Employment

T-Third passengers unhappy about train service disruptions

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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66

Around 20 residents from San Francisco’s Bayview neighborhood lined up at the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency board meeting May 7 to voice complaints that all too often, the T-Third light rail transit vehicles leave passengers stranded on train platforms, taking rail cars out of service before the end of the line and leaving riders to wait for the next arrival.

Organized by People Organized to Win Employment Rights, an organization better known as POWER that has campaigned around Muni issues before, the riders asked the SFMTA board to address the T train turnarounds, and called on the transit agency to run all trains through to the end of the line in the city’s Southeast neighborhoods.

Muni service disruptions along the T-Third occur most frequently at 23rd and Third, Armstrong and Third, and Williams and Third, based on SFMTA data. The passengers expressed frustration that even though the T-Third technically runs all the way to Sunnydale, a Visitation Valley housing complex, it often stops short of the final destination and causes delays on an already lengthy commute. The topic of Muni “switchbacks” picked up momentum earlier this year after District 4 Sup. Katy Tang vowed to take up the issue of train turnarounds, which also impact transit passengers in the Sunset. 

Jackie Wysinger, who walks with a cane and resides at a senior center nearby Armstrong and Third streets, told SFMTA board members that she’s no longer able to drive and depends upon the T train to get around.

“We need better transportation,” Wysinger said. “The T train turns around right there, and they do it regularly,” leaving passengers with no choice but to walk or wait in discomfort. “It’s just bad on the senior citizens.”

Claudia Bustamante, a member of POWER who spoke in Spanish through a translator, related a story of traveling back to the Bayview on the T-third on Monday night. “We were on the T-train and there was a person in a wheelchair, and another woman crying,” she said. “But the driver said, ‘sorry, this is the last stop. Everybody has to get off.’ … They kicked us off. This happens not just to me, but to the members of the African American community in Bayview. And this needs to stop.”

Jim Hill, who told SFMTA board members that he’s lived in the Bayview for 51 years, said he’s experienced train service disruption at 23rd Street on a regular basis. “I don’t understand why a man would turn a train around that’s full of people,” he said. “I have experienced 45 minutes to an hour before another train comes.”

Hill added, “I don’t think a person should have to work all day, and have to stand up from the time they get off work, until they get home.”

Gloria Dean, a Bayview resident who penned an editorial in the San Francisco BayView newspaper in March, characterized the frequent disruptions to service in Bayview Hunters Point as “shameful racism” in her opinion piece. She recounted one evening when her commute from Oakland to Third and LaSalle took from 6:45pm until 9:08pm. Since her husband is battling health problems, “it’s important for me to get home” following her evening classes at Mills College in Oakland, Dean wrote.

Juana Teresa Tello, an organizer with POWER, stressed that while switchbacks are known to occur on other lines, Bayview residents tend to have fewer transportation options. “It’s the highest concentration of people in public housing,” Tello pointed out. “It’s people who need the transit system the most.”

There was no SFMTA agenda item on the topic of turnarounds on the T-Third line, so residents aired their grievances about the issue during public comment. Once they had all finished speaking, SFMTA board chair Tom Nolan indicated that the item should be added to the board meeting agenda “sometime in the near future.”

In response to a query submitted several weeks ago, SFMTA spokesperson Paul Rose sent the Bay Guardian a detailed response to questions about train turnarounds at the 23rd and Third stop.

“Trains going to 23rd Street on the T-Third are typically going to our maintenance yard located near 25th Street and Illinois at the end of their shift,” Rose explained in an email. “These trains are J, K, L, M, and N trains that travel in service as T-Third trains to the yard and accept passengers all the way to the last stop before the yard – 23rd Street. The alternative is to have the trains travel ‘not in service’ to the yard from the subway and accept no passengers.

“The vehicles returning to the yard and traveling from the subway only to 23rd Street add additional frequency between the subway and 23rd Street but are not scheduled full trips to Sunnydale,” Rose acknowledged.

The 23rd Street stop marks the end of a stretch of recently installed condominium complexes in San Francisco’s Dogpatch neighborhood, an increasingly popular residential area for Silicon Valley commuters who have easy access to the highway to travel south to tech campuses.

Finally, Rose stressed that “We minimize unscheduled train turnarounds as much as possible … Supervision is also told to only perform these turnarounds when there is another train within five minutes or less,” he added, “to minimize passenger inconvenience.”

Ammiano’s on a roll

Zelda Bronstein
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18
Ammiano’s on a roll

Willie Brown, the former mayor and current unregistered lobbyist, has been trying to undermine Assemblymember Tom Ammiano for years. But take a look at two Ammiano bills this spring and you get a sense of how effective San Francisco’s veteran representative can be.

On April 23, the state Assembly Judiciary Committee passed Ammiano’s Homeless Bill of Rights, 7-3. That wasn’t easy; he had to amend the bill and work the committee hard. The League of California Cities, which has a lot of clout in Sacto, doesn’t like the bill; neither does the California Chamber of Commerce. This is a big deal; the bill would ban most “sit-lie” laws and guarantee everyone the right to use public space.

Then the Pubilc Safety Committee approved his marijuana regulation bill, 5-2 (despite Brown and Co. trying to screw it up). And his Domestic Workers Bill of Rights , which the governor vetoed last year, is headed for likely approval at the Labor and Employment Committee.

There’s still a long road ahead for all of these bills — more committees, Assembly floor, Senate, and then the guv (and who the hell knows where Jerry will be on anything these days). But it’s possible that, in his final term, Ammiano could have several landmark bills approved.

(Yeah, it’s his final term. Six years is all you get in the Assembly. Crazy what terms limits has wrought. The minute you get to the point where you really know how to do your job, and you can truly deliver for your constitutents, they shove you out the door.)

 

Bay Area groups critical of immigration reform proposal

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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37

Olga Miranda, secretary treasurer of the San Francisco Labor Council and president of SEIU Local 87, did not mince words when sharing her initial reaction to the proposed federal immigration reform bill, which was unveiled April 16 by a bipartisan group of senators.

“If it was myself and our members at the bargaining table, we would walk away,” Miranda said. “This proposal is nothing more than an offense to the community.”

Miranda was speaking at an April 17 press conference held by the San Francisco Bay Coalition for Immigrant Justice, staged at the Asian Law Caucus’ San Francisco headquarters. While many speakers said they welcomed the immigration reform bill as an important “starting point,” all were clear that they saw serious flaws in the proposal and planned to spend the next several months pushing for improvements.

“We applaud the inclusion of a path to citizenship in the bipartisan legislation for millions of undocumented people currently living as second class citizens,” said Francisco Ugarte, senior immigration attorney at Dolores Street Community Services. “However, there are problems with the bill, which creates long waiting periods to adjust, excessive fines and unclear language and employment requirements.”

In a statement, coalition members described the bill’s proposed path to citizenship as “long and onerous” due to provisions such as a decade-long wait for a green card, and ineligibility for any undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. after 2011.

Concerns were raised that families would continue to be separated, a frequent consequence of deportation. “The bill, as it is, does not put an end to the deportations,” said Cinthya Muñoz of Causa Justa / Just Cause. “In California, close to 94,000 people were deported” last year, she added. “As Californians, our representatives need to stand strong to call for an end to deportations before negotiations continue.”

Miranda was critical of a proposal to require the use of the federal E-Verify system. “Forcing employers to check all workers’ immigration status against flawed databases like E-Verify reduces the power of all workers,” she said. “And it would threaten the jobs and privacy of many citizens and work-authorized immigrants.”

Anoop Prasad of the Asian Law Caucus criticized proposed changes to the existing process for legal, family-based immigration, saying the elimination of visas for entire groups of family members would particularly impact Asian communities, such as those residing in San Francisco’s Chinatown. The overwhelming majority of Chinatown residents came to the U.S. as sons and daughters or siblings of employment-based immigrants, he explained, but under the proposed rules, meeting the qualifications for a visa would be more difficult due to a the elimination of certain family immigration categories.

Instead of placing emphasis on the presence of a family member in the U.S., a proposed “merit based” visa would be scored on factors like higher education, English proficiency, and employment, Prasad added. But activists also raised concerns that requirements for English language proficiency would inevitably exclude many monolingual immigrants.

Amos Lim, representing Out 4 Immigration, said LGBT couples would face particular challenges too, because no specific language was included to allow same-sex partners the same immigration privileges as heterosexual married couples. “Immigration law in this country has always been about excluding people,” Lim told the Guardian. “We need to make sure that we are included.”

The coalition is planning a May 1 march and rally in San Francisco to call for improvements to the immigration reform bill. It will begin at 24th and Mission at 3pm and proceed to Civic Center for a 5pm rally.

Follow @byRebeccaBowe

Indicator city

Andrew Lam
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Indicator city

steve@sfbg.com

When biologists talk about the health of a fragile ecosystem, they often speak of an “indicator species.” That’s a critter — a fish, say, or a frog — whose health, or lack thereof, is a signal of the overall health of the system. These days, when environmentalists who think about politics as well as science look at San Francisco, they see an indicator city.

This progressive-minded place of great wealth, knowledge, and technological innovation — surrounded on three sides by steadily rising tides — could signal whether cities in the post-industrial world will meet the challenge of climate change and related problems, from loss of biodiversity to the need for sustainable energy sources.

A decade ago, San Francisco pioneered innovative waste reduction programs and set aggressive goals for reducing its planet-cooking carbon emissions. At that point, the city seemed prepared to make sacrifices and provide leadership in pursuit of sustainability.

Things changed dramatically when the recession hit and Mayor Ed Lee took office with the promise to focus almost exclusively on economic development and job creation. Today, even with the technology and office development sectors booming and employment rates among the lowest in California, the city hasn’t returned its focus to the environment.

In fact, with ambitious new efforts to intensify development along the waterfront and only lackluster support for the city’s plan to build renewable energy projects through the CleanPowerSF program, the Lee administration seems to be exacerbating the environmental challenge rather than addressing it.

According to conservative projections by the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, the Bay is expected to rise at least 16 inches by 2050 and 55 inches by the end of the century. BCDC maps show San Francisco International Airport and Mission Bay inundated, Treasure Island mostly underwater, and serious flooding the Financial District, the Marina, and Hunters Point.

Lee’s administration has commissioned a report showing a path to carbon reduction that involves promoting city-owned renewable energy facilities and radically reducing car trips — while the mayor seems content do the opposite.

It’s not an encouraging sign for Earth Day 2013.

 

HOW WE’RE DOING

Last year, the Department of the Environment hired McKinsey and Company to prepare a report titled “San Francisco’s Path to a Low-Carbon Economy.” It’s mostly finished — but you haven’t heard much about it. The department has been sitting on it for months.

Why? Some say it’s because most of the recommendations clash with the Lee administration’s priorities, although city officials say they’re just waiting while they get other reports out first. But the report notes the city is falling far short of its carbon reduction goals and “will therefore need to complement existing carbon abatement measures with a range of new and innovative approaches.”

Data presented in the report, a copy of which we’ve obtained from a confidential source, shows that building renewable energy projects through CleanPowerSF, making buildings more energy-efficient, and discouraging private automobile use through congestion pricing, variable-price parking, and building more bike lanes are the most effective tools for reducing carbon output.

But those are things that the mayor either opposes and has a poor record of supporting or putting into action. The easy, corporate-friendly things that Lee endorses, such as supporting more electric, biofuel, and hybrid vehicles, are among the least effective ways to reach the city’s goals, the report says.

“Private passenger vehicles account for two-fifths of San Francisco’s emissions. In the short term, demand-based pricing initiatives appear to be the biggest opportunity,” the report notes, adding a few lines later, “Providing alternate methods of transport, such as protected cycle lanes, can encourage them to consider alternatives to cars.”

Melanie Nutter, who heads the city’s Department of the Environment, admits that the transportation sector and expanding the city’s renewable energy portfolio through CleanPowerSF or some other program — both of which are crucial to reducing the city’s carbon footprint — are two important areas where the city needs to do a better job if it’s going to meet its environmental goals, including the target of cutting carbon emissions 40 percent from 1990 levels by the year 2025.

But Nutter said that solid waste reduction programs, green building standards, and the rise of the “shareable economy” — with Internet-based companies facilitating the sharing of cars, housing, and other products and services — help San Francisco show how environmentalism can co-exist with economic development.

“San Francisco is really focused on economic development and growth, but we’ve gone beyond the old edict that you can either be sustainable or have a thriving economy,” Nutter said.

Yet there’s sparse evidence to support that statement. There’s a two-year time lag in reporting the city’s carbon emissions, meaning we don’t have good indicators since Mayor Lee pumped up economic development with tax breaks and other city policies. For example, Nutter touted how there’s more green buildings, but she didn’t have data about whether that comes close to offsetting the sheer number of new energy-consuming buildings — not to mention the increase in automobile trips and other byproducts of a booming economy.

Tom Radulovich, executive director of Livable City and president of the BART board, told us that San Francisco seems to have been derailed by the last economic crisis, with economic insecurity and fear trumping environmental concerns.

“All our other values got tossed aside and it was all jobs, jobs, jobs. And then the crisis passed and the mantra of this [mayoral] administration is still jobs, jobs, jobs,” he said. “They put sustainability on hold until the economic crisis passed, and they still haven’t returned to sustainability.”

Radulovich reviewed the McKinsey report, which he considers well-done and worth heeding. He’s been asking the Department of the Environment for weeks why it hasn’t been released. Nutter told us her office just decided to hold the report until after its annual climate action strategy report is released during Earth Day event on April 24. And mayoral Press Secretary Christine Falvey told us, “There’s no hold up from the Mayor’s Office.”

Radulovich said the study highlights how much more the city should be doing. “It’s a good study, it asks all the right questions,” Radulovich said. “We’re paying lip service to these ideas, but we’re not getting any closer to sustainability.”

In fact, he said the promise that the city showed 10 years ago is gone. “Gavin [Newsom] wanted to be thought of as an environmentalist and a leader in sustainability, but I don’t think that’s important to Ed Lee,” Radulovich said.

Joshua Arce, who chairs the city’s Environmental Commission, agreed that there is a notable difference between Newsom, who regularly rolled out new environmental initiatives and goals, and Lee, who is still developing ways to promote environmentalism within his economic development push.

“Ed Lee doesn’t have traditional environmental background,” Arce said. “What is Mayor Lee’s definition of environmentalism? It’s something that creates jobs and is more embracing of economic development.”

Falvey cites the mayor’s recent move of $2 million into the GoSolar program, new electric vehicle charging stations in city garages, and his support for industries working on environmental solutions: “Mayor Lee’s CleantechSF initiative supports the growth of the already vibrant cleantech industry and cleantech jobs in San Francisco, and he has been proactive in reaching out to the City’s 211 companies that make up one of the largest and most concentrated cleantech clusters in the world.”

Yet many environmentalists say that simply waiting for corporations to save the planet won’t work, particularly given their history, profit motives, and the short term thinking of global capitalism.

“To put it bluntly, the Lee administration is bought and paid for by PG&E,” said Eric Brooks with Our City, which has worked for years to launch CleanPowerSF and ensure that it builds local renewable power capacity.

The opening of the McKinsey report makes it clear why the environmental policies of San Francisco and other big cities matter: “Around the globe, urban areas are becoming more crowded and consuming more resources per capita,” it states. “Cities are already responsible for roughly seventy percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, and as economic growth becomes more concentrated in urban centers, their total greenhouse gas emissions may double by 2050. As a result, tackling the problem of climate change will in large part depend on how we reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of cities.”

And San Francisco, it argues, is the perfect place to start: “The city now has the opportunity to crystallize and execute a bold, thoughtful strategy to attain new targets, continue to lead by example, and further national and global debates on climate change.”

The unwritten message: If we can’t do it here, maybe we can’t do it anywhere.

 

ON THE EDGE

San Francisco’s waterfront is where economic pressures meet environmental challenges. As the city seeks to continue with aggressive growth and developments efforts on one side of the line — embodied recently by the proposed Warriors Arena at Piers 30-32, 8 Washington and other waterfront condo complexes, and other projects that intensify building along the water — that puts more pressure on the city to compensate with stronger sustainability initiatives.

“The natural thing to do with most of our waterfront would be to open it up to the public,” said Jon Golinger, who is leading this year’s referendum campaign to overturn the approval of 8 Washington. “But if the lens you’re looking through is just the balance sheet and quarterly profits, the most valuable land maybe in the world is San Francisco’s waterfront.”

He and others — including SF Waterfront Alliance, a new group formed to oppose the Warriors Arena — say the city is long overdue in updating its development plan for the waterfront, as Prop. H in 1990 called for every five years. They criticize the city and Port for letting developers push projects without a larger vision.

“We are extremely concerned with what’s happening on our shorelines,” said Michelle Myers, director of the Sierra Club’s Bay Chapter, arguing that the city should be embracing waterfront open space that can handle storm surge instead of hardening the waterfront with new developments. “Why aren’t we thinking about those kinds of projects on our shoreline?”

David Lewis, director of Save the Bay, told us cities need to think less about the value of waterfront real estate and do what it can to facilitate the rising bay. “There are waterfront projects that are not appropriate,” Lewis said. Projects he puts in that category range from a scuttled proposal to build around 10,000 homes on the Cargill Salt Flats in Redwood City to the Warriors Arena on Piers 30-32.

“We told the mayor before it was even announced that it is not a legal use of the pier,” Lewis said, arguing it violated state law preserving the waterfront for maritime and public uses. “There’s no reason that an arena has to be out on the water on a crumbling pier.”

But Brad Benson and Diana Oshima, who work on waterfront planning issue for the Port of San Francisco, say that most of San Francisco’s shoreline was hardened almost a century ago, and that most of the planning for how to use it has already been done.

“You have a few seawall lots and a few piers that could be development sites, but not many. Do we need a whole plan for that?” Benson said, while Oshima praises the proactive transportation planning work now underway: “There has never been this level of land use and transportation planning at such an early stage.”

The Bay Conservation and Development Commission was founded almost 50 years ago to regulate development in and around the Bay, when the concern was mostly about the bay shrinking as San Francisco and other cities dumped fill along the shoreline to build San Francisco International Airport, much of the Financial District, and other expansive real estate plans.

Now, the mission of the agency has flipped.

“Instead of the bay getting smaller, the bay is getting larger with this thing called sea level rise,” BCDC Executive Director Larry Goldspan said as we took in the commanding view of the water from his office at 50 California Street.

A few years ago, as the climate change predictions kept worsening, the mission of BCDC began to focus on that new reality. “How do we create a resilient shoreline and protect assets?” was how Goldspan put it, noting that few simply accept the inundation that BCDC’s sea level rise maps predict. “Nobody is talking about retreating from SFO, or Oakland Airport, or BART.”

That means Bay Area cities will have to accept softening parts of the shoreline — allowing for more tidal marshes and open space that can accept flooding in order to harden, or protect, other critical areas. The rising water has to go somewhere.

“Is there a way to use natural infrastructure to soften the effect of sea level rises?” Goldspan asked. “I don’t know that there are, but you have to use every tool in the smartest way to deal with this challenge.”

And San Francisco seems to be holding firm on increased development — in an area that isn’t adequately protected. “The seawall is part of the historic district that the Port established, but now we’re learning the seawall is too short,” Goldspan said.

BCDC requires San Francisco to remove a pier or other old landfill every time it reinforces or rebuilds a pier, on a one-to-one basis. So Oshima said the district is now studying what it can remove to make up for the work that was done to shore up Piers 23-27, which will become a new cruise ship terminal once the America’s Cup finishes using it a staging ground this summer.

Yet essentially giving up valuable waterfront real estate isn’t easy for any city, and cities have both autonomy and a motivation to thrive under existing economic realities. “California has a history of local control. Cities are strong,” Goldspan said, noting that sustainability may require sacrifice. “It will be a policy discussion at the city level. It’s a new discussion, and we’re just in the early stages.”

 

NEW WORLD

Global capitalism either grows or dies. Some modern economists argue otherwise — that a sustainable future with a mature, stable economy is possible. But that takes a huge leap of faith — and it may be the only way to avoid catastrophic climate change.

“In the world we grew up in, our most ingrained economic and political habit was growth; it’s the reflex we’re going to have to temper, and it’s going to be tough.” Bill McKibben writes in Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet. “Across partisan lines, for the two hundred years since Adam Smith, we’ve assumed that more is better, and that the answer to any problem is another burst of expansion.”

In a telephone interview with the Guardian, McKibben discussed the role that San Francisco could and should be playing as part of that awakening.

“No one knows exactly what economy the world is moving toward, but we can sense some of its dimensions: more localized, less material-based, more innovative; these are things that San Francisco is good at,” he told us, noting the shift in priorities that entails. “We need to do conservation, but it’s true that we also need to build more renewable power capacity.”

Right now, CleanPowerSF is the only mechanism the city has for doing renewable energy projects, and it’s under attack on several fronts before it even launches. Most of the arguments against it are economic — after all, renewable power costs more than coal — and McKibben concedes that cities are often constrained by economic realities.

Some city officials argue that it’s more sustainable for San Francisco to grow and develop than suburban areas — thus negating some criticism that too much economic development is bad for the environment — and Radulovich concedes there’s a certain truth to that argument.

“But is it as green as it ought to be? Is it green enough to be sustainable and avert the disaster? And the answer is no,” Radulovich said.

For example, he questioned, “Why are we building 600,000 square feet of automobile-oriented big box development on Hunters Point?” Similarly, if San Francisco were really taking rising seas seriously, should the city be pouring billions of dollars into housing on disappearing Treasure Island?

“I think it’s a really interesting macro-question,” Jennifer Matz, who runs the Mayors Office of Economic Development, said when we asked whether the aggressive promotion of economic development and growth can ever be sustainable, or whether slowing that rate needs to be part of the solution. “I don’t know that’s feasible. Dynamic cities will want to continue to grow.”

Yet that means accepting the altered climate of new world, including greatly reduced fresh water supplies for Northern California, which is part of the current discussions.

“A lot of the focus on climate change has moved to adaptation, but even that is something we aren’t really addressing,” Radulovich said.

Nutter agreed that adapting to the changing world is conversation that is important: “All of the development and planning we’re doing today needs to incorporate these adaptation strategies, which we’re just initiating.”

But environmentalists and a growing number of political officials say that San Francisco and other big cities are going to need to conceive of growth in new ways if they want to move toward sustainability. “The previous ethos was progress at any cost — develop, develop, develop,” Myers said, with the role of environmentalists being to mitigate damage to the surrounding ecosystem. But now, the economic system itself is causing irreversible damage on a global level. “At this point, it’s about more than conservation and protecting habitat. It’s about self-preservation.”

Do we care?

Andrew Lam
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77
Do we care?

steve@sfbg.com

Teresa Molina faced abusive, belittling treatment on the job.

The 52-year-old immigrant from Sinaloa, Mexico, says she was paid $500 a month to provide 24-hour, live-in care to a girl in a wheelchair and her family. She wasn’t allowed regular breaks. She couldn’t eat what she wanted. Even her sleep was disrupted.

“I spoke up a couple times, but when I did, my employer told me I was dumb and good for nothing,” Molina, speaking Spanish through a translator, told us. “She would ask my immigration status, and I said that was not important, but she used that as a threat.”

Molina is a domestic worker — one of the only two professions (the other being farm work) exempt from federal labor standards.

Her experience, a common one among immigrant women in California, prompted Molina to get involved in last year’s California Domestic Worker Bill of Rights campaign, part of national effort that resulted in the first-ever protections being signed into law in New York in 2010.

Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed the California version of the bill late on the night of Sept. 30, 2012, the deadline for signing legislation, citing the paternalistic concern that better pay and working conditions might translate into fewer jobs or fewer hours for domestic workers.

“I was offended by how he did it, in the middle of the night on the last day, and he basically trivialized it,” Assembly member Tom Ammiano (D-SF), who sponsored the measure, told us. “Here in California, it’s a major workforce, but there’s no rules and there’s a documented history of abuses.”

But if anything, Brown’s veto has energized local activists, who say the battle for domestic worker rights is part of a much larger issue that women, children, immigrants, and their supporters are struggling against as they try to get society to value one of the most basic of social and economic functions: caring and caregiving.

Those in the caregiving professions are used to such defeats, but this one seems to be galvanizing and uniting several parallel movements — most of which have a strong presence here in the Bay Area — that want to apply human values and needs to an economic system that has never counted them.

It is, economists and policy experts say, a profoundly different way to measure economic output — and if the domestic workers and their allies succeed, it could have long-term implications for national, state, and local policy.

 

CARING DOESN’T COUNT

There are endless examples of how society undervalues caring and caregiving and other labor that has long been deemed “women’s work.” They range from nurses fighting for fair contracts to in-home support service workers fighting for their jobs. Many are jobs that have traditionally been done in the home — and in some cases, not counted at all as part of the Gross Domestic Product.

Social work, teaching, administrative support, caring for children or seniors, community organizing, and other jobs held predominantly by women and people of color are consistently among the lowest paid professions.

But the demand for those jobs is increasing — and the price of under-investing in education, caregiving, and child development is decreased productivity and increased crime and other costs for decades to come — so activists say they are critical to the nation’s future.

“It’s a different perspective. Caregiving isn’t transactional the way we think about other jobs,” said Alicia Garza, executive director of People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER), which has joined with other organizations nationwide for a Caring Across Generations campaign. “We’re a nation that has a growing aging population with no plan for how we’re going to take care of these people.”

In California today, caregivers find themselves under attack. Despite playing an important role in electing Brown as governor and in keeping Kaiser Hospital in Oakland and CPMC’s St. Luke’s Hospital in San Francisco open to the low-income residents they serve, the California Nurses Association is still stuck in a years-long contract impasse with those huge hospital corporations.

“We don’t think of ourselves first, we think of others first,” says Zenei Cortez, a CNA co-president who has been a registered nurse for 33 years, noting that patient care and advocacy standards have been key sticking points in their negotiations.

During each year with a budget shortfall, in-home support services for the sick, elderly, and disabled have been placed on the budgetary chopping block in California and many of its counties — including San Francisco, which has about 21,000 such workers — saved only by political organizing efforts and a longstanding lawsuit against the state (which was just settled on March 20 and will result in an 8 percent across-the-board cut in services).

“This program has been under assault for a full decade,” says Paul Kumar, a public policy and political consultant for the National Union of Healthcare Workers, calling that attack short-sighted, in both fiscal and human terms. “People get better care in a home setting.”

 

UNDERVALUED, ACROSS THE BOARD

If people generally act in their financial self interest, as economic theory holds, Oakland resident Lil Milagro Martinez would oppose the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights and its requirement that she pay her nanny at least minimum wage and allow for breaks and sick days.

After all, Milagro and her family are barely scraping by, with her husband working four jobs as she balances care for their infant son with coursework as a theology graduate student. Instead, Milagro said, she offers their nanny a living wage, benefits, and good working conditions.

“I wanted to feel that we were affirming her rights, so she would pass on that level of respect to my son,” Milagro told us. “If I can do this, and there are companies out there saying they can’t afford to do the right thing, that angers me.”

She was also angry when Brown vetoed the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. She’s been working with a domestic worker employer group called Hand in Hand, a part of the larger National Domestic Worker Coalition.

“Our goal is to bring people together to create the kinds of worker relationships they want with people in their homes,” Danielle Feris, the national director of Hand in Hand, told us. “There will just be more and more people that need care in the home, so this touches all families.”

Milagro and other domestic worker employers say their stand is about much more than enlightened self-interest. They say this is an important step toward recognizing the important contributions that women and minority groups make to society and creating an economy focused on addressing human needs.

“Care, we can say, is undervalued across the board,” Feris said.

In addition to reintroducing the bill in Sacramento this year, the coalition is pushing similar legislation in Massachusetts and Illinois.

“I think the domestic workers have done a fantastic job at organizing across the country,” Ammiano said. “Making a movement of something isn’t easy, but once it gets traction then it’s tough to ignore.”

Like Milagro and Ammiano, Molina said she was bitterly disappointed by Brown’s veto, although all say it only strengthened their resolve to win the fight this year. “I felt very sad, depressed, and betrayed,” Molina said. “But we will win this…And I think the movement for women, workers, and immigrants will only grow from us winning.”

Domestic Workers Coalition campaign coordinator Katie Joaquin noted that the campaign is about triggering a cultural shift as much as it’s about winning legal protections, as important as they may be. “Once this bill passes and we have basic protections doesn’t mean the abuses will stop,” she said, noting that this is really about valuing care work.

“It’s bringing people together around the care we need,” Joaquin said. “These are conversations that are breaking new ground. The bill is really something that gets the ball rolling.”

Once some household work gets recognized, it’s not a big step toward a conversation about valuing all kinds of caring work and including that in our measures of economic progress.

“We definitely support the idea of valuing all care work, both paid and unpaid,” Feris said. “We all have something to gain by valuing each other.”

 

THE REAL WEALTH OF NATIONS

Author and researcher Riane Eisler has been a leading thinker and advocate for creating a more caring economy for decades, work that resulted in her seminal 1988 book The Chalice and the Blade, which sold half a million copies and was lauded as a groundbreaking analysis of the gender roles in ancient and modern history. She followed that with The Real Wealth of Nations in 2007, and the creation of the Center for Partnership Studies (CPS) and the Caring Economy Campaign.

Eisler takes issue with what most people call “the economy,” a wasteful and incomplete system that doesn’t actually economize in connecting what we have to what we need. She persuasively argues that it makes sense in both human and fiscal terms to value caring and caregiving, for one another and the natural world, providing myriad examples of countries, cultures, and companies that have benefited from that approach.

“In a way, the concepts are very simple. What could be more simple than saying the real wealth of nations isn’t financial? It consists of the contributions of people and nature,” Eisler told us by phone from her home in Monterey.

On March 20, Eisler gave a Congressional Briefing (attended by members and staffers in the Rayburn House Office Building) entitled “The Economic Return From Investing in Care Work & Early Childhood Education,” presenting a report on the issue that CPS and the Urban Institute released in December: “National Indicators and Social Wealth.”

“I think this is extremely timely,” Eisler told us, noting that the Republican Party’s currently aggressive fiscal conservatism must be countered with evidence that meeting people’s real needs is better economic policy than simply catering to Wall Street’s interests.

Her address to Congress followed ones that Eisler has given to the United Nations General Assembly and other important civic organizations around the world, and it was followed the next day by an address she gave to the State Department entitled: “What’s Good for Women is Good for World: Foundations of a Caring Economy.”

While Eisler said “there are people who are very excited about it,” she admits that her ideas have made little progress with the public even as the global economy increasingly displays many of the shortcomings she’s long warned against. “This is still very much on the margins.”

But that could be changing, particularly given the political organizing work that has been done in recent years around the rights of domestic workers and immigrants and on behalf of the interests of children and the poor, some of it drawing on the work of liberal economists such as Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz.

“The Gross Domestic Product is a very poor measure of economic health,” she told us, noting that it perversely counts excessive healthcare spending, rapid resource depletion, and the cleanups of major oil spills as positive economic activity.

Erwin de Leon, a Washington DC policy researcher, opens “National Indicators and Social Wealth” with a quote from a speech that Robert F. Kennedy gave in 1968 criticizing GDP as a bad measure of progress: “It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor devotion to our country, it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.”

De Leon then writes: “An urgent need met by measuring a nation’s social wealth is identifying the attributes of a society that make it possible to create and support the development of the full capacities of every individual through the human life span. Social wealth indicators identify these drivers, with special focus on the economic value of caring for and educating children and the contributions of women and communities of color.”

The carefully documented report makes an economic argument that investment in caregiving and early childhood development more than pays for itself over the long run in terms of increased productivity and decreased costs from crime and other social ills, creating a happier and more egalitarian society in the process.

“Nobody talks about the work that immigrant women do and how it contributes to productivity. They free us up to do other things, but we don’t count it,” De Leon told us in a phone interview. “We put lots of value on numbers and the views of economists. The problem with the numbers is it’s an economic number that just values production.”

Eisler’s approach is neither liberal nor conservative, and she takes equal issue with capitalism and socialism as they’ve been practiced, labeling them both “domination-based” systems (as opposed to the “partnership-based” systems she advocates) that devalue caregiving and real human needs.

In fact, she seems to be even harder on progressives than those on the other end of the ideological spectrum, given the Left’s stated concern for women and communities of color. It was a point that Ammiano echoed: “There’s a lot of liberal guilt, but the follow-through has yet to happen.”

“What this entails is re-examining everything,” Eisler told us. “It starts with examining the underlying beliefs and values.”

 

INSTITUTIONAL SEXISM

Even in supposedly enlightened San Francisco, things are getting worse. On March 26, following a battle with SEIU Local 1021 that began last fall, the city’s Department of Human Resources submitted to a labor mediator its proposal to lower the salaries for new hires in 43 job categories, including vocational nurses, social workers, and secretaries.

The rationale: Those workers were paid more than market rates based on a survey of other counties. But it’s also true that those positions are disproportionately held by women and minorities. In the 1980s, San Francisco made a policy decision to raise the pay of what were traditionally female-dominated professions, part of a nationwide campaign to erase decades of pay inequity.

“The city is rolling back decades of historic work on pay equity in this city,” SEIU Political Director Chris Daly told us. “We were concerned about equal treatment of workers who were disproportionately women and people of color.”

DHS spokesperson Susan Gard told us, “The city is committed to that principal, equal pay for equal work, and we don’t think our proposal erodes that.” But she couldn’t explain why that was true. In reality, the move will lower the salaries for women that come to work for the city.

Those involved in the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights campaign mince no words when it comes to seeing the long history of sexism in political and economic institutions as one of the main obstacles they face.

“In so many ways, domestic work is women’s work, and women’s work has always been undervalued and underpaid,” Milagro said.

She even saw it growing up as child when she accompanied her father when he did housekeeping work, when he was treated “as nonentity, not human,” abuse and mistreatment that was exacerbated by the twin facts that he was an immigrant doing women’s work.

“Sexism has undervalued care work,” Feris said.

Ammiano likened the current struggle to the gay rights movement, and he said that when he started as a teacher back in the 1970s and wanted to teach in the early primary grades, he was told that was for women.

“It’s the feminization of labor,” Ammiano said. “When you have institutional sexism, you have to peel it back layer by layer.”

Eisler is equally direct: “We’ve all been taught to marginalize anything connected to the feminine,” she said.

She noted the vastly disproportionate global poverty rates of women compared to men and said “it’s because most are full or part-time caregivers,” work that isn’t often compensated.

Eisler said the current economic system “marginalizes and dehumanizes half the population,” asking how that could ever be considered ethical or equitable. She dismisses arguments that we can’t afford to value caregiving or work done in the home, noting that “there’s always money for the masculine values” of war and economic expansion.

Ammiano said the cultural blinders that prevent people from seeing how society discriminates against women and the work they do makes the problem more insidious and tougher to solve.

“If they’re doing it deliberately, it’s almost better because you can sink you teeth into it, but if it’s not deliberate then it’s tougher to corral,” he said.

Yet there could be subtle but important changes underway in how people value the roles of men and women in society.

There are indications that substantial majorities of people increasingly see men and masculine values as a big part of the problems the people of the world are facing. Author John Gerzema, whose forthcoming book is entitled Athena Doctrine: How Women (And the Men Who Think Like Them) Will Rule the Future, revealed some of the extensive polling research behind his book in a recent TED Talk.

Much of it points to what he called a “global referendum on men,” with strong majorities in countries around the world — with Canada the only exception — agreeing with the statements “I’m dissatisfied with the conduct of men in my country” and “The world could be better if men thought more like women.”

He and his research partners also had the tens of thousands of people they surveyed rate a list of traits as either masculine or feminine, and then later he had respondents state the traits they most wanted to see in their political leaders, finding that people around the world have begun to strongly prefer feminine traits to male ones in their leaders.

His conclusion: “Femininity is the operating system of 21st Century progress.”

 

THE SILVER TSUNAMI

The “silver tsunami” — Baby Boomers reaching old age and about to need more care — is about to break.

POWER, Senior Action Network, and many other San Francisco-based organizations in the Caring Across Generations campaign are part of a national push to increase access to and investment in caregiving, from early childhood development through care for those with disabilities to elder care.

“The caregiver industry is something we should invest in,” said POWER’s Garza. “We believe in a society that values care and we want to value that work.”

Yet with short-term, bottom-line thinking guiding the decisions, that requires a bold paradigm shift. Instead, the popular state In-Home Support Services program — which provides some compensation for caregivers of those with disabilities — is now facing an 8 percent cut as part of the recent settlement to lawsuits filed to prevent the 20 percent cut that then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had proposed.

The SF-based lawyer who filed the lawsuit, Stacey Leyton, told us this was the best settlement possible given the current political climate and the risk of deeper cuts if the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in the state’s favor. But she thinks any IHHS cuts are short-sighted: “Any cuts to home care may balance the budget ledger now, but they can cause more costs later in the form of nursing home care and emergency room visits.”

James Chionsini, a community organizer with the Senior and Disability Action (SDA, formerly Senior Action Network), tells us that in addition to the sheer size of the “silver tsunami” coming through — which will require a huge influx of caregivers — efforts by the federal and state governments to contain medical costs could hurt the “upper-poor,” who are required to somehow pay a share of their MediCal health care costs.

That’s one reason why SDA, POWER, and other groups are supporting several campaigns aimed at creating a more caring society, from the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights to Caring Across Generations to basic, bread-and-butter political organizing efforts.

“Organizing is so important,” Garza said, while Chionsini said, “It’s about raising the profile of people who are providing care.”

Milagro said that if the immigrant women who do domestic work score a major victory, that could empower other marginalized groups. “It’s about a change in consciousness,” she said. “This can show a path for other movements to build, strengthen, and work together.”

Garza agrees that important, foundational changes are already underway, even though they will require lots of hard organizing work to bring them to fruition.

“There is a groundswell. This is happening,” she said, noting that it revolves around asking important questions. “How do you look at an economy not rooted in patriarchy? What would it look like if we had to compensate mothers?”

Next week: Part II, Do we care about the natural world?

Attorney who conducted whistleblower cops’ deposition says questions remain

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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7

The Guardian broke the story last week about an Oakland school police officer, Sgt. Jonathan Bellusa, who came forward as a “whistleblower” in sworn testimony. The day after a group of Oakland-based police-accountability activists leaked an uncertified draft of the officer’s deposition to the media, NBC Bay Area aired an interview with Bellusa, who was involved in the January 2011 fatal shooting of a 20-year-old African American man, Raheim Brown.

Bellusa, who is now on leave from employment, alleges that there was a cover-up in the investigation of the shooting incident by the Oakland School Police Department, which operates independently from the Oakland Police Department as a division of the school district. Shortly after posting the story, the Guardian received a call back from attorney Adante Pointer, who conducted Bellusa’s deposition. Pointer said he didn’t know how the activist group, Against Hired Guns, got a copy of the document but he did point out that all witnesses get a copy of their deposition transcripts.

“I’ve taken a number of depositions over the course of my career, but this is the first time I’ve ever had a police officer admit that their employer was putting pressure on them to give testimony in a particular way,” said Pointer, who works for the Law Offices of John Burris, which is representing Brown’s family in a civil suit against the school police department. “It’s very eye-opening,” he added, particularly if Bellusa’s allegations ring true and “public funds and public resources are being used to cover up this death.”

But Pointer added that some of the things Bellusa stated about the facts of the shooting did not add up with the stories given by Sgt. Barhin Bhatt, who fired the weapon, or witness Tamisha Stewart, Brown’s friend who was seated in a vehicle next to him when he was shot. Bellusa “held firm to this idea that he had been stabbed three to four times with this screwdriver,” Pointer said, referencing a part in the deposition when Bellusa testified he had been hit with the butt end of a screwdriver and feared he would be stabbed in the throat.

But that doesn’t jive with the account of Stewart, who stated in her sworn testimony that the screwdriver stayed in the car ignition during the whole encounter, Pointer told the Guardian. Stewart was held in jail following the shooting for several weeks, and during that time she discussed what had happened with family and friends in telephone conversations, Pointer told the Guardian. What Stewart did not know was that her phone calls, placed from a phone provided by the jail, were being surreptitiously recorded. Pointer said his firm had been provided with tapes of the calls.

In those recorded conversations, “She was candid about everything else,” according to Pointer. “And she said she never saw Raheim try to stab [Bellusa].” Bhatt, meanwhile, told Pointer in his own deposition that he started firing because he saw Brown make a move toward the gear shifter, Pointer said, which also doesn’t add up with Bellusa’s account.

All of which goes to show that, whistleblower cop or no, questions continue to surround the fatal shooting of Brown.

Oakland school cop comes forward as a whistleblower

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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76

Two years after his involvement in a police shooting that took the life of a 20-year-old African American man, an Oakland School Police Department officer has come forward as a “whistleblower” in sworn testimony, making allegations of unethical behavior within a department that is already under the scrutiny of federal investigators.

In a deposition delivered earlier this month as part of a civil suit, police Sergeant Jonathan Bellusa gave a detailed account of what transpired just before his patrol partner, Sgt. Barhin Bhatt, fired several rounds and killed Raheim Brown as the youth was positioned in the passenger’s seat of a car outside a high school dance in January of 2011.

Bellusa gave testimony that in the months that followed, he came under retaliatory pressure from within the department and was “uncomfortable” with various aspects of how the investigation unfolded.

An unedited, uncertified transcript of Bellusa’s deposition, which contains some grammatical and punctuation errors because it was transcribed by an automated system, was made public Feb. 28 by a group of activists organized under a project called “Against Hired Guns.” The group sent a detailed summary and analysis of the deposition, as well as the unedited transcript, to reporters. The activists also posted the contents on a website, againsthiredguns.wordpress.com.

Asked who is behind Against Hired Guns, spokesperson Cat Brooks said they are Oakland activists “who have been doing this work either together on campaigns, or separately inside of our own groups, that see strength in numbers rather than apart. We in general are tired of having flashpoint reactions to police corruption or violence, and are interested in bringing as many people or groups together as possible to have a sustained campaign that is focused on eradicating police violence.”

Bellusa is currently on leave from employment at the Oakland school police department, and the Guardian was unable to reach him by phone on the number listed on the OUSD website. “He’s been gone for quite awhile,” OUSD spokesperson Troy Flint told the Guardian when reached by phone. Asked to comment on the myriad allegations raised in Bellusa’s testimony, Flint said, “We’re going to refrain from comment until we’ve seen the actual suit.”

The deposition was conducted by Attorney Adante Pointer of the Law Offices of John Burris, in connection with a civil rights suit that is being filed against OUSD by Brown’s mother, Lori Davis. Reached by phone, Pointer confirmed that he had taken Bellusa’s deposition several weeks ago, and was surprised that its contents had been made public, since it “is not complete yet.” He added, “I’m thinking to myself, who put that out there?” As of press time, Pointer had not returned a follow up phone call.

Brooks declined to answer questions about how the activists obtained a copy of the uncertified transcript.

Allegations of retaliation for whistleblowing

Roughly a month after the shooting incident, Bellusa said in his deposition, former OUSD Police Chief Pete Sarna let out “a boisterous yell with his [fist] up in the air” and seemed “excited” that “we as a department don’t have to worry about anything.” According to Bellusa’s testimony, Sarna had just received word that his “friend” Pete Peterson had “agreed to do the investigation” of the fatal shooting of Brown.

Asked if he felt pressured by supervisors to make statements consistent with Bhatt’s account of the shooting incident, Bellusa stated, “I have felt that if I gave statements that went against the district that I would be thrown in jail for perjury.”

In the months after the shooting, Bellusa testified that he filed a formal complaint alleging that Sarna drunkenly made racist remarks to an African American sergeant in July of 2011. Sarna resigned the following month.

Bellusa also testified that on an August morning in 2011, after he’d filed the complaint against Sarna for allegedly making racial slurs, he overheard a conversation between OUSD General Counsel Jacqueline Minor and Superintendent Tony Smith. “I over heard Jackie Minor… say they were not going to let John get away with this,” he stated.

In another incident, Bellusa testified that a different OUSD officer informed him that “Chief Sarna’s assistant, Jenny Wong, told a bunch of officers something like: ‘Don’t worry, Sarna is going to beat this case. He’s going to fire John [Bellusa].’”

After Sarna stepped down, Bhatt was briefly appointed interim police chief, unleashing an outcry from OUSD parents outraged that an officer would be promoted to the top post after shooting and killing Brown just months before. Alameda County prosecutors had since cleared Bhatt of any wrongdoing in the shooting that resulted in Brown’s death.

In response to the backlash, Bhatt was removed and replaced with Police Chief James Williams in September of 2011. The shooting of Brown, coupled with Sarna’s alleged use of racial slurs, prompted a federal grand jury investigation into the OUSD police force last year. Bellusa noted in his testimony that he had described his experience to federal investigators.

Taken as a whole, Bellusa’s testimony renders a disturbing internal portrait of the Oakland School Police Department, which consists of about a dozen officers and operates independently of the Oakland Police Department as a division of the school district.

The alarming account raises serious questions about internal operations of the department, particularly since it is an independent force operated by the school district at a time when funding cuts have placed the public school system under tremendous budgetary pressure, resulting in recent school closures.

Allegations of corruption

A detailed summary of the transcript provided by Against Hired Guns highlights more disturbing allegations made by Bellusa in the course of his testimony. Among them:

  • Bellusa asserted that he witnessed Bhatt pour Wild Turkey into a glass while he was on duty. He also said he felt concerned about Bhatt after observing him “clean his firearm for a long period of time.”                                                                      
  • Bellusa testified that he “found out” that Sarna and Lou Silva, a former OUSD officer and current district-wide Campus Security and Safety Manager, were “sending their personal cars down to a shop on 16th Avenue… [and] were overcharging the police cars,” apparently in order to have their personal cars repaired for free or at a deep discount.
  • Bellusa testified, “I found out that he [Sarna] called another officer [and] told him [not to report] what had happened in front of the African American who is a witness to the … racial slurs.”

Officer-involved shooting

Brown was shot and killed outside a dance at Oakland’s Skyline High School on Jan. 22, 2011. He was sitting in the passenger’s seat of a Honda with a friend, Tamisha Stewart, who was in the driver’s seat. Bellusa and Bhatt pulled up behind them in an unmarked patrol car after noticing the lights of the Honda were flashing. Bhatt made his way to the driver’s window, Bellusa testified, while he flanked the rear passenger’s side of the car.

As Bhatt began a verbal exchange with Stewart, Bellusa testified that he noticed Brown was “fidgety” rather than cooperative, which he interpreted as a “red flag.” He opened the passenger door, crouched into what he described as a “catcher’s stance,” and initiated a verbal exchange with Brown. Shortly after opening the door, Bellusa said he made observations that led him to conclude that the car had been stolen.

When Pointer asked him where his hands were at that point, Bellusa stated, “They were on his lap,” according to the transcript. “Were they holding anything?” Pointer asked. “No,” Bellusa responded. “And so did you ask him to step out of the car when you’re having this conversation with him?” Pointer asked. “Not at that time,” Bellusa answered. 

Bellusa said Brown then grabbed a screwdriver and stuck into the ignition of the vehicle, directing Stewart to drive. This prompted a struggle between Brown and Bellusa. According to a summary of the transcript written by the group of activists:

“Bellusa lunged into the car, grabbing [Brown] from behind as Brown was leaned over toward the ignition. …Bellusa tried to hold Brown, and then grabbed him, pulling Brown’s shirt and ripping it. Bhatt, leaning in through the driver’s window, hit Brown with his flashlight. … Brown had not yet made any aggressive move toward anyone, according to Bellusa’s description of events.”

A struggle ensued, and Bellusa testified that at one point Brown bit Bellusa’s wrist, prompting Bellusa to pull his hand away and use his “hammer fist” to strike him. Brown then grabbed the screwdriver from the car’s ignition, and “I believe that the backside of the screwdriver [was what] he used at that point to strike me in the chest,” Bellusa testified.

“As the struggle ensued and neither fighter gave in,” activists wrote, “[Brown] turned the screwdriver around and tried to make contact with Bellusa.”

According to Bellusa’s sworn testimony, “I was afraid that I was going to get stabbed in the throat clear as day.” He told his partner to shoot Brown: “I just screamed shoot him, shoot him,” he testified.

The Against Hired Guns summary describes what happened next. “As Bellusa pulled himself out of the car, two shots were quickly fired through the driver’s open window … by Bhatt before his gun jammed. Raheim Brown, Jr. had two bullets lodged in his body. It took Sergeant Bhatt five to ten seconds to clear the chamber of his gun, during which time he said loudly: ‘Fuck! Fuck!’ By this time, Bellusa was out of the car and at a safe distance, he said in his deposition. When asked whether he thought Brown was still a risk after the first two shots, Bellusa replied plainly: ‘No,’ and said that by this point, he had his own gun out. When asked why he didn’t pull his trigger, he replied: ‘Just like I said my statement with OPD, I didn’t see a threat.’

‘Tell me … about the gun’ 

Bellusa explained in his deposition that he’d noticed a gun sitting in the side pocket of the vehicle during the incident, but did not alert Bhatt that the gun was there until after the shooting had occurred. When Pointer asked, “And prior to you screaming ‘shoot him, shoot him’ you hadn’t said anything related to the gun?” Bellusa responded: “No.”

Shortly after the shooting, Bellusa testified he had an interaction with Sarna, then-OUSD chief, and Smith, the OUSD superintendent. According to details included in the deposition, this conversation took place at Oakland Police Department (OPD) headquarters, after Bhatt and Bellusa had been separated, prior to any formal interview with OPD regarding the shooting.

According to Bellusa’s testimony, Smith questioned him directly. “He said specifically ‘John, tell me where the gun was. Tell me everything you can remember about the gun and what it looked like.’”

Penetrating the Thin Blue Line

An introductory statement from Against Hired Guns notes that Bellusa “will likely be considered a ‘good’ cop” for publicly airing these allegations and making an unusual break from the code of silence that typically binds police departments.

Yet the activists aren’t willing to let the sergeant off the hook so easily. Asked why they took steps to preempt release of this information, Brooks, the spokesperson for Against Hired Guns, told the Guardian, “We thought that it was important so that the debate could be framed as part of the larger context of police and violence in Oakland, as opposed to this cop has now done something good, which makes him a good cop. … He was still present the night Raheim was murdered.”

Against Hired Guns wrote in an analysis included in press materials, “It has now been over two years since Raheim’s family lost him to the violence of policing.  They have relentlessly searched for justice and still do not know exactly what happened to him. At the very least, Bellusa or any of the people or agencies he spoke with, could have explained the context of Raheim’s killing to his family members, who continue to grieve and struggle with the loss of their son, father and lover.” 

The activists’ summary frames the issue in this way: “Sergeant Bellusa has now penetrated the ‘thin blue line’ that shields corrupt, abusive, violent police officers and departments. We are releasing this information as part of … a series that places the statements of Bellusa’s testimony in the larger overall context of policing in our society [and] the ‘thin blue line’ that protects officers from any consequences.”

I’m your fan

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
I’m your fan

arts@sfbg.com

MUSIC Like most love affairs, there was little indication on our first encounter that it would turn into a lifelong infatuation. I was 17, methodically singing my way through a book of folk tunes, one of which was his first real hit, “Suzanne”. Though I admired it for its lyrical content, it weighed heavy on my range, and I soon moved on to other songs.

When I stumbled across him again, years later, it was as if we had never met. He was older, rougher, seemingly more jaded. His brutal ode “The Future” was dominating the indie-radio airwaves, hot on the heels of its appearance in Oliver Stone’s bombastic Natural Born Killers. When my then-roomie confessed a fondness for his music, it turned that single song on the radio into a sort of clarion call — the key, perhaps, to winning my flatmate’s frustratingly platonic heart. From that time, Leonard Cohen became a constant presence in my life, hovering at the periphery of countless triumphs, challenges, and betrayals, a companionship of almost 20 years that has spanned the globe, and almost every kind of circumstance.

There’s no one song or phase of Cohen’s music that seems to universally predicate the shift from uninitiated or fair-weather fan to true believer. For some it is the Cohen of the 1960s, whose laborious finger-picking and reedy, untrained voice lent equal gravitas to meticulously-plotted stories of resistance fighters and blowjobs, transcendence and squalor. For others it’s the synth-infused litanies to the naked body and the painful futility of the excess of the ’80s, or the flintier, world-weary renegade poised for flight of the early ’90s. Even the most contemporary of Cohen’s “masks,” the “lazy bastard in a suit,” currently rides a wave of almost unprecedented popularity, particularly in the US where he has mostly languished on the fringes of recognition until the last few years.

Underpinned by the spare minimalism of poetry written by a man for whom silence has played a pivotal role as much as language has (including a five-year long retreat at the Mt. Baldy Zen Center), his 2012 album Old Ideas brims over with themes that have appeared in almost every Cohen album over the last 40 years — bittersweet entanglement, elevation of the spirit, the struggles of the flesh — and marks a decided turning point in Cohen’s life, both personal and professional. An old Zen master of the music business arguably at the height of his powers: depression vanquished and horizons expanding exponentially.

Local author, rock journalist, and Leonard Cohen biographer (I’m Your Man, Ecco, 2012), Sylvie Simmons had her first encounter with Cohen in her adolescence as well, but for her the attraction was more immediate.

“The day I hit puberty was the day I heard my first Leonard Cohen record,” she confides over the phone when I call to get her side of her most famous subject. And though “it was outside my usual taste,” she found herself listening to his songs again and again, even today. Now deeply immersed in her own exhaustive world book tour, she’s even found a new thing to be impressed by: Cohen’s unflinching dedication to the road. “He’s got the kind of schedule that would kill an 18-year-old,” she says with a laugh. “He’s definitely a better man than I!”

Seeing Leonard Cohen perform at the Montreal Jazz Festival in ’08, after years of worshiping from afar, will always remain one of my most luminous memories. The prodigal son gone good, working the hometown crowd for an epic three-and-a-half hours, holding his hat over his heart as we applauded each song until our hands were sore, bowing his head humbly again and again, prophet as fellow supplicant. By a twist of good fortune, I managed to see him twice more on that tour — in Oakland and in Paris — and each time, though the controlled orchestration of the event revealed itself more and more, so did the sense of sheer joy emanating from both the stage and the audience, an orgy of admiration, and, a real rarity in the business, of gratitude.

Simmons has an explanation for this gracious humility as well. “He just loves life on the road,” Simmons explains. “He told me it was wonderful…’for a man my age to have a feeling of full employment’.” I rather suspect that this weekend’s events will be just as wonderful for us as they will be for him. Thank you, Leonard Cohen, for being our man.

“THE NIGHT BEFORE LEONARD” WITH SYLVIE SIMMONS

Fri/1, 6pm, free

Marsh Berkeley Cabaret

2120 Allston Way, Berk.

(415) 641-0235

www.themarsh.org

LEONARD COHEN

Sat/2 and Sun/2, 8pm, $71.50–$253

Paramount Theatre

2025 Broadway, Oakl.

(510) 465-6400

www.paramounttheatre.com

Why labor should oppose the pipeline

Andrew Lam
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0

OPINION As pressure from the fossil-fuel industry, conservative Canadian and US politicians, and some construction unions mounts on President Obama to greenlight the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline project, a growing coalition has a different message.

On February 17, tens of thousands rallied against the pipeline in cities across the US, including San Francisco — a testament to the climate movement, ranchers and farmers, First Nations leaders, most Canadian unions, some US unions (including my nurses’ organization), transport and domestic workers, and young people who are rightfully alarmed over the global impact of Keystone XL.

For nurses, who already see patients sickened by the adverse effects of pollution and infectious diseases linked to air pollutants and the spread of water and food borne pathogens associated with environmental contaminants, Keystone XL presents a clear and present danger.

First, extracting tar sands is more complex than conventional oil drilling, requiring vast amounts of water and chemicals. The discharge accumulates in highly toxic waste ponds and risks entering water sources that may end up in drinking water, as is already occurring.

Second, the corrosive liquefied bitumen form of crude the pipeline would carry is especially susceptible to leaks that can spill into farmland, water aquifers and rivers on route, threatening an array of adverse health outcomes.

Public health costs from fossil-fuel production in the US through contaminants in our air, rivers, lakes, oceans, and food supply are already pegged at more than $120 billion every year by the National Academy of Sciences. The Environmental Protection Agency warns that exposure to particulate matter emitted from fossil fuel plants is a cause of heart attacks, long term respiratory illness including asthma, cancer, developmental delays and reproductive problems. Global-warming inducted higher air temperatures can also increase bacteria-related food poisoning, such as salmonella, and animal-borne diseases like the West Nile virus.

That’s just the tip of the melting iceberg given the planet altering consequences of rising sea levels, intensified weather events including droughts, floods and super storms already in evidence, and mass dislocation of coastal populations and starvation that may well follow our failing to stem climate change.

Far more jobs would be created by converting to a green economy. As economist Robert Pollin put it in his book Back to Full Employment, every $1 million spent on renewable clean energy sources creates 16.8 jobs, compared to just 5.2 jobs created by the same spending on fossil-fuel production.

And, as one person acerbically commented on a recent New York Times article, there are no jobs on a dead planet.

Further, stumping for the pipeline puts labor in league with the many of the most anti-union, far right corporate interests in the U.S., such as the oil billionaire Koch Brothers and energy corporations, abetted by the politicians who carry their agenda.

The future for labor should not be scrambling for elusive crumbs thrown down by corporate partners, but advocating for the larger public interest, as unions practiced in the 1930s and 1940s, the period of labor’s greatest growth and the resulting emergence of a more egalitarian society.

Deborah Burger is a registered nurse and co-president of National Nurses United, the nation’s largest organization of nurses.

Cutting from the bottom

Andrew Lam
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86

news@sfbg.com

While the looming federal budget cuts known as sequestration were designed to equally hit Democratic and Republican party priorities, from social services to the military budget, in the Bay Area they would disproportionately target society’s most vulnerable citizens and strain already-stretched local agency budgets.

If Congress and the White House fail to forge a budget deal by March 1, the cuts could begin to withdraw $9-10 billion of federal support from the California. In the Bay Area, these cuts would have the biggest impact on low-income families, the homeless, victims of domestic violence, adults living with AIDS, and children ages 3-5.

Back in September, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee signed a U.S. Conference of Mayors’ letter that called on federal lawmakers to resolve the budget conflict before the sequestration cuts could take effect, labeling the budget cuts “a threat” to local economies nationwide. Now, with the deadline looming, city officials and social service providers across the Bay Area are bracing for the impact.

Depending to how the cuts are eventually allocated, San Francisco alone could lose more than $10 million in critical social services. “All across the city, the sequestration hurts those most in need of services and support,” Gentle Blythe, spokesperson with the San Francisco Unified School District, told the Guardian.

San Francisco Unified stands to lose $3.8 million in funding, over 5 percent of the district’s federal education dollars. The cuts would strain an already-tight education budget, which has suffered from the slow economy and the corresponding dip in tax revenue. “We’ve been in a climate of cuts for years,” Blythe said. “There is a definite sense of fatigue.”

The pending round of cuts would force San Francisco district officials to make a series of uncomfortable decisions. The bulk of San Francisco’s federal education funding comes from Title I and Title III grants, money specifically earmarked for low-income students and English-language learners. If the state does not step in to fill the hole, the $3.8 million shortfall will translate into a significant rollback of services for the city’s most at-risk students and potential layoffs of teachers and resource officers.

Early childhood programs are especially vulnerable to the impact of the sequester. San Francisco Head Start Director Marjorie Weiss told us the demand for these federal education programs is spiking as more San Francisco children are living in poverty.

US Census figures show 13.8 percent of San Francisco residents were living below the federal poverty line in 2011, up from 12.2 percent in 2005. Over the last decade, 850 additional children became eligible for SF Head Start, which operates federally funded preschool programs in 19 classrooms at 9 different centers across the city.

These programs significantly improve the long-term employment and educational prospects of children living in or near poverty. But as the need for these early-childhood services grows, the money is drying up. Over the last two years, state and local funding for early-childhood education has be cut by nearly 20 percent.

Now, with the sequestration looming, San Francisco Head Start providers are worried about their ability to continue providing services. “At Head Start, we have already been dealing with years of budget cuts,” Weiss told us. If the sequester comes through, the program will lose an additional $1.1 million and will be forced to eliminate programming for more than 100 low income children ages 3-5.

“This will be devastating. These cuts will have a crippling effect on low-income children in the community and their ability to be ready for school” says Weiss. The funding cuts will take effect June 1st and directly impact the incoming class of 3-year-old preschool students.

Although education will absorb a significant impact from the sequestration, social services across the city will be cut back. San Francisco homeless advocates are forecasting a $1 million cut in federal assistance and AIDS groups have warned that nearly $800,000 dollars in housing vouchers for AIDS patients are on the chopping block. Federal funding for the AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP), which subsidized medical care for AIDS patients, is set to be slashed by nearly 8 percent across the board.

Advocates for the victims of domestic abuse are also worried about the sequester’s impact on local survivors of domestic violence. In San Francisco, federal money provides crucial services for victims of domestic violence through nationally-mandated Family Violence and Prevention Services (FVPS). The city’s three primary domestic violence shelters rely on this revenue stream for outreach programming, translation services, and extended operating hours. The pending sequester would cut nearly 10 percent of FVPS grants, forcing shelters to tighten their belts.

“The sequester is going to dramatically impact the funding for lifesaving services for domestic violence shelters and rape crisis centers, as well as legal service, and children’s programs,” Beckie Masaki, the founder and former executive director of San Francisco’s Asian Women’s Shelter, told the Guardian. Masaki now works with the Asian and Pacific Island Institute (APIDV) on Domestic Violence, where she advocates for more federal funding for domestic violence service providers.

Masaki is worried that the cuts will disproportionately impact the city’s most vulnerable women: low-income and non-English speaking victims of domestic violence, as cash-strapped shelters lay off translators and cut back on outreach and group therapy.

“In the past, when we were facing cuts, we did our best to minimize the impact on survivors,” she explains. “But in this era of constant cuts, it’s going to mean layoffs, and ultimately fewer services for the most vulnerable survivors”. As lawmakers in Washington scramble to pass a budget deal before the March 1 deadline, the climate of uncertainty leaves local service agencies in a state of limbo. With future funding in doubt, long-term planning and strategizing become increasingly difficult. Yet for many local service providers, the most recent threat of sequestration is a familiar consequence of an increasingly fragile social safety net. According to Masaki, the sequestration should motivate Congress to rethink its budgeting priorities: “If they invest in these baseline life-saving services for those that are most vulnerable in our community, in the end that is the path to better economic and social sustainability for our whole nation.”

Sequestration cuts would hit the Bay Area’s most vulnerable

Sasha Cuttler
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Sequestration cuts would hit the Bay Area’s most vulnerable

While the looming federal budget cuts known as sequestration were designed to equally hit Democratic and Republican party priorities, from social services to the military budget, in the Bay Area they would disproportionately target society’s most vulnerable citizens and strain already-stretched local agency budgets.

If Congress and the White House fail to forge a budget deal by March 1, the cuts could begin to withdraw $9-10 billion of federal support from the California. In the Bay Area, these cuts would have the biggest impact on low-income families, the homeless, victims of domestic violence, adults living with AIDS, and children ages 3-5.

Back in September, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee signed a U.S. Conference of Mayors’ letter that called on federal lawmakers to resolve the budget conflict before the sequestration cuts could take effect, labeling the budget cuts “a threat” to local economies nationwide. Now, with the deadline looming, city officials and social service providers across the Bay Area are bracing for the impact. Depending to how the cuts are eventually allocated, San Francisco alone could lose more than $10 million in critical social services.

“All across the city, the sequestration hurts those most in need of services and support,” Gentle Blythe, spokesperson with the San Francisco Unified School District, told the Guardian.

San Francisco Unified stands to lose $3.8 million in funding, over 5 percent of the district’s federal education dollars. The cuts would strain an already-tight education budget, which has suffered from the slow economy and the corresponding dip in tax revenue. “We’ve been in a climate of cuts for years,” Blythe said. “There is a definite sense of fatigue.”

The pending round of cuts would force San Francisco district officials to make a series of uncomfortable decisions. The bulk of San Francisco’s federal education funding comes from Title I and Title III grants, money specifically earmarked for low-income students and English-language learners. If the state does not step in to fill the hole, the $3.8 million shortfall will translate into a significant rollback of services for the city’s most at-risk students and potential layoffs of teachers and resource officers.

Early childhood programs are especially vulnerable to the impact of the sequester. San Francisco Head Start Director Marjorie Weiss told us the demand for these federal education programs is spiking as more San Francisco children are living in poverty.

US Census figures show 13.8 percent of San Francisco residents were living below the federal poverty line in 2011, up from 12.2 percent in 2005. Over the last decade, 850 additional children became eligible for SF Head Start, which operates federally funded preschool programs in 19 classrooms at 9 different centers across the city.

These programs significantly improve the long-term employment and educational prospects of children living in or near poverty. But as the need for these early-childhood services grows, the money is drying up. Over the last two years, state and local funding for early-childhood education has be cut by nearly 20 percent.

Now, with the sequestration looming, San Francisco Head Start providers are worried about their ability to continue providing services. “At Head Start, we have already been dealing with years of budget cuts,” Weiss told us. If the sequester comes through, the program will lose an additional $1.1 million and will be forced to eliminate programming for more than 100 low income children ages 3-5.

“This will be devastating. These cuts will have a crippling effect on low-income children in the community and their ability to be ready for school” says Weiss. The funding cuts will take effect June 1st and directly impact the incoming class of 3-year-old preschool students.

Although education will absorb a significant impact from the sequestration, social services across the city will be cut back. San Francisco homeless advocates are forecasting a $1 million cut in federal assistance and AIDS groups have warned that nearly $800,000 dollars in housing vouchers for AIDS patients are on the chopping block. Federal funding for the AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP), which subsidized medical care for AIDS patients, is set to be slashed by nearly 8 percent across the board.

Advocates for the victims of domestic abuse are also worried about the sequester’s impact on local survivors of domestic violence. In San Francisco, federal money provides crucial services for victims of domestic violence through nationally-mandated Family Violence and Prevention Services (FVPS). The city’s three primary domestic violence shelters rely on this revenue stream for outreach programming, translation services, and extended operating hours. The pending sequester would cut nearly 10 percent of FVPS grants, forcing shelters to tighten their belts.

“The sequester is going to dramatically impact the funding for lifesaving services for domestic violence shelters and rape crisis centers, as well as legal service, and children’s programs,” Beckie Masaki, the founder and former executive director of San Francisco’s Asian Women’s Shelter, told the Guardian. Masaki now works with the Asian and Pacific Island Institute (APIDV) on Domestic Violence, where she advocates for more federal funding for domestic violence service providers.

Masaki is worried that the cuts will disproportionately impact the city’s most vulnerable women: low-income and non-English speaking victims of domestic violence, as cash-strapped shelters lay off translators and cut back on outreach and group therapy.

“In the past, when we were facing cuts, we did our best to minimize the impact on survivors,” she explains. “But in this era of constant cuts, it’s going to mean layoffs, and ultimately fewer services for the most vulnerable survivors”.

As lawmakers in Washington scramble to pass a budget deal before the March 1 deadline, the climate of uncertainty leaves local service agencies in a state of limbo. With future funding in doubt, long-term planning and strategizing become increasingly difficult. Yet for many local service providers, the most recent threat of sequestration is a familiar consequence of an increasingly fragile social safety net.

According to Masaki, the sequestration should motivate Congress to rethink its budgeting priorities: “If they invest in these baseline life-saving services for those that are most vulnerable in our community, in the end that is the path to better economic and social sustainability for our whole nation.”

Hearing called on America’s Cup “fundraising fiasco” as Mayor Lee talks about scaling back the event

Sasha Cuttler
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20
Hearing called on America’s Cup “fundraising fiasco” as Mayor Lee talks about scaling back the event

Amid reports that San Francisco taxpayers could be on the hook for more than $20 million in America’s Cup expenses because of anemic fundraising efforts by the America’s Cup Organizing Committee, today Mayor Ed Lee talked about scaling back the event and offering public naming rights to wealthy donors and Sup. John Avalos called for a Board of Supervisors hearing to look into the matter.

Following his monthly question time appearance before the Board of Supervisors, Lee was questioned about the issue by reporters, and he downplayed the idea that the city will go into the hole for its overzealous sponsorship of billionaire Larry Ellison’s big boat race.

“We’re not in the hole, but we will be if we don’t raise enough money. And I don’t want the pressure on the General Fund, and that would end up being an obligation that we have. By the way, while I’m raising, or helping to raise, some $20 million to cover that, I’m also asking all departments now that we have a, relative to what was going to be a larger race, now we don’t have as many boats, the expenses might be off so we have to kind of update it and reduce it. So with the combination of reducing the expense side and then raising some money as we’re doing from the private sector, we’re getting some new traction,” Lee said.

“We still have plans to spend upwards of $30 million to cover all the expenses, and we’re hoping that gets down to much less than that. But my goal right now is to get reports from all the departments about how to reduce their spending on this. I’m still going to try to raise the $20 million with the help of Senator Feinstein, Nancy Pelosi, and Lt. Gov. Newsom,” Lee said.

He also alluded to public goodies that he may offer to wealthy potential donors, including making a passing reference that “we’ve created some ongoing legacies, naming rights in areas that haven’t been named yet, we’ve cleared that with the Port to make sure it’s a very attractive package for them.” But ultimately, he said that city taxpayers are on the hook to pay for the impacts of this race: “This is a financial obligation that we signed on.”

Earlier in the day, the Telegraph Hill Dwellers – which has been active since the America’s Cup was first proposed in trying to ensure the event makes financial sense for the city – sent a letter to the board calling for a hearing and highlighting the ethically dubious actions by city officials that got us into this mess.

That letter follows in its entirety:

February 12, 2013

Supervisor Carmen Chu, Chair

Supervisor David Campos

Supervisor Malia Cohen

Government Audit and Oversight Committee

San Francisco Board of Supervisors

1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place

San Francisco, CA 94102

Re: Request for Oversight Hearing on America’s Cup Organizing Committee “Fundraising Fiasco”

Dear Members of the Government Audit and Oversight Committee:

As a northern waterfront neighborhood leader who has supported bringing the America’s Cup to San Francisco since Day One, I feel compelled to urge you to take urgent action to begin to restore a profound breach of public trust while there is still time left to salvage this event. 

News reports this week revealed the stunning news that San Francisco taxpayers may have to pay upwards of $20 million to subsidize the America’s Cup[1] despite public commitments stating that the event would not be taxpayer-funded and a signed contract designed to make that happen.[2]  In light of such astonishing news this close to the race, I request that you schedule a public hearing now to get answers to this critical question: what happened and how can we fix it?

Specifically, I encourage you to solicit testimony and an appearance before the Committee from the two individuals most responsible for the current $20 million shortfall out of the $32 million in private fundraising that was committed to prevent the need for taxpayer subsidies:  America’s Cup Organizing Committee Executive Director Kyri McClellan and America’s Cup Organizing Committee Chair Mark Buell.  These are the two individuals whose primary job it has been for the past two years to ensure that the America’s Cup Organizing Committee complied with its fundraising obligations.  Both Ms. McClellan and Mr. Buell have made numerous public statements over the past two years aimed at rebuffing all concerns about their ability to raise the $32 million. 

For example:

1)  “I have every confidence we will meet our obligations,” – Kyri McClellan, 6/13/11[3]

2)  “Yep, we are not running behind in the least bit,” – Kyri McClellan, 9/19/11[4]

3)  “I am confident that all the money will be raised,” – Mark Buell, 1/6/12[5]

4) “I’m busting my ass raising (money) for it.” – Mark Buell, 2/7/12[6]

5)  “we are confident that the agreement we have with the (America’s Cup) Event Authority coupled with our continued fundraising successes will ensure we meet our obligations to the city.” – Mark Buell, 2/7/12[7]

6)  “There is definitely more heavy lifting to be done, but we think we’re well-positioned to do that,” – Kyri McClellan, 2/8/12[8]

The role that Ms. McClellan has played in creating what is being referred to as a “fundraising fiasco”[9] should particularly be evaluated in light of the two ethics laws that were waived by the San Francisco Ethics Commission at the urging of members of the Board of Supervisors to enable her to shift seats across the negotiating table from her previous job working as the Mayor’s America’s Cup deal negotiator on behalf of the City into her private role working for the America’s Cup Organizing Committee.[10]  The twin dangers of reduced accountability and lax scrutiny that stem from this kind of “revolving door” between government and the private sector are precisely what the ethics laws that were summarily waived were put in place to prevent.  The question now must be asked whether the decision to waive ethics rules to allow someone playing such a central role to shift sides deserves a significant part of blame for the problems that have begun to come to light.

As a long-time supporter of the America’s Cup, I hope you will take swift action to get answers and correct the course of the event before it is too late.  Thank you very much for your time and consideration. 

Sincerely,

Jon Golinger

President

Telegraph Hill Dwellers

 

[1] America’s Cup could cost S.F. millions, Matier & Ross, S.F. Chronicle 2/10/13

[2] “[T]he [America’s Cup Organizing] Committee will endeavor to raise up to $32 million over a three year period from private sources, to reimburse the City for a portion of the City’s costs (including, without limitation, costs associated with CEQA review), and lost revenues, and City expenditures required to meet its obligations under Sections 8 and 10 (including resources from the police, and public works departments, the Port, DPT and MTA). The Committee’s fundraising targets for the three year period are $12 million for year one, and $10 million for years two and three.” – Section 9.4, 34th America’s Cup Host and Venue Agreement, 12/14/10

[3] America’s Cup Fundraising is Floundering, NBC News, 6/13/11

[4] America’s Cup reach tax exempt status, KGO ABC News, 9/19/11

[5] America’s Cup organizers hit first fundraising goal, SF Chronicle, 1/6/12

[6] America’s Cup needs ‘significant additional fundraising,’ SF Chronicle, 2/7/12

[7] ‘Significant’ fundraising needed for America’s Cup group, SF Business Times, 2/7/12

[8] Controller:  America’s Cup needs more fundraising to cover city costs, SF Examiner, 2/8/12

[9] City Pushes to Fill Fundraising Gap for America’s Cup, KTVU Ch. 2, 2/11/13

[10] “In order to accommodate McClellan, commissioners agreed to waive two post-employment restrictions for city officials.  The first is a yearlong post-employment communications ban, and the second prohibits former city employees from receiving compensation from city contractors for two years. . . . Asked what would happen if ACOC somehow failed to raise the agreed-upon funds, placing McClellan in the position of having to explain the shortfall or re-negotiate with her former coworkers, Ethics Commission Deputy Executive Director Mabel Ng allowed, ‘If something like that happened, there might be a conflict.’ And what justification was given for waiving the ban on former employees receiving compensation from city contractors? “For that one, in the law itself, it says the commission may waive it … if it would cause extreme hardship,” Ng explained. “There would be a hardship, because … this is a great opportunity for her, and there was a short timeline for her to do it.”  Pressed on that point, Ng confirmed that the “hardship” in this case was the possibility of being barred from a great job opportunity, not the threat of financial impact or job loss. The other issue, Ng said, was that without McClellan serving in that post, the committee’s fundraising effort might not be successful. “It just seemed like, you need to have somebody take charge,” she said. “The committee may suffer without her at the helm. If she were not able to do that, the committee — which plays a very crucial role in this — may not be able to meet its obligations.’” Mayoral staff member to direct America’s Cup Organizing Committee, SF Bay Guardian, 4/7/11

 

 

Dick Meister: The pioneering black porters

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By Dick Meister

Bay Guardian columnist 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.

It’s Black History Month, a good time to honor the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, one of the most important yet too often overlooked leaders in the long struggle for racial equality and union rights.

The union, the first to be founded by African Americans, was involved deeply in political as well as economic activity, joining with the NAACP to serve as the major political vehicle of African Americans from the late 1930s through the 1950s.

Together, the two organizations led the drives in those years against racial discrimination in employment, housing, education and other areas that laid the groundwork for the civil rights movement of the1960s.

The need for a porters’ union was painfully obvious. Porters commonly worked 12 or more hours a day on the Pullman Company’s sleeping car coaches for less than $100 a month. And out of that, they had to pay for their meals, uniforms, even the polish they used to shine passengers’ shoes. And they got no fringe benefits.

In order to meet their basic living expenses, most porters had to draw on the equally meager earnings of their wives, who were almost invariably employed as domestics.

It was a marginal and humiliating experience for porters. They were rightly proud of their work, a pride that showed in their smiling, dignified bearing. But porters knew that no matter how well they performed, they would never be promoted to higher-paying conductors’ jobs. Those jobs were reserved for white men.

Porters knew most of all that their white passengers and white employers controlled everything. It was they alone who decided what the porters must do and what they’d get for doing it.

When a passenger pulled the bell cord, porters were to answer swiftly and cheerfully. Just do what the passengers asked – or demanded.  Shine their shoes, fetch them drinks, make their beds, empty their cuspidors, and more. No questions, no complaints, no protests. No rights. Nothing better epitomized the vast distance between black and white in American society.

Hundreds of porters who challenged the status quo by daring to engage in union activity or other concerted action were fired. But finally, the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt granted workers, black and white, the legal right to unionize. And finally, in 1937 the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters won a union contract from Pullman.

The contract was signed exactly 12 years after union president and founder A. Philip Randolph had called the union’s first organizing meeting in New York City. It was a long arduous struggle, but it brought the porters out of poverty. It won them pay at least equal to that of unionized workers in many other fields, a standard workweek, a full range of employer financed benefits.  Most important, porters won the right to continue to bargain collectively with Pullman on those and other vital matters.

Union President Randolph and Vice President C.L. Dellums, who succeeded Randolph in 1968, led the drive that pressured President Roosevelt into several key actions against discrimination. That included creation of a Fair Employment practices Commission in housing as well as employment.

FDR agreed to set up the commission – a model for several state commissions – and take other anti-discrimination steps only after Randolph and Dellums threatened to lead a march on Washington by more than 100,000 black workers and others who were demanding federal action against racial discrimination.

Randolph and Dellums struggled as hard against discrimination inside the labor movement . . . particularly against the practice of unions setting up segregated locals, one for white members, one for black members.

Randolph, elected in 1957 as the AFL-CIO’s first African–American vice president, long was known as the civil rights conscience of the labor movement, often prodding federation President George Meany  and other conservative AFL-CIO leaders to take firm stands against racial discrimination.

The sleeping car coaches that once were the height of travel luxury have long since disappeared. And there are very few sleeping car porters in this era of less-than-luxurious train travel. The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters is gone, too. But before the union disappeared, it had reached goals as important as any ever sought by an American union or any other organization.

Bay Guardian columnist 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.

Ed Lee’s State of the City: What evictions? What displacement?

Zelda Bronstein
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Ed Lee’s State of the City: What evictions? What displacement?

Mayor Ed Lee punctuated his State of the City speech with a nice little quip: “Every San Franciscan deserves a clean, safe place to call home.” I agree.

So why, in a speech lasting more than an hour, did the mayor not once mention that thousands of San Franciscans are facing the loss of their homes — and will be forced out of the city — because of the same policies that he’s proudly promoting?

These things are always self-congratualtory and full of the requisite bullshit. But Lee’s description of the State of the City was nothing more than a fantasy to the two-thirds of San Franciscans who live in rental housing, many of whom are living with an unacceptable level of insecurity. Much of the city’s rental stock — and the effectiveness of rent control — is at risk at speculators are buying up properties, tossing the tenants out with the Ellis Act, and converting them to tenancies in common. This is a massive civic crisis, brought on in part by the boom in tech jobs and the consequent boom in high-paid young people who want to live in a city that has virtually no vacant housing.

We saw this before, under Mayor Willie Brown; we called it the Economic Cleansing of San Francisco. It was awful, and it’s happening again.

But you wouldn’t know that to hear the mayor completely ignore the issue.

Oh, Lee gave it a toss-off line; gee, the rent is too high, but we can’t ignore the laws of supply and demand. Gee, we’re going to build 45,000 new housing units, and that will fix everything.

But Lee, of all people, ought to know that housing in San Francisco has never followed the laws of supply and demand. This is a highly irregular market, because demand is essentially unlimited. Housing fills us as fast as you build it. And none of the new housing that’s currently under construction or in the pipeline will be affordable to current SF residents who live in rent-controlled units and are at risk for eviction.

When you’re evicted under the Ellis Act in San Francisco today, to make room for someone with more money, you wind up having to leave the city. That’s the bottom line. And everywhere you turn, tenants are facing that ugly prospect.

The mayor spent much of his time talking about jobs. That’s fine; he’s proud that the unemployment rate in the city has fallen to 6.5 percent, but he insists he won’t rest until everyone has a job. Actually, most economists would say that’s impossible; capitalism, by its nature, exists with a structural unemployment rate that rarely falls below 4 percent. In fact, 4 percent is generally considered “full employment.”

More important, the overall rate is 6.5 percent, but it’s way higher for people without college degrees, for youth, and for African Americans. (It’s above 50 percent for transgender people.) The tech boom isn’t providing jobs for all of the unemployed current San Francisco residents; a lot of the jobs are going to people who don’t live here and are moving here for employment. They are putting pressure on the existing housing stock. That always leads to displacement.

None of this is to say that tech jobs are bad or that we shouldn’t have companies that pay high wages locate in San Francisco. What it means is that the city first has to protect its existing vulnerable populations — and that’s not happening.

I would encourage Mayor Lee to talk to the Housing Rights Committee, or the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, or any of the other tenant lawyers who are fighting desperately every day to state off evictions. He’d get a very different picture of the state of the city.

Dick Meister: Good news for our neediest workers

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By Dick Meister

Bay Guardian columnist 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.

Here’s some good news for the new year: Ten states are set to raise their minimum wage rates on January first.

The National Employment Law Project (NELP) calculates that the increased rates will boost the pay of more than 850,000  low-income  workers in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.

The rates, raised in accord with state laws requiring automatic adjustments to keep pace with the rising cost of living, will go up by 10 to 35 cents an hour depending on the state. NELP figures that will mean $190 to $510 more a year for the four million workers who are paid at the minimum in those states.

That may not seem like much in today’s economy, but most of the workers are living at or near the poverty level, and it will mean a lot to them and their families. Another 140,000 needy low-paid workers will get indirect raises as pay rates are adjusted upward to reflect the new minimum wage in their states.

Nineteen states, including California, plus the District of Columbia will now have rates higher than the federal minimum. But though the increases in state minimum wages are vital, what’s needed now is also to raise the federal minimum so that all minimum wage workers are paid at a higher and uniform rate.  The federal rate has remained at $7.25 an hour  – about $15,000 a year for the average minimum wage worker – since it was set in 2007, although inflation has continued to erode its purchasing power

A bill now pending in Congress would raise the federal rate to $9.80 an hour by 2014, set the rate for tipped workers at 70 percent of that, and provide for the rates to rise to match future increases in the cost of living.

Federal action is badly needed, notes NELP’s executive director, Christine Owens, to “make sure workers earn wages that will at the very least support their basic needs. But earning an income that meets basic needs shouldn’t depend on the state where a working family lives.”

OK, but won’t increasing the pay of minimum wage workers discourage employers from hiring more workers and thus weaken the economy and hurt jobless workers? That’s often claimed by fiscal conservatives, but it’s simply not so.

NELP cites a large body of research clearly showing that “raising the minimum wage is an effective way to boost the incomes of low-paid workers without reducing employment.” NELP notes in particular research showing that “even during times of high unemployment, minimum wage increases did not lead to job loss.”

On the contrary. NELP estimates that increased spending by workers paid at the new state minimums will pump an estimated $183 million into the economy, creating the equivalent of more than 100,000 full-time jobs. Other estimates indicate that every dollar increase in wages for workers at the minimum rate would trigger more than $3000 in new spending.

But can employers afford to pay a higher minimum? Wouldn’t it be a burden on small businesses, as those opposing a raise often claim? No. NELP found that more than two-thirds of minimum wage workers are employed by large companies, and that many of the companies could easily afford a raise, especially since they “have fully recovered from the recession and are enjoying strong profits.”

There’s no excuse for inaction.  Ten states have done the right thing for their neediest working citizens. It’s time for Congress and President Obama to do their part.

Bay Guardian columnist 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.

Dick Meister: Home care workers need presidential help

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By Dick Meister

Bay Guardian columnist 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.

The country’s 2½ million home care workers have been waiting a whole year now for President Obama to make good on his promise to grant them the federal minimum wage and overtime pay protections they so badly need.

The need for immediate presidential action was made abundantly clear in a letter to the White House on Dec. 13 that was released by the National Employment Law Project – NELP, as it’s called. The signers include people who are receiving home care, those who employ them and those who provide the care.

NELP’s figures show that the average national wage of home care workers, including those working at for-profit home care agencies, is $9.40 an hour. Which means that one in five caregivers live at or below the poverty level, even in the 21 states with minimum wage and overtime laws that cover them.

In almost three-dozen states, the average pay is so low the workers qualify for public assistance. And that, of course, seriously harms the workers and adds to the serious financial burdens of the states that provide the assistance.

Unless the president acts, the situation is only going to get worse, with home care jobs expected to increase by well over a million by the year 2020 as the country’s population ages. As NELP says, the home care industry is already one of the fastest growing industries in the country.

Over the next two decades, the population of Americans over 65 will increase to more than 70 million. And the Department of Health and Human Services estimates that by 2050, there will be 27 million Americans needing direct home care.

NELP’s director, Christine Owens, notes that “many families rely on home care workers to get our grandparents out of bed in the morning and insure that our neighbors with disabilities live as independently as possible.”

As Owens says, extending the federal minimum wage and overtime protections to the workers would be a first important step to improving quality within the home care industry. She notes that the reforms “will be perfectly manageable for the industry and will be good for both consumers and workers.”

And, Owens adds, “It’s the right thing to do.”

Bay Guardian columnist 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.

Same-sex marriage: What they’re saying

Zelda Bronstein
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4

Lots of statements getting issued on the Supreme Court’s decision, reflecting both the desire of many elected officials to weigh in on this momentus event and some interesting differences in tone.

Assembly Member Tom Ammiano:

 

“This doesn’t decide anything on its own, but it opens the door for the U.S. Supreme Court to acknowledge that people in every state of this union should be able to form marriage unions with the partner of their choosing and not be limited by outdated customs and laws.”

“It’s a bit disappointing that the Supreme Court isn’t already kicking Prop. 8 to the curb, but I’m hopeful that they will do that after hearing arguments. We can also hope that this court decides that it’s time to say, once and for all, that denying this right to same-sex couples is just as unconstitutional as denying marriage to mixed-race couples – a decision made decades ago.”

State Sen. Mark Leno:

“I am hopeful and encouraged about today’s decision from the U.S. Supreme Court to review the Proposition 8 case, which is one of the most significant equal rights issues to come before the court in many decades,” said Senator Leno. “For the past four years we have argued that Proposition 8 is not only unconstitutional, but that it also violates the basic principles of respect, dignity and validation that every American deserves. I am confident that the Supreme Court will reaffirm these fundamental freedoms and uphold that a person’s right to be treated equally does not vanish simply because of who they are or whom they love.

 

“The momentum for marriage equality has never been stronger in our country. We have support from President Obama, recent victories at the ballot box, and polls that show a majority of Americans are with us. In addition, federal courts continue to strike down laws that discriminate against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. I am convinced our triumphs will continue.”

 

Mayor Ed Lee:

 

“I am optimistic that the Supreme Court will reaffirm, as the Ninth Circuit Court did, that California’s Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.

“We remain as deeply committed today as we were nearly eight years ago when then Mayor Gavin Newsom jumpstarted one of the most important civil rights movements of our generation. I would like to thank City Attorney Dennis Herrera for his work on this important issue and bringing us to this point. I thank the legal team of Ted Olson and David Boies and the American Foundation for Equal Rights for defending equality in this legal pursuit. 

Same-sex marriage is legal, or will soon be, in nine states — Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont, Washington — and the District of Columbia. I look forward to the day when California joins this well-respected list.”

 

Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom:

 

Today marks the beginning of the end for a California journey that started eight years ago when San Francisco issued same-sex marriage licenses. By agreeing to hear the Proposition 8  case the U.S. Supreme Court could end, once and for all, marriage inequity in California.

Forty-five years after the Supreme Court ruled that marriages between interracial couples were constitutional in Loving vs. Virginia, Justices can once again reaffirm the basic American principal of equality for all.

The singling out a class of Californians for discrimination violates the basic principles of who we are as a nation. It is important at this moment in time to recognize that individuals can be mightier together than apart, that there is strength in our diversity, power when we unite around our shared values and success when we advance together.

 Today’s announcement starts the clock towards the final decision for California. History will one day be divided into the time before marriage equality and the period that follows. And thankfully, we will be on the side of history worthy of being proud of.

 

 

Assembly Speaker John Perez:

“Today’s announcement that the Supreme Court will take up Hollingsworth v. Perry and the challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act is a reminder that the pathway to justice is long and difficult. The plaintiffs in the initial challenge to Proposition 8, Perry v. Schwarzenegger, presented a powerful and compelling argument that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional, which was eloquently recognized in Judge Vaughn Walker’s ruling in that case. I am very confident that the Supreme Court will rule in favor of our community in Hollingsworth v. Perry, as it is now known, and affirm that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional. But until that outcome is secured, our community must continue to fight for justice on every front, from working to secure the Employment Non-Discrimination Act to addressing the issues of homelessness among LGBT Youth.”

Rep. Nancy Pelosi:

 

 

 

With the Supreme Court’s decision, marriage equality will finally have its day in the highest court in the land. Americans will hear whether inequality and discrimination are consistent with the high standards and deepest values of our Constitution. We remain confident that the justices’ ruling will fall on the side of civil rights and discard DOMA and Prop 8 in the dustbin of history.

“From the start, Republicans have known that DOMA is unconstitutional, and that’s why Republicans have tried to pass legislation to prohibit judicial review of this disgraceful law. Speaker Boehner’s legal team repeatedly failed to convince the courts to keep denying basic rights to American families, all while wasting nearly $1.5 million in taxpayer funds. Now, the Supreme Court will decide whether Edie Windsor deserved to face a penalty of hundreds of thousands of dollars after her partner of four decades passed away. We believe Ms. Windsor and couples like hers will see justice done in this case.

“By taking up the Prop 8 case, the Supreme Court will have the opportunity to make a strong statement that laws, in California and nationwide, must not target the LGBT community unfairly and that families across our state and our country deserve fair and equal treatment under the law.

“We have now reached a landmark moment in the history of civil rights in our nation. Let’s end discrimination and ensure equality for all of America’s families. Let’s get this over with and on to the future!”

UPDATE:

Bay Guardian Controller Sandy Lange:

“Well, at least I don’t have to get married this weekend.”

 

 

No surprise: The Chron hates Ammiano’s homeless bill

Zelda Bronstein
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67
No surprise: The Chron hates Ammiano’s homeless bill

Why should I be surprised? Assemblymember Tom Ammiano tried to introduce a bill providing some basic human rights for homeless people, and the Chron lashes out with a nasty editorial that misses the entire point.

Ammiano’s AB 5 was crafted with the help of homeless advocacy groups, and it’s really not that radical a proposal. It would simply guarantee some basic human rights to people who don’t have a permanent place to live. It would, for example, forbid employment discrimination against homeless people in employment, public services and voting. It would enshrine in law the right of all people to use public space, including as a place to rest, and would establish that 24-hour access to bathrooms and showers is a basic human right.It would protect the rights of homeless children to attend school. It would guarantee homeless people cited under laws that could lead to criminal sanctions the right to a lawyer.

It would also bar local authorities from forcing people into shelters or other programs without their consent and would guarantee equal treatment from law-enforcement.

Oh, and it would prevent local laws that bar homeless people from occupying vehicles that are legally parked, and precent authorities from taking away the personal property of homeless people.

But to read the Chron’s editorial, you’d think the world was coming to an end:

A bill that asserts an individual’s right to urinate, sleep and panhandle wherever he wants is neither compassionate nor wise. To pass it would be to surrender our streets and parks to misery, chaos and squalor.

Misery, chaos and squalor? Whoa. As if the lives of homeless people are not already, in many cases, marked by those characteristics.

And really, the bill doesn’t talk about the right to “urinate wherever he wants;” it mandates that cities provide accessible bathroom facilities so people don’t have to urinate on the streets. “It’s not a good idea or even healthy to have a law that says you can piss or shit wherever you want,” Pauld Boden, director of the Western Regional Advocacy Project, told me. “So having 24-hour access to hygiene centers is a way better alternative.”

But of course, Boden said, opponents of the law “are going to try to make it all about urination and defecation. It’s a way to dehumanize people.”

I don’t understand what’s wrong with asserting that homeless people have the same human rights as the rest of us. If this undermines bad laws like sit-lie and care not cash, so be it; in a rich state, we can and should do better. (But even the Chron’s own reporter says the bill won’t undermine SF’s sit-lie law).

Ammiano’s moving forward with the bill, expecting amendments and open to discussion. But as far as the Chron’s editorial goes, he told me” “It reminds me of Robin Williams’ comment about a bad review he got ” ‘I was going to have a chicken shit on it, but that would be redundant.;”

UPDATE: If you want to see a comparison of the current anti-homeless laws to the “ugly laws,” the Jim Crow laws and a lot of other stuff we all now agree was wrong, check it out here (pdf)

Funding SFUSD’s graduation rescue

Zelda Bronstein
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45
Funding SFUSD’s graduation rescue

The San Francisco school district’s achievement gap exploded into the news when district officials learned that as many as 1,900 High School juniors — the vast majority of them students of color — aren’t on track to meet the new graduation standards.

It’s a crisis: The district several years ago mandated that every high school graduate complete the A to G classes required by the California State University system — essentially a requirement that every graduate be prepared for college. It was going to be a tough standard to meet — and that was before the state whacked $77 million out of the SFUSD budget.

Now, with the new standards on the books, the class of 2014 is nowhere near ready. The city’s laudatory 82 percent graduation rate is at risk — and more important, there’s a real possibility that hundreds of kids won’t get a high school diploma, which will severely damage their employment opportunities.

To make things worse, the district’s funding for after-school classes to help students who are behind catch up — known as “credit recovery” — is ending in December.

The statistics are alarming: More than 80 percent of African American kids and 70 percent of Latinos aren’t on track to graduate. And while Prop. 30 passed, preventing any more cuts, it doesn’t add to the district’s funding.

So Sup. Jane Kim is asking the city to pick up the $2.7 million tab for the credit recovery program, which makes perfect sense: If 1,900 kids don’t graduate from high school, the impacts on the city, from crime, unemployment, and social-service needs to homelessness, will vastly exceed that number. 

“It’s part of violence and crime prvention,” School Board member Sandra Fewer explained.

It’s also an issue of civic responsibility — we, as San Franciscans, can’t just let those kids fail. “Remember, these are the ones who stuck it out, who are really trying,” Kim told me. “They aren’t the drop-outs.”

There is, of course, the question of whether this is going to be an ongoing problem — what about the class of 2015? Fewer thinks the numbers will be a lot lower then: “”We’ve learned a lot,” she said. “We’ve had early warning indicators and I don’t think we’ll see these numbers again.”

Kim said that at first she thought the appropriation request would be noncontroversial — it is, after all, a fairly modest amount of money, and the city’s budget picture is improving. “We’re doing fairly well,” Kim said. “One of the promises of all this tech growth was that we’d get some more revenue, and I think we need to spread that wealth.”

But the Mayor’s Office and some of her colleagues weren’t ready to go along. So, as often happens in these situations, somebody found some fiscal magic — the Mayor’s Office folks “discovered” that the city had put an additional $1.5 million into the school district’s allocation from the Rainy Day Fund. Gee, maybe that could cover part of the cost.

Now it gets tricky.

The Rainy Day Fund, which Assemblymember Tom Ammiano created when he was supervisor, requires the city to set aside cash in flush years to use when times are tigher — and part of it goes to the school district. That money has been used in the past few years to prevent teacher layoffs. (Another whole crazy issue — the district has to issue layoff notices in the spring, and then rescind them, which sucks for everyone, but at least the Rainy Day Fund money has made most of the recissions possible).

So the teachers union isn’t thrilled with the idea of taking money that would prevent layoffs and using it for another worthy program. “We’re in support of the $2.7 million allocation,” union staffer Ken Tray told me. “We can’t fail these kids. But we’re afraid that the money that would go for this very good thing would lead to teacher layoffs.”

Sup. David Campos has concerns, too: “I think the Rainy Day Fund should stand on its own terms,” he said. “If any time something comes up we say let’s take it from the Rainy Day Fund, it can become a problem.”

He supports spending city money to help the students: “If it’s a crisis, we should handle it as a crisis.”

Which makes perfect sense to me. This IS a crisis, and Kim has properly identified a small amount of money for a one-time effort to address it, and in the end, her allocation would save the city way more than it costs. I can’t see why the mayor and the supervisors have to play games here; this is serious, serious stuff, and if the district thinks it can address it in a serious way for a modest amount of money at a time when the economy is picking up and the city budget is improving, why not just do it?

Dick Meister: We all need a higher minimum wage

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5

By Dick Meister

Bay Guardian columnist 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.

Election’s over, the good guy won, so what now for working people? Labor’s wish list for our re-elected president and the new Congress is long, but certainly the most basic item is raising the pay of our poorest workers by raising the minimum wage.

 About four million workers have been living in poverty or near-poverty at the current minimum of $7.25 an hour – $15,000 a year at most before taxes and other deductions. And that’s assuming the workers manage to find full time, year-round jobs.

There’s been no lack of congressional bills to raise the minimum since it was last raised in 2007, the latest introduced this year by two Democrats, Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa and Rep. George Miller of California.  Their bill would increase the rate to $9.80 an hour by 2014, index the rate to rise automatically with any rise in the cost of living after that, and set the rate for tipped workers at 70 percent of the minimum.

 Raising the minimum would help us all. The National Employment Law Project (NELP) estimates that increased consumer spending generated by the proposed raise would create the equivalent of more than 100,000 full time jobs. Other estimates indicate that every dollar increase in wages for workers at the minimum would create more than $3,000 in new spending after a year.

It’s often argued by those opposing a raise that a raise would be mainly a burden on small businesses, but NELP found that more than two-thirds of minimum wage workers are employed by large companies.  There’s no doubt many of the larger employers could easily afford a raise, especially since, as NELP notes, most of them are fully recovered from the Great Recession and are back making strong profits.

It’s not surprising that the opposition to a raise is led by corporate employers, but how does the general public feel about raising the minimum? A poll conducted in February of this year showed that nearly three-fourths of likely voters nationwide would support raising the federal minimum to $10 an hour and indexing it to inflation.

States, counties and cities can set their own minimums, as long as they at least equal the federal rate, and voters in 18 states and several cities have by substantial margins approved minimums greater than the federal rate.

In 2004 and 2006, state wage rates above the federal minimum were approved by voters in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Missouri, Montana, Nevada and Ohio. As for a federal raise, President Obama pledged during his initial election campaign in 2008 that he’d seek an increase to $9.50 an hour. But he did not do that, and said nothing about a raise during his re-election campaign this year.

Meanwhile, however, voters have recently raised the minimum rates in three cities, Albuquerque, San Jose and Long Beach.  NELP’s executive director, Christine Owens, hails the raises as a “major victory for workers.”

The rate in Albuquerque jumped a whole dollar to $8.50 an hour and will automatically adjust to future increases in the cost of living. NELP calculates that will affect an estimated 40,000 workers, generate $18 million in new consumer spending and support creation of 160 new jobs as businesses expand to meet the increased demand.

The minimum wage in San Jose rose from $8 an hour, the current California rate, to $10. NELP says that should raise the pay of almost one-fifth of the citywide workforce, boost consumer spending by $190 million and support creation of 200 new full-time jobs.

The raise in Long Beach does not apply to all workers there, but does set a higher minimum for hotel workers, who are essential to the success of the city’s booming hospitality industry. Their minimum pay will rise to $13 an hour from an average of only $10.  They will also get five paid sick leave days per year.

City minimums in California and elsewhere in the country range up to San Francisco’s rate that will reach $10.55 an hour next year.

NELP’s Owens notes that “with growing numbers of working people relying on low-wage jobs to make ends meet, the voters recognize that raising the minimum wage fulfills our basic obligation to ensure that work provides a path out of poverty. Higher wages for the lowest-paid workers in our economy will promote upward economic mobility and help accelerate post-recession recovery.”

It’s time for the president and Congress to recognize that vital truth.

Bay Guardian columnist 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.

Women complain about F.X. Crowley’s union

Andrew Lam
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0
Women complain about F.X. Crowley’s union

Four women filed National Labor Relations Board complaints and one of them filed a lawsuit alleging gender discrimination against a union run by supervisorial candidate F.X. Crowley, public records show.

Many of their charges were dismissed, but in at five instances, the complaints ended in settlements — and some involved substantial payments to the women.

The union, Local 16 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Moving Picture Technicians, Artists and Allied Crafts, has never admitted to gender discrimination.

Four settlement agreements that occurred while Crowley, a candidate in District 7, was the union’s business agent contain confidentiality clauses. But details of a lawsuit settled in 2008 are public — and the records show that the plaintiff, Sandy Reed, accepted $500,000 to settle claims of gender discrimination, harassment, retaliation, and disability discrimination.

Crowley says that the accusations of discrimination are completely untrue. When we asked if gender discrimination went on at Local 16 under his leadership, he replied, “absolutely not.”

“Local 16 has never admitted that there’s been any discrimination at the union hall,” said William Sokol, an attorney for the union. “The union is steadfast that there has been absolutely no discrimination.”

SANDY REED’S CASE

Reed works in craft service, catering film shoots. Since 1989, she worked regularly on sets that were organized by the union and protected by a union contract. She even paid the union 3.5 percent of her earnings in “work fees.”

But some craft-service jobs required union membership, and when she tried to become a union member, Reed alleged in her suit, she ran into problems. She was informed that applicants needed to take a three-year apprenticeship class — and then told that the classes were full, year after year. Meanwhile, male friends and colleagues, doing what she saw as similar work, were brought in as “auxiliary members,” a process by which workers can bypass the apprenticeship program and become members, she claimed in her suit.

In 2001, she filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Office, asking what recourse she could take for what she perceived as discrimination based on gender and disability.

The EEOC made a determination in her favor, and in 2003, Reed sued Local 16, its president Richard Putz, and Crowley. Reed settled in 2008, after the case went before labor arbitrator Gerald McKay.

In his findings, McKay wrote: “The Union’s arbitrary standards provided the opportunity for the Plaintiff to claim that the reason for her denial was based on her status as a woman. Whether it is true or not true, the Union has forfeited its defense by not having any objective or transparent criteria against which one could measure the Plaintiff to see whether she is being rejected for reasons other than her status as a woman. The Plaintiff’s evidence is sufficiently strong to conclude that it is quite possible that she was discriminated against in her request for membership because of her status as a woman. What the Union has failed to do is to rebut that assertion by objective evidence that there were other reasons for her rejection. The Arbitrator is persuaded that the Plaintiff was the victim of discrimination because of her status as a woman.”

But charges aimed specifically at Crowley and Richard Putz, the union’s president, were dismissed. The two had allegedly facilitated the discrimination.

We asked Sokol about Reed’s case. “I don’t think Sandy Reed’s case was about gender discrimination at all,” he said. “That may be her retrospective point of view on that. That sure wasn’t what the case was about at the time.”

OTHER CHARGES

Charlotte Laughon’s story, as she tells it, followed a similar path — she told us she was prevented from joining the union, and retaliated against when she took legal roads in an attempt to rectify the situation.

Laughon and two other women, Victoria Lewis and Laura Chariton, filed a joint National Labor Relations Board charge in 1998.

Chariton declined to comment for this story.

“We just wanted to be able to join the union,” Laughon told us. “I want to work in my chosen field.”

The case was settled in 2000.

In the settlement agreement, Local 16 agreed to pay the women damages. The settlement also stipulated that they be permitted to join the union.

But when they joined, Laughon and Lewis say, they didn’t get as much work as they wanted. They described it as being “blackballed.”

At Local 16, members call in when they are free to work to be added to referral lists. Producers and directors sometimes call the union for availability lists and referrals of workers, although producers and directors also use other methods to find crews.

The women say that their names weren’t being added to referral lists that the union made available to employers. Laughon says she called every week to ask to be added to the list, as well as asking for copies of the list to check if her name was on them.

Laughon said she could not recall how many EEOC and NLRB charges she filed during that time, but there were many.

Three of those charges were consolidated in July 2005, and the next year, Laughon and the union had reached another settlement agreement. It was ordered that the union furnish Laughon with back pay and send her documents detailing who was on referral lists and other information about several films that had recently been shot in San Francisco.

Crowley said that the union only settled to save money, and that he believes if the cases had gone to court, the union would have won.

Local 16 has also sued Laughon. After the 2000 settlement, the union claimed, she breached the confidentiality agreement.

“Following a resolution between the union and a member of the union, the member breached the terms of the settlement which ultimately resolved in arbitration proceeding and federal court proceeding. The union has a judgment against her in the six figure range,” said Kristina Hillman, an attorney with Weinberg, Roger, and Rosenfeld, the firm that represents Local 16.

Hillman added that “The union is hopeful that she would be gainfully employed,” because she could then pay the money she owes Local 16.

Laughon admitted that she hasn’t paid the judgment. She denies breaching the contract, and told us the case against her had been dismissed.

Crowley said that he is named on these settlements simply because of his role as business manager, and that it has no bearing on his connection to any gender discrimination that may have taken place.

“I wasn’t sued as anything else other than the head of the local. I’m responsible for taking care of those things,” Crowley told us. Dealing with complaints like these is not uncommon, Crowley said, “When you’re the head of an organization.

“I have a track record of advancing woman in my industry,” Crowley told us. “As business manager for the stagehands, I promoted and mentored several woman to our Executive Board including the four woman who currently serve. I am also proud that I identified and recommended to the SF Opera its first female property master.

“I feel that someone’s doing this to make me look bad when all I’ve done is the best I could.”

Much ado about nudity

Zelda Bronstein
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69
Much ado about nudity

There was no public outcry when Pedro Villamore, a 44-year-old homeless gay man, was found dead in a doorway in the 500 block of Castro Street last December, a couple of weeks before Christmas and across the street from the holiday tree that the Merchants of Upper Market and Castro puts up every year to welcome big spenders into the neighborhood.

MUMC, which in years past opposed three homeless queer youth shelters and a free meals program at a local gay church, did not decry the fact that a member of our community died on the street — and where were the city’s homeless outreach teams? Nor did any of the residents of the neighborhood express any concern that others who have a problem with methamphetamine, the area’s drug of choice, might meet a similar fate — and shouldn’t the community be doing something about it?

Of course, if he had been one of the nudists who hang out naked in the Castro these days Villamore would’ve found himself on the front-page of Bay Area Reporter, the city’s gay weekly, while he was still alive. Not to mention the target of diatribes from the SF Chronicle’s chronically right-wing columnist C.W. Nevius.  

Sadly enough, a neighborhood that once stood for sexual and personal freedom has succumbed to anti-nudism hysteria, even to the point of echoing Anita Bryant’s old rallying cry, “Save the children!”

Hysteria it is, of epic proportions. Some Castro residents and MUMC merchants actually persuaded their elected official, Supervisor Scott Wiener, to introduce anti-nudism legislation because a few naked men prance around the hood au natural, even sometimes sporting (horrors!) cock rings on their dicks. In a neighborhood where there’s no dearth of cock rings or any other sex toy, not to mention every variety of gay porn imaginable, and where guys walk around bars in underwear, residents don’t want public nudity. Huh? The neighborhood’s historic live-and-let-live attitude has obviously gone the way of Halloween and being able to walk into Pink Saturday without being scanned by a metal detector.

Has gay marriage and the freedom to “be all that you can be” in the military afflicted residents of the Castro with assimilation fever? What’s next — fundraising parties for Mitt Romney or a Castro chapter of the Moral Majority?

In a community that, according to a recent Williams Institute study, is rampant with poverty and suffers a serious lack of full-time employment for transgender people (75%, according to a report from this paper and the Transgender Law Center), not to mention a major drug and alcohol problem that makes gay men easy targets for muggings as they leave the bars at night, you’d think that public nudity would the last thing on anyone’s mind.  

People with AIDS continue to be pushed out of apartments in the Castro so that landlords and realtors can make tons of dough and LGBT seniors are forced to live with little economic or social support, regular cuts to services and benefits, and discrimination and isolation in nursing care facilities.

Yet from the volume of letters in the BAR and the number of calls Wiener says he’s received, you’d think that public nudity is the biggest problem in the world.

Pedro Villamore might disagree with that.

Tommi Avicolli Mecca has been a queer activist for the past 42 years, and a Castro resident for 20. He is editor of Smash the Church, Smash the State: the early years of gay liberation (City Lights).

Panther medicine

Andrew Lam
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1
Panther medicine

caitlin@sfbg.com

HERBWISE The night before our interview, Elder Freeman spoke alongside Peace and Freedom Party presidential candidate (and beloved sitcom sassmouth) Roseanne Barr, 2008 Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney, and others about the political possibilities of marijuana at a panel discussion held inside Oaksterdam University.

As Black Panther History Month begins, commemorating the 46th anniversary of the party’s founding by Freeman and his peers — see info on events at the end of this article — it seems only fitting that the cannabis movement and the Panthers’ struggle for social justice and the right to control our own communities be connected. For Freeman, the two have become inextricably linked.

The morning of the day we met at West Oakland’s Revolution Cafe, the 67 year old original member of LA’s Black Panther Party had two doctors appointments. Freeman has colon cancer. Three years ago, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He smokes marijuana to improve his appetite — he’s used to eating a single meal a day, but that’s not enough to keep up his strength during treatment. As a long-time 215 card-carrier, the last year’s federal crackdown on cannabis dispensaries threatens to send him back to buying pot on the streets.

Is access to marijuana a Black Panther issue? Freeman thinks so. He tells me why over a cup of coffee (cream, no sugar), and between interruptions by well-wishers — the entire neighborhood knows him, it seems, they all want to pay their respects.

“It’s all connected. The simple fact is that the judicial system is inadequate. The whole idea that they want to keep it in an illegal state is so that they can criminalize people.” He became aware of cannabis, he says, when Bob Marley started talking about its connection to non-violence. “I identified with the Rasta community for awhile,” he tells me.

Freeman’s been told that this current bout of cancer is incurable. But he’s also been told that the Watts uprising in 1965 that was responsible for his political awakening was actually riots and that he deserved to spend those seven years in jail alongside many of his Panther cohorts on a laundry list of mostly trumped-up charges. He didn’t buy those things either.

In fact, at Oaksterdam he shared with the crowd that he plans on going to Cuba for a second opinion on his medical treatment. “There’s something about American medicine that seems to be lacking,” he says.

Last night’s event was actually the first time Freeman spoke as a cannabis activist. He spends most of his time as an advocate these days working for inmate rights — not surprising when you consider he spent the better part of a decade as a political prisoner. He works with All of Us or None (www.allofusornone.org), a national organization that works to “ban the box” — remove questions about past incarceration from employment applications — promote inmate voting rights, and build awareness in the communities most affected by mass incarceration. So although personally, access to cannabis is clearly a health concern, he tends to speak about it with more a law and order focus.

“People are doing a lot of time for something that they shouldn’t even be in jail for.” He wonders out loud to me about why we don’t lock up cigarette producers. “They got it backwards. But that’s capitalism.”

BLACK PANTHER HISTORY MONTH RALLY

Oct. 13, noon

Frank Ogawa Plaza, Oakl.

BLACK PANTHER HISTORY MONTH EXHIBIT

Oct. 13, 2pm, free

Geoffrey’s Inner Circle

410 14th St., Oakl.

www.itsabouttimebpp.com

 

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