled the death penalty cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the state’s constitution, commuting more than 100 death sentences to life in the prison without the possibility of parole.

Cain says that during the 1970s and ’80s, when California’s rising crime rate was making big news, the public began to embrace capital punishment.

“There were more violent murders, there was crack cocaine, there was a sense that people were going way over the line, and it was very much a moral issue,” he said.

In 1977, the California Legislature re-enacted the death penalty in first-degree murders only. In 1978, California voters broadened the number of crimes eligible for the death penalty. But polls show the pendulum swinging back.

“We haven’t seen a vote like this to abolish the death penalty in about 40 years,” said Richard Dieter, executive director of Death Penalty Information Center. “Just the fact that it’s happening is indicative to the growing skepticism toward the death penalty.”

The number of countries that have abolished the death penalty has doubled to more than 120 the past 25 years. In the US, Connecticut recently became the 17th state to abolish the death penalty, not including the District of Columbia. Will California be next?

“Ten years ago, it was 70-30 against ending the death penalty in California, but that’s changed and it’s closer now. The information is going to make a difference for undecided voters,” said Dieter.

Among that information, Minsker said, is the fact that “with the death penalty, we sometimes sentence innocent people.”

The University of Michigan Law School and the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law reports that in the last 23 years, more than 2,000 people convicted of serious crimes were exonerated in the US.

The Innocence Project, which assists prisoners using DNA testing, found that 18 people previously sentenced to death in the US have been exonerated.

“We have learned that innocent people have been sentenced to death,” said Innocence Project Policy Director Stephen Saloom. “States are increasingly abolishing the death penalty because it’s just not worth it.” According to the Death Penalty Information Center, since 1978 California has executed 13 out of 725 death row inmates, costing California taxpayers $4 billion. “It’s not worth keeping this lengthy, costly process any longer,” Saloom said, “and I think people are more likely to see that it’s not a very good government program.”

Another look at Olague

Andrew Lam
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22

OPINION As Election Day nears, the chaotic contest for supervisor in District 5 represents a critical decision for progressive voters in the district — and for activists across the city.

The campaign for Julian Davis, the original first choice of many left/liberal activists, has imploded and is now in free-fall. The repercussions of the board’s vote on Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi continues to reverberate, nowhere more than in District 5. And respected progressive advocates who had worked together for decades are now estranged, even as our city faces urgent challenges of great complexity.

I don’t know Davis or the other candidates in District 5, but I sat down with Supervisor Christina Olague last month after she received the endorsement of the San Francisco Labor Council. It was our first meeting, and as I rode the Metro to Civic Center I was, frankly, not expecting much. Like many San Franciscans, I could not help but be skeptical of anyone appointed by Mayor Ed Lee. I had heard of decisions made and votes cast by Olague that troubled me. I was not expecting to like her, but friends of mine in the labor movement encouraged me to speak with her directly and I’m glad I did.

I started to like Olague as we walked from her office to find some lunch. Before we got to a restaurant I was already asking her questions about some of the tougher choices she’s made. We didn’t agree on everything, of course, but I was struck by her candor, her common sense, and pragmatic progressive values.

Christina Olague grew up in a migrant labor community in the Central Valley. She survived the often-brutal working conditions and poverty that define the lives of some of the most cruelly exploited workers in the United States. She became active in politics early in life, put herself through school, and moved to San Francisco, where she became a familiar figure in the city’s grassroots community.

As a Latina, and as a member of the LGBT community, Olague’s life experiences shaped her politics and basic values. Her candidacy is important in a city that seems every day more destined to become an enclave reserved exclusively for only the very wealthy and most privileged.

I endorsed Olague several weeks before she cast her vote on the struggle between Lee and Mirkarimi. I would have continued to support her regardless of her vote that day. But the bitterness of that controversy, and the nature of the scandal now surrounding Davis, underscore the need for progressives to heal, to repair our alliances and to demonstrate political leadership grounded in respect for all our communities.

The UNITE HERE International Union represents hotel, restaurant, casino, food service and laundry workers throughout the US and Canada. The majority of our members — the people I work for — are immigrant women. In our union we stand together: LGBT and straight, brown and black and white, immigrant and native-born. In all our actions we seek to build power for working people and to strengthen the broader movement for peace and social justice.

San Francisco has seen many changes in the 40 years since I first hitchhiked here as a youth from Arizona. While the political landscape has certainly altered, I reject the notion that the city’s voters have moved irrevocably to the right. I do believe that progressive activists must do better in communicating our values and our vision for this beautiful and unique city we all love. I think Olague could be an important part of that process.

On behalf of the members of UNITE HERE Local 2, and as a longtime organizer for LGBT and worker rights, I ask my many friends in District 5 to take another look at Christina Olague and to consider casting your vote for her on November 6.

Cleve Jones is a longtime activist and the founder of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt

Men behaving badly

Andrew Lam
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10

The fiasco that was the candidacy of Julian Davis for Supervisor has shed a spotlight on the long simmering sexist underside of progressive San Francisco politics. For years, men have dominated elections and institutions; the lack of women in progressive leadership has been obvious, but too often unaddressed.

San Francisco has a long history of electing women to high office — Dianne Feinstein, Nancy Pelosi, Louise Renne, Kamala Harris … it’s not as if politics in general is controlled by men. But most of those women have been from the more moderate (in some cases, conservative) side. The elected officials who are leaders in the progressive movement have, for most of the past decade or more, been overwhelmingly male.

And it’s hard to ignore the obvious questions: How could so many progressives get behind a candidate with such a history of poor treatment of women? Why did it take so long for the truth to come out? When did attitudes on the left devolve to the point where groping was considered a minor detail?

More important, where are we going from here? How is the progressive movement going to encourage a new generation of women leaders? How are we going to address the perception, and sometimes the reality, that the politics of the San Francisco left is not a welcoming place for women?

It’s going to take a while to talk all of this out, but this week, we want to start the conversation.

>>A NEW FEMINISM FOR SAN FRANCISCO: Community activists on a guide to compassion, redemption, and accountability

>>THE “HEIGHTENED SENSITIVITY” BLUES: Hey progressives, why don’t you stop being such idiots? (An angertorial)

A new feminism for San Francisco

Andrew Lam
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34

OPINION Accountability is one of the hardest things that we have to do. Being accountable stretches us to our very limits as human beings. Blame and deflection is a function of shame, and more often than not, when we make a mistake, it’s more common to point the finger at someone else than it is to acknowledge our mistake and work towards a different practice. The story time and time again is how it never happened — and then when the water gets too hot, there’s generally a soft acknowledgment that something did happen, but by then, the damage is done and trust is broken.

As feminists working in the progressive community for social justice, we are calling for a new type of accountability — one that’s not about demonization or polarization, but instead consists of checking ourselves, checking each other, supporting each other when we are brave, and having the courage and integrity to acknowledge our mistakes and work towards making whole what has been damaged.

Progressives need to take a look at ourselves and come together so that we can advance our vision for San Francisco. We aim to build a progressive movement in San Francisco that is rooted in compassion and love, that acknowledges our contradictions and works to create bridges across class, race, and gender that are so often the typical pitfalls that keep us from accomplishing what we really want and need. Checking ourselves is an act of love for ourselves and for our communities.

The last few weeks in San Francisco have not just been about men behaving badly; it’s also been about women treating each other badly. White feminists in San Francisco came together to “save” Eliana Lopez, an immigrant woman of color, but never actually included her in the conversation — and then treated her like she had Stockholm syndrome. Women who supported Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi were suddenly not feminists anymore. Survivors of domestic violence who supported Mirkarimi and supported redemption were shunned by a large portion of the domestic violence community.

We recognize that there are important reasons why domestic violence law allows charges to brought without the consent of the survivor; however, in this case, these laws were misused. How demoralizing to see a largely white, second-wave feminist advocate community come together around a woman they failed to include in the conversation about what she felt was best for herself and her family. Are we still in the 1950s?

The attempt to remove Mirkarimi from office was a political attack. It does a disservice to the cause of domestic violence to use it as a political tool to unseat a politician. At the same time, it was also regrettable that many progressives supporting the sheriff did not take the domestic violence charges against him seriously enough — both in the initial outcry that surrounded the charges and by being disrespectful towards the domestic violence advocates who testified at City Hall.

On the other hand, following close on the heels of the Mirkarimi situation, District 5 candidate Julian Davis was accused of a troubling history of inappropriate and nonconsensual groping by more than one woman. We have to take into account that there is an unacceptable cultural reality that people are likely to believe accusations against men of color by white women that are untrue, but that is not what has happened with the accusations brought forward about Davis.

In this scenario many in the progressive community knew about this history and were complicit in silencing any real conversation about it. It was only when Davis started intimidating one of the women that brought accusations against him with threats of legal action that a real conversation opened up.

Our goal is not to rehash Davis’s past behavior; everyone deserves redemption. However, it would make it easier for those of us who want to work with him going forward if he could take responsibility for his past instead seeking to silence his accusers.

Many have stood up to support the woman who came forward, but sadly others have not. For women and feminists in our movement it was exceedingly demoralizing to watch people who call themselves progressives attack a woman who came forward or dismiss her allegations because of political allegiances. One blog even went so far as to try and discredit her by alleging that she had been in a pornography film, as if somehow this would cast doubt on her allegations.

We seek a kind of feminism that supports and empowers women to make informed choices about their lives, not the type that falls into the same pattern of erasing the voices of women of color and immigrant women. We are calling for a cutting-edge feminist movement that includes men in our strategy of ending violence against women, and a feminist movement that walks away from this tired dualism between “victims and perpetrators,” when we all know that these so-called perpetrators are often victims of violence themselves.

We are calling for restorative justice that bridges the divides of class and race and gender and makes us stronger to achieve the lives that we want and need. We seek a feminist movement that sees housing and economic justice and racial justice and gender justice as all part of the same movement.

The truth of the matter is that in our progressive movement here in San Francisco, there is still a prominence of straight white men who continue to believe that they are the sole arbitrators of what is or is not progressive in this city, who go after women of color in leadership with a ferocity that they do not for our progressive male counterparts, and who continue to excuse problematic behavior in ways that undermine us all.

So much has happened so quickly that it has been hard to orient ourselves and keep fighting for our rights and our communities. After the election, we call for a public conversation around what it means to be a third- or even fourth-wave feminist progressive that we can build our work around — where men are feminist and women of color leaders can actually get some support from the progressive left. Gabriel Haaland is a queer, transgender Labor feminist and domestic violence survivor. Jane Martin and Alicia Garza are queer, feminist community organizers in San Francisco’s working-class communities of color

DCCC’s Mirkarimi resolution gets delayed

Sasha Cuttler
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126
DCCC’s Mirkarimi resolution gets delayed

San Franciscans will get a chance to take a deep breath – and their politicians will be able to get past Election Day – before wading back into the sordid saga surrounding Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi’s fitness for office, thanks to a resolution condemning him being pulled from tomorrow night’s San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee agenda.

The measure’s chief sponsor, Zoe Dunning, today sent her DCCC colleagues an email thanking supporters of the measure but noting that “a few of you also expressed your belief that collaborating on an amended but substantially similar resolution would help maximize consensus on the DCCC. In consideration of these sentiments and my desire for consensus, I’ve decided to temporarily withdraw my resolution from consideration.”

Instead, Dunning said that she would reintroduce a new resolution for the following meeting, which is scheduled for Nov. 28. Her resolution condemns Mirkarimi for the domestic violence incident against his wife – for which he accepted criminal responsibility in March and survived an attempt to remove him from office for official misconduct last month – and voiced support for his recall by voters.

Inside sources tell us the reason for the delay has less to do with the substance of the measure than with its timing, coming while emotions are still so raw and emotionally charged on both sides of the Mirkarimi question. Few DCCC members had the stomach right now for a replay of the ugly, hours-long public testimony that marked the Oct. 9 Board of Supervisors meeting – particularly coming during Game 1 of the World Series.

Dunning conceded that one factor in her decision was that she “got the feedback that emotions are a little raw right now,” although she told us her main reason was to gather more support: “The timing aspect of it was getting more consensus on the measure. I’m not doing this to be divisive, but I would like the party to take a stand on this.”

That wasn’t the only dramatic item on tomorrow’s DCCC agenda, which also includes a proposal to revisit the DCCC’s “no endorsement” vote in the contentious District 5 supervisorial race and make an endorsement. The effort was sparked by supporters of London Breed who hope the moderate-dominated body will offer its support to counter current efforts to consolidate progressive support around Christina Olague in the wake of Julian Davis’ current difficulties around his handling of allegations of past misbehavior toward women.

Few sources that we spoke to wanted to offer their predictions for how the D5 endorsement would go, but some were relieved that it was decoupled from the Mirkarimi measure that was placed just ahead of it on the agenda.

Yet Mirkarimi is still likely to be hit with the DCCC’s condemnation when it reconvenes next month, barring a change in the political climate or a deescalation by either the Mayor’s Office or the DV community, which isn’t likely.

Matt Dorsey, the spokesperson for the City Attorney’s Office who was elected to the DCCC in June with progressive support, co-sponsored the resolution and told us a recall election is needed to bring closure to this saga.

In an email response to our questions, he wrote: “First, I disagree that a recall would fuel a continued divisive climate. To the contrary, a successful recall would resolve division. Frankly, even an unsuccessful recall would offer both sides the satisfaction of knowing that voters settled the matter – without questions over the legitimacy of the official misconduct proceeding or legal interpretations of the Charter.”

Mirkarimi didn’t respond to our inquiries, but Olague told us last week that she would like to see the fight put to rest. “What I’m concerned about right now is a lot of people are exploiting issues around domestic violence and politicizing it,” Olague said, calling for people to “stop demonizing him” and accept that he’s been punished and is getting the help he needs. “Now it’s so convenient to try to destroy Ross and I think that’s wrong.”

She said the twin scandals involving how Mirkarimi and Davis have treated women – and how those incidents are being exploited – are damaging the city, but she hopes they will give rise to more productive discussions.

“What I’m concerned about is the progressive movement find a way to heal and come together in a way that is more respectful of women,” Olague told us. “Rather than dancing on the grave of Julian Davis, how do we come together and talk about how we treat women?”

The ‘heightened sensitivity’ blues

Andrew Lam
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74

OPINION 

“No one can deny that there is presently a particular sensitivity around domestic violence issues, and this may have been a contributing factor in their decision in this instance. I want to emphasize that I respect this heightened sensitivity and I will not criticize those allies of mine that have chosen to withdraw support.”

– Oct. 17 press statement from District 5 candidate Julian Davis

This is not a Julian Davis hit piece. Just as much as any young progressive in this town, I know the guy. He’s not a bad guy.

He can be a boor. But to be fair, he’s only doing what he’s been taught to do in this era of the San Francisco City Hall progressive scene.

Lemme take it back to my first assignment covering politics for the Bay Guardian (indulge me.) I was a culture intern.

I was assigned to the Democratic County Central Committee election-night party at the Great American Music Hall. I had the early shift, because those hours of the evening are boring enough to entrust to an intern with little background knowledge of the San Francisco political scene. While I was there, gamely interviewing the only person I recognized from the newspapers (a man who I’ve been told ad nauseum is a leader of the San Francisco progressive movement), a shrill -– to appropriate a term usually coded for women and gays –- elderly, straight male blogger approached us and inquired loudly if I was the politician’s escort.

Now, I am pro-sex worker. But as a young woman who was performing an important task for the first time, when a dinosaur implies that you are at a stone-dull political happening to solicit sexual favors for money -– well I’m sorry, brothers and sisters, but I was there to interview people for a newspaper. I don’t think this man’s query, shouted as it was over the crowd, implied a high degree of sex-positivity.

The progressive leader seemed unfazed. Who knows, maybe it happens all the time. He briefly made introductions and ninja-moved into the social melée, leaving me with old blogger, who commenced interrogating me rudely, on camera, from a distance close enough that I could smell him. It wasn’t a superlative scent.

Perhaps Kay Vasilyeva felt similarly six years ago when she went to Bill Barnes, who was serving as campaign manager for Chris Daly, the San Francisco progressive deity at whose campaign event she says the most egregious incident with Davis took place.

Davis groped her, she told Barnes. He told her she could report the incident to the police, and when questioned about the incident by Fog City Journal last week, he said “my memories that are most clear about that campaign were the political side of what was going on, not about the interpersonal issues.”

I’ve told my election night story a couple times over the last week since it stands out clearly as the moment I knew, for sure, I would never get involved in San Francisco politics.

More than one of my friends told me I was asking for this humiliation, what with having identified myself as a Guardian reporter. I’ll admit, that perhaps I could have expected such diminutive behavior. The paper’s, like, “controversial.” All the same, I told those friends, as respectfully as possible, to fuck off.

In the wake of the Ross Mirkarimi and Julian Davis debacles, and in the wake of reaction to said debacles (decidedly the more catastrophic happenings, even compared with the acts themselves), many are realizing that the dominant face of SF progressivism is that of a self-absorbed, hierarchy-enforcing man.

Perhaps some are making the cognitive leap to wonder about why we’re not exactly overwhelmed with progressive females in elected office.

Could it be that through sloppily coded language like that used in Davis’s email, the Barnes response, and my election night incident, an environment is systematically being created that no intelligent young women would ever sanely choose to take part in?

Tell me I’m too soft for politics. Sure you’re right. Tell me it’s equal opportunity assholery. Probs. Tell me that’s just how it is.

I’ll tell you this: being progressive is about more than voting in favor of rent control and raising teacher’s wages. Being pro-choice is not the end of one’s involvement in women’s issues. You can have all the right politics on paper, but if you make those who are different from you feel like shit when you’re two cocktails into election night, take a seat, wrench your eyes from their tits, and let someone else take the lead, because you’re the reason why the progressive movement, the labor movement, et. al., are stale and worn.

Convince all the young women and other people who are not the face of power in this country that they have no place and they will find a different place, and your slate will be all the dumber for it.

Beware, boorish men, when you blame the current spate of sexual abuse unmaskings on “political climate” or “interpersonal issues.” Denigrate actual justice as a “trend” or “gossip” and you will most certainly find yourself fighting for something that you really, really don’t want — the increased infirmity of the movement you claim to hold so dear.

“Heightened sensitivity” getting you down? Hit up a pharmacy, I bet they have a cream for that.

Move on, Mr. Mayor

Andrew Lam
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21

EDITORIAL San Francisco politics hasn’t been this tense in years — and it’s not just because of the upcoming election. The battle over Mayor Lee’s attempt to oust Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi has left bitter divisions at City Hall and in communities all over town. And the mayor is only making things worse.

In an odd way — and we say odd because it was so expensive and a misuse of mayoral power — the system worked. Mirkarimi, who had a physical altercation with his wife that left a bruise on her arm, took responsibility and pled guilty to a misdemeanor; he’s now on probation and undergoing counseling.

After the mayor decided to invoke a rarely used Charter provision and suspend Mirkarimi without pay, the Ethics Commission held hearings, conducted and extensive inquiry and voted to uphold the charges, with the chair, Benjamin Hur, strongly dissenting. Every one of the commissioners raised thoughtful points; several poked big holes in the mayor’s case.

Then the Board of Supervisors met — and again, the members carefully considered Mirkarimi’s actions, the language and history of the City Charter, the prevailing law, and the facts of the case. There was remarkably little political grandstanding; we listened to the entire meeting, lasting more than seven hours, and were left with the impression that the supervisors took their job seriously, weighed the case, forced the City Attorney’s Office, representing the mayor, and Mirkarimi’s defense team, to justify their arguments, and rendered a ruling.

Nine votes were needed to remove the sheriff; that’s appropriate for such a profound sanction. Only seven supervisors sided with the mayor, and the four who rejected the charges had excellent, well-stated and credible reasons.

That’s the way the Charter outlined this process playing out, and in the end, the mayor lacked the overwhelming consensus he would have needed to use his executive authority to remove from office someone duly chosen by the voters. It’s done; it’s over. Most of the city would like to move on.

That’s not to say that Mirkarimi should be celebrating. He did an inexcusable thing. Domestic violence advocates have every right to be unhappy with his actions — and nobody, nobody in town should condone his behavior. He’s not denying it, either; he accepted the criminal consequences and will now have to demonstrate that he’s able to do his job.

But the mayor won’t move on. Mirkarimi sent him a note asking for a meeting, and Lee hasn’t responded. That shows a lack of leadership — and a lack of the civility that the mayor promised us when he took office. Ed Lee started this political process, and now that it’s over, he should be leading the effort to pull the city back together, to recognize that there were valid arguments on both sides of this case and his didn’t prevail — and to stop the demonization of people who didn’t agree with him.

Dick Meister: Labor’s wise election choices

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2

By Dick Meister

Dick Meister, former labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for more than a half-century. Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister.com, which includes more than 350 of his columns.

No issue on the November election ballot anywhere is of greater importance to working people and their unions than Proposition 32 on the California ballot.

As the State AFL-CIO notes in its call for an all-out campaign against Prop 32, it’s “a brazen power play” by billionaire corporate interests and other anti-union forces to all but silence labor’s political voice, while at the same time greatly increasing the political strength of labor’s wealthy opponents.

Prop 32’s corporate sponsors deceptively call their measure an even-handed attempt to limit campaign spending. Yet it would only limit – and severely limit – the political spending of unions. There would be no limit on the political spending of corporations and other wealthy interests.

A Prop 32 victory would have a serious national impact, since passage of the measure in the country’s largest state would certainly lead to attempts to enact similar measures elsewhere.

California Propositions 30 and 38 also could have major, though less direct, effects nationally.  Both measures would raise badly needed new funds for education.

Prop 30, which is widely supported by unions and a broad base of community organizations, would do it through a tax increase that would be levied on wealthy Californians with annual incomes of $250,000 or more.

But Prop 38, bankrolled by some of the same billionaire interests that are contributing heavily to the Yes on 32 campaign, would raise money by taxing everyone, including the poor. And while Prop 30 specifically calls for added education funds to go to schools at all levels, including the community colleges that train workers for jobs that are heavily unionized, Prop 38 does not apply to community colleges.

There are, of course, other state as well as local and national issues and candidates that are of particular interest to labor. That includes, as it very well should, labor-friendly President Obama and just about any other Democrat.

Although the odds are heavily against Democrats regaining control of the House or adding to their narrow margin in the Senate, that has not kept labor and its supporters from trying to beat the odds.

National Democratic strategists are relying on California to be a leader in raising funds to make that happen. They’re sending out an unprecedented barrage of requests to Californians for money for Democratic candidates in general and especially for candidates in battleground states.

Unions are playing an important role in that effort and in many local elections as well. That naturally includes the voting in San Francisco, long one of the country’s premier labor cities and national pacesetter for labor.

As usual, the SF Labor Council and SF unions generally have endorsed all of the Democrats running for national and state offices. It would be hard to quarrel with that or with most of labor’s other choices of who and what to back and oppose on the city’s election ballot.

Locally, labor is backing incumbent Supervisors Eric Mar (District One) and David Campos (District Nine) and newcomer F.X. Crowley, a longtime union leader and activist who’s running in District Seven. All have consistently supported labor.

Labor is rightly eager to defeat Crowley’s opponent, Mike Garcia, a candidate of the downtown interests that have consistently opposed labor.

Voters would be wise to follow the guidance of the teachers union on candidates for the SF Board of Education. The union has endorsed Matt Haney, Beverly Popek, Sam Rodriguez and Shamann Walton. All would be new to the board.

The teachers union and the Service Employees Union local that represent SF City College workers agree that the best candidates for the Community College Board that governs City College are Hanna Leung, Rafael Mandelman and incumbents Natalie Berg and Chris Jackson.

As far as local propositions go, labor’s support for a parcel tax to raise badly needed funds for City College (Prop A) and for a trust fund to help lower and middle income families secure affordable housing (Prop C) makes very good sense.

Unfortunately, labor did not take an official position on Prop G, the policy statement that calls for a Constitutional amendment to reverse the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision that has allowed unlimited political spending by corporations and wealthy individuals.

Otherwise, however, labor has provided voters with an invaluable election guide.

Dick Meister, former labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for more than a half-century. Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister.com, which includes more than 350 of his columns.

D5 shakeups flip the dynamics of that wild race

Sasha Cuttler
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D5 shakeups flip the dynamics of that wild race

[UPDATED AND CORRECTED] Wild and unsettling political dynamics have rocked the District 5 supervisorial race, with three major candidates having prominent endorsements withdrawn, the most significant being this week’s mass exodus of support from the campaign of Julian Davis following his bad handling of allegations that he has mistreated women.

Those withdrawing their endorsements of Davis since Saturday include Sups. John Avalos, David Campos, and Jane Kim, Assembly member Tom Ammiano, the Bay Guardian, the Examiner, and the League of Pissed-Off Voters. The Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club has scheduled a vote for Monday on whether to withdraw its sole endorsement of Davis.

Avalos gave his endorsement to Sup. Christina Olague over the weekend, and she seems to be getting more progressive support in the wake of Davis’ flame-out and her Oct. 9 vote in favor of reinstating Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi. That vote triggered a strong backlash against Olague from Mayor Ed Lee and his allies, with San Francisco Police Officers Association withdrawing its endorsement.

But former Mayor Art Agnos reached out to Olague – who he didn’t know previously – after the Mirkarimi vote and is rumored to be considering offering her his endorsement and support. Agnos didn’t confirm or deny the rumor, but he did tell us, “I was very impressed by her commitment to the progressive issues we share.”

Olague has a long history of progressive activism and was a consistently good vote during her tenure on the Planning Commission, but many progressives were concerned by her early support for Lee, who then appointed her to the District 5 seat vacated by Mirkarimi’s election as sheriff, and by some of her votes and behaviors since then.

But now that she’s been viciously attacked by Lee’s staffers and allies over the Mirkarimi vote – and iced out by Lee himself, who she says won’t return her calls and who bailed out on a planned campaign appearance – Olague seems to have a newfound independence. “At the end of the day, we serve constituents and the city, and that’s who we should answer to,” Olague told us, agreeing that she feels freed up by recent developments, as difficult as they’ve been. “You don’t become an indentured servant.”

She told us that her decision last year to co-chair the “Run, Ed, Run” campaign to convince Lee to break his promise and run for a full term to the office he’d been appointed to was based on her belief that “we’d see an infusion of new energy and some more diversity” of both ideology and demographics in the Mayor’s Office.

“Sadly, I’m not seeing those changes happening really. I didn’t sign up for another four years of Gavin Newsom and those thugs, and I’ve seen a lot of that same behavior,” she said. “People who played prominent roles in the Newsom administration continue to play prominent roles in this administration.”

Olague said the schism with the administration began this summer when she supported Avalos in trying to bring in new revenue as part of the business tax reform measure that became Prop. E, which Lee had insisted be revenue neutral before compromising with progressives. That was when Olague said she got her first nasty message from Tony Winnicker, the former Newsom press secretary who now works for Lee and wrote Olague a text during the Mirkarimi hearing telling her “you disgust me and I will work night and day to defeat you.”

Some prominent progressives privately worried that schism was an election ploy designed to help Olague win the race for this progressive district given that Davis had captured most of the influential progressive endorsements. But with Lee and his allies continuing to be openly livid over the Mirkarimi vote – and with solid progressive John Rizzo running a lackluster campaign that has less than $5,000 in the bank – there is growing progressive support for Olague.

The big fear among many progressives is that London Breed will win the race, a concern that has been exacerbated by the support that Breed has been receiving from real estate and development interests, both directly and in independent expenditures by the Association of Realtors, which has spent more than $225,000 in this election cycle hoping to knock out progressives in Districts 1 and 5 and tip the balance of power on the board.

Breed told us that she doesn’t know the Realtors or why they’re offering such strong support, pledging to be an independent vote. “I’ve never made any promises to anyone that I would help anyone or that I would be this way or that,” she told us. “I’m not here to do anyone’s bidding, whether it’s Aaron Peskin or Willie Brown or anyone else.”

Brown helped launch Breed’s political career by [CORRECTED recommending then-Mayor Gavin Newsom] appoint her to the Redevelopment Commission, where Breed supported Lennar and other big developers, but she had a falling out with him earlier this year and made impolitic comments about him to the Fog City Journal, causing US Sen. Dianne Feinstein to withdraw her endorsement of Breed.

Brown, Lee, and Chinatown power broker Rose Pak helped raise money for Olague, who has received the maximum $500 donation from such powerful inside players as venture capitalist Ron Conway (and his wife, Gayle), Michael Cohen, Victor Makras, Lawrence Nibbi, Mark Mosher, and John Whitehurst.

But that was before the Mirkarimi vote, which Lee’s allies seem to see as a litmus test on Olague’s loyalty to them. As Tenderloin Housing Clinic director Randy Shaw, who helped engineer the progressive split that brought Lee to power, put it on his Beyond Chron blog, “Olague’s vote was an act of profound disloyalty not only to the mayor who appointed her, but also to those who pushed the mayor to do so.”

Olague says she’s disturbed by that viewpoint, and by those so blinded by their efforts to demonize Mirkarimi “and exploit and politicize issues around domestic violence” that they have failed to consider the price he has already paid for his actions or the legal standards for removing an elected official. “On something like this, it’s not a question of loyalty. It’s about principles,” she said.

Breed says that she has seen an increase in support since the Mirkarimi vote and the Davis meltdown, but she said that she doesn’t want to talk about those cases or exploit them politically. “I don’t take pleasure in the misery of someone else,” she said, adding her hope that the furor about Mirkarimi will die down. “The decision has been made and it’s time for the city to come together.”

Progressive leaders have made similar calls, but Mirkarimi’s critics are showing no signs of letting the issue go. San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee members Zoe Dunning and Matt Dorsey have put forward a resolution condemning the reinstatement vote and calling for Mirkarimi’s ouster, which the DCCC will consider on Wednesday evening, Oct. 24.

[CORRECTED At that meeting, the DCCC will also consider a motion] to reopen the D5 endorsement process, hoping to change the DCCC’s previous “no endorsement” vote, and sources tell us there is currently a strong backroom effort to give the endorsement to Breed. That vote will be a big test for progressives, which lost their majority control over the DCCC in the June elections.

Meanwhile, D5 candidate Thea Selby – who snagged one of the three endorsements by both the Guardian and the Examiner – continues to run a strong and well-funded campaign that has avoided the carnage taking place in the other campaigns. “I feel like I’m in the middle watching out for flying beams,” she told us, adding that both she and Rizzo have been “the grown-ups in the room, so there’s an opportunity there and I’m hopeful.”

But unlike Rizzo, who has seems strangely absent and didn’t return Guardian phone calls [see UPDATE below], Selby has plenty of money in the bank – nearly $60,000 as of the last official report two weeks ago – and could benefit from voter disgust with the ugly politics at play. “It’s my experience that is driving this,” says this small-businessperson, “and not my lifelong desire to be a politician, and that may ring some bells.”

How the ranked-choice voting system will play out in this mess is anyone’s guess, and even Davis seems to be hoping that he still has a shot, resisting calls by the Guardian and others to withdraw from the race. Poorly funded candidates Andrew Resignato and Hope Johnson this week announced they were joining forces for the “People’s Ticket” after being excluded from a University of San Francisco candidates forum.

But most political observers seem to think this race will come down to a two-person contest between Breed and Olague – who each have more than $45,000 in the bank with which to make a strong final push – and the distinctions between them are becoming clearer as more progressives get behind Olague and the moderates and monied interests get behind Breed.

Olague said she’s still “willing to work with anybody,” but that, “I’m worried that moderate forces will seize this moment to try to destroy us.”

UPDATE 4:45: Rizzo just got back to us and said he’s been actively campaigning and feeling good about his chances. “We have a great team and we’ll have enough resources to reach voters,” Rizzo said. He said that he’s had a stong fundraising push in the last couple weeks since the last campaign financing statement was released, and he noted his endorsements and active support by influential progressives including Ammiano, Campos, and Carole Migden. “We’re doing a lot of retail campaigning, meeting voters and getting the message out.”

The most shameless campaign mailer of the year

Zelda Bronstein
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The most shameless campaign mailer of the year

This is out-of-control shameless: David Lee — the pro-landlord, pro-downtown, pro-any-form-of-development candidate who is running against Sup. Eric Mar in District 1, is trying to hit Mar for supporting 8 Washington.

Here’s the headline: “Housing for the rich … or housing for everyone?” There’s even a picture of the proposed project. The flip side says that Mar “opposed the construction of 19,148 units of middle-class housing” while he “supported multimillion dollar condominiums on the waterfront at 8 Washington Street.”

The middle-class housing at issue here is, of course, ParkMerced, where Mar joined tenant groups in opposing a deal that could wind up costing the city thousands of rent-controlled units. It’s likely Lee would have supported that deal; fair enough.

The 8 Washington discussion is far more interesting — because David Lee was far from a critic of the project and certainly not among the large group of opponents. “He never said a word against the project,” Brad Paul, who helped organize the opposition, told me. “And the people who are backing him were in favor of it. This sounds like shameless political opportunism.”

So would David Lee have done anything different from Mar on this issue? We can’t know for sure, since Lee has announced a policy that until the election is over, he isn’t going to talk to reporters. (That alone is pretty odd, but it seems to be in synch with his really expensive campaign of misleading information that there’s no easy way to correct.)

But I know this: Among the most vocal propoponents of 8 Washington was the SF Building and Construction Trades Council, which is strongly endorsing and spending money on getting Lee elected. Same for the Alliance for Jobs and Sustainable Growth, a downtown front group. Let’s be serious: No way Lee would ever have opposed this project.

So he’s blasting his opponent for something he would have done, too — probably with more vigor and less concern for community benefits.

Meanwhile, Mar is getting screwed here. The main reason he voted for 8 Washington, as far as I can tell, was that labor leaders (and not just the Building Trades) told him it was important to them. The idea, I’m told, was that Mar would get an early, united, and strong endorsement from labor if he went along. Not pretty, and not a great recommendation for Mar — but that was the deal.

And almost immediately, the Building Trades went with Lee, stabbing in the back the guy who had crossed his progressive base for them.

Nice. Really nice.

UPDATE: I missed a point. In his role as a Rec-Park commissioner, Lee actually voted in favor of 8 Washington. Rec-Park had to grant an exemption to the law barring buildings from casting shadows on city parks, and 8 Washington would have shaded part of Sue Bierman Park. So he’s on the record as a supporter.

 

Stage Listings

Andrew Lam
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Stage listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

THEATER

OPENING

And That’s What Little Girls Are Made Of Tides Theatre, 533 Sutter, SF; www.whatgirlsaremadeof.com. $20-30. Opens Thu/19, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Nov 4. Jennifer Wilson’s multimedia play chronicles her attempts to break into the male-dominated world of venture capital funds.

Fat Pig Boxcar Theatre Studio, 125A Hyde, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $20. Opens Thu/18, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Nov 10. Theater Toda presents Neil LaBute’s dark comedy about a man who faces scrutiny from his friends when he falls for a plus-sized woman.

Fierce Love: Stories From Black Gay Life New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-37. Previews Wed/17-Thu/18, 8pm. Opens Fri/19, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Oct 28. Pomo Afro Homos performs a revival of of its 1991 hit about the struggles of African American gay men in America.

BAY AREA

Richard III Live Oak Theatre, 1301 Shattuck, Berk; www.aeofberkeley.org. $12-15. Opens Fri/19, 8pm. Runs Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Nov 17. Actors Ensemble of Berkeley performs the Shakespeare classic.

Within the Wheel Live Oak Park, 1301 Shattuck, Berk; www.raggedwing.org. Free. Previews Wed/17, 6pm. Opens Thu/18, 6pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 6pm (last entry 7:30pm; special Halloween show Oct 31). Through Nov 3. Ragged Wing Ensemble presents an immersive performance experience inspired by the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

ONGOING

Bound By Blood Boxcar Theatre Playhouse, 505 Natoma, SF; www.ianiroproductions.com. $20. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Oct 27. Opening on the heels of ACT’s production of The Normal Heart, local theater-maker Eric Inman’s Bound By Blood also explores the devastating human fallout of the AIDS crisis as experienced by the two families — one of blood relations and one of chosen friends — of a young gay man, whose death affects them all. Appearing onstage both as a ghost and in a series of flashbacks, Justin Walker (played by Inman) deals with his fear of dying by ditching his meds in favor of drink, and his fear of coming out to his conservative family by postponing the inevitable until it’s too late, leaving his friends holding the burden of his inconvenient truth in their unwilling hands. Awkward moments abound as Justin’s buddies ponder the ethics of outing him posthumously, as his mother (Sally Hogarty) and sister (CC Sheldon) bicker incessantly and his erstwhile "beard" Alice (Abigail Edber) pluckily spearheads the funeral planning. This is Inman’s first full-length play, which helps to explain the often-clunky dialogue and under-developed characters that unfortunately obscure the play’s dramatic potential, but the ideals he champions within — tolerance, self-acceptance, integrity, loyalty, love — are ones well worth exploring, even imperfectly. (Gluckstern)

Elect to Laugh Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. Tue, 8pm. Through Nov 6. $15-50. Veteran political comedian Will Durst emphasizes he’s watching the news and keeping track of the presidential race "so you don’t have to." No kidding, it sounds like brutal work for anyone other than a professional comedian — for whom alone it must be Willy Wonka’s edible Eden of delicious material. Durst deserves thanks for ingesting this material and converting it into funny, but between the ingesting and out-jesting there’s the risk of turning too palatable what amounts to a deeply offensive excuse for a democratic process, as we once again hurtle and are herded toward another election-year November, with its attendant massive anticlimax and hangover already so close you can touch them. Durst knows his politics and comedy backwards and forwards, and the evolving show, which pops up at the Marsh every Tuesday in the run-up to election night, offers consistent laughs born on his breezy, infectious delivery. One just wishes there were some alternative political universe that also made itself known alongside the deft two-party sportscasting. (Avila)

The Fifth Element: Live! Dark Room Theater, 2263 Mission, SF; www.darkroomsf.com. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Oct 27. Comedic adaptation of the 1997 Luc Besson sci-fi epic.

Foodies! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.foodiesthemusical.com. $30-34. Fri-Sat, 8pm (no show Nov 17). Open-ended. AWAT Productions presents Morris Bobrow’s musical comedy revue all about food.

Geezer Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $30-100. Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Nov 18. Geoff Hoyle’s popular solo show about aging returns.

Love in the Time of Zombies Café Royale, 800 Post, SF; sftheaterpub.wordpress.com. Free ($5 donation suggested). Mon-Tue, 8pm. Through Oct 30. San Francisco Theater Pub performs Kirk Shimano’s "rom-zom-com."

Of Thee I Sing Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.42ndstmoon.org. $25-75. Wed, 7pm; Thu-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 6pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Oct 21. 42nd Street Moon performs George and Ira Gershwin’s classic political satire.

The Real Americans Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $25-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Extended through Oct 27. Dan Hoyle’s hit show, inspired by the people and places he encountered during his 100-day road trip across America in 2009, continues.

Roseanne: Live! Rebel, 1760 Market, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $25. Wed, 7 and 9pm (no shows Oct 31). Through Nov 14. Lady Bear, Heklina, D’Arcy Drollinger, and more star in this tribute to the long-running sitcom.

The Scotland Company Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.thunderbirdtheatre.com. $15-25. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Oct 27. Thunderbird Theatre Company performs Jake Rosenberg’s new comedy.

Shocktoberfest 13: The Bride of Death Hypnodrome, 575 10th St, SF; www.thrillpeddlers.com. $25-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Nov 17. Thrillpeddlers’ seasonal assortment of yeasty Grand Guignol playlets is a mixed bag of treats, but it all goes so nicely with the autumnal slink into early nights and dark cravings. Fredrick Whitney’s Coals of Fire is lightly amusing, if far from smoking, as a two-hander about a blind older matron (Leigh Crow) who discovers her young companion (Zelda Koznofski, alternating nights with Nancy French) has been secretly schtupping her husband. I’m a Mummy is a short, not very effective musical interlude by Douglas Byng, featuring the bright pair of Jim Jeske and Annie Larson as Mr. and Mrs., respectively. The titular feature, The Bride of Death, written by Michael Phillis and directed by Russell Blackwood, proves a worthy centerpiece, unfolding an intriguing, well-acted tale about a reporter (Phillis) and his photographer (Flynn DeMarco) arriving at a stormy castle to interview a strangely youthful Grand Guignol stage star (Bonni Suval) making her film debut. After another, this time more rousing musical number, Those Beautiful Ghouls (with music and lyrics by Scrumbly Koldewyn; directed and choreographed by D’Arcy Drollinger), comes the evening’s real high point, The Twisted Pair by Rob Keefe, acted to the bloody hilt by leads Blackwood and DeMarco as the titular duo of scientists driven mad by an experimental batch of ‘crazy’ glue. All of it comes capped, of course, by the company’s signature lights-out spook show. (Avila)

"Strindberg Cycle: The Chamber Plays in Rep" Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor, SF; www.cuttingball.com. $10-50 (festival pass, $75). Previews Oct 25, 7:30pm and Oct 26, 8pm (part two); Nov 1, 7:30pm and Nov 2, 8pm (part three). Opens Thu/18, 7:30pm (part one); Oct 27, 8pm (part two); and Nov 3, 8pm (part three). Runs Thu, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 5pm. Through Nov 18. Cutting Ball performs a festival of August Strindberg in three parts: The Ghost Sonata, The Pelican and The Black Glove, and Storm and Burned House.

The Waiting Period Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thu-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Extended through Oct 27. Brian Copeland (comedian, TV and radio personality, and creator-performer of the long-running solo play Not a Genuine Black Man) returns to the Marsh with a new solo, this one based on more recent and messier events` in Copeland’s life. The play concerns an episode of severe depression in which he considered suicide, going so far as to purchase a handgun — the title coming from the legally mandatory 10-day period between purchasing and picking up the weapon, which leaves time for reflections and circumstances that ultimately prevent Copeland from pulling the trigger. A grim subject, but Copeland (with co-developer and director David Ford) ensures there’s plenty of humor as well as frank sentiment along the way. The actor peoples the opening scene in the gun store with a comically if somewhat stereotypically rugged representative of the Second Amendment, for instance, as well as an equally familiar "doood" dude at the service counter. Afterward, we follow Copeland, a just barely coping dad, home to the house recently abandoned by his wife, and through the ordinary routines that become unbearable to the clinically depressed. Copeland also recreates interviews he’s made with other survivors of suicidal depression. Telling someone about such things is vital to preventing their worst outcomes, says Copeland, and telling his own story is meant to encourage others. It’s a worthy aim but only a fitfully engaging piece, since as drama it remains thin, standing at perhaps too respectful a distance from the convoluted torment and alienation at its center. (Avila)

BAY AREA

Acid Test: The Many Incarnations of Ram Dass Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thu-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through Nov 24. Lynne Kaufman’s new play stars Warren David Keith as the noted spiritual figure.

Assassins Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-30. Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Nov 4. Shotgun Players interrupts this season of dreary electoral debates with an important announcement about the country you live in, as the sure and provocative 1990 musical by Stephen Sondheim (music and lyrics) and John Weidman (book) stitches together American history’s odd assortment of successful and failed presidential assassins to explore the darker recesses of the national mythos. Through an eclectic score of deft period-specific songs and the narrative framework of a feverish carnival shooting gallery — overseen by a nefarious proprietor (Jeff Garrett) — a pageant of kooks and rebels parades, beginning with pioneer assassin John Wilkes Booth (an aptly imposing Galen Murphy-Hoffman). He, in turn, acts as a sort of patron saint to those that follow in his footsteps — including Charles Guiteau (Steven Hess), Leon Czolgosz (Dan Saski), Giuseppe Zangara (Aleph Ayin), John Hinckley (Danny Cozart), Sam Byck (Ryan Drummond), Sara Jane Moore (Rebecca Castelli), Squeaky Fromme (Cody Metzger), and of course Lee Harvey Oswald (Kevin Singer, in a part that doubles with that of the Balladeer). Throughout, director Susannah Martin’s strong cast and musical director David Möschler’s lively eight-piece band insure a raucous, thoughtful, and intimate American fever dream. (Avila)

An Iliad Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-77. Opens Wed/17, 8pm. Runs Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm). Through Nov 11. Berkeley Rep performs Lisa Peterson and Denis O’Hare’s Homer-inspired tale.

The Kipling Hotel: True Misadventures of the Electric Pink ’80s Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Extended through Dec 16. This new autobiographical solo show by Don Reed, writer-performer of the fine and long-running East 14th, is another slice of the artist’s journey from 1970s Oakland ghetto to comedy-circuit respectability — here via a partial debate-scholarship to UCLA. The titular Los Angeles residency hotel was where Reed lived and worked for a time in the 1980s while attending university. It’s also a rich mine of memory and material for this physically protean and charismatic comic actor, who sails through two acts of often hilarious, sometimes touching vignettes loosely structured around his time on the hotel’s young wait staff, which catered to the needs of elderly patrons who might need conversation as much as breakfast. On opening night, the episodic narrative seemed to pass through several endings before settling on one whose tidy moral was delivered with too heavy a hand, but if the piece runs a little long, it’s only the last 20 minutes that noticeably meanders. And even with some awkward bumps along the way, it’s never a dull thing watching Reed work. (Avila)

Richard the First: Part One, Part Two, Part Three Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, Berk; www.centralworks.org. $14-25. Opens Thu/18, 8pm (part one); Fri/19, 8pm (part two); and Sat/20, 8pm (part three). Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm (three-part marathon Sundays, Nov 11 and 18, 2, 5, 8pm). Through Nov 18. This Central Works Method Trilogy presents a rotating schedule of three plays by Gary Graves about the king known as "the Lionheart."

Sex, Slugs and Accordion Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $10. Wed, 8pm. Through Nov 14. Jetty Swart, a.k.a. Jet Black Pearl, stars in this "wild and exotic evening of song."

33 Variations TheatreWorks at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, Mtn View; www.theatreworks.org. $23-73. Tue-Wed, 7:30pm; Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Oct 28. TheatreWorks performs Moisés Kaufman’s drama about a contemporary musicologist struggling to solve one of Beethoven’s greatest mysteries, and a connecting story about the composer himself.

Topdog/Underdog Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; www.marintheatre.org. $36-57. Wed/17, 7:30pm; Thu/18-Sat/20, 8pm (also Sat/20, 2pm); Sun/21, 2 and 7pm. Marin Theatre Company performs Suzan-Lori Parks’ Pulitzer Prize winner about a contentious pair of brothers.

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Sun, 11am; Nov 23-25, 11am. Through Nov 25. Louis "The Amazing Bubble Man" Pearl brings his lighter-than-air show back to the Marsh.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

Alonzo King LINES Ballet Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater, 700 Howard, SF; www.ybca.org. Fri/19-Sat/20 and Oct 24-27, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Oct 28. The company celebrates 30 years with its fall home season.

BATS Improv Bayfront Theater, B350 Fort Mason Center, SF; www.improv.org. Fri, 8pm, through Oct 26: "This Just In!," $20. Sat, 8pm, through Oct 27: "Improvised Horror Musical," $20.

"Comedy Bodega" Esta Noche Nightclub, 3079 16th St, SF; www.comedybodega.com. Thu, 8pm. Ongoing. No cover (one drink minumum). This week: Amy Miller, Kurt Weitzmann, Martini Paratore, and Jessica Sele.

"Comikaze Lounge" Café Royale, 800 Post, SF; www.comikazelounge.com. Wed/17, 8pm. Free. Stand-up with Casey Ley and more.

"Crooked Little Hearts" Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Fri/19-Sat/20, 8pm. $20. The Ananta Project’s home season includes a world premiere that uses dance to explore the nuances of human intimacy.

"Gravity (and other large things)" NOHspace, 2840 Mariposa, SF; www.performancelab.org. Fri/19-Sat/20, 8pm; Sun/21, 4pm. $12-25. Right Brain Performancelab present this evening-length dance-theater piece.

"Halloween! The Ballad of Michele Myers" CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF; michelemyers2012.eventbrite.com. Fri-Sun and Oct 31, 8pm. Through Oct 31. $25. Drag superstar Raya Light returns in the seasonally-appropriate horror musical.

"The Hula Show 2012" Palace of Fine Arts, 3301 Lyon, SF; www.naheihulu.org. Sat/20 and Oct 26-27, 8pm; Sun/21 and Oct 28, 8pm (children’s matinee Oct 28, noon). $35-90. Na Lei Hulu I Ka Wekiu performs its annual show, featuring a hula satirizing President Obama’s birth certificate controversy.

"Let Us Find the Words" Contemporary Jewish Museum, 736 Mission, SF; www.thecjm.org. Thu/18, 6:30pm; Fri.19, 1pm. Free with museum admission ($5-12). Actors Dominique Frot and Alexander Muheum present a dramatic reading of letters between poets Ingeborg Bachmann and Paul Celan.

"Perverts Put Out: The Election Erection Edition" Center for Sex and Culture, 1369 Mission, SF; www.sexandculture.org. Sat/20, 7:30. $10-20. Dr. Carol Queen and Simon Sheppard host performances by Jen Cross, Greta Cristina, Gina de Vries, and more.

"San Francisco Magic Parlor" Chancellor Hotel Union Square, 433 Powell, SF; www.sfmagicparlor.com. $40. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Ongoing. Magic vignettes with conjurer and storyteller Walt Anthony.

"San Francisco Trolley Dances 2012" 925 Mission, SF; www.epiphanydance.org. Sat/20-Sun/21, tours leave at 11am, 11:45am, 12:30pm, 1:15pm, 2pm, and 2:45pm. Free with Muni fare ($2). Climb aboard Muni for a unique performance experience at this annual event presented by Kim Epifano’s Epiphany Productions.

ShadowLight Theatre St. Cyprian’s Church, 2097 Turk, SF; www.noevalleymusicseries.com. Sat/20, 8pm. $15. Balinese shadow puppet theater with live gamelan accompaniment.

"Smack Dab" Magnet, 4122 18th St, SF; www.magnetsf.org. Wed/17, 8pm. Free. Open mic featuring local authors Belo Cipriani and Jim Provenzano.

"Times Bones" Kanbar Hall, Jewish Community Center of San Francisco, 3200 California, SF; www.mjdc.org. Thu/18-Sat/20, 8pm; Sun/21, 7pm. $18-31. Margaret Jenkins Dance Company previews a new work that will premiere in 2013.

Was Realtor-financed attack ad illegally coordinated with Lee?

Sasha Cuttler
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Was Realtor-financed attack ad illegally coordinated with Lee?

District 1 supervisorial candidate David Lee might have violated election laws prohibiting candidates from coordinating with groups doing independent expenditures after being featured in a pricey attack ad blasting his opponent, incumbent Sup. Eric Mar.

The San Francisco League of Pissed Off Voters yesterday filed a complaint with the Ethics Commission requesting an investigation into illegal coordination between Lee and the Association of Realtors, which produced an ad entitled “Send Mar Back to Mars,” in which Lee appears to have participated in the filming.

“Our concern is that Lee’s campaign has collaborated with the San Francisco Realtors Association in providing footage,” says Fabiana Ochoa, a member of the steering committee for the League.  “That’s really a violation of the law.  It’s a concern this year because we see how national super PACs have an influence on campaigns.”

Lee’s direct fundraising and the allegedly independent expenditures on his behalf this week topped $557,486 – more than any other San Francisco supervisorial campaign in history — prompting the Ethics Commission to again raise the expenditure cap on the public financing in Mar’s race. Lee and his campaign have refused to answer questions about this or other issues. 

“No one has ever seen that kind of spending here in San Francisco.  It’s turned into a challenging and nasty campaign,” Ochoa said.  “It’s a small district but the game has changed.”

Progressive groups — including the League, San Francisco Tenants Union, and Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club — are fighting back with a rally scheduled for this Monday at 5pm outside the Realtors Association office at 301 Grove Street. They’re urging participants to bring pots and pans, reminiscent of the group of scowling children who were smeared with dirt and banging pots and pans in the video.   

In an email to the Guardian, the Ethics Commission’s Executive Director John St. Croix said, “The Ethics Commission can not confirm, deny or discuss complaints.” If the Ethics Commission does investigate and finds that Lee knowingly participated in this advertisement, it is unclear what exactly the penalty will be and the District Attorney’s office is not jumping to any conclusions yet. “For now it’s still with the Ethics Commission so we can’t comment on it,” says Stephanie Ong Stillman, press secretary for the D.A.’s office.

In a time when corporations are considered people and wealthy interests have unprecedented political influence in elections, all eyes are on the candidates and how honestly they run their campaigns.  Current San Francisco law prohibits candidates from organizing with independent expenditures like this one.

The ad, which cost $50,000 to make, mocks Mar’s efforts to remove toys from McDonald’s Happy Meals by featuring kids protesting his policies.  The glossy 3 ½ minute commercial is high-quality with Hollywood production value, leaving skeptical viewers wondering if Lee’s cameo was staged and his participation deliberate.   If it was, then Lee also violated laws that ban candidates from accepting campaign contributions exceeding $500.

The Association of Realtors clearly has an interest in David Lee, considering Mar supports tenant rights, and the Tenants Union has make its rally and campaign an effort to “save rent control” and called it a “march on the 1 percent” that is trying to buy the Board of Supervisors and remake San Francisco.

Realtors Association President Jeffery Woo would not discuss the issue when reached by phone.  In an emailed press statement to the Guardian, the Association of Realtors wrote, “ We stand by the facts, and humor, of the video we produced on the election in District 1 and do not plan to remove it from YouTube as it has achieved success in raising important issues in San Francisco.”

The Guardian also reached out to the political media expert who produced the film, Fred Davis, but he did not return our calls. 

Davis, who served as chief media strategist for John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, is a Hollywood-based veteran of campaign marketing and has produced some of the most notorious political ads in recent history including the Demon Sheep video for Carly Fiorina’s 2010 GOP senate campaign.  He also created the highly lampooned 2010 ad featuring Delware Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell, who assured viewers that she was “not a witch.” 

Judge for yourself whether Lee participated in the making of this video:

 

Avalos, Campos, Kim, Olague: Four profiles of courage at City Hall

Maria Poblet
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Supervisors John Avalos, David Campos, Jane Kim, and Christina Olague earned profiles of courage for their votes to reinstate suspended Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi up against enormous pressure for a political assassination, accelerated by Mayor Lee’s demand for a pre-election vote.

And the other seven supervisors, well, they helped answer the question, who’s afraid of Willie Brown? Who’s afraid of Rose Pak?

Note to Mirkarimi: It’s time to repair the damage and get back to work implementing the ambitious program of rehabilitation outlined in your splendid inaugural address as Sheriff.

Unsolicited advice to mayor Ed Lee: Stop taking bad advice.

See my “Profiles of courage” blog for the context of this crucial vote.

Mirkarimi case — the aftermath

Zelda Bronstein
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Mirkarimi case — the aftermath

So many things to think about after last night’s Board of Supervisors vote on Ross Mirkarimi. It was a dramatic moment in local politics, a clear rejection of the mayor by four supes, including one of his appointees, a show of political courage by some and weakness by others.

But before I get into that, let me say:

I argued against removing Mirkarimi, for a lot of reasons. One of the most important is the precedent here — the City Charter gives the mayor too much power, the ability to singlehandedly remove an elected official for what the city attorney’s office concluded was pretty much any reason at all. There is no definition of “official misconduct” — and the way this case was presented, it could be interpreted really broadly. That’s dangerous, and the supervisors (or four of them, anyway) knew it.

I’m also a believe in restorative justice, in redemption, in the idea that people can do bad things and turn themselves and their lives around.

Still, it’s important to remember that what Mirkarimi did on New Year’s Eve, 2011, was awful, unacceptable. He was, at the very least, a total asshole and a jerk, treating his wife in a way that was — again, at the very least — psychologically abusive. Some of the comments at the board meeting were way off base; some speakers attacked the domestic violence community and made it sound as if Mirkairmi’s crime was pretty minimal.

I agree with David Chiu that the city’s going to have to come together after this — and the progressives who supported Mirkarimi are going to have to reach out to, and work with, the DV advocates. Because domestic violence is no joke, is no “private matter,” is still a major, serious issue in this city, and the worst possible outcome would be a reversal in San Francisco’s progressive policy on handling these cases.

I wish the audience hadn’t erupted in cheers when the final votes were cast. I heard Mirkarimi on Forum this morning, and when Michael Krasny asked if he was “elated,” he indicated that he was. Wrong answer: Nobody should be happy about what happened here. Mirkarimi’s biggest political and personal flaw has always been his ego, which at times bordered on arrogance, and that has to end, today. The sheriff needs to be humble about what happened to him, recognize that nobody “won” this ugly chapter in city history, and get back to work trying to mend fences with his critics. He’s facing the very real possibility of a recall election, and if he acts like he’s been totally vindicated, it’s going to happen.

This is a chance for Mirkarimi to take the notion of restoration and redemption seriously — by doing what Sup. John Avalos suggested at the hearing. He has to become a changed man. He has to show the world that he really, really gets it. Starting now.

Speaking of change …. the Number One Profile in Courage Award goes to Sup. Christina Olague. Olague was under immense pressure from the mayor, who wanted her vote badly. And because of the rotation of the votes, she had to go early, when it wasn’t clear at all which way this was going to turn out. And she came through, 100 percent solid. She made all the right points, and once she said she was going to vote against the mayor’s charges, the whole thing was over. At that point, there was no way David Campos or John Avalos could or would go the other way, so Mirkarimi had his three votes. I have been critical of Olague, but in this case, I want to give full credit: She did the right thing, when it wasn’t easy. She may have just won the election. (Let me clarify that — she may have kept herself from losing the election.)

Sup. Jane Kim was brilliant in her questioning of the mayor’s representatives and her analysis of the case. She showed real leadership and helped set the stage for what happened by pointing out the flaws in the mayor’s case.

And of course, Campos and Avalos, the undeniable, solid left flank of the board, came through.

It wasn’t easy for any of these four supervisors, and they all deserve immense credit.

Not so Eric mar, who I realize is in a tough race, but … when Olague, who has been accused of being too close to the mayor, had the courage to stand up, Mar, who has nearly universal progressive support, did not.

This is a great opportunity for the city to start talking about restorative justice in a serious way. Let’s get started.

 

 

East Bay Endorsements 2012

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East Bay Endorsements 2012

The East Bay ballot is crowded, with races for mayor, city council and school board in Berkeley and Oakland, plus a long list of ballot measures. We’re weighing in on what we see as the most important races.

 

OAKLAND CITY ATTORNEY

 

BARBARA PARKER

This one’s simple: Progressives on the council like Parker, who’s a pretty unbiased attorney. Her challenger, Jane Brunner, is a supporter of Ignacio De La Fuente. Vote for Parker.

 

OAKLAND CITY COUNCIL

 

AT-LARGE

 

REBECCA KAPLAN

In some ways, this is a replay of the 2010 mayor’s race, where Rebecca Kaplan and Jean Quan, running as allies in a ranked-choice voting system, took on and beat Don Perata, the longtime powerbroker who left town soon after his defeat. This time around, it’s Kaplan, the popular incumbent, facing Ignacio De La Fuente, a Perata ally, for the one at-large council seat.

De La Fuente, who currently represents District 3, would have easily won re-election if he stuck to home. But for reasons he’s never clearly articulated, he decided to go after Kaplan. The general consensus among observers: De La Fuente wants to be mayor (he’s tried twice and failed), thinks Quan is vulnerable, and figures winning the at-large seat would give him a citywide base.

It’s a clear choice: Kaplan is one of the best elected officials in the Bay Area, a bright, progressive, practical, and hardworking council member who is full of creative ideas. De La Fuente is an old Perata Machine hack who wanted to kick out Occupy Oakland the first day, wants curfews for youth, and can’t even get his story straight on cutting the size of the Oakland Police Department.

De La Fuente is all about law and order, and he blasts Kaplan for — literally — “coddling criminals.” But actually, as the East Bay Express has reported in detail, De La Fuente, in a fit of anger at the police union, led the movement to lay off 80 cops. And the crime rate in Oakland spiked shortly afterward. Kaplan opposed that motion, and tried later to rehire many of those cops — but De La Fuente objected.

Public safety is one of the top local issues, and Kaplan not only supports community policing (and more cops) but is working on root causes, including the lack of services for people released into Oakland from state prison and county jail. She’s also a strong transit advocate who’s working on new bike lanes and a free shuttle on Broadway. She helped write the county transportation measure, B1. She richly deserves another term — and De La Fuente deserves retirement.

 

BERKELEY MAYOR

 

KRISS WORTHINGTON

It would be nice to have a Berkeley person as mayor of Berkeley again.

The city’s still among the most progressive outposts in the country — and Mayor Tom Bates, for all his history as one of the leading progressive voices in the state Legislature and a key part of the city’s left-liberal political operation, has taken the city in a decidedly centrist direction. Bates these days is all about development. He’s a big supporter of the sit-lie law (hard to imagine the old Tom Bates ever supporting an anti-homeless measure). He didn’t even seek the mayoral endorsement of Berkeley Citizens Action, which he helped build, and instead hypes the Berkeley Democratic Club, which he used to fight. After ten years, we’re ready for a new Berkeley mayor.

Worthington is the voice of the left on the City Council. He’s an aggressive legislator who is never short of ideas. He’s talking about the basics (holding separate council meetings on major issues so people who want to speak don’t have to wait until midnight), to the visionary (a 21-point plan for revitalizing Telegraph Avenue). He’s against sit-lie and wants developers to offer credible community benefits agreements before they build. We’re with Worthington.

Alameda County ballot measures

 

MEASURE A1

 

ZOO TAX

 

YES

The Oakland Zoo does wonders with rescue animals; instead of bringing in creatures from the wild or from other zoos, the folks in Oakland often find ways to take in animals that have been abused or mistreated elsewhere. Measure A1 would impose a tiny ($12 a year) parcel tax to support the public zoo. Critics say the money could go for zoo expansion, but the expansion’s happening anyway. Vote yes.

 

MEASURE B1

 

TRANSPORTATION PROGRAMS

 

YES

Quite possibly the most important thing on the East Bay ballot, Measure B1 creates the funding for a long-term transportation plan. Almost half of the money goes for public transit and only 30 percent goes for streets and road. There’s more bicycle money than in any previous transportation plan. Every city in Alameda County supports it. Vote yes.

Berkeley ballot measures

 

PROPOSITION M

 

STREET IMPROVEMENTS BOND

 

YES

Not our first choice for a street improvement bond, it’s a bit of a hodgepodge that squeaked through a divided council. But the city’s deferred street maintenance is a major problem and this $30 million bond would be a modest step forward.

 

MEASURE N

 

POOLS BOND

 

YES

Berkeley has lost half its public pools in the past two years; the facilities are unusable, and it’s going to take about $20 million to refurbish and rebuild them. This bond measure would allow the city to re-open the Willard Pool and build a new Warm Water Pool — critical for seniors and people rehabbing from injuries. Vote Yes.

 

MEASURE O

 

POOL TAX

 

YES

Berkeley often does things right, and this is a perfect example: Instead of building new facilities that it can’t afford to operate (hell, SF Recreation and Parks Department), Berkeley is asking for two things from the voters: Bond money to rebuild the municipal pools, and a special tax to provide $600,000 a year for operations. We support both.

 

MEASURE P

 

REAUTHORIZING SPECIAL TAXES

 

YES

Measure P doesn’t raise anyone’s taxes. It’s just a housekeeping measure, mandated by state law, allowing the city to keep spending taxes that were approved years ago for parks, libraries, medical services, services for the disabled, and fire services. Vote yes.

 

MEASURE Q

 

UTILITY TAX

 

YES

Berkeley’s been collecting utility taxes on cell phones for some time now, but the law that allows it is based on federal language that has changed. So the city needs to make this modest change to continue collecting its existing tax.

 

MEASURE R

 

DISTRICT LINES

 

YES

The council districts in Berkeley were set when the city adopted district elections in 1986, with a charter amendment saying all future redistricting should conform as closely as possible to the 1986 lines. Nice idea, but the population has changed and it makes sense for the council to have more flexibility with redistricting.

 

MEASURE S

 

SIT-LIE LAW

 

NO, NO, NO

It’s hard to believe that progressive Berkeley, which has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars defending similar laws in court, wants to criminalize sitting on the sidewalk. It hasn’t worked in San Francisco, it won’t work in Berkeley. Vote no.

 

MEASURE T

 

AMENDMENTS TO THE WEST BERKELEY PLAN

 

NO

Council Members Kriss Worthington, Jesse Arreguin, and Max Anderson all oppose this plan, which would open up West Berkeley to more office development — with no guarantee of community benefits. Everyone agrees the area needs updated zoning, but this is too loose.

 

MEASURE U

 

SUNSHINE COMMISSION

 

YES

Berkeley has needed a strong sunshine law for years; this one isn’t the greatest, but it’s not the worst, either; it would mandate better agendas (and allow citizens to petition for items to be put on the agenda) for city boards and commissions, would create a new sunshine commission with the ability to sue the city to enforce the law, and would require elected and appointed officials to make public their appointments calendars.

 

MEASURE V

 

CERTIFIED FINANCIAL REPORTS

 

NO

This sounds like a great idea — mandate that the city present certified financial audits of its obligations before issuing any more debt. In practice, it’s a way to make it harder for Berkeley to raise taxes or issue bonds. Vote no.

Oakland ballot measures

 

MEASURE J

 

SCHOOL BONDS

 

YES

Measure J would authorize $475 million in bonds for upgrading school facilities. This one’s a no-brainer; vote yes.

 

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