Health

The case for local taxes

8

When state Sen. Darrell Steinberg introduced SB 653, a bill that would allow cities to impose an income tax, a car tax and excise taxes, I called his press office and asked if the senator was serious. Me, I thought this was one of the best ideas I’d ever heard of out of Sacramento, but I couldn’t believe Steinberg was actually going to push it.


After all, Steinberg has been in heated discussions with the Republicans over the state budget, and they’ve been refusing to bend, even an inch, on new revenue. And the Democrats can’t pass a budget alone; the two-thirds requirement for new taxes means at least four members of the recalictrant GOP have to go along.


But if Steinberg could threaten the jerks with a bill that requires only a majority vote but would open the door to all kinds of new taxes up and down the state, maybe they’d start to come around. That seemed like the theory.


But his staff told me that he was entirely serious — and to my astonishment (and perhaps his) the bill is moving forward. We did an editorial endorsing it two weeks ago, and all of a sudden, it’s getting a lot of attention. And it’s exposed a fascinating political debate in the state and raised a lot of questions that ought to be part of the political conversation.


Jerry Brown’s been talking for months about “realignment” — sending more state services back to local government. It’s part of the populist side of the guv, and it flies in the face of 50 years of liberal thought. The federal government used to be our friend — the feds enforced civil rights laws in the racist South. The feds put money into inner cities. The state of California enforced equality, too — the famous Serrano v. Priest decision, in state court, guaranteed that public schools in all areas, not just rich ones, had the resources to provide a quality education to all. “State’s rights” was the cry of segregationists; rich people in conservative communities wanted school funding to be a local decision.


But things are different now, and the political stars are realigned. The most important civil rights moves are coming from cities (see: San Francisco, same-sex marriage) and progressive communities are defying the feds on issues from immigration to medical pot. (The flip side is also happening, see: Arizona and SB 1070).


Right now, today, the single most important issue in the United States (with the possible exception of stupid foreign wars) is the wealth gap and taxation. So much flows from that — the collapse of social services, the cost of health care, unemployment, the crisis in state budgets, the decline in public education … name an issue, and it has at least some roots in the way the nation handles money. And two things have happened in the last 15 years or so, at least at the national level:


1. The Republican Party has been taken over by the far right.


2. The Democratic Party has been taken over by Wall Street.


So nothing good’s going to happen in Washington. And in California, thanks to our two-thirds rule, nothing good’s going to happen in Sacramento as long as a tiny minority of really bad Republicans can hold the state hostage.


Which means that the only hope for progressive economic policy is going to come from local government — and the best thing the Democrats can do in the state Legislature is to stand back and allow it to happen. Which is exactly what the Steinberg bill would do.


Now, the San Francisco Chronicle has come out against the Steinberg bill, saying it would


mark a regrettable retreat from the notion that Californians of many lifestyles and cultures – city dwellers, beach-goers, farmers, ranchers, techies, loggers, entrepreneurs – share a common bond. The delegation of a greater tax burden and government duties to 58 counties and hundreds of cities would only compound the disparities that make this state nirvana for some and Appalachia for others.


The problem is, that notion — that romantic vision of One California — is already gone. California isn’t one state any more; it’s too big to be a state, and it ought to be at least three states. The Democrats control both houses of the Legislature and the governor’s office — and it’s almost impossible even to pass a state budget. There’s nothing resembling a political consensus in California, and we might as well admit it.

I understand the problem of economic disparity — but you can’t address it under the current system. There are, indeed, a few counties that have very little tax base, and that will need substantial state aid; I’m good with that. I’m happy to have my tax money go to the poorest counties. But I’m not seeing the Steinberg bill as a reason to cut state spending; I think we ought to increase state spending. I just think that what comes out of Sacramento should be a floor, not a ceiling. If people in San Francisco want to spend more on their public schools — and do it in a progressive way — what’s wrong with that?

The problem with local taxes is that the most progressive, fair revenue solutions aren’t available to cities. Income taxes are far better than sales taxes; ad valorem property taxes are better than parcel taxes. But cities can’t impose traditional income taxes, and are hobbled by Prop. 13 on property taxes. So when cities DO try to impose their own taxes, the results aren’t fair — the poor pay more than the rich.

Interestingly, Dan Walters of the SacBee, who is by no means considered a liberal, likes the Steinberg bill:

California’s experiment in centralized budgeting, the unintended consequence of Propostition 13’s approval in 1978, has been an abject failure. California is simply too diverse for one-size-fits-all decision making from Sacramento, especially when the Capitol can’t even decide what that size should be.

And City Attorney Dennis Herrera, who is running for mayor, likes the idea, too:


California communities that view government as a needless intrusion into people’s lives are morally entitled to limit their local government, and to pay less for fewer services.   Conversely, California communities that see government’s potential to improve the lives of their residents deserve to fully realize the benefits of the public services they’re paying for.


But the notion that we must bind the fate of 37 million Californians to the governance of lowest common denominator is absurd. 


Steinberg’s bill isn’t perfect — it doesn’t include corporate income taxes. But it’s a lot better than what we have now.

I realize that we’re in tricky territory here — should counties where 80 percent of the voters want mandatory prayer in schools and a curriculum that says God doesn’t like homosexuality have the right to overrule state and federal law and ignore the Constitution in the name of local control? Of course not.

But I think you can argue that local government, after meeting the basic federal and state requirements, has the right to go a step further in the pursuit of civil and Constitutional rights. Just as cities, after receiving their minimum allotment of stae money, have the right to raise more. And do it in a fair way.

At the very least, the bill creates a discussion that we all ought to be having. Cuz the way we’re running the state right now isn’t working.

Supervisors and activists decry businesses that deny wages to low-income workers

13

For one of this country’s first government hearings regarding wage theft yesterday (Thurs/12), San Francisco activists, public employees, and politicians alike were determined to find ways to address issues surrounding low-income workers who are paid below minimum wage or otherwise deprived of money they’re entitled to.

Wage theft may involve a number of different violations including payment below the minimum wage, obligation to work off the clock, and denial of overtime and sick pay. Low-income jobs such as construction work, hospitality and domestic care are the most cited types of employment for wage theft and wage theft disproportionately affects communities of color and those with language barriers.

“We are not going to allow any worker in San Francisco to be exploited,” said Sup. David Campos said on the steps of City Hall, later presiding over the Government Audit and Oversight Committee hearing on the issue. “Wage theft affects the lowest wage workers and their ability to make a living and survive in these tough economic times.”

The pre-hearing protest and the meeting was comprised of workers with emotional stories of poverty and injustice. Other speakers included Donna Levitt, the director of the Office of Labor Standards Enforcement, the agency in charge of overseeing claims of employers withholding wages, and Rajiv Bhatia, the director of Occupational and Environmental Health at the San Francisco Department of Public Health.

Levitt said that 500 claims of wage theft have been addressed by the OLSE since the minimum wage law’s inception in 2003. Dan Goncher of Harvey M. Rose Associates, which does budget analysis for the city, cited data showing that the OLSE takes significantly longer to go through the hearing process for back wages than other agencies. However, Levitt mentioned that 97 percent of cases are settled and never go to the City Attorney’s Office for a hearing.

“Very little thought from our policymakers was made on how this was going to be enforced,” Levitt said of the current minimum wage law.

The coalition of community organizations including Young Workers United, Filipino Community Center, Chinese Progressive Association, San Francisco Tenants Association, Unite Here Local 2, Mujeres Unidas y Activas, and others joined together for the protest in order to raise awareness of some proposed amendments to the current minimum wage enforcement law.

Co-sponsored by Campos and Sup. Eric Mar, the amendments would add additional penalties such as raising the fine for employers from $500 to $1,000 for retaliating against workers exercising rights under the current law, the ability to interview employees and inspect payroll records at places of business, the requirement of notifying employees when an employer is being investigated, and to posting of a public notice when an employer fails to comply with a settlement agreement.

“We want to see the city taking a stronger commitment to addressing the issue of wage theft,” said lead organizer of the Chinese Progressive Association Shaw San Liu. “We don’t want this to be a one-day publicity stunt.”

One of the workers, who spoke about his experience of wage theft, recalled working long hours without the assurance of payment. “We would wait for hours for them to come back pay us but they never came,” Jose Cruz, a day laborer and client of La Raza Centro Legal, said about one of his jobs.

Bhatia explained to the supervisors and crowded audience in the committee hearing room that in the last week, 26 percent of the nation’s low wage workers were paid less than minimum wage. He also outlined different steps such as tracking chronic violators and training health inspectors to make referrals to local enforcement agencies in cases of non-compliance, so the SFDPH could support the community efforts in decreasing wage theft.

In addition, both Campos and Board President David Chiu made a point of speaking about how wage theft also detrimentally affects businesses.

“Most businesses play by the rules and those businesses are at a disadvantage when we allow businesses to not follow the rules,” said Campos.

“This is not about workers versus businesses,” Chiu said. “The issue of wage theft effects workers and workers’ families across the city.”

Coal company gets punked by the Yes Men

The Yes Men, that prankster-activist group that has ruined many a corporate exective’s day, have struck again. This time their target is the notorious Peabody coal company, which operates environmentally devastating mountaintop removal mining sites in West Virginia and has strip mining operations in Arizona.

It may take a minute to realize that Coal Cares is a fake. Designed to look like a website for a Peabody-funded nonprofit, the faux charity offers free “Puff-Puff” designer inhalers for kids living within 200 miles of a coal plant. The site features a “Kidz Koal Korner” (an interesting spelling choice that could be meant as a subtle reminder of the environmental racism issues associated with coal-fired power plants), and a selection of inhalers with themes ranging from “Miley Cyrus” to “The Bieber” to “Punk / Emo.”

The humor is dark. For example, a kids’ game page features a maze with a drawing of the character “Jimmy” at the beginning and an inhaler at the end. It’s titled, “Help! Jimmy is having trouble breathing. Help him find his inhaler, quick!”

A section called “‘Clean’ Energy” features some over-the-top misinformation about wind power: “Wind technology is another ‘alternative’ wild card. Every single year, gargantuan wind turbines kill literally thousands of birds—especially when the turbines are located in the middle of migration paths. Exploding bats are also a growing problem, as vibrations from turbines causes the rodents’ lungs to burst apart in mid-flight.”

But a press release on the Yes Men’s website reveals that the issues that inspired this hoax are no laughing matter. Peabody was targeted for lobbying against new pollution standards for power plants that have been proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency — rules that the agency has calculated could prevent 120,000 cases of childhood asthma per year in the United States.

The press release noted that the action was dreamed up by a small environmental and public health group called Coal is Killing Kids (CKK), which aims to challenge coal industry lobbying against rules that would strengthen the Clean Air Act. “We don’t have their millions, but we do have a knack for incredibly tasteless jokes,” said Veronica Tomlinson, a pediatrician and member of CKK.

“Sure, it’s kind of tasteless to say that ‘Bieber’ inhalers are a solution to childhood asthma,” said Janet Bellamy, a spokesperson for CKK. “But it’s a great deal more tasteless to cause that asthma in the first place, as coal-fired power plants have been proven to do.” Added CKK spokseperson Justin V. Bond: “It’s even more tasteless to disproportionately kill poor people.”

Ass backward

2

le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS The good news is that my asshole itself is just fine. It took me almost three days to convince the imbecilic network of Kaiser phone reps that no, it weren’t hemorrhoids, you’re going to have to actually fucking see me. Apparently my $350 a month isn’t enough to warrant them having a look at my ass once every six years. Let alone sticking a finger in it.

“Probably hemorrhoids,” they said. “Someone will call you.” Which they didn’t, so I called back, and back. Five, six times.

And they said hemorrhoids.

The fifth or sixth time they said hemorrhoids I said, “You don’t understand. I haven’t been constipated since the late 1970s. Constipated people call me from across the country. To chat! Just talking to me makes them have to use the bathroom. I’m serious, it’s what mothers love about me. I get all the poopy diapers, and they get a regular baby. One mother called me — you’re going to love this — I was on vacation, and her kid hadn’t pooped since I left. Could she please just put him on the phone with me, maybe the sound of my voice would loosen him up. Which it did. And now you’re trying to tell me I have a hemorrhoid? Do you know who you’re talking to? Trust me. I wish I were sexy, like everyone else in the world. But I’m not. I’m good for something else: eating with, and talking shit. And yes, the two go hand in hand. As it happens, you probably-entirely-blameless representative of a crock-of-shit company, even what little sexy I am is mostly my mouth and my asshole, so can we please get this taken care of please, because I don’t get a lot of love as it is, and my lover is visiting from New Orleans in a week. Plus I’m afraid to eat hot sauce, which is my muse and antidepressant. So …”

“I’ll have someone call you,” they said.

And, you know, eventually, someone did. My old Rohnert Park doc, who is a superhero, must have called San Francisco (after talking with me) and explained that the crazy lady they’d been ignoring, losing in the system, and silencing with red tape really was the world’s Most Regular Person — seen in a strictly gastroenterological light — and was more likely to be carrying the seed of an alien civilization in her asshole than a hemorrhoid.

I don’t know if those would have been her exact words. But finally, after being in pain for nearly 60 hours — sitting, standing, walking, lying down — and 24 hours after the onset of general achiness and chills (possible symptoms of systemic infection, by the way), I was able to make an appointment!

It took the doctor less than 30 seconds to determine what I’d been trying to tell them for two days. It wasn’t a hemorrhoid. It was an abscess or cyst or something, and it was infected. He put me on antibiotics and went to get someone to cut me.

And it was she, my cutter, who put her finger in and said that, yes, my ass was fine.

I’d been trying to tell people that for days, and in a larger sense, for years and years. “Thank you,” I said.

My whole right cheek was red and swollen and incredibly painful to the touch, but she decided not to cut me for two days. I’d have argued otherwise, but I was already an hour late for dinner.

Luckily it was with Mr. Wong, my patientest of friends.

Over Korean fried chicken (or KFC) at Red Wings, just a hop, waddle, and short 38 ride down Geary, I related my Bukowskiesque ordeal, complaining about Kaiser much as I have just done toward you.

Minus the chicken, which was pretty not-all-that-half-bad — at least the fried. Mr. Wong got his roasted, with garlic and herbs, and I tasted it: dry dry dry.

“Well, look at it this way,” Mr. Wong said, chomping chicken. “At least you have health insurance.”

True. And at the end of a week when two of my aunts died, I have my overall health, and life. But honestly, between an infected abscess and the health care provider I pay to take care of such — er — bumps in the road, I don’t know which is the bigger pain in the ass.

RED WINGS

Daily: 5 p.m.–2 a.m.

3015 Geary, SF

(415) 422-0012

Beer and wine

MC/V

 

Cycling race

2

caitlin@sfbg.com

In contrast to the alley cat fixie fiends and placid Venice Beach cruisers, some of Los Angeles’ most ardent bicyclists were going unnoticed and underserved by bike advocacy groups. Working class Latinos are often the only ones on two wheels in several of the city’s most disadvantaged communities — but you weren’t going to catch them at Critical Mass or grabbing a seat at L.A. County Bike Coalition meetings.

The organizers of the community group Ciudad de Luces recognized that these riders, often stuck commuting on the L.A.’s most dangerous roads with substandard safety gear and rickety bikes, needed a voice in the development of the city’s biking infrastructure, and were being missed by the biking movement’s traditional outreach tactics.

The organization started distributing bike lights and Day-Glo visibility vests at day laborer centers; started a weekly bike repair workshop at one of the sites in response to popular demand from workers; and, in 2010, convinced the city to install 73 much-needed bike racks throughout the low income Pico-Union neighborhood. Ciudad de Luces coined a term to describe the community it works with: the invisible riders.

Biking is not a white middle class privilege, but many times the popular face of bike activism is perceived as such. In the case of Ciudad de Luce’s struggle for recognition, that meant the minority communities that do ride aren’t given necessary resources to keep them safe and secure. And according to Jenna Burton of the Oakland community bike group Red, Bike and Green, it also harms cycling’s popularity among some prospective riders.

“If you see something that is predominantly white, it’s automatically not going to be as appealing to the black community,” she said in a phone interview with the Guardian. Burton moved to the Bay Area from the East Coast, and was taken by the strong biking culture. Looking for community, she assumed there had to be some kind of African American bicycle meet-up. (“The Bay Area has everything, right?”) She was surprised to find that one didn’t exist.

Burton realized that blacks were underrepresented in the biking community. When she asked acquaintances about their reluctance to pedal through their daily lives, she found that many were intimidated by the ubiquity of bikes in the area. “It can be really intimidating to get out there for the first time. The culture is so strong here, it seems hardcore to people who are curious about biking.”

“There needed to be a targeted effort toward the black community.” Burton’s solution: create an organization that spoke directly to African Americans about why they should bike. She developed a Black Panthers-style three-point plan to break it down. Black people on average make less money and biking is cheap; black people are subject to chronic health problems and biking makes people stronger; black people are often the subjects of environmental racism and biking is a way to speak out against carcinogenic injustice. To spread the word, the group would hold social rides so riders could see that black bike riders really did exist.

Nick James didn’t own a bike, but when Burton told him about Red, Bike and Green, he was compelled to buy one. Already an activist for HIV/AIDS, education, youth, and health causes, James said in an e-mail interview with the Guardian that he believed Burton had hit upon a way to pull all those social issues together — through an experience that would not only be positive, but fun. Now he uses his bike to get to work and run everyday errands.

“Any space where African Americans can get out stress, laugh, communicate, or heal, I’m there,” he said. “Red, Bike and Green is a space where exercise, socializing, and activism flows seamlessly.”

Core volunteers publicized early rides through word of mouth, often handing out flyers to other black bicyclists that they passed in the streets. They found partners in the East Bay’s burgeoning minority biking advocacy network: Cycles of Change, an umbrella organization that includes the LGBT and minority-run Bikery and Changing Gears Bicycle Shop, and P.O.K.E.R. (People of Kolor Everyday Ridin’).

On Saturday, April 23, Red, Bike and Green held its first ride of 2011. Seventy people rode a route that took them through many of Oakland’s black residential neighborhoods — a tactic that organizers employ, as Burton puts it, to make other black people aware that they can rock some handlebars “to build community in our community.”

Since last year, the rides have attracted cyclists from age seven to 65, families, and strangers who can spend the ride connecting and networking. People have used the rides to announce impending garden harvest surpluses, Oscar Grant protests, and job openings.

As Bay Area bike lanes grow smarter and more numerous, and as gas prices soar and environmental issues become more troublesome, it’s pretty much a done deal that more people are going to be riding bikes. And yes, bike movement, that’s something to ring those bells over. But we have to turn the gears democratically: to really improve access to cycling, the needs of all communities have to be taken into account — and that means getting creative with outreach strategies.

Red, Bike and Green uses bikes to carve out a space for its riders — not only in the velo advocacy movement, but in the social fabric of the Bay Area. Burton is confident that the sight of so many black people rolling by will introduce a thought into the heads of spectators — a thought that really shouldn’t need to be introduced but does anyway: “This is our community, there needs to be space made for us too.”

 

Garbage shuffle

1

sarah@sfbg.com

The Department of Public Health has scheduled a May 13 hearing to review allegations that Recology subsidiary Sunset Scavenger overbilled for trash collection at a condominium building for years, resulting in $84,544 in excess charges, erroneously charged the building commercial rates, and is refusing to make a full refund. Recology counters that the building’s managers oversubscribed, and the company gave a three-month refund as a show of good faith, but considers additional refunds punitive.

The hearing should interest the 21 percent of San Francisco residents who own units in condominium buildings. According to the Assessor-Recorder’s Office, 42,478 of the city’s 200,409 recorded parcels are now condominiums, with 3,192 registered as live/work, 38,300 as market rate, 980 as below-market rate, and 958 as commercial condo parcels as of fall 2010.

This struggle between ratepayers and Recology, which controls almost all aspects of the city’s $275 million-a-year waste stream, seems emblematic of the problems that can arise when a monopoly is only partially regulated by local officials (the city does not have oversight of commercial collection rates) and then only in a labyrinthine process.

DPH’s May 13 hearing comes three weeks after the Board’s Budget and Finance Committee voted to wait until July before deciding whether to award the city’s next landfill disposal contract to Recology. And it hits 18 months after the Department of the Environment, which derives half its budget from Recology’s rates, first tentatively awarded the city’s landfill contract to the San Francisco based garbage giant.

Since then critics have questioned how Recology got its monopoly, whether the arrangement benefits rate payers, and whether it makes environmental sense to haul the city’s trash all the way to Yuba County, as Recology is proposing.

In February, the budget and legislative analyst recommended that the city replace existing trash collection and disposal laws with legislation that would require competitive bidding on all aspects of the city’s waste collection, consolidation, and recycling system.

The analyst also recommended requiring that refuse collection rates for residential and commercial services be subject to board approval, noting that competitive bidding could result in reduced refuse collection rates (see “Garbage curveball,” 02/8/11).

“The latest report says that the current system has been in existence since 1932 and let’s put it out to competitive bid,” said budget and legislative analyst Harvey Rose.

A 2002 report by Rose noted that the city has no regulatory authority over commercial refuse rates. “Instead, commercial rates are subject to agreements between the permitted and licensed refuse collectors and individual commercial producers of refuse, commercial tenants and building owners,)” the report stated.

Rose’s report also found that commercial building owners often pay commercial refuse fees to Recology, so tenants don’t know how much they are paying. “Normally, if tenants occupy such buildings for commercial purposes, the commercial refuse fees are passed on to the tenants as part of the overall rent and operating costs. As a result, it is likely that many commercial tenants do not know how much they are actually paying for commercial refuse collection,” the report found.

It also noted that when the analysts attempted to complain about commercial refuse collection and commercial refuse rates (“for audit procedure purposes”) and to inquire how to lodge a complaints with the city, there was “nobody to call.”

Fast-forward nine years, and Golan Yona, who sits on the board of the Alamo Square Board Homeowners Association, which represents 200 residents in a 63-unit building on Fulton Street, claims the city gave him the run-around when he complained that, over a four-year period, Recology subsidiary Sunset Scavenger billed his building to pick up two, two-yard compactor containers three times a week but only picked up one. “Each time one of the bins is being put out for collection, the second bin is connected to the trash chute,” and thus not in service for pickup, Yona said.

But Recology claims that HSM Management, the company the homeowners association hired to manage its building, “oversubscribed” for waste collection. Recology also notes that the commercial rate the association paid resulted in the building being charged a lower monthly cost, but that Sunset recognized this as an “internal error” and therefore is not pursuing collection of the undercharged amounts.

Recology spokesperson Adam Alberti characterized the disagreement as “a pretty simple billing dispute,” even as he claimed that HSM sometimes put two bins curbside.

“Recology has been providing a level of service that was not fully utilized,” Alberti said. “They had two bins and were only setting out one, though there were numerous times throughout the year when they set out two bins.”

Alberti said the responsibility lies with the condo group, which opted for that level of bin service. “At some point they called to discuss ways to reduce their bill, at which point Recology suggested they reduce their service to one bin. At that point, the homeowners association sought compensation,” he said.

“No, this is based on actual consumption,” Yona told the Guardian, claiming that Sunset has no problem charging extra if buildings put out extra bins.

Alberti claims it’s “far more common” for buildings to oversubscribe. “They plan for peak times,” he said. “As a good faith gesture, the company sought to come to terms with the customer — but they weren’t able to do so.”

DPH’s Scott Nakamura confirmed that rate hearings are rare in his department. “This is the first time in 30 years that I have heard of a dispute like this going to the DPH — and I’ve been working here more years than I’d like to admit,” he said.

Based on his experience and Rose’s 2002 report, Yona suspects that the reason for this lack of hearings lies with a lack of process — not a lack of complaints.

Yona held up a flow chart that depicts 17 contacts he had with City Hall in a five-week period as he tried to find out how collection rates are set, how homeowners can determine what their building should be paying, and how they can register complaints.

These included calls to the City Attorney’s Office, Department of Public Works, Department of Public Health, and the DPH’s offices of Environmental Health and Solid Waste.

As a result of his persistence, Yona discovered that the city’s refuse collection and disposal ordinance, adopted Nov. 8, 1932, stipulates that DPH’s director can revoke the license of any refuse collector “for failure in the part of the refuse collector to properly collect refuse, or for overcharging for the collection of same, or for insolence toward persons whose refuse he is collecting.”

In a complaint submitted to DPH director Barbara Garcia on behalf of Alamo Square Board HOA, Yona wrote: “We would like to note that our attempts to talk to the right authority in City Hall have met so far with difficulty. The seriousness of the matter requires intervention of the highest authority in City Hall.” 

Boxed out

5

rebeccab@sfbg.com

The Board of Supervisors is gearing up to revisit whether telecommunications giant AT&T should be permitted to install 726 new metal boxes on city sidewalks for a communications network upgrade, without completing an environmental impact review.

At an April 26 meeting, the board spent several tedious hours listening to concerns such as whether the boxes would attract graffiti or clutter the sidewalks, and debated the finer points of whether the project could legally be considered exempt, ultimately resolving to take up the issue again May 24.

Meanwhile, a small cadre of tech-savvy San Franciscans has seized on this debate as an opportunity to drum up enthusiasm for an alternate vision of a citywide communications future, one with faster connection speeds that wouldn’t necessarily be controlled by the AT&T and Comcast duopoly.

At the meeting, AT&T California President Ken McNeely, dressed in a sharp suit, trumpeted the company’s proposed upgrade, part of a new system called U-verse. “This is the largest single upgrade to the San Francisco local phone network in more than a century,” he said. “Our network will provide the next-generation IP technologies that San Francisco needs to provide if it wants to continue to attract the best and brightest in the region.”

Yet Rudy Rucker, bearded and clad in a camouflage T-shirt, sounded a different note. “The U.S. is No. 30 in the world in Internet speed,” he said. “The boxes are not the way to go. What we need to do is rework the entire infrastructure of how we do communications in the city. We’re relying on copper lines. We need to pull all those out, recycle the copper, and put in fiber-optic cable.” Rucker is a cofounder of MonkeyBrains, an independent Internet service provider (ISP) based in San Francisco.

AT&T’s U-verse upgrade would enable it to offer connection speeds three times faster than current service — but not nearly as fast as what fiber proponents envision. Several members of the tech industry interviewed by the Guardian cautioned that another AT&T upgrade might be necessary after less than a decade to keep pace with technological advancement. At that point, it’s anyone’s guess whether those boxes would continue to be useful. AT&T did not respond to a query from the Guardian.

SPEED FREAKS

When it comes to Internet speeds, the United States trails Asia and some European countries. “We’ve fallen from first place,” said Ashwin Navin, who founded several tech startups including a file-sharing company called BitTorrent. “It’s really put our software and technology industry at a disadvantage.”

According to a website that compares connection speeds using data compilation, California ranks 23rd in the nation, while San Francisco doesn’t even clear the top 30 cities nationwide, Navin noted.

Yet much faster connection speeds are possible — even commonplace — in countries such as Japan and Singapore. “Right now, the average download speed in San Francisco is something around eight megabits,” explained Dana Sniezko, who’s emerged as a tech activist since creating a website called SF Fiber, which calls for a neutral, open, affordable community fiber network. “What U-verse is going to offer is about three times that. Something like fiber can offer service that’s 1,000 megabits [called a gigabit], or even much larger than that. Fiber allows you to really have a huge capacity for the future.”

Put in practical terms, Sniezko said, the difference between a connection speed of eight megabits and a gigabit amounts to downloading a full-length feature film in 90 minutes, versus several seconds. And since fiber also can deliver faster upload speeds, it opens the door to new possibilities. “It lets individuals potentially come up with really innovative and creative ideas,” Sniezko said. “If you wanted to have your own streaming TV channel from your house, you could. Or anything, really.”

Fiber already exists under San Francisco city streets — but most places lack the direct connections to homes or businesses, so the capacity is not realized. The city’s Department of Technology and Information Services (DTIS) convened a study in 2007 for developing the infrastructure to create a full-fiber network, deeming fiber “the holy grail of communications networking: unlimited capacity, long life, and global reach.”

Since then, progress has been slow. AT&T’s new system would also be based on fiber, but information would still travel to homes or offices over copper phone lines, resulting in slower speeds than a direct connection could supply.

On a recent afternoon, MonkeyBrains cofounder Alex Menendez scrambled up a ladder leading from his small Potrero Hill office space to show off some rooftop antennas and laser devices. There was a clear view from the flat, sunny roof to the office building the laser was pointed at, many blocks away. Secured to a hand-built metal stand, the gadgets were part of the company’s high-speed Internet network, which counts KQED among its roughly 1,000 subscribers.

Menendez was explaining how his small company is able to use these microwave devices in combination with fiber-optic cables to provide high-speed Internet by leapfrogging from node to node throughout San Francisco.

Menendez said he didn’t feel strongly one way or another about AT&T’s metal boxes. “But it raises a more interesting issue: what’s the 50-year-down-the-line solution? There’s much better technology out there. It could be super-affordable, with a wide-open, massive amount of bandwidth.”

But, he added, it won’t happen without the support of local government.

MISSED CONNECTIONS

The City and County of San Francisco owns an underground fiber-optic network spanning more than 110 miles, used mostly for municipal and emergency purposes. AT&T has its own fiber — and with a history going back more than a century in San Francisco, it also has a lock on the market.

AT&T owns underground cables, copper phone lines, and rights-of-way, making it necessary for small market players to interface with the corporation and pay fees. This makes it difficult for local ISPs to compete on any meaningful scale. “They have the right to trench the street,” Menendez explained. “We don’t.”

Mendendez and others are looking at micro-trenching as a possible way around this. Last summer, Google hosted an event at its Mountain View headquarters called the Micro-trenching Olympics (“A very Google-y thing to do,” according to a company representative speaking in a YouTube video) to find out which contractor could best slice a one-inch wide, nine-inch deep trench in a parking lot and install fiber-optic cable inside. The idea behind micro-trenching is that it’s fast and minimally disruptive — and best of all, it doesn’t interfere with existing infrastructure, so there’s no need to pay a fee to AT&T, or any other company.

Some in the tech community are hoping it will signify a new and efficient way to link fiber-optic cable directly to homes and businesses, ultimately resulting in the kind of Internet speed that would let you download a movie in less than ten seconds. With micro-trenching, there would be no need for utility boxes.

Navin, Mendendez, and several others have talked up the idea of micro-trenching a small area in the Mission District to bring fiber-optic, high-speed Internet to an entire neighborhood. Yet their early conversations with the city’s Department of Public Works suggest that it may be a slow process. “They were like, ‘What is this?'” Menendez recounted. “There’s no established permitting process.”

Meanwhile, Board of Supervisors President David Chiu recently asked DTIS to examine the possibility of leasing excess capacity on city-owned dark-fiber infrastructure, which is currently in place but not being used. This could boost bandwidth for entities such as nonprofits, health care facilities, biotech companies, digital media companies, or universities, Chiu said, while bolstering city coffers. “There are many places in town that need a lot more bandwidth, and this is an easy way to provide it,” he said.

Sniezko noted that other cities have created open-access networks to deploy fiber. “This is really effective because it’s a lot like a public utility,” she explained. “The city or someone fills a pipe, and then anyone who wants to run information or service on that pipe can do so. They pay a leasing fee. This has worked in many places in Europe, and they actually do it in Utah. In many cases, it’s really cool — because it’s publicly owned and it’s neutral. There’s no prioritizing traffic for one thing over another, or limitation on who’s allowed to offer service on the network. It … creates some good public infrastructure, and also allows for competition, and it sort of revives the local ISP. Chiu’s proposal is a little bit in that vein, it sounds like. But he hasn’t released a lot of details on it yet, so we’re still looking.”

Visit www.sffiber.info for more info

 

Kids on bikes

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news@sfbg.com

To meet San Francisco’s policy goal of having 20 percent of all vehicle trips made by bicycle by the year 2020, advocates and officials say the city will need to make cycling more attractive to the young and old, from age 8 to 80. But there are some built-in challenges to getting more school children on bikes, even if there has been some recent progress, as demonstrated during the Bike to School Day in April.

“I see more and more middle and high school teams out there,” Leah Shahum, executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, said of the group rides to and from school that parents have been organizing.

According to a 2009 David Binder poll, seven out of 10 residents in San Francisco use a bicycle (this includes regular commuters and once-a-year riders) and last year’s city count of bike ridership from the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s annual report saw a 58 percent increase in the number of cyclists on the road. At any given time during regular business weekday hours, some 9,210 riders pedal through the streets, according to last year’s results.

Children account for some of that increase, as demonstrated by the Bike to School Day event and its 3,000 riders — the most ever. Shahum attributes some of the increase to the new separated bikeways on Market Street, Alemany Boulevard, and Laguna Honda Boulevard, which allow children and their parents to feel safer. “When the bikeway was introduced, the numbers increased — there is growing demand.”

Programs like the Department of Public Health’s Safe Routes to School and SF Unified School District’s Student Support Services Department are helping to raise awareness of the improvements to encourage more cycling by young people.

Safe Routes to School Project Coordinator Ana Validzic said cycling is often more convenient than driving to school, particularly given the difficult parking situations at schools. Martha Adriasola, a committee member for the program, said parents and students also are attracted by the increased physical activity from cycling.

But a large portion of San Francisco’s grade school-bound population has yet to join the pedal revolution. Adriasola mentioned several reasons that prevent children from biking, including getting to schools on hills or far from home as well as the lack of bike storage at schools.

“There used to be a lot of concern about where to keep the bicycles,” Adriasola told the Guardian. But that’s changing thanks to a recent grant from the Department of Sustainability will provide bike racks for students at all schools in the district.

“That was one of the missing pieces,” Shahum said of the bike racks. “The district understands that it is good for the city for folks to ride their bikes.”

With new racks lining the campuses, the question remains whether there will be enough riders to fill them. Efforts to improve diversity in the school system and parent preferences for certain schools mean many kids travel across town to school.

Gentle Blythe, SFUSD’s executive director of public outreach and communications, said that last year the school board modified its school selection system to encourage more students to attend their local schools by resolving ties between applicants based on whether the applicant lives in the school’s attendance area. Currently, Blythe said, three out of every four applicants list a school that is not the one closest to their home as their first choice.

According to SFUSD’s 2010 fall enrollment maps, which show all the district’s elementary schools and compares them to the students’ residences, most of the 72 schools have as many students traveling from across the district as those living within a mile of the campus. Parker Elementary in North Beach is such an example, with an almost equal number living inside and outside the neighborhood, including some who live as far away as Visitacion Valley.

With such a long way to ride, it’s difficult for parents and those concerned with safety to feel comfortable allowing children to ride. But Shahum believes it’s still possible. SFBC’s Connecting the City project advocates for safe, cross-town bikeways throughout the city, which could draw more children onto the streets.

Shahum noted that bicycling increased dramatically even when there was a court injunction barring new bike projects. “Imagine the change we can expect when the changes do come,” she said.

She also said that events such as Sunday Streets, the monthly carfree streets events, are attracting families and encouraging them to start cycling together. So the answer to encouraging more youth cycling may be to make the streets safer and more inviting for everyone.

“We hope, through the Connecting the City vision, to see people riding on cross-town bikeways — for everyone from 8 to 80.” she said. 

Film Listings

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Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Michelle Devereaux, Peter Galvin, Max Goldberg, Dennis Harvey, Johnny Ray Huston, Louis Peitzman, Lynn Rapoport, Ben Richardson, and Matt Sussman. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock. For first-run showtimes, see Movie Guide.

OPENING

*Bridesmaids For anyone burned out on bad romantic comedies, Bridesmaids can teach you how to love again. This film is an answer to those who have lamented the lack of strong female roles in comedy, of good vehicles for Saturday Night Live cast members, of an appropriate showcase for Melissa McCarthy. The hilarious but grounded Kristen Wiig stars as Annie, whose best friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph) is getting hitched. Financially and romantically unstable, Annie tries to throw herself into her maid of honor duties — all while competing with the far more refined Helen (Rose Byrne). Bridesmaids is one of the best comedies in recent memory, treating its relatable female characters with sympathy. It’s also damn funny from start to finish, which is more than can be said for most of the comedies Hollywood continues to churn out. Here’s your choice: let Bridesmaids work its charm on you, or never allow yourself to complain about an Adam Sandler flick again. (2:04) Balboa. (Peitzman)

*The Double Hour Slovenian hotel maid Sonia (Ksenia Rappoport) and security guard Guido (Filippo Timi) are two lonely people in the Italian city of Turin. They find one another (via a speed-dating service) and things are seriously looking up for the fledgling couple when calamity strikes. This first feature by music video director Giuseppe Capotondi takes a spare, somber approach to a screenplay (by Alessandro Fabbri, Ludovica Rampoldi, and Stefano Sardo) that strikingly keeps raising, then resisting genre categorization. Suffice it to say their story goes from lonely-hearts romance to violent thriller, ghost story, criminal intrigue, and yet more. It doesn’t all work seamlessly, but such narrative unpredictability is so rare at the movies these days that The Double Hour is worth seeing simply for the satisfying feeling of never being sure where it’s headed. (1:35) Clay, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

*Everything Must Go Just skirting the edge of sentimentality and banality, Everything Must Go aims to do justice by its source material: Raymond Carver’s rueful, characteristically spare short story, “Why Don’t You Dance?,” from the 1988 collection Where I’m Calling From. And it mostly succeeds with some restraint from its director-writer Dan Rush, who mainly helmed commercials in the past. Everything Must Go gropes toward a cinematic search for meaning for the Willy Lomans on both sides of the camera — it’s been a while since Will Ferrell attempted to stretch beyond selling a joke, albeit often extended ones about masculinity, and go further as an actor than 2006’s Stranger Than Fiction. The focus here turns to the despairing, voyeuristic whiskey drinker of Carver’s highly-charged short story, fills in the blanks that the writer always carefully threaded into his work, and essentially pushes him down a crevasse into the worst day of his life: Ferrell’s Nick has been fired and his wife has left him, changing the locks, putting a hold on all his bank accounts, and depositing his worldly possessions on the lawn of their house. Nick’s car has been reclaimed, his neighbors are miffed that he’s sleeping on his lawn, the cops are doing drive-bys, and he’s fallen off the wagon. His only reprieve, says his sponsor Frank (Michael Pena), is to pretend to hold a yard sale; his only help, a neighborhood boy Kenny who’s searching for a father figure (Christopher Jordan Wallace, who played his dad Notorious B.I.G. as a child in 2009’s Notorious) and the new neighbor across the street (Rebecca Hall). Though Rush expands the characters way beyond the narrow, brilliant scope of Carver’s original narrative, the urge to stay with those fallible people — as well as the details of their life and the way suburban detritus defines them, even as those possessions are forcibly stripped away — remains. It makes for an interesting animal of a dramedy, though in Everything Must Go‘s search for bright spots and moments of hope, it’s nowhere near as raw, uncompromising, and tautly loaded as Carver’s work can be. (1:36) (Chun)

Forks Over Knives Lee Fulkerson steps up as the latest filmmaker-turned-guinea-pig to appear in his own documentary about nutrition. As he makes progress on his 12-week plan to adopt a “whole foods, plant-based diet” (and curb his Red Bull addiction), he meets with other former junk food junkies, as well as health professionals who’ve made it their mission to prevent or even reverse diseases strictly through dietary changes. Along the way, Forks Over Knives dishes out scientific factoids both enlightening and alarming about the way people (mostly us fatty Americans, though the film investigates a groundbreaking cancer study in China) have steadily gotten unhealthier as a direct result of what they are (or in some cases, are not) eating. Fulkerson isn’t as entertaining as Morgan Spurlock (and it’s unlikely his movie will have the mainstream appeal of 2004’s Super Size Me), but the staunchly pro-vegan Forks Over Knives certainly offers some interesting, ahem, food for thought. (1:36) Bridge. (Eddy)

*Hesher See “Ride the Lightning.” (1:45) Embarcadero.

*Nostalgia for the Light Chile’s Atacama Desert, the setting for Patricio Guzmán’s lyrically haunting and meditative documentary, is supposedly the driest place on earth. As a result, it’s also the most ideal place to study the stars. Here, in this most Mars-like of earthly landscapes, astronomers look to the heavens in an attempt to decode the origins of the universe. Guzmán superimposes images from the world’s most powerful telescopes — effluent, gaseous nebulas, clusters of constellations rendered in 3-D brilliance — over the night sky of Atacama for an even more otherworldly effect, but it’s the film’s terrestrial preoccupations that resonate most. For decades, a small, ever dwindling group of women have scoured the cracked clay of Atacama searching for loved ones who disappeared early in Augusto Pinochet’s regime. They take their tiny, toy-like spades and sift through the dirt, finding a partial jawbone here, an entire mummified corpse there. Guzmán’s attempt through voice-over to make these “architects of memory,” both astronomers and excavators alike, a metaphor for Chile’s reluctance to deal with its past atrocities is only marginally successful. Here, it’s the images that do all the talking — if “memory has a gravitational force,” their emotional weight is as inescapable as a black hole. (1:30) Lumiere. (Devereaux)

Priest Paul Bettany stars as the titular vampire-fighter in this graphic novel adaptation. (1:27)

True Legend “Directed by Yuen Woo Ping” = high-flying martial arts galore. (1:56) Lumiere.

ONGOING

The Beaver It’s been more than 15 years since Jodie Foster sat in the director’s chair; she’s back with The Beaver, which tells the unique story of Walter Black (Mel Gibson), a clinically depressed man who struggles through his suicidal desires with the help of a beaver puppet. Walter uses the puppet — which he also voices — as a way of connecting with his family and the outside world. The film examines both the comedic aspects and the devastating reality of mental illness, and the script walks the line between dark and light — it’s the first feature from Kyle Killen, who created the critically adored but short-lived TV series Lone Star. The Beaver gets points for ambition, but it’s ultimately too all over the place to come together in the end. The moments of humanity are undercut by scenes of Walter and his wife Meredith (Foster) having sex with the puppet in the bed — intentionally funny, but jarring nonetheless. Still, Foster’s direction is solid and, for all its faults, The Beaver is a great reminder of Gibson’s legitimate talent. (1:31) SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Peitzman)

*Bill Cunningham New York To say that Bill Cunningham, the 82-year old New York Times photographer, has made documenting how New Yorkers dress his life’s work would be an understatement. To be sure, Cunningham’s two decades-old Sunday Times columns — “On the Street,” which tracks street-fashion, and “Evening Hours,” which covers the charity gala circuit — are about the clothes. And, my, what clothes they are. But Cunningham is a sartorial anthropologist, and his pictures always tell the bigger story behind the changing hemlines, which socialite wore what designer, or the latest trend in footwear. Whether tracking the near-infinite variations of a particular hue, a sudden bumper-crop of cropped blazers, or the fanciful leaps of well-heeled pedestrians dodging February slush puddles, Cunningham’s talent lies in his ability to recognize fleeting moments of beauty, creativity, humor, and joy. That last quality courses through Bill Cunningham New York, Richard Press’ captivating and moving portrait of a man whose reticence and personal asceticism are proportional to his total devotion to documenting what Harold Koda, chief curator at the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, describes in the film as “ordinary people going about their lives, dressed in fascinating ways.” (1:24) Embarcadero. (Sussman)

*Cave of Forgotten Dreams The latest documentary from Werner Herzog once again goes where no filmmaker — or many human beings, for that matter — has gone before: the Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc Cave, a heavily-guarded cavern in Southern France containing the oldest prehistoric artwork on record. Access is highly restricted, but Herzog’s 3D study is surely the next best thing to an in-person visit. The eerie beauty of the works leads to a typically Herzog-ian quest to learn more about the primitive culture that produced the paintings; as usual, Herzog’s experts have their own quirks (like a circus performer-turned-scientist), and the director’s own wry narration is peppered with random pop culture references and existential ponderings. It’s all interwoven with footage of crude yet beautiful renderings of horses and rhinos, calcified cave-bear skulls, and other time-capsule peeks at life tens of thousands of years ago. The end result is awe-inspiring. (1:35) SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

The Conspirator It may not be your standard legal drama, but The Conspirator is a lot more enjoyable when you think of it as an extended episode of Law & Order. The film chronicles the trial of Mary Surratt (Robin Wright), the lone woman charged in the conspiracy to assassinate Abraham Lincoln. It’s a fascinating story, especially for those who don’t know much of the history past John Wilkes Booth. But while the subject matter is compelling, the execution is hit-or-miss. Wright is sympathetic as Surratt, but the usually great James McAvoy is somewhat forgettable in the pivotal role of Frederick Aiken, Surratt’s conflicted lawyer. It’s hard to say what it is that’s missing from The Conspirator: the cast — which also includes Evan Rachel Wood and Tom Wilkinson — is great, and this is a story that’s long overdue to be told. Still, something is lacking. Could it be the presence of everyone’s favorite detective, the late Lennie Briscoe? (2:02) Embarcadero. (Peitzman)

Fast Five There are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments in Fast Five, in addition to a much demolition derby-style crunch — instances that stretch credulity and simultaneously trigger a chuckle at the OTT fantasy of the entire enterprise. Two unarmed men chained to the ceiling kick their way out of a torture cell, jump favela rooftops to freedom with nary a bullet wound in sight, and, in the movie’s smash-’em-up tour de force, use a bank vault as a hulking pair of not-so-fuzzy dice to pulverize an unsuspecting Rio de Janeiro. Not for nothing is rapper Ludacris attached to this franchise — his name says it all (why not go further than his simple closing track, director Justin Lin, now designated the keeper of Fast flame, and have him providing the rap-eratic score/running commentary throughout?) In this installment, shady hero Dominic (Vin Diesel) needs busting out of jail — check, thanks to undercover-cop-turned-pal Brian (Paul Walker) and Dominic’s sis Mia (Jordana Brewster). Time to go on the lam in Brazil and to bring bossa nova culture down to level of thieving L.A. gearheads, as the gearhead threesome assemble their dream team of thieves to undertake a last big heist that will set ’em up for life. Still, despite the predictable pseudo-twists — can’t we all see the bromance-bonding between testosteroni boys Diesel and Dwayne Johnson coming from miles of blacktop away? — there’s enough genre fun, stunt driving marvels, and action choreography here (Lin, who made his name in ambitious indies like 2002’s Better Luck Tomorrow, has developed a knack for harnessing/shooting the seeming chaos) — to please fans looking for a bigger, louder kick. (1:41) Empire, 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

*Hanna The title character of Hanna falls perfectly into the lately very popular Hit-Girl mold. Add a dash of The Boys from Brazil-style genetic engineering — Hanna has the unfair advantage, you see, when it comes to squashing other kids on the soccer field or maiming thugs with her bare hands — and you have an ethereal killing/survival machine, played with impassive confidence by Atonement (2007) shit-starter Saoirse Ronan. She’s been fine-tuned by her father, Erik (Eric Bana), a spy who went out into the cold and off the grid, disappearing into the wilds of Scandinavia where he home-schooled his charge with an encyclopedia and brutal self-defense and hunting tests. Atonement director Joe Wright plays with a snowy palette associated with innocence, purity, and death — this could be any time or place, though far from the touch of modern childhood stresses: that other Hannah (Montana), consumerism, suburban blight, and academic competition. The 16-year-old Hanna, however, isn’t immune from that desire to succeed. Her game mission: go from a feral, lonely existence into the modern world, run for her life, and avenge the death of her mother by killing Erik’s CIA handler, Marissa (Cate Blanchett). The nagging doubt: was she born free, or Bourne to be a killer? Much like the illustrated Brothers Grimm storybook that she studies, Hanna is caught in an evil death trap of fairytale allegories. One wonders if the super-soldier apple didn’t fall far from the tree, since evil stepmonster Marissa oversaw the program that produced Hanna — the older woman and the young girl have the same cold-blooded talent for destruction and the same steely determination. Yet there’s hope for the young ‘un. After learning that even her beloved father hid some basic truths from her, this natural-born killer seems less likely to go along with the predetermined ending, happy or no, further along in her storybook life. (1:51) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Chun)

Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil (1:25) 1000 Van Ness.

*Incendies When tightly wound émigré Nawal (Luba Azabal) dies, she leaves behind adult twins Jeanne (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin) and Simon (Maxim Gaudette) — and leaves them documents that only compound their feelings of grief and anger, suggesting that what little they thought they knew about their background might have been a lie. While resentful Simon at first stays home in Montreal, Jeanne travels to fictive “Fuad” (a stand-in for source-material playwright Wajdi Mouawad’s native Lebanon), playing detective to piece together decades later the truth of why their mother fled her homeland at the height of its long, brutal civil war. Alternating between present-day and flashback sequences, this latest by Canadian director Denis Villeneuve (2000’s Maelstrom) achieves an urgent sweep punctuated by moments of shocking violence. Resembling The Kite Runner in some respects as a portrait of the civilian victimization excused by war, it also resembles that work in arguably piling on more traumatic incidences and revelations than one story can bear — though so much here has great impact that a sense of over-contrivance toward the very end only slightly mars the whole. (2:10) Embarcadero. (Harvey)

*Jane Eyre Do we really need another adaptation of Jane Eyre? As long as they’re all as good as Cary Fukunaga’s stirring take on the gothic romance, keep ’em coming. Mia Wasikowska stars in the titular role, with the dreamy Michael Fassbender stepping into the high pants of Edward Rochester. The cast is rounded out by familiar faces like Judi Dench, Jamie Bell, and Sally Hawkins — all of whom breathe new life into the material. It helps that Fukunaga’s sensibilities are perfectly suited to the story: he stays true to the novel while maintaining an aesthetic certain to appeal to a modern audience. Even if you know Jane Eyre’s story — Mr. Rochester’s dark secret, the fate of their romance, etc. — there are still surprises to be had. Everyone tells the classics differently, and this adaptation is a thoroughly unique experience. And here’s hoping it pushes the engaging Wasikowska further in her ascent to stardom. (2:00) Opera Plaza. (Peitzman)

Jumping the Broom (1:48) 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck.

Last Night Married for three years and together “since college,” New York City yuppies Michael (Sam Worthington) and Joanna (Keira Knightley) have a comfortable, loving relationship, though it’s unclear how much passion remains. Still, it doesn’t take much for Joanna to bristle jealously when she meets Michael’s co-worker and frequent business-trip companion, Laura (Eva Mendes). As Michael and Laura flirt their way to an overnight meeting in Philly, Joanna runs into an old flame (Guillaume Canet); before long, it becomes a cross-cutting race to see who’ll cheat first. Writer-director Massy Tadjedin isn’t spinning a new story here — and though the film offers a sleek look at contemporary marriage, Last Night takes itself a tad too seriously, purporting to showcase realistic problems and emotions amid a cast beamed directly from Planet Gorgeous Movie Star. Beautiful people: they’re just like us? (1:30) Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

*Limitless An open letter to the makers of Limitless: please fire your marketing team because they are making your movie look terrible. The story of a deadbeat writer (Bradley Cooper) who acquires an unregulated drug that allows him to take advantage of 100 percent of his previously under-utilized brain, Limitless is silly, improbable and features a number of distracting comic-book-esque stylistic tics. But consumed with the comic book in mind, Limitless is also unpredictable, thrilling, and darkly funny. The aforementioned style, which includes many instances of the infinite regression effect that you get when you point two mirrors at each other, and a heavy blur to distort depth-of-field, only solidifies the film’s cartoonish intentions. Cooper learns foreign languages in hours, impresses women with his keen attention to detail, and sets his sights on Wall Street, a move that gets him noticed by businessman Carl Van Loon (Robert DeNiro in a glorified cameo) as well as some rather nasty drug dealers and hired guns looking to cash in on the drug. Limitless is regrettably titled and masquerades in TV spots as a Wall Street series spin-off, but in truth it sports the speedy pacing and tongue-in-cheek humor required of a good popcorn flick. (1:37) 1000 Van Ness. (Galvin)

*Meek’s Cutoff After three broke down road movies (1994’s River of Grass, 2006’s Old Joy, 2008’s Wendy and Lucy), Kelly Reichardt’s new frontier story tilts decisively towards socially-minded existentialism. It’s 1845 on the choked plains of Oregon, miles from the fertile valley where a wagon train of three families is headed. They’ve hired the rogue guide Meek to show them the way, but he’s got them lost and low on water. When the group captures a Cayeuse Indian, Solomon proposes they keep him on as a compass; Meek thinks it better to hang him and be done with it. The periodic shots of the men deliberating are filmed from a distance — the earshot range of the three women (Michelle Williams, Zoe Kazan, and Shirley Henderson) who set up camp each night. It’s through subtle moves like these that Meek’s Cutoff gives a vivid taste of being subject to fate and, worse still, the likes of Meek. Reichardt winnows away the close-ups, small talk, and music that provided the simple gifts of her earlier work, and the overall effect is suitably austere. (1:44) Opera Plaza. (Goldberg)

*My Perestroika Robin Hessman’s very engaging documentary takes one very relatable look at how changes since glasnost have affected some average Russians. The subjects here are five thirtysomethings who, growing up in Moscow in the 70s and 80s, were the last generation to experience full-on Communist Party indoctrination. But just as they reached adulthood, the whole system dissolved, confusing long-held beliefs and variably impacting their futures. Andrei has ridden the capitalist choo-choo to considerable enrichment as the proprietor of luxury Western menswear shops. But single mother Olga, unlucky in love, just scrapes by, while married schoolteachers Lyuba and Boris are lucky to have inherited an apartment (cramped as it is) they could otherwise ill afford. Meanwhile Ruslan, once member of a famous punk band (which he abandoned on principal because it was getting “too commercial”), both disdains and resents the new order just as he did the old one. Home movies and old footage of pageantry celebrating Soviet socialist glory make a whole ‘nother era come to life in this intimate, unexpectedly charming portrait of its long-term aftermath. (1:27) Balboa. (Harvey)

*The Princess of Montpensier Marie (Mélanie Thierry), the titular figure in French director Bertrand Tavernier’s latest, is a young 16th century noblewoman married off to a Prince (Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet) of great wealth and property. But they’ve barely met when he’s called off to war — leaving her alone on his enormous estate, vulnerable to myriad suitors who seem to be forever throwing themselves at her nubile, neglected body. Lambert Wilson (2010’s Of Gods and Men) is touching as the older soldier appointed her protector; he comes to love her, yet is the one man upstanding enough to resist compromising her. If you’ve been jonesing for the kind of lush arthouse period epic that feels like a big fat classic novel, this engrossing saga from a 70-year-old Gallic cinema veteran in top form will scratch that itch for nearly two and a half satisfyingly tragic-romantic hours. (2:19) Opera Plaza, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

Potiche When we first meet Catherine Deneuve’s Suzanne — the titular trophy wife (or potiche) of Francois Ozon’s new airspun comedy — she is on her morning jog, barely breaking a sweat as she huffs and puffs in her maroon Adidas tracksuit, her hair still in curlers. It’s 1977 and Suzanne’s life as a bourgeois homemaker in a small provincial French town has played out as smoothly as one of her many poly-blend skirt suits: a devoted mother to two grown children and loving wife who turns a blind eye to the philandering of husband Robert (Fabrice Luchini), Suzanne is on the fast track to comfortable irrelevance. All that changes when the workers at Robert’s umbrella factory strike and take him hostage. Suzanne, with the help of union leader and old flame Babin (Gerard Depardieu, as big as a house), negotiates a peace, and soon turns around the company’s fortunes with her new-found confidence and business savvy. But when Robert wrests back control with the help of a duped Babin, Suzanne does an Elle Woods and takes them both on in a surprise run for political office. True to the film’s light théâtre de boulevard source material, Ozon keeps things brisk and cheeky (Suzanne sings with as much ease as she spouts off Women’s Lib boilerplate) to the point where his cast’s hammy performances start blending into the cheery production design. Satire needs an edge that Potiche, for all its charm, never provides. (1:43) Embarcadero, Smith Rafael. (Sussman)

Prom (1:44) 1000 Van Ness.

Queen to Play From first-time feature director Caroline Bottaro comes this drama about … chess. Wait! Before your eyes glaze over, here are a few more fast facts: it’s set in idyllic Corsica and features, as an American expat, Kevin Kline in his first French-speaking role. (Side note: is there a Kline comeback afoot? First No Strings Attached, then The Conspirator, and now Queen to Play. All within a few short months.) Lovely French superstar Sandrine Bonnaire plays Héléne, a hotel maid who has more or less accepted her unremarkable life — until she happens to catch a couple (one half of which is played by Jennifer Beals, cast because Bottaro is a longtime fan of 1983’s Flashdance!) playing chess. An unlikely obsession soon follows, and she asks Kline’s character, a reclusive doctor who’s on her freelance house-cleaning route, to help her up her game. None too pleased with this new friendship are Héléne’s husband and nosy neighbors, who are both suspicious of the doctor and unsure of how to treat the formerly complacent Héléne’s newfound, chess-inspired confidence. Queen to Play can get a little corny (we’re reminded over and over that the queen is “the most powerful piece”), and chess is by nature not very cinematic (slightly more fascinating than watching someone type, say). But Bonnaire’s quietly powerful performance is worth sticking around for, even when the novelty of whiskery, cardigan-wearing, French-spouting Kline wears off. (1:36) Opera Plaza, Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

Rio (1:32) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center.

Scre4m Back in 1996, Wes Craven’s Scream revitalized the slasher genre with a script (by Kevin Williamson) that poked fun at horror clichés while still delivering genuine scares. The sequels offered diminishing returns on this once-clever formula; Scream 4 arrives 11 years past Scream 3, presumably hoping to work that old self-referential yet gory magic on a new crop of filmgoers. But Craven and Williamson’s hall-of-mirrors creation (more self-satisfied than self-referential, scrambling to anticipate a cynical audience member’s every second-guess) is barely more than than a continuation of something that was already tired in 2000, albeit with iPhone and web cam gags pasted in for currency’s sake. Eternal Ghostface target Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) returns to her hometown to promote what’s apparently a woo-woo self-help book (Mad Men‘s Alison Brie, as Sidney’s bitchy-perky publicist, steals every scene she’s in); still haunting Woodsboro are Dewey (David Arquette), now the sheriff, and Gale (Courteney Cox), a crime author with writer’s block. When the Munch-faced one starts offing high school kids, local movie nerds (Rory Culkin, Hayden Panettiere) and nubile types (Emma Roberts, Hayden Panettiere) react by screening all seven Stab films, inspired by the “real-life” Woodsboro murders, and spouting off about the rules, or lack thereof in the 21st century, of horror sequels. If that sounds mega-meta exhausting, it is. And, truth be told, not very scary. (1:51) 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

Something Borrowed (1:53) 1000 Van Ness.

*Source Code A post-9/11 Groundhog Day (1993) with explosions, Inception (2010) with a heart, or Avatar (2009) taken down a notch or dozen in Chicago —whatever you choose to call it, Source Code manages to stand up on its own wobbly Philip K. Dick-inspired legs, damn the science, and take off on the wings of wish fulfillment. ‘Cause who hasn’t yearned for a do-over — and then a do-over of that do-over, etc. We could all be as lucky — or as cursed — as soldier Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal), who gets to tumble down that time-space rabbit hole again and again, his consciousness hitching a ride in another man’s body, while in search of the bomber of a Chicago commuter train. On the upside, he gets to meet the girl of his dreams (Michelle Monaghan) — and see her getting blown to smithereens again and again, all in the service of his country, his commander-cum-link to the outside world (Vera Farmiga), and the scientist masterminding this secret military project (Jeffrey Wright). On the downside, well, he gets to do it over and over again, like a good little test bunny in pinball purgatory. Fortunately, director Duncan Jones (2009’s Moon) makes compelling work out of the potentially ludicrous material, while his cast lends the tale a glossed yet likable humanity, the kind that was all too absent in 2010’s Inception. (1:33) 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Stake Land Not gonna lie — the reason I wanted to review this one was because of the film still in the San Francisco International Film Festival catalogue. Rotten-faced vampire with a stake through its neck? Yes, please! But while Jim Mickle’s apocalyptic road movie does offer plenty of gore, it’s more introspective than one might expect, following an orphaned teenage boy, Martin (Connor Paolo, Serena’s little bro on Gossip Girl), and his gruff mentor, Mister (Snake Plissken-ish Nick Damici), on their travels through a ravaged America. As books, films, and comics have taught us, whenever a big chunk of the human race is wiped out (thanks to zombies, vampires, an unknown cataclysm, etc.), the remaining population will either be good (heroic, like Mister and Martin, or helpless, like the stragglers they rescue, including a nun played by Kelly McGillis), or evil — cannibals, rapists, religious nuts, militant survivalists, etc. Stake Land doesn’t throw many curveballs into its end-times narrative, but it’s beautifully shot and doesn’t hold back on the brutality. Larry Fessenden (director of 2006’s The Last Winter) produced and has a brief cameo as a helpful bartender. (1:38) Roxie. (Eddy)

There Be Dragons (2:00) SF Center, Sundance Kabuki.

These Amazing Shadows If you love movies, it’ll be hard to resist These Amazing Shadows (subtitled “A story about the National Film Registry and the power of the movies”) — it’s chock full o’ clips from films that’ve been deemed worthy of inclusion in the National Film Registry’s elite ranks. This includes, of course, the likes of 1942’s Casablanca and 1939’s Gone With the Wind, but also more recent cultural touchstones like 1985’s Back to the Future and a number of experimental, short, and silent works, and even a few cult films too. Along the way film scholars and makers (including locals Barry Jenkins, Rick Prelinger, and Mick LaSalle) chime in on their favorite films and stress why preserving film is important. There’s a healthy dose of film history, as well, with mentions of groundbreaking director Lois Weber (one of early cinema’s most prolific artists, despite her gender) and a discussion of why racially questionable films like 1915’s The Birth of a Nation — a film that Boyz n the Hood (1991) director John Singleton recommended for Registry inclusion — are historically important despite their content. Dedicated film buffs won’t discover any surprises, and there’s not much discussion of queer film (unless John Waters talking about 1939’s The Wizard of Oz counts?), nor any mention of the current shift from film to digital formats (of course preserving old films is important, but will the Registry also start considering digital-only films for inclusion?) But perhaps these are topics for another film, not this nostalgia-heavy warm fuzzy that’ll affect anyone who remembers the magic of seeing a personally significant film — join the mob if it’s 1977’s Star Wars — for the first time. (1:28) Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

*Thor When it comes to superhero movies, I’m not easily impressed. Couple that with my complete disinterest in the character of Thor, and I didn’t go into his big-screen debut with any level of excitement. Turns out Kenneth Branagh’s Thor is a genre standout — the best I’ve seen since 2008’s Iron Man. For those who don’t know the mythology, the film follows Thor (Chris Hemsworth) as he’s exiled from the realm of Asgard to Earth. Once there, he must reclaim his mighty hammer — along with his powers — in order to save the world and win the heart of astrophysicist Jane Foster (Natalie Portman). Hemsworth is perfectly cast as the titular hero: he’s adept at bringing charm to a larger-than-life god. The script is a huge help, striking the ideal balance between action, drama, and humor. That’s right, Thor is seriously funny. On top of that, the effects are sensational. Sure, the 3D is once again unnecessary, but it’s admittedly kind of fun when you’re zooming through space. (2:03) Empire, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Peitzman)

Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Big Happy Family (2:00) 1000 Van Ness.

Water for Elephants A young man named Jacob Jankowski (Robert Pattinson) turns his back on catastrophe and runs off to join the circus. It sounds like a fantasy, but this was never Jacob’s dream, and the circus world of Water for Elephants isn’t all death-defying feats and pretty women on horses. Or rather, the pretty woman also rides an elephant named Rosie and the casualties tend to occur outside the big top, after the rubes have gone home. Stumbling onto a train and into this world by chance, Jacob manages to charm the sadistic sociopath who runs the show, August (Christophe Waltz), and is charmed in turn by August’s wife, Marlena (Reese Witherspoon), a star performer and the object of August’s abusive, obsessive affections. Director Francis Lawrence’s film, an adaptation of Sarah Gruen’s 2006 novel, depicts a harsh Depression-era landscape in which troupes founder in small towns across America, waiting to be scavenged for parts — performers and animals — by other circuses passing through. Waltz’s August is a frightening man who defines a layoff as throwing workers off a moving train, and the anxiety of anticipating his moods and moves supplies most of the movie’s dramatic tension; Jacob and Marlena’s pallid love story feeds off it rather than adding its own. The film also suffers from a frame tale that feels awkward and forced, though Hal Holbrook makes heroic efforts as the elderly Jacob, surfacing on the grounds of — what else? — a modern-day circus to recount his tale of tragedy and romance. (2:00) Empire, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Rapoport)

*Win Win Is Tom McCarthy the most versatile guy in Hollywood? He’s a successful character actor (in big-budget movies like 2009’s 2012; smaller-scale pictures like 2005’s Good Night, and Good Luck; and the final season of The Wire). He’s an Oscar-nominated screenwriter (2009’s Up). And he’s the writer-director of two highly acclaimed indie dramas, The Station Agent (2003) and The Visitor (2007). Clearly, McCarthy must not sleep much. His latest, Win Win, is a comedy set in his hometown of New Providence, N.J. Paul Giamatti stars as Mike Flaherty, a lawyer who’s feeling the economic pinch. Betraying his own basic good-guy-ness, he takes advantage of a senile client, Leo (Burt Young), when he spots the opportunity to pull in some badly-needed extra cash. Matters complicate with the appearance of Leo’s grandson, Kyle (newcomer Alex Shaffer), a runaway from Ohio. Though Mike’s wife, Jackie (Amy Ryan), is suspicious of the taciturn teen, she allows Kyle to crash with the Flaherty family. As luck would have it, Kyle is a superstar wrestler — and Mike happens to coach the local high school team. Things are going well until Kyle’s greedy mother (Melanie Lynskey) turns up and starts sniffing around her father’s finances. Lessons are learned, sure, and there are no big plot twists beyond typical indie-comedy turf. But the script delivers more genuine laughs than you’d expect from a movie that’s essentially about the recession. (1:46) Lumiere. (Eddy)

 

California isn’t losing jobs to Texas

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Even Gavin Newsom, who the LA Times (with embarassing inaccuracy) calls “a poster boy for California liberalism” is buying, at least a little bit, the argument that California is losing jobs to Texas (and presumably other states) because of a “bad business climate.”

But a new study demonstrates, with excruciating accuracy, that the Texas argument is nothing more than bullpucky. California loses 25,000 jobs a year to other states, and gains 16,000 jobs a year from other states, and when you look at the 15 million jobs in the state, that’s just decimal dust.

Government – perhaps contrary to popular belief — cut 51,000 jobs last year. The construction industry, particularly hart-hit in California because of the housing bust, lost 26,000 jobs.

Remove those two sectors from the picture and California’s job growth was a respectable 1.5 percent in 2010. That’s a rate that compares favorably to the nation as a whole, which on the same measure grew by 1.3 percent. Professional services, health care, tourism and trade all posted job gains in California, as did the entertainment industry and Internet-related businesses.

In other words, public-sector layoffs (caused by low tax receipts) caused more economic pain than private-sector jobs moving to Texas for lower taxes — by far. More:

But even if a state’s tax code can lead to economic growth, other factors, including the state’s weather and its mix of industries, appear to be more influential than government policies, according to the PPIC study. So while California might do even better if it simplified its corporate tax code or restructured its welfare programs, the study found, those issues do not appear to be the reason for the recent doldrums.

That’s right — cutting taxes won’t create jobs in California.But cutting taxes so deeply that schools and police departments have to lay off employees will, indeed, cause job losses.

 

 

 

Evicting hoarders

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news@sfbg.com

People who collect massive amounts of stuff in their apartments often suffer from a mental disability that causes them to become hoarders. Even so, they can face eviction — despite state laws that protect renters with disabilities. And when hoarders get evicted, they usually become homeless.

“Hoarding behaviors may result in a landlord issuing an eviction notice on the basis that the tenant has created a nuisance, fire hazard, or other danger in the building. If the tenant is diagnosed as disabled, the tenant may notify the landlord of the disability and request the landlord provide a reasonable accommodation to enable the tenant to remain in the apartment rather than being evicted,” reads a recent report from San Francisco’s Mental Health Association, which is seeking to educate renters, landlords, and the general public on the issue.

Evictions in San Francisco are on the rise. Between March 1, 2010 and Feb. 28, 2011, 1,370 evictions were filed, an 8 percent rise from 1,269 evictions the previous year. The Federal Fair Housing Act (FHA) and California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) offer protections to those who have a disability, but landlords say there are liability issues associated with excessive hoarding.

Tenants can fight evictions by asking their landlords for a “reasonable accommodation” whose duration depends on the situation. A reasonable accommodation could be a plan that requires 30 days of cleaning and support service for hoarders in an effort to avoid eviction.

According to Mayoclinic.com, hoarding is labeled an obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). But many researchers consider it a distinct mental health problem that can be treated with therapy or counseling. California law defines a disability as a physical or mental impairment that limits one or more life activities, such as walking, seeing, hearing, working, learning, or caring for oneself.

Sandra Stark, 66, hasn’t allowed anyone in her home for five years. She collects kitchenware and antiques. Like most hoarders, she started collecting after a traumatic event. It occurred when she was in her 30s and was gaining weight. Stark had never heard of the term “hoarder” until she watched a special on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

She claims her hoarding is a symptom of depression and disability, not OCD. “I feel like, with my weight, the clutter is a barrier between me and the world that hurt me,” she told us.

Before TV shows uncovered the lives of hoarders, family and friends often were the ones to call for help. These days, hoarders often seek help themselves. A&E’s Hoarders receives 1,000 submissions every month. After we spoke to some hoarders, they were all willing to seek change.

MHA recognized the problem and created a task force in 2007. Its goal was to build a plan of action to combat compulsive hoarding in San Francisco. The task force puts the costs of compulsive hoarding at more than $6 million per year. In 2009, the task force completed its report and estimated that between 12,000 and 25,000 residents in San Francisco struggle with this condition.

Most landlords try not to evict hoarding tenants right away. “Landlords may be compassionate and, in many cases, I believe, try hard to prevent evictions. However, they still have liability insurance and strict guidelines to follow,” said Tim Ballard, a social work supervisor for the city. “It is their responsibility to protect the other tenants, and the painful result used as a means of harm reduction is often the legal option of eviction proceedings.”

He said the heavy cleaning required on a hoarder’s home can cost between $6,000 and $8,000 and can include removing trash to create safety in their home. The largest amount spent was $16,000. Currently, Ballard has 300 clients who are hoarders or clutterers in San Francisco.

On March 10, MHA hosted its 13th Conference on Hoarding and Cluttering. Keynote speaker Christiana Bratiotis, who has her doctorate in social work and is director of the Hoarding Research Project, defined compulsive hoarding as the “acquisition of, and failure to discard, a large number of possessions that appear to be useless or of limited value.”

Michael Badolato, administrative assistant of Broderick Street Adult Residential Facility, attended to find a reasonable approach to deal with a hoarding resident living in his facility. “The challenge of hoarding is the mental health issue involved,” he said. Other attendees included educators, landlords, healthcare workers, attorneys, and hoarders themselves.

One panel discussion topic was how hoarding and cluttering are portrayed in the media. The panel included Michael Gause, associate director of MHA; Robin Zasio, a physician on A&E’s Hoarders; and Kari Peterson, an organizer from Hoarding: Buried Alive. Hoarders was created to show people in crisis and prevent the behaviors through the show.

The panelists claim that in order to show what the crisis is, a sensational aspect is involved. Ceci Garnett, whose mother was featured in an episode of Hoarders, says knowing that others are out there is “worth it to let people know they are not alone.

“And at least now there is treatment,” she continued. “We have to risk sensationalism to start a conversation.”

Ray Cleary, who was on season one of TLC’s Buried Alive, also appeared on the panel. Featured before and after treatment, he is still in the process of recovering. “I didn’t have to throw everything away,” he says. “I still have boxes and don’t know what to do with them.”

Another hoarder, who asked to remain anonymous to avoid eviction, was critical of the media attention on hoarding. “It’s a cult. People are going to make a career off my circumstance — making it a disease.”

These people have “already decided it’s a pre-mental disease,” she continued.

Inside her home near Van Ness Avenue, a small path led from the door to her living room. By the door hung green bead necklaces from years of parades; yellowing stacks of paper filled every space in the rooms. An information junkie, she collects newspapers and books. A San Francisco resident for 45 years, she used to be homeless and has suffered from a head injury. “Throwing something away is like throwing away memory — and that means it’s gone forever,” she says.

When she was homeless, her belongings went to storage. But when she got housing, she couldn’t throw anything away. Everyone she knows who has suffered from a head injury has this problem as well, she says, claiming it comes from gradually mixed emotional issues from losses and her health.

For years she tried to find someone to help her recycle or donate items, but she couldn’t find the help she needed, even from her case manager. Other hoarders claim that most caseworkers aren’t aware of their condition and assume they just need to throw everything out at once — something hoarders don’t feel they can easily do.

Her landlord isn’t involved with the property and doesn’t know of the situation. She would like someone to sit and accompany her as she cleans, but she doesn’t know of any service that provides this. During the interview, she picked up a phone call from someone who was going to stop by later to help. “But they usually flake on me,” she acknowledged. Her hoarding, she says, is part of a physical health issue, not a mental health problem.

But San Francisco does offer places such as the MHA conference to discuss the issue. Hoarders‘ Dr. Zasio says the show helps the people who are willing to go on TV. In exchange for going public, the network pays for six months aftercare, including services such as home repairs and therapy sessions. Although the network recognizes that it gains ratings by sensationalizing the condition for 44 minutes, it also wants to raise public awareness.

Of the 1,370 evictions in San Francisco in the past year, 442 cases were prompted by a breach of rental agreement and 271 cases were for committing a nuisance. These cases could include hoarding, but the city doesn’t specify that in its statistics.

As Teresa Friend from the Homeless Advocacy Project said: “If the person with a disability including hoarding is without family or friends to turn to or is not part of a legal intervention process and evicted, they will end up homeless.”

 

The case against consolidation

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sarah@sfbg.com

With officials predicting that San Francisco will spend $500 million annually on health care costs for city employees and retirees, the Board of Supervisors Government Audit and Oversight Committee held an April 28 hearing to analyze why hospitals costs are higher in Northern California than Southern California, and why costs have escalated in the last decade.

A panel of experts outlined a list of cost drivers and identified hospital consolidation as the major culprit — a finding that fueled concerns that costs will skyrocket once Sutter Health, which operates the California Pacific Medical Center that took over St Luke’s in 2005, builds a 555-bed hospital on Cathedral Hill. The board will consider approving the project as soon as this summer.

Ellen Shaffer, codirector of the Center for Policy Analysis, said that the city’s recently approved Health Care Services Master Plan (“Critical Care,” 11/23/10) provides San Francisco with leverage to collect and analyze data and make informed health choices.

Shaffer noted that since 1960, when there were 26 hospitals in San Francisco, facilities consolidated so frequently that by 1990, only 12 hospitals remained. And by 1998, the three largest hospital networks controlled 43 percent of hospital beds — compared to 18 percent just four years earlier.

“Today in San Francisco, the most expensive of the northern counties hospitals get $7,349 per patient per day on average,” she said. “In Los Angeles County, the figure is $4,389.”

David Hopkins, a senior advisor at the Pacific Business Group on Health, said that Sutter Health, which reported a 30 percent increase in net income in 2010, already controls 44 percent of hospital beds in San Francisco. Catholic Healthcare West controls 28 percent, and UCSF controls 26 percent. “Insurance companies say Sutter’s size and dominant position give it an upper hand in contract negotiations,” Hopkins observed.

Healthcare planning and policy consultant Lucy Johns said technology is another key cost driver. “It’s a medical arms race,” Johns said. “Every hospital wants the latest everything.”

Jane Sandoval, a registered nurse at St Luke’s, said that what residents and workers need is access to affordable healthcare, not luxury care at overpriced rates.

“We’d rather have enough staff and the ability to care for all patients than work in a facility that’s likened to a five-star hotel,” Sandoval said. She noted that State Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones filed suit April 13 to intervene on behalf of the plaintiff in a whistleblower suit against Sutter Health, which has been accused of fraudulently charging insurers millions of dollars for anesthesia services that either weren’t provided or were billed higher than typical rates.

Anne McLeod, senior vice president of health policy for the California Hospital Association, an industry trade group, claimed that Northern California’s higher hospital prices are primarily due to higher labor and living costs in the Bay Area. “Wages are a huge component of hospital costs, and they represent the fastest growing component of costs,” she said.

But Glenn Melnick, a professor of health care finance at the University of Southern California, said that even if a hospital was airlifted from Los Angeles to San Francisco, its costs would still be 38 percent higher after adjusting for local differences. “When hospitals consolidate into large systems that dominate a specific region, that hospital system has the power to demand contracts from health plans that include high reimbursement rates for their services and limit the ability of health plans to offer low-cost products and share the data consumers need to compare costs across providers,” Melnick said

Sup. David Campos, who called for the hospital costs hearing, observed that the cost of creating jobs includes health care benefits. “So to the extent that things like hospital consolidation are increasing costs, the hospitals themselves are implicated,” he said.

But CPMC media relations manager Kevin McCormack noted that CPMC/Sutter has invested more than $7 billion since 2000 on technology, facility construction, and improvements to address medical needs and state seismic safety requirements.

“Sutter Health appreciates its role in ensuring that health care is affordable. And we realize that holding the line on prices without compromising quality will require additional cost reductions,” McCormack said. “To this end, doctors and nurses and support staff throughout our Sutter Health network are working aggressively to substantially reduce expenses.”

He denied that Sutter had engaged in inappropriate anesthesia billing practices. “The lawsuit paints a false and inaccurate picture,” McCormack said.

He also said that plenty of competition remains in Northern California. “The decision by the California Public Employees Retirement System in 2004 to shift a significant number of members away from Sutter-affiliated hospitals to other providers demonstrates there’s plenty of healthy competition,” McCormack said.

But Campos said the hearing clarified that, while there are different factors why costs are going up, one of the most important is hospital consolidation. “We need to ensure that we understand that, even in face of higher labor and cost of living costs, hospital costs in Northern California are still 30 percent higher than Southern California,” Campos said.

Noting that CalPERS excluded Sutter from its network, Campos added: “We need to follow suit in terms of saying that we’re only going to do business with hospitals that are responsive to our concerns and follow best practices.”

 

HOC farmers market bans live chicken sales

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Feathers will cease to fly over alleged cruelty practices at the Heart of the City Farmers Market that we reported in February. The outdoor Civic Center market has announced it will no longer offer live poultry for sale as of May 27, a practice that had been grounds for a lawsuit and two years of fervent protesting from animal rights groups.

Raymond Young’s Poultry, a popular vendor, has been selling live chickens by the hundreds for nearly two decades at the HOC market every Wednesday and Sunday. In January, animal rights activist group LGBT Compassion filed a lawsuit alleging cruelty and civil rights violation against Young and the HOC after months of protesting and several attempts to get city agencies involved.

While the poultry stall remained popular with its largely Chinese clientele in spite of an ever-present throng of protesters, the practices caught the attention of Animal Care and Control and the Department of Public Health. Young had received hundreds of citations from ACC and warnings from the DPH, but they were essentially void due to an exemption in California law pertaining to poultry.

HOC market managers would not comment for this story, nor would Raymond Young. While the lawsuit is still pending, the announcement was perceived as a victory to the activist group.

“It sent a message to the city and to the public that animal cruelty and public health offenses is not acceptable and should not be endorsed or subsidized by the city,” said Andrew Zollman, founder of LGBT Compassion. “Having the market finally recognize that something like that should change is great.”

Zollman and fellow protestor Alex Felsinger filed the lawsuit with San Francisco attorney Matt Gonzalez. Zollman said that they had continued to protest in the months since filing the suit. Along with ACC, they said that Young had repeatedly violated animal cruelty laws and health codes even after the level of scrutiny on his stall had increased.

The ACC, which had cited Young hundreds of times for practices such as unsanitary conditions, lack of water, and improper handling of the chickens, viewed the decision by the market to ban sales as good news.

“Animals are food for a lot of people, but as Proposition 2 in California exhibited, people do care about the treatment of them,” said Rebecca Katz, director of the ACC, referring to the Prevention of Farm Cruelty Act of 2008. “If the vendors had been able to treat the animals appropriately, I don’t think it would have become this issue. This was profitable; he still could have made good money and done it properly.”

Bullfeathers Quail, the other live bird vendor at the market, had received significantly less attention from protesters and city agencies because it sold far fewer birds – about 350 per week – and had not been accused of nearly as many violations. Nonetheless, the vendor will also be banned.

Zollman said they will continue to protest the stall up until May 27, mainly because they fear the vendors will operate with a higher level of disregard since they have “nothing to lose.” Although they have received caustic criticism from groups who believe their protests are an attack on Chinese culture, they will plan to shift their attention north to Chinatown to live markets operating there.

“We are hoping that what we have learned and what city agencies have learned will pave the way,” said Zollman.

Norman Solomon: It’s Time to Close California’s Nuclear Power Plants

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The facts all point to this “inconvenient truth” — the time has come to shut down California’s two nuclear power plants as part of a swift transition to an energy policy focused on clean and green renewable sources and conservation.

The Diablo Canyon plant near San Luis Obispo and the San Onofre plant on the southern California coast are vulnerable to meltdowns from earthquakes and threaten both residents and the environment.

Reactor safety is just one of the concerns. Each nuclear power plant creates radioactive waste that will remain deadly for thousands of years. This is not the kind of legacy that we should leave for future generations.

 In the wake of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown, we need a basic rethinking of the USA’s nuclear energy use and oversight. There is no more technologically advanced country in the world than Japan. Nuclear power isn’t safe there, and it isn’t safe anywhere.

The perils to people are clear. In a recent letter to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein noted that “roughly 424,000 live within 50 miles of the Diablo Canyon and 7.4 million live within 50 miles of the San Onofre
Nuclear Generating Station.”

 As someone who was an Obama delegate to the 2008 Democratic National Convention, I believe it would be a tragic mistake for anyone to loyally accept the administration’s nuclear policy. The White House is fundamentally mistaken in its efforts to triple the budgeting of federal loan guarantees for the domestic nuclear power industry, from $18 billion to $54 billion.

Our tax dollars should not be used to subsidize the nuclear power industry. Instead, we should be investing far more in solar, wind and other renewable sources, along with serious energy conservation.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is a nuclear-friendly fox guarding the radioactive chicken coop. The federal government has no business promoting this dangerous industry while safe and sustainable energy resources are readily available.

The fact that federal law imposes a liability cap of about $12 billion on a nuclear power accident is a reflection of the fact that those plants are uninsurable on the open market.

As a candidate for Congress in the district that includes Marin and Sonoma counties, I intend to make this a major campaign issue. It remains to be seen whether my one declared opponent, Assemblyman Jared Huffman, will join me in urging a rapid timetable for the closure of California’s nuclear power plants.

Huffman has ties to California’s nuclear-invested utility PG&E. Between 2007 and 2009, according to campaign finance data compiled by nonpartisan Maplight.org, he received $11,100 from PG&E, which owns and operates the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant.

 While Huffman and other state lawmakers in February signed a letter to a federal commission on America’s nuclear future citing seismic “concerns which deserve to be more closely examined,” the time for equivocation on nuclear power is long past. We don’t need yet more study on whether to operate nuclear plants on fault lines.

People want bold and responsible leadership as we face up to the well-documented realities of nuclear power on this fragile planet.

Norman Solomon was the director of the National Citizens Hearings for Radiation Victims in 1980 and co-authored “Killing Our Own: The Disaster of America’s Experience with Atomic Radiation,” which exposedthe health and environmental effects of the nuclear industry. For two years ending in late 2010, he served as co-chair of the Commission on a Green New Deal for the North Bay. For more information, go to: www.SolomonForCongress.com.

 

Muni strike vote stems from “gigantic mistrust” of the MTA

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At a time when public employee unions are being demonized, downsized, and degraded by conservatives and much of the general public, it was a bold gesture for Muni drivers to recently authorize their Transportation Workers Union Local 250A to defy city law and go on strike anyway. But following through on that threat and shutting down Muni may only turn the public even more strongly against that union.

Board of Supervisors President David Chiu said a Muni strike would be “a significant mistake” that he’s trying to avert, and City Attorney Dennis Herrera has issued a statement reminding the public and Muni workers that strikes are banned in the union contact and the City Charter and “we will take appropriate legal recourse.”

But the union’s Secretary-Treasurer Walter Scott told us the strike authorization vote was a result of the “gigantic mistrust” by Muni workers of their Municipal Transportation Agency bosses. “They wanted a strike authorization vote,” he said, which “shows that the membership is behind us” as union leaders negotiate a new contract in the wake of November’s Prop. G, which ended the union’s pay guarantees.

Among the recent factors that Scott said have led Muni workers to doubt that the agency is negotiating in good faith were the MTA’s unilateral decisions to withhold Health Care Trust Fund money that had gone to drivers in previous years and the new requirement that drivers bring in doctors’ notes if they call in sick, as well as the agency’s decision to hire public relations specialist Charlie Goodyear to publicize developments in the ongoing negotiations.

But Goodyear said those issues are diversions that haven’t been raised in the current negotiations, that the MTA was acting under authority it has under the charter, and that “we hope that the good work that’s been going on for five or six weeks continues” and the two sides reach an agreement on a new contract.

Scott also expressed hope that the two sides will reach a deal. “Nobody wants to strike, and we’re trying our damnedest to find a happy median in these negotiations,” he said.

As for the right of the drivers to strike, Scott agrees that the current contract prohibits it, but he noted that the contract expires on June 30 and that “on July 1, we have no contract. That’s went the legality [of a strike] comes into question.”

Herrera has noted that the City Charter also declares that “strikes by City employees are not in the public interest,” going on to note that “said employees shall be dismissed.” But Scott says Muni employees have already been so vilified by city officials and the local press that calling a strike wouldn’t hurt their standing with the public much more: “If I’m shot dead and someone stabs me, it doesn’t make that much of a difference.”

FEAST: 9 meat-free marvels

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culture@sfbg.com

The sandwich, like the wheel, is an timeless invention that keeps us rolling. But if you be a vegetable lover, or just someone who fantasizes about two pieces of bread cradling things other than animal carcass, you must plan ahead — or risk finding yourself stuck with a woefully dull cheese and lettuce number. Lucky for us, here in the Bay we celebrate all sandwich orientations — some with brassy beets, others laced with sweet and spicy barbeque sauce, all ample reasons to raise our veggie flags high as we chow down.

 

RHEA’S DELI

Best. Sandwich. This Mission District locale constructs an incomparable veggie BBQ sandwich. Somewhere in this combination of spicy, moist, toasty tastes full of coleslaw and some mysterious sort of thrillingly breaded veggie “chicken” is an addictive chemical. I’m not willing to rule out crack. I love this sandwich. The end.

800 Valencia, SF (415) 282-5255

 

MISSOURI LOUNGE BAR

The veggie hoagie sandwich here is well worth the longish wait that can ensue after ordering at the tent-covered backyard grill. This monster mouth-filler is boldly served with multiple small Morningstar veggie patties. But fear not the brand-name base — the Lounge stakes a proprietary note on this sandwich with its own pesto mayo, sautéed mushrooms, and degree of toasted perfection. The two beers you’ll drink while waiting will not make this hoagie any less delicious.

2600 San Pablo, Berkeley. (510) 548-2080 www.missourilounge.com

 

SAIGON SANDWICH

I challenge you to find someone in this city without a sworn affection for banh mi — with snazzy purveyors of the Vietnamese sandwich nuggets opening up on the swanky section of Fillmore Street, they’re all the rage these days. But the Tenderloin’s Saigon Sandwich makes a down-to-earth yet killer tofu chay banh mi. Crunchy, sweet, and spicy, it’ll leave first-timers and experienced banh mi handlers sparkling — but the best thing reason to twinkle? The price — $3.25!?!

560 Larkin, SF. (415) 474-5698

 

JAY’S CHEESESTEAK

Don’t be fooled by the name — Jay’s is not your everyday cheesesteak dealer. The Mission and Western Addition locations carry a variety of seitan sandwiches that will dazzle your palate no matter how you (mis)pronounce the meat substitute therein. Those unfamiliar with seitan might be interested to note that this wheat gluten-based product has the meat-like qualities of chewiness and savoriness — all without the killing animal guilt. Jay’s is saucy, so prepare with napkins along with your appetite.

3285 21st St., SF. (415) 285-5200; 553 Divisadero, SF. (415) 771-5104, www.jayscheesesteak.com

 

CAFÉ MATTINA

Hummus is like the Benjamin Franklin of vegetarian sandwich ingredients. It has humble chickpea roots, yet it’s prolific and given to illustrious ideas and inventions. Of these, let us focus on Cafe Mattina (formerly Cafe Intermezzo)’s hummus sandwich. If you can get past the flocks of university-style chaos on Telegraph Avenue, this very Berkeley sandwich will be waiting for you in all its honey-wheat-and-sprouts glory, the respected founders of meat-free sandwiches.

2442 Telegraph, Berk. (510) 849-4592, www.cafemattina.com

 

ESTELA’S SANDWICHES

Sun-dried tomato pesto, artichoke spread, fresh basil, lettuce, tomato, red onion, carrots, cucumber, and pea sprouts, all drizzled with lemon-oregano vinaigrette on telera bread. Estela, we thank you for your veggie muffelatta.

250 Fillmore, SF. (415) 864-1850

 

JB’S PLACE

This unassuming Potrero Hill joint makes its own amazing falafel — crunchy and crisp on the outside with a soft herbaceous center. Folded into JB’s warm pita wrap, the falafel balls are supported by the tang and crunch of tahini and lettuce. This Middle Eastern lunch is big enough to satisfy even the hungriest of veggie-sauri.

1435 17th St., SF. (415) 626-7973

 

BETTE’S DINER

You can find a lot of great food here. Eggs, hashes, and good old diner fare are among the specialties, but Bette’s simple veggie sandwich hits the mark with its simplicity and freshness. With avocado, roasted red bell peppers, marinated cucumbers, baby greens, and vinaigrette on a baguette, you’ll be enchanted by this no-frills knockout.

1807 Fourth St., Berk. (510) 644-3230

 

THE PLANT CAFÉ

There are times when even I, an ardent vegetarian, mourn the loss of ruebens. Chewy, hearty, a gut punch of protein and sauce — thank Gaia, then, for Plant Cafe’s veggie rueben. Who cares what it’s made of — the zinger is smothered in sauerkraut, Swiss cheese, and that creamy cure-all: thousand island dressing.

Various locations, SF. www.theplantcafe.com

 

THE ATLAS CAFÉ

The super-healthy beet sandwich here will tolerate no beet phobia. Accented by kale and vinaigrette on chunky whole wheat bread, its heft and fuchsia weight promise health and happiness. But you have to go to great lengths to procure one: namely, braving the Atlas Cafe’s roomful of smarmy hipster-people staring at laptops (maybe you — quit spilling beets on your shirt, dammit).

3049 20th St., SF. (415) 648-1047, www.atlascafe.net

 

La vida vegan

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caitlin@sfbg.com

DINE It’s a wild, woolly world when you won’t eat its cheeseburgers. Or so I discovered last autumn when I read Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals and found that my inner logician could no longer justify consuming products from the loins (and udders, and uteri) of animals that spent their lives experiencing the systematic abuse of factory farms.

But the most shocking tiding from Foer? A University of Chicago study, he writes, found that omnivores contribute seven times the volume of greenhouse gas of vegans. My bicycle eyed me from its perch on the storage hook in our apartment’s foyer. Environmentalists, are we?

So we traipse along the hippie-liberal continuum — just one more step to independence from fossil fuels, I suppose. But though I’ve been riding the pescatarian train for years, going animal product-free was harder than a piquant wedge of manchego (Jesus, even my metaphors have dairy products in them).

I was surprised how many places I would go — even here, in the befigged plate of the Bay Area! — where wearing my vegan hat meant going underfed and, by extension, becoming a whiny envelope-full of social anthrax addressed to my dining companions. Some restaurants even ghettoize our kind with separate menus, as if vegan food holds no interest for the general dining public.

Surely, though, this is nothing compared to the brave, ice cream-rejecting, pizza cheese-peeling pioneers of the vegan world! Even if it’s still hard to break society’s “five food groups” programming, as a whole our country is well out of the “what’s a vegan?” stage of cultural development.

It was high time for a pulse check. So one rainy spring day, I met with some of the Bay’s best and brightest vegans for a potluck and chat on where living animal-free is at these days. Food activists, chefs, moms, a boyfriend, a blogger. We ate like kings and bitched about steaks. We called it the Summit of the Vegans. I’ll tell you more — but first, a word on our vegans …

 

TAMEARRA DYSON

Vegan cred: Owner of Souley Vegan and self-taught chef

Comes natural: “When someone asks me what I use instead of milk or butter, I don’t even know how to answer that. What do you use? You just don’t use it!”

 

MARK BENEDETTO AND CARMEN VAZQUEZ

Vegan cred: Chefs. Started the now-defunct vegan Brassica Supperclub. Now the manager of Frog Hollow Farm’s Ferry Building store and kitchen supervisor at Gracias Madre, with a restaurant of their own on the horizon.

Vegans on the lam: The couple’s underground supper club was shut down by the fuzz in 2009 for lacking required permits.

A love that knows no animal products: “There are a ton of factions, splinter cells,” Benedetto says, “but all vegans secretly, quietly love other vegans.”

 

NANCY LOEWEN

Vegan cred: Nurse and vice president of the SF Vegetarian Society

Don’t even try to win that argument: “The Vegetarian Society has been around for 40 years. We continue to be a small group, but the number of vegetarians continue to grow. I love animals; I don’t like to go to the doctor; there are the environmental reasons; and I love the food. You just can’t win that argument!”

 

BILL EVANS

Vegan cred: Guardian production manager. Has been animal product-free for years. Our Joe Vegan.

Breaking down the meat lines: “The things that crack me up and annoy me at the same time: my girlfriend is the opposite of vegan and she’ll order a steak and invariably the waiter will come back and give me the steak and her my salad. There are some societal expectations about what’s a manly food.”

 

LAURA BECK

Vegan cred: Founding blogger of vegansaurus.com

Loves her job because: “The vast majority of my commenter are so rad. They’re smart, awesome activists, not preachy dicks, which is what a lot of people think vegans are.”

When’s she’s not blogging: Beck’s favorite Bay Area vegan eats include Encuentro, Golden Era, the flan at Gracias Madre, schwarmas from Herbivore, Saha, Jay’s Cheesesteaks, and Souley Vegan.

Note: Beck was sick for our summit but I hollered at her afterward so she could still join the conversation.

Elbow-deep as we were in the toothsome culinary contributions my summit attendees had whipped up for the occasion, it was perhaps no surprise to learn that food cravings were the least of the challenges to their vegan lifestyles. Indeed, to a (wo)man, our panel participants — many of whom had been vegans for the better part of a decade — found their eats superior to more omnivorous spreads.

“There are only five or six animals that people eat for meat,” said Loewen, who works at a senior citizen center by day and spends her free time organizing events like the Vegetarian Society’s annual Meat Out. “But we’ve got so many options in terms of grains and vegetables.”

One of the upsides to being vegan — in addition to the animal treatment and health and well-being issues that panelists cited as their salient motivations to make their lifestyle switch — is that it compels a certain amount of creativity in the kitchen. When you’re operating largely outside the parameters of what your family considers a standard meal, you tend to think outside the prepackaged box.

Dyson runs my favorite reason to cross the Bay Bridge — Souley Vegan’s crispy tofu burger and mac ‘n’ cheese have magical properties. She came to veganism when she had a visceral reaction as a teenager to a chicken bone, and now can’t imagine life any other way. She started her cooking career at a farmers market booth and now brings Souley Vegan’s cuisine to African American expos and public schools, where it teaches people about life, post-pork flavoring.

We talked about living vegan in the Bay Area, where my panelists agreed the vegan community had yet to come together the way in has in places like Austin. They pinned this lack of cohesion on the dearth of a central cultural hub, and Beck affirmed that a need for just such a meeting space was one of her motivations behind Vegansaurus.

Evans bemoaned the “ideological chasm” that separates omnivores and vegans and makes it difficult to share information and understanding between the two. The group debated over whether the “vegan movement” could truly be said to exist — and yeah, we talked shit too.

“I think it’s bullshit!” Loewen opined suddenly when I asked the group how they felt about Michael Pollan’s assertion that eating sustainably is more important than eating animal-product-free. “[That view] takes out the ethical aspect. That animal is going to die — free range animals want to live even more than other animals.”

Benedetto and Vazquez attended the California Culinary Academy (where they met and Vazquez became vegan) and were the summit’s official “vegans on the front lines” because of it. The school, they said, accommodated their desire not to work with meat — to a point. They still had to cook a steak for a final exam and take a two-week butchery course. “It smelled like death,” grimaced Benedetto. “Postgrad, I decided I would rather work retail than have to cook meat.”

Bottom line? There are challenges to being a Bay Area vegan. But there are victories as well: feeling “lighter,” minimizing your impact on the environment, being your own person, and delicious meals, to name a few. After hearing everyone’s stories, I realized that becoming a vegan in the Bay is a lot like being a human in the Bay: endlessly frustrating, completely crazy, but also a chance to be a part of an earnest try for a more sustainable world.

 

Last stand against Lennar

2

news@sfbg.com

Hunters Point, the last major swath of usable land in San Francisco, appears at first glance to be a developer’s dream — a prime piece of real estate with sweeping views of the bay, ample space, and a city government eager to capitalize on its potential.

But community groups have filed lawsuits challenging the project’s many uncertainties, such as the fate of the toxic stew beneath the former U.S. Navy base in the heart of the project area, and both sides are now awaiting a court ruling on whether more studies are needed.

As an EPA-designated Superfund site, the 500-acre plot is home to an abundance of buried chemical contaminants, radioactive waste, and other unknown toxins, and the Navy has been slow to clean it up. Concerned that development plans have been premature in the face of this lingering mess, opponents filed lawsuits against developer Lennar Corp. and the city last year.

The project, approved July 2010 by the Board of Supervisors, includes plans for a new stadium for the 49ers, 10,500 housing units, parks, and commercial retail space. It has received praise from city and state government agencies as an economic and cultural boon to the community. But activist groups say the cleanup should happen before development occurs.

The Sierra Club settled its lawsuit over the project after the developer made some design changes (see “Uncertain developments,” Jan. 18), so the lawsuit filed by People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER) and Greenaction is the last piece of litigation holding up the project. At the core of the legal challenge is whether the environmental impact report (EIR) properly analyzed the health impacts from toxic contamination at the site. After an April 18 hearing on the case, both sides are awaiting a ruling on whether the claims have merit and should be the subject of further study.

Activists claim the EIR violates California Environmental Quality Act protocols because it contains too much uncertainty, including the unknown fate of a large parcel of land slated for a stadium that is contingent on whether the 49ers decide to stay in San Francisco. POWER wants more details about the possible threats to human health before the 20-year project gets the final green light. But since the Navy is responsible for the cleanup, Lennar and the city have repeatedly countered that a full analysis is not their responsibility.

“The main issue that Greenaction and POWER have been concerned about throughout lawsuit is that it’s very unclear from the EIR what exactly is going to happen and what level of contamination will be left,” said attorney George Torgun with EarthJustice, which is representing the community groups. “What are the impacts of building on a federal Superfund site? There is a real lack of knowledge in the EIR.”

April 18 was the second of two recent hearings held on the case. On March 24, Judge Ernest H. Goldsmith listened to a full day of testimony before a packed courtroom. Subsequent settlement discussions weren’t successful, so both sides returned to court to seek a ruling that is expected sometime in the next two months.

Lennar attorneys offered to relinquish the possibility of a pre-cleanup early transfer of the property, which has been a major concern for POWER. Under this proposal, no development on any of the six parcels slated for transfer from the Navy could proceed until the federally mandated cleanup process was finished and certified. However, POWER does not believe this offer reduces the scope of the issues because final approval would still ultimately award control of the land to the developer based on what they believe is a flawed EIR.

“Severing any discussion of early transfer from this EIR would only serve to worsen the defects that petitioners have identified and would be contrary to the requirements of CEQA,” Torgun wrote in the April 13 letter to the court.

POWER’s counterproposal would allow large portions of the project to go through — rebuilding the Alice Griffith housing project and development on Candlestick Point — but Lennar considers it economically unfeasible. These portions of the project are not located on the shipyard but are included in overall plan.

“We want to see the project move forward with Alice Griffith and Candlestick Point,” said POWER organizer Jaron Browne. “They’ve rebuilt housing projects at Cesar Chavez and other areas in the city — why can they only rebuild this one if they can redevelop the shipyard? It’s a political game that Lennar has tied the rebuilding of it to this mammoth 770-acre development.”

Lennar representatives wouldn’t comment for this story. Community members have clashed with the megadeveloper over health issues in recent years. In 2008, Lennar was fined more than $500,000 by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District for allowing dust containing asbestos to settle on the surrounding neighborhoods. Then, in March, community organizations released a report showing e-mails from 2006 to 2009 between the EPA, the San Francisco Department of Public Health, and Lennar revealing a possible cover-up of the asbestos exposure.

“They underestimated our understanding of what is happening here,” Browne said. “The whole heart of this issue is that this is a Superfund site. Even if you remove the possibility of early transfer, they are still planning on doing work while remediation is still years to go on other parcels.”

Longtime Bayview resident and Greenaction member Marie Harrison said that not only is the EIR too fraught with uncertainty, it’s incomplete. “There are over 600 blank pages in that document,” she said. “How can you approve an EIR that is supposed to tell you what is there, what the effects will be, and what the project will be? We kept asking the supervisors: How do you convince the community that they are doing something that is good and safe when the history shows otherwise?

During both court hearings, it was evident no clear definition of the project exists since it contains many variables to account for unknowns. Attorneys for Lennar and the city argue that the EIR effectively addresses each potential use and demonstrates a full knowledge of possible contaminants.

Wilma Subra, an environmental scientist for New Orleans-based Environmental Health Advocates, has worked with POWER and Greenaction to understand the breadth of contamination and the typical process of cleanup of a Superfund site. She pointed out that the Navy’s cleanup plan is completely separate from the EIR submitted for the project.

“Those two documents don’t agree with what development will be,” Subra said. “Usually you wait much longer in the process to really know that the land is safe. In a normal Superfund process, you would first do an implementation of the remediation process, find out if it worked, then — years down the line — you would start thinking about development.”

If the EIR is deemed inadequate, Lennar and the city will be required to further analyze the contaminants, outline cleanup strategies, and resubmit a new EIR. If the judge rules the EIR satisfies CEQA, the project can move forward.

“CEQA is one of the few really democratic processes,” Browne said. “If you just have this one moment in 2011 when people are able to comment and weigh in, and then have 20 years where they are building within that, it’s not really fair.”

5 Things: April 22, 2011

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>>BLACK WHEELS Three reasons why African-Americans should ride bicycles, brought to you courtesy of community two-wheeler group Red Bike and Green. One, health: the exercise can counter obesity and chronic disease. Two, economics: why drop all your cash into a car pit when you can put it to brightening your present and future? Three, environment: environmental racism — including pollution in low-income communities — has gone on too long, and you can do you part to change it. Now that we have that out of the way, check out Red Bike and Green’s first “black Critical Mass” of the year in Oakland on Sat/23. Bikes: too many good reasons to ride them.

>>LOCAL BOY DONE GOOD Reynaldo Cayentano Jr. grew up on Sixth Street, and he’s not going anywhere. The City College student and photographer recently opened up gallery space with cohort Chris Beale in the old District Attorney’s office, but the two will be throwing their Sat/23 “Native Taste” party at the House Kombucha factory, where they’ll showcase the work of 13 local artists and the hip-hop stylings of Patience. Speaking of local boys, have you heard the new SF anthem by Equipto and Mike Marshall?

Equipto ft. Mike Marshall, “Heart and Soul”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3Fh0dXpuco&feature=player_embedded

>>GOOD & PLENTY CHEAP There’s nothing we like better than good, cheap stuff. Not the cheap, cheap stuff of a Walmart or Kmart, or the good, pricey stuff of a Neiman Marcus or Bloomingdale’s. Good. Cheap. Stuff. And in pursuit of said stuff, we know that many of our fellow city dwellers have checked out a City Car Share car for the express purpose of driving to Serramonte Shopping Center in Daly City and hitting the Daiso store. Put away that gas tank: now we have our own Daiso store, newly opened in Japantown. Since most of the items cost $1.50, a $20 bill will get you a Santa Claus-size bagful of beautiful origami paper, clever lunch boxes, kitchenware, or whatever strikes your fancy from Daiso’s — no jive — selection of 70,000 good, cheap goods.

>>THEY WALK AMONG US It isn’t often that we indulge in a little unabashed fandom when a celebrity comes to our city/ashram. After all, we have our standards (smart, funny, left-leaning, maybe a pot bust or two), which rules out your Biebers, your Gagas, your Cruises ‘n’ Holmeses. We also believe that a man with a three-day stubble muttering to himself as he walks down the street has a right to his private musings. But when that man is Alec Baldwin, well, we have to stop, give him a deep Zen bow, tell him he’s welcome here, and report back. We have no idea why Baldwin is here – a Giants game? No, they’re on the road. SFIFF? No, we would have heard. Filming an episode of 30 Rock, Alcatraz Edition? Possibly –- and truthfully, we don’t care. We will take this no further. No tweets, no nothing. Because we want him to come back -– with Tina Fey.

>>THE GOOD BOOKS
A few minutes spent reading a good, cheap book can add some insight and perspective to anyone’s day, and this weekend presents a reason to look for said books. The San Francisco Public Library’s 50th Anniversary Book Sale is going on at the Fort Mason Center Festival Pavilion until Sun/24, with everything on sale for three dollars or less. Books, DVDs, CDs, tapes, and other media are available, and on the sale’s final day, nothing will cost more than a dollar.

Appetite: Lunch with Hoss Vare’s inventive Persian-Middle Eastern menu

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Chef Hoss Vare’s hugs are famous, as is his warm, inclusive greeting that makes dining at his restaurant Zare at Fly Trap such a pleasure. Plus, there’s just no one quite doing what he’s doing with Persian, Iranian and Mediterranean foods.

I visited during opening week of his just-launched, casual, weekday lunches served within Flytrap, a project Zare calls Zare’s Grill and Grain. Lucky are they who work nearby and can grab to-go meals. But it’s worth going out of your way for lunch here (just as it is for a more formal dinner or cocktails at the bar).

In keeping with his recent health scare (he’s doing wonderfully and looks great, post-heart attack) Hoss made his lunch menu as healthy as it is flavorful. You’ll find lots of whole grains, fish, lean meats, and wraps. As one who has been known to sacrifice ‘healthy’ if it translates to flavorless or uninteresting, I found a couple items on the inventive menu downright exciting.

The red awning means you’ve come to the right place. Photo by Virginia Miller

Two words: sardine wrap. There are many wraps at Grill and Grain, from a crispy bulgur to a lamb ($10-12), all enveloped in lavash bread or whole wheat pita. But the sardine wrap ($10) has no equal. It’s hands down one of the best things I’ve eaten this year. Loaded with grilled Monterey sardines and white anchovies, the wrap is meaty and not too fishy. Fresh and bright with grilled cherry tomato, broccoli rabe, walnuts, and spicy bread crumbs providing a bit of crunch — and the winning piece that ties it altogether: creamy black garlic spread. I reminded me of days on the Mediterranean coast, an elevated, elegant ‘fast’ food, a genius menu addition.

Salmon lentil salad: tender, buttery — all that you need in a lunch date. Photo by Virginia Miller

You won’t go wrong with generous plates like the salmon lentil salad ($12), a heaping black pearl lentil salad dotted with fennel, braised endive, and roasted bell pepper. Lemon, thyme, and tumeric lend the dish dimension, while a balsamic vinaigrette pulls together the various tastes. The salmon is tender, even buttery, with a gentle crisp on the outside and topped with a dollop of salsa verde. It felt good to be eating such a balanced plate – one that thankfully does not lack in the flavor department.

Hoss has long done soups and stews right (I still recall his chili from last year’s Persian Pub Grub). He continues the tradition with pomegranate soup ($9), a beautiful tart-savory balance with green split peas, French lentils, basmati rice, and mini duck meatballs in the middle.

Rare is the lunch that is this affordable and unusual. Order at the counter and eat in with self-serve utensils and a condiment station, or take it to go.

 

Zare’s Grill and Grain

Lunch: Mon.-Fri. 11 a.m.- 2 p.m.

606 Folsom, SF

(415) 243-0580

www.zareflytrap.com

 

–Subscribe to Virgina’s twice monthly newsletter, The Perfect Spot

 

1964 all over again?

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Outstanding piece on Calbuzz about the new Belva Davis book, “Never in My Wildest Dreams: A Black Woman’s Life in Journalism.” The Calbuzzers recount the vicious racist attacks Davis endured during the 1964 Republican convention in San Francisco, when the Goldwater forces were in control:


As we began our descent down the ramps of the Cow Palace, a self-appointed posse dangled over the railings, taunting. “Niggers!” “Get out of here, boy!” “You too, nigger bitch!” “Go on, get out!” “I’m gonna kill your ass!”


I stared straight ahead, putting one foot in front of the other like a soldier who would not be deterred from a mission. The throng began tossing garbage at us: wadded up convention programs, mustard-soaked hot dogs, half-eaten Snickers bars. My goal was to appear deceptively serene, mastering the mask of dispassion I had perfected since childhood to steel myself against any insults the outside world hurled my way.


Then a glass soda bottle whizzed within inches of my skull. I heard it whack against the concrete and shatter. I didn’t look back, but I glanced sideways at Louis and felt my lower lip began to quiver. He was determined we would give our tormentors no satisfaction.


“If you start to cry,” he muttered, “I’ll break your leg.”


Davis, of course, survived and when on to a storied career locally. The scary thing: There are a lot of parallels between the 1964 Goldwaterites and the tea partiers of today. Calbuzz:


Nearly 50 years later [the Goldwater platform] might serve as a manifesto for today’s Tea Party Republicans.


Attacking Democrats as “Federal extremists,” who have “enslaved” and “seek to master” ordinary Americans, the platform vowed , among other things, that Republicans would make deficit reduction their highest economic priority, oppose the “compulsory Democratic scheme” of Medicare and roll back actions of the Kennedy-Johnson Administration that “violently thrust Federal power into the free market.”


And race is still very much a part of what’s going on:


As evidence of the role that race still plays in conservative politics, Davis cited the Tea Party’s embrace of “birthers,” the slurs and spittle hurled by activists at Representatives and civil rights leaders John Lewis and James Clyburn at health care bill protests, and the recent email depicting Obama as a chimpanzee that was sent out by Tea Partier and Orange County Republican Central Committee member Marilyn Davenport.


 Back to the future. And it isn’t pretty.


 

Beyond 420

0

steve@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY When the clock or the calendar hits 420 — and particularly at that magical moment of 4:20 p.m. on April 20 — the air of Northern California fills with the fragrant smell of green buds being set ablaze. But this year, some longtime cannabis advocates are trying to focus the public’s attention on images other than stoners getting high.

“I hope the house of hemp will replace the six-foot-long burning joint as the symbol of 420,” says Steve DeAngelo, executive director of Harborside Health Center, an Oakland cannabis collective, and one of the organizers of an April 23 festival in Richmond dubbed Deep Green that offers an expanded view of cannabis culture.

In addition to big musical acts, guest speakers, and vendors covering just about every aspect of the cannabis industry, the event will feature a house made almost entirely of industrial hemp. That exhibit and many others will highlight the myriad environmental and economic benefits of legalizing hemp, as California Sen. Mark Leno has been trying to do for years, with his latest effort, SB676, The California Industrial Hemp Farming Act, clearing the Senate Agriculture Committee on a 5–1 vote April 5.

Public opinion polls show overwhelming support for ending the war on drugs, particularly as it pertains to socially benign substances like industrial hemp, a strain of cannabis that doesn’t share the psychoactive qualities of its intoxicating sister plants. Yet DeAngelo said that after 40 years of advocating for legalization, he’s learned to be patient because “unfortunately, our politicians are lagging behind public opinion.”

In San Francisco and many other cities, marijuana dispensaries have become a legitimate and important part of the business community (see “Marijuana goes mainstream,” 1/27/10), spawning offshoots like the edibles industry that provide more safe and effective ways of ingesting marijuana (see “Haute pot,” 1/25/11).

But the proof that the medical marijuana is about more than just getting people high also continues to grow, from the endless touching tales of cancer, AIDS, and other patients who have been saved from suffering by this wonder weed to the lengths that the industry is going to cultivate cannabidiol (CBD), a compound found in marijuana that doesn’t get people high but offers many other benefits, including acting as an antidepressant and antiinflammatory medicine.

CBD and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main psychoactive compound in marijuana, generally have an inverse relationship in cannabis plants, so the efforts by generations’ worth of pot cultivators to breed strains with higher THC content have almost completely bred the CBD out of the plants. “In the underground markets, it didn’t have any value,” DeAngelo said.

When Harborside Health Center first started laboratory-testing marijuana many years ago, DeAngelo said that of 2,000 strains tested, only nine had “appreciable quantities of CBD.” In addition to efforts by Harborside and the San Francisco Patient and Resource Center (SPARC) to work with growers on bringing back CBD-heavy strains, modern scientific techniques are allowing CBD to be extracted from the strains that do exist.

“It’s not psychoactive, but let me tell you, it is mood-altering,” says Albert Coles, founder of CBD Sciences in Stinson Beach. “A lot of people, when they smoke pot go inward, but that often isn’t good for social interactions.”

His company makes laboratory-tested cannabis tinctures called Alta California that have been increasingly popular in San Francisco, offering three different varieties: high THC/low CBD, low THC/high CBD, and a 50-50 mix. “It’s good for creative thinking because it just clears out all the noise,” Coles said of CBD.

But even when talking about THC, many in the industry dispute the criticism that most marijuana use is merely recreational drug use. Vapor Room founder Martin Olive has said most pot use isn’t strictly medical or recreational, but a third category he calls “therapeutic,” people who smoke pot to help cope with the stress of modern life.

DeAngelo agrees, although he puts it slightly differently: “The vast majority of cannabis users use it for the purpose of wellness.” 

DEEP GREEN FESTIVAL Saturday, April 23. Performances by The Coup, Heavyweight Dub Champion, and more; speakers include pot cultivation columnist Ed Rosenthal, Steve DeAngelo, and business owner David Bronner. $20 advance/$30 door ($20 for bicyclists and carpoolers, $100 VIP).

Craneway Pavilion, 1414 Harbour Way South, Richmond. www.deepgreenfest.com

 

Gascon’s futility

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news@sfbg.com

If the April 12, 2011 breakfast meet-and-greet featuring appointed District Attorney George Gascón at a West Portal Avenue eatery constitutes a barometer of the campaign for that important public office, San Franciscans are in for a tepid exercise in municipal futility.

Sponsored by a prolific campaign contributor and restaurant owner, a Board of Permit Appeals appointee of former Mayor Gavin Newsom, and the owner of a new public relations/lobbying firm just awarded the $100,000 dollar public relations contract for Muni, the event attracted some 20 people, including Gascón’s campaign manager and fundraiser, and consisted of a stereotypical candidate presentation and a meager number of audience questions.

Revealing he’s “intrigued” by a chief of police becoming the District Attorney, Gascón described a Saturday afternoon meeting in early January with Newsom supposedly about the transition in local law enforcement arising from relinquishment of the DA’s office by the prior officeholder. According to Gascón, he was “really surprised” when Newsom declared he wanted to appoint him to the office — but Gascón had to accept the offer by 5 p.m. (Not a word did he provide his breakfast audience about Willie Brown-Rose Pak’s participation in promulgating the Newsom offer).

After claiming he “got some very good results” in his first year as police chief, Gascón recited the need for “separation” between his role as former chief and execution of prosecutorial duties. But he failed to specify, even by example, cases in which he has or will recuse himself from prosecuting in favor of the state’s attorney general — at added taxpayer cost, to be sure! (The Attorney General’s Office institutionally lacks trained criminal trial lawyers; the office responsibility pertains to defending the people in appeals from criminal trial court convictions.)

Asserting that the D.A.’s office is “understaffed and underfunded,” the political appointee then tried to describe the three sections of responsibility within the office, concentrating on so-called community courts for “low-level offenses” and “diversion courts.”

He referred to a section for “justice integrity” without defining its nature or scope. He proclaimed as novelty ” a pre-preliminary hearing” proceeding to resolve charges by “offers” for defendants pleading no contest or guilty to lesser crimes, an existing standard practice in Superior Court.

Audience questions involved the mentally ill, capital offenses, the Mental Health Court, domestic violence, and prosecution problems caused by a flawed drug laboratory, search and seizure police errors, and the like. Gascón conveyed his personal “misgivings about the death penalty,” asserted that 60 percent of Death Row prisoners are “minorities,” reminded listeners the death penalty is California law and must be followed and concluded: “I can’t say categorically I’d never seek the death penalty.” (There are currently seven cases in the District Attorney’s Office that qualify for capital punishment.)

Gascón finally stated he “is not a fan of” so-called consent searches and that he has established a 24-hour search warrant office capability for police — and he spoke of an unexplained relationship with Public Defender Jeff Adachi, who has criticized several warrantless Police Department searches.

Strikingly absent from the Gascón dissertation was any reference to attacking public corruption of the genre disclosed by the Guardian and many other sources. One also wonders whether punishment represents an object of this prosecutor’s office or whether social outcomes represent the dominant goal.

Never mentioned was the Special Prosecution Unit of the office (which once handled corruption cases), whether it still exists or, if so, what its current mission is. Never mentioned was the method of selecting judges for his proposed Community Courts.

And, as John Shanley, one-time spokesman for ex-District Attorney Terence Hallinan and a former deputy city attorney observes: “Anybody who thinks public corruption ended in San Francisco with the disgraced Ed Jew needs to reduce their dosage of medicinal marijuana.”

Lacking any questions or information on the candidate’s trial experience, prosecutorial successes, or experience as a lawyer, we still don’t know much about political appointee D.A. Gascón after one West Portal meet and greet.

Retired Superior Court Judge Quentin Kopp — a former San Francisco supervisor and state senator — has been engaged as a special correspondent for the Guardian covering selected political events and issues.