Gavin Newsom

Labor deal leaves open issues

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By Steven T. Jones

Yesterday’s joint announcement of a wage concession deal between the Mayor’s Office and Service Employees International Union Local 1021 — the largest union of city employees — included few details, and sources on both sides have been reluctant to give out much information until the rank-and-file have the chance to review it (they say more details could be forthcoming on the union’s website by tonight).

“The goal of this tentative agreement is to protect vital services for San Franciscans, minimize layoffs to employees, preserve the integrity of the collective bargaining agreement, and assist the City with its economic recovery,” read the brief joint public statement.

The Chronicle’s Marisa Lagos got a bit more, with unnamed sources telling her the union has agreed to forgo $40 million in promised pay increases over the next 16 months, including raises that were set to kick in this Saturday. While the promise to “minimize layoffs” was in there, the real question is how to do that, including whether Mayor Gavin Newsom will cooperate with the desire by labor and the left for a package of local tax measures later this year.

Given this week’s report predicting unprecedented budget deficits for each of the next three years — reaching a staggering $750 million by 2011 — there is growing recognition that service cuts alone simply will not solve this city’s fiscal crisis.

All hail our new corporate overlords!

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Editor’s Notes by Tim Redmond

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It was hard in the good old days. Back when we were young and San Francisco was cheap and I was really cool with my long hair and motorcycle and stuff. You could rent an apartment for $200 a month, and even though we weren’t making much money in those days, there was plenty left over for drugs.

Back then, a guy like me would never have respected a politician like Gavin Newsom. You know: Party pooper. High-society twit. He even blamed his drinking for his tawdry affairs; we always though our tawdry affairs were the best reason for our drinking. And we never went into rehab. How, like, Betty Ford can you be?

But now I’m older and have a family and take cholesterol medication and I’ve come to realize how much I like Gavin Newsom. I mean, I don’t like him, not all Beth Spotswood or anything, but he’s growing on me.

I remember when he was running for reelection, and he came down to the Guardian to talk to us, and I asked him why he should get another term when the city was so eminently fucked up, and he said: "Gee, why did I even bother to get up this morning?"

That’s the kind of question you’d never hear Jerry Brown or John Garamendi ask. They know why they got up this morning; they are past the time of wonder and self-doubt.

Old farts is what they are.

So this week we endorse Gavin — Our Mayor — for governor of California. You won’t read that in SF Weekly — they don’t even do endorsements, pathetic little shits.

In other news, I’m happy to announce that the Guardian has settled its lawsuit with SF Weekly and Village Voice Media.

Gav for Guv! Do it to ’em, Newsom

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A special Guardian endorsement

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POTUS here he comes!

California’s a tough place. It’s a state of clashing values — of coastal liberals who want good public services, environmental protection, and gay marriage and central valley conservatives who want nothing of the sort. It’s run by a fractious, divisive legislature that desperately needs a firm hand. It’s a state so big and complex that it has defied the abilities of generations of talented politicians, from Jerry Brown and George Deukmejian to Gray Davis and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

And yet, we refuse to give up on the Golden State. It’s been the Guardian‘s home since 1966, the place where we launched what would be the first alternative paper on the West Coast. It’s a place with endless possibilities, from sunshine to public power to tax reform, and we can’t risk its future on another worthless, wimpy chief executive.

That’s why we’re taking the unusual step of announcing an early endorsement for governor. We’re backing the only candidate strong enough, smart enough, sober enough, and secure enough in his own self worth and image to take on the Sisyphean task of running California. Today, we’re endorsing Gavin Newsom.

The mayor of San Francisco may look like a lightweight fop, but that’s unfair — we know him better. This is a young man who grew up cleaning toilets then went on to found his own successful business, using nothing but the wealth and connections of a billionaire family friend to help him. A man who has never spent a day in his life without comfortable surroundings yet developed a remarkable empathy for the less fortunate, and capitalized on their misery to promote his career. A man who travels the world in the company of movies stars and brilliant entrepreneurs, fearlessly promoting his home town while the rest of the whiney little twerps at City Hall just sit in committee meetings and bitch.

Losers.

Newsom’s platform is perfect for this state, at this time. He supports marriage; after all, he’s done it twice himself. He’s even gotten involved in the marriages of close friends and advisors! And he thinks the rest of us, no matter what our sexual proclivities, should have the right to be miserable too.

Newsom talks not just of change, but of "gigantic order-of-magnitude change." He thinks we should all come together to solve the state’s problems instead of pointing fingers of blame — and isn’t that just the sweetest?

Ask Nate

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The Guardian introduces a new weekly advice column from Nathan Ballard, press secretary to Mayor Gavin Newsom. We hope you enjoy his insights as much as we always have.

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Dear Nate:

Times are tough in San Francisco for a lot of people, but my life seems to be bottoming out these days. My good city job just got eliminated, the after school program my kids love was cut, my elderly grandmother just lost her home health nurse, and the police still have no idea who murdered my husband last year. He was even shot right in front of one of those crime cameras. What should I do?

Desperate for Help

Dear Dessie:

I reject the premise of your question. Things are going great in San Francisco, particularly under this mayor’s strong leadership. But we feel your pain, which seems to stem from the Board of Supervisors refusing to give the Police Department more money or the authority to constantly monitor those cameras. Sup. Aaron Peskin is the reason your husband’s killer hasn’t been caught. He may actually be the murderer.

Nate

Dear Nate:

I was thinking about going into politics. Do you have any advice for someone considering running for office?

Budding Candidate

Dear Bud:

As my boss has repeatedly said, being mayor is the toughest and most thankless job in the world. He’s constantly dealing with uppity supervisors and complaining constituents, at least when he’s in town. And if you’re one of those spineless, whiny so-called progressives, my advice is to just do something else. Get a real job, something in the private sector. But if you share Mayor Newsom’s belief in building a better San Francisco with more public-private partnerships — and you’ve got a lot of rich friends — I say go for it. But make sure you hire the best advisers by calling Storefront Political Media and Earned Media. We — , er, uh, I mean they really know what they’re doing.

Nate

Dear Nate:

I’m new to San Francisco and trying to understand the political dynamics here. Is the central struggle really between progressives and moderates? Those are the two labels I hear the most, but it doesn’t make much sense to me. What about liberal vs. conservative?

Political Science Student

Dear Poli-Sci:

I reject the label progressive, and so does the San Francisco Chronicle now that we convinced them to. So actually the central struggle in this town is between the radical and unrealistic ultra-liberals and moderates like Gavin Newsom. The mayor can be a fiscal conservative when he needs to be, and he’s liberal on social issues, which makes him a moderate and therefore the voice of reason. He could even be a progressive on some issues, if there were such a thing as a progressive, which there’s not. But he’s never ultra-anything, because that would make him crazy, which he also isn’t. Is that clear?

Nate

An L-Shaped Recovery

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Economic advisers are predicting an L-shaped recovery for San Francisco, and it’s going to involve 25 percent cuts to some city departments, on top of the 730 layoff notices that were sent out between July 2008 and May ’09.

“Staggering” is how Mayor Gavin Newsom described the $746 million deficit that the Mayor’s Office, the Controller and the Budget Analyst are projecting for FY 2011-12.

That number is in a ‘three-year budget projection” report that the Board’s budget committee hears tomorrow.

Controller Ben Rosenfield noted that the report “makes no assumptions about how budgets are going to be solved.”

But, of course, as Newsom pointed out, action will be taken, not just to address FY 2011-12’s $746 million projected deficit, but the $615 million deficit projected for FY 2010-11, and the $438 million deficit projected for FY 2009-10.

And those actions will be the subject of intense debate about priorities and solutions in the weeks to come.

Newsom’s proposed solutions for the upcoming fiscal year, include 12.5 percent budget cuts, plus 12.5 percent contingencies cuts, in some departments.

“I will not be accepting 25 percent cuts from some departments, but from others I will,” Newsom said. “I don’t believe in across-the-board cuts.”

Asked which departments he would accept 25 percent cuts from, Newsom told reporters, “You’ll find out when you read my budget.”

Green and stimulated

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By Rebecca Bowe

At a March 30 event hosted by Change SF, representatives from Green for All, the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and other grassroots organizations opened up a dialogue about green jobs and federal stimulus spending with District 10 Supervisor Sophie Maxwell and Mayor Gavin Newsom’s director of climate protection initiatives, Wade Crowfoot.

Participants spoke about projects they’re engaged in that are aimed at promoting environmental justice, green-jobs training and environmental education, and voiced support for programs that can boost prospects for disadvantaged workers by preparing them for jobs in the green sector. Supervisor Maxwell, a panelist, praised the audience for their work, saying, “It makes me feel like I’m not out of my mind when I’m asking, who are we stimulating with the stimulus package?”

At this stage of the game, Maxwell’s question has yet to be answered with any real clarity. Crowfoot noted that as part of the economic-recovery package, San Francisco is slated to receive some $7.7 million from a U.S. Department of Energy community block grant for energy efficiency and conservation purposes. Additionally, the city will receive some $1.5 million as part of a federal weatherization assistance program, he said, which seeks to curb the energy consumption of low-income residences. Crowfoot threw out some thoughts on how the funding might be used — including energy retrofits on city buildings, initiating a program to replace inefficient boilers, and working alongside existing community-based programs — but on the whole the outlook was vague, as he characterized these suggestions as still being “in the universe of interesting ideas.” Applications for specific project funding are due in late April, he noted. We tried calling a few times today to get more details, but haven’t heard back yet.

Sorry, Nate, but you’re wrong

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It’s too bad that Mayor Gavin Newsom’s communications director Nathan Ballard doesn’t seem to understand due process. At least not from an immigrant’s perspective.

I don’t say this lightly.

Ballard’s biography states that he is a former deputy city attorney, with a law degree from the University of California, Hastings. Whereas I’m just a lowly immigrant, who is under the impression that, in the United States, folks are assumed innocent until proven guilty.

But then along comes Ballard and tells me, yesterday, that I’m “wrong” in claiming that referring juveniles to federal Immigration Custom and Enforcement (ICE)—which is happening in San Francisco to youths are merely suspected of committing a felony and of being undocumented—raises due process questions.

If you don’t believe me–and I don’t blame you if you don’t, because it is hard to believe that this is happening in San Francisco with its huge immigrant communities–read the transcript of our exchange, which took place following the DCCC’s March 25 passage of a resolution that commits San Francisco to due process for all.

Phelan: “Nathan, following up on last night’s DCCC resolution in support of a Sanctuary City ordinance: Does the policy direction that Newsom ordered in 2008 guarantee due process for all?”

Ballard: “Yes. It was thoroughly vetted by the city attorney.”

Phelan: “I know the policy was vetted by the city attorney. But, as I understand it, juveniles are being referred to ICE without a hearing of any kind, which means, does it not, that due process is being denied?”

Ballard: “You’re wrong. Referral to ICE alone does not give rise to due process issues.”

If that’s not enough, check out the Examiner’s Ken Garcia, whose only source appears to be Ballard, framing the DCCC’s resolution as “one that demonized Mayor Gavin Newsom” and the more watered-down version as “one that said legal protections should not extend to people who commit violent felonies.”

But—and this really is the crux of the matter, folks—the problem with Newsom’s current policy is that it does not target folks who have been proven of committing a felony.

Instead, it targets folks suspected of, or charged with a felony.

DCCC supports sanctuary & due process for all

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The Democratic County Central Committee voted last night by an overwhelming majority (20 ayes, 5 abstains, I no) to support Debra Walker’s strong resolution, recommitting “support of the Constitution and our city’s Sanctuary Ordinance for all,” and rejecting Scott Wiener’s watered-down version (19 noes, 3 abstained, 5 ayes).

Walker, who plans to run for District 6 supervisor, when incumbent Chris Daly is termed out next year, says DCCC’s vote made her, “ feel good about the party.”

“It’s been way too long that this has been happening and we have done nothing substantive, on the part of the party,” said Walker, noting that a companion resolution asking President Barack Obama to stop the ICE raids will be introduced next month.

Last night’s vote came after several dozen immigrant residents attended the DCCC hearing and testified about the impact of San Francisco’s new policies toward immigrants.

As Angela Chan, staff attorney for the Asian Law Caucus told the Guardian, “One teenage girl bravely stood before the DCCC and said that as a result of the change in climate in San Francisco toward immigrants, she lived in fear each day that she would come home to find that her parents had been taken away by ICE. Another immigrant resident said that if the DCCC takes a stand to support immigrants, he would raise his children to become proud Democrats. Another immigrant resident, who was a mother and a child care provider for many families in SF, said it is difficult to know that the image of criminality is being projected onto her and her community, when most members of the community are hardworking, law-abiding, and family-oriented people.”

Chan says she appreciated the supportive comments she heard from Sups. David Campos, Daly, Robert Haaland, Michael Bornstein, and resolution co-sponsors Walker and Peskin.

“They demonstrated a strong commitment to upholding immigrant rights and a deep understanding of the contributions of immigrant residents to San Francisco,” Chan said. “I hope Mayor Newsom will take the cue from his own party (and his own residents), and swiftly move to rescind his undocumented youth policy and work with the immigrant community to develop a more thought-out and balanced policy that respects the due process rights of youth and the goals to the juvenile justice system.”

That vote confirms that Mayor Gavin Newsom’s decision to do an about face last summer on San Francisco’s long standing sanctuary city ordinance is coming back to haunt him, as the gubernatorial race heats up.

Asked if the policy direction that Newsom ordered in 2008 guarantees due process for all, Newsom’s communications director Nathan Ballard did a classic obfuscation, telling the Guardian, “Yes. It was thoroughly vetted by the city attorney.”

But according to the City Attorney’s office, the original ordinance never did assure due process, “ if an individual was arrested for felony crimes.”

As for the revised policy direction, it directs police officers to report any juvenile “suspected of being present in the United States in violation of immigration laws,” and “booked” for commission of a felony” to federal immigration authorities,

The language, which is contained in the juvenile probation department’s policies and procedures section, directs officers to take into consideration, amongst other things, prior criminal history and “presence of undocumented persons in the same area where arrested or involved in illegal activity.”

To Walker’s mind, such direction amounts to a, “slippery slope.”

“It puts a lot of discretion in the hands of the police on the streets, and can end up with juveniles being referred to ICE and taken back to their country of origin, without any representation,” Walker said.

Newsom’s chickens come home to roost

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It’s not easy being mayor. Especially, when you are running for governor.

In the past few years, Mayor Gavin Newsom appeared to have mastered the way to silence his critics: he avoided debating them.

He refused to show up to Board meetings. And when he finally did, it was to drop a shocking financial bomb, then run away before the supervisors could ask informed questions or participate in a collaborative solution to the City’s woes.

And since announcing his gubernatorial run, Newsom has been increasingly missing in action, even though the city is facing a massive economic crisis.

But now one of Newsom’s fiercest critics has found a way to get his attention.

The Nation of Islam’s Minister Christopher Muhammad has been showing up at town-hall meetings that Newsom is holding statewide as part of his gubernatorial campaign, complaining about unresolved issues around asbestos dust and other toxic materials at the Hunters Point Shipyard.

So far, Muhammad and his followers have showed up in Oakland, Napa and San Diego, and it’s likely they are not going to go away, any time soon.

As columnists Phil Matier and Andy Ross report in today’s Chronicle, after an item about assault rifles flowing in from Nevada, Newsom’s “handlers have a queasy feeling that they will be hearing more from the minister and his friends as the gubernatorial race heats up.”

It’s not clear the minister’s appearances make audiences sympathetic to his cause.

As one source reported, during Newsom’s March 12 town hall in Napa, which was held at the local fairgrounds, “it was standing room only and went fairly well until a group from Bayview/Hunter’s Pt. showed up and demanded to vent their spleen.”

“This really pissed off the over 55 crowd, thinning the herd somewhat,” said our source.

But, according to M&T, Newsom “even promised to sit down with the Nation’s leadership if only they would let the rest of the audience get some questions on.”

M&T claim that “no meeting, however, ever took place.”

But it makes you wonder what would happen, if other advocates who have been unable
to get Newsom’s ear, started to show up at his gubernatorial town-halls, too.

Saving SF’s human services

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EDITORIAL San Francisco stands to get more than $50 million in federal stimulus money designed to prevent cuts to health and human services. That could be a huge help to the city’s efforts to close a half-billion dollar budget gap. And the Department of Public Health is counting on its $27 million share to prevent layoffs and program closures.

But the city’s Human Services Agency, which ought to be able to spend some $25 million in federal money to keep alive programs for the homeless and the needy, is refusing to include that revenue as part of its budget for next year. That’s a terrible mistake that will literally cost lives.

The money comes under the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage program, known as FMAP. When President Obama announced that the additional funding would be available to cities and states Feb. 23, he specifically stated that the cash should prevent a loss of services: "This plan will also help ensure that you don’t need to make cuts to essential services Americans rely on now more than ever," he told the nation’s governors at a press event.

Somehow, though, Mayor Gavin Newsom doesn’t see it that way. The Newsom administration seems to believe that since the money is a one-time grant, it shouldn’t be used to pay salaries and keep ongoing operations afloat. That has infuriated critics, like Sup. John Avalos, who chairs the Budget Committee. "I’d like to see us use the money to prevent cuts to human services," he told the Guardian. "I think maybe the Newsom people want to make cuts and eliminate service programs anyway, and this doesn’t fit their plan."

We’re talking about employment services, homeless supportive housing, the Tenderloin drop-in scenter, job training for homeless people, and more essential services. Obviously, the city is facing a spike in unemployment and homelessness — the last thing that makes financial or policy sense is to cut the programs that unemployed and homeless people rely on.

We understand the problems with one-time federal grants. Money like that is typically put toward one-time uses — setting up a new program that will have to find its own funding later, or building something, or funding a temporary position. Use one-year grants for regular operating expenses and you run into trouble when the money is gone.

But this is an emergency situation, and the money that Washington is handing out is designed specifically to prevent cuts to health and human services. The stimulus money is supposed to be spent, now — and saving jobs, programs, and lives by preventing further budget cuts is exactly the sort of thing Obama intended when he made the money available.

But this is the best Newsom’s press flak, Nathan Ballard, can offer: "The mayor has not decided yet how this additional revenue will be used to solve the city’s $575 million budget shortfall," Ballard wrote us, "and he and his staff will be working with the directors of the DPH and HSA throughout the course of this decision-making process."

Mayor Newsom ought to be doing two basic things right now: Looking for every dollar that’s on the table or can be grabbed from somewhere to prevent the worst of this year’s budget cuts, and convening meetings and putting together a proposal to fix the city’s long-term revenue problems. We suggested holding a special election this spring or summer to put some new tax measures before the voters, but Newsom opposed that idea — and it’s looking less and likely to happen. But there’s no way to pass a credible budget in this city without planning for, and counting on, some significant revenue package in November.

Newsom’s still acting as if this budget crisis is nothing much to worry about. It’s time he took it seriously.

Follow the (green) federal stimpack money

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During yesterday’s Board committee hearing, which Sup. Eric Mar called, ” to obtain community input on the creation of jobs– particularly green collar jobs, in San Francisco, as the city is positioning itself for federal investment dollars”—Board President David Chiu made two requests of the city: a) please publish information about the status of all the city’s efforts in going after the stimpack dollars on the city’s website and b) let’s have a public hearing on the impact of these stimpack dollars on communities of color.

“Who is going to get jobs and be stimulated by these federal funds?” Chiu asked.

That’s when representatives from the city’s Department of Technology announced that the city iis constructing a website to track all the money coming from the $787 billion federal stimulus package and being sunk into San Francisco’s “shovel ready” projects.

So far, all the website shows is a photo of Gavin Newsom, assumedly saying, “Today we face extraordinary challenges,” and a pie chart that indicates that 70 percent of the funds are allocated to a category that is vaguely defined as “green”, with the remaining 30 percent split between “technology” and “education.”

The website is a good start in helping the public with what is usually an extraordinary challenge: trying to follow taxpayer dollars once they get into government coffers.

And as folks who attended yesterday’s hearing discovered, the first wave of federal funding–the formula funding that was calculated on the basis of census tract data–has already been allocated, mostly to shovel ready projects such as the Doyle Drive rebuild, Treasure Island and the Hunter’s Point Shipyard, with a second wave expected if the state uses some additional state formula funding, and a third wave of discretionary funding accessible, if San Francisco is successful at competing for it.

Folks at the hearing made some great suggestions as to how they’d like to see the money tracked: track it by district, by zip code, by jobs available, by training programs created, by energy efficiency block grants.

Let’s see how that plays out in the weeks and months to come.

Station leaves the train

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› steve@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY The Transbay Terminal rebuild is moving forward, but this multi-modal downtown transportation station seems to be pulling away from what was supposed to be its showcase centerpiece — the California High-Speed Rail Project — before it can satisfy the design and capacity needs rail officials require.

San Francisco officials from Mayor Gavin Newsom to Sup. Chris Daly, who sits on the Transbay Joint Powers Authority (TJPA) Board of Directors, all say high-speed rail must be a component of the Transbay Terminal. Yet they were caught off-guard when the California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) recently made clear that the station would need to handle up to 12 trains per hour, more than double what current station designs can accommodate.

Even as phase one of the station got underway in December (see "Breaking ground," 12/10/2008), it lacked the more than $300 million needed for a so-called train box that would make it easier and cheaper to later bring high-speed rail and Caltrain into what would otherwise be a $4.3 billion bus station and commercial complex.

TJPA officials were struggling with how to secure that money, ideally through federal stimulus funds, when officials from CHSRA and Caltrain told a Feb. 25 Metropolitan Transportation Commission meeting that current designs were inadequate for their needs (see "Stimuutf8g transit, 3/4/09).

While the demand for straight platforms, rather than the curved ones TJPA designed, can be fairly easily addressed, the volume issue is far more significant and costly. During a March 12 TJPA meeting on the issue, engineers said that adding the third floor of trains that would be needed to handle 12 trains per hour would add $1 billion to the cost. Even if no train box is built, TJPA officials say that just the foundation work and deeper dig needed for the higher capacity would add $500–$700 million to the cost of the project’s first phase.

The good news is the federal stimulus package sets aside $8 billion for high-speed rail development, and Transbay Terminal is one of the few shovel-ready projects out there that would qualify for immediate assistance. The bad news is the criteria for attaining those funds won’t be ready by the time TJPA plans to sign its construction contracts in late May.

Delaying the project would not only increase costs and forestall the immediate economic stimulus impacts of the construction, it would also anger bus transit agencies such as AC Transit, which kicked in $57 million to the project. "AC Transit expects the TJPA to meet its commitment to AC Transit and its passengers, as well as keep the construction of phase one on schedule," AC Transit attorney Kenneth C. Scheidig wrote to TJPA March 11.

At the March 12 meeting, TJPA members uniformly reacted with dismay to their dilemma, criticizing CHSRA for its unrealistic demands. Program manager Emilio Cruz said the agency had designed to high-speed rail specifications and only learned in January of the desire for trains to run up to every five minutes during peak hours.

"They were presented without adequate justification for why they need increased frequency," Cruz told the TJPA board as he offered his analysis for why that frequency isn’t needed to handle the 12 million annual riders the system predicts for 2030 and noting that Tokyo — which has far greater volume and density — is the only high-speed rail station in the world to run 12 trains per hour.

CHRSA executive director Mehdi Morshed said Cruz isn’t a rail expert and disputed his analysis, noting that Tokyo and Paris each have multiple stations that together run far more than 12 trains per hour. He also noted that the BART system is at capacity after just 30 years.

"We are building a train that has the capacity to hold not just the riders in 2030, but beyond that," he said. "They are trying to fit the high-speed trains of the future in a very limited space, and we’re telling them that’s not adequate."

Morshed said his agency is still years away from getting into station design, but has been as accommodating as possible with TJPA’s desire to move forward now. Daly and others have pointedly criticized CHSRA and its chair, Quentin Kopp, to which Morshed said, "Sure, we can take all the blame, but how is that going to help San Francisco get its station?"

Save the Chronicle!

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EDITORIAL The San Francisco Chronicle story March 15 on Mayor Gavin Newsom’s frequent absence from the city drew comments from many who believe the mayor is out of touch, wandering the state seeking votes for governor at a time when the city is facing a historic financial crisis. The news was really nothing new — we’ve been reporting for months now that the mayor is disengaged in the business of running the city. But it appeared on the front page of the local daily newspaper, and that put the story right in the center of civic discourse.

We’ve been as critical of the Chron as anyone in town. For 42 years, we’ve been reporting on the failures of the daily newspapers in San Francisco, and we regularly blast the Hearst-owned near-monopoly daily for its failure to cover major stories and its biased slant on others.

And as the first alternative newspaper in the country founded specifically to provide an editorial and advertising alternative to the moribund dailies, we’re the first to agree that the Chron doesn’t, and shouldn’t, have the final word on what’s important in this city. We’re big supporters of all sorts of alternative media, and we’re glad to see that Web-based news publications, some of them daily, are appearing and offering different ways for people to find information.

But if the Chronicle dies, the city will lose an important, if often infuriating, civic institution. Hearst should not be allowed to turn San Francisco into the first major American city with no major daily newspaper — not without extensive oversight, hearings, and a chance for somebody else to take over the paper and try to make it work.

Hearst is complaining that the Chronicle is losing about $50 million a year. Of course, Hearst, a private corporation, won’t show anyone, even its own unions, its books.

We realize the newspaper business is rough right now, but we’re not convinced that running a daily paper in San Francisco is a doomed proposition. This is one of the wealthiest, best-educated markets in the world — and the fact that Hearst can’t sell enough newspapers and ads to float its operation is in significant part a sign of how miserable the paper’s management has failed. It tried to be a regional paper, which flopped. It’s become so politically conservative that progressives, particularly young progressives who make up the future of its demographic base, see little reason to subscribe.

And let’s not forget — Hearst has made a fortune in San Francisco. In 1965, the Hearst-owned Examiner and the family-owned Chronicle formed a joint operating agreement — a government-sanctioned monopoly, blessed by special legislation, that allowed two ostensibly competing companies to fix prices, share markets and pool profits. For the next 26 years, the JOA was a license to print money. Local advertisers paid billions in high rates to the newspaper combine, and those profits far, far eclipse anything the Chron has lost since Hearst bought it.

When the New York company bought out the deYoung Thieriot family in 2001, it sought to create a true monopoly by shutting down the Ex entirely. A local outcry, a lawsuit by Clint Reilly, and threats by federal regulators forced Hearst to sell the bones of the Ex to the Fang family, which essentially got the paper free and was given a $66 million subsidy to run it.

Now, after all this, Hearst is threatening to close shop and walk away, destroying hundreds of union jobs and wiping out a newspaper that is, by its nature, something of a public utility. And once again — ironically, just as the Chron reported — Mayor Newsom is missing in action. Newsom should be taking the lead on preventing the loss of a major local business. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who is asking the Justice Department to relax anti-competitive rules on newspaper ownership (a bad idea), should instead push legislation barring a daily newspaper in a one-paper town from closing down unless and until the owners offer it for sale at a fair price and give someone else a chance to run it. Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer should join her.

The Chron unions have talked of an interest in buying the paper. Financier Warren Hellman confirmed to us that he supports creating a nonprofit entity to take over Chronicle operations. Hearst Corp., which has almost certainly already written off its $600 million purchase as a tax loss, should be forced to work with potential buyers — and give them a deal no worse than what the Fangs got in 2001.

The future of the Chron has implications for the entire industry — and if Hearst is going to carry out the assassination of a newspaper, it should be done in a fishbowl. Congress, the state Legislature, and the San Francisco supervisors should hold hearings, subpoena the Hearst executives, and push alternatives. And Newsom needs to quit gallivanting around the state and start working on his own city’s problems. *

Budget & Finance Committee to discuss solar plant

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By Rebecca Bowe

A proposed solar-power project slated for discussion at the city’s Budget & Finance Committee on March 18 could help San Francisco edge a little closer to its greenhouse-gas reduction goals. But instead of owning and operating the solar photovoltaic system itself, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission would enter into a long-term contract with a private entity – and the new approach has raised questions from committee members.

Supervisor Carmen Chu and Mayor Gavin Newsom proposed the deal. The idea is to establish a 25-year power purchase agreement between the SFPUC and Recurrent Energy for a solar-photovoltaic power plant. The large-scale system would be constructed atop a 480,000-square foot rooftop at the SFPUC’s Sunset Reservoir. The city would lease the space to the company for $1 a year, and the SFPUC would agree to purchase power from Recurrent Energy at a rate estimated to be just under $2 million a year. According to a report prepared by the city’s Budget Analyst’s Office, the cost for electricity over the entire 25-year stretch would come out to about $68.5 million.

Editorial: Save the Chronicle!

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If Hearst is going to assassinate yet another newspaper, it must do so in a fishbowl. Congress, the state Legislature, and the supervisors should hold hearings, subpoena Hearst executives, and push alternatives.

The San Francisco Chronicle story March 15 on Mayor Gavin Newsom’s frequent absence from the city drew comments from many who believe the mayor is out of touch, wandering the state seeking votes for governor at a time when the city is facing a historic financial crisis. The news was really nothing new — we’ve been reporting for months now that the mayor is disengaged in the business of running the city. But it appeared on the front page of the local daily newspaper, and that put the story right in the center of civic discourse.

We’ve been as critical of the Chron as anyone in town. For 42 years, we’ve been reporting on the failures of the daily newspapers in San Francisco, and we regularly blast the Hearst-owned near-monopoly daily for its failure to cover major stories and its biased slant on others.

Weirdness at the Washbag

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By Steven T. Jones

There was a surreal air to last night’s celebration of the Board of Supervisors’ Class of 2000 at the Washington Bar and Grill in North Beach. That weird vibe was created mostly by the fact that the event was sponsored by Platinum Advisors and the Residential Builders Association, two groups that didn’t always see eye-to-eye with that progressive-dominated class.
That class – which included progressive firebrands Matt Gonzalez and Chris Daly, liberals Aaron Peskin and Jake McGoldrick, and independent conservative Tony Hall – were swept into office largely as a backlash against the top-down rule of then-Mayor Willie Brown, who shares both an office and a corporatist ideology with Platinum.
All those guys were in attendance and the mood was buoyant, helped by the free booze and food. Hall called the supervisors elected in 2000 “the original class of rebels,” while Peskin told the crowd, “Thank you for keeping the progressive spirit of San Francisco alive.”
But it was Brown who had the quote of the night in his not-so-subtle dig at the prickly current Mayor Gavin Newsom (who was rumored to be upset about the gathering): “My guess is if that class was still in place today, they would want me as their mayor.”

Spin vs. substance

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› rebeccab@sfbg.com

Hollywood paparazzi crews are beginning to follow high-profile politicians, such as Mayor Gavin Newsom, the same way they track the likes of Britney Spears, the San Francisco Chronicle reported recently. And when a celebrity gossip photographer surreptitiously aims the lens at a political leader, the picture that emerges isn’t always flattering.

Likewise, the documents that can be extracted through public records laws — including the federal Freedom of Information Act, California Public Records Act, and San Francisco Sunshine Ordinance — don’t always paint political figures in the most favorable light.

Both end products leave the same impression of a glimpse behind the curtain — consumers feel they’re privy to the raw, unpackaged truth. But while photos may show politicians looking silly or meeting with controversial power brokers, documents show how the people’s business is being conducted. So the willingness of officials to promptly comply with requests for documents and information says a great deal about whether their public statements match their private deeds.

Nathan Ballard, Newsom’s press secretary, characterizes (through e-mail, the medium through which he insists on dealing with the Guardian) the mayor’s commitment to open government as being "as strong or stronger than any public official in this country."

But to hear some proponents of open government tell it — and in our experience here at the Guardian — the Newsom administration keeps much of the mayor’s business under wraps, leaving many info-seekers in the dark or reliant on Ballard’s spin. Responses to requests for public records tend to be delayed and incomplete, and queries directed to the mayor’s office of communications are often returned with terse, one-line e-mails that obscure more than illuminate.

Rick Knee, a longtime member of the city’s Sunshine Ordinance Task Force — the city body charged with upholding the open-government rule — says Newsom has been in violation of the Sunshine Ordinance on several occasions. "Mayor Newsom’s actual practices regarding Sunshine have been, shall we say, less than what one would desire of him," Knee says. Despite those violations, he adds, the mayor "continues to refuse to provide what remedies the task force calls for on his part."

Under Proposition 59, a state constitutional amendment that won overwhelming voter approval in 2004, the records kept by public officials are considered to be "the people’s business." In practice, however, it doesn’t always pan out that way.

For example, a group of citizens informally known as the Sunshine Posse who have made it a personal quest to improve government transparency by peppering city departments with Sunshine requests, have sounded alarm bells over the mayor’s refusal to release a more detailed daily calendar. One Sunshine Posse member began seeking more fleshed-out mayoral itineraries back in 2006, according to group member Christian Holmer, to gain an understanding of whom the mayor had met with and what had been discussed.

But he quickly ran into a slew of difficulties. "The Mayor’s Office ignored our simple request for 255 days," Holmer told the Guardian. "We sent weekly reminders to most of his staff and key members of the city attorney’s executive and government teams for months and months." After bringing the matter to the attention of the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force, Holmer says, a new set of problems cropped up. "For the Mayor’s Office, it was an ongoing tale of crashed hard drives, changing office personnel, lost documents, overt/covert confusion, and best intentions."

Nearly three years later, the scrutinizing crew remains frustrated with the results, saying the Mayor’s Office has only come forth with a watered-down schedule, called the Prop. G calendar ("scrubbed" and "virtually useless," in Holmer’s opinion), rather than the more descriptive document known as the working calendar. Many days, Newsom’s Prop. G calendar is blank, and seldom is there more than a few hours worth of activities, each one usually described in just a few words.

The Prop. G calendar seeks to comply with the minimum standards for calendars set forth in the city’s 1999 sunshine law: "The mayor … shall keep or cause to be kept a daily calendar wherein is recorded the time and place of each meeting or event attended by that official…. For meetings not otherwise publicly recorded, the calendar shall include a general statement of issues discussed."

The working calendar is a confidential document, the Mayor’s Office held in a letter responding to the Sunshine Posse’s complaint that the mayor was withholding public information. "The Mayor’s Office prepares a working calendar that is extremely detailed and accounts for his time from departure from home until his return in the evening," the letter states. "The working calendar contains not only the mayor’s meeting schedule, but also confidential information such as the officers assigned to protect him, security contact numbers, the mayor’s private schedule, details of his travel [etc.]. As with past administrations, the mayor’s staff keeps the working calendar and its contents confidential…. The computer system automatically deletes the working calendar after five days."

Despite this defense, the task force determined that the working calendar is in fact a public document that should be provided to the citizens. Doug Comstock was task force chair when the issue was heard. "We made it very clear that they have to turn over those documents," he says. "If there’s a document that’s being created using public monies and public funds, that is a more specific calendar, that’s the document that needs to be provided." Comstock also noted that it is possible for the Mayor’s Office to redact sensitive information that could pose a security risk. Nonetheless, he says, three years have passed and "the real calendar remains hidden from view."

When asked about the complaints regarding the calendar, Ballard responded, "Their criticism is baseless. We exceed far [sic] the requirements of the Sunshine Ordinance with the level of disclosure that we provide."

Erica Craven, an attorney who sits on the task force, believes there’s room for improvement on the mayor’s practices regarding sunshine. "My instinct is that there are a lot of people who work in the Mayor’s Office who are committed to open government," she says. "But there are some troubling things we’ve seen as well, such as complaints where the Mayor’s Office hasn’t sent a representative to respond to allegations. I would like to see a little bit more commitment and leadership on open government from the Mayor’s Office — I think it would set a good tone in City Hall."

In recent weeks, interest in the mayor’s schedule has intensified once again in light of the city’s financial predicament. In the face of a looming budget deficit of unprecedented size and with the economy in shambles and jobs at stake, journalists and affected citizens are seeking details about how the conundrum is being dealt with inside City Hall.

Last month, the Guardian filed a request under the Sunshine Ordinance for details on the mayor’s meetings about the budget, asking for "a list of all the labor and business leaders and supervisors that he’s met with about the budget, the dates of those meetings and how long they lasted, all documents associated with those meetings (including any agendas, communications to set up those meetings and follow-up communications after the meetings), and summaries of what was discussed at those meetings, including any outcomes or agreements."

Under the Sunshine Ordinance, such "immediate disclosure" requests are supposed be honored in two days’ time, but it took five days and a Guardian reminder for the Mayor’s Office to respond via e-mail, saying: "As you know, the Sunshine Ordinance does not require us to create documents. If you can point to a specific document that you’re seeking, I’d be happy to try and locate it for you."

Three days later, the Mayor’s Office forwarded the Prop. G calendar, which revealed that the mayor booked 7.5 hours of meetings about the budget crisis over the course of 17 days, none with labor representatives (whom Ballard said Newsom had met with). It included one-line entries disclosing whom he met with and when, but no information concerning the substance of the discussion. When the Guardian pressed for more information, the Mayor’s Office said there were no other documents associated with those meetings or any other information they were willing to provide.

Similarly, just last week, the Guardian tried to find out what the Mayor’s Office was doing about reports that Caltrain and the California High-Speed Rail Authority were balking at using the Transbay Terminal, citing technical concerns. On March 6, we asked who was working on the issue, what communications there had been with these agencies, and other basic information.

Ballard would say only that "The mayor is fully engaged in finding a comprehensive regional solution that ensures that high speed rail will come to the Transbay Terminal," and denied further requests for more substantive information.

Ballard acknowledges that the Mayor’s Office has "occasionally" been found to be in violation of the city’s Sunshine Ordinance. However, he noted, "I can’t remember a time when the Ethics Commission did not overturn a task force decision against our office. In other words, most if not all task force decisions against us have, upon review, been found to be without merit."

Actually, the chronically under-funded Ethics Commission isn’t charged with judging whether SOTF findings have merit. The SOTF is the arbiter of whether the Sunshine Ordinance was violated, but it has no enforcement authority and therefore must rely on Ethics to pursue violations — if it has the will and resources to do so.

This touches on a trend that Knee says is a fundamental challenge to upholding the Sunshine Ordinance. "If the [task force] finds that there has been a willful violation … we can refer our findings to any or all of four entities: Ethics, the Board of Supervisors, the District Attorney, and the California Attorney General," Knee explains. "At one time or another we have made referrals to any or all of those organizations. And every single time, those entities have thrown out our findings. Not one complaint we have submitted has been upheld."

To remedy this, he says, a package of proposed reforms is in the works. "We want to give the task force some teeth," he says. "We want enforcement power of our own."

Steven T. Jones contributed to this report.

Letters

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THE VICE MAYORS


Thanks so much for the great article on Climate Theater ("Still crazy after all these years," 2/25/09). I’ve lived and worked in SoMa since 1973 and can think of no art venue that has done more to create a vibrant, inspiring community.

If playa types like Suck Up Willie Brown (I’ve seen him at Hollywood parties) and our current mayor, The Talking Haircut, could live in Climate World for six months, they might develop souls.

Joegh Bullock and Marcia Crosby are the co-mayors, or shall I say vice-mayors, of South of Market. Thanks for giving them props.

John LeFan

San Francisco

THE FATE OF THE CHRON


Good riddance to the San Francisco Chronicle and good luck finding a buyer.

I know of one union that has already been cut to the bone — pressmen and prepress workers, Local 4N. As a matter of fact, there will be about 200 press workers out of a job in June when the Canadian Company Transcontinental starts printing the Chronicle at the new printing facility in Fremont. Not one member from the San Francisco Local has been hired.

All production department union jobs are being outsourced. This includes mailers, machinists, and electricians. I wouldn’t count on any of them giving anything up since they are going to be unemployed come June 29th.

Maybe the Hearst Corporation should cancel the 15-year, $1 billion contract it signed with Transcon. I’m sure all the unions that will be out on the street come June would be willing to sign contracts for a lot less.

Bruce Carlton

Local 4N retiree, San Francisco

SF’S SLEEPING GIANT


Paging Matt Gonzalez! If truth is the first casualty of war, what is ceded in total occupation? Calvin Welch’s op-ed ("It’s a recession, let’s get cracking," 2/25/09) reflects the nascent realization that what San Francisco lost in electing Gavin Newsom over Gonzalez, the nation has now lost in validating the pro-corporate centrist DLC (Democratic Leadership Council) wing of the Democratic Party on a grand scale.

The opposition from the right is inarticulate and, as Welch notes, the truly democratic left is hopelessly inarticulate. Sustainability, of our environment, our economies, and our health is the challenge that must be met. It wasn’t that long ago that "a sleeping giant stirred in San Francisco." Can it happen again? Paging Matt Gonzalez!

Poplicola

From sfbg.com

The Guardian welcomes letters commenting on our coverage or other topics of local interest. Letters should be brief (we reserve the right to edit them for length) and signed. Please include a daytime telephone number for verification.

Corrections and clarifications: The Guardian tries to report news fairly and accurately. You are invited to complain to us when you think we have fallen short of that objective. Complaints should be directed to Paula Connelly, the assistant to the publisher. We prefer them in writing, but Connelly can also be reached by phone at (415) 255-3100. If we have published a misstatement, we will endeavor to correct it quickly and in an appropriate place in the newspaper. If you remain dissatisfied, we invite you to contact the Minnesota News Council, an impartial organization that hears and considers complaints against news media. It can be reached at 12 South Sixth St., Suite 1122, Minneapolis MN 55402; (612) 341-9357; fax (612) 341-9358.

Newsom’s state secrets

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EDITORIAL On January 21st, his second day in office, President Barack Obama announced that he was dramatically changing the rules on federal government secrecy. His statement directly reversed, and repudiated, the paranoia and backroom dealings of the Bush administration.

"The Freedom of Information Act," the new president declared, "should be administered with a clear presumption: in the face of doubt, openness prevails. The government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears. Nondisclosure should never be based on an effort to protect the personal interests of government officials at the expense of those they are supposed to serve. In responding to requests under the FOIA, executive branch agencies (agencies) should act promptly and in a spirit of cooperation, recognizing that such agencies are servants of the public."

The following day, Jan. 22, we sent an e-mail to Mayor Gavin Newsom’s press secretary, Nathan Ballard. "Now that President Obama has made a dramatic change in federal FOI policy," we asked, "would Mayor Newsom would be willing to issue a similar executive order in San Francisco?"

Ballard’s response:

"We wholeheartedly agree with the President on this issue. The mayor has charged my office with handling sunshine requests for the executive branch of city government, and he has directed us to cooperate swiftly and comprehensively to all sunshine requests, and to err on the side of openness."

That, to put it politely, is horsepucky.

As we report in this issue, it’s difficult, and at times insanely difficult, to get even basic public information out of Newsom’s office. Take his calendar: by law, the mayor is required to make public his appointments calendar. Other public officials manage to do that — in fact, the president of the United States, who has a tad more national and personal security issues than the mayor of San Francisco, lets the press know what he’s doing almost every minute of every day.

Most days, though, what we get from Newsom’s office is a statement like, "The mayor has no public events scheduled today." Or, "The mayor is holding meetings at City Hall." Meetings with whom? What private events is he attending? What’s he do all day? What lobbyists, activists, public officials, or campaign donors is he talking to in his City Hall office? Why is that some huge state secret?

Or take the city’s terrifying budget problems. When Board of Supervisors President David Chiu began holding meetings with key stakeholders to look for a solution, Newsom refused to show up, saying there was no need. The mayor claimed he was holding his own meetings with everyone who needed to be involved.

That was news to many of the people in Chiu’s sessions. So who was the mayor talking to? The mayor’s office won’t tell us — and the limited calendar information he releases doesn’t shed any light, either.

The San Francisco Sunshine Ordinance Task Force has repeatedly found Newsom directly in violation of the Sunshine Ordinance. Legions of reporters have run across the slammed door, the ducking, the non-responsiveness, and the general hostility of the mayor’s press office. As the White House comes out of the dark ages and starts to set new standards for open and honest government, San Francisco is not only lagging behind — this city’s chief executive is actively resisting.

We’re getting tired of this. The city attorney, district attorney, and Ethics Commission all have the mandate and ability to enforce the Sunshine Ordinance, but none have made that a priority. At this point, the only way the executive branch is going to comply is if the supervisors give the Sunshine Task Force the authority and resources to do its own enforcement.

In the meantime, somebody on the board ought to introduce Obama’s exact policy statement, replacing "Freedom of Information Act" with "San Francisco Sunshine Ordinance." And the Sunshine task force should begin an investigation into how the mayor’s press office is defying, on a regular basis, both the letter and the spirit of the city’s open-government law. *

Will the Supremes take Healthy SF challenge?

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By Sarah Phelan

Next stop the Supreme Court?

That at least is where Kevin Westley, executive director of the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, said his group would take its challenge of San Francisco’s Universal Health Care Program, after the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decided this week not to grant GGRA a rehearing request.

But does this threat have any teeth and why is GGRA making it?

GGRA’s threat came even as Mayor Gavin Newsom was expressing his hope, by way of a press release, natch, that GGRA, “will work for, not against, the City and County’s efforts to expand health care access.”

“With an estimated 60,000 uninsured adults, it is time for all of us to collectively focus our efforts on providing health care to our uninsured residents,” Newsom said, after the Ninth Circuit upheld the city’s employer spending mandate.

That mandate requires companies with 20 to 99 employees to spend $1.23 per worker per hour, and companies with 100 employees or more to spend $1.85 per worker per hour.

Newsom called the court’s decision, “a significant victory for the thousands of San Francisco workers who now have access to health care.”

Deputy City Attorney Vince Chhabria said he found GGRA’s insistence on taking the case to the Supreme Court, “very disappointing.”

“26,000 San Francisco workers have become eligible for coverage in San Francisco’s program,as a result of the court’s ruling,” Chhabria told the Guardian. “One can understand why GGRA filed the suit, but now to continue and try to get this ruling overturned is to take away health coverage from thousands of workers.”

So, what are the chances of the Supreme Court taking the case?

“The Supreme Court will take the request seriously, probably, because there was dissent by a handful of the Ninth Circuit’s most conservative judges,” Chhabria said, as he listed the top three reasons why he believes the Supreme Court probably won’t take this case.

San Francisco reactionaries and their crackdowns

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By Steven T. Jones

Fresh off of a nearly averted city crackdown on partying at the Bay to Breakers race, the Chronicle has back-to-back reports that city officials are planning to crackdown on nightlife and on impromptu dance parties, zombie infestations, pillow fights, and other flash mobs. Further embarrassing this city that once embraced parties is the fact that this threat has already made international news.

Why must city officials use threats and zero tolerance as their first resorts? Problems with trash and noise can be solved if there’s creative leadership in City Hall willing to work with the community, and leaders that value San Francisco’s unique, messy, and fun culture. Instead, we have the absentee and conflict-averse Mayor Gavin Newsom, shorttimer Police Chief Heather Fong, and Newsom’s dour, judgmental special events coordinator Martha Cohen playing reactionary roles, time and again.

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