EDITORIAL Mayor Gavin Newsom, perhaps looking for a big issue to bring to a star-studded environmental meeting in New York City last week, suddenly discovered the value of tidal energy. There’s actually nothing new about the idea: although Newsom didn’t give anyone but himself credit, the plan was first floated by Matt Gonzalez in the 2003 mayor’s race. It was picked up by Supervisors Jake McGoldrick and Ross Mirkarimi and has been on the agenda at Mirkarimi’s Local Area Formation Committee (LAFCo) for more than a year.
But whatever — if the mayor’s on board, fine. There’s a tremendous amount of potential in the concept — huge amounts of renewable energy with little significant environmental impact (and no greenhouse gases). The technology appears to be available, and there’s every reason for the city to move forward rapidly — as long as the power generator is owned, operated, and totally controlled by the city. And that’s not at all guaranteed.
A pilot project would cost about $10 million — peanuts compared to the revenue potential but a chunk of change nonetheless. Newsom, who is looking for state money, is also considering the possibility of seeking private-sector partnerships. And one company that has its greedy eye on the potential energy in the ocean tides is Pacific Gas and Electric.
PG&E is trying desperately to buff up its tarnished image, spending millions on slick ads promoting itself as a green company. It’s crap: among other things, PG&E still operates a nightmare of a nuclear plant on an earthquake fault in San Luis Obispo and is trying to get the plant’s operating license extended. But environmentalism sells in California, and the state’s largest and most rapacious private utility has no shame.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported Sept. 19 that city officials were negotiating with “a number of companies that could help run the turbines and cover the costs” and added that “Pacific Gas and Electric Company is among them, said Jared Blumenfeld, director of the city’s Department of the Environment.” Blumenfeld told us he was misquoted and that officials are only discussing with PG&E the prospects for connecting to the PG&E-owned grid in the city.
But Blumenfeld explained that a private company called Golden Gate Energy already has a federal license to develop tidal energy in the San Francisco Bay — and PG&E has a stake in that venture. The Golden Gate Energy license expires in 2008, and it’s unlikely the company will be able to start work by then, Blumenfeld said. Given that nobody actually has a working model of a tidal generator of this scale, that’s probably true.
Still, it shows that PG&E isn’t going to give up easily on the idea of owning or running what could be a source of energy that could power a sizable percentage of San Francisco. The reason is obvious: if the city operates the tidal power plant, it will be a huge boost for public power. Between tides, $100 million worth of solar energy that’s in the pipeline, and the Hetch Hetchy dam, San Francisco would come pretty close to generating enough renewable energy to power the whole town — and PG&E could be tossed entirely out of the picture.
Of course, that assumes that the city is serious about creating a full-scale public power system, which involves taking over PG&E’s transmission grid. Newsom says he supports public power. So does Susan Leal, general manager of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. But while both are ready to cough up $150,000 for a study into the benefits of tidal power (and a possible $10 million for a pilot project), neither has ever been willing to spend a penny for a study into the costs and benefits of taking over the grid.
Mirkarimi told us that LAFCo will begin hearings on tidal power next month and get to the bottom of what the mayor has in mind. The supervisors should allow no shadow of doubt about the policy for pursing this energy source: it can only be done as part of a larger plan to bring public power to the city — and if PG&E or any other private energy company has even the tip of a finger anywhere near it, the deal is dead in the water. SFBG
Gavin Newsom
Tidal (public) power
Editor’s Notes
› tredmond@sfbg.com
So much going on this week: the cops and the San Francisco Police Commission are heading for a battle over secrecy, the cops and the supervisors are headed for a battle over foot patrols — and Mayor Gavin Newsom is heading for a battle with homeless advocates over a new round of sweeps at Golden Gate Park. The mayor and the local gendarmes can’t win any of this without community support and would do far better to stop trying to fight these battles.
Then there’s redevelopment and the city attorney … and we might as well get started:
•The state Supreme Court ruled a couple of weeks ago that all police disciplinary records have to be kept secret. It’s an awful decision, and San Francisco needs to find a way around it if at all possible. Some police commissioners, starting with David Campos, want to do that, but City Attorney Dennis Herrera is interpreting the law very conservatively and not offering the commission a lot of options.
Why not make public all the charges against cops with the individual officers’ names redacted? At least the community would know that some cops are improperly shooting people, giving liquor to minors, beating up people of color, beating up their spouses … and at least we’d all have a way to demand some policy changes. Or why not tell bad cops facing disciplinary hearings that they can plea bargain for a lenient sentence — and waive their rights to privacy — or take their chance in a full commission trial, where they will face termination if they lose? Let’s think here, people: this is too important to just give up. San Franciscans aren’t going to accept a secret police state.
•The mayor and the police chief are still fighting against Sup. Ross Mirkarimi’s plan to put cops on foot in high-crime areas. That’s a loser, Mr. Mayor. Nobody thinks that your current plans are working.
•After visiting Central Park in New York City — which is run by and for a private group of rich people — Newsom has decided to clear all the homeless people out of Golden Gate Park. Let me offer a little reality here: people sleep in the park because they have no place else to go. You cut their welfare payments and let the price of housing skyrocket, this is what you get. Sweep them out and they won’t disappear: they’ll sleep on the streets in the Haight and the Sunset and the Richmond. There’s a great campaign issue.
Besides, Golden Gate Park, homeless and all, is generally a safe, pleasant place, with only minor crime problems. But kids are dying on the streets only a few hundred yards away in the Western Addition. We don’t have enough cops to walk the beat where they could save lives — but we have enough to roust the homeless?
•Herrera, who’s got his hands full of ugly messes this week, tossed a referendum on the Bayview Hunters Point Redevelopment Plan off the ballot because each of the petitions didn’t have the entire plan attached. For the record, the plan is 62 pages. If this is the standard — an entire plan has to be copied and printed with every single petition — then as a practical matter, nobody in California can ever do a referendum on a redevelopment project. I suspect that’s not what Hiram Johnson had mind. SFBG
The people’s program
OPINION San Francisco progressives have spent years getting on the political power map. We have achieved amazing victories, such as the 2000 sweep that defeated the Brown machine and ushered in an independent Board of Supervisors. At times we’ve gotten mired in sectarian clashes that have prevented unity around a common vision. However, such obstacles and stumbles have taught us valuable lessons that can be the building blocks for a vibrant people’s movement. To be successful, we progressives need to have a clear vision and to keep asking ourselves questions. What does it mean to be progressive and for progressives to have power? Assuming we all agree that progressive unity is a necessary foundation for social change, what should unity look like today? And if we’re successful at maintaining power, what do we want to look like five and 10 years from now? In the first year following its founding convention and with these questions in mind, the San Francisco Peoples’ Organization (SFPO) has chosen to focus on three issues central to the lives of all San Franciscans — health care, affordable housing, and violence prevention. Over the past year, this fledgling organization has logged a long list of achievements and participated in many exciting causes. The SFPO has: •worked with the Alliance for a Better California to defeat Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s special election measures in November 2005; •assisted in the development and passage of Supervisor Tom Ammiano’s Worker Health Care Security Ordinance, creating universal health care for local residents; •advocated for Supervisor Chris Daly’s recently passed legislation to increase mandatory levels of affordable housing in new housing developments; •took a leadership role in uniting communities of color and progressives to fight for Proposition A’s homicide and violence prevention efforts, including a host of new budget initiatives addressing some of the root causes of violence; •launched an e-mail dispatch that reaches over 5,000 constituents and highlights local progressive issues, campaigns, and events; •played an active role in the UNITE-HERE Local 2 contract campaign, attending pickets, planning meetings, and participating in civil disobedience. Part of our effort involves critically analyzing the policy agendas of our elected lawmakers and making recommendations. Mayor Gavin Newsom, through his highly visible work to legalize same-sex marriage, rightfully gained the respect and admiration of progressive San Franciscans. However, same-sex marriage is only one issue; Mayor Newsom should not be given carte blanche among progressives for this single act. The SFPO’s second annual convention will take place Sept. 30 at St. Mary’s Cathedral. Please join us. We cannot wait to work together. The future of our city — who we want to live here, who we want to work here, who we want educated here — is being determined now. SFBG Jane Kim and John Avalos The writers are president and vice president, respectively, of the San Francisco Peoples’ Organization. For more information about the SFPO and the Sept. 30 convention, go to www.sfpeople.org.
Jesus — not again
By Tim Redmond
Mayor Gavin Newsom and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission are interested in pursuing tidal energy off the Godlen Gate. This is an excellent development, something that Matt Gonzalez pushed for when he was running for mayor. It’s a way to generate huge amounts of renewable energy for the city and apparently is cost-effective.
There’s only one flaw – and as far as I’m concerned, it’s fatal.
From the Chron story Sept 19:
“The city is in negotiations with a number of companies that could help run the turbines and cover the costs. Pacific Gas and Electric Co. is among them, said Jared Blumenfeld, director of the city’s Department of the Environment. ”
Holy shit, here we go again.
PG&E, which stole the city’s renewable electric power 80 years ago when the dam at Hetch Hetchy Valley began generating electricity, now wants to steal the power of the Golden Gate tides, too.
Memo to the PUC and the Department of Environment: Any tidal energy project has to be built, run and controlled by the city, as part of a public-power system. If PG&E has even the tiniest bit of involvement in the deal, it will be shot down as corrupt and unacceptable. Don’t even think about it.
District 6 sleaze
EDITORIAL The fall campaign season has only begun, and already the District 6 race is getting really ugly. A downtown-funded operation, hiding behind anonymous mailers and front groups, is spending gobs of money to smear Sup. Chris Daly, and thanks to the city’s campaign-spending laws, Daly’s ability to fight back is limited. The whole mess points to a real problem in the way so-called independent-expenditure committees are regulated, and the supervisors and the Ethics Commission should take up the issue immediately.
Daly, who’s represented the district for almost six years, has offended a lot of people — including some of the city’s richest and most powerful interest groups. They tried to unseat him four years ago with no success, but this time around they have more money and a slimy, secretive strategy that appears to expose a loophole in local law.
The first salvo landed a few weeks ago: a slick, 22-page mailer called “The Case Against Chris Daly” that attacks him on almost every front. The hit piece is unsigned, so the people who received it have no way of knowing exactly who’s behind the message. And there’s no requirement that the sponsors register with the city’s Ethics Commission and reveal their source of financing.
It’s pretty clear, though, who produced and paid for the piece. The money is going through a group called Citizens for Reform Leadership #1, which was set up by downtown elections lawyer Jim Sutton, organized by SFSOS, and funded in large part by Republican kingmaker and the Gap founder Don Fisher. (Sutton has also established Citizens for Reform Leadership committees two through six, indicating that there’s more of this to come.)
The way San Francisco’s campaign-spending limits work, no candidate for supervisor can spend more than $83,000 — unless one of the other candidates breaks that cap. Then all rules are off. But that cap doesn’t apply to whoever put out the 22-page hit piece — in part because we don’t even know legally who it was. That means the SFSOS-Fisher crew can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars hammering away at Daly — and he can’t spend more than $83,000 fighting back.
The candidate who benefits most from this sewer money is Rob Black, a former aide to Sup. Michela Alioto-Pier who has the backing of Mayor Gavin Newsom and is by any account Daly’s most serious challenger. Black told us he has no direct connection to the hit squad — but he stopped short of promising not to engage in negative campaigning himself. And he’s certainly not going around town denouncing the anti-Daly sleaze.
That should change now. If Black wants to be seen as anything other than a pawn of Fisher, he should put out a formal statement calling on SFSOS and its allies to back off, quit the anonymous name-calling, and either come clean or stay out of District 6. So should every other candidate in the race. (The hotly contested District 5 battle two years ago was remarkably clean, in part because all of the candidates agreed not to accept this sort of nonsense.)
The Ethics Commission should launch a full investigation of this anonymous campaigning with the aim of exposing the forces behind it — and if the city’s current law doesn’t allow a ban on secret hit pieces, the supervisors should amend it today. Meanwhile, the commission ought to lift the expenditure limit for District 6; it’s not optimal, but in this case it’s only fair. SFBG
Shoot me instead!
By G.W. Schulz
It’s not healthy for the press to be relentlessly pessimistic. In that spirit, hats off to Gavin Newsom for introducing a new plan designed to counter the city’s surge in violence. Critics, including this newspaper, have repeatedly demanded a bold plan, and the mayor appears to be stepping up to the plate. Here’s part of it.
There are a few problems with the plan, however. Newsom intends to enforce a controversial city curfew for kids 13 and under that’s already on the books. He says he’s willing to expend the political capital necessary to make it work. We’re proud of you for being bold, Gav. Seriously. This city needs strong leadership.
Progressive Voter Index
By Steven T. Jones
Despite Mayor Gavin Newsom’s rhetorical efforts to dismiss the importance of ideology in San Francisco politics, this is a town the is deeply divided between progressives and Establishment moderate-to-conservatives. And the battle we fight is an important one that will determine whether San Francisco remains open to low-wage workers, tolerant of diversity, and a leader in combatting the dismal and divisive policies being perpetrated on the state and federal levels.
OK, OK, maybe y’all know that. But to get more insights in where the battlelines are drawn in San Francisco — right down to the level of individual precincts and neighborhoods — you’ll need to spend a little time studying the latest version of the Progressive Voters Index. Kudos to political scientists Rich DeLeon and David Latterman — and the good folks over at www.sfusualsuspects — for providing this valuable resource.
The cost of harassing the homeless
EDITORIAL Mayor Gavin Newsom, who has always talked about treating homeless people with compassion, is allowing the cops to do just the opposite — and it’s costing the city millions. As Amanda Witherell reports on page 11, the San Francisco Police Department under the Newsom administration has issued 31,230 citations for so-called quality of life offenses like sleeping on the streets, sleeping in the parks, and panhandling. In a pioneering study, Religious Witness with Homeless People reports that issuing and prosecuting those citations cost taxpayers $5.7 million over the past two years.
This is a reminder of the failure of the Newsom administration’s housing policy — and a terrible waste of law enforcement resources. The mayor needs to put a stop to it now.
Think about it: most homeless people are living on the streets because they don’t have the money for housing in this famously expensive city. In the vast majority of the cases, giving someone who’s broke a ticket for $100 is a colossal waste: the offender isn’t going to be able to pay anyway, so the unpaid ticket turns into an arrest warrant. The next time around, the police can nab this person and put him or her in jail (costing the city $92.18 a day, according to the Sheriff’s Department). In the end, 80 percent of the citations are dismissed anyway — but not before the police, the courts, the district attorney, and the sheriff run up a huge tab.
In some cases, it’s just another hassle for homeless people. In other cases though, these seemingly minor tickets can rob someone of the last vestiges of a semitolerable life. The list of quotes from homeless people included with the study is, to say the least, depressing:
“They wake me up in the morning and threaten to arrest me if I don’t stand up and start walking. The drop-in centers are full, so I either walk or get ticketed. I can’t walk all day long.”
“They took my vehicle away because I slept in it in the mornings while waiting to get another construction job. Losing my truck was the worst thing that ever happened to me. I can’t get a job without my truck, so now I’m on the street.”
“Just one ticket for sleeping can violate my parole, and then I’ll be in [prison] with murderers.”
“I went to Project Homeless Connect, and they really helped me. Two days later, they arrested me for not paying my tickets.”
The city is facing a homicide epidemic. The police brass constantly complain that there aren’t enough uniformed officers to keep the streets safe. Sup. Ross Mirkarimi is having to fight to get approval for a modest pilot program that would put exactly four officers on foot patrols in high-crime neighborhoods; that program could be funded for less than one-tenth what the city is spending harassing the homeless.
It makes absolutely no sense for the police to be wasting time issuing these sorts of citations. Sure, violent people who are a threat to the public need to be kept off the streets — but that’s only a very small number of the homeless in San Francisco. Letting people sleep in the parks or in their cars isn’t a solution to the homeless problem — but it’s hardly a massive threat to the city’s populace (and certainly not when compared to the growing murder rate).
Newsom, of course, could and should make a public commitment to spending that $5 million in a more useful and productive way. And the Police Commission should look into the Religious Witness study and direct the chief to order officers away from giving quality-of-life citations.
If none of that happens, the supervisors ought to look into this too. If the cops have the money to be chasing panhandlers and car sleepers, the budget committee should look at the department’s allocation and see if some of those resources can’t be better spent fighting actual crime. SFBG
EDITOR’S NOTES
› tredmond@sfbg.com
There are people at the daily newspapers around here who bristle when I accuse them of ignoring important local stories, particularly ones involving powerful political, business, or social figures (and most particularly, involving the newspapers themselves). No representative of the Hearst Corp. stands in the newsroom door announcing that stories about management will be sent to New York for prior censorship. Nobody tells the Chronicle’s reporters that they can’t cover a pressing story.
And I believe all that. I really do. I know it doesn’t work that way.
Carl Jensen knows that too. When he started Project Censored back in 1976, he knew he’d get a lot of criticism. “Censored” is a pretty strong word; it evokes a mirthless military guy with a pair of scissors and a big black pen, preventing real news from emerging out of a pressroom bunker somewhere.
But what Jensen has been trying to say for years is that the stories cited by Project Censored represent choices made by editors and publishers about what’s important in today’s world. That’s what the front page of a newspaper is — a set of choices. Is the confession of the purported killer of JonBenet Ramsey more important than the Bush administration’s illegal wiretapping of millions of Americans? Is the latest news about Brad and Angelina more important than the latest news from Iraq? Is one man’s quest to take control of every daily newspaper in the Bay Area worth more than a first-day story and a few tiny news briefs?
Editors are paid to make those decisions — and the ones who want to keep their jobs know what the rules are. That’s why some stories get more coverage, more play, and more attention and some get deeply buried or published in one place and never picked up by anyone else.
Anyone who reads political blogs knows about stories like the ones on this year’s Project Censored list (see page 15). Nobody blacked out the news with a big rubber stamp; it just never got reported in the first place.
For a Sunday afternoon on a Labor Day weekend, it was truly impressive: I counted at least 300 people at the Delancey Street events room for the Sue Bierman memorial. Just about everyone on the local left seemed to be there, along with a few luminaries like John Burton, Gavin Newsom, and Willie Brown, who were Bierman’s friends even when they were wrong and she was right.
Newsom, who was often at odds with Bierman, looked out over the crowd and made the point succinctly: “This is what happens,” he said, “when you’re nice to people.”
There were many funny and moving stories. Burton, who showed up in his usual sartorial splendor (striped sweatpants and an untucked shirt, which makes me respect the guy as much as anything he’s ever done in politics) talked about how Bierman always, always enjoyed herself, even in the most boring political drudgery. It was wonderful to see her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren there (and wonderful for them to see how many people were part of Bierman’s San Francisco community).
Calvin Welch, her Haight Asbury neighbor, friend, and longtime comrade in arms, reminded us all that Bierman “created the neighborhood movement in San Francisco” — and that she did it in her own style, always believing that “fun is important.”
A lot of people go to political funerals because they have to; most of us went to this one because we wanted to. Thanks, Sue. SFBG
Public power returns
EDITORIAL Just when it looked like the public power movement had stalled, along comes the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission with a surprise announcement that it will create a public power demonstration project in the most appropriate part of town and reinvigorate efforts to kick Pacific Gas and Electric out of the city.
The agency has tentatively cut a deal to provide power directly to the 1,600 housing units and businesses that Lennar Homes is about to start building on Parcel A of the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard — bringing clean, green (it comes from city hydroelectric and solar projects), affordable public power to a part of town that has long been besieged with environmental injustices.
We commend director Susan Leal and the rest of the SFPUC for this project and their promise to do the same thing on Treasure Island, once that property is officially in San Francisco’s jurisdiction. SFPUC officials say they’ll be able to beat PG&E’s rates while delivering power that is more environmentally sustainable than what we’re getting from the company’s aging fossil fuel plants.
The agency is now finalizing details with Lennar and waiting for PG&E to sign an interconnection agreement to transfer city power to the site, something that federal law requires the company do for a “reasonable” fee. If all goes well, the contract will go to the Board of Supervisors for approval in a couple months, creating the first living example of how the city would be better off without PG&E.
As such, we fully expect the company to try to sabotage the deal, so we urge all city officials to help shepherd this one to completion. Mayor Gavin Newsom should help make sure Lennar doesn’t get cold feet, City Attorney Dennis Herrera should be ready to fight if need be, and the SFPUC should be on the lookout for more such projects. Good work! SFBG
Don’t call the feds
EDITORIAL It’s bad enough that the federal government is aggressively infringing on the rights of three Bay Area journalists, the sovereignty of California, and the freedom of San Franciscans to choose — through the elections of our district attorney, sheriff, and mayor — how laws should be enforced in this city. It’s even worse that the San Francisco Police Department has actively invited the feds in to abuse the city’s citizens.
Now is the time for Mayor Gavin Newsom and Police Chief Heather Fong to strongly, clearly, and publicly spell out when the officers under their control are permitted to federalize investigations rather than turning them over to the District Attorney’s Office. Particularly during this dark period when the Bush administration has shown a flagrant disregard for the rule of law, those in positions of public trust within San Francisco must safeguard the rights and liberties that generations of Americans have fought hard to win.
Specifically, Newsom and Fong should join the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in calling for a federal shield law similar to the one enshrined in the California Constitution, which allows journalists to protect their sources and unpublished notes and other materials. Until that happens, it should be the policy of San Francisco to refuse to cooperate with federal prosecutions of journalists, an action that would be similar to existing police policies of refusing to take part in raids on marijuana dispensaries or in operations targeting those suspected of vioutf8g immigration laws.
Instead, in the case of videographer Josh Wolf — who has been jailed for refusing to turn over his work to a federal grand jury — it appears that the SFPD was the agency that used a dubious interpretation of the law to bring in the feds for this unconscionable witch hunt. This is a disgrace and an affront to local control and basic American values.
As Sarah Phelan reports in this issue (“The SFPD’s Punt,” page 10), the cowboys who run the SFPD have been so intent on nailing those responsible for injuring an officer during a protest last year that they have deceptively morphed the investigation into one involving a broken taillight on a police cruiser. The idea was to argue that because some federal funds helped purchase the cruiser, then it was legitimate to turn this case over to the feds — which was simply a ruse to get around the California shield law. Perhaps even scarier is that it was done under the guise of fighting terrorism, even though the cops knew they were talking about homegrown anarchists who have legitimate concerns about US trade policies.
Over and over — in openly defying local beliefs about drug and sex laws and the death penalty — SFPD officers have shown contempt for San Francisco values. Even Newsom and Fong said as much during last year’s police video scandal, when they chastised officers for making videos that mocked Bayview residents, the homeless, Asians, and transgender people.
Yet that incident wasn’t as obscene as the decision by the SFPD to turn the murder investigations of Bayview gangs over to the feds rather than allow them to be prosecuted by District Attorney Kamala Harris, with whom the SFPD has feuded. The still-high murder rate in this city is a problem that will only be solved when we come together to address it as a community, rather than simply calling in heavy-handed outsiders.
It’s no wonder that communities of color in this city don’t trust the SFPD, which bypasses the black woman we’ve elected as our district attorney in favor of the US Justice Department and its facilitator of empire, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez.
Newsom has already demonstrated that he’s willing to stand up to unjust state and federal laws, as he did on same-sex marriage, pot clubs, and illegal wiretapping by the Bush administration. Now it’s time for him to say that we’re not going to invite unjust federal prosecutions into this proudly progressive city. SFBG
PS We also must strongly condemn the federal prosecution of Chronicle reporters Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada. They are facing jail time for refusing to reveal how they obtained grand jury information that indicated San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds knowingly took steroids. Journalists must be allowed to fully investigate important stories, particularly those involving public figures, without fearing they will be jailed for their work. Again, this case strongly begs for a federal shield law.
PPS Peter Scheer of the California First Amendment Coalition summed up the argument well in a commentary now posted on the Guardian’s Web site, www.sfbg.com, calling the prosecutions “a wholesale usurpation of state sovereignty. The Bush administration, which has been justly criticized for attempting to enhance executive power at the expense of Congress, is now eviscerating states’ rights in order to expand the power of the federal government. William Rehnquist, the conservative former chief justice of the US Supreme Court and intellectual champion of American ‘federalism,’ is no doubt turning over in his grave.”
Why WiFi?
By Steven T. Jones
Mayor Gavin Newsom and his administration are so intent on following through with their promise to deliver free wireless Internet to SF residents that they’ve basically dispensed with seeking input from the public or Board of Supervisors, locked into private and protracted negotiations with Google and Earthlink, and simply decided not to do the board-approved study of Sup. Tom Ammiano’s plan for a municipal broadband system. The unilateral, secretive approach has driven journalists and activists nuts. But there is an opportunity tonight at 6 p.m. to weigh in during a hastily called and little noticed hearing before the Department of Telecom and Info Services. Media Alliance has been raising hell over the issue and this week the group is releasing a study showing that the city could make $2 million per year with a municipal Internet system, as opposed to going with Newsom’s so-called “free” system, which wouldn’t make the city any money and would subject citizens to targetted advertising. The tradeoff might be worth it, but there are still too many unknown details to know that, so show up this evening to talk about it.
Why WiFi?
By Steven T. Jones
Mayor Gavin Newsom and his administration are so intent on following through with their promise to deliver free wireless Internet to SF residents that they’ve basically dispensed with seeking input from the public or Board of Supervisors, locked into private and protracted negotiations with Google and Earthlink, and simply decided not to do the board-approved study of Sup. Tom Ammiano’s plan for a municipal broadband system. The unilateral, secretive approach has driven journalists and activists nuts. But there is an opportunity tonight at 6 p.m. to weigh in during a hastily called and little noticed hearing before the Department of Telecom and Info Services. Media Alliance has been raising hell over the issue and this week the group is releasing a study showing that the city could make $2 million per year with a municipal Internet system, as opposed to going with Newsom’s so-called “free” system, which wouldn’t make the city any money and would subject citizens to targetted advertising. The tradeoff might be worth it, but there are still too many unknown details to know that, so show up this evening to talk about it.
The Race is On: Candidates for local Nov. 7 races
By Sarah Phelan
Sixty-six took out papers. Forty-one filed, meaning that over one-third of the potential candidates in local races in the Nov. 7 election, bailed before the train even left the station.
So who’s in the running?
On the Board of Supes front, there are five races.
District 2 incumbent Michela Alioto-Pier, who has not accepted the voluntary expenditure ceiling and does not intend to participate in the public financing program, faces one lone challenger: business management consultant Vilma Guinto Peoro, who has accepted a voluntary expenditure ceiling and intends to participate in the pubic financing program.
In District 4, seven candidates are vying to fill the vacancy Sup. Fiona Ma created as Democratic nominee for Assembly District 12, (where she is running against the Green’s Barry Hermanson.) Mayor Gavin Newsom has endorsed Doug Chan, who lent his name to PG&E’s anti-Prop. D campaign, has not accepted voluntary expenditure ceiling and does not intend to participate in public financing campaign. Chan, who also got Ma’s endorsement and has served on the San Francisco Police Commission, Board of Permit Appeals, the Rent Board and the Assessment Appeals Board, has promised to return SFPD to its legally-required numbers (it currently operates 15 percent below voter-mandated leval), and upgrade policies, practices and technology, and would likely become the establishment conservative on the Board,
Other contenders are business consultant Ron Dudum, who lost against Ma in 2002 and against then Sup. Leland Yee in 2000, anti-tax advocate Edmund Jew, who would also be popular with the district’s conservative base, and San Francisco Immigrant Rights Commissioner and Fiona Ma-supporter Houston Zheng, David Ferguson, Patrick Maguire and Jaynry Mak, though Neither Maguire nor Mak, who has already raised $100,000, had filed papers as of Aug. 11, perhaps because District 4 has a Aug. 16 filing extension, thanks to departing incumbent Ma.
District 6 incumbent Chris Daly, who has accepted voluntary expenditure ceiling and intends to participate in public financing campaign, appears to face the biggest fight—at least in terms of numbers, with seven challengers hoping to fill his shoes. Of these Mayor Gavin Newsom has portrayed former Michela Alioto-Pier aide Rob Black, who has accepted voluntary expenditure ceiling and intends to participate in public financing campaign, as “the best contender to lessen divisiveness in the district.”
Fellow challengers are Mathew Drake, Viliam Dugoviv, Manuel Jimenez , Davy Jones, Robert Jordan and George Dias.
District 8 incumbent Bevan Dufty faces stiff opposition from local resident and Oakland deputy city attorney Alix Rosenthal, who was instrumental in turning around the city’s Elections Department, has worked on turning the former Okaland Army Base over to the Redevelopment Agency and has helped rebuild the National Women’s Political Caucus. Rosenthal, who is running on a platform of affordable housing, sustainability and violence prevention, also wants to keep SF weird.
In District 10, Incumbent Sophie Maxwell, who says a November ballot measure opposing the Bayview Redvelopment Plan is based on fear and unfairness, has five challengers: Rodney Hampton Jr., Marie Harrison, Espanola Jackson. Dwayne Jusino, and former Willie Brown crony Charlie Walker. Of these, the most serious are Harrison, helped shut down the Hunter’s Point PG&E plant and has worked for decades to fight all the pollution that’s being dumped on southeast residents, and Espanola Jackson, who has fought for welfare rights, affordable housing, seniors and the Muwekma Ohlone.
In other races, Phil Ting runs unopposed as Assessor-Recorder.
18 challengers are fighting over three seats on the Board of Education, one of which is occupied by incumbent Dan Kelly, and six candidates are vying for three seats on the Community College Board, one of which is occupied by incumbent John Rizzo.
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› tredmond@sfbg.com
Bad social failures eventually come back to haunt you. That’s what’s happening in the California prison system, where decades of lock-’em-up legislation, stupid drug laws, and governors who are terrified of the political consequences of paroling inmates have filled the jails with aging prisoners who require extensive medical care. Tens of thousands of people will die in state prisons in the next few years, not of murder or abuse but because they’re serving life sentences — and it’s going to cost a fortune to take care of them in their declining years. The state may have to set up special geriatric cell blocks and hospital wards for inmates who did something pretty bad a long, long time ago and never got another chance at life.
And so it is, apparently, with San Francisco’s homeless population.
According to a new study by the University of California, San Francisco, the median age of the city’s homeless people has gone from 37 in 1990 to about 50 today. The thousands of people who live on the streets are getting older and older — and their health is failing. Many of them, it seems, have been there at least off and on since the 1980s, when the federal government under Ronald Reagan stopped spending money to help cities provide low-cost housing.
If the study, reported in the Chronicle on Aug. 4, is accurate, there are some important policy conclusions that we need to be looking at. For starters, it suggests that many of the homeless people in San Francisco are not arriving here because of friendly programs and attitudes; we are not a “magnet” for the homeless. In fact, the people living on the streets are … San Franciscans. Some have been living here as long as I have. They are part of our community, part of our city. They just don’t have a roof over their heads or a place to go and shut out the world.
Then there’s the fact that harsh cutbacks in spending on low-income populations only create more, and more intractable, problems. The aging homeless are going to need a lot more expensive medical care over the next few years, and the only way they’re going to get it is at taxpayer expense. By the time the baby boomer generation of homeless people has died, I bet San Francisco will have spent so much money on caring for them in their later years that it would have been cheaper to just give them all a decent welfare payment, health insurance, and a decent place to live.
Building housing is expensive. Building so-called supportive housing — residential units with social services on-site — is more expensive. Treating people in hospitals who are literally dying of homelessness is even more expensive than that.
You want to be a cold-eyed conservative? The cheapest solution is to radically raise the general assistance payment to the point where homeless people can afford an apartment. That also happens to be the most humane.
Once upon a time, what a lot of homeless people needed was cash, not care. Cash, not care. Now they need care — and the people who elected Gavin Newsom and who complain about the homeless are going to be paying for that care. SFBG
Do you support the Olympic Games?
Olympic Question
BY Sarah Phelan
“Do you support the Olympic Games?”
That ‘s the question that Sup. Gerardo Sandoval believes Mayor Gavin Newsom should, but is afraid, to ask.
“”I love sports and I’d love nothing more than to have the Olympics come to San Francisco,” said Sandoval at the Aug. 8 Board of Supes meeting. “But as a supervisor I want to ask the voters whether it should be SF’s policy to host the 2016 Olymoics, given the costs and benefits.Why is the Mayor’s Office afraid to do so?” said Sandoval, noting that academic studies show only a “very modest gain,” whereas Chambers of Commerce-related reports cite “huge gains” for cities that are Olympic hosts.
“We shouldn’t be afraid to ask,” said Sandoval, criticizing the mayor’s “behind doors conversations,” on matters such as the financing of the 49ers stadium–a stadium, which as Sandoval noted, is to be included as an venue in the mayor’s vision for the 2016 Olympics.
“I’m happy the mayor has acknowledged that we need to ask the voters,” said Sandoval, adding that Newsom believes it’s “premature to ask right now”.
“Premature implies maturity,” said Sandoval, suggesting that the Olympic question will be asked some time in the future, as he tabled his own motion “to ask voters” for now. But feel free, SF, to tell us what you think about the plan . We’re not afraid to hear it. Heck, it might even reveal what people do and don’t know.
Do you support the Olympic Games?
Olympic Question
BY Sarah Phelan
“Do you support the Olympic Games?”
That ‘s the question that Sup. Gerardo Sandoval believes Mayor Gavin Newsom should, but is afraid, to ask.
“”I love sports and I’d love nothing more than to have the Olympics come to San Francisco,” said Sandoval at the Aug. 8 Board of Supes meeting. “But as a supervisor I want to ask the voters whether it should be SF’s policy to host the 2016 Olymoics, given the costs and benefits.Why is the Mayor’s Office afraid to do so?” said Sandoval, noting that academic studies show only a “very modest gain,” whereas Chambers of Commerce-related reports cite “huge gains” for cities that are Olympic hosts.
“We shouldn’t be afraid to ask,” said Sandoval, criticizing the mayor’s “behind doors conversations,” on matters such as the financing of the 49ers stadium–a stadium, which as Sandoval noted, is to be included as an venue in the mayor’s vision for the 2016 Olympics.
“I’m happy the mayor has acknowledged that we need to ask the voters,” said Sandoval, adding that Newsom believes it’s “premature to ask right now”.
“Premature implies maturity,” said Sandoval, suggesting that the Olympic question will be asked some time in the future, as he tabled his own motion “to ask voters” for now. But feel free, SF, to tell us what you think about the plan . We’re not afraid to hear it. Heck, it might even reveal what people do and don’t know.