Governor

Doesn’t anybody here know how to run this state?

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By Tim Redmond

Well, the polls look pretty shitty for Gavin Newsom For Governor (thanks, sfist for the tip), and his ratings will just get worse as he attempts to solve a budget crisis without working with the supervisors or the other key stakeholders. At this rate, the way he’s treating the city employee unions, there’s no way he’s getting labor support, and for a candidate who will be running as a liberal to be shunned by labor is a major problem.

(And if he thinks a movie-star wife will give him some glam, check out the reviews.)

And Newsom’s counterpart to the south, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, ain’t looking so hot right now.

John Garamendi has been reborn as a progressive populist, but a guy who was at best a moderate state legislator is going to have his work cut out for him wooing the left in a primary. And Jerry Brown … well, Jer’s on the right side of the same-sex marriage debate (finally), but he was a terrible mayor of Oakland and has changed his political spots so many times that nobody knows quite which Jerry we’ll get this time around — or whether his current manifestation will last.

Is this really the best the Democratic Party can do?

I guess we should be glad that the Republicans have an even worse lineup. But that’s not exactly something to celebrate.

The Rainy Day Fund — a better way?

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By Tim Redmond

I get the concerns about Sup. Chris Daly’s proposal to amend the city’s Rainy Day Fund. But in the end, there’s probably a way to make it work that’s better than a lot of unpleasant alternatives.

The Rainy Day Fund was Tom Ammiano’s gift to San Francisco, a brilliant piece of legislation that has saved the public schools and will save hundreds of jobs and critical public services this year. The bill ensures that the city sets aside some of its money in good years, so there’s something to draw on in really bad times.

And these are really bad times.

Last year, money from the Rainy Day Fund saved the school district from laying off hundreds of teachers. In the wake of the governor’s assault on public education, the local schools will need another allocation to prevent this year’s disaster.

The way the bill works, the city can take up to half the money in the fund in dire times, and the schools can get up to 25%. That means there’s no temptation to raid all the money at one time.
If we hadn’t had the fund – and there were plenty of people who didn’t think it was a good idea when Ammiano introduced it – we’d be in way worse shape now.

What Daly wants to do – with the support of city employee unions – is amend the legislation to allow the supervisors, by majority vote, to take as much of the money as they need to preserve health and human services if the city’s deficit exceeds $250 million.

Ammiano is against that; he sees it as an attack on the idea of the fund, which is supposed to ease budget problems not just in one year but for the future as well. Sup. David Campos, who I respect and trust, is also against the Daly measure. “This year is bad, but next year is going to be bad, too,” he said.

And I get that, and I get that labor wants to preserve services (and jobs) right now, because once those jobs and services go away, it’s really hard to get them back.

So let’s recognize that both sides have a point, neither side is bad or evil, there are good progressives who disagree on this – and take a look at the numbers.

Losing the tax argument

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EDITORIAL The lead topic on the local cable TV show City Desk News Hour Feb. 21 was the state budget, and a panel of local reporters were talking about the mix of tax increases and service cuts the Legislature finally passed. After a bit of back and forth, Scott Shafer, host of KQED’s California Report, piped up. "Everyone knows it’s a bad idea to raise taxes in a recession," he said.

Shafer, who was a press secretary to former Mayor Art Agnos, is hardly a conservative commentator. In fact, at the risk of damaging his credentials as an unbiased reporter, we might even call him a liberal. And to judge from the response of most of the panel, nothing he said was particularly controversial. Sure, raising taxes in a recession is bad; so is cancer, and violent crime. Next question.

But that’s not just a limited viewpoint — it’s factually inaccurate. Raising taxes during a recession can be an excellent economic idea, if it’s done right. Because the one thing almost every credible economist outside of the far-right intellectual swampland agrees on these days is that cutting government spending during a recession is a terrible idea — and if the only way to keep the public sector jobs, the social services, and the welfare payments going is to raise taxes, then raising taxes on those who can afford to pay is not only good politics, it’s good policy.

And it’s infuriating that this point seems to have dropped out of the mainstream of debate. That’s a major failure of the Democratic leadership, in California and nationwide.

Historians can argue forever about the direct impact the New Deal had on ending the Great Depression. But it’s pretty clear that what Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman calls the great jobs program of World War II turned the American economy around. And during World War II, tax rates, particularly on the wealthiest individuals and corporations, were exceptionally high. The top marginal income tax rate exceeded 80 percent. Corporations that made more than a modest return paid a high excess-profits tax. The high income tax rates on the richest Americans remained through the postwar boom era, a time when inequality declined and overall wealth grew.

That money went into the public sector, not just for the war but for retooling and rebuilding U.S. industry. High taxes on the rich paid for the interstate highway system, the University of California system, the California Water Project, the birth of the Internet. It took almost half a century for the Republicans and no-taxers to wreck the economic gains of that high-tax era.

And yet, despite all the consistent, clear evidence, we still hear the news media, the commentators, and even liberal Democrats saying that tax cuts are good for the economy and tax hikes are bad.

What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.

One of the most important goals of the next year or two, under the Obama administration, is to change the national debate over public and private priorities. That won’t be easy. President Obama has started off in the right direction, although the Republicans forced him to include several hundred billion in wasteful tax cuts in his stimulus bill. The tax hikes in the state budget plan are almost entirely regressive (sales taxes and a flat increase in the income tax.)

Here in California, and here in San Francisco, elected officials who claim to represent the Democratic Party’s future need to stop mouthing the old Republican line. None of the Democratic candidates for governor, including Mayor Gavin Newsom, have been our front about the need for more government spending, even if it means higher taxes on the wealthy (say, a business tax that hits harder on the biggest and less so on the small). In fact, Newsom has taken the opposite line, writing in a Feb. 13 San Francisco Chronicle op-ed piece that "we have to reduce spending." The San Francisco supervisors are at least talking about new revenue sources, but polls show that will be a hard sell.

Why do the polls show that? Because people like Newsom — and to some extent, the supervisors — aren’t using their bully pulpits to change the tone of the discussion, to make the case for economic sanity, to challenge the demented wisdom that’s brought us to this nightmare.

That has to change, now, or there will be no way out. *

Garamendi leads the way on reform

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Some California heavy hitters, led by the Bay Area Council and including Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, are meeting up in Sacto today to talk about a California Constitutional convention (pdf).

The idea: The state’s such a mess right now that we might as well get a group of people (not elected legislators) together and rewrite the rules for governing.

It’s either a brilliant idea or a horrible one, depending, to a great extent, on whether the progressives in this state have it together to influence the outcome. Otherwise, we’ll wind up with all sorts of awful stuff in there.
Guardian report Rebecca Bowe is there, and will be blogging on it later today, but an interesting element is already emerging. I just got a copy of Garamendi’s speech, and the Lt. Guv, who based on his history would seem to be the most moderate to conservative Democrat, is going out front on the reform platform:

“We have tied ourselves in knots with the two-thirds vote requirement. It’s time to go back to what this nation established years ago – a majority rule plan, plain and simple, on every issue,” Garamendi said. “That would solve a lot of problems. Whatever the minority party is, they should not dominate the policies of the state of California. That’s the two-thirds vote requirement on appropriations including the budget and taxes.”

That makes him the only leading Democrat in the governor’s race who is willing to say publicly that the Legislature ought to be able to raise taxes on a 55 percent vote.

Attorney General Jerry Brown, who built his early career on political reform, is running for the fences and hasn’t taken any position on the 2/3 requirement.

And San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who ought to be the liberal in the race, is kinda sorta playing the halfway game. Eric Jaye, his campaign manager, told me today that Newsom supports reducing the threshold for budget approval – but hasn’t decided about the tax threshold.

“It’s a question that’s been posed to him and he’s exploring it,” Jaye said. “There’s no question that the current system’s broken and needs to be fixed.”

Yes, it needs to be fixed – but fixing it by allowing the Democratic majority to pass a budget, and then allow the Republican minority to hold the state hostage because the anti-tax nuts won’t approve the spending measures, is worse than no fix at all.

So the lineup for gov is already shaping up in odd ways, with Garamendi becoming the populist reformer, Brown acting like the kind of politician he used to despise, and Newsom getting left behind with the really squishy can’t-take-a-stand center.

Editor’s Notes

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› Tredmond@sfbg.com

Two noteworthy meetings took place in the past couple of weeks. One was led by David Chiu, the president of the Board of Supervisors, the other by Ryan Chamberlain, a downtown political consultant. Other than the sfbg.com politics blog, no local media have been paying much attention. But both ad hoc gatherings could have tremendous political significance.

Chiu was trying to solve the budget crisis, or at least get a handle on it. He called together the major stakeholders in the hope that some sort of consensus, or at least reluctant, unhappy common ground, could be found on the worst fiscal crisis in 80 years.

Chamberlain invited a group of downtown power brokers and moderate-to-conservative political candidates to try to map out a strategy to oust the progressives from control of the board in 2010.

If Chiu succeeds, and crafts a budget compromise that most of the competing interests can accept, it will be a huge victory for the freshman supervisor — and a big win for the progressives he’s aligned with. Governing — actually making tough choices in tough times and finding workable solutions — is much harder than simply leading the opposition. And if the left in this town can show that we can run things better than the Newsom camp, Chamberlain and his big-money crew won’t do much better in 2010 than they did in 2008.

Chamberlain’s group is looking for new approaches and new strategies, and they’ll focus on things like "quality of life" (read: homeless people on the streets). Chiu ought to be able to tell the downtown folks (who, interestingly, are probably going to both meetings) that the Newsom administration’s budget cuts are going to make the homeless problem way worse.

So all this political and policy debate is going on quietly in San Francisco. And what’s most interesting is that the person who should have the most at stake in both areas isn’t even at the table. He’s too busy running for governor.

Budget talks, without the mayor

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EDITORIAL The president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, David Chiu, is doing something Mayor Gavin Newsom should have done a long time ago. He’s putting the key stakeholders in the budget debate — labor, small business, downtown, nonprofits, etc. — in the same room and talking about solutions.

And while none of the participants want to talk publicly, it’s clear that all sides think they are making progress. The most likely outcome ought to be a winner for everyone: a special election, delayed until July, when the public can vote on some revenue measures that would blunt the awful impact of a half-billion dollar budget deficit.

For this to work, everyone is going to have to give up something. The city employee unions will have to be willing to reopen contracts and accept either reductions in raises or some layoffs. Some political leaders’ pet projects and highly paid patronage employees will have to go. Downtown will have to accept some new taxes on the wealthy; small business will have to stomach a sales tax. And the supervisors will have to hold hearings on and negotiate a budget this summer before they know for sure that the money will be there to pay the bills.

We have actively pushed for a June election, to make sure the money is there when the budget is approved — but July is a perfectly acceptable compromise. In fact, it has a certain amount of political synergy. The mayor will present a bloody, brutal, budget in May that includes devastating cuts to essential programs. The supervisors can then offer the voters a clear choice: accept those cuts — or vote to approve a package of revenue measures on a special election ballot.

The effort will be a whole lot easier if the mayor stops being such an obstructionist — and if his allies on the board are willing to join with what could be an emerging consensus. Under state law, any new taxes San Francisco enacts this year would require a two-thirds vote of the people — a tough threshold. But if the supervisors and the mayor agree unanimously to declare a budget emergency (and a deficit that equals half the discretionary money in the general fund is by any standards an emergency), then a simple majority can approve a tax hike.

So far the mayor has been almost entirely missing in action here. Although his press secretary, Nathan Ballard, told us the mayor has been meeting with budget stakeholders, that’s news to many of the people in Chiu’s group. Even business leaders, who in the past have been loyal to the mayor, are now openly criticizing his absence from the discussions. It’s crazy — Newsom is running around the state, working on his campaign for governor, while the work of keeping his city from a total meltdown is going on without him. Newsom absolutely must engage here, and start attending Chiu’s meetings. He’s been insisting he won’t support a June election, allegedly because there’s no broad coalition calling for it. But that coalition may be coming together to talk about an election in July — and Newsom isn’t even paying attention.

Meanwhile, three of the supervisors — Sean Elsbernd, Michela Alioto-Pier, and Carmen Chu — have also opposed a special election, and they’re going to have to change their tune. Even Republicans in the state Legislature — who signed a pledge never to support any tax increases — worked with the governor on a budget plan that includes some significant tax hikes. The Democratic moderates on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors shouldn’t be able to get away with refusing to look for new sources of revenue — soon, as part of the next year’s budget — to keep the city from fiscal calamity.

“Don’t do it, Gavin”

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By Steven T. Jones

At a time when even Mayor Gavin Newsom’s allies are complaining that he’s disengaged with running the city at this crucial time, largely because of his gubernatorial ambitions, it seemed like an odd time for the Newsom campaign to send out a campaign plea called “Don’t do it, Gavin” that began like this:
“When I first started talking to friends and family about running for Governor, I was excited at how much enthusiasm there was for the idea. It’s not a decision I’m going to take lightly – but of course it’s nice to hear friends say they support the concept.
“That’s why I was a little taken aback when I asked my father what he thought. Without hesitation the man whose opinion I value most came out and said it: “Don’t do it Gavin.”
“I think my father must have seen my face – because he immediately said – “Of course I think you would do a great job – it’s just that nobody is going to be able to solve the state’s problems. I don’t want to see you fail in a job that’s impossible to do right now.”
Then he goes on, like the petulant son he is, to explain that he just wants to do it anyway, without ever really articulating why or explaining why he’d be a good governor (you can read the whole letter on the jump if you don’t trust my conclusion).
Take your dad’s advice, Gavin. Don’t do it. Honor your hollow promise to work with the Board of Supervisors on finding a way out of this budget mess. Do your job.

P.S. In my e-mail exchange with Newsom flak Nathan Ballard for my last post about the mayor’s avoidance of budget realities, he went on to explain that Newsom will indeed offer a budget plan: “Rest assured that the Mayor will deliver a balanced budget, as he always does, on June 1.” So, while everyone else works to solve an immediate problem, Newsom is going to sit it out for the next four months. Unbelievable!

Governor attacks the schools

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By Tim Redmond

Just for the record, according to the California Budget Project, the proposed budget that the guv is putting forward would cut $39 million from the SF public schools.
And although the city’s Rainy Day Fund (thanks to Tom Ammiano) might — might — be able to provide $24 million, it’s still going to be a year of ugly, ugly cuts.

Public safety adrift

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› sarah@sfbg.com

Shortly into his first term as mayor, Gavin Newsom told a caller on talk radio — who was threatening to start a recall campaign if the mayor didn’t solve the city’s homicide problem — that Newsom might sign his own recall petition if he didn’t succeed in reducing violent crime.

But Newsom didn’t reduce violence — indeed, it spiked during his tenure — nor did he hold himself or anyone else accountable. Guardian interviews and research show that the city doesn’t have a clear and consistent public safety strategy. Instead, politics and personal loyalty to Newsom are driving what little official debate there is about issues ranging from the high murder rate to protecting immigrants.

The dynamic has played out repeatedly in recent years, on issues that include police foot patrols, crime cameras, the Community Justice Court, policies toward cannabis clubs, gang injunctions, immigration policy, municipal identification cards, police-community relations, reform of San Francisco Police Department policies on the use of force, and the question of whether SFPD long ago needed new leadership.

Newsom’s supporters insist he is committed to criminal justice. But detractors say that Newsom’s political ambition, management style, and personal hang-ups are the key to understanding why, over and over again, he fires strong but politically threatening leaders and stands by mediocre but loyal managers. And it explains how and why a vacuum opened at the top of the city’s criminal justice system, a black hole that was promptly exploited by San Francisco-based U.S. Attorney Joseph Russoniello, who successfully pressured Newsom to weaken city policies that protected undocumented immigrants accused of crimes.

Since appointing Heather Fong as chief of the San Francisco Police Department in 2004, Newsom has heard plenty of praise for this hardworking, morally upright administrator. But her lack of leadership skills contributed to declining morale in the ranks. So when he hired the conservative and controversial Kevin Ryan as director of the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice — the only U.S. Attorney fired for incompetence during the Bush administration’s politicized 2006 purge of the Department of Justice, despite Ryan’s statements of political loyalty to Bush — most folks assumed it was because Newsom had gubernatorial ambitions and wanted to look tough on crime.

Now, with Fong set to retire and a new presidential administration signaling that Russoniello’s days may be numbered, some change may be in the offing. But with immigrant communities angrily urging reform, and Newsom and Ryan resisting it, there are key battles ahead before San Francisco can move toward a coherent and compassionate public safety strategy.

SHIFTING POLICIES


The combination of Ryan, Fong, and Newsom created a schizophrenic approach to public policy, particularly when it came to immigrants. Fong supported the sanctuary city policies that barred SFPD from notifying federal authorities about interactions with undocumented immigrants, but Ryan and many cops opposed them. That led to media leaks of juvenile crime records that embarrassed Newsom and allowed Russoniello and other conservatives to force key changes to this cherished ordinance.

Russoniello had opposed the city’s sanctuary legislation from the moment it was introduced by then Mayor Dianne Feinstein in the 1980s, when he serving his first term as the U.S. Attorney for Northern California. But it wasn’t until two decades later that Russoniello succeeded in forcing Newsom to adopt a new policy direction, a move that means local police and probation officials must notify federal authorities at the time of booking adults and juveniles whom they suspect of committing felonies

Newsom’s turnabout left the immigrant community wondering if political ambition had blinded the mayor to their constitutional right to due process since his decision came on the heels of his announcement that he was running for governor. Juvenile and immigrant advocates argue that all youth have the right to defend themselves, yet they say innocent kids can now be deported without due process to countries where they don’t speak the native language and no longer have family members, making them likely to undertake potentially fatal border crossings in an effort to return to San Francisco.

Abigail Trillin of Legal Services for Children, cites the case of a 14-year-old who is in deportation proceedings after being arrested for bringing a BB gun to school. "He says he was going to play with it in the park afterwards, cops and robbers," Trillin says. "His deportation proceedings were triggered not because he was found guilty of a felony, but because he was charged with one when he was booked. He spent Christmas in a federal detention facility in Washington state. Now he’s back in San Francisco, but only temporarily. This boy’s family has other kids, they are part of our community. His father is a big, strong man, but every time he comes into our office to talk, he is in tears."

Another client almost got referred to U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) even though he was a victim of child abuse. And a recent referral involved a kid who has been here since he was nine months old. "If the mayor genuinely wants to reach out to the immigrant community, he needs to understand how this community has perceived what has happened," Trillin said. "Namely, having a policy that allows innocent youth to be turned over to ICE."

Social workers point out that deporting juveniles for selling crack, rather than diverting them into rehabilitation programs, does nothing to guarantee that they won’t return to sell drugs on the streets. And making the immigrant community afraid to speak to law enforcement and social workers allows gangs and bullies to act with impunity.

"This is bad policy," Trillin stated. "Forget about the rights issues. You are creating a sub class. These youths are getting deported, but they are coming back. And when they do, they don’t live with their families or ask for services. They are going far underground. They can’t show up at their family’s home, their schools or services, or in hospitals. So the gang becomes their family, and they probably owe the gang money."

Noting that someone who is deported may have children or siblings or parents who depend on them for support, Sup. John Avalos said, "There need to be standards. The city has the capability and knows how to work this out. I think the new policy direction was a choice that was made to try and minimize impacts to the mayor’s career."

But Matt Dorsey, spokesperson for the City Attorney’s Office, told the Guardian that the Sanctuary City ordinance never did assure anyone due process. "The language actually said that protection did not apply if an individual was arrested for felony crimes," Dorsey said. "People have lost sight of the fact that the policy was adopted because of a law enforcement rationale, namely so victims of crime and those who knew what was going on at the street level wouldn’t be afraid to talk to police."

Angela Chan of the Asian Law Caucus, along with the San Francisco Immigrant Rights Defense Committee, a coalition of more than 30 community groups, has sought — so far in vain — to get the city to revisit the amended policy. "The city could have reformulated its ordinance to say that we’ll notify ICE if kids are found guilty, do not qualify for immigration relief, and are repeat or violent offenders," Chan said. "That’s what we are pushing. We are not saying never refer youth. We are saying respect due process."

Asked if Newsom will attend a Feb. 25 town hall meeting that immigrant rights advocates have invited him to, so as to reopen the dialogue about this policy shift, mayoral spokesperson Nathan Ballard told the Guardian, "I can’t confirm that at this time."

Sitting in Newsom’s craw is the grand jury investigation that Russoniello convened last fall to investigate whether the Juvenile Probation Department violated federal law. "Ever since the City found out that the grand jury is looking into it, they brought in outside counsel and everything is in deep freeze," an insider said. "The attitude around here is, let the whole thing play out. The city is taking it seriously. But I hope it’s a lot of saber rattling [by Russoniello’s office]."

Dorsey told the Guardian that "the only reason the city knew that a grand jury had been convened was when they sent us a subpoena for our 1994 opinion on the Sanctuary City policy, a document that was actually posted online at our website. Talk about firing a shot over the bow!"

Others joke that one reason why the city hired well-connected attorney Cristina Arguedas to defend the city in the grand jury investigation was the city’s way of saying, ‘Fuck You, Russoniello!" "She is Carole Migden’s partner and was on O.J. Simpson’s dream team," an insider said. "She and Russoniello tangled over the Barry Bonds stuff. They hate each other."

Shannon Wilber, executive director of Legal Services for Children, says Russoniello’s theory seems to be that by providing any services to these people, public or private, you are somehow vioutf8g federal statutes related to harboring fugitives. "But if you were successful in making that argument, that would make child protection a crime," Wilber says, adding that her organization is happy to work with young people, but it has decided that it is not going to accept any more referrals from the Juvenile Probation Department.

"We no longer have the same agenda," Wilber said. "Our purpose in screening these kids is to see if they qualify for any relief, not to deport people or cut them off from services."

Wilber’s group now communicates with the Public Defender’s Office instead. "Between 80 and 100 kids, maybe more, have been funneled to ICE since this new policy was adopted," Wilber said. "This is creating an under class of teens, who are marginalized, in hiding and not accessing educational and health services for fear of being stopped and arrested for no good reason, other than that their skin is brown and they look Latino".

Wilber understands that the new policy direction came from the Mayor’s Office, in consultation with JPD, plus representatives from the US Attorney’s office and ICE. "They bargained with them," Wilber said. "They basically said, what are you guys going to be satisfied with, and the answer was that the city should contact them about anyone who has been charged and booked with a felony, and who is suspected of being undocumented."

She hopes "something shifts" with the new administration of President Barack Obama, and that there will be "enough pressure in the community to persuade the Mayor’s Office to at least amend, if not eliminate, the new policy," Wilber said "The cost of what the city is doing, compared to what it did, is the flashing light that everyone should be looking at."

"It costs so much more to incarcerate kids and deport them, compared to flying them home," she explained. "And we have cast a pall over the entire immigrant community. It will be difficult to undo that. Once people have been subjected to these tactics, it’s not easy to return to a situation of trust. We are sowing the seeds of revolution."

WEAKEST LINK


When Newsom tapped Republican attorney Kevin Ryan to head the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice a year ago, the idea was that this high-profile guy might bring a coherent approach to setting public safety policy, rather than lurch from issue to issue as Newsom had.

Even City Attorney Dennis Herrera, who isn’t considered close to Newsom, praised the decision in a press release: "In Kevin Ryan, Mayor Newsom has landed a stellar pick to lead the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice. Kevin has been a distinguished jurist, an accomplished prosecutor, and a valued partner to my office in helping us develop protocols for civil gang injunctions. San Franciscans will be extremely well served by the talent and dedication he will bring to addressing some of the most important and difficult problems facing our city."

But the choice left most folks speechless, particularly given Ryan’s history of prosecuting local journalists and supporting federal drug raids. Why on earth had the Democratic mayor of one of the most liberal cities in the nation hired the one and only Bush loyalist who had managed to get himself fired for being incompetent instead of being disloyal like the other fired U.S. Attorneys?

The answer, from those in the know, was that Newsom was seriously flirting with the idea of running for governor and hired Ryan to beef up his criminal justice chops. "If you are going to run for governor, you’ve got to get to a bunch of law and order people," one insider told us.

Ryan proceeded to upset civil libertarians with calls to actively monitor police surveillance cameras (which can only be reviewed now if a crime is reported), medical marijuana activists with recommendations to collect detailed patient information, and immigrant communities by delaying the rollout of the municipal identity card program.

"In the long run, hopefully, dissatisfaction with Ryan will grow," Assembly Member Tom Ammiano told us last year when he was a supervisor. "He could become a liability for [Newsom], and only then will Newsom fire him, because that’s how he operates."

Others felt that Ryan’s impact was overstated and that the city continued to have a leadership vacuum on public safety issues. "What has happened to MOCJ since Ryan took over?" one insider said. "He doesn’t have much of a staff anymore. No one knows what he is doing. He does not return calls. He has no connections. He’s not performing. Everyone basically describes him with the same words – paranoid, retaliatory, and explosive – as they did during the investigation of the U.S. attorneys firing scandal."

"I’ve only met him three times since he took the job," Delagnes said. "I guess he takes his direction from the mayor. He’s supposed to be liaison between Mayor’s Office and the SFPD. When he accepted the job, I was, OK, what does that mean? He has never done anything to help or hinder us."

But it was when the sanctuary city controversy hit last fall that Ryan began to take a more active role. Sheriff’s Department spokesperson Eileen Hirst recalls that "MOCJ was essentially leaderless for five years, and Ryan was brought in to create order and revitalize the office. And the first thing that really happened was the controversy over handling undocumented immigrant detainees."

One prime example of Ryan’s incompetence was how it enabled Russoniello to wage his successful assault on the city’s cherished sanctuary ordinance last year. Internal communications obtained by the Guardian through the Sunshine Ordinance show efforts by the Newsom administration to contain the political damage from reports of undocumented immigrants who escaped from city custody.

Newsom solidly supported the Sanctuary City Ordinance during his first term, as evidenced by an April 2007 e-mail that aide Wade Crowfoot sent to probation leaders asking for written Sanctuary City protocols. But these demands may have drawn unwelcome attention.

"This is what caused the firestorm regarding undocumented persons," JPD Assistant Chief Allen Nance wrote in August 2008 as he forwarded an e-mail thread that begins with Crowfoot’s request.

"Agreed," replied probation chief William Siffermann. "The deniability on the part of one is not plausible."

Shortly after Ryan started his MOCJ gig, the Juvenile Probation Department reached out to him about a conflict with ICE. They asked if they could set up something with the U.S. Attorney’s Office but the meeting got canceled and Ryan never rescheduled it.

Six weeks passed before the city was hit with the bombshell that another San Francisco probation officer had been intercepted at Houston Airport by ICE special agents as he escorted two minors to connecting flights to Honduras. They threatened him with arrest.

"Special Agent Mark Fluitt indicated that federal law requires that we report all undocumenteds, and San Francisco Juvenile Court is vioutf8g federal law," JPD’s Carlos Gonzalez reported. "Although I was not arrested, the threat was looming throughout the interrogation."

Asked to name the biggest factors that influenced Newsom’s decision to shift policy, mayoral spokesperson Nathan Ballard cites a May 19 meeting in which Siffermann briefed the mayor about JPD’s handling of undocumented felons on matters related to transportation to other countries and notification of ICE.

"That morning Mayor Newsom directed Siffermann to stop the flights immediately," Ballard told the Guardian. "That same morning the mayor directed Judge Kevin Ryan to gather the facts about whether JPD’s notification practices were appropriate and legal. By noon, Judge Ryan had requested a meeting with ICE, the U.S. Attorney, and Chief Siffermann to discuss the issue. On May 21, that meeting occurred at 10:30 a.m. in Room 305 of City Hall."

Ballard claims Ryan advised the mayor that some of JPD’s court-sanctioned practices might be inconsistent with federal law and initiated the process of reviewing and changing the city’s policies in collaboration with JPD, ICE, the U.S. Attorney, and the City Attorney.

Asked how much Ryan has influenced the city’s public safety policy, Ballard replied, "He is the mayor’s key public safety adviser."

Records show Ryan advising Ballard and Ginsburg to "gird your loins in the face of an August 2008 San Francisco Chronicle article that further attacked the city’s policy. "Russoniello is quoted as saying, "This is the closest thing I have ever seen to harboring,’" Ryan warned. And that set the scene for Newsom to change his position on Sanctuary City.

PUSHED OR JUMPED?


When Fong, the city’s first female chief and one of the first Asian American women to lead a major metropolitan police force nationwide, announced her retirement in December, Police Commission President Theresa Sparks noted that she had brought "a sense of integrity to the department." Fellow commissioner David Onek described her as "a model public servant" and residents praised her outreach to the local Asian community.

Fong was appointed in 2004 in the aftermath of Fajitagate, a legal and political scandal that began in 2002 with a street fight involving three off-duty SFPD cops and two local residents, and ended several years later with one chief taking a leave of absense, another resigning, and Fong struggling to lead the department. "It’s bad news to have poor managerial skills leading any department. But when everyone in that department is waiting for you to fail, then you are in real trouble," an SFPD source said.

Gary Delagnes, executive director of the San Francisco Police Officers Association, hasn’t been afraid to criticize Fong publicly, or Newsom for standing by her as morale suffered. "Chief Fong has her own style, a very introverted, quiet, docile method of leadership. And it simply hasn’t worked for the members of the department. A high percentage [of officers] believe change should have been made a long time ago."

But Newsom refused to consider replacing Fong, even as the stand began to sour his relationship with the SFPOA, which has enthusiastically supported Newsom and the mayor’s candidates for other city offices.

"The day the music died," as Delagnes explains it, was in the wake of the SFPD’s December 2005 Videogate scandal. Fong drew heavy fire when she supported the mayor in his conflict with officer Andrew Cohen and 21 other officers who made a videotape for a police Christmas party. Newsom angrily deemed the tape racist, sexist, and homophobic at a press conference where Fong called the incident SFPD’s "darkest day."

"Heather let the mayor make her look like a fool. Who is running this department? And aren’t the department’s darkest days when cops die?" Delagnes said, sitting in SFPOA’s Sixth Street office, where photographs and plaques commemorate officers who have died in service.

Delagnes supports the proposal to give the new chief a five-year contract, which was part of a package of police reforms recommended by a recent report that Newsom commissioned but hasn’t acted on. "You don’t want to feel you are working at the whim of every politician and police commission," Delagnes said. But he doubts a charter amendment is doable this time around, given that the Newsom doesn’t support the idea and Fong has said she wants to retire at the end of April.

"I’d like to see a transition to a new chief on May 1," Delagnes said. "And so far, there’s been no shortage of applications. Whoever that person is, whether from inside or outside [of SFPD], must be able to lead us out of the abysmally low state of morale the department is in."

Delagnes claims that police chiefs have little to do with homicide rates, and that San Francisco is way below the average compared to other cities. "But when that rate goes from 80 to 100, everyone goes crazy and blames it on the cops. None of us want to see people killed, but homicides are a reality of any big city. So what can you do to reduce them? Stop them from happening."

But critics of SFPD note that few homicide cases result in arrests, and there is a perception that officers are lazy. That view was bolstered by the case of Hugues de la Plaza, a French national who was living in San Francisco when he was stabbed to death in 2007. SFPD investigators suggested it was a suicide because the door was locked from the inside and did little to thoroughly investigate, although an investigation by the French government recently concluded that it was clearly a homicide.

Delagnes defended his colleagues, saying two of SFPD’s most experienced homicide detectives handled the case and that "our guys are standing behind it."

A NEW DIRECTION?


Sparks said she didn’t know Fong was planning to retire in April until 45 minutes before Chief Fong made the announcement on Newsom’s December 20 Saturday morning radio show. "I think she decided it was time," Sparks told the Guardian. "But she’s not leaving tomorrow. She’s waiting so there can be an orderly transition."

By announcing she will be leaving in four months, Fong made it less likely that voters would have a chance to weigh in on the D.C.-based Police Executives Reform Forum’s recommendation that the next SFPD chief be given a five-year contract.

"The mayor believes that the chief executive of a city needs to have the power to hire and fire his department heads in order to ensure accountability," Newsom’s communications director Nathan Ballard told the Guardian.

According to the city charter, the Police Commission reviews all applications for police chief before sending three recommendations to the mayor. Newsom then either makes the final pick, or the process repeats. This is same process used to select Fong in 2004, with one crucial difference: the commission then was made up of five mayoral appointees. Today it consists of seven members, four appointed by the mayor, three by the Board of Supervisors.

Last month the commission hired Roseville-based headhunter Bob Murray and Associates to conduct the search in a joint venture with the Washington-based Police Executive Research Forum, which recently completed an organizational assessment of the SFPD. Intended to guide the SFPD over the next decade, the study recommends expanding community policies, enhancing information services, and employing Tasers to minimize the number of deadly shootings by officers.

"The mayor tends to favor the idea [of Tasers] but is concerned about what he is hearing about the BART case and wants closer scrutiny of the issue," Ballard told us last week.

Potential candidates with San Francisco experience include former SFPD deputy chief Greg Suhr, Taraval Station Captain Paul Chignell, and San Mateo’s first female police chief, Susan Manheimer, who began her career with the SFPD, where her last assignment was as captain of the Tenderloin Task Force.

"It would be wildly premature to comment on the mayor’s preference for police chief at this time," Ballard told the Guardian.

Among the rank and file, SFPD insider Greg Suhr is said to be the leading contender. "He’s very politically connected, and he is Sup. Bevan Dufty’s favorite," said a knowledgeable source. "The mayor would be afraid to not get someone from the SFPD rank and file."

Even if Newsom is able to find compromise with the immigrant communities and soften his tough new stance on the Sanctuary City policy, sources say he and the new chief would need to be able to stand up to SFPD hardliners who push back with arguments that deporting those arrested for felonies is how we need to get rid of criminals, reduce homicides, and stem the narcotics trade.

"The police will say, you have very dangerous and violent potential felons preying on other immigrants in the Mission and beyond," one source told us. "They would say [that] these are the people who are dying. So if you are going to try and take away our tools — including referring youth to ICE on booking — then we will fight and keep on doing it."

While that attitude is understandable from the strictly law and order perspective, is this the public safety policy San Francisco residents really want? And is it a decision based on sound policy and principles, or merely political expediency?

Sup. David Campos, who arrived in this country at age 14 as an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala, says he is trying to get his arms around the city’s public safety strategy. "For me, the most immediate issue is the traffic stops in some of the neighborhoods, especially in the Mission and the Tenderloin," said Campos, a member of the Public Safety Committee whose next priority is revisiting the Sanctuary City Ordinance. "I’m hopeful the Mayor’s Office will reconsider its position. But if not, I’m looking at what avenues the board can pursue.

"I understand there was a horrible and tragic incident," Campos added, referring to the June 22, 2008 slaying of three members of the Bologna family, for which Edwin Ramos, who had cycled in and out of the city’s juvenile justice system and is an alleged member of the notoriously violent MS-13 gang, charged with murder for shooting with an AK-47 assault weapon. "But I think it is bad to make public policy based on one incident like that. To me, the focus should be, how do we get violent crime down and how do we deal with homicides?"

Campos believes Ryan has sidetracked the administration with conservative hot-button issues like giving municipal ID cards to undocumented residents, installing more crime cameras, and cracking down on the cannabis clubs. "I’m trying to understand the role of the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice," Campos said, raising the possibility that it might be eliminated as part of current efforts to close a large budget deficit. "In tough times, can we afford to have them?"

The change in Washington could also counter San Francisco’s move to the right. Federal authorities, swamped by claims of economic fraud and Ponzi schemes, might lose interest in punishing San Francisco for its Sanctuary City-related activities now that President Barack Obama has vowed to address immigration reform, saying he wants to help "12 million people step out of the shadows."

"It’s hard to believe that there isn’t going to be some kind of change," another criminal justice community source told us. "A lot of this is Joe Russoniello’s thing. Sanctuary City ordinances and policies have been a target of his for years."

Rumors swirled last week that Russoniello might have already received his marching orders when Sen. Barbara Boxer announced her judicial nomination committees, which make recommendations to Obama for U.S. District Court judges, attorneys, and marshals.
Boxer will likely be responsible for any vacancies in the northern and southern districts, while Feinstein, who is socially friendly with the Russoniello family, will take charge of the central and eastern districts. Criminal justice noted that Arguedas, who San Francisco hired to defend itself against Russoniello’s grand jury investigation, is on Boxer’s Northern District nomination committee.
Boxer spokesperson Natalie Ravitz told the Guardian she was not going to comment on the protocol or process for handling a possible vacancy. "What I can tell you is that Sen. Boxer is accepting applications for the position of U.S. Attorney for the Southern District (San Diego), a position that is considered vacant," Ravitz told us. "Sen. Feinstein is handling the vacancy for the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District. Beyond that I am not going to comment. If you have further questions, I suggest you call the Department of Justice press office."
DOJ referred us to the White House, where a spokesperson did not reply before press time. Meanwhile Russoniello has been publicly making the case for why he should stay, telling The Recorder legal newspaper in SF that morale in the U.S. Attorney’s San Francisco office is much improved, with fewer lawyers choosing to leave since he took over from Ryan.
That’s small consolation, given widespread press reports that Ryan had destroyed morale in the office with leadership that was incompetent, paranoid, and fueled by conservative ideological crusades. Now the question is whether a city whose criminal justice approach has been dictated by Ryan, Fong, and Newsom — none of whom would speak directly to the Guardian for this story — can also be reformed.

Why we’re broke

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By Tim Redmond

State Sen. Mark Leno explained to me a few days ago that, despite the GOP’s claim that California has “a spending problem,” when you actually look at how state spending has increased over the past 20 years, you get a very different picture. Actually, after accounting for inflation and population growth, state spending would have been relatively flat — save for the insane prison expansion and the governor’s car-tax cut.

There’s an interesting analysis of all this at Calitics, which looks at the Monterey Herald’s story on Where the Money Went. Bottom line: The state’s problem — as I keep saying — is that Californians want all kinds of services — good education, parks, roads, transportation systems and yes, sadly, prisons — but nobody wants to pay for them. It’s expensive to run the world’s eighth-largest economy, a state with more people than most countries and a wide range of social problems. And there is plenty of money floating around — even in this economy, California is a very wealthy state.

But as long as we aren’t willing to raise taxes on the wealthy and look at issues like Prop. 13, these budget problems aren’t going to go away.

Extra! Gov. Schwarzenneger furloughs himself

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Today’s Ammianoliner:

Governor Schwarzenneger furloughs himself. No one notices, including Maria.

(Assemblyman Tom Ammiano gets his bearings in Sacramento. From his home telephone answering machine on Monday, Feb. 2, 2008) B3

Durst: The school for scandal. Version 2.1

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By Will Durst

A politician making lemonade after being pelted by a bushel of media chucked lemons is as familiar as red yarn on the handle of a black bag on the luggage carousel at O’Hare. But few alive have seen the likes of Rod Blagojevich. Not content to stir up a nice cold pitcher or erect a simple stand, the former Illinois Governor is challenging Minute Maid’s supremacy in the field of citrus concentrate. Refusing to exit the stage quietly after removed from office, he instead has gone on the offensive. Some might argue the 52 year- old Democrat has given a whole new meaning to the word “offensive.”

A scar is born

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› johnny@sfbg.com

What does Gary Indiana think of Obamamania? I have to ask, because Indiana is a peerless dissector of contemporary American political symptoms. The evidence includes his blistering appraisal of Jerry Brown’s blank gaze and sun-scorched face and other facets of the 1992 presidential campaign in Let it Bleed: Essays 1985-1995. Or more recently, the combination of laugh-out-loud descriptive power and pointed investigative fact (as opposed to typical journalistic trivia) in 2005’s The Schwarzenegger Syndrome: Politics and Celebrity in the Age of Contempt, a petite volume that somehow manages to depict the 2004 Republican National Convention, for the record, in words that do full justice to that historical event’s baleful hilarity and bottomless horror.

Indiana might be best known today as a novelist whose inspirations have ranged from pre-Disney Manhattan junkies and hustlers to jaundiced, post-In Cold Blood original fakes such as Andrew Cunanan and homicidal con artist and subconscious Liz Taylor impersonator Sante Kimes. Clearly this is a man who has something to say about American delusion, and the new Utopia’s Debris: Selected Essays (Basic Books, 320 pages, $28.95) includes a few brief but scathing riffs on the theme. "Kindergarten Governor" renders the 2003 California gubernatorial recall with great flair — the "aptly named" Gray Davis is likened to an "an especially depressive funeral director"; Arianna Huffington is tagged "inestimable" — while tracing the effort’s birth back to criminal business dealings in an office behind a Krispy Kreme in Sacramento. "The Excremental Republic" provides a sensible, revealing, and thus utterly unique reading of Bush vs. Gore and its impact.

Organized into five parts, beginning with the Nico-quoting "Desertshore" and ending with the title section, Utopia’s Debris collects Indiana’s journalistic writings, which are reliably several flights above almost all prose found in newspapers and magazines today, while never once stiff or pretentious. Quite the contrary: Indiana’s ever-active bullshit detector makes for the opposite of PR pablum, even when he flirts with the sin of log-rolling by sending a little textual love his to his frequent book jacket contributor Barbara Kruger (a better writer than artist, in my opinion), paying tribute to actress (and friend) Bulle Ogier, or eulogizing another close ally, Susan Sontag. To say Indiana is a writer who welcomes argument is an understatement. When he refers to one published eulogy as a "fulminating, hateful dismissal of Sontag’s entire lifework," his own hateful dismissal of the late Pauline Kael in Artforum — complete with a memory of himself and Sontag raiding a newsstand for a fresh opportunity to mock Kael’s writing does spring to mind.

As its name suggests, the pleasures and the value of Utopia’s Debris stem partly from the manner in which Indiana organizes these short examples of writing for a paycheck. In a one-two punch, an assessment of presidential election thievery ("The Excremental Republic") is followed by a look at the cultural relevance and role of Jacqueline Susann’s Valley of the Dolls ("Uberdolls"). A posthumous look at Leni Riefenstahl and her last years (checkout this whiplash truth: "[She’s] relaxed, genial, reflective in an undefensive way, and genuinely likable. Rather like the giant toad who has, at last, eaten its fill of flies and can’t see any buzzing in her immediate vicinity") arrives shortly before his tribute to Sontag, who famously attacked Riefenstahl’s fascist aesthetics. The book’s final roll call of subjects — Robert Bresson, Georges Simenon, Brecht, and Weill as filtered through Harry Smith — is vital and dramatically potent.

A lifetime of sharpening sentences like so many knives means that Indiana knows how to write an intro: "You could infer from the production notes that Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain would be useful if it came in a spray can. Spritz a little on a fundamentalist and change him into a liberal, or neutralize a whole church of basement of rednecks with a full-strength tolerance bomb." When he detonates explosives by pious pop culture it makes for entertaining reading. But the peak stretches of Utopia’s Debris occur within assessments of a wide variety — Gavin Lambert, Mary Wornov, Caroline Blackwood, Rudolph Wurlitzer, Witold Gombrowicz, Thomas Bernhard, Curzio Malaparte, Jean Echenoz, Emmanul Carrère — of anti-canonical novelists. Through them, Indiana wrestles with his own ideas about life and chosen calling in a manner that is revelatory.

Immigrant activists seek Newsom meeting

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› news@sfbg.com

As cops pushed their way through City Hall’s crowded hallways the day after the presidential inauguration, telling immigrant-rights demonstrators to make a clear pathway, a woman pulled her friend closer to the wall.

"Be careful," she said in Spanish. "You don’t want to be detained."

The mostly Latino protesters placed a candle and an invitation to an immigrant rights meeting in front of each supervisor’s door. The event was meant to bid good riddance to George W. Bush and demand policy change from both President Barack Obama and Mayor Gavin Newsom in light of the escautf8g nationwide crackdowns on undocumented immigrants.

Angered by what they see as a lack of local political leadership in the face of federal assaults on San Francisco’s sanctuary city ordinance, the protesters, numbering in the hundreds, sang social justice songs and chanted "Si se puede" before stopping in front of the Mayor’s Office to shout, "Let us in!"

Organized by the San Francisco Immigrant Rights Defense Committee, a coalition of 30 organizations that has been working on an immigrants’ rights platform since last July, the action was intended to place additional pressure on Newsom to meet directly with activists.

Newsom has refused to hold a public meeting with immigrant-rights groups since announcing last summer that the city would contact federal authorities whenever youth suspected of being undocumented are arrested on felony charges. That means even innocent kids, arrested by mistake, could be deported.

Newsom’s abrupt policy shift came on the heels of a series of racially charged San Francisco Chronicle articles that hit newsstands just as he was announcing his intention to run for California governor.

Since then, SFIRDC has organized protests and met individually with nine supervisors to persuade them to uphold the city’s sanctuary ordinance and municipal ID program, and to work to stop Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids, police checkpoints, and budget cuts to immigrant community programs.

To date, the four newly elected supervisors — John Avalos, David Campos, David Chiu, and Eric Mar, all direct descendants of immigrant families — along with two returning board members, Sups. Chris Daly and Bevan Dufty, have signed SFIRDC’s pledge.

But while Sup. Sophie Maxwell is said to be open to the idea and Ross Mirkarimi is likely to sign it, Sups. Michela Alioto-Pier, Sean Elsbernd, and Carmen Chu, Newsom’s closest allies on the board, have not.

SFIRDC co-organizer and Asian Law Caucus staff attorney Angela Chan said the coalition hopes Newsom will be receptive to the idea of a Feb. 25 town hall meeting, and that Obama will heed calls to stop raids and suspend detentions and deportations — moves that have increased in frequency locally since Joseph Russoniello was appointed U.S. Attorney for Northern California in December 2007.

"Russoniello’s priorities don’t seem to be in line with the Obama administration," Chan told the Guardian, further noting that the success of SFIRDC’s February 25th meeting, which will be held at the office of St. Peter’s Housing Committee, hinges on the presence of the mayor: If he doesn’t show, the discussion cannot move forward.

San Francisco’s 1989 Sanctuary Ordinance prohibits the use of city funds to enforce federal immigration law, but a 1993 amendment requires the city to report immigrants suspected of felonies to the federal government.

But San Francisco law-enforcement officials chose not to apply that rule to young people — until last summer’s policy shift. Since then, the Juvenile Probation Department has referred an estimated 100 San Francisco youth (who were arrested on suspicion of a crime, but not yet convicted) to ICE. The feds can detain undocumented youth in county jails with adult criminals or transfer them to other facilities, often in other states, without notifying an attorney or a family member.

"We want to narrow the 1993 felony exception to be applied only if a youth has gotten due process and been found to have committed a felony," Chan said.

The city’s crackdown is part of a larger national picture. The amped-up federal campaign against undocumented immigrants, a product of post-9/11 programs, began when ICE was created to replace the Immigration and Naturalization Service in 2003.

"There are victims of domestic violence who will not call the police because they are afraid of their families getting deported," Guillermina Castellano, a domestic worker and activist with Mujeres Unidas and La Raza Central, said at the protest."The main difference between now and before is the scale," said Francisco Ugarte, a lawyer with the Immigrant Legal Education Network. "It’s hard to describe the kind of fear that exists now."

So what are Newsom’s budget plans?

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EDITORIAL In Washington, Rep. Nancy Pelosi — who has never been known as a radical leftist — is proposing that Congress repeal the Bush tax cuts, now, two years before they expire. That would bring $226 billion into the federal till, enough to fund a good part of the stimulus package.

In Sacramento, Democrats are moving toward a special election this spring to allow the voters to approve a tax increase — a move that would prevent disastrous service cuts in this horrible economic climate. Even the Republicans in the state Legislature — about as intransigent a group of people as you’re going to find in public service in America — are actually discussing the possibility that they might accept a tax increase as part of a budget deal.

Political writer David Sirota, blogging on Open Left, argues that a tectonic shift is taking place, that budget fights are "tilting the terms of debate away from Reaganism and toward progressive policy goals."

But not in San Francisco, where Mayor Gavin Newsom refuses to support any sort of new revenue measures this spring. In fact, while the supervisors, labor, and others are working to try to figure out a solution to the budget crisis, Newsom has been out of town, campaigning for governor or galavanting off to Paris and Davos.

We can’t quite figure out what the mayor plans to do about a budget deficit that could reach $500 million. So far we know he thinks the city can get some money by privatizing cab medallions (a dumb idea). We also hear he’s talking about vastly increasing the number of condo conversion permits (an even worse idea that will lead to massive evictions and the end of rent control). Beyond that, he hasn’t offered anything.

We recognize the problems with a spring special election. Passing a tax measure would require a two-thirds majority, a tough threshold under the best of circumstances. The state may call its own special election in May, preempting the city’s chances. The deadlines are tight, and city officials would need to move very quickly to come up with a workable plan in time.

But there are also serious problems with abandoning the idea, or even waiting until November. We’re talking cataclysmic budget cuts here — maybe as many as 1,500 layoffs, massive cutbacks in public health, parks and recreation centers closed, fire stations shut down, police cut back, Muni backsliding into dysfunction, programs for the homeless and needy vanishing as more and more desperate people fill the streets … it won’t be pretty.

We’ve consistently argued that a June special election to raise new tax money is a reasonable option, and the supervisors need to keep it on the table. That means voting on several technical issues Jan. 27 and then moving at full speed to draft the ballot proposals. If circumstances change, the city can always back off and cancel the election.

But the mayor needs to come back to town and start getting engaged with this problem. Before he simply dismisses the June election, he needs to tell us his plan. What alternatives is he offering? What is he proposing to cut? What jobs, what services, will be eliminated?

The same goes for downtown, small business leaders, and the supervisors who oppose tax increases. Tell us — now, in public — what you propose to do about this once-in-a-lifetime crisis. The progressives are at least putting forward plans, imperfect as they may be. Anyone who refuses to support those plans should be required to offer something else.

Editorials: So what are Newsom’s budget plans?

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While the supervisors, labor, and citizens have been working on the unprecedented budget crisis, Newsom has been out of town campaigning for governor or gallivanting off to Paris and Davos, Switzerland. What’s his plan to handle the budget deficit?

This week’s editorial. Scroll down to read Editor’s notes.

EDITORIAL In Washington, Rep. Nancy Pelosi – who has never been known as a radical leftist – is proposing that Congress repeal the Bush tax cuts, now, two years before they expire. That would bring $226 billion into the federal till, enough to fund a good part of the stimulus package.

In Sacramento, Democrats are moving toward a special election this spring to allow the voters to approve a tax increase – a move that would prevent disastrous service cuts in this horrible economic climate. Even the Republicans in the state Legislature – about as intransigent a group of people as you’re going to find in public service in America – are actually discussing the possibility that they might accept a tax increase as part of a budget deal.

Newsom travels while supervisors work

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paris small.jpg
Newsom and his wife with Francois Lacote, “the Father of the TGV.” Photo courtesy of the Mayor’s Office of Communications.
By Steven T. Jones

While the San Francisco Board of Supervisors today wrestles with deep budget cuts and the uphill battle for calling a June special election for new revenue measures, Mayor Gavin Newsom will be wrapping up a five-day trip to Paris and packing up to once again jet over to Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum.
And all this international jet-setting during this time of crisis follows weeks of gallivanting all over California to build support for his long-shot run for governor. This is the same mayor who rejects the June special election because, as press secretary Nate Ballard told us a couple weeks ago, “It’s not fully baked. It will take a citywide coalition (a la Prop A) to win something like this and the coalition just hasn’t been built yet.”
Might I humbly suggest that the reason that coalition (which would require buy-in from the business community, a key Newsom constituency) hasn’t been built yet is that our mayor is more concerned with taking free trips to Europe and moving past San Francisco than he is on running this troubled city.
To be fair, yesterday he did take a ride on France’s high-speed rail, the TGV, and released a statement calling for federal money to help bring California’s version of high-speed rail into the Transbay Terminal, saying, “Including the rail box as part of the terminal construction is necessary for this grand vision to be realized.”
Today, he met with representatives of Velib, Paris’s rent-a-bike program that has 20,000 bikes, as well as some environmental ministers. And he used the occasion to remotely announce plans to start a bike-sharing service here in San Francisco…with a whopping 50 bikes, at a cost of almost $1 million (up to $500,000 to start and $450,000 annually to operate), all going to Clear Channel. And that’s assuming this administration actually follows through on this promise, and finds the money to do so.
“Bike sharing will help connect thousands of residents and commuters to their workplaces and shopping destinations by providing bikes that they can easily borrow,” Newsom said. “This bike sharing pilot project will allow us to test and perfect the bikes and technology that will be used in our citywide network.”
So, while San Francisco may have to shut down environmental programs and social services and anything else that Newsom isn’t using to campaign for governor, at least our celebrity mayor is still out there, somewhere, representing this city.

Editor’s Notes

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› Tredmond@sfbg.com

Barack Obama is going to have to be a different kind of president, and I don’t mean just policy or the fact that he’s by far the coolest guy to hold that office in my lifetime. I mean he’s going to have to change the tone of how Americans look at our country. He’s going to have to do something that George Bush (and Bill Clinton before him) never did. He’s going to have to get rid of the selfish baby boomer ethos. He’s going to have to talk about sacrifice.

The economy can’t be fixed with deficit spending alone, and the equally massive environmental issues can’t be fixed with just hybrid cars and wind turbines. All those things are important. Without massive federal spending, probably well beyond what Obama is talking about today, the nation will continue to lose millions of jobs, the recession will become a deep depression, and life around here will really suck. And without new technologies, climate change will continue to get worse and energy will become far more expensive and far less reliable.

But in the end, it’s going to take more.

I was listening to the Democratic response to the governor’s State of the State speech Jan. 15 and the KQED radio host asked Darrell Steinberg, the state Senate president pro tem, the basic question of our time: why do Californians want all these wonderful services — education, parks, roads, trains, etc. — but don’t want to pay for them? Steinberg ducked beautifully, but the question still hangs out there. And it’s not just California.

Let us not forget: the United States is still a very wealthy country, and the Bush years made some of its residents exceptionally rich. I just added up the net worth of the top 20 people on the latest Forbes 400 list, and it came to $433 billion. That’s 20 people. The net profits of the top 10 companies on the Fortune 500 list for 2008 totaled more than $100 billion. That’s 10 companies.

Bush never asked any of those people or corporations to help pay for his war. Instead he told them everything would be easy, and gave them juicy tax cuts.

Obama has to set a different tone. He needs to say, loudly and clearly, that those who have the most (far more than they need) in very tough times should be willing to share.

A one-time, 10 percent wealth tax on the ultra-rich would probably raise half a trillion dollars. A short-term excess profits tax (similar to what the nation enacted during World War II) would provide another huge chunk. And it would send a signal to the rest of the country: this isn’t going to be easy. We all have to help out, starting with those at the top.

It also means that, on every level, we all have to get more engaged, more involved in the community. We have to become a nation of givers, not just takers. Public service has to be more important than private profit.

That’s a tough order for a generation raised on selfishness and greed. But it’s the only way out — and the guy we put in office on a banner of change has to lead the way.

Jess Brownell searches for the real middle

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Jess Brownell searches for the real middle of the real middle America where the real Americans live. And he finds wisdom.

By Jess Brownell

Guardian publisher Bruce Brugmann has kindly asked me to produce a blog for these virtual pages. He is an old friend, and a transplanted Midwesterner, and he seems to believe, bless him, that people in the Bay area might benefit from the opinions of a cranky old man in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We’ll see about that.

Milwaukee, for those of you unfamiliar with it, is a place with piles of snow, enough water (for ourselves, mind you), and potholes big enough to engulf a Smart Car, if we had any. As for Wisconsin, it’s a relatively placid state that has never chosen a professional wrestler as governor (that was Minnesota), has never been infested by Romneys (that was Michigan), and is not required by custom to reserve a large number of jail cells for its elected officials (that, of course, is Illinois). People in Wisconsin have harbored a certain resentment towards California for surpassing us in dairy production, but given the current state of the industry, that hardly seems worth mentioning.

Brown (Willie Brown!) for governor?

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By Tim Redmond

I don’t think so, not really. The former Assembly speaker and SF mayor has never seen himself as a candidate for statewide office. But check out this missive from publicist and person-about-town Lee Houskeeper:

Tonight at PJ Corkery’s memorial in a room full of the usual San Francisco suspects Joe O’Donahue announced that Willie Brown will run for governor. I saw a smile come over his face. After the wake politico’s Don Solem, Annemarie Conroy, Ed Moose, and Warren Hinckle were buzzing that at no time during or after Da Mayor’s moving eulogy for his ghost writer did Willie deny O’Donahue’s statement. He left quickly without comment. . .

Okay, that’s not much of an announcement. But here’s what it is: A backhanded slap at Mayor Newsom.

Brown, who appointed Newsom to the Board of Supervisors and endorsed him for mayor, could have said: Nah, Gavin’s my guy. He could have said, If Dianne Feinstein doesn’t run, Gavin’s my guy. But no; he just smiled.

As if to say: Given the cast of characters, I wish.

Editor’s Notes

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› tredmond@sfbg.com

I guess Mayor Gavin Newsom really wants to cut the budget. He wants to force city employees (and not just the cops) to accept pay cuts. He wants to lay people off and eliminate services. He wants to solve the budget crisis entirely on his terms — and honestly, it baffles me.

Anyone who runs a public or private enterprise has to make tough decisions and tough choices in tough times. I know that. I’ve had to cut spending and lay people off — and I can tell you, it sucked. It didn’t make me feel like a strong leader or a hard-nosed manager, it just made me sad.

In politics, I guess, there’s some advantage to looking like you can stand up to organized labor and the left. Maybe Newsom thinks he can run for governor as the mayor who refused to raise taxes during a budget crisis. Maybe he, like Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, thinks taxes are for girlie men.

But does he really want to preside over the decline of his own signature health care plan? Does he want to be mayor of a city that recovers more slowly from the recession? Does he want to be the environmental leader who cut public transportation funding?

He doesn’t have to do that. There’s another alternative. He can work with the supervisors — and labor, and business, and community activists — and look at ways to bring in some more money. It shouldn’t be that hard a sell, really. The budget gap is huge — Aaron Peskin, who served on the Board of Supervisors for eight years, said before he left office that he’s having a hard time even getting his mind around the monstrosity of the necessary cuts. I’ve been watching local politics for 25 years, and I’ve having a hard time too. We could be looking at eliminating half the discretionary spending in the general fund.

Do people who live and work in this city (including business owners) want to see public health cut by 25 percent? Do they want to see libraries closed, and neighborhood fire stations eliminated, and police stations shut down, and recreation programs that keep kids off the streets eliminated, and the Small Business Assistance Center defunded, and more mentally ill people wandering the streets, and longer waits for more crowded Muni buses? Is this the city we all want to live in?

Or are the wealthier residents and bigger businesses willing to pay just a little bit more each year to keep basic services in place?

If Mayor Newsom, who is still quite popular in town, asked that question, in that fashion, and presented budget cuts that everyone knows are necessary and better oversight and good government programs to let us all know that the money isn’t being wasted, and then promoted a couple of fair and progressive new revenue measures in a June special election, the worst of the bloodbath could be avoided.

I can’t understand why he wants this to be so hard.

Offies 2008

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› tredmond@sfbg.com

Wow. What a year.

Sarah Palin ran for vice president. Joe the Plumber got his 15 minutes. Gavin Newsom made out with Sarah Silverman. Eliot Spitzer seemed to be the only one in New York with any money left to spend. Dana Rohrabacher dressed in drag to go to prison. And O.J. Simpson finally managed to get convicted of something…. It was a year for the ages. And it’s finally, finally over.

HEY, GIVE THE POOR WOMAN A BREAK — YOU CAN’T SEE FRANCE FROM ALASKA

Sarah Palin took a call from a Canadian radio comedian posing as French Prime Minister Nicholas Sarkozy and remained on the line, convinced she was talking to a foreign leader, for several minutes as the comedian told her his wife was hot in bed and that he loved the Hustler smut film Who’s Nailin’ Paylin?.

FROM ALASKA, YOU CAN SEE RUSSIA, AND RUSSIA’S COLD, AND IF IT ISN’T IT WOULD STILL LOOK COLD, SO WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL?

Palin said the "jury’s still out" on global warming and that even if the climate was changing, she didn’t know what was causing it.

KILLING YOUR WIFE IS NOTHING, BUT DON’T YOU DARE STEAL FOOTBALL CARDS

O.J. Simpson faced more than 30 years in jail for stealing some sports memorabilia he said belonged to him.

AND FOR A FEW WEEKS, THE ENTIRE STATE OF WORLD DISCOURSE GOT A LITTLE BIT SMARTER

Ann Coulter broke her jaw and had her mouth wired shut.

WHAT IS THE VALUE OF HUMAN LIFE COMPARED TO A $99 FLAT-SCREEN?

A temporary worker in a Long Island, N.Y., Wal-Mart died when bargain-crazy crowds smashed through the store’s front door.

AND HE STILL GOT MORE VOTES THAN MCCAIN

Absentee ballots in an upstate New York county listed "Barack Osama" as a presidential candidate.

SEE, IT ALL DEPENDS ON WHAT THE MEANING OF "YOU BETCHA" IS

The Alaska legislature concluded that Sarah Palin had violated ethics laws when she tried to have her ex brother-in-law fired from the state police. Palin immediately announced that she had been cleared of any wrongdoing.

AND THIS WAS THE GUY WHO RAN THE ECONOMY ALL THOSE YEARS?

Former Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan admitted there was a "flaw" in his free-market approach to economic policy, but said he wasn’t sure exactly what went wrong.

GREAT MOMENTS IN PUBLIC POLICY

A Treasury Department spokesperson announced that the agency had set $700 billion as the amount for the financial bailout because "we just wanted to choose a really large number."

THEY SAVED VILLAGES THAT WAY IN VIETNAM, TOO, BUT YOU MANAGED TO DUCK THAT WAR, SO YOU WOULDN’T UNDERSTAND

George W. Bush addressed the massive federal bailout of the banking system by saying, "I’ve abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system."

WHY THE RICH ARE DIFFERENT FROM YOU AND ME

John McCain admitted he didn’t know how many houses he owned.

PROOF POSITIVE OF THE VALUE OF A YALE EDUCATION

President Bush, addressing the state of the economy, announced that "if money isn’t loosened up, this sucker could go down."

WHOOPS, GUESS THAT ONE ISN’T WORKING OUT SO WELL, EH?

Levi Johnston, who impregnated Sarah Palin’s daughter, Bristol, described himself as a "fucking redneck" who didn’t want kids.

THE CASE FOR A FEDERAL BAILOUT, #422

P. Diddy announced that the economy and the cost of fuel had forced him to give up private jet travel.

ENTIRELY APPROPRIATE FOR A MAN WHO’S AN ASSHOLE

A book by Cliff Schecter reported that McCain had called his wife, Cindy, a "cunt."

WELL, THEY’RE A LOT MORE POLITE ABOUT THESE THINGS DOWN IN BRAZIL

A Brazilian former exotic dancer said she’d had an affair 50 years ago with John McCain, whom she called "my coconut desert."

BUT DON’T WORRY, HILLARY, BARACK LIKES YOU FINE

Samantha Power, an advisor to Obama, called Hillary Clinton "a monster."

THAT’S RIGHT — THE ONE WHO KICKED YOUR ASS. THAT ONE.

In a presidential debate, McCain referred to Obama as "that one."

SUCH HIGH PRAISE FROM SUCH A WONDERFUL MAN

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich referred to Obama as "that motherfucker."

NATURALLY — SHE LIVES IN ALASKA, AND YOU CAN SEE ENERGY FROM THERE

McCain said that Palin "knows more about energy than probably anyone in the United States."

FORTUNATELY, HE NEVER GOT TO THE OVAL OFFICE, SO SOME OF US MAY ESCAPE CUSTODY

In a speech, McCain referred to Americans as "my fellow prisoners."

AS LONG AS THEY SIP IT SLOWLY, SO AS NOT TO BURN THEIR ITTY-BITTY MOUTHS

McCain proclaimed that "we should be able to deliver bottled hot water to dehydrated babies."

NEVER MIND GRAN TORINO, THE WRESTLER, AND MILK — THE OSCAR GOES TO . . .

A TV station in Germany reported that the East German secret police had made private porno movies in the early 1980s with titles like Private Werner’s Big Surprise and Fucking for the Fatherland.

WHERE IS PRIVATE WERNER WHEN YOU NEED HIM?

Eliot Spitzer, the crusading governor of New York, had to resign after a federal sting operation found he had spent more than $80,000 on high-end prostitutes from the Emperor’s Club. On an FBI wiretap, a prostitute named Kristen, after an assignation with Spitzer, told her boss she’d heard that the governor would "ask you do to do things that, like, you might not think were safe" but that "I have a way of dealing with that. I’d be like, listen dude, do you really want the sex?"

NOTHING WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE, YOU BETCHA

Palin gave a speech on the economy while TV cameras captured a farmer beheading turkeys and draining the blood from their carcasses.

ANOTHER HERO FROM MCCAIN’S STRAIGHT TALK EXPRESS

Joseph Wurzelbacher rose to fame as Joe the Plumber after he confronted Obama and said that the Democrat would force him to pay higher taxes. It later turned out that Joe wasn’t a licensed plumber, owed $1,182 in back taxes, and didn’t make anywhere near enough money to be affected by Obama’s tax plans.

CROSS DRESSING, GRASSY KNOLL VARIETY

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R., Orange County) dressed in drag and pretended to be a human-rights worker named "Diana" to sneak into a state prison and badger Sirhan Sirhan, whom the congressman believed was part of a vast Arab conspiracy to kill Robert Kennedy.

IT’S FINE TO BLAST THE QUEERS, JUST DON’T GO BADMOUTHING AMERICA

Barack Obama, who was stung by criticism that his former pastor criticized America, chose for his inaugural convocation a pastor who says homosexuality is a sin.

LET’S SEE. 90,000 CIVILIAN DEATHS, THE RISE OF AL QAEDA, WATER, FUEL, AND ELECTRICITY SHORTAGES, GANGS OF ARMED THUGS IN THE STREETS … CAN’T IMAGINE WHAT THIS DUDE WAS UPSET ABOUT

An Iraqi journalist who threw two shoes at Bush was beaten badly by security guards; Bush later said he "didn’t know what the guy’s beef was."

WHY HE WOULD COVER UP THAT BEAUTIFUL HAIR, WE’LL NEVER KNOW

Mayor Gavin Newsom wore a cowboy hat and rode a horse for a photo shoot at his wedding.

PERHAPS MS. SILVERMAN CAN GET HIM TO PUT HIS HANDS AROUND THE CITY BUDGET, TOO

Newsom groped comedian Sarah Silverman on stage at a Democratic National Convention party after she said she wanted to "sexually discipline" him.

FIRE IN THE HOLE

An unknown arsonist with an unknown motive set more than half a dozen portable toilets on fire in San Francisco.

THIS, FROM A MAN WHO WROTE THE BOOK ON POLITICAL SLEAZE IN CALIFORNIA

Former Mayor Willie Brown complained about progressives using techniques from "Tammany Hall or Richard Daly’s Chicago" to take over the local Democratic Party.

HEY, SOMEBODY’S GOT TO CHANNEL MR. MAGOO

Witnesses reported seeing Carole Migden talking on her cell phone and reading while rapidly changing lanes at 80 mph on the freeway shortly before she crashed into another car. One caller to the state police asked officers to "please get out here, she’s scary."

NOW THAT WE KNOW WHO’S REALLY IN CHARGE AT CITY HALL, WE CAN STOP WASTING OUR TIME WITH THE ELECTED OFFICIALS

Newsom’s press secretary said that reporters wondering about the mayor’s position on public power should ask Pacific Gas and Electric Co. consultant Eric Jaye.

MY GOD, YOU WOULDN’T WANT ANY HUNGRY PEOPLE TO ACTUALLY EAT THE MAYOR’S FOOD

Newsom spent more than $50,000 in city money protecting his slow-food victory garden near City Hall from homeless people.

I’M HAPPY TO WORK WITH YOU, AS LONG AS I DON’T HAVE TO TELL YOU ANYTHING AND YOU DON’T ASK ANY QUESTIONS

Newsom appeared before the Board of Supervisors to discuss his budget cuts, but didn’t actually hand out the budget proposal. Press aides handled that job two hours later.

SINCE THAT APPROACH HAS WORKED SO WELL WITH RAPE VICTIMS

Sam Singer, a $400-per-hour flak for the San Francisco Zoo, sought to blame the victims of a tiger attack by saying that they were drunk and asking for it.

WE’LL GET THOSE BUGGERS — AND THEIR LITTLE DOGS, TOO

California officials threatened to bombard the Bay Area by spraying hazardous moth pheromones from helicopters to eradicate an agricultural pest that has probably been around for decades and will almost certainly survive the assault anyway.

YOUR RATEPAYER DOLLARS AT WORK

PG&E spent $10 million to fight a public power proposal.

THE CROWDS CHEERED A DRAMATIC EVENT AS THE OLYMPIC SPIRIT OF INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION CAME TO ONE OF THE WORLD’S GREAT CITIES . . . OH WAIT, THAT MUST HAVE BEEN SOMEWHERE ELSE

Newsom decided to avoid protests by keeping the route of the Olympic torch relay secret.

ANOTHER SIGN OF POLITICAL BRILLIANCE FROM THE MAN WHO WOULD BE GOVERNOR

Newsom tried to mess with the supervisors by having voters support his Community Justice Center, which the voters then rejected.

WHEN THERE ARE NO PROBLEMS LEFT FOR THE WORLD’S GREAT RELIGIONS TO SPEND MONEY ON

The San Francisco Catholic archbishop helped convince Mormon leaders to join him in pouring millions of dollars into defeating same-sex marriage.

Waning wildlife

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› amanda@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY Changes to ocean and air temperatures, rising sea levels, loss of habitat, scarcity of food, altered precipitation patterns, environmental asynchronicity — these are the concerns of wildlife biologists who are watching the increased effects of climate change on the thousands of plant and animal species that share the earth with people. Overall, global warming threatens a third of existing species, with 50 percent now in general decline due to a variety of human activities.

Bay Area wildlife is already being negatively affected by a warmer world, one that locally manifests in nesting birds roasting to death during heat waves, plummeting fish populations, and starving whales. Those stories were part of "Irreplaceable: Wildlife in a warming world," a recent seminar held at the San Francisco Public Library by the Endangered Species Coalition. Maria Brown, superintendent of Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary — one of the most biologically diverse regions in the world, shared a grim account of the Cassin’s auklet.

"This little seabird you maybe never heard of may predict the future of climate change in San Francisco," said Brown.

The auklet spends most of its life far out at sea, and flies inland to breed in burrows on remote islands and coastlines. Invasive grasses have choked many of the prime burrowing spots along the coast, so wildlife biologists have installed bird boxes as an alternative. April, the height of the annual nesting season, was an unusually warm month, with thermometers on the Farallones Islands clocking 90-degree temperatures. The bird boxes turned into ovens. "They literally cooked," said Brown of the breeding auklets. "This is a prediction of what’s to come."

The auklet’s story also shows how species have already been negatively impacted by human activity, even before dramatic climate change was factored into the equation. That’s a point all the speakers drove home.

"We’re dealing with these threats that already exist. Now with climate change we superimpose all these unknowns," said Tamara Williams, a hydrologist for the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, a 60-mile swath of incredibly diverse land spanning from Tomales Bay to San Mateo that is home to 34 threatened or endangered species — more than any other national park in continental North America. "Those listed species were listed without considering impacts of climate change. We’re dealing with species that were in trouble already."

And how will it affect other species that aren’t listed? Williams gave an example of the coast redwood, which relies on a foggy environment to stave off drought during summer months. Will the coast continue to be as foggy as it’s been in the past? "We wish we could predict what’s going to happen, but we can’t," she said.

Mike Lynes of Golden Gate Audubon said the Bay Area has global significance for birds, but there’s already been a 90 percent loss of its historic wetlands — one of the primary habitats for shorebirds, which are already in a 50 percent decline. Climate change is only going to make the world harder for them, he said as he flashed maps of altered land masses in the event of a one-meter sea level rise — the modest prediction for what will happen by 2100. The maps showed that such a rise will cause wetlands in Richmond, along the Petaluma River, and in Silicon Valley to disappear. Lynes pointed out that the reconfigured coast doesn’t allow room for new wetlands — the coastlines will butt up against already heavily developed urban enclaves for people.

But, he said, expanding and preserving wetlands would benefit birds and humans — wetlands mitigate flooding and are a high-quality CO2 trap.

Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, didn’t sound optimistic about preserving one critical wetland — the Sacramento-San Joaquin delta — when he spoke about the collapsed Pacific salmon population.

"We know pretty much what the problems are for the Central Valley salmon. It doesn’t take a blue-ribbon panel like the governor would like to appoint," he said. "We’ve affected most all of its lifestyle, its lifecycle, by blocking off the places where these salmon spawn," rattling off the names of dams and rivers — Shasta, Bryant, American, Feather — that are no longer easily passable for fish returning to lay eggs where they were born.

On top of that, eggs that are successfully laid hatch into fish that then migrate downstream where they encounter the delta, an "estuary beginning to die." There, agricultural runoff, limited freshwater, and powerful pumps all threaten fish survival.

The few salmon that make it out to sea are faced with altered currents, fewer cool water upwellings, lower quantities of food, and literal dead zones where pollution has obliterated the natural diversity of the water.

"We know what has to be done to fix it. What has been done? Absolutely nothing. Now comes global warming. How well are we going to respond now that we have global warming?" asked Grader. "This year there was no fishing for the first time since 1848," bringing the issue back to the basic human need for food, as well.

He urged people to start demanding more from elected leaders, including a stronger Endangered Species Act with a well-funded mandate, and to begin "raising a much higher bar if we expect to have salmon on the planet, humans on the planet, in the future."

At the start of the evening’s presentation, Representative Nancy Pelosi’s aide, Melanie Nutter, delivered a short message from the Speaker of the House calling global warming a moral challenge. Nutter didn’t stay for the presentation, however, and wasn’t there to hear speaker after speaker call out the government for lack of action and, in some cases, inappropriate action.

Tom Dey, a water policy analyst who was seated in the audience, commented that change might come from the top of Barack Obama’s administration, but local officials need to be lobbied. "We have Senator [Dianne] Feinstein and Governor [Arnold] Schwarzenegger, who have written off the delta," he said, bringing up their support for a $9 billion bond to build more dams.

All the speakers urged individual action as well, and Williams said the Interior Department was "committed to doing what we can to reduce our own carbon footprint."

So far, that has been an analysis of carbon emissions throughout the national park system. GGNRA recently approved its climate action plan and is just beginning implementation of three major phases: emissions reduction, education, and adaptation, according to Laura Castellini, an environmental protection specialist. So far, that has meant an energy reduction partnership with Pacific Gas and Electric Co., an integration of climate change into interpretations, and beginning a more focused look at how sea level rise will affect GGNRA lands.

There have been hurdles, too. Castellini said most of the park’s emissions actually come from visitors, so the organization is looking at ways to enhance shuttles to and through parks as well as encouraging alternative transportation to arrive there in the first place. When asked how GGNRA was changing its own driving patterns, she said the agency was having problems getting more fuel-efficient cars. "Right now we get all of our vehicles from the General Services Administration. They have been a little slow in getting us vehicles that get us closer to our goal." Specifically, GSA only offers flex-fuel automobiles that run on ethanol, a plant-based fuel that many environmentalists are criticizing as unsustainable. Furthermore, Castellini said there are no ethanol stations in San Francisco.

Even given the concrete actions the park system is taking, there are still a lot of big unanswered questions, said Castellini. What if Glacier National Park no longer has any glaciers? "What does it mean if our protected areas no longer protect what they were established to?" she asked.

The Irreplaceable campaign, which includes a photo exhibit (closing Dec. 31 at the Main Branch of the SFPL), is traveling the country, ending in Washington, DC, as part of a push for Congress to recognize the gravity of the problem. Mark Rockwell, director of the program, closed the seminar by saying, "The only constant in nature is change. Change is what we’re going to have to become more comfortable with."

That includes human change.

Editor’s Notes

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› tredmond@sfbg.com

I was going to do New Year’s resolutions this week. I got started: turn the cell phone volume down when the kids are in the car and Aaron Peskin is on the line. ("That man sure does like to use the f-word when he talks about PG&E," my nine-year old noted this fall.) Stop shouting "Yo, asshole!" when cars come too close to my bicycle. (I know I can be way more creative and foul-mouthed than that.) Return Gavin Newsom’s phone calls. (Hey, the poor guy must be lonely.)

But really, it’s not all about me.

So instead, in honor of the end of the Bush Years and in the hope of a 2009 we can all be proud of, here are some things I would like to see other people do:

I would like to see the California Legislature and US Congress raise the gas tax enough to bring the price to about $3 a gallon, making sure SUVs remain unattractive forever.

I would like to see the new progressives on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors make open government a real priority; I would like to stop having to fight to get even routine information out of City Hall. I would like everyone in public office to read Bob Herbert’s column in Dec. 27’s The New York Times and understand that one reason FDR was successful with the New Deal was that he understood the importance of restoring faith in government; transparency, accountability, and oversight were a central part of the package.

I would like Anchor Steam to start making a light beer.

I would like someone to get Wi-fi installed at City Hall.

I would like Gavin Newsom to stop hiding behind Nathan Ballard.

I would like the right lane of the stretch of I-80 near Lake Tahoe repaved so those of us with small cars don’t get bounced up and down like ping pong balls.

I would like the federal drinking age lowered to 18.

I would like everyone to stop talking about the death of newspapers and stop pretending that blogs and citizen journalism can ever replace full-time trained reporters.

I would like the San Francisco police to stop turning immigrants over to the feds.

I would like the executive editor of Village Voice Media to shave his head, move to Tibet, become a monk, and accept the karmic implications of the way he’s lived his life.

I would like the state to tax the millionaires instead of the college students.

I would like some really rich person to die and leave $20 million for a public power campaign so that for once we could match Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s money and have a fair fight.

I would like Barack Obama to appoint Arnold Schwarzenegger ambassador to some meaningless country so we can have a new governor.

I would like Newsom to liquidate his personal fortune and use the money to pay rent and grocery bills for the front-line city workers he’s laying off.

I would like the Catholic archbishop of San Francisco to quit the gay-hating.

I would like all my fellow dog owners to clean up the poo on the sidewalk.

I would like to be able to ride high-speed rail to Los Angeles before I start collecting Social Security. Happy New Year.

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