Green

Subtle and sincere

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› kimberly@sfbg.com
SONIC REDUCER Honestly, is sincerity back? And if not sincerity, then can we expect at least Bruce Springsteen, Thin Lizzy’s Phil Lynott, and that word-drunk, narrative-schwinging, Dylan–damaged breed of songwriter that you associate with a kind of East Coasty, epic rust belt, bar-band earnestness that freedom-rocked our worlds in the early ’80s? I know Bob Seger is back — please don’t make me listen to the new album.
You can be forgiven for assuming a J. Geils Band revival is schlumping right around the corner once you cock your vulnerable hearing aid to the Killers’ new album, Sam’s Town (Island). Am I the only one who thinks that someone at the label misread the memo and got the sponsor, whoops, the title wrong? “Sam’s Club” rolls off the tongue much more naturally. I mean, it’s pretty easy to read these songs — more Freddie Mercury and Bono than Bruce and John Cougar Mellencamp — as dispatches from some sorry rocker stuck deep in the aisles at a big-box discount retailer. “My List” — that’s gotta be about forgetting what you went in there for. “Why Do I Keep Counting?” doubtless involves bulk purchases of those butter horn megapacks. “For Reasons Unknown”: yeah, I also buy too much bargain toilet paper and then give half away to relatives — does anyone actually save money this way? “Bling (Confessions of a King)” — Sam’s Club isn’t just about pepperoni-pizza-flavored Combos, and hulking bottles of Motrin.
I don’t care what the Killers kids think — as ambitious and against type as it plays, Sam’s Town simply sucks. So I urge you, if you are truly in need of barfed-up visions of Dylan (and his more rocking imitators), to check out this year’s underacknowledged Wooden Wand and the Vanishing Voice opus, Second Attention (Kill Rock Stars). There is such a thing as being too prolific. Mr. Wand makes so much music that this one was easy to skip.
Another band of would-be rock gods from the all-boy school of Les Paul essentialism is the Hold Steady. Call me a girl, but I never got their shtick and just assumed they were snarky, annoyingly sarcastic smart-asses with prep-school blazers who were made to listen to too much anthem rock at an impressionable age. That is, until I actually saw them at CBGB’s during last year’s CMJ Music Marathon, playing their hearts out, looking like insurance adjusters taking their favorite Cheap Trick fast songs out for a spin.
Yup, it was one of those moments that make you punch the air with your fist, yell like a middle schooler, and pour beer over the guitarist’s Converse. Instantly, you reverted to the brain-dead, raving, ravaged die-hard rock ’n’ roll fan in full ear-bleed death roll — all you needed was a stingray to whip around and pierce you in the aorta so you could die happily, destroyed by the wilderness you’d always deep-down loved. Like an extremely famous TV crocodile hunter.
That performance — and maybe even the Hold Steady’s new Boys and Girls in America (Vagrant) — may be all that it takes to fluff your flaccid affection for stale Bruce Hornsby–style piano lines. Thus it was heartening to hear HS vocalist Craig Finn sounding so, er, out of it in the touring vehicle last week, stuck in traffic outside Atlanta. “Hopefully, I write about the highs and the hangovers,” he drawled. One KISS anecdote later and he was gone. Next up: Tad Kubler, who writes the band’s music.
Kubler assured me that HS have suffered — suffered Guided by Voices comparisons, thanks to the amount of spilled beer that drenches their stages. “Getting hurt onstage is definitely kind of a drag,” he offered. “I almost knocked myself out in Bowling Green, Ohio. Jumping over a railing, I caught my head on monitors that I didn’t see over the stage. Personal injury onstage is something we avoid, but if it’s for the art …”
SUBTLE TRANSITION The Bay Area geniuses of Subtle know all about personal injury — and they know it’s not worthwhile — despite the blatant excellence of their new full-length, For Hero: For Fool (Astralwerks). It’s “a distinctive blend of television, Monty Python, Galway Kinnell, and comic books,” as vocalist Adam “doseone” Drucker described it, also in Atlanta. The band manages to impress despite the fact that one of its core members, Dax Pierson, was seriously injured and paralyzed when Subtle’s van hit black ice while on tour last year.
Drucker began the band with Pierson and recalls starting the new album when Pierson got out of rehab: “The accident struck like lightning. It was the heaviest of times, so we turned around and worked on the record. One of the major motifs of the record is diving into whatever it is,” although, he adds, “we refrained from putting it on our sleeve and wearing it around all day.”
Pierson contributed some demos to the album but has been unable to tour — in fact, Drucker said last week Pierson returned to the hospital for a major operation to reinstall his medication pump. “It’s the main thing on his plate, to put it frankly,” explained Drucker, who added that Pierson has been making phenomenal music since the accident. As for performance, Pierson wants to be prepared when he returns to the stage, Drucker said, because he was “probably the greatest performer. He was a gangsta at it. When he wants to return to performance, he wants to kill it in the capacity he is in.” SFBG
SUBTLE
Sat/14, 10 p.m.
Bottom of the Hill
1233 17th St., SF
$12
(415) 621-4455
WOODEN WAND AND THE SKY HIGH BAND
Sun/15, 9 p.m.
Hemlock Tavern
1131 Polk, SF
$7
(415) 923-0923
HOLD STEADY
Tues/17, 8 p.m.
Great American Music Hall
859 O’Farrell, SF
$13–$16
(415) 885-0750

Charm latitudes

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› paulr@sfbg.com
Presidents are so seldom intentionally funny that when a genuine wit makes it to the Oval Office, we (the people!) tend to notice and remember. As a quipster, John F. Kennedy is without peer in modern times, and while his crack that Washington, DC, is “a city of Northern charm and Southern efficiency” might not be his best line, it’s still a pretty good one — not to mention useful for certain latter-day restaurant writers, who admire the deftly phrased paradox while being perennially fascinated by the truth embedded in it. Whether in the New World or the Old, we tend to think of the north as the home of efficiency and practicality, the south of beauty and sensuality, and can ever the twain meet without some sort of Death in Venice disaster?
Kennedy described himself as “the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris” — another excellent line — so we know he traveled to France. Did he notice, when there, that France might be the one place on earth where the twain could indeed be said happily to meet — that France is simultaneously a northern land of clean cities, fast trains, and a more or less honest bureaucracy and also a Mediterranean realm on easy terms with life’s sunlit pleasures? If so, he has left us no witticism to announce the fact. But I think he would have warmed to Cafe Claude, which isn’t in Paris but feels as if it is, on some lane in the Marais too narrow even for Europe’s ubiquitous Smart Cars.
Here the lane is Claude Lane, a brief segment of asphalt lined by tall glassy buildings that rise in the complex borderland of Union Square, Chinatown, and the Financial District. Nearby Belden Lane, paved with bricks and lined from one end to the other with cafés, trattorias, and fish houses, is better known as a Euro-style restaurant row, but the basic principle is the same, as is the strollable, alfresco feel. The city seems less encroaching in these places, and that is largely because cars are unable to speed through.
Cafe Claude opened more than 15 years ago, so teething and shake-down issues belong to the deep past. The more pertinent question for a place of this age is whether it manages to be both polished and self-renewing or whether senescence has set in. In Café Claude’s case, the answer is pretty clear: it’s in its prime, lively and well run, with food of the urban-earthy sort — rustic dishes prepared with soupçons of metropolitan flash — so characteristic of a certain stratum of Paris restaurants.
For many people, the ultimate treat in French bistros is a plate of steak frites. For me, it is roast chicken ($12.50), a leg and thigh slow-cooked to a gold-dripping tenderness and served with a bright mix of chard, lemon slices, and black olives adrift in the jus. Fries go quite as well with roast chicken as with beef, but at Claude you have to order them on the side ($4, plenty for two). They are sprinkled with herbs and served with a “sauce piquant,” a kind of paprika-enhanced sauce gribiche, lumpy with stubs of cornichons.
The duck rillette ($5) situates a petite slice of meaty pâté, about the size of a brownie, in a vast nest of greens. If shared by two people, the dish is like a charcuterie version of an Easter egg hunt, with the spoils consisting of a single egg. It is best to think of the rillette as a tasting experience: a burst or two of flavor, then on to something weightier, such as that excellent blast from the past, coquilles St. Jacques ($11). Here we have a trio of sea scallops on the half shell bundled with shrimp, mussels, and mushrooms and sealed, oysters Rockefeller–style, under a broiled cap of Gruyère and bread crumbs. The presentation is simple but impressive, and there is a definite unwrapping-a-present pleasure in cracking through the cap to the glistening treasures within.
Weightier still is lamb confit ($23), two rounds of lamb loin braised to pot-roast tenderness and served atop shreds of green cabbage dotted with black olives and bits of red bell pepper. Lamb fat can get pungent if heated, and I had a worry or two beforehand that lamb cooked in lamb fat would be a little too gamy, but the dinnertime kitchen (under chef Leo Salazar) succeeded in discreetly hitting the mute button, with the result a nice lamby — but not too lamby — flavor.
Complaints: the roast-carrot soup ($7), with a submerged reef of Emmentaler gratings, was tongue-searingly hot. A napoleon ($12) of sliced tomatoes and tabs of feta cheese was underseasoned, though the heirloom tomatoes were gloriously ripe. A pan bagnat ($10) featured a smear of tuna salad apparently made from ordinary canned tuna.
But all this was forgiven and then some when the list of digestifs was found to include Armagnac. Armagnac! A snifter for $8 — not bad. Could this be the next big thing? I sippingly pondered that question while the clafouti monster across the table dove into a griotte cherry version ($7) — eggy, I thought (upon a sample or two), but attractively so and baked in a handsome dish of white porcelain.
Cafe Claude must be one of the nicest spots in town to eat outside. There is less tumult and wind than on Belden, and while conventional wisdom teaches that the alfresco season is fleeting in this land of pampered softies, we must remember that the French have a different view: Parisians will take their coffee at sidewalk cafés even with snowflakes twirling softly down around them. So there is northern charm after all. SFBG

CAFE CLAUDE
Continuous service: Mon.–Sat., 11:30 a.m.–10:30 p.m. Dinner: Sun., 5:30–10:30 p.m.
7 Claude Lane, SF
(415) 392-3515
www.cafeclaude.com
Full bar
Noisy
AE/DC/DS/MC/V
Wheelchair accessible

Pumped!

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› deborah@sfbg.com
There’s something about the infectious confidence of do-it-yourselfers that makes me feel like I can learn to build my own space rocket in the blink of an eye.
That’s definitely the vibe I got when I pedaled up to the BioFuel Oasis in West Berkeley’s light industrial district and met with three of the six women who run the worker-owned cooperative, which is doing so well it’s in the market for new digs.
After pulling off the blue coveralls she wore for a Guardian photo shoot and quickly returning to a project she had going on the computer, Melissa Hardy tells me, “It’s not that hard to work on the fuel delivery system of a car…. Let me just demystify that for you.” Folks who haven’t ventured under their own hood much may be put off knowing that the fuel filter and lines of their trusty old Mercedes-Benz could need changing if they make the switch to biodiesel, but Hardy likens these tasks to changing the tire on a bicycle.
Hardy met the women of BioFuel Oasis in the Berkeley Biodiesel Collective (www.berkeleybiodiesel.org), a group that promotes the use and creation of alternative energy through educational seminars. Before getting into biodiesel, Jennifer Radtke brewed her own wine and Gretchen Zimmermann always enjoyed tinkering with cars. They learned to make their own biodiesel while with the collective. Radtke then started BioFuel with SaraHope Smith, who no longer works with the group, in December 2003.
Thanks to them, diesel car owners can go to the BioFuel facilities garage and fill up on recycled oils processed from the greasy waste of a potato chip factory. At $3.70 per gallon, that’s more than the falling diesel prices, currently $2.83 per gallon in California, but biodiesel drivers still get pretty good mileage — about 8 percent less than when they use regular diesel fuel — and they won’t be contributing to asthma in children.
One reason the price is so high is lack of supply. After filling up his Mercedes 1980 240D and three five-gallon tubs for $113.40, customer Ryan Lamberg, who works with Community Fuels, a company in the process of building a biodiesel refinery, points out that the price can come down as more local farmers turn to growing feedstock crops.
As Radtke explains, the collective has “a commitment to selling biodiesel from recycled vegetable oil, because it is the most sustainable feedstock.”
Though veggie oil has less than half the carbon monoxide and other greenhouse gas emissions of diesel fuel, it does release more nitrogen oxides than other fuels. Perhaps in recognition of this downside, the collective has been running a series of events called “Driving Still Sucks,” which encourages people to continue to walk, bike, and bus.
“We think biodiesel is a transitional solution — not the answer,” Radtke says.
Still, the group believes in its mission to provide an alternative fuel in an alternative way to meet the demands of green-minded Bay Area residents — not to mention Willie Nelson, who stops by to fill up every time he passes through town.
“We’re busting at the seams,” Hardy says. The collective currently is seeking a new, larger space to serve the 1,600-plus customers signed up with the co-op. “We want to create a place that isn’t just a pump and run but more of a crossroads or meeting place, like a natural food store,” Radtke says. SFBG
BIOFUEL OASIS
2465 Fourth St., Berk.
(510) 665-5509
www.biofueloasis.com

Buried treasure

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› gwschulz@sfbg.com
Despite the fast-moving urban centers that surround it on each side of the San Francisco Bay, not much about Treasure Island has changed since it was shut down as a United States naval station 10 years ago.
After the feds ceased operations on the island and at several other military installations in the mid-’90s, the idea was to give the land to local governments for redevelopment to fill the economic void of losing active bases. Since then, several plans for Treasure Island have been floated with great fanfare in the press, but all have become mired in the infamously contentious development politics of San Francisco.
Late last month, after three years of deadline extensions, the Treasure Island Development Authority (TIDA) finally received a full-blown plan from the developer — a partnership between Lennar Corp., Wilson Meany Sullivan, and Treasure Island Community Development — that was given exclusive negotiating rights over the land three years ago.
The $1.2 billion redevelopment plan must now run a gauntlet of state and local approval, including consideration from the Board of Supervisors, which is expected to hold hearings and debate the plan by the end of the year. It isn’t likely that construction will begin on the island for at least a couple more years.
The latest proposal anticipates about 6,000 new homes, 1,800 of which will be targeted to low-income residents, including 750 units for households earning no more than 60 percent of San Francisco’s median income and 440 built as part of a program for the homeless. Plans include town houses, single-family homes, and high-rise residential towers, although at least half the properties will be limited to 65 feet in height.
Right now the island contains about 800 occupied units, over half of which are market-rate leases with the John Stewart Co., while about 200 are operated under the Treasure Island Homeless Development Initiative. By the time the project is done, according to the newest plan, the island’s population is expected to balloon to around 10,000 residents, plus around 3,000 new workers necessary to maintain the minicity.
Some of the existing housing stock will be demolished, or as the plan calls it, “reconstructed.” Current residents will have an option to move into the new units or be placed in a lottery if demand for certain types of units outstrips the supply. The plan calls for about 27 percent of the overall planned housing units to be rentals.
Private automobile use would be regulated by metering ramp access to the island during peak commute hours; assessing possible congestion fees for driving on the island; limiting residential parking; and emphasizing thruways that promote walking, bicycling, and public transit.
Much of the development is slated for the west side of the island — with its breathtaking and profitable views of the city — near an existing ferry terminal that would provide access to the city all day long.
Treading lightly, Sup. Chris Daly, whose District 6 includes the island, said he supports the environmental and housing components so far, but if existing island residents mount significant opposition for any reason, he’d consider opposing the plan.
“You don’t know how clean something is until you take it out of the wash, and they’re just now starting to throw it in,” Daly told the Guardian.
Rob Black, Daly’s main challenger in the upcoming election, lives on Treasure Island. He was similarly cautious. “I think people have finally begun to think in a more progressive way about making this a more sustainable neighborhood,” Black told us. “Past plans have been so poorly put together.”
On the local level, the plan must be approved in the coming months by both the TIDA board and the Board of Supervisors. After that, it will undergo an extensive environmental impact review by the city’s planning department before returning to the board for final local approval.
The developer and the TIDA board — which is composed entirely of mayoral appointees, three of whom work directly for Mayor Gavin Newsom — must still overcome other major hurdles as well, including the fact that the Navy hasn’t turned over any of the land yet and likely won’t without major concessions.
The Bush administration has stalled the transfer, pushing for some payment before giving up valuable federal land. One tentative option is to relieve the Navy of about $45 million in environmental cleanup costs for which it is currently responsible. Those costs would then be borne by the redevelopment plan and the developer, which has already pledged $26 million for remediation. The land became contaminated in part after decades of military activity that included emergency drills with radioactive materials.
David Rist, a project manager for the state Department of Toxic Substances Control, which is overseeing the cleanup, said that while there is some contamination where residents are living today, it doesn’t pose an immediate threat to human health. Identified contaminants include dioxin, lead, and PCBs. Rist told us the cleanup, regardless of who ends up paying for it, will be “significantly done in the next two and a half years.”
After mulling over ideas, TIDA finally brokered an exclusive deal in 2003 with a company incorporated as Treasure Island Community Development, a group of Democratic Party heavyweights with deep links to the current and former mayoral administrations and other top elected Democrats.
Jay Wallace, a project planner for Treasure Island Community Development, said the plan’s mammoth size and uniqueness have required considerable and time-consuming attention to specifics. Investors anticipate spending $500 million of their own money, but they’re looking to earn upward of $125 million in profits, according to the plan.
The remaining cost of about $760 million for infrastructure, open space, and transportation system improvements could be covered largely by tax increment financing from the redevelopment area and Mello Roos bonds, both of which would essentially be funded by future property taxes, according to the latest term sheet.
Wallace told the Guardian that his group “has worked in good faith and transparency throughout this project, with over 150 public meetings before reaching this milestone and presenting this plan to the city.”
Daly said that while “there are going to be a hundred issues that need to be worked out,” the green-meets-affordable-housing theme “is the right proposal for San Francisco.”
“Political connections to the Newsom juggernaut notwithstanding, these guys are politically savvy enough to know what’s wise and what isn’t,” he said. “On the actual merits of the proposal, it’s palatable if you’re OK with the concept of high-rises in the middle of the bay.” SFBG

East Bay races and measures

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Editor’s note: The following story has been altered from the original to correct an error. We had originally identified Courtney Ruby as running for Alameda County Auditor; the office is actually Oakland City Auditor.

Oakland City Auditor
COURTNEY RUBY
Incumbent Roland Smith has to go. He’s been accused of harassing and verbally abusing his staff and using audits as a political weapon against his enemies. The county supervisors have had to reassign his staff to keep him from making further trouble. And yet somehow he survived the primary with 32 percent of the vote, putting him in a November runoff against Courtney Ruby, who led the field with 37 percent. Ruby, an experienced financial analyst, would bring some credibility back to the office.
Peralta Community College Board, District 7
ABEL GUILLEN
Challenger Abel Guillen has extensive knowledge of public school financing and a proven commitment to consensus building and government accountability. In the last six years Guillen, who was raised in a working-class community and was the first in his family to go to college, has raised $2.2 billion in bond money to construct and repair facilities in school districts and at community colleges. Incumbent Alona Clifton has been accused of not being responsive to teachers’ concerns about the board’s spending priorities and openness.
Berkeley mayor
TOM BATES
This race has progressives tearing at each other’s throats, particularly since they spent a ton of cash last time around to oust former mayor Shirley Dean and replace her with Tom Bates, who used to be known as a reliable progressive voice.
Bates’s reputation has shifted since he became mayor, and his record is a mixed bag. This time around, he stands accused of setting up a shadow government (via task forces that duplicate existing commissions but don’t include enough community representatives), of giving developers too many special favors instead of fighting for more community benefits, and of increasingly siding with conservative and pro-landlord city council member Gordon Wozniak.
The problem is that none of Bates’s opponents look like they would be effective as mayor. So lacking any credible alternative, we’ll go with Bates.
Berkeley City Council, District 1
LINDA MAIO
Incumbent Linda Maio’s voting record has been wimpy at times, but she is a strong proponent of affordable housing, and her sole challenger, Merrilie Mitchell, isn’t a terribly serious candidate. Vote for Maio.
Berkeley City Council, District 2
DONA SPRING
A valiant champion of every progressive cause, incumbent Dona Spring is one of the unsung heroes of Berkeley. Using a wheelchair, she puts in the energy equivalent of two or three council members and always remains on the visionary cutting edge. If that weren’t enough, her sole challenger, Latino businessman and zoning commissioner Raudel Wilson, has the endorsement of the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce. Vote for Spring.
Berkeley City Council, District 7
KRISS WORTHINGTON
Incumbent Kriss Worthington is an undisputed champion of progressive causes and a courageous voice who isn’t afraid to take criticism in an age of duck and run, including the fallout he’s been experiencing following the closure of Cody’s on Telegraph Avenue, something conservatives have tried to link to his support for the homeless. His sole challenger is the evidently deep-pocketed George Beier, who describes himself as a community volunteer but has the support of landlords and the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce and has managed to blanket District 7 with signage and literature, possibly making his one of the most tree-unfriendly campaigns in Berkeley’s electoral history. Keep Berkeley progressive and vote for Worthington.
Berkeley City Council, District 8
JASON OVERMAN
Incumbent Gordon Wozniak postures as if he is going to be mayor one day, and he’s definitely the most conservative member of the council. During his tenure, Wozniak has come up with seven different ways to raise rents on tenants in Berkeley, and he didn’t even vote against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s special election last year. Challenger Jason Overman may be only 20 years old, but he’s already a seasoned political veteran, having been elected to the Rent Stabilization Board two years ago. Vote for Overman.
Berkeley city auditor
ANN-MARIE HOGAN
Ann-Marie Hogan is running unopposed for this nonpartisan post, which is hardly surprising since she’s done a great job so far and has widespread support.
Berkeley school director
KAREN HEMPHILL, NANCY RIDDLE, NORMA HARRISON
With five candidates in the running and only three seats open, some are suggesting progressives cast only one vote — for Karen Hemphill — to ensure she becomes board president in two years, since the job goes to the person with the most votes in the previous election.
Hemphill has done a great job and has the support of Latino and African American parent groups, so a vote for her is a no-brainer.
So is any vote that helps make sure that incumbents Shirley Issel and David Baggins don’t get reelected.
Nancy Riddle isn’t a hardcore liberal, but she’s a certified public accountant, so she has number-crunching skills in her favor. Our third pick is Norma Harrison, although her superradical talk about capitalism being horrible and schools being like prisons needs to be matched with some concrete and doable suggestions.
Rent Stabilization Board
DAVE BLAKE, HOWARD CHONG, CHRIS KAVANAGH, LISA STEPHENS, PAM WEBSTER
If it weren’t for the nine-member elected Rent Stabilization Board, Berkeley would have long since been taken over by the landlords and the wealthy. This powerful agency has been controlled by progressives most of the time, and this year there are five strong progressives running unopposed for five seats on the board. We recommend voting for all of them.
Oakland City Council
AIMEE ALLISON
When we endorsed Aimee Allison in the primary in June, we pointed out that this was a crucial race: incumbent Patrician Kernighan has been a staunch ally of outgoing mayor Jerry Brown and Councilmember Ignacio de La Fuente — and now that Ron Dellums is taking over the Mayor’s Office and a new political era could be dawning in Oakland, it’s crucial that the old prodevelopment types don’t control the council.
Kernighan’s vision of Oakland has always included extensive new commercial and luxury housing development, and like De La Fuente, she’s shown little concern for gentrification and displacement. Allison, a Green Party member, is the kind of progressive who could make a huge difference in Oakland, and she’s our clear and unequivocal choice for this seat.
From crime to city finance, Allison is well-informed and has cogent, practical proposals. She favors community policing and programs to help the 10,000 parolees in Oakland. She wants the city to collect an annual fee from the port, which brings in huge amounts of money and puts very little into the General Fund. She wants to promote environmentally sound development, eviction protections, and a stronger sunshine ordinance. Vote for Allison.
East Bay Municipal Utility District director, Ward 4
ANDY KATZ
Environmental planner Andy Katz is running unopposed. Despite his relative youth, he’s been an energetic and committed board member and deserves another term.
AC Transit director at large
REBECCA KAPLAN
Incumbent Rebecca Kaplan is a fixture on the East Bay progressive political scene and has been a strong advocate of free bus-pass programs and environmentally sound policies over the years. A former public interest lawyer, Kaplan’s only challenger is paralegal James K. Muhammad.
Berkeley measures
Measure A
BERKELEY PUBLIC SCHOOLS TAX
YES
This measure takes two existing taxes and combines them into one but without increasing existing rates. Since 30 percent of local teachers will get paid out of the revenue from this measure, a no vote could devastate the quality of education in the city. Vote yes.
Measure E
RENT STABILIZATION BOARD VACANCY
YES
Measure E seeks to eliminate the need to have a citywide special election every time a vacancy occurs on the Rent Stabilization Board, a process that currently costs about $400,000 and consumes huge amounts of time and energy. The proposal would require that vacancies be filled at November general elections instead, since that ballot attracts a wider and more representative group of voters. In the interim, the board would fill its own vacancies.
Measure F
GILMAN STREET PLAYING FIELDS
YES
Measure F follows the council’s October 2005 adoption of amendments that establish the proper use for public and commercial recreation sports facilities, thereby allowing development of the proposed Gilman Street fields. Vote yes.
Measure G
GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS
YES
Measure G is a nice, feel-good advisory measure that expresses Berkeley’s opinion about the dangers of greenhouse gas emissions to the global climate and advises the mayor to work with the community to come up with a plan that would significantly reduce such emissions, with a target of an 80 percent reduction by 2050. Vote yes.
Measure H
IMPEACHMENT OF PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH AND VICE-PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY
YES
In left-leaning Berkeley this is probably the least controversial measure on the ballot. Do we really need to spell out all over again the many reasons why you should vote yes on this issue?
If this measure passes, both Berkeley and San Francisco will have taken public stands in favor of impeachment, which won’t by itself do much to force Congress to act but will start the national ball rolling. Vote yes.
Measure I
AMENDING CONDO CONVERSION ORDINANCE
NO, NO, NO
Measure I is a really bad idea, one that links the creation of home ownership opportunities to the eviction of families from their homes. It was clearly cooked up by landlord groups that are unhappy with Berkeley’s current condo conversion ordinance, which allows for 100 conversions a year. Measure I proposes increasing that limit to 500 conversions a year, which could translate into more than 1,000 people facing evictions. Those evictions will hit hardest on the most financially vulnerable — seniors, the disabled, low- and moderate-income families, and children. With less than 15 percent of current Berkeley tenants earning enough to purchase their units, this measure decreases the overall supply of rentals, eliminates requirements to disclose seismic conditions to prospective buyers, and violates the city’s stated commitment to fairness, compassion, and economic diversity. Vote no.
Measure J
AMENDING LANDMARK PRESERVATION ORDINANCES
YES
A well-meaning measure that’s opposed by developers, Measure J earns a lukewarm yes. It establishes a nine-member Landmarks Preservation Commission; designates landmarks, structures of merit, and historic districts; and may approve or deny alteration of such historic resources but may not deny their demolition. It’s worth noting that if Proposition 90 passes, the city could face liability for damages if Measure J is found to result in substantial economic loss to property — all of which gives us yet another reason to say “vote no” on the horribly flawed Prop. 90 while you’re voting yes on Measure J.
Oakland Measures
Measure M
POLICE AND FIRE RETIREMENT BOARD INVESTMENTS
YES
Measure M would amend the City Charter to allow the board that oversees the Oakland Police and Fire Retirement System (PFRS) slightly more leeway in making investment decisions. The board claims that its current requirements — which bar investment in stocks that don’t pay dividends — are hampering returns. That’s an issue: between July 2002 and July 2005, the unfunded liability of the PFRS grew from $200 million to $268 million — a liability for which the city of Oakland is responsible. We’re always nervous about giving investment managers the ability to use public money without close oversight, but the new rules would be the same as ones currently in place in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Measure N
LIBRARY IMPROVEMENT AND EXPANSION BONDS
YES
Oakland wants to improve and expand all library branch facilities, construct a new main library at the Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center, and buy land for and construct two new library facilities in the Laurel and 81st Avenue communities. The upgrades and construction plans come in response to residents’ insistence that they need more space for studying and meeting, increased library programs and services, tutoring and homework assistance for children, increased literacy programs, and greater access to current technology and locations that offer wi-fi.
This $148 million bond would cost only $40 a year for every $100,000 of assessed property. Vote yes.
Measure O
INSTANT RUNOFF VOTING
Ranked-choice voting, or instant runoff voting, is a great concept. The city of Oakland is using it to elect officials in the November election without holding a prior June election. There’s only one problem: so far, Alameda County hasn’t invested in voting equipment that could make implementing this measure possible. Voting yes is a first step in forcing the county’s hand in the right direction. SFBG

Restoration Hardcore

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Davis might not have those frog signs along the westbound side of Highway 80 anymore — “Live in Davis because it’s green, safe, and nuclear free…. It’s academic!” — but there’s certainly no shortage of wondrous music happening there.
Exhibit A: KDVS — the UC Davis radio station, a longtime champion of alternative music and the only entirely student-run station in the UC system — is about to put on the fourth edition of “Operation: Restore Maximum Freedom,” a twice-a-year one-day music festival, the likes of which have seldom been undertaken by Northern California college radio stations.
Unlike other music festivals hawking themselves as “alternative,” O:RMF is the real thing, presenting strictly music of the compellingly weird variety without sponsored stages and pricey merch tables — by sheer dint of student-volunteer willpower. “It’s a good time out in the sunshine,” said Erik Magnuson, who DJs at KDVS in addition to holding down the station’s assistant programming directorship. “We’re able to get great acts without having to worry about advertising to offset costs.”
The festival isn’t a station fundraiser — all profits go toward future incarnations of the event — but is instead an earnest offering of experimental sounds chosen democratically in committee by station volunteers. Those volunteers run O:RMF at Woodland watering hole Plainfield Station, which KDVS events coordinator and O:RMF organizer Brendan Boyle described as a “biker bar with a quasi-Libertarian vibe.” O:RMF itself fully “represents the radio station,” Boyle continued. “We’re free-form, which is a real anomaly, and it’s a reaction to our current political climate.” Hence the military-operation-inspired name.
The first, all-ages O:RMF in May 2005 was headlined by elastic noise psychos Sightings and Elephant 6 pop oddities a Hawk and a Hacksaw, and the subsequent fests have featured bands like the increasingly relevant, drift-ambience peddlers Growing and the splendidly hard-angled post-punkers Erase Errata. In each case, KDVS has looped in some of the most keenly unconventional artists around, and the upcoming festival looks the best yet.
This time it’s drawn 17 artists of various marginal modes, all of great repute in their respective scenes: longtime glitch-head Kid606 started the Tigerbeat6 label, and quirk-folk guitarist Michael Hurley was a luminary in Greenwich Village’s 1960s folk scene. Hop around to the dance punk of Numbers and the disorienting, psychedelic hip-hop of Third Sight. The garage-punk component is damned impressive by itself: the Lamps, one of Los Angeles’s finest and an In the Red mainstay, will crack their bass-heavy fuzz whip along with Th’ Losin Streaks, whose famously fun live show begets a cleaner, more Nuggets-like, ’60s garage vibe.
Suffice to say that few stations have the guts and the cavalier student base to put on an event like this, especially one that’s plainly not out to make money. As Boyle puts it, “it’s a very real event with no bullshit attached,” and with any luck, attendees will get as stoked on smashing music industry conventions as KDVS is. (Michael Harkin)
OPERATION: RESTORE MAXIMUM FREEDOM IV
Sat/7, noon–midnight
Plainfield Station
23944 County Road 98, Woodland
$15, $10 advance; all ages
For tickets and the complete lineup, go to www.myspace.com/maximumfreedom

Shades of green

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› news@sfbg.com
An assembly of the nation’s premier green architects, engineers, academics, and policy makers was gathered Sept. 28 in the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, patiently awaiting a keynote address from Mayor Gavin Newsom. The speech was supposed to inaugurate this year’s West Coast Green, the largest residential green building conference in the country.
But the anticipation of the crowd quickly turned to ill humor when it was announced that the mayor had decided to attend another event instead — the grand opening of the biggest Bloomingdale’s west of the Continental Divide.
“I knew it!” one woman at West Coast Green lamented. “I knew he wouldn’t come.”
“He’s at Bloomingdale’s,” another chided.
Newsom spokesperson Peter Ragone said the mayor believed he was scheduled to speak at the conference Sept. 30, and he did. But that was a day for the general public to come and learn about the frontiers of green building. By then, many of the disgruntled architects and planners had already left.
“I have to say that we are all full of contradictions, and we would not be here today unless we were,” said Jim Chace, the director of Pacific Gas and Electric’s Pacific Energy Center, who spoke in the mayor’s slot Sept. 28.
“I promised I wouldn’t take any shots [at Newsom], but this should not be so easy,” Chace continued cheerily. “The fact is that there’s a contradiction here, and contradictions are just a sign in our lives that it is time to look at change.”
Newsom has regularly touted San Francisco as a leader in the emerging field of green building. But the conference and the mayor’s speech snafu raise the question of where the city really stands when it comes to building — not just talking about — green structures.
Green architecture starts with common sense. It’s about properly orienting buildings to the sun and the wind, making sure that insulation actually insulates, and using recycled material instead of finite or environmentally harmful ones.
But in the eyes of industry and government professionals, a building isn’t officially considered green until it passes a national rating system known as Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED. Buildings that earn enough credits get one of four LEED ratings: certified, silver, gold, or best of all, putf8um.
When it comes to LEED certified buildings, San Francisco can claim just seven, three of which belong to green architecture firms. That puts the city in fifth place, behind Pittsburgh, Pa. (8); Atlanta (10); Portland, Ore. (11); and Seattle (14).
“There really isn’t much,” Fred Stitt, founder and director of the San Francisco Institute of Architecture, told the Guardian. “About three years ago, I wanted to organize a tour of green buildings in San Francisco, and I couldn’t find any.”
That was before the work had begun on the LEED gold Federal Building and the LEED putf8um Academy of Sciences, which Stitt called “a masterpiece.” Nonetheless, he said San Francisco’s reputation as a driver of the green building movement was undeserved.
“Everyone thinks that Berkeley is a liberal bastion,” Stitt said. “But if you live here, it’s just a Midwestern town with a bunch of homeless people…. San Francisco’s reputation is manufactured the same way.”
Certainly some other cities are doing as much, if not more than San Francisco. This city’s most important green building ordinance requires all new municipal buildings larger than 5,000 square feet to meet LEED silver standards. Yet there are no requirements or incentives for the private sector to build green in San Francisco.
Santa Monica also requires government buildings to be green, but it offers grants up to $35,000 for LEED certified buildings, including those in the private sector. In addition, Santa Monica requires most developers to incorporate four kinds of recycled material into their buildings and to recycle at least 60 percent of their construction and demolition waste.
Likewise, Portland, Ore., was just voted America’s most sustainable city in the 2006 SustainLane Rankings, largely because of its attitude toward green building. Beyond its 11 LEED certified buildings, Portland is brimming with small natural structures like benches and kiosks made from clay, sand, and straw. The city also boasts an entire community of sustainable homes for the homeless, known as Dignity Village.
“Their natural building has totally transformed the spirit of their community, and it feels different than if you walk through Oakland or San Francisco,” Marisha Farnsworth, an architect with the Natural Builders in Oakland, told the Guardian. “I got together with some architects, builders, and designers, and all of us said, ‘Wouldn’t it be great to have city planners come down from Portland and explain to our officials what’s going on up there?’”
That isn’t to say officials in San Francisco have completely missed the memo. The San Francisco Department of the Environment just finished negotiations with the Department of Building Inspection for a new priority permitting program set to be rolled out in the coming weeks. It would allow developers who pledge to build green to get fast-tracked through the bureaucratic morass of the city’s permitting process.
Department of the Environment officials have also worked to reduce the amount of time and money it takes to get a rooftop solar permit. And with the opening of the Orchard Garden Hotel at Union Square on Oct. 12, San Francisco will soon become the first city in the country with a LEED certified hotel.
The point of West Coast Green was to ask how this city and the rest of the country can do more. Should we offer rebates for efficiency consultants to assess how energy is being wasted in our homes and businesses? Can the city offer larger incentives to the private sector or require more rigorous standards for developers? Should PG&E be pressured into pledging more of its public benefit money toward green building?
“Green architecture is still very much emerging,” Eric Corey Freed, one of San Francisco’s top green architects and a host at West Coast Green, told the Guardian. “And although San Francisco is the capital, even here it hasn’t reached the point of ubiquity that we expect it to. We’re still very much in our adolescence. We’re like teenagers with pimples and crackly voices.”
In 100 years, Freed added, history will likely look back on our time as the era of the green revolution. If he is right, perhaps San Francisco will have done enough to be deemed a nucleus of the movement — and important conferences like West Coast Green will take priority over the opening of new shopping malls. SFBG

Green as in money or green as in the environment?

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By Andrew Tolve
For a politician who often projects himself as environmentally conscious, Mayor Gavin Newsom dealt his reputation a blow Thursday when he missed his keynote address at West Coast Green, the largest residential green building conference in the country. Mayoral spokesperson Peter Ragone told us Newsom had planned to speak Saturday and did. But the fact that he missed the slot printed in the schedule chafed more than a few in the audience.
Nearly 7,000 architects, contractors, developers, and policy makers have arrived in San Francisco for the weekend conference (Sept. 28-30), many of whom were left searching for answers on Thursday when the event’s inaugural speech at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium was left unspoken.
It turned out Mayor Newsom was just a few blocks away, celebrating the opening of San Francisco’s new Bloomingdale’s instead.
“I have to say that we are all full of contradictions, and we would not be here today unless we were,” said Jim Chace, director of PG&E’s Pacific Energy Center. Despite Chace’s commendable record with environmental issues, the fact that a PG&E representative was making the announcement only heightened the irony of the moment. “I promised I wouldn’t take any shots (at the Mayor), but this should not be so easy,” Chace continued. “The fact is that there’s a contradiction here, and contradictions are just a sign in our lives that it is time to look at change.”
The Mayor’s absence aside, embracing change is the fixture of this year’s West Coast Green Conference. Presentations about the feasibility and the implementation of green building techniques will continue Friday and Saturday at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium. Saturday the event is open to the public.
“Clearly there’s nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come,” said Christi Graham, the event’s founder and executive producer. “I do think that we might look back one day and recognize the impact of our gathering here.”

Unlearnt

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› le_chicken_farmer@yahoo.com
CHEAP EATS I was serious when I said my nephew the Gun was invisible. The waiterguyperson came to our table with three menus, gave one to me and one to Cousin Lora, and then looked around confused, like what was he doing with three menus?
He turned and walked away with the third. My nephew looked at my menu with me.
Then a waitressperson came to our table and said, “Drinks?”
“Coffee,” we all said, one at a time, very clearly. That’s: one, two, three cups of coffee.
She came back with two coffees.
“Uh, one more?” said the Gun.
The waitressperson looked bewildered, like she was feeling something funny on the back of her neck.
“Three coffees. One more coffee,” I clarified. “That’s OK, Gun,” I said when she finally, mutteringly, went to get it. “We know you’re here.”
He didn’t say anything.
I was serious when I said that the Gun wanted to be an assassin when he grows up. He’ll be a good one, a natural. There’s the name, and there’s the invisibility. Fortunately, there’s also this: the fact that he will never grow up.
Growing up is not my family’s strong suit. And when I said that my intention was to “recorrupt” my nephew, well, I was serious but wrong. It became clear during our very next meal together that he was going to do something to me instead. “Unlearning,” he calls it.
I’m all for that.
For dinner: burritos! At el Tepa, because Lora likes it and because it’s just one block away from the Rite Spot where we were due afterward for an important Art Closing party. The Gun, I guessed, would fare better at taquerías and places where you order at a counter rather than relying on table service.
So he got a super quesadilla with chicken ($6.35), Lora got a super chicken mole taco ($3.73), and the chicken farmer liked the looks of the carnitas — in burrito form ($5.12).
While we were watching them make this all and answering questions about beans and salsa and such, the Gun said something very interesting to me: he said, “Which is hotter? Mild or medium salsa?”
On the surface a ridiculous question, and so I of course teased and poked him about it, because that’s how we express love in my family: by making fun of each other.
So we’re sitting down eating and talking and teasing, and everything was very delicious, of course, but especially the Gun’s thing, because it was good and grilled and meaty and cheesy. And I loved my burrito too, the pork and refrieds dancing quite wonderfully with each other. And I always ask for mild and hot salsa on mine, being a classic-model Gemini. So I’m touching it up with [TK how is this phrase supposed to be read: this, then that OR this-then-that ??? this then that] from the three tabletop salsas: green, light red, dark red. And I’m also this-then-that-ing my chips, liking the green and the light red, fearing the dark …
And the Gun goes into the light red with a chip and starts doing one of those hot hot hot dances.
So automatically I tease tease tease him, because to me that’s the mildest of the three, and boys are supposed to be tough. Especially assassins-in-training.
Well, we come to a disagreement when the Gun goes into the green and thinks it’s milder than the red. So now I’m going back and forth, rechecking my own buds, because I’m supposed to know, right? And yes, of the three, light red is mild, green is medium, dark red is hot. I’ll swear to it. I’ll stand up and fight for it, even die in defense of my point of view.
But instead, loving life (meals in particular, but also some of the other details) I choose diplomacy. “Lora,” I say, and she lifts her lovely head out of the mole. “Break the tie.” I push the mild and the medium in front of her. “Which one’s hotter?”
She tastes both and sides with the Gun.
So suddenly mild is hotter than medium, majority ruling, and the Gun’s goofy question makes all the sense in the world! Because there is no way to know the answer to this or any other dilemma, even the seemingly easy ones like 1 + 1, the meaning of life, and what kind of beans? I already knew this, of course, but I had to unlearn my way back to it. Again! Thank you, Gun. For now, I get it: ask, answer, and know that you don’t know shit.
Speaking of which … SFBG
EL TEPA
Mon.–Fri., 10 a.m.–8 p.m.
2198 Folsom, SF
(415) 255-8372
Takeout available
Beer
MC/V
Quiet
Wheelchair accessible

Tidal (public) power

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EDITORIAL Mayor Gavin Newsom, perhaps looking for a big issue to bring to a star-studded environmental meeting in New York City last week, suddenly discovered the value of tidal energy. There’s actually nothing new about the idea: although Newsom didn’t give anyone but himself credit, the plan was first floated by Matt Gonzalez in the 2003 mayor’s race. It was picked up by Supervisors Jake McGoldrick and Ross Mirkarimi and has been on the agenda at Mirkarimi’s Local Area Formation Committee (LAFCo) for more than a year.
But whatever — if the mayor’s on board, fine. There’s a tremendous amount of potential in the concept — huge amounts of renewable energy with little significant environmental impact (and no greenhouse gases). The technology appears to be available, and there’s every reason for the city to move forward rapidly — as long as the power generator is owned, operated, and totally controlled by the city. And that’s not at all guaranteed.
A pilot project would cost about $10 million — peanuts compared to the revenue potential but a chunk of change nonetheless. Newsom, who is looking for state money, is also considering the possibility of seeking private-sector partnerships. And one company that has its greedy eye on the potential energy in the ocean tides is Pacific Gas and Electric.
PG&E is trying desperately to buff up its tarnished image, spending millions on slick ads promoting itself as a green company. It’s crap: among other things, PG&E still operates a nightmare of a nuclear plant on an earthquake fault in San Luis Obispo and is trying to get the plant’s operating license extended. But environmentalism sells in California, and the state’s largest and most rapacious private utility has no shame.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported Sept. 19 that city officials were negotiating with “a number of companies that could help run the turbines and cover the costs” and added that “Pacific Gas and Electric Company is among them, said Jared Blumenfeld, director of the city’s Department of the Environment.” Blumenfeld told us he was misquoted and that officials are only discussing with PG&E the prospects for connecting to the PG&E-owned grid in the city.
But Blumenfeld explained that a private company called Golden Gate Energy already has a federal license to develop tidal energy in the San Francisco Bay — and PG&E has a stake in that venture. The Golden Gate Energy license expires in 2008, and it’s unlikely the company will be able to start work by then, Blumenfeld said. Given that nobody actually has a working model of a tidal generator of this scale, that’s probably true.
Still, it shows that PG&E isn’t going to give up easily on the idea of owning or running what could be a source of energy that could power a sizable percentage of San Francisco. The reason is obvious: if the city operates the tidal power plant, it will be a huge boost for public power. Between tides, $100 million worth of solar energy that’s in the pipeline, and the Hetch Hetchy dam, San Francisco would come pretty close to generating enough renewable energy to power the whole town — and PG&E could be tossed entirely out of the picture.
Of course, that assumes that the city is serious about creating a full-scale public power system, which involves taking over PG&E’s transmission grid. Newsom says he supports public power. So does Susan Leal, general manager of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. But while both are ready to cough up $150,000 for a study into the benefits of tidal power (and a possible $10 million for a pilot project), neither has ever been willing to spend a penny for a study into the costs and benefits of taking over the grid.
Mirkarimi told us that LAFCo will begin hearings on tidal power next month and get to the bottom of what the mayor has in mind. The supervisors should allow no shadow of doubt about the policy for pursing this energy source: it can only be done as part of a larger plan to bring public power to the city — and if PG&E or any other private energy company has even the tip of a finger anywhere near it, the deal is dead in the water. SFBG

Casting off

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› amanda@sfbg.com
Hornblower Yachts assumed control of the ferry service to Alcatraz Island on Sept. 25. As the new crew cast off the dock lines, spurned union workers — some 30-year veterans with the former contractor, Blue and Gold — rallied with supporters at the entrance, asking passengers not to board the boats.
Two union-friendly visitors from Sydney, Australia, ripped up their tickets and demanded refunds. “We don’t agree with what they’re doing to the workers,” one said, while in the background Supervisors Aaron Peskin and Tom Ammiano took turns with the bullhorn, also offering their support to the workers.
“All of our colleagues on the board are not going to stand for it,” Peskin said to the couple hundred laborers gathered on the sidewalk. “We’re going to stand with you and march with you.”
Terry MacRae, CEO of Hornblower, expressed little concern about the boycotting tourists and the rally at his gate. “I suspect there’s plenty more people who want the tickets if they’re not going to use them,” he told the Guardian. Visits to Alcatraz peak this time of year, with a couple thousand people turned away every day when tickets sell out, according to National Park Service spokesperson Rich Wiedeman.
The NPS decision to grant the lucrative, 10-year contract to Hornblower over Blue and Gold has resulted in more than just what some are calling the largest union layoff in San Francisco waterfront history. The story also has an environmental angle as slick as an oil spill and a nasty landlord-tenant tussle.
“The port and I are extremely concerned with how Hornblower has conducted itself,” City Attorney Dennis Herrera told the Guardian, referring to the company’s artful dodge of city and state permitting processes. “They’ve focused more energy on sidestepping public oversight than complying with it.”
Despite infuriating two leading San Francisco institutions — unions and city planners — MacRae has managed thus far to avoid too much of a stir by keeping another critical local constituency off his back with a well-played “green” card.
THE GREEN MACHINE
When NPS put out a request for proposals in 2004, three companies submitted bids for Alcatraz: Red and White, a local charter and bay cruise company that ran the service when it first started in the ’70s; Blue and Gold, which took over Red and White’s boats and unionized crew in 1994; and Hornblower Cruises and Events, which runs charter and dinner boat cruises from five California ports and is a subsidiary of a larger, $30 million company.
When Brian O’Neill, superintendent of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, announced last year that Hornblower won the bid, union activists immediately challenged the choice. Mayor Gavin Newsom, Peskin, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, and both of California’s US senators expressed concerns about the decision. Neighborhood group Citizens to Save the Waterfront filed suit. Environmentalists, however, were elated.
For the first time since being passed by Congress in 1998, the Concessions Management Act applied to the bid for Alcatraz. In addition to forbidding the Department of the Interior from favoring incumbent contractors, the act also outlined new criteria for awarding contracts that included a mandate to improve environmental quality in national parklands.
“Bluewater Network has been advocating for more than five years for a solar- and wind-powered ferry for San Francisco Bay,” said Teri Schore, a spokesperson for the local environmental group. She added that diesel vessels in the Bay Area account for more pollution than cars and buses combined. “We’ve been talking to every ferry operator on the bay, and we also knew that the Alcatraz contract was up. We thought it was the perfect application.”
Hornblower’s MacRae wrote a provision into his bid that within two years of taking over the Alcatraz service, the company would build and launch a ferry to run on a combination of solar, wind, and diesel power. After one year of testing the vessel, a second would be built within five years.
That — in combination with a plan to make two initial vessels 90 percent more fuel efficient, as well as implement a clean energy shuttle service on the Embarcadero, power the landing facilities with solar panels, purchase green products, and vend healthy snacks — put Hornblower’s bid over the top.
Wiedeman said all bidders are informed that financial feasibility of the company and potential revenue for the government, as well as environmental and sustainability initiatives, were considered. But some criteria were more weighted than others, and Hornblower ranked strongly on all points.
“We’re ecstatic,” Wiedeman said. “We’re looking at higher-quality visitor services from the get-go.”
But some doubt whether the proposed vessels are anywhere close to a reality. MacRae said a final design and marine contractor have not been selected yet, although Solar Sailor’s model BayTri has been touted. A giant solar-arrayed fin provides auxiliary wind and sun power to the trimaran’s diesel engines. No such vessel has ever been built, but the model is based on a smaller solar ferry that services Sydney Harbor in Australia — with a top speed of just seven knots.
The proposed boat is emissions free and could go 12 knots with the aid of the wind, although it would need a push from auxiliary diesel engines to keep up with Alcatraz’s schedule. Boats now run between 15 and 19 knots.
The other concern is that MacRae’s commitment of $5 million for constructing the 600-passenger vessel might not be enough. The San Francisco Water Transit Authority has been looking into a similar vessel carrying no more than 150 passengers that would cost between $6 and $8 million.
“Their requirements for design are different than what mine would be,” MacRae said. “I think it’s possible to do it for $5 million.”
Bluewater Network founder Russell Long worries that the low-budget cap could hurt the vessel’s environmental potential. “We believe that Hornblower may intend to maintain this budget ceiling even if it compromises other aspects of the design, such as best management practices in regard to environmental components,” he wrote in a letter to NPS, urging reconsideration of the contract.
NPS awarded the contract anyway and Bluewater is hoping for the best.
“We will be watchdogging the progress and keeping track of what’s going on. If it doesn’t happen, it will be a huge black eye for the National Park Service, Hornblower, and the city of San Francisco,” Schore said. “At this point we have faith that it’s going to get built, because it’s in the contract.”
However, Hornblower’s snub toward union contracts and dodgy relations with the city suggest that playing by the rules may not be a top priority for the company.
THE PERFECT TYPO
Since 1974, boats to Alcatraz have run from the Pier 39 area of Fisherman’s Wharf, where waiting ticket holders can indulge in the myriad distractions the tourist hub offers.
MacRae launched his new ferry service from Pier 31, half a mile farther south on the Embarcadero, where he currently leases space and operates a charter and dining cruise business.
Pier 31 is little more than a parking lot with a ramp and floating dock, which only sees about 100,000 people a year, far fewer than the 1.3 million annual passengers Alcatraz draws.
MacRae has attractive plans for a complete overhaul of the area, which would include landscaping and sheltered seating, a bookstore, and an informational center. Such alterations would require a thorough run through the city’s planning process, which MacRae told the NPS he won’t be doing until 12 to 18 months from now.
Instead, interim improvements to the lot were planned, which sparked concern from the city that the sudden increase in foot traffic wouldn’t be properly mitigated. That area of the Embarcadero also hosts 250,000 passengers a year from cruise ships docking at adjacent Pier 35. The Port spent close to $200,000 last year controlling that traffic with signage and police officers. The addition of thousands more visitors streaming down the sidewalks seeking passage to Alcatraz could cause gridlock every time a cruise ship docks.
Monique Moyer, executive director of the port, sent repeated letters over the last year to MacRae asking for clarifications about his plans and expressing concern that the change in use of Pier 31 required a review of existing permits.
She wasn’t alone. On July 31, Citizens to Save the Waterfront filed suit against Hornblower, claiming that the amount of activity at Pier 31 would increase twentyfold. “That represents a substantial change in the intensity of use,” Jon Golinger, a representative from the group, told us.
A change in the intensity of use of a waterfront property triggers the need for a complete environmental impact review (EIR) from the Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC), a state agency with jurisdiction over anything within 100 feet of the shoreline. As many city developers know, EIRs can take many months to consider all potential changes to the existing landscape that the applicant would cause. Delays of that sort could have hindered MacRae’s ability to assume ferry service on the contracted date of Sept. 25.
MacRae said the litigation kept him from divulging to the city his proposed plans for upgrades to the pier.
Just days before the lawsuit was to be argued in San Francisco Superior Court on Sept. 6, BCDC executive director Will Travis sent a letter to Moyer stating that Hornblower’s new service and alterations to Pier 31 did not require any new permits.
He cited a typo from Hornblower’s current BCDC-issued permit as an allowance for the increase in passengers. The permit states that the pier may provide “access to the entire bay via vessel for 200,000 to 5000,000 [sic] people/year.”
He footnoted the quote: “There is clearly a typographical error in the 5000,000 number, which is intended to state the maximum anticipated usage of the dock … the correct number is probably either 500,000 or 5,000,000. While it seems reasonable to believe that the correct number is 500,000, the record contains nothing to substantiate this conclusion.”
Travis also relayed that Hornblower plans to use temporary measures that include trailers with port-a-potties, a portable ticket booth, and hollow traffic barriers for guiding traffic and pedestrians on and off the boat.
Herrera told us that this was the first Moyer had heard of what was planned for the lot and there was concern about how other services in the area and traffic on the Embarcadero would be affected, as well as if any structures, signage, and other enhancements would require additional permits. “It certainly would have been nice if they had shared all these plans so the port could conduct the proper environmental review that we all agree is in order,” he said.
In a strongly worded letter to Travis, Herrera wrote that to allow Hornblower to proceed without any environmental review could violate the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and urged the BCDC to “issue an immediate cease and desist order” to prevent the start of service. Herrera also made the salient point that “the later the environmental review process begins, the more bureaucratic and financial momentum there is behind a proposed project, thus providing a strong incentive to ignore environmental concerns that could be dealt with more easily at an early stage of the project.”
On Sept. 7, BCDC commissioners met in closed session at the end of a four-hour meeting and voted to stand by Travis’s argument.
David Owen, a former Peskin aide who’s also a BCDC commissioner, was one of two abstentions to the otherwise unanimous vote. “It was really frustrating, because it seemed like Hornblower did everything in their power to avoid a permit review,” Owen told us. “Now what? We have a CEQA lawsuit and then the Board of Supervisors shuts down the Alcatraz ferry service? They’ve managed to start up service without acquiring a single permit. Kudos to them for strategy.”
Citizens to Save the Waterfront then dropped its lawsuit, feeling it was weakened by the BCDC decision.
“Essentially, now there’s a turf war between Bush’s park service and the Port of San Francisco,” Golinger said. “BCDC tried to avoid getting involved, but the precedent it sets is horrible. A corporation can come in and skirt any planning process.”
UNION TOWN POLITICS
After scoring the Alcatraz bid, Hornblower sought an exemption to the Service Contract Act of 1965 that would have required MacRae to pay equal to or more than what current crew make. But the Department of Labor ruled Sept. 21 against Hornblower. So veteran Blue and Gold crew have added safety to their concerns.
“I’ve made tens of thousands of landings on Alcatraz Island, and now they have captains who have never been there,” Capt. Andy Miller said. For 17 years, Miller has navigated the busy shipping lanes and the constant summer fog against the tugging tide and the sudden slams of inclement weather to bring tourists, park service staff, and supplies to the island.
“No one’s ever gotten hurt. It’s a very tricky place to land a boat. It takes skill and experience that you can’t just hire off the street,” he said.
Miller said he applied for a job with Hornblower but was not interviewed. So far, no captains and only three ticket agents and a deckhand have been hired from Blue and Gold’s former fleet.
“We have a ready workforce,” Master, Mate, and Pilot union spokesperson Veronica Sanchez said. “They’re going to have to be paid the same wages as union workers at Blue and Gold. They don’t want to be a union shop. Why don’t you want to be a union shop on a union waterfront like San Francisco?”
One reason could be concern that it might bump up costs for Hornblower’s other tour operations. “They want us to agree that if we sign up our workers for Alcatraz, that we won’t organize the dining yachts,” Sanchez said. In 1998, the union attempted to organize Hornblower’s dinner cruise operations in San Francisco but didn’t prevail in a supervised election.
MacRae said he’s not opposed to the unions and he’s encouraged the Blue and Gold staff to apply for jobs. “The unionization is the choice of the workers,” he said. “We try to let the employees make the choices. Last time I checked, that’s who the unions represent.”
“We want to make sure we have the best crew,” he said. “Many of the products and guest services we provide aren’t what Blue and Gold do now.” He added that some current employees from the dining cruises have also been shifted to the Alcatraz route.
“I’ve been here 21 years, and we’ve been replaced by busboys and waiters,” said deckhand Robert Estrada, standing with fellow workers outside the gate of the new Alcatraz ferry service.
Estrada said Hornblower’s reliance on part-time, low-wage workers has earned the company the nickname “the Wal-Mart of the Water.” The company’s rapid expansion, from a two-boat Berkeley-based charter to a multinational fleet with government contracts is a similar characteristic.
Blue and Gold spokesperson Alicia Vargas assured us that the remaining ferry services to Alameda, Angel Island, Oakland, Sausalito, Tiburon, and Vallejo will be solvent, but some of the veteran crew who haven’t been laid off yet are worried this is the beginning of the end.
“The public needs to be warned. If funds don’t come from Alcatraz, Blue and Gold could fold,” said David Heran, an International Boatmen’s Union member and deckhand since 1974 who applied to Hornblower but wasn’t hired. “I’m not ready to retire yet, and this wasn’t the way I was expecting it to happen.” SFBG

The 2006 political candidates let loose with us

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(For our 2006 endorsements, click here.)

Guardian endorsement interviews are, well, unusual: We bring in candidates for office, set aside as much as an hour or more, and quiz them about local issues. Sometimes we argue; sometimes the candidates yell at us. Nobody pulls any punches. They are lively political debates, fascinating discussions of political policy – and high political theater.

For the first time this year, we’re posting digital versions of these interviews, so our readers can get front-row seats for all the action.

Participants include Editor and Publisher Bruce B. Brugmann, Executive Editor Tim Redmond, City Editor Steven T. Jones and reporters Sarah Phelan, G.W. Schulz and Amanda Witherell. If you’re confused about who’s speaking, here’s a handy guide: If the question is long and involved and about tax policy, it’s probably Tim. If it’s about an incumbent’s record or personal style, it’s probably Steve. George asks about criminal justice a lot; Sarah has a British accent. Everybody knows Bruce’s voice; you can’t miss it. Enjoy.

Sup. Sophie Maxwell
“Redevelopment in the Bay View is different.”
Listen to the Maxwell interview

Sup. Bevan Dufty
“I’m willing to piss people off on both sides of the [landlord-tenant] issue.”
Listen to the Dufty interview

Jaynry Mak, candidate for supervisor, District 4
“I would have to look at it.”
Listen to the Mak interview

Alix Rosenthal, candidate for supervisor, District 8
“We’re going to make it extremely expensive to build market-rate housing, in terms of the community benefits.”
Listen to the Rosenthal interview

Mauricio Vela, candidate for school board
“I probably would lean toward getting rid of [ROTC} … but it would be difficult.”
Listen to the Vela interview

Marie Harrison, candidate for supervisor, District 10
“The one thing I did learn from Willie Brown is that an MOU means I understand that you understand that I don’t have to do a damn thing on this paper.”
Listen to the Harrison interview

Starchild, candidate for supervisor, District 8, and Philip Berg, Libertarian candidate for Congress
“Nobody will invade Switzerland. Everyone has guns, M-16s and AK-47s and grenade launchers in their living rooms.”
Listen to the Starchild-Berg interview

Bruce Wolfe, candidate for community college board
“When you ask where the money is, you want a trail where the money is, the answer you get is it’s in a fungible account.”
Listen to the Wolfe interview

Kim-Shree Maufas, candidate for school board
“My kid was in JROTC …. I like the community, I liked the structure, I liked the commitment to family… I absolutely could not stand the military recruitment.”
Listen to part one of the Maufas interview
Listen to part two of the Maufas interview

Hydra Mendoza, candidate for school board
“There are some schools that are not serving our children.”
Listen to the Mendoza interview

Krissy Keefer, Green Party candidate for Congress
“I’m running against a ghost”
Listen to the Keefer interview

John Garamendi, candidate for lieutenant governor
“Phil Angeledes is wrong [about taxes] in the context of our time.”
Listen to the Garamendi interview

Dan Kelly, school board member
“I don’t think JROTC is a terrific program … it doesn’t teach leadership skills, it teaches follow-ship skills.”
Listen to the Kelly interview

Rob Black, candidate for supervisor, District 6
“Developers have fancy lawyers and they know how to get around things.”
Listen to the Black interview

Police foot patrols get green light

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In the face of raised levels of violent crime in San Francisco in recent months, the Board of Supes voted on September 19 to look into expanding a pilot police foot patrol program.
The program was first suggested by Sup. Ross Mirkarimi and, as amended, would provide foot patrols in more neighborhoods.
In a 5-4 vote, the Supes decided to add the Tenderloin, Mission and Ingleside police stations to the program and to send the proposed legislation back to committee for another hearing.
All this went down in face of Police Chief Heather Fong’s warnings that the program would result in increased costs and slower responses to violent crimes, even as she expressed support for expanding the program.
City Budget Analyst Harvey Rose predicted that the SFPD could start up the program without additional resources.
The amended legislation goes before the Committee on Gun and Gang Violence on Oct. 2 and returns to the full Board on OCt. 3,

Top 5 TIFF moments

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(1) Sarah Polley makes her public debut as a director in the glitzy embrace of a Roy Thompson Hall gala for Away from Her, with the seats packed to the rafters, and gives the audience a manifesto on the importance of government funding and support for Canadian cinema. Yeah! Sarah Polley for cultural ambassador. Now that Lions Gate has picked up the film for distribution, there’s even a happy ending.
(2) Waiting in the green room backstage, I meet Anna Paquin, the little girl from The Piano, all grown up and articulate and serving as a member of the jury making the award decisions on Canadian cinema. We discuss the crowds of fans this year and the odd relationship between acting and celebrity. “Most actors are very shy and timid, you know,” she told me. “Those other people aren’t really actors. They’re celebrities who appear in movies.”
(3) In Away from Her, Julie Christie plays a wise, smart, ironic woman who begins to disappear into an Alzheimer’s fog. During one scene, in which her character, Fiona, seems barely aware of her surroundings, she suddenly snaps to attention as the TV news shows footage of the Iraq war. “Have they forgotten Vietnam?” she asks — more cogently than any administration official these days.
(4) At the “Dialogues: Talking with Pictures” event with Albert Maysles, who was accompanied onstage by documentarian Barbara Kopple, there was a screening of his new film composed of outtakes, The Beales of Grey Gardens. Edith “Little Edie” Bouvier Beale explains in one scene why she’s agreed to do this film with the Maysles brothers. It’s because someone had approached her to do a fiction film based on her life and the notion horrified her. “Imagine, they wanted Julie Christie to play me! I couldn’t have that.”
(5) OK, so not all my top moments are upbeat. On the morning of Sept. 11, I woke up in my room at the Delta Chelsea Hotel to the phone ringing. When I answered, a voice said, “Oh, thank god it wasn’t you.” Huh? It was my friend Susan, who had just heard the news of a triple murder-suicide in a room five floors below mine. I was here on this same date five years ago too. (B. Ruby Rich)
For five more of Rich’s top TIFF moments and additional coverage of the festival, visit www.sfbg.com/blogs/pixel_vision.

Weather channeling

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com
Dancer-choreographer David Dorfman is a poet of the ordinary. He digs below the commonplace and lets us see what’s underneath. Early in his career, with Out of Season, he paired football players with highly trained dancers. Ten years ago he invited his ensemble’s family members to join in performances of Familiar Movements. Both pieces revealed fresh ideas about dance, community, and beauty. They also showed Dorfman to be an artist of sparkling wit with a generous spirit.
In the two pieces that his David Dorfman Dance company made its Bay Area debut with last year, he worked single conceits into exuberant, athletic choreography that resonated beyond its voluptuously evocative appeal. In See Level, sprawled bodies on a studio floor suggested maps of continents, with individual countries that were self-contained yet had relationships with each other. A naked lightbulb inspired Lightbulb Theory, a meditation on death. Is it better, the piece asked in densely layered images, to die quickly or to flicker for a while?
Dorfman’s newest work, the 50-minute underground, opens the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ new Worlds Apart series, which according to executive director Ken Foster features artists who “create work that inspires us to think deeply and become responsible citizens of the global village.”
For underground, Dorfman started with history, using local filmmaker Sam Green’s Oscar-nominated documentary The Weather Underground as a jumping-off point. The film documents the activities of the Weathermen (later, Weather Underground). In the 1960s and ’70s, this radical offshoot of Students for a Democratic Society advocated violence to incite change. For Dorfman, the film and his associated research raised questions about individual and social responsibilities when faced with injustice. He also began to wonder about the effect of age on one’s perspective and decision-making process.
Speaking from his home in Connecticut, Dorfman explained that he was a Chicago teenager during the Days of Rage — four days in 1969 when stores and public buildings were attacked in protest of the Chicago Seven trial. “Now, I wanted to look at the idea of resistance against an unwarranted war from the perspective of a man with a 50-year-old body.”
Dorfman’s underground will strike a raw nerve with audiences, though he refuses to narrowly assign blame for the causes of societal unrest. He wants to unearth root causes, not apply Band-Aids. “Yes, of course I feel burned by the elections of 2000 and 2004 and the shameful behavior of our government. But this is not just about the current administration. Much damage was done before,” he said, pointing out that our conversation happened to be taking place on the anniversary of 9/11.
“I try hard to be a good global citizen, and I mourn the needless loss of life. So I want my generation and younger people to look at the nature of activism and what, if anything, justifies the use of force and violence.”
After the June premiere at the American Dance Festival, which occurred during the Israel-Lebanon conflict, a young audience member told Dorfman that he wanted to get off his backside and do something. “I don’t know what that something is,” Dorfman responded. “But we have to talk about it.”
The show stitches documentary footage, photo collages, spoken and projected text, and a commissioned score by Bessie winner Jonathan Bepler to Dorfman’s choreography for his nine dancers — plus some 20 local performers whom he auditioned this month. Though he still loves to work with people he calls “folks who don’t think they can dance,” underground’s choreography requires professionally trained artists.
Reminded of his ideal “to get the whole world dancing,” Dorfman is quick to point out that while realistically war may not always be avoided, perhaps we could learn to tolerate each other, and that dance — “nonsexual, noninvasive physical contact” — just might help.
Besides, he said, “If people are dancing, for that one brief moment they cannot kill each other.” SFBG
UNDERGROUND
Thurs/21 and Sat/23, 8 p.m.;
Sun/24, 2 p.m.
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater
700 Howard, SF
$19–$25
(415) 978-ARTS
www.ybca.org

Watch on the Rhine

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› paulr@sfbg.com
If San Francisco were Europe, Divisadero Street would be the Rhine: the heavily traveled commercial artery that crosses a jigsaw puzzle of (sometimes) quarrelsome fiefs, duchies, and principalities on its way north or south. In this paradigm I make the stretch of Divis from California to Geary, more or less, to be our Alsace-Lorraine, the six-of-one, half-dozen-of-the-other province long the subject of a tug-of-war between greater powers. The contenders across the pond were (and maybe are) Germany and France; over here they are Pacific Heights, land of the rich blond hets, and a confederation of the Lower Haight, NoPa, and parts of the Western Addition — in other words, hipster lands.
Naturally I am not suggesting that Pacific Heights is our Germany; not at all. For some years, the most conspicuous outpost of Marina culture on the nether side of Pacific Heights has been Frankie’s Bohemian Café, a lively simulacrum of some Prague haunt filled with riotous American frat boys who take their Pilsner Urquell by the pitcher. But in recent months there has been southward creep and the establishment of a new outpost: Tortilla Heights, a Mexican restaurant for gringos that opened earlier this spring in the strange space that used to belong to Minerva.
The space is strange — to me — because I can’t quite decide if it more nearly resembles a sound stage or a gymnasium in a public school. If the latter, then the decor is now in the prom-night vein, with some kind of cantina theme: brightly colored lights hanging from the ceiling, booths along the wall sheltered by thatched faux-roofs, and salsa music. The design touches are enough to let you know you are in some kind of Mexican restaurant, but they also have an improvised, portable quality that doesn’t suggest permanence.
And yet … on a recent Saturday night, we found the place pretty well jammed, and it was early. And while the crowd had its share of blonds and fratty types, it also included an elderly couple with their walkers, along with several sets of young mothers whose small children clung to the legs of mommy’s jeans or were stowed under mommy’s arms; it was like a social version of Noah’s ark. There is a chance that this eclectic group was drawn by the restaurant’s witty name — which reminds us, simultaneously, of Tortilla Flats and Pacific Heights — but it is more likely they came for the food, which is surprisingly good. While the menu is very much in the American comfort zone, it includes a variety of regional Mexican dishes, and the kitchen’s preparations are careful and emphasize freshness.
The Yucatecan-style citrus marinade in the grilled citrus chicken burrito ($6.50), for example, is noticeable as both a hint of sweet-sourness in and a tenderizing influence on the poultry flesh. It’s a small detail, but good cooking is nothing but small details. Another such detail is the roasted garlic cream that adds a grace note of luxurious richness to the otherwise virtuous plate of Cabo-style fish tacos ($11), a troika of warm white-corn tortillas stuffed with grilled white fish and shredded cabbage.
A larger detail is that the bigger plates do not come larded with huge scoops of rice and beans — starch that most of us really don’t need, especially if we have stuffed ourselves with complimentary chips and salsa while waiting for the show to begin. (Tortilla Heights, not surprisingly, is swift and generous in replenishing the chips bowl; the salsa was pleasantly fiery on one visit, undersalted on another.) Big blobs of beans and rice do have a way of furnishing a platter, but when they aren’t there, it’s easier to see the dish you actually ordered: an Oaxacan tostada ($11), say, with a heap of wonderfully tender carnitas (along with cilantro-lime cabbage and shavings of parmesan cheese) atop a pair of crisped corn tortillas. Or the blue-corn enchiladas ($12) filled with grilled chicken and topped with melted white cheese and a tart tomatillo salsa.
My friend the cheddarhead, a reliable lover of all things cheesy, did not like the queso chorizo ($5), a small tub of melted mixed cheeses laced with chunks of chili sausage and strips of green chile. The cheese did have a certain Velveeta quality, but it was just the right consistency for dipping surplus chips into. The guacamole ($5), meanwhile, was mainstream but beautifully made, with fresh avocados still chunky from not being overmashed and a good jolt of lime juice for mood lighting. The cheddarhead lodged no complaints.
The contemplation of desserts in Mexican restaurants is usually a perfunctory business. You have flan, and maybe something else. At Tortilla Heights, the dessert menu is characteristically brief, but it does contain one extraordinary item: the churros ($4), a half dozen or so ridged torpedoes of cinnamon-dusted, deep-fried pastry, about the size of medium zucchini, with a ramekin of caramel sauce for dipping them in. The sauce is good, but if it weren’t there you probably wouldn’t miss it, because the churros are sufficient unto themselves: a divine combination of crunchy and tender, sweet but not too sweet, an exotic whisper of cinnamon, and — yes — the fattiness that makes pastry, pastry, particularly if deep-fried. You might well feel uneasy, maybe even guilty, about enjoying them so much, but don’t worry — you had the fish tacos and didn’t like the queso, so you’ll be OK. SFBG
TORTILLA HEIGHTS
Continuous service: Tues.–Sun., 11–2 a.m.
1750 Divisadero, SF
(415) 346-4531
www.tortillaheights.com
Full bar
AE/MC/V
Noisy
Wheelchair accessible

Redefining radicalism

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› news@sfbg.com The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights has a 10-year history — which it marked Sept. 14 with an anniversary gala in Oakland — of aggressive opposition to police abuse, racism, economic injustice, and the get-tough policies that have created record-high incarceration rates. Those problems have only gotten worse over the last decade, despite some significant successes by the group in both Oakland and San Francisco. But these days, founder and director Van Jones sounds more like a hopeful optimist than an angry radical. “When we first got started, our politics were more about opposition than proposition,” Jones told the Guardian. “We were more clear what we were against than what we were for.” An organization once prone to shutting down the halls of power with sit-ins is now working on prison reform legislation, doing antiviolence public education campaigns, and promoting the potential for a green economy to revitalize West Oakland and other low-income communities. “Now, I’m in a place where I want to see the prisoners and the prison guards both come home and get some healing,” Jones said. Some of that transformation comes from Jones’s evolving critique of progressive political tactics, which he has come to see as ineffective. “Our generation would be better if we had a little less New Left and a little more New Deal.” But the change was also triggered by a personal epiphany of sorts following his unsuccessful effort to stop the passage in 2000 of Proposition 21, which sent more minors into the adult correctional system. “I went into a major depression and I almost quit being an activist,” Jones, an attorney who turns 38 this month, told us. “It was a very personal journey, but it had a big impact on the Ella Baker Center.” The change has made allies of former enemies, like radio station KMEL, which was vilified for selling out the Bay Area hip-hop culture after Clear Channel Communications purchased the station, but which is now helping the Ella Baker Center spread its antiviolence message. The center has also attracted a new breed of employees to its ranks of 24 full-time staffers, people like communications director Ben Wyskida, who moved here from his Philadelphia communications firm last October. As he told us, “What drew me to the Ella Baker Center was this message of hope.” Jones has a critique of the problems and those in power that is as radical as ever, noting that authoritarians have taken power and essentially dismantled our democratic institutions. But he’s moved from diagnosis to prescription, telling us, “I think the ‘fuck Bush’ conversation is over.” His new approach hasn’t always gone over well with his would-be allies. Environmental groups including Greenaction boycotted Mayor Gavin Newsom’s photo-op posturing during World Environment Day last year, and they were critical of Jones for validating the event and using their absence to grab the media spotlight for his green economy initiatives. But Jones tells us he doesn’t get rattled by criticism that he’s playing nice with the powerful because he remains committed to helping the underclass. “The most important thing is to know who you’re for and know your history.” And if the group’s 10th anniversary black-tie celebration in the Oakland Rotunda was any indication, the Ella Baker Center has more support now than at any other time in its history. The guest list for the event was a veritable who’s who of every major political, grassroots, and environmental organization on the West Coast. Guests included Code Pink cofounder Jodie Evans, Mother Jones publisher Jay Harris, and actor-activist Danny Glover. “Radical means root — that’s what we have always been addressing,” Jones told us at the event. “We used to spend a lot of time pointing out the hurt in the community. Now we connect the points of hope.” To Jones, hope means tying the need to save the planet from global warming to the need for economic development in Oakland. “Let’s make it into job opportunities for poor people and build a green economy strong enough to lift us out of poverty. That’s hope. We want to take people out of the prison cells, into solar cells.” Jones’s allies see him as a silver-tongued visionary, a lighting rod who can bridge movements with apparently differing agendas. Activist Julia Butterfly Hill, a longtime friend and political ally of Jones, told us at the event, “Van shows he cares and he’s human, and he puts himself out there on the line. That’s why you saw this coming together. This is the voice, this is the conversation that the planet is literally dying for, and I really mean sick and dying for.” The evening, a spirited celebration of hope and achievement, gave influential friends a chance to size up where the group has been and where it’s headed. As Harris of Mother Jones told us, “Van is a big thinker. He really engages people’s imaginations in terms of what could be. There’s one way, which is to fight against the system. Van’s way is to reimagine the system.” There to bless the event, Glover warmly heaped his own praise on Jones by comparing him to the Civil Rights Movement worker who is the organization’s namesake. “When I think of Ella Baker and what she stood for, Van carries on that work, and I think that’s vital. We envision ourselves through the women and men that set a certain standard. Van sets a certain standard.” SFBG www.ellabakercenter.org

Melons and melancholia

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› paulr@sfbg.com
There are those who spend the year passionately awaiting Christmas, and then there are those who spend the year passionately awaiting the arrival of charentais melons.
Although I like Christmas, I belong, in my heart, to the latter group, and I must recuse myself on the question of which is the more bathetic passion. Christmas, at least, is a sure thing; charentais melons are iffy — and this year, very iffy.
We are talking, then, about cantaloupe: not the familiar musk melons with the netted, khaki-colored rinds marketed as cantaloupe in this country but the real deal, the melons grown from European cultivars, with the same orange-yellow flesh as musk melons but with smooth, cream and green rinds etched with green longitudinal arcs. These melons are typically known by and sold under French names, charentais and cavaillon, though their European origin is thought to be not in France but Italy, in the environs of a town called Cantaluppi (“song of the wolves”) near Rome. It was here that the melons were first introduced into Europe from Armenia.
I love the romance of history, but the endless wet winter and slow spring were hard on local melons, the charentais in particular. I had been hunting for them in markets since the Fourth of July or so, but the first examples only turned up toward the end of August — along with Gravenstein apples and the season’s first peppers, those harbingers of autumn. Still, better late than never, unless late means bad. I was so glad to see the melons, and there were so few of them, that I snapped up a pair without sniffing them, only to find, when I sliced one open a day later, that fermentation had set in. The kitchen filled with the scent of Midori. Midori is lovely, of course — but not for breakfast, generally speaking. The melons went straight to the compost bin, where they joined the Tower Market flyer advertising charentais melons that could not be found, despite industrious scouting by the produce staff. The shipment didn’t come in, I was told when I asked, because the melons weren’t good enough?
A week later, hard upon Labor Day, I found another box of them. Chose one by sniffing, paid my $3 with the hopeful resignation of the Lotto player, got it home, sliced it open, success. Shot of Midori to celebrate. (Not really.)

Camp Hip

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› paulr@sfbg.com
Everybody seems to love Thai food, but the oohing and aahing is generally confined to the cooking. You don’t hear much about the stunning designs of Thai restaurants. In one sense, this is just fine; good food is its own reward, and overclever interior decoration can lead to sensory overload. Still, Thai restaurants tend to be plain Janes more often than not, many fitted out with those steel-frame chairs that look like they’ve been salvaged from the mess hall of some battleship that’s being put into mothballs, or scrapped.
You will not find such chairs at Be My Guest, a Thai bistro that opened recently along inner Clement. You will find, instead, curvy white plastic numbers that look like halves of giant eggshells mounted on bird legs. Have we stumbled onto the set of an early Woody Allen movie, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex, maybe, in which Woody plays spermatozoa anxiously awaiting to launch to … he knows not where? One would not say the overall bleachiness of Be My Guest’s look — white walls and curtains complete the laundry-day motif — is beautiful, exactly, but it does command attention and does strike a certain balance between camp and hip. (Camp hip, is this a permissible term?) And those who detect a slight LA edge in the playful tackiness will not be surprised to learn that there is a sibling restaurant, Gindhi Thai, in the southland.
The chairs are not particularly comfortable. They have a water-slide quality, and one has to be careful not to end up on the floor while shifting one’s legs, which must serve as braces. But that is really my only misgiving about a place that otherwise is a worthy addition to the already formidable array of restaurants along Clement between Arguello and Park Presidio. Be My Guest might not quite be a destination restaurant on its own, but it is part of, and contributes to, one of the city’s premier destination zones, those stretches of street you can meander along, studying menu cards, until you find a place that appeals and pop in, knowing you aren’t likely to be disappointed. (NB: parking is an ordeal.)
Like a number of Thai places I have visited recently, Be My Guest is rather effortlessly vegetarian friendly. To make sure, I paid a visit with a vegetarian friend, who immediately picked up the flavor of shrimp in the basket of delicious rice crisps of many colors set before us, to nibble as we pondered the menu. (With this quibble duly noted, we nibbled them together.) She went on to detect the presence of fish sauce in the delicious tofu larb ($6.95), minced (and slightly rubbery, but not in a bad way) bean curd mixed with lime juice, mint, and chiles and heaped on romaine spears useful for scooping. Since I am just a part-time vegetarian, it would never have occurred to me that fish sauce — which is as central to the Indo-Chinese cuisines as soy sauce is to the cooking of China and Japan — would raise an issue. Full-time vegetarians will want to plan accordingly.
No flag was raised over the sweet-potato fritters ($6.95), which resembled dragonflies cast in bronze and would have been even better if there’d been some kind of sauce to dip them in. (The fritters were presented with cucumber two ways: as slices linked together in paper-doll fashion, and diced into a vinegary little salad with carrot threads.) And we knew beforehand that the panang curry ($9.95), fettucinelike strips of boneless chicken awash in a well-tempered red sauce, would present no vegetarian issue, since no vegetarian would go near it despite its rich deliciousness. (Panang curry is a coconut-milk curry enhanced with ground peanuts — a Malaysian touch.) On the other hand, the veg curry corner ($9.95) — a crock of soupy, basil-scented green curry laden with broccoli florets, chunked eggplant, snow peas, and green beans — passed vegetarian scrutiny like a traveler, divested of shoes, watch, belt buckle, loose change, and toothpaste, sailing through a security checkpoint at the airport.
Given the egg-shaped chairs, it follows that we would find an omelet ($6.95) on the noontime menu — a vegetarian omelet no less, filled with mixed greens, spinach, asparagus, mushrooms, and tofu and given a definite Southeast Asian perfume by ginger and lemongrass. But the wider possibilities of lunchtime are grouped under the rubric “Afternoon Delight,” which provides (for $7.25) a choice of starter and of main course, along with soup, salad, rice, and seasonal fruit. One day’s soup, of celery and tofu in a pale vegetable broth, we found to be no better than serviceable, the salad was a wallflower heap of mixed greens, and the fruit consisted of some grapes and orange wedges. But the fish cake, though texturally a bit of a rubber sponge, was intensely tasty (and a pretty caramel color), while a red vegetable curry was rich and just spicy enough to conceal the plebeian character of its carrot-and-potato ballast.
Thai bistro. I choke slightly on this expression while accepting that, at least in its American sense, it does apply to Be My Guest. The place captures just the right balance of hominess and style: its hours are liberal and its prices moderate, and it draws (especially on weekend evenings) a diverse crowd, tilting toward youth and bubbling with energy. And that’s everything you always wanted to know. SFBG
BE MY GUEST THAI BISTRO
Dinner: daily, 4–10:30 p.m.
Lunch: daily, 11 a.m.–3 p.m.
951 Clement, SF
(415) 386-1942
www.bemyguestthaibistro.com
Full bar
AE/MC/V
Moderately noisy
Wheelchair accessible

The age of 9/11

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OPINION We all remember where we were on Sept. 11, 2001. The event rocked the world as the last remaining superpower was attacked in full view of its citizens. The images entered our collective consciousness, and we began a new era of global unrest. The gloves came off, diplomacy was mocked, and the United States blasted onto the world stage, weapons drawn.
Let’s not relive the events of Sept. 11. We have been reminded of that morning over and over as it has become the sole source of George W. Bush’s foreign policy. The international war on terror has taken center stage as Bush and others have used it as a pretext to undermine the pillars of democracy — the rule of law and transparent government. We now take racial profiling for granted. We watch as people are kidnapped from their countries and imprisoned indefinitely. Illegal torture is commonplace, as is the hideous killing of civilians, and now we hear accusations that our soldiers in Iraq seek revenge through rape and murder. We are forced to accept the USA PATRIOT Act and illegal National Security Agency surveillance, supposedly for our own good.
As Bush used Sept. 11 to justify a renewed campaign of imperialist aggression, he also eviscerated social programs at home. He gutted the Federal Emergency Management Agency and placed it under the control of the Department of Homeland Security, leaving us unable to respond adequately to natural disasters. He deployed our National Guard overseas and depleted our treasury to pay for war. He failed to address global warming, in deference to industry supporters. Finally, we have had to let go of the assumption that our government would protect its own people, as we ask: when did the Bush team know about Sept. 11? Will this question take as long to answer as “Who killed JFK?”
Nothing about the Bush regime is working for the average citizen, and yet all of the above have been completely normalized and barely contested by Congress, with hardly a whimper, a press conference, or a filibuster. Five years later, Bush still attempts to build his legacy on the twin towers of fear and aggression, working with the pathological paranoia that has become the hallmark of our 21st-century society.
But five years later, public opinion is reversing. Impeachment, which once seemed as far-fetched as due process for Guantánamo prisoners, has become a rallying cry for the next election. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors recently passed a resolution in support of Bush’s impeachment, and Sup. Chris Daly has sponsored another one, which will appear on the November ballot. They are an important response from the people to a criminal administration and an anemic Congress. If Bill Clinton can be impeached for a sexual indiscretion to the tune of $60 million in tax dollars and Bush gets off scot-free, what are we telling our children? That a blow job is worse than blowing up a country, and that illegal lying and spying play second fiddle to a marital blunder? The Christian fundamentalists who run our country would have us think so.
Vote for Chris Daly’s impeachment resolution. Yes on J! SFBG
Krissy Keefer
Krissy Keefer is the Green Party candidate for the 8th Congressional District.

Burning reentry

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By Scribe
I returned from Burning Man a week ago today, one of the nearly 40,000 souls reentering the real world from the one that we call “home.” There are more of us than ever given that the population of Black Rock City jumped more than 10 percent this year to by far it’s largest level yet, with the Bay Area still the main source of BRC citizens. The event is growing fast, and at a time when there is increasing concern about global warming and other environmental problems associated with unsustainable consumption of resources. So I was pleased to see founder Larry Harvey and his board announce next year’s theme — Green Man — just as this year’s event was wrapping up. The idea is to better connect the isolated event with the larger world, to increase awareness of our impacts on the environment, and to start offsetting that impact with tree planting and other year-round projects. It’s a natural step in the evolution of an event that began on Baker Beach in 1986, but one that needed to be deliberately taken, a challenging move than will test whether Burning Man is ready to return from the desert and project its values outward.

Late-night luau

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› le_chicken_farmer@yahoo.com
CHEAP EATS I mean, they were already practically married, but my friends Little Him and Little Her officially said they did in the Presidio last weekend, and there was a decidedly islandish theme to the event.
Hawaii, I mean — so technically I should have been playing the uke instead of steel pan. But I’m not a very technical person.
And this isn’t the society pages.
It’s the food section. You want to know about my week in Idaho, right, being a semiprofessional cook for the first and probably last time ever? Among other whimsical dishes, I invented angeled eggs. Instead of mayonnaise, you use, predictably, barbecued chicken. And instead of paprika, fresh salsa.
There was a barbecued squash stuffed with refried beans, sausage, and olives, and another sausage poked suggestively through cored zucchini slices. A pork feast marinated in unripe green grape juice (thanks, Chrissy), rubbed with fresh herbs and basted in pear barbecue sauce — everything but the pig courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. “Jack” Poetry’s garden.
I love using what nature and hecklers throw at you. Barbecued green tomatoes (because deer kept knocking them off the vines). Barbecued overripe cucumbers …
What else rolled off the grill was, of course, my signature dish, barbecued eggs. Which, so you know, have come a long way since I last wrote about them, last winter, I think. I think I was cooking them then in meat grease and barbecue sauce in a bread pan in the wood stove. Now I pour the beat-up eggs into cored bell peppers with chunks of sausage and/or whatever … toothpick a strip of bacon around the rim of the pepper, skewer the toothpick with a cherry tomato, olive, onion, and/or also whatever. And stand them up on the grill. It’s not quite perfected yet, because they fall and spill and take forever to set; but it’s getting there, and it not only tastes better but looks 10 times prettier than huevos Dancheros did.
I have a term for what I do, cooking-wise: nouveau trash.
There are other words as well. But the important thing is that, like Little League baseball, I had a lot of fun doing it. And I had, in Johnny “Jack,” Eberle “Jack,” and Georgie “Jack” Bundle, an appreciative and enthusiastic audience. They were working hard recording music all day, every day, and if not for the chicken farmer would have eaten nothing but toast and Cheerios for a week.
At the end of which week, I dropped Mr. Bundle off at the Boise airport so he could make it to his grandpa’s 90th birthday party and delivered his car full of gear to Oakland. The “Hawaiian Wedding Song” was already stuck in my head, and this was a week before the wedding.
In case you don’t know it, you can easily imagine: it’s a wedding song! The lyrics are unadulterated cheese, but the melody is spectacularly all-over-the-place. I was going to have to learn it, and I didn’t have anything better to do with my ears between Boise and Oakland, so I looped the recording and sang and whistled and hummed and yodeled and just generally drove myself crazy.
Next day needing something to eat in the Sunset, I thought of Island Café, that new Hawaiian joint where JT’s all-night diner used to be. Taraval and 19th Ave. Thematically, geographically, it just seemed like the thing to do. And I was all alonesome still, and they have a counter. A great one. An even greater one than it used to be, because there’s a big TV now, and women’s golf was on.
Women’s golf goes good with Hawaiian food. Who knew?
Instead of Spam and eggs or barbecued chicken soup, which I didn’t see until too late, I got Loco Moco ($8.65). That’s three hamburger patties, three scoops of rice because I didn’t want the macaroni (because of mayonnaise), some cabbage, and of course gravy. But not enough gravy. I distinctly remember reading the word “smothered” on the menu in reference to gravy, and neither the burgers nor the rice scoops were what I would call smothered. They were dolloped.
But besides that I have nothing bad to say about my new favorite Hawaiian restaurant. The service was good and friendly. Women’s golf. Uke. Surfboard. Good music. Good vibe. Nothing’s more than 10 bucks. A lot of things are a lot less.
And — and this is a big and — they’re open till 2 a.m., and all night Thursday through Saturday. SFBG
ISLAND CAFÉ
Sun.–Wed., 8–2 a.m.; Thurs.–Sat., 24 hours
901 Taraval, SF
(415) 661-3303
Takeout available
Beer and wine
MC/V
Quiet
Wheelchair accessible

Homeless disconnect

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› amanda@sfbg.com
The shelter of a slim door frame, the outstretched palm asking for a dime: this is how hundreds of San Francisco’s homeless get by, once the soup kitchens close and the shelters cry “No Vacancy.”
But panhandling, blocking the sidewalks, and lodging in public are a few of the 15 quality-of-life violations for which the San Francisco Police Department regularly issues citations. In the 30 months that Mayor Gavin Newsom has been in office, the cops have issued more than 31,000 such tickets.
And according to a study by Religious Witness with Homeless People, it’s been a colossal waste of money.
The study — released at a City Hall press conference Aug. 31 — revealed that more than $5.7 million in taxpayer money has been spent on police, paperwork, and court staff issuing and prosecuting these violations.
The group reviewed documents from the Police Department, Sheriff’s Department, district attorney, public defender, city attorney, and the Traffic and Criminal divisions of the SF Superior Court, as well as interviewing nearly 200 homeless people about their experiences being swept off the streets and into the courtrooms and jails. According to Sister Bernie Galvin, who founded the interfaith coalition in 1993, no study of this scope and magnitude has ever been conducted in San Francisco.
“Most of these people haven’t committed a crime,” Galvin said. “They’ve received [tickets] for simply existing: the crime of being poor and on the street.”
Approximately 80 percent of the citations are dismissed in the courts when the violator fails to show or can’t pay the $100 fine, but then a warrant is issued for the person’s arrest. Here’s the rub: with an active arrest warrant, a homeless person can’t access city services, the very essentials that eliminate the need to sleep in the park and pee on a tree.
“We’re spending all this money, and the result is counterproductive,” said Elisa Della-Piana, a legal advocate for the homeless.
Rabbi Peretz Wolf-Prusan, one of several religious leaders, lawyers, and homeless advocates at the press conference, pointed out that a simple background check for employment or housing would reveal the arrest warrant. “Housing, jobs, drug treatment, federal and state benefits are all threatened by these little green pieces of paper,” he said, gesturing to the mountain of paper violations stacked on a nearby tabletop.
“If you’re homeless on the street and receive a citation for over $100, this is a Kafkaesque moment,” he went on to say. Homeless people are currently granted $59 of public money a month under Newsom’s Care not Cash program, down from $419.
Newsom has said he’s reduced the number of quality-of-life citations by 17 percent; however, Galvin contends that number draws from a pool of eight possible violations when there are actually 15 that fall in the category. Within that 15, some have doubled in number, with public camping violations having tripled.
While Galvin made a point of commending the work Newsom’s Project Homeless Connect has done in galvanizing volunteers and reaching about 1,000 people in need, she said, “Until we have the capacity to meet the needs of all these other people, it’s morally unjust to criminalize them.”
“I went to Project Homeless Connect, and they really helped me. Two days later, they arrested me for not paying my tickets,” said one of the homeless people interviewed for the study. Another said, “I never got a ticket in my life for anything, then I lost my job, couldn’t pay my rent, became homeless. I got tickets now and probably warrants all for just being in the park. They just keep beating you down.”
Galvin added that Newsom has not responded to four letters requesting a meeting. “This is the first mayor who’s refused to meet with us,” she said of Religious Witness, which got its start fighting Mayor Frank Jordan’s tough-love Matrix policy of the ’90s. “Mayor Newsom is responsible for this city,” she said. “He must stop enforcement of these unjust laws.” SFBG

THURSDAY

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Aug. 31

Music

Sampling Oakland Performances

Oakland’s immensely vital arts scene gets some much-deserved reverence in one of the Yerba Buena Center’s current visual art installations, Sampling Oakland. The work of artists like Erik Groff attempts, through various media, to navigate the space presented by the city of Oakland and the gallery space at YBCA in thoughtful, unconventional ways. In addition to regular viewing, this evening the exhibit plays host to a number of adventurous local guest musicians selected by curators from the 21 Grand, an interdisciplinary arts space in Oakland. (Michael Harkin)

6:30 p.m.
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
701 Mission, SF
Free with gallery admission ($4-$6)
(415) 978-2787
www.ybca.org

Film

Soylent Green

We’re still a sweet 16 years away from 2022, when strawberry jam costs an arm and a leg and everyone eats mysterious foodstuff made by the Soylent Corporation. What, you don’t believe a reanimated Chuck Heston will be around to try to get to the cannibalistic bottom of a dystopia-in-the-making? Recent news about body-part harvesting companies like Donor Referral Services and Biomedical Tissue Services might change your mind. Chew on them – and salute programmers who realize that there is no better site than a humanist hall to screen Soylent Green. (Johnny Ray Huston)

7:30 p.m.
Humanist Hall
390 27th St., Oakl.
$5 donation
(510) 393-5685
www.humanisthall.net

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